Interstate Encounter

Due to exams and assignments being in the way at the time of our anniversary, we decided to celebrate 24 years of wedded bliss a couple of months early, OK maybe not quite a case of continual bliss, but not far from it, with a trip to Canberra to see the landscape exhibition at the National Art Gallery called Turner to Monet. Turner has always been a favourite of Laurence’s and a nice hotel obliged by having a package which suited us.

We had a great time and many pictures were taken, although not inside the gallery as that is verbotten. Following, or before, are some choice pictures. My favourite at the exhibition was Monet’s Waterlillies, which I found out belongs to us and you can actually go down there anytime to see it.

Stone the Crows

Stone the Crows!

Its fair dinkum, mate! You wouldn’t believe, but Laurence has just eaten a good half bowl of penne pasta with pesto sauce! You wouldn’t credit it, but there you go. Its 2127 hours on Monday 28 January 2008 just 2 days after Australia Day, the holiday Monday in lieu of Australia Day to be correct, which may explain my overindulgence in Australian idioms.

Although this just might also be my last fling before I head into another year of French studies, when everyone will soon get bored to tears with my attempts at french.

Bathers Shopping Hell

This is not written by me, but I totally identify with the sentiments here presented.

Shopping for Bathers

This is a true story written by a woman in England to her friend after a swimsuit shopping expedition. “I have just been through the annual pilgrimage of torture and humiliation known as buying a bathing suit.”

When I was a child in the 1950’s, the bathing suit for a woman with a mature figure was designed for a woman with a mature figure boned, trussed and reinforced, not so much sewn as engineered. They were built to hold back and uplift and they did a good job.

Today’s stretch fabrics are designed for the pre-pubescent girl with a figure carved from a potato chip. The mature woman has a choice she can either front up at the maternity department and try on a floral suit with a skirt, coming away looking like a hippopotamus who escaped from Disney’s Fantasia – or she can wander around every run-of-the-mill department store trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to a designer range of fluorescent rubber bands.

What choice did I have? I wandered around, made my sensible choice, and entered the chamber of horrors known as the fitting room. The first thing I noticed was the extraordinary tensile strength of the stretch material. The Lycra used in bathing costumes was developed, I believe, by NASA to launch small rockets from a slingshot, which give the added bonus that if you manage to actually lever yourself into one, you are protected from shark attacks. The reason for this is that any shark taking a swipe at your passing midriff would immediately suffer whiplash.

I fought my way into the bathing suit, but as I twanged the shoulder strap in place, I gasped in horror – my bosom had disappeared! Eventually, I found one bosom cowering under my left armpit. It took a while to find the other. At last, I located it flattened beneath my seventh rib. The problem is that modern bathing suits have no bra cups. The mature woman is meant to wear her bosom spread across her chest like a speed hump. I realigned my speed hump and lurched toward the mirror to take a full view assessment. The bathing suit fitted all right, but unfortunately, it only fitted those bits of me willing to stay inside it. The rest of me oozed out rebelliously from top, bottom, and sides. I looked like a lump of play dough wearing undersized cling wrap.

As I tried to work out where all those extra bits had come from, the pre-pubescent sales girl popped her head through the curtains, “Oh There you are!” she said, admiring the bathing suit… I replied that I wasn’t so sure and asked what else she had to show me. I tried on a cream crinkled one that made me look like a lump of masking tape, and a floral two-piece, which gave the appearance of an oversized napkin in a serviette ring.


I struggled into a pair of leopard skin bathers with ragged frills and came out looking like Jane pregnant with triplets and having a rough day. I tried on a black number with a midriff and looked like a jellyfish in mourning. I tried on a bright pink pair with such a high cut leg I thought I would have to wax my eyebrows to wear them.

Finally, I found a suit that fitted… a two-piece affair with shorts style bottom and a loose blouse-type top. It was cheap, comfortable, and bulge-friendly, so I bought it. My ridiculous search had a successful outcome. When I got home, I found a label that said, “Material will become transparent in water.”

Christmas

Christmas

Eat, drink and be merry, so ye olde saying goeth. Eating and drinking does not necessarily guarantee merriment is on the way. Au contraire, over indulgence this week has proven otherwise.

However, eat drink and be with family, whether in person or via technology, certainly does guarantee a substantial degree of merriment. Its been a good Christmas.

Thank you everyone for the great gifts. I have never drunk so much tea (Dan and Lianne) and I’m getting used to wearing my bedclothes all day (Chelsea and Brenton) and how can I not show my appreciation for those wonderful helicoptors (Ben and Eve) which amused Brenton, Daniel, Lianne and Chelsea so well. I did get the feeling that the boys believed the girls’ helicopters were back-ups for when their’s were damaged.

Still I am wondering what Christmas would be like without gifts. Just the gathering together, food, drink, jokes, companionship, shopping at the after sales, decorations, carols, ritual, both church and familial.

Of course, children have to be indulged, but the adults, well... I would just like to try it once, although I don’t believe anyone is game. Any feedback on this is most welcome. Really I mean it, go ahead and say what you think of that idea or where I should shove it!

Speaking of gifts, I found a chocolate in my stocking which, on the packaging, says. “Deep inside me lives a skinny woman, screaming to get out, but I can usually shut the bitch up with some chocolate”. Thank you Dan and Lianne!

And most precious is a calendar simply called “Timothy”. So, I’m guessing gifts aren’t so bad, still we can indulge each other at birthdays, celebrations for accomplishments and so forth, and sometimes just because we want to.

Worth a try.

