The Outback in a Heatwave

The new number one on my list of really, really, tremendously bad things to do is visiting the outback in a heatwave. Just say no, kids, just say no. After doing very little in Moree, we left for Charleville. I can no longer remember which day we did this because without the TV to educate me, the days all turn into one. It was very, very hot. I believe the air conditioner was lying to me because there is no way it was on during that drive. I'll have to get it to sign a stat dec. The morning tea break at St George turned into a most of the morning stop thanks mostly to the old bloke who accosted us at the Unique Egg. Not a sentence I ever saw myself writing, really. The Unique Egg is actually about 150 eggs. Emu eggs. Hand carved emu eggs. That are lit by an ever evolving array of lights (they're on LED now, but I have it on good authority that many other bulbs have been tried in the past). I'll pause the cynicism for for a moment to tell you that the eggs were actually pretty cool. Very pretty and all that. Putting the cynical cap back on now to tell you that the rest of it was hilarious in that way that only strange small town tourist attractions can be. The eggs are carved by Stavros, eccentric, hunting store owner and tireless self promoter. Incidentally, I know of a great place you can get a fluoro safety vest to stop your pig dog from getting mauled. He did one for Quentin Bryce, he did one for World Expo '88 (together we'll show the world), he did one for Barack Obama. It's all very impressive for a guy who charges 3 bucks admission for a dark room at the back of what is loosely called a sporting goods store. We spent the next hour or so listening to Stavros' old mate telling us stories about every town in the outback. I'm not sure I can take much more of this country hospitality. St George was followed by Roma and by followed I mean we ate sandwiches then got the hell out of there. Roma has 'The Big Rig'. It's an oil rig that looks like, well, an oil rig. Nothing to see here. More exciting was the memorial stone in the park beside it. A memorial to a class reunion. Yup. Then we got to Charleville but I'm too lazy to tell you about that now so, laters!

Visual Proof

Some of the frolicking at the vineyard. Don't I look the picture of joy? 

Kangaroos engaging in frolicking of what looks like a very wrong kind but 

I assure you is completely innocent. 

The campsite at Repton. Only a marginally better view than 

Gin and Paul's place. So very jealous. 

The jealous-making view. 

Can you thieve a view?

We Didn't Even Get Robbed

We were under warnings of high crime, wire fences and general mischief on our way into Moree. Happily the worst that happened was having dinner in the RSL with the saddest menu in the land. The drive from Coffs was a lot longer than planned thanks mainly to a grey nomad with his caravan and no idea how to tow the bloody thing. Seriously, I think he decided to take the thing for its first tow on a long drive over some windy mountains. On the plus side, I didn't road rage him, so I should probably consider it a victory. We stayed in a motel in Moree to treat ourselves. I understand that motels don't normally count as treats, but there are no hotels once you hit this far west, so it's as good as it gets. I was quite impressed because they had a modern bedspread rather than one with strange pastel swirls from 1992. I think that counts as 5 star. Dinner was pretty early so we could get back to the important part of the night quickly- watching tennis and drinking wine. We did a quick circuit of the town centre, quick by virtue of the fact that it is three blocks long and decided on the RSL because we couldn't work out which one was the good pub and, quite frankly, Thai food in the outback frightens me. The menu was tremendously sad, not for what was on it, but just because it had been typed up on somebody's home computer and they were too lazy to put a description of the dishes, a list of sauces, or tell you what the sides were. I thought I might try and be healthy which was probably an overshoot and asked if I could replace the chips with vegies. I got such a blunt "no" back that I'm convinced I was served by Barbara from bank land. "Computer says no." Wednesday was our Moree day. Really, Moree was only a stop because it broke up the drive, so it was really a bit of a 'sleep in and do very little' day. We found the nice pub for lunch and a cute bookshop where I bought even more books to add to the pile that is taking over the living room. We mostly wandered around town and checked it out. It was actually quite nice- something I was not really expecting. I'd guess there is more money there than you'd think- there were boutiques selling designer clothes and homewares. Originally I had planned to go to the Artesian baths. Note that I said 'I', Gray has very little interest in this planning stuff. Although it would have been nice to see the sight one of the freedom ride moments, I think that bathing in 37 degree water when that is also the air temp is a bad idea. My book was great, though. I'm still promising photos but the net speeds out this way are just too poor for it. I know you want to see me frolicking, but you'll just have to wait.

