Ain’t no faffin’ around for my boy
So, on Monday, I was stuck on the Calder Fwy for an hour and a half because (it turned out) the alternator died. Fortunately, I realised something was going wrong with it, so I managed to pull off the road and not be a prime target for someone barrelling alon at 110kph.
This was after a weekend of discussion with my mother about how the poor old Subie was getting a bit old and J was looking online at car ads, teasing me that a van would be a good idea.
We bought a new (used) car on Friday. Fortunately for me, J recognised reality – that there is no way I’ll drive some monster to school – so it’s another Subaru.
See what I mean about no stuffing around?
Random Stuff about the UK: places we stayed
So we’ve been home for a number of months now, and sometimes I feel like we never went. So I’m going to start trawling through my diary* and write up a few bits and pieces. I’m going to start by listing all the places we stayed, with a couple of words about what I thought of them.
# Started in Sheffield, because that’s where J’s relatives are – we stayed there for a week over Christmas. The ‘burbs we were staying in were very nice; the city – basically just like any other city.
# Windemere, in the Lakes Country. World’s Biggest Tourist Trap. Nice enough town, but expensive… the lake itself was quite nice. I’m sure it’s lovely in summer and even more expensive and crawling with even more tourists.
# Dumfries. Once we managed to find somewhere to stay – long, and annoying, story – a nice enough town. Had a very cool bridge in the middle of town, built at some time just to transport some huge gun.
# Haltwhistle. Very little border town. Not much to say about it, really. Nice pub; Newcastle fans to the max.
# York. I loved York – because we stayed within the walls (at a scummy backpackers’… more about that later). I loved the Shambles – they were beautifully crazy, cool little shops, and the Minster’s spire above it all.
# yeh, then we went back to Sheffield for a night, to do some washing…
# Llanberis, in Wales (so glad we stayed somewhere with the aspirated l). Lovely little town in Snowdonia; surprising variety of food, and J fell in love with the bike shop.
# Abergavenny – another lovely Welsh town. And another glorious bike shop for J to moon over. This was a really nice town, in general – pleasant ‘burbs, nice town centre… I could probably live there.
# Crosley Heath. The weirdest place we stayed, simply because we were staying in the post office and the owner of the house… well. Old and a bit crotchetty, but quite nice to us; we got weird looks from people down the pub when we told them where we were staying… and the farmhand dude was a bit odd, too. The house itself was nice. The town was really a village.
# Oxford. As a city, my least favourite place in the entirety of the UK. Dirty, congested, impossible to park in the town centre – and maybe I’m a bit biased because we nearly didn’t go there, due to not finding somewhere to stay. Crazy bikes, crazy motorists…
# Cambridge. As opposed to Oxford, probably my favouritest town in the entirety of the UK. The town centre, anyway – didn’t spend any time in the ‘burbs. The colleges and the Backs are glorious… the Heath is wonderful, to have such a huge space for anyone to use… it was just so liveable.
# Canterbury. A very nice town – small, easy to get around.
# London! There is absolutely no way I could ever live in London. The ‘burbs are more like separate towns that just happen to connect – funny, that’s just what they are. Inner London was entertaining, for a short period of time, but I couldn’t live there or work there. Way, way too many people. And cars. And pollution. But it was fun.
* I kept a diary every day. Every Day. It became quite a chore by the end, but I’m glad I did it.
My dad would be so proud
My dad could talk to anyone. And did talk to anyone. He truly had the gift of the gab. Me, not quite so much. Too shy and introspective, sometimes just too disinterested.
Tonight, coming home from dinner with J (he had his bike to ride home), I got a taxi driven by an Ethiopian man. I know this because when I got in he changed the music station from one playing African music to Fox, and I told him he could turn it back. I then got up the courage to ask whether he was from Africa originally, which part – because he just said east, at first – and then I said something about having just read a little about Ethiopia, about when the Italians invaded.
We proceeded to chat for the whole ride home – only about 10 minutes, I grant you, but impressive for me nonetheless. Helped that he did most of the talking. Apparently, the reason why Jamaicans revere Hali Selase (?sp) so much is that he made it rain, when he visited during his round the world tour, including being the first black African leader (?) to visit the White House. And it seems he also had a mark on his palm like a stigmata.
Fascinating. Maybe I should try this random conversation thing more often.
Mermaid madness
Cassiphone has started Mermaid Madness Month. In honour of that, I thought I would post my very first picture from the UK trip… this is from York. I took it for my friend Kate, who once wrote a story about mermaids with inflatable bosoms (how they manage to bob around on top of the sea, don’t you know), and with whom I saw a play that included a song with the words: “Mermaid fillets: kiss one end and eat the other/ Mermaid fillets: high in protein, low in blubber!”
… and then I wasn’t able to upload any pics. Will have to rectify that.
How to Know that You’ve had a Long Day
Number 1: you have make-from-the-box-fajitas for dinner. And beer. And maybe chocolate too.
Of course, this could also represent the end of a fairly good day. Never said it was foolproof.
Adjectives
I hate it when people use phrases such as “woman president.” The French woman would be a female president if she gets elected! It’s like calling someone a Germany athlete or a happiness husband.
Drives me nuts.
