Charlie don’t surf …

As you may recall - I recently started going to the gym again. It’s going well too - I have managed to stick to my three sessions of spin cycling a week, without copping out. However I have a question for any blokes that might be reading this, that regularly ride a bike. How the fuck do you stop your bollocks getting banged around like a couple of plums in a blender? Is there some equipment, like a cricketer’s box, that I can stick down my shorts to protect my family jewels? Because at the moment, when it’s time to do a downhill sprint, my balls are getting flipped from left to right like the numbers in a bingo-callers drum.

By the time the 50 minute class is over, I’m walking like John Wayne and experiencing a singularly unpleasant throbbing sensation in the old ball bag that takes a bit of the shine off what is otherwise a great fitness class. Also Catherine doesn’t take too kindly to my requests for a bit of therapeutic massage in said region.

Garden of Earthly Delights …
Well, the magnificent Ron has finished giving our back garden its one-day makeover - and a bloody good job he’s done too. The Lancaster bomber didn’t turn up, but he did discover 7 tennis balls, the dog’s chewing rope, an irrigation system we never even knew we had and enough ‘fishbone’ fern to fill an entire trailer. He also found time to cut the hedges which is great because that’s a job I enjoy marginally less than filling out my tax forms. Looking at the garden now, it just doesn’t feel like ours anymore. When I look out the window I expect to see Borneo and I instead there’s Kew (ermm, sort of).

It’s the weekend and Catherine is ‘on’ one. She’s decrying the state of the house, the mess, the dirty carpets and the dust and as always I’m the punching bag that stands between her and nuclear fission. Admittedly the house is in a bit of a state, but it’s hardly in ‘How clean is my house’ territory. I don’t feel that we’re in danger of Aggy and the other one marching up the garden path in their starched white overalls, bog brush in hand, ready to check the downstairs bog for u-bend skids. But when my lovely wife is one of these particular moods, you’d have more luck arguing the toss with a strung-out crystal-meth hungry crack head.

I’m talking to her over the stairs when she finds she can’t remove the carpet attachment from the vacuum cleaner’s nozzle. In order to prevent a complete meltdown I step in and offer to remove said attachment. It’s well and truly wedged on there and it takes a lot of grunting to get it shifting. Unfortunately, at the moment when the attachment was freed of its superglue-like bonds, my head was in the way. Consequently, I twat myself in the face (the nose to be precise) with the heavy carpet attachment.

Catherine laughs. I can hear her laughing, but I’m concentrating on the searing pain in my face and the blood that’s running down my hands. She stops laughing and asks me to let her see. After the traditional man-thing when you decline such offers a few times, I open my hands. She tries not to laugh again. “I’ve broken it again,” I say to her. “How do you know?” she asks. “Because I’ve busted it five times before and I know how it feels. Look …” I say and I wiggle it the way noses aren’t supposed to be wiggled.

Still - on the bright side - Catherine’s mood lightened considerably.

Birthday boy …
The Joshster’s 7th birthday is this weekend and Catherine has been going all out on preparations for his party. An obscene number of pizza bases have been purchased ready for the homemade pizzas we’ll feed the little darlings on and the goodie bags full of cheap Chinese shit have, in time honoured Aussie fashion, been prepared. The forecast for the weekend is looking okay too - bit of wind, but no rain forecast - that bodes well for keeping ‘em occupied in the garden.

Garden of Weeden …
We haven’t got any overly complicated back garden. It has a bit of lawn, a couple of hedges, one large flowerbed and a pool. However neither Catherine nor I have even the slightest interest in gardening and so it tends to get a bit, ermm, unkempt. So we employed the services of a customer of mine - Ron - who will attempt to bring some order to the chaos. I’m willing to bet he discovers a lost Inca temple in that flowerbed or at the very least, the rusting remains of a Lancaster bomber.

