Tired lions

When someone is going fishing it is customary to wish them "tight lines". I wonder if wildebeestes and zebras wish one another "tired lions"?

I hope so.

Overheard comment 2

(From the same source as Overheard Comment 1)

"Yeah, but why would Bristle even bother doing a diamond-sorting course if he wasnt planning to smuggle some out up his *rse?"

The GSW (Giddy Social Whirl)

We went downtown on Saturday morning, all the family got haircuts except me. The boys and I snuck away to buy Elf the rice cooker and Precious Ramotswe book she had specified for her birthday. There were nineteen different rice cookers in Myer so I let Marcus choose. Then we bought Nice Things for lunch.

John McG and Carmen from Melbourne dropped in to help us eat it. John and I have known each other twenty years but Elf and I hadnt yet met Carmen. We thought she was very nice and until she discovers John is from the planet Neptune they should be very happy together. We certainly won't tell her - but she might guess when John eats her shoes.

Yesterday Sally came over to mind the boys and Elf and I had a lovely morning cruising on the Derwent in a big white pointy boat. We zoomed about at 24 knots - our hair was comprehensively tousled when we alighted back at the wharf. It was a terrific morning, the water was like glass, and Hobart looked very nice indeed from out on the briny.

Back on land we had a very tasty seafood lunch upstairs at Mures, and just enjoyed each others' company for a while.

Sally and the boys had fun together. From the pile of CDs around the kitchen I think they had some kind of hootenanny. Marcus is an enthusiastic and flexible dancer, and Michael loves to join in with his inimitable vertical moon-leaps. Sally on the other hand is walking with a stick at present, after a tumble on her hideously steep but narrow back steps. [Dad built her some new ones as a Christmas present.] It was great to see Sal as we don't as often as we would like, and in fact I was so overcome with filial feeling I fell asleep.

Not long after Sally departed Rob, Mel and Olivia (4) arrived with a ridiculously large pile of gourmet little cakes. "We'll be sending them home with most of these" I thought. Later after we had eaten them all, its seemed a quaint and laughable idea. After initial frostiness and prima-donnarama, Olivia and Marcus hit it off well and toured the house and grounds getting into moderate mischief but letting us chat like grown-ups.

The weekend wound down as it often does these days with a slog until midnight back at work. Sigh.

Empty stubby Monday

Elf and the boys dropped me at work this morning. Its Elf's birthday and I cooked her breakfast, which made me a bit too late to walk. As I hopped out the car in front of our office (an old church) Marcus noticed an empty beer stubby left by the front gate (probably by one of my colleagues).

"Look Dad, they've left you some wine".

Overheard comment 1

"Catweazel reckons he's never seen the catchment looking so wet"

Bleary

I have come back after dinner to work until past midnight for the last three nights. The last two nights have also featured Marcus waking up and coming out into the hall to ask disjointed half-awake questions, loudly.

I am officially bleary. I am altering english-langauge annotations and subtitles on each of about 120 little animations into four new languages (translations supplied by SBS). This is for a DVD explaining the rules for filming and photographing at Uluru. There are lots of little underlines on particular letters of the Pitjantjatjara words - you have to remember which T to underline in Kata Tjuta and so on.

Weary, bleary and fuddled.

Bowling Shanes 22 d Four Cs 6

The Shanes kicked off the new lawn bowls season with a dominant performance. We eased up towards the end as muscles tightened up and thoughts turned to celebratory beers in the clubhouse. Four Cs are very nice 40-something ladies with a few tatts but no proven criminal connections. They displayed good manners, never sledging until after their opponent had delivered his bowl. Their skip was Sharon and their secret weapon was Bev.

Baling from pool to pool

We went to a free Fun Day in St David's Park today, cruised around that for about 3 hours then put in another hour or so at a Kite Festival at the Regatta Grounds. The RG is a terrific place - it is quite breezy, with a lovely elevated view over the river and the Port of Hobart. I always come away from there feeling refreshed. It was a great day for kites, and the kites responded well, I thought. There were little easy-to-fly kites for sale for just $3, so the sky was thick with big and small snippets of luridly coloured nylon. There was also a teenage rock band belting out covers and the occasional shoe-gazing original. Marcus and I danced to the best of our ability. The main difference is that I don't have the front to call out "do you like my moves?" like he does. Later Michael joined us and pogo'd enthusiastically to Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand.

Prior to that was the Fun Day. There was a Petting Zoo. I prefer to call friendly manual contact with animals "patting" but no-one ever seems to call them Patting Zoos. "Petting" is a word I associate with those books for parents of teenagers about helping them deal with "changes" in their bodies.

I digress. There were alpacas, piglets, fancy fowl, horses, geese who had been infiltrated by a duck, lovely cows, kittens (to give away) and I believe also a mule. The piglets stampeded through their water trough, soaking Michael and I. We agreed this was well worthwile.

There were some children's artistes called the Ticklish Allsorts who did a song about some dancing pants. Marcus thought this was very very good, and demanded to know the Allsorts' names. I didn't know, but Marcus was confident the computer would. I later saw one of the Allsorts up close, who had a head like a robber's dog, but looks aren't everything in live entertainment.

We had neighbours over to swim in our new pool this afternoon. The new pool actually arrived just before the neighbours. Elf noticed (after filling it) that our old one was leaking chronically, so popped down the shops, bought a new one and blew it up. We then baled with buckets. Marcus jumped about in the old one until it was empty then did an amphibious wriggle into the new one. Sharon and Lana (4) came over from town-side and Caron, Mark, Cameron (6) and Adrian (4) from mountain-side. We havent been able to get them together before so it was nice to all natter, get splashed, have a few G &Ts and be neighbourly.

They are very nice folks on both sides, with nice kids of similar age to ours, and that's a big factor in our crazy plan to knock down and rebuild here rather than move. Which reminds me - we met with the Council's heritagey people on Friday and negotiated a simple alteration to the front of the new house that keeps them happy. We will set back one side of the upper storey a tiny bit and put a dear little roofette on the projecting lower storey. Now we are going to start inspecting places to rent while our old house is razed and our new house is raised.

Beach

We accepted an invitation to the beach, Nick and Anna style. Or really just Anna style. Nick is conscripted to attend the beach while Anna is an enthusiast. Elf is also not a beach natural while I have always been fond of a simple swim in the sea.

Anna's family have a shack (called The Cottage) at Dodges Ferry (which is called Bally Park by them for some reason). Anna's sister Rosie, husband Stuart and two kids (why do we ALL have 2 kids?) were along as well. They are hardened beach people.

We however are relative amateurs at Family Beach. I have done a lot of Solo Beach but there is a lot more to consider and plan for with yer nappies, yer hole in the ozone layer, yer picky eaters who pull their sandwiches apart and drop all fillings in the sand etc etc. Not to mention the omnipresent danger of drowning. As Elf said while we were trying to pack up to go home "Tell me again - why do people go to the beach?"

But I had fun, the kids had a ball and Elf did most of the hard work but didn't complain. Marcus discovered "surfing" - lying on a boogie board while someone else works up a sweat towing you. Michael nuded about - definitely the best bot on the beach. I hope we will get better at it all and next time Elf can read one of her wistful-but-confident books while I do the parenting.

The Bergers' cottage is shaded by two immense pine trees. Anna's parents have cordoned off half of their large block and put it up for sale, and Anna told me they need to sell the land to pay for the "management" of the pine trees. An arborist gave them a quote of $20,000 (or it might have been $40,000) to make them safe - at present they are liable to drop a big branch on a kiddie any time.

See Jeff's Show! Please!

I saw Jeff's show Cancelled by Popular Demand last night. It is slightly tightened up from last year but fundamentally the same show. All Jeff's props broke, fell over or stuck to each other last night but he overcame setbacks manfully. It is a great show, everyone within cooee of Hobart should get down to the Peacock Theatre Tues - Sat nights at 8 or Sundays at 4. Book through www.tso.com.au or tickets at the door.