The Silly Season

Well that confirms it, the silly season must be upon us again. “And what’s wrong with that?” you may say. And you’d be absolutely correct. Nothing wrong with that and so if you can’t beat them, join them I say. And that is precisely what happened last weekend.

You see, last weekend was the occasion of a visit from some of our trusty offspring and mates, come to help with the Christmas decorations, listen to Christmas music and generally eat, drink and be merry. Usually, we also have egg nog, the making of which is Eve’s job. As she is slacking off and having a good time in England and Europe, I decided I might as well have a go at it.

I would have seen the signs of impending doom had I noticed that the recipe from the internet didn’t even have the main ingredient in it. No, not eggs, brandy! That was the first omen.

Second, was the fact that I intended to use an electric stove, big mistake. The bottom line is, that even though at the exact moment it started to curdle, I, as quick as a flash, got out the trusty electric mixer and tried to beat the curdled concoction into a smooth mixture, reminiscent of Eve’s. Unfortunately that didn’t work.

The glasses remained ominously full for ages and I couldn’t blame anyone. Some gallant ones actually finished theirs but no-one asked for seconds. I could say, “better luck next time”, but I fear there may not be one. My Scottish heritage baulks at wasting six eggs at a time.

PS Eve has sent me step-by-step instructions for egg nog and another batch may be attempted. Check in for regular updates.

From hopelessly incompetent season back to silly season. The saga of the Australian Gingerbread House, complete with roof, windows, doors, fence, mailbox, plants, snowmen and a santa stuck in the chimney. (see pics) Not to mention the verandah, the roof of which took some fancy engineering with advice from construction guru, Brenton.

You must understand that there were stages 1 - 5 to this build. The first being THE PLAN, through to stage 5 which was the taking of its position of prominence on the bureau. (After the evicting of some of the crystal.)

Have a fun Christmas everyone!

Sunday Musings

I’m feeling sorry for myself at the moment as I have developed a cold, again, and I cannot take the ‘old favourite’ drugs of choice that used to be available to me and enabled me to enter the sublime, drug-induced otherworld of a dry nose, comatose head and numbed throat, a place where there is no coughing!!!! I miss it so much. So I sit here feeling sorry for myself and sipping my vitamin C drink.

Here’s an idea! Perhaps I could take my feelings out on someone else. Laurence is sitting next to me... but maybe not. Looking out our study window, I see two darling, young, black birds poking around the lawn having an evening meal. I am also listening to some rather good Latin/American-type music with a newly washed, brushed and fluffy Missi-moo on my lap. I had a great time singing in church this morning and I have spent the day relaxing, in and out of the beautiful sunshine we had today, etc, etc. The prospect of a glass of champagne and a hot bath with Laurence on the agenda for tonight... Maybe I should stop complaining.

Great news for those interested. Lyn Flewelling is at the editing stage of a 4th Nightrunner book and Diana Gabaldon is writing her 7th Outlander book and both have promised there will be more to come. Both series of books are centred around truly passionate lovers, in Lyn’s case they are male but in Diana’s they are most assuredly male and female. Both love stories are decidedly wonderful and I look forward to the new novels.

Christmas is nearly upon us and our pantry has a new section marked ‘Christmas stock’. This is a most exciting improvement over our Christmases past of last minute panicking, long queues and parking problems, and will take the pressure off the days coming up to Christmas.

A few pics above or below as the case may be, I have no control over this (well I’m sure I have if I knew how the hell to do it), are from our visit to an open, historic garden during Bathurst’s Garden Festival. The property is called Blair Athol and their were 4 Mercedes cars in the garages. The garden was gorgeous and a good 5 minutes from our house. I love Bathurst!

Visit to Sydney

During the school holidays, we had a wonderful time in Sydney, due mostly to the efforts of Chelsea, Daniel and Leanne. Thanks guys, we had a great time.

Somewhere here there is photo of Laurence and I, taken by Chelsea, whilst enjoying an afternoon in her company at beautiful Manly. (Gotta love it!) We had a great time walking, eating and drinking and taking in the beauty that is the wharf side of Manly. The weather was amazingly generous, considering it was the school holidays.

Also included are photos of Daniel and Leanne taken from “THE BOAT’ which now abides in his newly cleared out garage and enabled us to have a great day on the Hawkesbury.

There is an excellent photo of Laurence doing what he likes to do. I was going to say, ‘what he likes to do best’ - but that’s not it!!!

The weather was great, company excellent, food and wine superb, and apart from the nervousness because neither alpha males had their boat licenses, we had a great day. The Maritime Services Board chose that particular day to have a marketing campaign and had a fully-outfitted tent at Apple Tree Bay complete with uniformed officers with clipboards in hand, walking around interviewing all boaters and because of the amount of traffic (due to an abnormally lengthy period of really bad boating weather, which meant every Tom, Dick and Harry was out for the day) they saw everybody.

Everything turned out alright as our guys answered all the questions with great alacrity and composure, not rousing any suspicion in the enthusiastic officers. Get your licenses please!!!

And our guys did us proud, first of all Laurence’s truly masterful reversing of the trailer down the ramp and Daniel’s rather cool driving the boat perfectly onto the waiting trailer. Leanne and I did a special cheerleader-type victory dance on shore. We couldn’t help ourselves. Lots of the other guys were pathetic at reversing and maneuvering trailers and boats. One such, Mercedes driving, male took at least 13 goes at reversing his trailer down the ramp and he had help. Very unsexy! Our guys shone out in comparison. I know Brenton is also an expert at this. Go team!