The Next Migration

On another move to the tropics now, but very late in starting the travel diary I promised myself I'd do. I'm too much of a slacker to ever build a media empire. So far we've stopped at Newcastle and Repton (20 min south of Coffs) and are now in Moree. The first two stops were for visting, the current one is just because Newcastle to Charleville is just too long for sanity. After I finished hiding from the movers to avoid freaking out about how they were touching my stuff all wrong, we headed up the coast to Newcastle for our first stop: the brother-in-law's new deck. Okay, there was a house attached, but Rob did build a pretty good deck, so that's the part I choose to focus on. We had some of the best BBQ food ever along with a fantastic salad, although Rob would surely argue that the BBQ took the real skill as that was what he did all of Friday night. We ditched Rob and Katie after only one night in anticipation of the shitfight of holiday traffic that awaited us on the Pacific Highway. It was as shiteriffic as we had expected. On the way North, we stopped at Cassegrain winery just outside Port Macquarie for lunch, photos and carefree frolicking. It was good. We got into Repton pretty late, but still had enough light to get the tent up. Our stop in a town none of you have ever heard of was to visit my friend Gin who was also lovely enough to organise her baby shower for the Sunday afternoon I'd be there. The baby shower was the main reason we got up there a day early. We had planned to do a straight drive through on Sunday morning but 23km traffic jams don't lend themselves to punctuality. Coming a day early meant that Gin had other plans Saturday night, but she popped down for a quick visit to gossip and admire the lake while Graham set up the campsite for me. More proof that I am lazy. I threw Gin out at 8:15 when we realised that we had to move soon if we wanted dinner that didn't have a 'Mc' in front of it. Aussie pizza from the North Beach Bowling and Recreation Club. Does it get any better? I stole a coaster. I'll do the rest of this later because I'm getting all bored and hungry now. You have a great rant about grey nomads to look forward to. You might also get some photos if my mobile modem decides to upload them at more the 5kbps.

7243

Gah! Why did I commit to NaNoWriMo? I'll never do 50,000 words by the end of the month.

*Sob*

Not Much Scares Me...

... but this does.

Stacey-Lee, I do not want a group booking.

Shoes!

I ordered these from Modcloth on Saturday.



Gray needn't return from Timor, I've found me a new love.

Chop Ups.

I mowed the lawn today. I would like to say that I did this all by myself, but that would be a lie. And lying is wrong. And so is your head...



Anyway, I had to get the neighbour to start the mower because I apparently possess no upper body strength.

Yet More Statistical Statistics

W00T! Someone from Belarus visited my page! It is my favourite obscure Eastern European country of all time. Please feel free to come back and hang out my Belorussian friend. You are blessed with a thriving mushroom industry and the wonderful Max Mirnyi. You must, therefore, rock.

Statistical Statistics

I've been whiling away the time while I'm too lazy to get up and put dinner on by perusing my stats. Turns out most random people get here by googling 'I hate Darwin'. I didn't know I had so many kindred spirits. There were also quite a few searches for 'trouser snake'. Giggle. Snort.
I'm now tempted to just throw in as many bizarre topics into my posts as my brain can muster up to see if people actually google them. A good idea or a recipe for disaster?

Toasty

Like my new decor? Yes, it is actually called 'Toasty'. Although, as my fingers feel like ice at present, I couldn't really say it represents my current state of being.

Just For You...

Here you go, Alex. I posted for you. Who knows, someday, I might even write a real post for you...

World's Best Job

Okay. So I have just come off the world's best teaching job. I love the staff. I love the principal. I love the kids. I love the school. If I had no ethics I may well have kidnapped the teacher I was replacing just to stay there. But I do have ethics...really. Now I'm just praying for her to get pregnant. That's okay, right? A baby is a good thing for both of us, so I'm not just being a selfish so-and-so. Right?
Some of my students asked to friend me on Facebook which broke my little tiny heart into a thousand shiny pieces. I wanted so badly to FRIEND them, but i know that it could lead to problems as a teacher. And I VERY MUCH want to be their teacher again . My magical solution? I gave them my Twitter name, which may also lead them here. Publicness is cool, isn't it? You can't say anyone's my favourite if they're all here. Okay. OKAY?
Welcome them all, my friends, they are lovely.

Of nightmares and cold sweats

In pondering on what might constitute a most crippling allergy, I decided that, for me, it would be high heels. How much does this say about my intellect or lack thereof?

Sneezing For Australia

I have what you might kindly call a propensity for sneezing or what you might unkindly call a head full of snot. I think the grand sneezing fits and surgical attachment of my nose to tissues began sometime around the age of 10.