In other news - while driving in the car Marcus raised the subject of Mexico. Its a nation I have never visited but dear to my heart all the same. Its got jungles, I raved. Deserts. Indians. Snowy mountains. "Cheese" contributed Michael.

Circumstantial evidence points to Michael entering the Terrible Twos a few weeks early. He 's generally still charming but prone to increasing bouts of NO! DON'T WANT IT! and MICHAEL'S!

Bad news - Christmas is up 1%

On the news last night a spokesman for Australian retailers announced that Christmas spending was up 1% on last year. They had been hoping for 3%. The figures are just in, and there is a degree of variance with some up and some down. The spokesman decribed the figures as "schizophrenic" and said gloomily "it may take some time to determine who has been hardest hit by this".

I hope someone is starting a whip-round for retailers who have been gutted by this 1% rise.

By boat to the inland

Speaking of Canberra, that is where we journeyed for Christmas, following a star we had seen in the east. Well, actually we went there because that's where Elf's mum and dad and sister are. Elf's sister is Imp - if I havent talked here about the Fullagar family's thing for names its probably too late to start now. This Christmas they were joined by Fred and Chonk, Elf's brothers who live in Sweden and Switzerland respectively, and also Chonk's Swiss-Texan girlfirend Irma.

As the brothers can't come home very often we made a point of being there too, to eat their chocolates and festoon them with clinging and giggling nephews while we read books and generally lay about.

We caught the ferry Spirit of Tasmania III to Sydney. It was very good, a better ship and more enjoyable route than the Devonport - Melbourne boats. The food is free and excellent quality. It takes 22 hours, leaving Devonport at about 5pm and putting into Sydney at about 3pm. The last few hours, where you steam up the NSW South Coast, through the heads and into Sydney Harbour is just magnificent. On Spirit III punters are allowed on the top deck, and everyone was up there crowding the rail as we went under the Harbour Bridge. That was very exciting, one of my great travel experience to tell the truth. Unlike my visits to other tourism icons this time I had to keep an eye on two freewheeling small boys. We were the biggest thing in the harbour and every other craft was honking and waving enthusiastically. As we cruised past the Opera House I walked bow-to-stern down the vacant middle of the deck and kept abreast of it - which felt very wierd.

Next we drove off the boat (Elf in charge) and launched ourselves into Sydney traffic. They have a neat system for testing new drivers - the lane that leads from the ferry wharf onto the Harbour Bridge merges away on both sides simultaneously, coming to a sharp point. If you survive this you are presumably then qualified to drive off into New South Wales. We found Aunty Finty and her family in Lindfield and had a pleasant visit with them. Finty insisted we sit in front of a huge electric fan.

Then we tried to find our way out of Sydney. Finty wrote explicit instructions. I misread them and we got very close to the northern beaches before I lost patience with the instructions and told Elf to turn around. As we headed back the way we had come for twenty minutes it gradually dawned on me that the error was all mine. We finally found an exit and trundled the 2 1/2 hours to Canberra, getting in about 11pm.

We stayed four days in Canberra, all very hot. The first was 37° but it moderated later. The boys were delighted with their gifts and seemed to enjoy the Whole Christmas Thing. We gave Marcus a red remote-control Mini, and Michael a red ukelele. I missed the moment of opening the uke but apparently Michael was totally, wordlessly thrilled. I was there by the time he started bellowing "GUITAR!!!!!". It didnt leave his side for days. The Mini careered around the loungeroom through piles of wrapping paper, clipping ankles and smacking pleasingly into furniture. When we took it to an empty carpark early on Boxing Day it screamed in wide circles while Marcus pelted after it, too excited to actually use the controls in his hand.

Irma, Chonk and Fred spent lots of time with the boys. Fred is always a big hit. He is a scientist, who still has all the interesting equipment from his scientific youth hanging around the house in Canberra. Marcus was fascinated by his magnets, electric components, paper planes and crystals. We met Irma for the first time and she made a very good impression on us all. The boys loved her to bits, and she spent a lot of time with them.

Elf's mum Felicity has several hundred jars of jam and marmalade around the house. My heart went out to her when I realised that she spent the hottest part of the 37° day sitting at a shadeless market stall and she sold not a single jar. I would like to help her market her product a bit better, if I can think of ways to do it without too much of a jump in her costs.

Elf's dad Bill has new lenses in his eyes and is seeing very well. He's not walking too well though and the garden is starting to get away from him. He has sensibly consigned a large part of it to wilderness is concentrating on a few rows of peas. Sulphur-crested cockatoos are everywhere, and Bill loathes them. He's an old salt living a long way inland, and now he has retired I wonder how long he will stand for the heat and cockatoos. He lent me a wonderful book about Paraguay from which I will blog snippets.

We made regular visits to Imp and Ed's. The boys play very well with their cousins Karri and Miah, and on one visit there was even cricket with the cousins' cousins. Imp catered for Christmas dinner and it was superb. The other big attraction at their place was the pool. Marcus overcame his worries and stood in the shallow end in water up to his chest. Since we have been home we have been to the Big Pool and he has continued to stretch his boundaries, which is great.

Now we settle into a gruelling round of birthdays. 11 days until Elf, then 8 days until Michael, then 34 days until Marcus.

Has anyone seen the Hindenburg Line?

I was back at work today, and it was just as though I'd never left. Before Christmas a historian from the Department in Canberra flew down to sit by my side and watch as I pushed and nudged WW1 front lines about on maps until he was satisfied with their accuracy. Today it became clear I had three towns in the wrong places, and some (but not all) of my lines needed to go just an umph north and a wheeze west. We had one map too many, with the Germans actually arriving before they had set off. It also appears that everyone who has ever drawn a map with the "HIndenburg LIne" on it, has put it wherever they damn well please. We have followed this convention.

Merry C and Happy NY

This morning I received a nice invitation to buy Viagra online, from Demographic F. Cellophane.

This will be my last blog of the year. I have two days and nights of solid work ahead then we drive to Devonport, get on a boat to Sydney, get off and drive to Canberra, rejoice in the birth of the Messiah, drive to Melbourne, get on a boat to Devonport and drive home.

So I hope you will all have a nice break from routine, somewhere you like with people you like, and don't eat too much. Go for a walk and when you get back there will still be plenty to pick at, that's my advice.

Cheers.

Cheese camera

Marcus was crafting this morning. I gave him a tray out of a chocloate box and a few other things. He taped the tray to a sheet of paper, held it in front of his face and said "Look - its a cheese camera". Then he explained it wasn't really a camera. it was actually for hiding behind so people can't see you. He said offhandedly "I don't know why people call them cheese cameras".

Shanes 16 d Sisters of Sincerity 15

The Shanes' finest hour. A tight tussle with the old enemy. Blown open when a lucky shot knocked the jack into an off-target clump of Sisters' bowls, suddenly they were six up. Backs to the wall. Plucky resistance. Spirit of Anzac all round. Five down when the bell rang for last end. Best hope to salvage some pride and cut the margin.

All Shanes stood up under pressure. Your correspondent, Hunter, Dave - we all delivered good solid shots, nothing amazing though. Suddenly we were holding 4 bowls and only needed to improve a tad to tie. The Sisters' no 3 put her last bowl in the gutter - choked. We held five - good enough to tie.

Our skip stepped up and got his bias wrong. As his bowl scooted at 90° to the intended course the Shanes each retreated into our inner worlds of calm in our own way. Hunter smoked furiously.

Their steely skip Geraldine had defused bombs of this sort all night and I expected she would steer them home. Her first attempt was a cross between a draw and a drive and missed the jack by a whisker. Our skip got back on the horse, set his jaw and delivered a quality bowl that gave us six, good enough to win if Geraldine failed to demolish the whole shebang with her final bowl.

