Category: General

Worried about letting another Comedy Festival pass me by, I hurriedly shelled out for tickets to see Rich Hall last week. The timing was great – we squeezed in an hour or so at a wonderful Lebanese restaurant (first in Australia est. 1959) in Russell Street, where an ultra laid-back waiter served some of the best hummus (and mezze platter) I’ve had in ages. You always know it’s going to be good when there’s a pool of olive oil laying in the dip. Just like the arabs make it. Anyhow – we sloshed down a bottle of Windy Peak Pinot and trooped off to see the show. It was quite good, and I had a sore head from laughing so much, but I realised pretty early on that the booze had taken a bit of drama out of the occasion. I was probably a touch slower to get the jokes and it made me feel tired and disconnected. I notice it at the football also – it only takes a beer or two and it’s harder to remember the important plays; that delicious nervous tension has been dulled away. I suppose that’s why alcoholics drink. But, there are times when you might want that because people are more relaxed and uninhibited. So, no more booze before shows or movies. I’ll save it for nights like last friday at Yelza in Fitzroy, when someone in our group had a bit of minor skirmish with the waitress over the seating. I had already had a quite a few drinks at the time and didn’t mind her being incredibly rude to our group afterwards. What a great night. Sorry, no photos this post.

Today we went out for breakfast on Sydney Road and came home with a blackwood and (overstuffed) vinyl couch with accompanying chairs. They cost less than half what a leather couch would have cost, and they’re straight out of the 1930’s (with a delightful 1970’s fake leather upholstery job). Kim didn’t care about the chairs, but I LOVE them, as I’ve been looking for something to put on our front porch that would take the occasional shower and not be immediately flogged. The chair arms have nice flat tops that would fit a cup of coffee (sans coaster) on a cool morning, and you could go for a run and afterwards sit on the seat knowing that it’s easy to wipe down afterwards. The whole set is nicely battered and has stacks of character – I imagine that for 30 years, Guiseppe and Gina spent many a night on their back porch in Brunswick – drinking home made red wine and overfeeding grandchildren from them. We gave them a dose of steel wool and oil, and don’t intend changing them one bit – even though friends might raise an eyelid or two. Just need a few cushions and Kim finally has her daytime reading lounge. And I have my street watching, beer drinking, dog nursing throne..a la Frasier’s dad.

Despite being a keen follower of Athletics, I just couldn’t work up the energy for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. It’s not my home town and I feared astronomical ticket prices, plus, where would we stay? So, when Melbourne got the nod for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, I imagined Kim and I catching the tram down to the MCG, sitting in good affordable, close-up seats and watching a hard-fought 10k race being won by Craig Mottram in beautiful autumn evening weather. So, tonight I entered the ballot for tickets. Apparently I’ll know in May whether I’ve been successful, and hopefully on the 18th and 25th of March 2006, we’ll be seeing nights of great track sprint cycling and some some athletic relays. If not, I suppose it’ll have to be Delhi, India for 2010.

We figured out a couple of years ago that Easters are always glorious in Bagshot. We haven’t had a bad one yet, so it seems logical to add an extra 3 days of holidays to Easter and make it into a week in the bush. Per usual, my list of items to be achieved was long and impossible. Replant the garden, do some serious birdwatching, pump water, clear weeds, fix xyz problems with the house and read some books and do a jigsaw puzzle. As Michael Dart might say, I’m happy to say that I did a fair whack of those this time around. Early on, after my a fast 6k run down lonely dirt roads, I developed shin pain that effectively derailed months of careful training. I can’t remember being so angry and frustrated, especially when Kim casually went for a few jogs A COUPLE OF DAYS IN A ROW. Arghh.

This time around, the major job was the bedroom ceiling – a large chunk of plaster was hopelessly bowed and rotted from the leaking hot water service which I fixed last month. The amount of rat shit and mushy insulation bats I ripped out of that ceiling nearly made me sick – and it all came down over my head as I sawed piece after piece out over an afternoon. Pretty soon I realised I had the wrong screws to hold the replacement piece up, so I rally-drove the Subaru at high speeds to Huntly Plaster Supplies 5 minutes before they closed and asked for a bag – to which they replied I could buy a box of 1000. I needed 8. They gave me a dozen for naught (some poor other bugger is only going to get 988 in their box) and I’m giving them high praise right now. Go buy some cornice there! They’re top blokes! When we left this afternoon, the ceiling just needed a couple of coats of paint, and hopefully no-one will see the joins too obviously. Even dad said that ceilings are the hardest.