As a child I was quite healthy, so naturally I was jealous of all the kids with really cool and dramatic illnesses and injuries. I cursed my healthiness whilst I daydreamed of breaking my leg. Yes, I actually wanted to break a bone. I also thought asthma was exciting and my Mum's hay fever was just fabulous. I think I was slightly spotlight crazy. Mind you, I also thought that tubular metal park benches were the pinnacle of design. They featured greatly in my dream house. It's pretty amazing that I turned out reasonably normal when you look at that

For all my dreams of gruesome injuries my most dramatic ailment was a lazy eye, which doesn't really garner all that much attention aside from people looking over their shoulders to see if you’re talking to someone behind them. That does have it's benefits, though, because I can stare at odd looking people on trains and they think I'm looking at the poor sod trapped between them and the window. It is endlessly entertaining.

My best friend's family bought a hobby farm when I was about 10 or 11, which was just about the best thing ever. Aside from all the cavorting about in paddocks and being terrified of getting on the motorbike, this was also the start of my ongoing tussle with nature. Of course, at first I thought my newly developed hay fever was totally 'rad', until I discovered that my particular brand of hay fever never dies. I had pretty much the same reaction when I was diagnosed with asthma at 13, although I was relieved to finally be rid of my 'smoker's cough' as my stepbrother called it.

My allergies were never just your ordinary run of the mill allergies, however. Seasonal hay fever? Ha! If by seasonal you mean all four seasons, then yes, I do have seasonal allergies. In high school I was the go to girl for tissues which may have had a little to do with the box of tissues I carried in my bag. My mother began making jokes about how she should have bought shares in Kleenex. She still does. And I still hate it. Yes Mum, I'm using the internet to call you out on your hideous sneezing jokes. It's been 20 years, I've had enough already!

Slowness must run I our family, because whilst it has been 20 years for my mother still hasn't got the hint about how much I hate the sneezing jokes, it also took me 20 years to get an allergy test. There's a lot of faffing about in my family. I really have only one piece of advice for those thinking of getting an allergy test- do not get it the day after a long weekend. 72 hours without an antihistamine was never going to be great for a person whose main pastime is nose blowing, but try it over Easter. I apologise to all the people at our Easter dinner and hope that I did not sneeze on anyone's food.

It turns out I am allergic to the world. Which is bad. On the upside, I now have hypoallergenic bedding so I can breathe in bed. This makes me a happy little chicken.

On To Friday...

I am often asked why in the name of all that is good and holy I would ever want to be a high school teacher. I am mostly asked this by my students and then, it is mostly the ones who would turn you right off teaching who ask. I'm guessing that they have difficulty working out why anyone would voluntarily try to wrangle them into writing poetry.

My general response to the quizzical looks and blunt questions is that, for some odd reason, I actually enjoy working with teenagers. I'm not sure, but this may be one of the first warning signs of dementia. It's not so much the poetry wrangling I enjoy (because I don't), rather it's the bit about helping greasy, snarky, vile teenagers turn into real human beings that gets me in. Although that is rather a long process

For all the screaming, spitting and swearing (me, sometimes the kids) I generally like what I do. Except for the times when what I do is relief teaching. Remember what you were like with a relief teacher? Yeah. At least once you get on the other side of it, you are smart enough to realise how stupid you were. The old answer to the wrong name on the role trick? I don't really care. First, I'm lucky if can remember the names I just called out, let alone which person they belong to. Second, I really couldn't care less who answers to what name as long as I've marked all the people who are here as here and all the people who are absent as absent so I don't get my arse sued off if someone robs a bank while they're meant to be in my class. Third, your trick is stupid anyway. Your teacher is smart enough to work out that the white kid responding to Than Nuoc Tran and the Asian kid responding to Habib Habibi might just be lying.

On Monday I start a contract. One that lasts for the rest of the year. Where I get to be a real teacher with my own classes and students whose names I know and everything. I'm looking forward to having Year 7s who worship the ground I walk on (because that's just what Year 7s do) and students who actually think that I KNOW something. Only two days left of being asked "are you a real teacher". Of course not, I'm an imposter, your real teacher is tied up in the bookroom and stuffed between ancient copies of Macbeth and Catcher In the Rye. This week, I am especially looking forward to Friday

I'm Not So Sure About This Dog Thing...