Time stood still. All other matches were over and the clubhouse was full of people waiting. Geraldine gave it her best shot but under pressure her bowl went wide, failed to connect with even one of ours so the six points stood. We had snatched V from the Js of D.

Once again, bowls, Australian Lawn Bowls, was the real winner.

Bogged blog

Blog bogging down presently due pressure of work. Will save time leaving out prepositions. Sounds like Superman vis a vis kryptonite. Must finish Western Front book, CD-ROM before Christmas. Otherwise family wave to me bye bye from boat to Sydney.

Some goats, some raspberries and a ukelele

We visited our good friend, neighbour and goat farmer Melinda yesterday for brunch. I am a big fan of goat kids and always find them friendly, happy and just that little bit mad. The boys loved them and Marcus wanted to gambol in their paddock. Melinda lives in the narrow strip of South Hobart on the western side of the rivulet at the base of a nearly-vertical hill, and goats are probably the only animals that would be happy in this particular precipitous field. Even they have been provided with little ladders to help them get up and down.

Melinda has an excellent crop of fat raspberries and she made us pancakes to wrap them in. Michael found a ukelele and was hard to seperate from it, even to play with the goats. I went outside with Marcus at one stage and then saw, through a window, Michael attempting to play Melinda's cello with her special cellist's screwdriver. We smartly reintroduced the ukelele and there was no more trouble. He strummed it, he hugged it, he talked to it. The good thing is its exactly the same as the one already put away for Christmas.

Goalkeeping

Marcus is a keen and talented goalkeeper. When we play soccer in the backyard we only have room for one goal, so one of us is the keeper and one takes shots. He likes the diving about, so he usually contrives to stay in goal as long as possible. Our "goal" is a long upturned table. Our ball is a soft foam thing he was given before he could walk. I ping it at him from a fair way out, and he leaps about like a demented antelope. Obviously if it hits the table, its a goal. "No, that's not a goal - it bounced off" he'll say.

Mammoths

Marcus has really taken to a show called The Way Things Work, which is set on an island populated by people and benign wooly mammoths. We think (and hope) he was quoting this program when he bellowed at Elf "Get moving, you shaggy beast!".

Two lumps

Marcus got into an altercation with his friend Campbell at school on Friday. Then as Campbell tried to jump over him he collected Marcus with a sandshoe to the eyebrow. Caroline the carer did a fabulous job with the ice pack, and what was initially a golf ball threatening to split, was only a mauve shadow the next day. Caroline needed the ice-pack so Marcus and I went to the soopy for frozen peas.

It so happened the school Christmas party was on the next day. It coincided with torrential rain, so it was a bit like downtown Hong Kong - wet, steamy, crowded and manic. [I have never been to Hong Kong.] Santa had sweat streaming off him. He had presents (smuggled in by the parents) for all the kids. It went for about an hour and Marcus was 3rd last to get his loot, but he was very good about it.

Then as we were assembling ourselves to go home, Michael walked into a table and smacked himself just-not-quite-exactly where Marcus had. Caroline fetched the ice-pack with an air of resignation. He scared us by going very pale and not breathing for a little while but he shrugged it off very well. He has a smallish lump and is scamping normally.

Yoghurt and pencils

The breakfast stuff was on the table this morning; cereal, two-fruits and the tub of yoghurt. Michael is a big, big yoghurt fan. Usually theres also a wide range of junior arts and crafts materials, but we tidied the table on the weekend. Marcus got three-quarters of the way through his cereal and said "I've had enough - I want to do a drawing of a monster". He hadnt even looked around for the bucket of drawing things when Michael asked politely "Put pencil in yoghurt?"

Marcus composes

Guest blogger Elf writes:

After playing a particularly moving and 'sad' sounding piece of music on the piano with Chris, Marcus said
"That was about a beautiful flower that was picked and died and the person who picked it was trying to put it back together but he couldn't. It was very sad because the flower didn't want to die and didn't need to die."

A little later, after another pretty play: "That was a bell that woke up the flower."

There followed a few other pieces (undoubtedly in response to our great encouragement) among which were the explanations: "That was about a pickle who was lost." (Upon question, a pickle is "green and crisp...and sometimes purple".), and later "That was when somebody found the pickle and took it home."

The Falabella

From Guide to Horses of the World "...it cannot be regarded as a serious riding pony". No kidding.

Western Front

I'm working on a CD-ROM for the Dept of Veterans Affairs at the moment. It's a school resource about the Western Front in WWI, designed to be useful for teachers from kindergarten up to grade 12. Some of the written accounts are very disturbing indeed. One nice little oddment stuck out though - from this list of the occupations of Australian men and women who enlisted.

Professional 15,719
Clerical 24,340
Tradesmen 112,452
Labourers 99,252
Country callings 57,430
Seafaring 6,562
Miscellaneous 14,122
Nurses 2,063

Isn't that nice? All the roustabouts, shearers and general hayseed farmhands come under "country callings".

Sexy celery

I noticed the corner shop here has got celery, set out in the box it came from the wholesalers in. The box features a clumsy pulp-style illustration of a bikini-clad raven-haired beauty, seductively munching a stick of celery. I think she's winking. Photo soon I promise.

Clueless 15 d Shanes 9

The Bowling Shanes are an enigma. The Bowling Shanes are to lawn bowls what cold pizza is to breakfast. The Bowling Shanes are a lucky dip. You can never step into the same Bowling Shanes twice.

We went out hard and eked out an early lead with some loose but adequate bowling. Then the underrated Clueless combo started to click. Their slow-talking no 1 was outpointing Dave. Paul was bowling a fine line and length but Margaret (age 67) was just shading him every time. She was like Glenn McGrath, a bowling metronome. Often her two bowls ended up cheek-by-jowl. Their 3rd man was giving me a lawn bowls lesson, and when they occasionally strayed into trouble, their silently sinister skip would eerily pilot his bowl to just where it was needed, leaving our valiant leader no space to work his magic.

I got my bias wrong twice and watched helplessly as my 4 and 15/16ths went sailing across neighbouring greens. I'm proposing we introduce a fine [like perhaps five star jumps] for this, but since I'm the only one who ever does I'm not proposing it very hard.

In compensation I did deliver the bowl of the evening, getting into an impossible spot to steal an end that looked sewn up for Clueless. Over the next hour Margaret said "gosh, that was a nice bowl" maybe six times. I let the cat out of the bag when I admitted that the jack was nowhere near where I had thought it was, so it was entirely accidental.

Clueless ran away with the fixture and were comprehensively the better team on the day. Hats off, but as our skip always says, bowling was the real winner.

Dirt

I got dirty in the garden for a while on Sunday, grubbing out blackberries and nailing up a trellis for the roses. I'm finding I really need to find something, anything, physical to do on the weekend to really relax. TV and books aren't doing it for me at the moment. I am really enjoying tackling a mundane, measurable job, even if i can't do the whole thing. Pulling out weeds, washing dishes, whatever. My work life is so sedentary, I think my body is crying out for activity to make it tired. My head is tired pretty well all the time but that's different.

Poor moon

Yesterday was Adrian-from-next-door's 4th birthday, down at the South Hobart Community Centre. It went well, everyone played nice and there was a nice bunch of parents. We all conform to the modern parenting style, everything is very moderated and calm, all the children have to speak nicely to each other. I heard "Liam, if you disagree with Alexander you say 'That's your opinion, and I respect that, but I have a different opinion.' YOU DON'T SHOVE HIM".

The peaceful mood was shattered with the arrival of the piñata. Hit it! Smash it! Poke it! Break it! I can see a weak spot - SMACK IT THERE! It was a proper craftsman-made piñata, in the shape of a man-in-the-moon. Michael, who was too small to take part, said to me "Poor Moon." I had to explain that he had been a very, very bad moon, as the larger children smote it like South Korean riot policemen.

After the moon succumbed and gave up the lollies, it was back to standard middle-class niceness all round.