What else? Well, I started a new jigsaw, we went to the Bendigo Easter festival and saw the parade. We went to the Art Gallery, and ate at Typhoon one night. We had a fantastic antipasto platter for lunch at the Balgownie Estate winery (out near Marong). The dogs were good and did not seek out the supposed sheep and llama’s in the adjoining paddock. We drank a bottle of wine every night and slept in every day. Sauvignon Blanc from Marylborough (NZ) is a yummy passionfruit treat in such summery weather. The garden got horse manured, newspapered and mulched with lucerne bales. The stuck door got planed, I got precious little of my book read due to aforesaid wine issues. The fire got a brief workout one cool morning, which led to an all day fire and a 30 degree evening which we both agreed was “a bit much”. I found a small quandong seedling in amongst the trees. We found mice in the compost bin. And did I say the weather was awesome?

The mess before:

Whoops – better fix it now:

The family out jogging:

I’ve heard that each generation of people seem to prefer a different style to the previous – you only have to watch Absolutely Fabulous to see it in action. But so many of these things are a reaction to what was experienced whilst held hostage by that older generation as a child. Mum made the week’s sandwiches for us kids on a Sunday evening on white bread, which she froze until they were needed. To this day I will not eat white bread, or buy day old bread as a consequence of this. With music, my folks and I were a long way apart, and when I bought that white HR Holden panel van with the mirror on the ceiling in the rear, it was not exactly a family-approved decision.

 A month back when re-levelling the floor at Bagshot, and today as I repaired wall cracks and stared at mouldy cornice from a leaking roof, it hit me that mum and dad were always brick-veneer people. AND I BOUGHT THE WEATHERBOARD. Kim said in frustration the other day – can you imagine what it would be like to not have to fix your house(s) nearly every weekend? My immediate reply was that all houses need regular fixing. But then I thought. If I bought a new townhouse and moved every 10 years, I could do lots of undetermined things in my spare time. And then I relaxed – I would just waste all the extra time surfing the net and watching crap TV. Perhaps it’s better to be too busy than too idle. Oh well – back to my painting tommorrow I suppose.

The vacant bedroom

Temporary cramped digs

 

About 6 weeks ago, Kim contracted a viral thing called Pityriasis Rosea which gave her blotches all over. It came on after a week where she ran for the first time in decades and it got so bad she had to cancel her swimming lessons and resort to wearing long sleeve outfits in the middle of summer. She felt few side effects besides a mild itch but it seemed to grow and spread with each passing week. Suddenly, within the space of a few days everything is fading and on the decline. Hurrah for Kim -she’s had a rough trot and it looks to be finally over. Here’s a shot to document her (former) woe.

Last night, Kim said bugger it – we’re not going swing dancing anymore. The way she really said it was “We don’t have to go dancing anymore if you really don’t want to”. Which is her way of saying she’s over it. For the past 3 weeks we’d been down to the unlikely venue of the Croxton Park Hotel, where (after ducking through a busy pokies gaming room) we’d enter a door and be in a large dancefloor area being hosted by a perky couple in their mid twenties. For 12 dollars each, we’d get a nametag sticker and join another dozen or so people of various ages to learn the trickiest steps you could imagine. The basic steps were fairly easy, but then they introduced lots of extras with the upper half of your body. It was like a secondary school dance all over again – I would get sweaty palms from not not knowing all the steps, and the thought of embarrassing myself with a stranger. I reckon it was as good for me as a bike ride because I would leave each session in a sweat, despite having exerted myself very little. Because it was 75% female and awkward for the girls to dance the male role, the second and third weeks we did a sort of a solo-jitterbug dance (Jitterbug Stroll) which was more fun, but still really hard! And as Kim pointed out – you could hardly just turn up to a party and dance it on your own. You would need supreme confidence to pull that one off – even if you had mastered cute moves like the “Shorty George”, the “Suzi-Q” and boogie-backs and tick-tocks. So, last night we walked the dogs, made Nachos and watched The Colony. I’m quietly relieved.