So I’m sat there - minding my own business, checking my email, when this loud howl comes from downstairs, “Oh my god!” It says. Repeatedly. I run downstairs expecting to find the aftermath of a murder. Or at least a serious assault. Instead there’s my wife, staring at the shelves of our walk in ‘robe. “What’s up?” I cry, breathless from sprinting down the stairs to the aid of my obviously distressed wife. “Would. You. Look. At. The. State …. of these t-shirts.” “What?” I say. “What have you done? It looks like a wild animal ran amok in here.”

I stare at her in disbelief. “That’s it? That’s what the cry of pain was about?” She looks at me. “Well look at it,” she says. “You messed up my lovely bedroom.” I catch my breath. “I thought,” I say, “that some foul crime had been committed. That maybe last night I got really drunk and daubed shit all over the walls and then forgot about it. But no. I displaced a couple of t-shirts.” I fix her with my one good eye, “You are, I say, a complete fucking nutter.”

Swimming with the fishies…
Catherine and Josh went to Kiama at the weekend on a little expedition and returned with a couple of freshwater snails for our fishtank. The idea being that the snails do laps around the tank and eat the crud (fish shit?) that accumulates on the sides. On their return they did a ceremonial plopping-in of the snails. Only their excitement was cut short when one of the goldfish swam up to one of the snails, clamped on to it - and bits its head off. The second snail made it to the bottom of the tank intact, but no doubt looking over its shell.

So when I took Josh to his breakdancing class tonight, Catherine asked me to pick up a couple more snails. I dropped into a newly opened fish shop and purchased four more snails. Only mine cost $2.75 each and Catherine’s were $0.25c. Either these are superior snails, or the bloke in the fish shop stitched me up. So anyway - we get back from breakdancing and there’s another ceremonial plopping-in. Josh goes to check on them an hour later - and we discover the four new snails lunching on the survivor from yesterday! What the hell is up with these bloody things - do they not realise that we’ll feed them and they don’t have to go lunching on their tank-mates?

Acreage …
Got a call from a new customer when I was the gym with Josh. Lady had a couple of badly virus infested PCs that needed looking after. So I arranged to go and pick them up after Josh’s class had finished. Only when I looked for the address in TomTom it didn’t show up and it took a call to Catherine and access to Google Maps to discover that the TomTom placed her house outside Nowra. Anyway.

Her house is right off the beaten track - down a dirt road west of the Shoalhaven River. I pull up outside the main house (there appeared to be three of them) and the customer came out to meet me on her decking. “I bet the noise of the traffic drives you nuts,” I say to her. She laughs. She leads me to a large building with triple garage in it and a games room that, when complete, will be completely superb. But as we’re approaching I notice the view, which had previously been obscured by the house. She has a deck (complete with pool) which looks down towards the Shoalhaven River, the main bridge in the middle foreground and Coolangatta in the distance, with the sea beyond. “And there was me thinking you bought the place for the woodland,” I say to the lady.

They don’t just kill people …
I had a quick job today which required me to remove the hard drive form a knackered old HP PC and stick it in an external drive enclosure. When I popped the lid on the PC I soon discovered why it had croaked - it was choked with stinking fetid cigarette tar, dust and fluff. I haven’t turned into an anti-smoking nazi, but I couldn’t leave the side of the case off, the smell of cigarettes was so strong. The fan on the CPU looked like it had been getting through 40 full strength Marlboro a day for 40 years. What with the highly corrosive sea air round these parts, your average PC really takes a beating round here.

The weather’s definitely on the turn. We’ve had a couple of chilly nights this winter and one day a few weeks ago when the daytime temperature didn’t get above 10c but on the whole it hasn’t been too bad. The bureau of meteorology predicted that this would be a warmer winter than usual and either I’m used to it - or they’re right. Last year I can remember having the reverse cycle or the little portable oil fired heaters on most nights. This year I’d say we’ve only had to resort to their use every other day. Today it’s a very pleasant 18c here, the sun’s shining and the sky is blue.

If you’re a bit of a weather obsessive, like most of us Brits - then here are some good websites to check out. The best weather site of them all, as far as I’m concerned, is Weatherzone. You can enter your post on the site and it’ll give you good local weather information. It’s particularly useful for researching particular parts of Australia since you can see full climate information for specific areas. If you want to plan ahead, then the long range rainfall forecast is very useful - this is the forecast for my area.