I still like you Giz

Gizmo likes to flop onto Marcus' doona at bedtime. Marcus usually asks me to remove him. I had to scoop him off one-handed last night, as I was holding Michael who still sometimes needs to be squeezed off to sleep. As Giz left the room in a huff, Marcus called after him "I still like you Giz!"

Nick and Anna and Lily and Katherine came by on Saturday for lunch. The kids largely did their own thing and it was very pleasant to sip the Shiraz Cabernet Merlot Pinot Gris and talk to grown-ups. We took photos of each other's families (this is one of Nick and Anna's annual duties, for our Christmas newsletter).

The Carlton Beach Evening News

I have omitted to mention a family visit to Carlton Beach in October. We invited ourselves out to Jeff and Anita's place. They tried to put us off with deliberately obscure directions. They live down a gravel lane that branches off a sandy track that is an unsigned continuation of unsealed right-of-way that appears at first glance to be a private goat-path. Gazanias were flourishing everywhere - extremely bright and cheerful flowers that the local Coastcare group are exterminating one by one.

Once we found them Jeff and Anita were extremely hospitable. They live in a very interesting bits & pieces house that used to be Anita's dad's carport. They have a widescreen TV sitting on the sink as there is nowhere else to put it. In about five minutes Anita tossed together a superb mediterranean al fresco lunch. It was an unseasonably hot steamy day. Jeff has several threequarters-finished gazebos so we pulled a tarp over one and ate lunch in the shade of it.

My work colleagues Melinda and Paul were there too and Melinda's daughter and a friend of Jeff's and her little girl. Marcus buttonholed the little girl and followed her everywhere giving her detailed instructions to play various games he invented [which she disregarded].

J and A have dogs. The boys love dogs, so much so that they (the dogs) were eventually fenced away for their own protection.

As we were "at the beach", obviously we had to pop down and put a toe in the water and play a bit of beach cricket. Again, Jeff's sense of the curvature of time and space came into play. When he said the beach is just through there he left out the various hills and dales of burning sand that had to be traversed in between.

After a brief innings or two I spat the dummy and refused to carry an increasingly heavy and tired nearly-two year old back over the scorching dunes. To his undying credit, an impressively fit Jeff Blake ran home and drove our car to the surf club carpark, a short stroll away. We drove home in that mullet-brained mood of too much sun, sand, food, beer, immoderate exertion, patting of dogs and admiring of chickens.

Class Clown

We started calling Michael the class clown when he was only about 12 months old. He seemed to delight in making people laugh. He still does, sometimes intentionally but sometimes not.

At his daycare they crack up at the things he says, particularly when he doesnt want to do something. He says "No, I can't do it". He says it with such feeling, like a bad actor on Days of Our Lives in a moral quandary. If you say "Yes, you can." he replies "No! I can't" and may empahsise this by falling to the floor like someone who has just come second in a marathon.

Anna, one of his carers, is a dab hand on the camera and has taken many fetching pics of him, such as this one.

Sisters of Sincerity 11 d Bowling Shanes 8

My first outing with my new bowls didnt go well. Maybe the four and fifteen-sixteenths are a tad small. Might need fives. But a poor craftsman blames his tools - I just didnt have the magic that I had last week. It was 8 all when the bell rang, we had just started our last end. The girls held up under the post-bell pressure and we cracked.

Pineapple headache

Look at this pineapple! Marcus drew it last night on some scrap paper from Elf's work, a cover sheet titled "Childhood Headache". If you didnt know it was a pineapple, it would make a pretty good illustration of a headache.

Comedy Junk Mail

We get online pharmaceuticals junk mail addressed to our "staff@" email address, which means we all get it. Lately they have come from some very amusing senders. Last week Snowflake L. Spermicide dropped us a line. Today we had a note from Curse H. Recuperation, and his colleague Selection R. Uninspired also got in touch.

**STOP PRESS**
All staff received correspondence on the subject "Penis Launcher" this morning from Legation R. Olympiad. I think we'll leave it at that.

Green Letters of Evil Intent

Marcus arrived in our bed at about 4.30am. It was already full as Michael had woken up laughing and wouldnt stop chatting loudly so Elf had brought him in.

When Marcus comes to see us now it is usually because of a bad dream. This morning he said "I don't like the green O. Its going to kill me". His nappy was pretty wet so I changed it (he still wears nappies at night). As he snuggled down I said reassuringly "Don't you worry about that green O, I'll look after you". He said "There's also a green E".

He did wake up to go the toilet earlier in the evening, a very welcome first step to abandoning the nappies altogether. It feels strange to put a nappy on someone who can set up a chessboard correctly.

10kgs of tiny tot whooshing to certain doom

Today we went to the Parliament Street park where there is a long, long slide. I went down with Michael on my lap. Its a long hike back up to the top - for some reason instead of steps you have to pigeon-walk up the hill on sunken koppers' logs. Attention council landscape designers - this is very very hard on the old ankles. Next time Michael decided to go down on his own which he did with some style. Onlookers gasped as our 10kgs of tiny tot whooshed to his certain doom, only to skilfullly brake with his shoes and glide to a madly grinning halt. Elf and I had to endure the log torture about eight times each until finally Michael was seduced away by lunch.

This afternoon I finished pulling down the frame of the shed. Now we have just a concrete slab, where we are planning to erect a new cubby house for the kids. Unlike the old shed there will be no spiders and I will be able to stand up without copping a beam to the head and a rusty six-inch nail in the ear. I had to evict a few interesting looking spiders who I think had been in there since the late eighties.

Santa and Peter Garrett

We took the boys to the Christmas Pageant in town. We met up with Nick and Lily through the magic of SMS. We had a pretty good position (people were sitting in folding chairs an HOUR before it started, just to get a close up look at some trucks covered in tinsel). Anyway it was excellent. A nice balance of the incongruous, the Christian, the tatty, lots of dogs, a couple of donkeys, many, many miniature big rigs and finally, Santa. Marcus loved every minute of it, jigged about to the music and really popped his cork when The Man went past.

The miniature trucks were wierd. They take a ride-on-lawnmower, and skilfully encase it in sheetmetal until it looks like a truck, about 1 metre high and three long. They are so realisticaly finished that the brain does backflips at the sight of a man walking alongside towering over it.

There were giant puppets of Peter Garrett and I think Cathy Freeman, although it looked a bit more like Nova Peris-Kneebone. Later two more came bobbing past, a balding man in an akubra and a lady with red hair. Perhaps they were supposed to be the Eurogliders - remember them?

Later we went to Northgate and they had a Santa too. Marcus was enthralled that this Santa gave him a wave - the Pageant Santa had just looked over our heads majestically.

Shanes 9 d Hijack 7

Forgot to mention I was on the winning side for the first time on Tuesday night. The Shanes applied tons of scoreboard pressure and left the well-credentialled Hijack outfit (one of whom was wearing a Tas Institute of Sport fleecy top) playing catch-up lawn bowls. Personal stats are meaningless of course, but I think I notched maybe 5 of our points. I'm hooked.

Which reminds me...

Listening to the old 92FM (before Triple J came to town) - sometimes the clock radio would go off on Saturday morning, and I would find myself listening to the Chinese Show or the Hmong News Hour or somesuch. You would hear this sort of thing:(apologies to anyone who can actually read the Chinese below)

香港荫权上任以后 Moonah Community Centre. 推行的政制改革措断5 o'clock 受到港 Number 101 bus. 民主派的批评。随着十二月二 mah jongg 十一日立法会投票审议 table tennis 政改方案的日期越来越近，香港泛民主派也将在十二月四日举行民主大游行，加强争取普选的斗争努力。对于这一切，最后一任香港总督、现英国牛津大学校长彭定康在接受澳Tuesday, 广记者兰侬采访时称. Ladies Bring a Plate.