In January, I made some bold predictions to myself and to others (a character flaw that I know I will never be able to eliminate) about my athletic ambitions for this year. Three weeks later and the reality is starting to become apparent – in my twenties, after just a few sessions, I could make vast improvements in my speed and time. It just isn’t happening thesedays at all though. Every running magazine tells me that you have to run a minimum of 2-3 times a week just to maintain your current level of fitness. That would be great if my broken body could sustain that many runs before an attack of shin-splints kicked in. So it’s slowly, slowly and only 2 runs a week for 3 weeks, and this week is my first 3 run week. Today I got out there and ran without joy and without socks – my supply at work had dwindled and I forgot to bring more in. My knees ached. Someone passed me and I didn’t particularly care. I took a different path along the banks of the Yarra and found myself amongst the world of lunchtime snoozers and strollers. At the half way mark, I crossed the Chapel St. bridge and looked towards the Eureka Tower they are building and was horrified how far away it seemed. The storm from last week that brought record rainfall and gusts has broken trees all over the place and things still looked poor despite a week of cleanup. It’s a long way to go before October, so let’s hope next month sees me a little stronger.

The squeaks finally got to me and so I prepared the cement sheet cutter for action. Up-slot-down-slide-Up-slot-down-slide and before long there was a stack of 1/4 inch wedges ready to lift my house. It was relatively smooth sailing to get underneath – I’d push the car jack with one arm, throw a brick ahead of me and keep a torch trained on unknown spiders and termites up ahead. Kim would stomp on the worst of the floorboards and I’d try to figure out what part of the bearer/joist/floor was moving. It’s surprising how much even a stable floor will move underneath the weight of a human body. Once I found the spot, I’d put a brick on the jack to give me some height, then jack up the joist, insert a wedge, and gently let it down. It’s more awkward than it sounds when you’ve got 50cm clearance and are muching on dirt and webs. All movement is done like a worm, leaving bruises on your back and shoulders, and a hell of a stiff neck the next day. Things sound a lot better now, except one of the internal doors won’t close! Since I was so dirty, it was time to get a good look at the leaking hot water system that’s broken through the plaster in the bedroom ceiling. This time it was rats I was wary about. Like most household appliances, I was horrified by what I saw when I had a close look, and the dead bugs floating in the drip tray weren’t pretty -see photo attached. I consoled myself with thoughts that IT WAS ONLY THE SPILL TRAY, and at least I don’t drink this water. It’s a more serious problem, because I’m going to have to rip out and replace a chunk of the ceiling once I’ve managed to stem the leak itself. The scary part about these repairs is that if I bugger it up, we’ll have no hot water for the weekend. I once would have baulked at this sort of work, but over the years I’ve become more confident about these things. Being repairs on a holiday house makes it even easier – what tradesman really wants to travel that far, and who’s going to notice if it’s not perfect? View image of my rotting ceiling
View image of summery Bagshot

Since I got back from Texas, we agreed I should make a start on remodelling the “computer room” or the study, as folks of my parents age might call it. I don’t know whether getting older automatically means becoming more conservative, but the bold colours I favoured in my 20’s now seem garish and hard to match with other items. Especially when we nowdays have the luxury of not having to buy Op-shop furniture, and where Ikea and Freedom Furniture catalogs show us how deceptively easy it is to create a stylish living arena. The truth is that the more choice we have, the more tortured the decisionmaking is.

 Somehow we picked the wall colours out really quickly, but besides a two-seater black-brown leather couch (as yet unbought), and a $59 silver lamp, we’re just stalling and losing our nerve. Does bleached blonde wood look better beside chocolate brown, or would off-white be better? Would a full height bookcase darken the room up too much? How can all those computer desks be so ugly? So we decided to buy things one piece at a time. Today we got the lamp. The carpet is next. Then the couch.

To document this process I will include a photo after the first coat of paint. Maybe by Easter some decisions will have been made, but it’s sure not happening quickly at the moment. No more dumb “I’ll have two of those large 3 seater blue couches please” decisions like we made for the loungeroom. Whatever were we thinking!