The government’s weather service is called the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and they’re the direct equivlanet of the Met Office in the UK. I’m not the biggest fan of their website because it’s incredibly confusing to navigate, but there’s some first rate information on the site. It’s at its most useful when the weather turns nasty here. For instance I have just learnt that, “Waves exceeding 5 metres in the surf zone are possible today and could lead to beach erosion on southwestern facing beaches of the Island during high tide this evening.” So I reckon I might head down to Gerroa to take some photos later. The government’s TV station is, of course, the ABC - they have a good round-up of the weather along with the latest news forecast in video format.

One of my favourite weather sites in the UK was Metcheck. They have started expanding worldwide and have started an Australia based site. One of the best features on their site is the 300 day forecast which enables you to peer into the future and see what the weather will be like this coming summer in Australia. If you’re interested in the weather because you’re a surfer, then the site you need is Coastalwatch - they carry all the swell informatin you’ll need, wind strength, projected wave height etc. They also have some great surfcams so you can see for yourself what it’s like.

The British are coming …
And in other news, we continue to make preparations for the arrival of Catherine’s parents in September, and her big sister in October. The big argument at the moment is where they’re going to sleep. The problem is that we’ve turned the two spare bedrooms in the house into our own offices. Catherine runs her web design business out of one - and I run my little computer repair business out of the other. So we either have to temporarily convert one of those back into a bedroom, or give the outlaws our bedroom and sleep on the sofa-bed ourselves. Catherine’s in favour of giving them our bedroom because she has less stuff in her office (making it the front runner for bedroom conversion) but I don’t want to, because I know I’ll need a bolt-hole while they’re here.

Flab fighting …
It’s now a few months since I quit smoking and that, along with the fact that the surf lifesaving season is rapidly approaching, has spurred me on to get in better shape. About 20 months ago, Catherine joined a gym down the road from here and, in classic style, went about twice. Only problem being she signed up for a three year (!!!) contract. As with most gyms, the small print is draconian so there’s no getting out of it. So I approached the gym to see if I could get it transfered into my name. And they agreed.

So last Thursday I went along to a spin class - my first proper exercise in some time. It didn’t go too badly all things considered, so I put my name down for the following Monday too. I’m just back from that class and, perhaps because it’s run by the guy who actually owns the gym, it was a lot harder than Thursdays. Still enjoyable mind you - my only chance of gut-busting lies in organised classes like this, since I have no desire whatsoever to plod along on my own jogging. Hopefully I can stick with it.

And finally …
Love this cartoon …

Saw this news story on the BBC and chuckled quietly to myself. The August bank holiday in the UK is, let’s face it, a totally unique celebration of utter despair. If the baggage handlers at the airport hadn’t chosen that weekend to go on strike then you can guarantee that the air traffic controllers would have, or the French fishermen would have blockaded Calais harbour, or the national union of cone installers would have fenced off the M25 with a million witches hats. So to anyone in the UK about to go into battle on the long weekend - chin up - and don’t let the bastards grind you down.

More on the olympics …
So the whole olympics thing rumbles on, but today in a moment of inspiration I suddenly realised that there was one person who could settle this once and for all. My mum. My mother sits on the couch and watches telly all day - in latter years she has turned into a real sofa sports enthusiast and watches all the big sporting events from tennis through to Forumla 1. So I told her about the threads on British Expats about the supposedly biased media in this country and asked her to give me her honest opinion on it. Having spent 10 minutes slagging off the coverage of the Athens olympics which was just dreadful in every regard apparently - she said that 7’s coverage was very fair indeed. She reckoned that whilst they did, of course, concentrate on the homegrown talent there were plenty of events shown that didn’t feature any Australians at all. She also said the commentators were often full of praise for the British athletes. So, as I suspected, the ‘bias’ people see on TV is little more than a reflection of their own attitudes to Australia.