Nius Blong Nau (Latest News)

Sometimes I like to view current world events through Papua New Guinean eyes. Radio Australia has a radio service in Tok Pisin and a website that reports the news in this language. Reading serious news from the "real world" via this warm and very casual means of expression is very, very odd.

Strongpela askim long ol Komowelt Kantri gad agensim terorism [16/11/2005 8:36:53 PM]

New Zealand Praim Minista, Helen Clark, i mkeim strongpela askim igo long ol Commonwealth kantri i gad agensim terorisam long taim bilong Head of Gorvernment miting long Malta long wik bihain.

Malta bai rereim na hostim ol lida bilong 53 Commonwealth kantri long taim bilong Summit, namel long ol Miss Clark, British Praim Minister tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister John Howard na General Pervez Musharraf, President bilong Pakistan.

I gat ol ripot i wok long go raun olsem, al-Qaeda i plen long kamapim birua, na oli bilip olsem Btitish M15 nau i wok long painim wanpela Sudanese Refugees husat oli tok i wok bung wantaim al Qaeda antap long dispela Meditgerranean Island.

Sunday Telegraph newspaper bilong Britain i ripot olsem, Maltese polis i bin reidim haus bilong dispela Refugee long mun igo pinis na painim military training videos na maps.

Phone courtesy

Michael loves talking on the phone, as long as its a) not really a phone or b) switched off.

Michael: "blah blah blah, rhubarb rhubarb, OK, Thank you!"
Elf (talking into TV remote):"Thank you!"
Michael: "Thank you very very much."

if it glows, throw it

Are your pork chops glowing in the dark? Don't panic, but its probably time to pop them in the bin. See the linked news story.

Goooooooal!

I watched Australia beat Uruguay in the World Cup play-off last night. It was a terrific game, and Australia dominated it. It went to penalties. Our keeper Mark Schwarzer made a wonderful save, which put us ahead. Then our captain Mark Viduka fluffed his penalty, throwing away the advantage. Schwarzer dug deep and saved again. John Aloisi nervelessly put his penalty away and that was it. The relief!

I've watched us fail in home and away sudden-death ties like this against Scotland (1985), Israel (1989) Argentina (1993), Iran (1997) and Uruguay once before (2001). Thank God we've finally done it.

On SBS the commentators left it until near the end to invoke the name of Johnny Warren (recently deceased Father of Australian Soccer). After the winning spot kick all Craig Foster could say was "Johnny Warren". Beautiful.

Nyctophilus geoffroyi

Seems to me we might be enjoying the company of lesser long-eared bats which "occur in towns and suburbs". Do bats occur? Are bats an event?

Pidge and Bretty

I took the boys to the pool this morning. Allison was sick so they couldn't go to family day care, which sank Elf's plans for a big no-kids day. So I took a few hours off and whisked the boys away to let her do a few things at least.

First we scamped about in the Aberdeen Street playground where the green parrots browse in the grass. Then we went to the pool. The lads went very well. Marcus attached himself to a learn-to-swim class.

As we were leaving some tall men in yellow and green caps were coming through the turnstiles. We waved to Aussie fast bowlers Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee and they waved back quite happily. I thought "Pidge" was looking a bit tired though. The Windies are quoted at about 14-1 for the next test match - I say get on board those odds before word gets out.

Zombie ninja state government

Hobart is a lovely place. Quiet, serene, sunny. Birds tweet. However on my way to work, I walk past the sites of two murders from recent years.

In 1998 a martial arts instructor was smote with a sword in his driveway, by one of his students. It came out in court that he was trying to brainwash his hangers-on into a zombie ninja army, who would kidnap the Premier and take over Tasmania. I think the state government stuffed up buying the third big ferry, and waiting lists at the hospital are out of hand, but think what a zombie ninja army would have done.

A few doors down from my work is the house where Rory Jack Thompson killed his wife (early 90s?). It doesn't seem like a particularly evil neighbourhood. Outside the shop on the corner there is a bucket of water for dogs.

Murders do happen, and they have to happen somewhere I suppose.

Proxy Dadness

This report from one of my Brothers in Dadness across the strait. Thanks for your contribution Michael - your hair is beautiful.

"Kenzie has taken to naming most of her drawings. She recently composed a lovely looking "landscape" that without prompting she decided to call "Challenge on the Land"!! (far too grown up for a young artiste). There was also a very interesting animal and some orange "rain" that she titled "Baby Dinosaur with Fire Mice" - I'm not sure what goes on in her head?!"

The Bowling Shanes

I have taken up lawn bowls. I am 2nd man for the Bowling Shanes. I scoffed when this idea was put to me, but here I am, three weeks into the season and really looking forward to hitting the greens tonight. Dad is a bowler, and has at his diposal three sets of bowls, one of which he is sending down to me on the bus today.

When we first rolled up to the Derwent City Bowls Club we were directed to the kit room where a character named Len gave us each a high-five by way of measuring our hands. I was a 5, so were most of the blokes, a few ladies were 4s. So when Dad asked me what size I was, I confidently said "I'm a 5 Dad". Dad said he could offer me 5-and-a-quarter, a 5-and-five-eights or a four-and-fifteen-sixteenths.

Our first game was on a lovely warm evening. As we were playing in fours, often there wasnt much to do except watch the sun set behind Mt Wellington, sip the cheap beer, munch the free sausages and think fondly of Elf at home wrangling the two boys through dinner and into bed. Ahhh. I could easily get used to having a night off each week.

Go Shanes.

Cricket Commentary of the Week

As Australian batsman Matthew Hayden spanked the West Indies around the ground last week, on the radio Michael Slater observed "Matt Hayden is literally on fire." Thankfully, he wasnt.

Here be bats

We have bats. Bats in the trees on the reserve behind our place. I didn't actually know there were bats in Tasmania. My natural history knowledge is pretty thin. They flap about battily in the twilight. More news as it comes to hand.

Raids

Yesterday morning I was listening to Radio National as I walked to work. Fran Kelly said there had been "simultaneous terror raids" in Sydney and Melbourne. I freaked - imagining bombs, death and mayhem in two places I know and love. But her tone of voice just didnt quite reflect that scenario. Later it transpired they were counter terror raids. The story is alarming of course but I was annoyed at wasting a surge of adrenalin and panic that I might need another time.

I was annoyed enough to send a feedback message on the RN site (also chiding them for their general sloppiness in research). And surprised and pleased to get a personal emailed apology from Ms Kelly this morning promising to try harder to get things right.

The police involved in the raids, especially the officers in the shootout in Sydney, must be pretty dark on the Prime Minister for announcing raids were imminent. If you thought you were going to be raided, had expressed interest in jihad generally and martyrdom in particular, you'd probably approach your domestic arrangements a bit differently after hearing those comments on the 7.00 news. Like sleep with a gun.

Another aspect of this is the coverage. Crikey.com says the footage we have seen was shot by various Police Media Units. And in their opinion these units are actually the most powerful players in the Australian media. This is a story with a lot of angles and I hope a lot more light gets shed on them over time.

Lost notes from a week ago

28 Oct

Spinal fluid is leaking out George Clooney's nose. I heard it on the radio.

I have started a drawing of Vincent and Andy's house in Carlton, my first drawing in a long time. I made some sketches when I stayed there 12 months ago. Unfortunately, you need sketches AND memory working together, and my memory let me down. It was not until after I had finished drawing a nice rounded VW-shaped shrub out in front of the house, that I realised it actually was meant to be a VW.

Marcus and I went on what he still likes to call a "baby walk" this evening. We often go down to the old Female Factory and play ball on the big concrete slab there. On the way home we talked about daddies. He said I'm mummy's daddy, and I corrected him and said Baba Bill is mum's daddy. Then he wanted to know who was Baba Bill's daddy. I told him a bit about Elf's grandfather, who was actually Chief Justice of Victoria. Marcus asked lots of questions and stuck with it through an explanation of what judges do and why it is a very important job.