The Good and The Bad
Random Way to Make Yourself Feel Great Number One:
Be young, and buy a $10 (or higher) badge from an old coot selling ANZAC Day badges (in April; also works in November with poppies for Remembrance Day). They will be amazed at a young person caring. If you are old, either enlist a young person to do this for you and do it yourself and strike up a conversation (conversation starter: “these young people today don’t know how good they’ve got it…”).
Random Way to Make Yourself Feel Smaller than a Snail Number One:
Run out of petrol.
Mentioned in a thesis!
My dear friend AB finished her thesis and handed it in on Monday – hurrah! And I got a mention in the thanks section, which I think is rather nice – I helped with some proofreading. Not a whole lot, but I picked up some things, which I hope were useful. Anyway, based on the relief of handing in an Honours thesis (oh, such a long time ago…), I can imagine the joy of handing in a Masters.
Go AB!
I am torn
Part of me thinks: woo hoo! Not so much time with the kids in the next few weeks because of an assortment of public holidays, pupil-free days, and excursions! My ears will have a break.
The other part of me thinks: oh no! Not so much time with the kids in the next few weeks because of an assortment of public holidays, pupil-free days, and excursions! How will I fit everything in? Eep…
I vacillate between the two. Depending on the state of my ears, usually.
Easter
Ah, Easter. We love it because it’s a four-day weekend (five days, before Kennet, not that I know I know anything about that little deal, seeing as I arrived in Melbourne only a little bit before he was defeated and I was at uni anyway). Of course, it’s also the anniversary of the death of Jesus Christ, and for those of us who are Christian it is therefore a sobering time of reflection – and joy. I love Easter because it’s the anniversary of my becoming a Christian; I was eleven this year. Yay for me!
We took the opportunity this year to go away for Easter. J was in the musical at St Jude’s – well, he was playing trumpet, which I guess isn’t technically “in” the musical, but he was participating in it – and the last night was Good Friday, which I really don’t get (I’ve also always been amazed that it is Good Friday: I mean, as a Christian I understand why it is a good day, but still…). This meant we didn’t go away until Saturday morning, but that was ok, since I’m on holidays and he moved his day off from Friday to Tuesday so we still had four days.
The first night we had in the Grampians. We had lunch in Ballarat with the in-laws – they’re on Stage Four restrcitions (actually, they are on tank water, but the town is on the restrictions), and if there are no changes they’re looking at having NO water by December); it’s really scary, until you remember that this is Australia, people, and we SO have to get out of the European mindset.* Anyway, we then went to the Grampians, and met up with MG and his fiancee (which is a bit exciting – been waiting for that for ages). They took some pics, then we eventually ended up at Burrough (sp?) Huts, at about 7.30pm, which was totally infested with people. We had a BBQ and went to bed.
The next day, Easter Sunday, we decided we would see what the Little Desert was like. J has this mad plan of taking pictures in every single one of Victoria’s national and state parks… it will be interesting to see how that turns out. Anyway, we travelled the 100km or so, went past Dimboola (and Wail, with a really cool nursery that we could only see through the glass), and finally got into the Little Desert proper. It’s not really a Desert, is the thing. When the Wimmera River is in flow (there were only a couple of bits with water – the bendy bits, mostly, which must be a bit deeper), it will/would be a most spectacular area. We camped at Acles Camp Ground, at about lunch time. I read for a large chunk of the day, and It Was Good. And when there is water – well, as I said, it will be spectacular. This is somewhere I would definitely go back to. J took some pics in the evening – a number of them from the riverbed, since it was as dry as a road.
After the night at Acles, with just one other car about 100m away (although we could hear some hoons over at Horseshoe Bend…), we drove a little way into the Desert, but turned around after 20km or so after we couldn’t go much further. We then went back to the Grampians, aiming for the Mt Stapylton campground, but going via Mt Zero Olives first: I love the idea of visiting organic-y, exclusive type places like this. And Mt Zero is really nice: a fantastic setting, great produce – we bought some basil oil, mellazina olives (my world has consequently been substantially changed), and some beetroot&orange relish. We also had lunch there, which was delightful – great food, great view, reading and ignoring the dog who adopted us because we were stupid enough to throw the stick for it… until someone else arrived, at which time we were promptly ditched as being Too Boring.
From Mt Zero, we went to the Staplyton campground, where again we sat around reading and dozing until J went to take pics (and being interrupted by middle-aged rednecks who thought that only non-English-speaking backpackers would be our age and in a Landcruiser like ours. Not sure how to take that.). He didn’t end up taking many good ones, which was a shame. We did end up sharing our campfire with some climbers, who were sort of interesting: a 25-ish bloke who works for a climbing gym and is obsessed, and a 30-something dude who works in the steel industry and is possibly even more obsessed, spending most of his weekends in the Gramps so he can climb, and 3 nights at the gym, and so on….
The next day we went to Horsham, via Natamuk, which J had heard was an interesting little town; he was so wrong. Then we drove to Ballarat for the night; we got some good light around Mt Buangor, which was good.
So our time away finished Wed morning, very early (we got home at c.8.30am).
*One of J’s cousin’s has really bad hot water, in Sheffield (UK), so they leave their water running for fully five minutes before putting in the plug to do the washing. I nearly died of shock. And I really will post some stuff about the trip at some stage….
Randomly Yours, Alex 