So, the Olympics is in full swing and … I honestly couldn’t give a shit. In fact I couldn’t give much of a shit about any kind of sport these days - AFL, NFL or ARU, the socceroos, the hockeyroos or the scoobyroos - it’s all tedious bollocks that interests me about as much as variations in the base rate of pre-adjusted inflation. The Olympics, it seems to me, is nothing more than a parade of idiots that celebrates a series of utterly meaningless records. One man can run faster than another man - well fuck me backwards - well done mate.

Honestly, these athletes spend the 10 most important years of their lives, when they should be out drinking and fucking, in a gym or a pool or running round a track in circles. Then they make it the world championships, or the Olympics and they win a medal (or not, if they’re British) and then they retire and either join the BBC to ‘commentate’ on other otherwise talentless twats’ running-faster-than-someone-else - or move into something equally moronic like ‘motivational speaking’. It wasn’t so bad in the UK where they forget the vast majority of sports people as soon as they’re out of the spotlight, but over here these muppets manage to trade on their pointless sporting efforts long after they retire their Speedos. I wouldn’t care, but most of ‘em seem to be steroid gobbling junkies anyway - who gets the gold, the best athlete or the athlete with the best dealer?

And another thing. Why are they all such ugly bastards? Do they try and run faster than each other in an attempt to deflect attention from their distressed pitiful looking faces? Is there honestly anything as repugnant as a top-class professional lady swimmer? The only way you can actually tell they’re female is by checking the groin region for evidence of camel toe.

Bias …
But the expat forums have been abuzz, not with threads about how utterly, utterly pointless the Olympics are - but how supposedly biased the Australian press is. Over on British Expats there are several threads complaining that the official Olympic channel here (channel 7) concentrates almost exclusively on Australian athletes to the exclusion of all others. It’s the same thing that many of them were complaining about during the Sydney games and then in Athens. So, despite the fact that I’d rather carry out root canal surgery on myself with a rusty chainsaw - I sat and watched some of the coverage on the afore-mentioned Channel 7.

I can’t say I found anything there to change my opinion of the utter futility of these games, but I also didn’t walk away thinking how biased they were. Maybe it’s because I recognise the fact that I’m living in Australia and that therefore the TV coverage, beamed as it is into the homes of Australians, is likely to concentrate on Australian athletes. I don’t find it unreasonable to expect the TV company to feature the homegrown talent that might be of interest to the audience in question. It didn’t focus purely on Australians, any more than anything I’ve watched over the years on British TV focused on British athletes. And yet shit-loads of disaffected poms on the forum seemed to expect equal telly time to be given over to Britain’s athletes. Are there Australians in a bar in Earls Court, London, shaking their heads at the plasma TV about all the coverage the BBC are giving over to British athletes? Somehow I doubt it.

BSOD …
On the subject of the olympics … the following image is rather amusing. The Chinese authorities chose to use Windows XP as its operating system of choice at the Olympics, indeed Bill Gates has been spotted at certain events in Beijing. Wonder what he makes of this:

Annual sports day at Josh’s school has come and gone. They hold the event at the large showground in the centre of Berry, which is a great venue because we parents can drive our cars up to the fence around the perimeter and watch proceedings from there if the weather’s shit. And since sports day takes pretty much all day most parents take a packed lunch which is eaten on the tailgate with the kids. It’s all very civilised. They even lay on a mobile coffee van to serve up decent lattes for the mums and dads.

Seems to me that you get two kinds of personality coming through from the children at events like sports days. The first kind of kid is switched on and motivated - they want to win and are very focused on that goal. Then you get the day dreamers - who stare off into the distance at interesting things, muck around during the races and generally try not to give two hoots whether their team wins or loses a particular event. Josh is most definitely in the latter category. Not saying that’s a bad thing - just making the observation.

Anyway - we did a split shift on sports day. I did the first couple of hours and then Catherine came down for lunch and took over. I got to enjoy the splendour of the welly throwing competition and various pass-the-ball-down-the-line games - and she got to see the various running races.