3 Nov

On Saturday - we went swimming. Elf has promised to buy a new swimsuit so I don't have to mind both boys at once. They always paddle off in opposite directions. Previously Marcus has then bellowed to me from a distance to COME HERE, while I'm trying to keep Michael upright and above the waterline. On Saturday he scamped alone quite happily, and got into deeper water than before without any histrionics.

After the pool we visited the top of the big concrete water tanks on the Domain, and the boys rode bikes around, and through the puddles. There are nearly always puddles. Its one of my favourite spots. Most of the actual city centre is out of sight from there, but you can watch the freighters on the river, clouds drift over the mountain, and traffic on the big bridge. The spot also overlooks Government House (home of Anna's Uncle Bill) with its 26-or-so variously carved chimneys. On weekends there is usually a C grade cricket match on down below.

On Sunday we went down to South Arm, to visit Monica and Jonathan and their girls. Nick and Anna and their girls came too. Its quite a crowd these days when the families get together. We had a lovely time, ate a lovely cake and scamped down to the beach. Marcus stripped off and jumped about in the cold water. The girls were skeptical but eventually joined him.

Casting vote required

Every night when its my turn to run bedtime, I ask the lads if they want to hear me recite The Owl and the Pussycat. EVERY time I get the same answer.
Marcus (excitedly): YES!
Michael (plaintively): No.

I always ignore Michael.

Marcus with his "gun". Groan.

Katherine Rose christening

Nick and Anna's little girl was christened at St Mary's yesterday. It went off very well. For some reason while all the other kids there were sitting demurely in pews ours were bouncing, running, laughing maniacally and generally lowering the tone.

Afterwards we had a lovely garden party in their lovely garden - Nick has done a backyard blitz over the last few weeks. He has been inspired to make little windmills out of tin cans, that spun around with a unsettling CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEAK when the wind blew.

Marcus disorganised a cricket game that was shambolic but fun. At one stage 4 or 5 girls with dolls wandered in like Brown's cows, then stood at short midwicket and just sort of mooned about. Play ended when i bowled a fizzing leg break that buried itself in a bush densely populated with bees.

Cricket tuition

Marcus is very keen to learn about cricket. We had a bit of a game with a tennis racket in the back yard. I don't think I've pushed him into being interested - although the cricket is always on the radio at our place, its rarely on the TV. He seems very good at perceiving the things we are interested in and being interested too.

This is something I was told before I had kids. Just stick to doing what you love, the kids will automatically love it too because they relate it to you. However it happens, I will enjoy it while it lasts. It will be great when Michael is a bit bigger and the boys can play cricket, soccer, or whatever together without too much refereeing from me.

Awards

Awards nights are so similar, in any age, in any discipline, at any level. The Burnie Municipal Band end of year trophy night in 1985 resembled the Nobel Peace Prize in many ways. These two august events resonated also with the Tasmanian ICT Awards I attended on Friday night. Roar Film were nominated in two quite nebulous categories and won both. We now have a couple of very heavy jagged glass mementos. I think the jaggedness is meant to suggest the "cutting edge". Oh, ICT stands for, er, damn, I keep forgetting. Computers and stuff.

Sally, (our house manga specialist and illustrator) had a buddy working at the venue who kept up a conveyor belt of free bottles of frosty chardonnay. I usually drink pretty moderately but I am a sucker for extremely cold white wine. I woke feeling mildly bad on Saturday morning but by mid afternoon I was in a bad way. My children were charmingly oblivious and delightfully loud, and comically interested in jumping on my tummy when I lay down to try and stop the hammering in my head.

Michael vocab update2

Michael is one and three quarters now. His speech is really gathering momentum. This weekend we heard the following;

"Come on everybody, lets go!"
"Its Christmastime."
"I need dummy very very soon."
"No hitting!" -to Marcus during rowdy session in the car
"Miaow! Miaow!" Are you a cat Michael? "No, I'm a squiggle"

Email me

I am very keen to know who is reading this thing. Click on "email me" to send me a short note. Please?

Or try one of these handy click 'n' send shortcuts.

Sorry, too busy
My anonymity is precious to me
I am actively antagonistic towards your blog
Your blog is my primary news source

House progress

We just got a quote for $300,000 to build our new house, which is beyond us. We await more quotes.

There was a spot of good news this morning- the surveyor has finally done the survey, so now we can get drawings for the foundations. This was followed immediately by a correction - no, the surveyor has done a detailed and painstaking analysis of  xxx Strickland Avenue, instead of our block at xxx Cascade Road (it is one long road with a few name changes).

Easy mistake to make, IF YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

Silly Streets

Do you live in a Street or a Road? An Avenue? Something fancy like a Court or a something nouveau riche like a Chase? I just registered with an Australian site that offered (among many many others) the following:

Amble
Anchorage
Bowl
Brace
Brow
Colonnade
Copse
Circus
Corso
Cruiseway
Elbow
Follow
Fire Track
Meander
Nook
Pocket
Pursuit
Quadrangle
Ronde
Right of Way
Rosebowl
Tarn
Triangle
Viaduct
Wynd

The way they taught in 1912

Races of Mankind
The economic importance of race, as of religion, is very great, For instance, in the case of the Negro, climatic influences – acting direct and through the typical food – lead to the early closing of the 'seams' between the bones of the skull; and thus the development of the brain is arrested, and the adult is essentially unintellectual. On the other hand he is naturally 'acclimatized' against numerous diseases and other conditions of life and work which are very adverse to the White man. He is, therefore, of great use as a manual labourer in a 'steamy' climate e.g. on a cane-sugar plantation.
School Economic Atlas by J.G.Bartholomew, pub. Clarendon Press 1912

Its pretty handy when you have a colony to run and you can comfortably assign the native population to do the spadework as they are "essentially unintellectual". If young Brits were digesting this stuff at school, it is no wonder when they grew up and fanned out to do the work of the Empire they took a sense of innate superiority with them.

I'M the allies, YOU have to be the Germans.

Patch therapy

Marcus will be wearing a patch for an hour each day for the next eight weeks. We might have to get him a cutlass, a parrot and some sort of corsair or perhaps a small barque. I guess Michael, Giz and Hattie and Dog will be his crew. Elf can be the British Admiralty and I shall be the unpredictable Spanish fleet, carrying golden treasure (Snack Right biscuits) from the New World (kitchen) back to Old Spain (our bedroom).

Double cheese entendre (with fries)

Mum and Dad stayed with us Friday and Saturday nights. On Saturday evening Sally and Matt came up for a big family dinner. Elf made fantastic lasagne. Marcus was objecting to it, so Sally decided to emphasise the positives. He likes cheese, he likes peas, so her approach was obvious. "Come on, its chock full of cheesy peaness!" The assembled family spluttered, squawked and snickered, while Sally went back over what she'd said in her head to work out why it was so funny.

What's the matter darling?

Marcus had his knickers in a twist about something yesterday and was sitting on the floor blubbing. Michael has observed and listened and knows what to do in this situation. He patted Marcus's hair and said "What's the matter darling? Its OK. Its OK."

Walking to work

I've walked three days in a row, all lovely mornings too. Its like climbing over a W - lots of steep ups and downs. Here is a picture of one bit (no photoshop work at all).

Stuff they say

This is becoming a straight "kids say the darndest things" page. Its not the intention, honestly. Anyway - yesterday Marcus was carrying on about one of his recent interests - boxing.

Marcus - "People can get hurt doing boxing can't they?"
Elf (driving) - "yes"
Marcus - "They can get cut and fall down can't they?"
Elf - "yes"
Marcus - "We don't like boxers"
Elf (thinking it is unfair to blame the participants)- "well.."
(long pause)
Marcus - "But we like cardboard boxes".

Vocab update 2

Michael: "Door!" "Window!" "Capsicum!"