I will begin by reminding/informing you that we live in defence housing. It is vital that you understand the way this works ie we take whatever house we can get our mitts on and are then stuck with it regardless of how we feel on the matter. Generally this hasn't been a huge problem, we have lucky enough to have some very nice houses with no gaping holes appearing in the bedroom floor. Actually, that's something they will move you for. Even defence don't want people getting out of bed in the morning and dropping through to the carport.
So, our houses have all been quite good, and we've considered ourselves quite lucky. Our current house is lovely, mostly. We have a nice, big, kitchen, which, despite is size, suffers from a great dearth of storage. This means that we have lots of bench space but no pantry to speak of. I just kind of throw food into the cupboard and cross my fingers that it doesn't all fall on my head the next time I open it.
Our yard is also lovely and big which is remarkable when you consider that we live in one of those horrid estate suburbs with 18 bedroom homes on blocks of land the size of a small car. I think the developers may have been a little bit stunned at having so much yard space as they seemed to have no idea what to do with it. Apparently they decided to just thrown down some turf and runaway to deal with more manageable yards that they could simply concrete over. I don't imagine this to be very entertaining space for a dog to spend all day in. The canine equivalent of watching Senate Question Time all day.
Our neighbours do not have a lovely big yard like us. They have one of the aforementioned concrete yards the size of a Barina. Ordinarily the state of the neighbours yard is suitably low on the list of "things I give a shit about" unless, of course when there are an awfully large amount of power lines running into their back shed or there is an odd odour emanating from behind said shed. In addition to owning a yard the size of a loaf of bread, the neighbours also run a child care centre out of their house.
Some of you may be starting to see where our problem lies. A small echoey yard, screaming kids and a colourbond fence do little to create a calm dog. Steffi does not like the noise. At all. She hates it so much that she has developed a new sport, a sport which involves throwing herself at the fence as hard as she can to STOP THE DAMNED NOISE!!!!!
The small children didn't seem to appreciate this. Nor did the neighbour who we like very much, but who is also absolutely shitscared of dogs. A bad situation for all became worse at about the moment that Steffi managed to pop one of the fence panels out with her acrobatics. Sure, there was not a big enough gap for her to get through, but that doesn't matter when your outrageous dog phobia has you convinced that the dog is about to burst through the fence and eat you.
Council rangers were called. DHA were called. I had a small heart attack. Then the astounding thing happened, our property manager suggested we ask for a move. I would never have thought of this as the only time I have seen anyone actually receive a move was in the earlier instance of the gaping hole in the bedroom floor. Spurred on by the giddiness of having a government worker on our side, we applied. And. We. Got. It. We have to move ourselves, but WE GOT IT.
Note: You may be propositioned in the nest few months with requests for help and offers of booze and pizza if you acquiesce.

A Bad Case of the Broken Mirrors

I think I may have broken a few of the buggers. That, or majorly pissed off Thor, Dionysius and that Earth mother goddess thing from Avatar. I'll only offer a selection of the circus we have been living of late, any more and I'm afraid you, my dear reader, may come down with a case of the vapours.

1. We had a lovely little bit of online credit card fraud. A blessing reallly, as I like to stay on top of the trends and cyber crime is alll the buzz in the media of late.
2. Our gorgeous little Digger died. A disc in his back collapsed, crushing his spine. Poor little guy didn't even make it to five. I'm still not over it. I may become one of those odd people who keeps a shrine of their pet's ashes as I cannot bear to scatter them anywhere.
3. My grandmother passed out at Yum Cha. As this was only a few days after Digger died, I may have panicked slightly, or a lot. Turned out she just ate too much and over heated as she wore a jumper fit for an Arctic explorer.
4. Steffi crashed through the colourbond fence. Ahem. They are not cheap to fix.

I'm expecting better things. Soon.

Not at my finest

I am none too happy with the big blue dot today:

• The doctor says the Amazing Abdominal Pains™are signs that my body is doing a great job of fighting off a virus. rally? Is that the best you can come up with?
• Steffi is barking at anything that moves today. That not only includes bugs and leaves, but also me and Digger for having the gall to sit on the lounge rather than play the "chasing around the house and crashing into furniture" game.
• The allergy test was right- I AM allergic to yeast. I am currently paying the price for eating that pizza last night and have used the best part of a box of tissues today. Not happy about the lack of toast and pizza in my future (although Gray does find it very entertaining).
  
• The aforementioned pizza also resulted in the anchovy bone that was lodged in my throat all day.

Ooh, here comes Gray with a nice big glass of red wine. I'd call it psychic, but it's a pretty good bet that I'll want some wine when my face bears an expression last seen on Derryn Hinch during the Shame Files.
Tomorrow, consider yourself on notice, you'd better be better than today.

Grand Re-Opening: Now With Added Soy

Welcome to the official re-naming ceremony for the blog. I use the the word 'official' loosely. Actually, I use the words 're-naming' and ceremony loosely too, as I am not about to smash a bottle of champagne against my computer. The poor thing doesn't really need any more reasons to run slowly. I decided to stick with the "tropical" theme because of the branding *Snort* and I the fact that I am entirely unoriginal, however, I was deposed from my position as Queen when I left Darwin, oh, last March. Don't go accusing me of making rash decisions here.
I would therefore like to welcome you to my revamped home in balmy sub-tropical Sydney. The blog is also wildly sub-par, as is my intelligence, so the name really works on many levels.