My design team …
So I’ve parted company with my old franchise - and this has not escaped the attention of Josh. He asked me, in a very serious fashion, if he could design a new logo for me - on account of the fact that I had a new company name. I told him he certainly could - though I couldn’t guarantee that I’d use it. After tea tonight he asked if he could speak to me in private. Catherine raised her eyebrows and asked if she could be let in on the topic of conversation. “The logo,” said Josh. “We need to decide whether it will have a purple box with a white cutout and the words - or a larger more colourful box with small text.”

Inner City Whales …
Australia has, for obvious reasons, got very different geology to the UK. In the UK, the land slopes gently downwards from the coast and it’s not until you’re some way into the Atlantic that you get into the deep water. Australia, however, is an island in the true sense of the word. Get in a boat and head only a few miles out to sea and you’re in deep water (so to speak). It’s for this reason that whale-watching’s so good here, because the migrating Wright, Humpback and Southern Whales can pass right by the coast and still be in the deep water they prefer.

Bondi Whale Watching

Beach Boys …
Seems some things never change. I remember going swimming on the beach in Cornwall as a kid - and having my relaxing float on a lilo somewhat ruined by the vision of a well formed human turd floating past my gently sculling hand. I remember being pleased that they sorted the problem out at beachs like Fistral, by installing sewage outflows that moved our jobbies off the shoreline and into the deep-sea - although let’s face it - that’s not exactly a solution is it? Anyway - it would seem that the problem never really went away and that raw effluent is being pumped onto beaches and rivers through overflow pipes.

This continues to bug me - the whole ‘choice’ thing in relation to supermarkets and shops in general. It comes up time and again on the expat forums - people banging on about how much more choice there is in Tescos rather than the Australian equivalent - Coles. And I just don’t get it. On any level.

Leaving aside the larger supermarkets down the Bolong road in Nowra, my nearest decent mini-mart is the IGA in Berry. Now, I haven’t actually stood there and counted all the different varieties of bread they have on offer, but there’s many metres of them in a wide variety of formats designed to cater to all tastes. There’s faddish granary loaves in retro brown paper, there’s raisin toast, crumpet toast (surely the food of the gods), white loaves, wholemeal, low glutin, organic rye, pumpkin seed, caraway, Lebanese and Turkish. There’s Country Life, Helgas, Mighty Soft, Noble Rise, Sunblest and Wonderwhite. And that’s just the loaves - I haven’t even mentioned the pita bread, tortillas, baps, rolls, bagels, crumpets and muffins they also stock. And let me reiterate that this is in a small town mini-mart - not one of the large supermarkets.

So I ask you - how many loaves does one person need? If there was any more choice on the shelves of supermarkets round here - my fucking head would explode. All you choice whingers - please enlighten me - how many different kinds of loaf does it take to make you happy? 50? 100? 1000? And more to the point - do you honestly believe that there’s *that* much more choice in a British supermarket than one here in Oz? I only left the place two years ago - Alzheimers hasn’t set in yet - and I can pretty clearly remember what the bakery section looked like in my local Tescos Express - it was considerably less well equipped than the afore-mentioned IGA. And in the equivalent supermarket, about the only difference I can see between Sainsburys and Woolworths, is that Sainsburys display their myriad rolls and loaves in trendy plastic display units, while Woolworths opt for the more traditional shelf and rack.

What do you feel you’re missing out on? Is your life measured by your ability to stroke your chin in a meaningful looking fashion whilst deliberating over three different kinds of unlevened Portugese naan bread? I mean I used to enjoy the food wankery in Waitrose just as much as the next man, but is my life somehow diminshed, or restricted because I can’t buy some Baers Camembert with Truffle Butter or a Chermoula chicken & Israeli Couscous ready meal? Ermm, no. And if your life is … then you made a *really* bad choice in emigrating. In fact you shouldn’t have left the county, let alone the hemisphere.