Michael comes in holding a video cover and grizzlingg.
Elf: "Did you snap your fingers in the cover? Or are your teeth hurting?"
Michael: "Ummmmm.... not sure."

Marcus: "Michael is inconsiderating. Inconsiderating is when you do something and someone else doesnt want you to".

We bought a digital camera finally on Saturday, then took it for a stroll along Marieville Esplanade in the daylight-savings twilight.

Jigsaw Queen

Elf was tidying up, putting jigsaw pieces in place prior to putting it all away. Michael was awestruck by her jigsawing abilities. He stared fixedly at her magic hands, saying "Clever mummy. Very very clever mummy".

Dadness at the Beach

I had a day of full-time Dadness on Wednesday. Allison was on holiday and we forgot about it. It was Elf's Wednesday on (she works a 5 day fortnight) so I looked after the boys. It was warmish so we hit the beach with the two giant earth movers from the toy library. They turned out to be duds in the sand - couldnt get any of my slurry out of the toy cement mixer, and couldnt dig any decent holes with the backhoe/bulldozer. We did what we could manually but the beach looked pretty much the same when we left as when we arrived. The boys were good, Michael didnt even consider scamping down to the water.

Later that day I took Marcus to the opthamologist. He said Marcus won't need glasses after all which is great. But he has a very slight turn which might need to be corrected with some patch therapy. Pirate time.

Cannibals

We came across some cannibals in a silly rhyme book. They met someone called Hannibal, but they said they were going to call him Stew. Having explained this to Marcus, we are now fielding questions daily about cannibals and cannibalism. Why did people eat people?

I have stressed that this doesnt happen any more, [although someone just told me that its a social problem in the Congo still.] I dodged the general question of why. Marcus answered his own question thus: "I suppose they didnt have any carrots or anything".

He returned to the subject yesterday. "Why didn't they just go to the shop?"

Miscellaneous weekend verbiage

Marcus at breakfast "You're my friend dad. You're my big toasted friend. You're my toast puddle friend".
Marcus at 5am "Wouldnt it be funny if greens turned into beans?" - He has no memory of saying this
Marcus looking at photo of young Cam and Adrian from next door: "They are good men arent they?"

Skiing

Lots of chat from Marcus about skiing this morning. First water skiing - how do you do it? I told him what I know, but I have never done it. He chipped in with a few details that made me think they've been reading a book on it at school. Then onto snow skiing. How do you do that? I've actually never snow-skied either (am I sounding like a bit of a stick-in-the-mud?) but I told him what I know. I mentioned that Grandma Ruth had done water skiing. She grew up in Sydney where they go in for all that hedonistic stuff. Has Grandad John done water skiing? No, I don't think so. he grew up here in Tasmania where its cold.

Marcus said that he would ask Grandma Ruth, next time he was visiting, to let Grandad John have a turn at water skiing.

The Wyllie-Watsons

We dropped in on Lynn and Scott and their kids Tom and Isobel in Launceston on our way south on Sunday. Marcus and Tom are similar ages and seem to have heaps in common. Isobel is 5 I think, but all of them (Michael too) played nicely out of sight while mums and dads yakked. It was great. They are exceptionally nice people, both primary school teachers. I have known Lynn since we were about 14.

Tom is a collector, and very fond of flowers. Marcus also loves to pick flowers, often pulls them apart but seems generally interested in them and excited by them. He did a really A grade drawing yesterday of some geranium blossoms. We TRY to praise the method and not the result (as advised by our parenting seminar) but when the result is really quite surprising its hard to just brush it aside.

Anyway. It was a lovely short visit and we need to get the boys together some more. I have a crazy half-scheme involving a picnic at Campbell Town.

Getting a handle on "dead"

A conversation can last years. I have been having the same conversation with Joe about the haplessness of the Tigers, since 1983. We used to chat in person, sometimes on the phone, for a while wrote letters, and got into email while he was living in Germany. Paradoxically, now he is only 250km away, we exchange terse SMSs every couple of months.

I have a feeling that the conversation I have with Marcus about the meaning of "dead" will go on until the hereafter. His latest contribution was delivered in that singsong way you might recite a long list. Except that it was a list of just one thing.

"...Food is dead when it comes out as poo..."

Effective Parenting

We resisted temptation to go to bed at nine last night, and instead went out to hear Michael Grose talk about Raising Happy and Confident Kids. I started skeptical, but ended up scribbling copious notes. After an evening with the boys I'm back to mildly skeptical. He made some very good points. One was that the role of dad and the role of parent are different and can clash. Dad is a caring role while parenting is essentially administrative.

He thought kids were raised today in a risk-free environment. I can see that people like me are scared to have more kids than they can monitor minutely, feed lavishly and educate to doctorate level. So the one or two kids we have get micro-managed by their folks and aren't allowed to make mistakes or solve problems themselves. it all rang true.

Paradoxically, it sounds like the people who read the least Good Parenting bumpf, but just get on with yelling at their kids, grounding them and occasionally cuffing them over the ear will end up with better adjusted and more resilient children.

Big plans

Elf: "When we build the new house, you might have your own desk!"
Marcus (excitedly): "When I've got a desk, I'll get a paper and I'll animate.. do you know what I'll animate?"
All: "What?"
Marcus: "Animations!"

Catching up with grey power

We stayed with Mum and Dad either side of our night in Melbourne. They enjoyed seeing the boys, the boys had a lot of fun and didnt miss us too much. We have brought back about 10 varieties of sea sponge and some not-terribly-interesting rocks.

Exhaustion2

As I typed the title above, the browser remembered I have used this title before. Trip to Melbourne for wedding - tiring. Daily life with boys - draining. Software problems at work - confounding. All accompanied by a strange bug in head and tummy that won't go away.

Wedding time

Its about time for another wedding. Elf's old friend Nick is getting hitched tomorrow in Melbourne. We are driving up to Mum and Dad's tonight, leaving the boys there and flying over tomorrow morning, then flying back the next day. We packed for all four of us in about fifteen minutes this morning, so it should be interesting to see what everyone is wearing by the end of day three.

Work is mad. I am simultaneously doing stuff about Uluru, WWI, and Bernard Otto Holtermann the 19th century gold miner and photographer. This is not the time to be blogging.

Reindeer

Marcus: "I know about reindeer. Santa pulls them in his ute".

Splinter drama

Marcus picked up a splinter from the back steps handrail on his way in to go to the toilet yesterday morning. He actually had his pants around his ankles already, the loon. I let him keep going inside and told him I'd pull it out when he'd finished. That was a mistake, as I didn't actually get a decent look at it until breakfast this morning. He went completely gaga about it and would not let us near it. I managed to get some Magnaplasm© on it over night which seemed to help it come out this morning. We held him down and prised his fingers from his palm and I eased it out with my fingernail. After blood-curdling screams rent the air for many minutes, he stopped and said to Elf "Actually, that didn't hurt at all."

Sympathy from the high chair

I was feeling a bit washed out at dinner the other night, and passed the time waiting for Michael to finish his dinner by staring at the table and massaging the back of my head in silence. Michael said "Daddy's very sad". No, Daddy's very tired. The scamp has been waking regularly at about 3am for no reason we can isolate. When we put him in our bed he immediately goes horizontal, headbutting Elf and scratching me with his toenails.

Swans Break Drought

Footy is over for another year, after a magnificent grand final, the Swans by four points. When you've grown used to grand finals that are all over at half time, it was enough to bring on a few heart attacks I reckon. For Aussie Rules novices, 4 is a very narrow margin, closest since 1966. Leo Barry saved the day with an heroic pack mark in the last moments. Interestingly the photo of the huge pack shows two clear infringements worth free kicks to West Coast, happening simultaneously. I'm very happy for a grand old club to win their first flag since 1933.