View to a bill …
Why do they all come at once? Hmmm? We’re both saddled with tax bills at the moment, so how delightful it was to receive our quarterly water bill, closely followed by the rates and then the electricity. Oh - and my car’s rego’s up for renewal too. Super. In a fit of desperation I started putting all my receipts and invoices into a spreadsheet in the hope that my GST output is greater than my GST input and that I’m thus due for some money back from the taxman. We shall see.

The water bill was a particular shock. Normally, it’s about $50, but this quarter it had risen to the majestic heights of $205. Clearly something was up so I phoned the bill enquiries number on the back of the statement. I wasn’t the first to call about this because the very helpful man asked me if I’d phoned up to find out why my bill was so high. He explained that the NSW state government had decreed that all water utilities should appear on the one bill, rather than the general rates charge. Thus the sewerage, which normally goes on the rates bill, got lumped onto our water bill. That sewerage, it would seem, costs us $500 a year and the first quarter’s payment for that was just charged. So we aren’t paying more - it’s just on a different bill. The fact that our rates has dropped (nominally) from $1732 to $1140 isn’t much of a consolation.

‘Giz a job …
In other news, I’ve been approached afresh by the guy that owns the franchise that I’m in the process of extracting myself from. He is pressing ahead with new computer shops around here, based on the undoubted success of his first one. And with quality technicians thin on the ground - he’s been forced to ask me to subcontract for him. I am - it must be said - very tempted. This would be guaranteed income at a time when we desperately need it. I’d be able to make sure that the mortgage got paid leaving Catherine to work on the afore-mentioned bills. Money has not been discussed yet, so it may yet come to nought, but I’m an optimistic soul and will continue to look on the bright side. I hear tommorow what they’re offering.

This is the life …
Josh has taken rather a shine to that Amy McDonald song, ‘This is the Life’. It is, I must agree, an incredibly catchy tune but I suspect it will start to grate after a while in much the same that Daniel Powter’s ‘Bad Day’ does. It’s sad that songs get over-played and over-exposed like that - it kind of robs them of all meaning or enjoyment. In fact there’s nothing better than chancing on an old compilation CD (or tape if you’re a true retro nutter) which has one of ‘those’ songs on it that you rediscover.

Well, it’s mid-mid-mid-winter here right now and if you’re a surfer that means one thing - big fucking waves. We have some superb surfing beaches round here that can produce stunning waves with the right swell. Coastalwatch had some amazing pictures up on their site of a swell hitting the coast about 10km from my backdoor.

If you’re ever in this area there are a number of great beaches - ready to cater to your needs, however good or bad you are at surfing. If you’re new to the sport, then my own beach Seven Mile is the place to come. Head down to the northern end at Gerroa and you’ll find a nice sheltered beach break onto sand - two surf schools operate here year-round which is some indication of its use as a learning beach.

If you know how to surf then the breaks to try are Mystics at Minnimura, Bombo in Kiami and The Farm at Shellharbour. On a big day, the southern end of Werri gets some very large waves (10ft and more) - you can see some photos of that break in my image gallery.

Anyway - there’s a big swell due to hit here on Tuesday - so be sure to tune into the webcam on that day and see if any of the locals have paddled out to catch a few.

Some people - some luck …

I have a customer who lives in one of the small towns on the escarpment. I was called out to her house originally to fix her PC, but it became obvious pretty quickly that it was on the way out and it would be cheaper to buy new than fix the old one. She said she didn’t have enough cash that month, so I left her a quote and told her to get in touch with me if she wanted to buy one. Didn’t expect to hear from here, but last week she phoned up and said could she buy the PC.

So I got on the phone to my usual supplier in Sydney and ordered the bits. Normally the PC’s with me the next day - but three days later I was still waiting. I called them up and it turned out the PC was sat there waiting for a DVD drive - as they’d run out of the brand they normally put in them and only had LG drives. I told them that nobody cared what brand their DVD drive was and to just send me the bloody computer. Another three days later, the PC is delivered by their courier company (Hunter - avoid ‘em). I was out at the time and Catherine took delivery of it.

I got back from my onsite job and was relieved to see that my customer’s PC had finally arrived. I took it to my office to install the operating system on. However as soon as I took it out of the box it was apparent that the courier had been playing football with the box - the case was totally mangled - broken in many places. So I called the supplier - told ‘em what had happened - they said I was to send it back and they’d refund me. Great - only now I didn’t have a PC for my patient customer. So I went to my local supplier and bought one of his off-the-shelf systems, which was actually cheaper and superior to the Sydney one (never using *them* again). I took it home and, in the space of about two hours, installed the operating system and software and then drove out to my customer’s house and installed it. She was very happy.

Next day I get a call saying the PC’s been blue-screening since they turned it on that morning. So I go over and pick it up and it becomes apparent that the machine’s been mangled by poor power outlets in the house. When I tell my customer this, she explains that she’s lost three televisions and a previous PC to the flakey electricity supply. I tell her that depending on what I find she may be looking at a whole new system. So I stripped it down and checked each bit - turned out only the stick of RAM had been damaged, which is a cheap and simple fix. I’ve told the customer that I won’t honour the warranty on it, if she plugs it straight into the wall and that she’s to buy a UPS, or look at more costly repair bills. She’s said she’ll buy one tommorow.

Away day …

I had way too much on today, with three problematic PCs to fix, but Catherine, Josh and my parents went to the railway museum in Picton. Catherine had wanted to do a longer trip in the car because since she passed her test she’s just driven around the local streets. So they set off at the crack of dawn to drive up over the escarpment and on to Picton. She took the Kluger rather than her little Astina and was guided to her destination by the TomTom and her two backseat drivers. Grand time was had by all and they stopped off at my sister’s place in the Southern Highlands on the way home.

Back to school …

Today is the last day of the winter holidays. Tommorow the Joshster returns to school and we can get back into the daily routine of things. It’s been very nice having him around. He particularly enjoyed coming out with me to visit some of my customers - all of whom took a shine to him and showed off their houses, gardens and pets when he asked. One morning I shared my morning routine with him and I bought him a hot chocolate as I bought my latte - he was pleased as punch walking along the street holding his cup with its fancy lid you can drink through. He’s growing up fast that boy …

Alright - offiicially freezing me knackers off today. It is currently 10°c which (according to Weatherzone) means with the windchill it’s 7.8°c. And all we have between us and outside are metal framed windows with gaps in them, a single pane of glass and (in the bathroom) metal mesh! It might help keep the house cool for the majority of the year, but if my bollocks recede any further inside my body, I’ll be using them as ear protectors.

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Ouch …

I was lying in bed yesterday morning, when Catherine woke me from my slumbers. I looked at the clock, saw the time was 7:30am and was just about to leap out of bed to get Josh ready for school, when I remembered he was still on his holidays. I asked her what the matter was - and she told me that she’d just come ‘to’ - on the toilet floor. Turned out that, taken with rather diabolical stomach cramps after a chinese takeaway that evening, she’d got up in the night. She reckoned she’d been sat there for some time, getting rid of said chinese takeway in time-honoured fashion, when she’d blacked out. She woke up several hours later with teeth marks in her tongue, a lump the size of an emu egg on her forehead and a nasty cut on her foot where she’d wedged it under the screen door. She seems fine now and is rapidly growing tired of jokes about dropping of the kahzi. I did point out to her that if her injuries had proved fatal, she would have had something in common with Elvis - above beyond a spectacular pair of tits.

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Misunderstood …

Absolutely love this YouTube video:

Coastalwatch …

Those lovely people at Coastalwatch have just upgraded the webcam here in Shoalhaven Heads. Indeed the camera in question is now positioned on top of the surf club I’m a member of. It gives a much better view of the beach and everything that’s going on (or not) on it. It also pans up and down the beach. When it’s pointing to the left then it’s facing north towards Gerroa - when it’s pointing to the right then it’s facing south towards Crookhaven Heads and when it’s facing straight ahead - that’s *my* beach. Here’s what’s going on there now …