Kindergarten

Marcus had an evaluation at South Hobart Primary on Wednesday, to see if he can start kindergarten a year early. His birthday is two months after the cut-off date, but he's a bright spark and pretty on the ball socially. We thought Leslie, the coordinator, would see if he recognised any words, could add on his fingers and RRR stuff like that. Apparently she didn't ask him anything of that nature. Elf took him in, and when he said he was happy for her to wait outside, she did. She popped her head in 15 minutes later to check on him. He was quite happy, doing various puzzles. He said some of them were quite hard. Then he said "Mummy, can you go away again?"

Leslie rang yesterday to say she was impressed with his intelligence and confidence (particularly when he sent Elf away) and she is recommending that he be allowed to start next year. We will know for sure in December.

Finals fever

The AFL Grand Final is on tomorrow. I love that it is "Grand". I wish I was watching the Grand Final from the grandstand but like most people I will be watching at home on the box. One day Richmond will make it to the GF and when that day comes I will move heaven and earth to be there for it.

I was discussing it with Marcus this morning. I told him that my team hadnt been in a Grand Final since I was 14. He asked why not, so I gave him a brief summary of the Tiger's chronic failings over the last twenty years. "But" I said, returning to happier things, "tomorrow the Sydney Swans will play the West Coast Eagles to see who is the best team of the year. I'm going for the Swans". Marcus said "Maybe the Swans can teach the Tigers how to play better".

Bang

Marcus did a drawing this morning. It was quite interesting but the explanation was breathtaking. "This rocket is blasting into this car and this car is going BLAM and the fire is whooshing out of this into there and then he is exploding and then this bit goes BANG!!"

We saw the boys from next door on their front doorstep this morning. I said to Michael "wave to Cameron" and he yelled "HELLO CAMERON". Which delighted me. He's around 20 months and its a great age. He was dancing in his highchair yesterday. He started just like Marcus used to - with a silly smug grinny face looking left, looking right, then waggling his head then he said proudly "Dancing!". What a champ.

Michael is making up and singing little songs like this one:
Pine cone, pine cone, ev'rywhere
Pine cone, pine cone, ev'ry pi'cone

New Zealand journal 2/5/2001

This is a day from my journal of our honeymoon in NZ. We had arrived at Queenstown airport on the South Island a couple of days earlier to pick up our Maui Campervan, only to find we needed to post a $2000 deposit. Airhead clerk suggested we just run it up on our credit card - we didnt have one. So we took a sedan instead to get us as far as Wellington, withdrawing the maximum $1000 at ATMs each day as we went.

Levin, North of Wellington, Wed. morning. Had a big night. Got off the ferry [from South Island], rang the Maui [campervan] agents who are in Paremata, miles north of the city. They had no idea who I was. Freak time again. Canvassed options such as staying in a hotel in Wellington, another hire car etc etc. When I rang them back everything was sorted. Caught a shuttle bus to Paremata through heavy rush-hour traffic. (Saw sign for Bunnythorpe). Shuttle guy was into vintage cars and steam engines - showed us photos. Also had vintage moustache c. 1920. Driving through N. suburbs Poriura etc he said "This is where the, ah, darker personnel live".

Marcus has mice in his tummy

Marcus has taken the "butterflies" idea one step further. He has had an upset tummy lately and he claims he has mice in there. He says they'll be there forever. I said that they'll dissolve like all food that gets into his tummy from his mouth. But apparently "the food in my tummy bangs around like a tumbledryer".

Michael has been saying "Great idea Marcus!" a lot lately. Also "Sorry Daddy. Sorry Mummy. Sorry Marcus." He was into this routine the other night while I changed his nappy. Giz walked past at that moment so "Sorry Giz" was added, then he spotted Dog. "Sorry Doggy".

Ashes gone, sun came up

Australia has lost the Ashes to England for the first time in 16 years. In an unexpected twist, the sun came up as usual this morning. Looks like it wasn't the end of the world after all. After being comprehensively beaten by them, our captain Ricky Ponting has conceded that England are "a danger" to Australia's world cricket supremacy. How perceptive.

Choc frog

Michael quite often blurts out "chocolate" at unusual times. At the pool yesterday he joined Marcus and I in the water for the first time. He was tentative but very keen to try the giant frog slide. The giant frog is actually a Freddo - it is sponsored by Cadbury and has logos etc on it. I thought Michael was saying "Froggy frog! Froggy frog!" but unfortunatey he was saying "Chocolate frog! Chocloate frog!" Luckily he didnt try to bite into it. He had a few slides on it and generally scamped about the shallows pretty well.

He is not sleeping too well at the moment and consequently neither are we. We need to iron this out before we leave the boys with Mum and Dad for a night while we pop over to a wedding in Melbourne. I know they are going to be thrilled with the boys' progress since they last saw them but if Michael does what he did last night it might detract somewhat from the general effect.

The anonymous praise keeps coming

Boy, those automatic web-bot things sure love my work. See the comment attached to the previous post.

It has rained in Noah's-Ark-like proportions this weekend. Appropriately enough Marcus has taken do describing things as "two-by-two". When the four of us go down to the car to go out, we go two-by-two.

I've been off-colour for a week now. I've still got whatever it was that struck me in Melbourne last week. Its undermining my will to do things. The mower has been out in the rain now fior nearly two weeks. Aggggh. I'm a bad person, I am ruining my mower. The shower is all mouldy and I know the mould will stain, probably already has. I know its my turn to clean the bathroom. But - gee I think I'll have a little lie down. Again.

Michael enquires

Yesterday Michael (now about 20 months old) rode his quadcycle up and down the hall, into the kitchen, then suddenly stopped and got off. He walked into the loungeroom doorway, and said to Elf "Could we just... could we...just..." We were both completely flabbergasted. Its possibly a direct quote from Marcus, or one of us. Michael looked puzzled himself. Then he saw a toy truck he wanted to scamp around with and the moment was over.

Glasses

Marcus is going to need glasses. At least for a while. I feel quite sad about it. I hate to think of any part of our perfect little sausage being defective. I was told when I was about 9 that I would need glasses and I was very unhappy (I still wear them today). Hopefully we have caught his sight problem in time to correct it before it sets in permanently. In tests his right eye is quite weak, his left is perfect. Its amazing his reading and drawing and everything are so good when his vision is not.

He and I look very much alike. Now its going to look like we're taking it just a bit too far.

Monkey names

I have never been a big fan of the Spot books, but now I am. Spot (who is a puppy) has a friend at school called Steve, who is a monkey. That is the best name for a monkey. Steve and Spot do paintings of each other. Spot's painting of Steve looks just like Lou Reed. So Spot is on high rotation at bedtime.

The rear stairs

At Hobart airport, you walk out of the terminal across the concrete and climb up some stairs to get on your plane, just like the Beatles did in 1963 (not in Hobart, but you know what I mean). To get anywhere, in time to do anything, you have to leave Hobart on the 6.20 when it's still dark. Twice lately I have been told to "enter by the rear stairs" as I file out into the darkness.

First, your plane is not the one right in front of you, you have to follow a straggly line of other "guests" across the dimly lit concrete to the furthest plane. Then, there are no rear stairs. No problem for your wide-awake Red Bull-drinking young people I suppose. But maybe you are tired. Maybe you are from Oatlands and had to get up at 3.30 to actually get to the flight on time. Maybe you are old. Or maybe you just have an unshakeable belief in the truth as received from flight attendants. You might be wandering about the arse end of a 707 in the dark for some time before Janelle, Skye or Bindi notices you are missing.

How to annoy DJs

Here is a handy tip for flummoxing rappers, DJs, base-jumpers and the like. If they call themselves DJ EZ, or CrayZBoy, or Mister LayZ - insist on pronouncing it Zed. They hate it.

Sick

We've all been sick. I was at another interstate meeting yesterday (lah-de-dah) and I had to excuse myself to go and throw up.

But on a brighter note - I'm really pleased to see Peters Original Ice Cream is now "New and Improved!" as well. That Original ice cream just keeps getting better and better.