I live in a small town in Australia, the best place in the world, with my partner and our two wonderful kids who supply us with a constant stream of entertainment. We love our country and given the opportunity we would spend our lives travelling around it. Unfortunately the money for petrol has to come from somewhere and the kids need an education so our holidays are like the ad breaks in our otherwise normal lives.
I love a yack so this blog gives me the chance to do that even when I am home alone and supposed to be doing the housework. It also gives me a forum to share the old newspaper articles I am addicted to. This way I can rant about them without seeing your eyes glaze over…
If there is something you want me to write about let me know, as I’m always likely to have an opinion about things.
Love it, thanks for coming over to Mother Beader & Coffee Lover. Love your style already. I also drive a ford (a much newer one than those shown, lol).
I will say one thing, when you get to drive around our country you will LOVE it. We have driven quite a lot (missed WA, and parts of Vic/Act).
I look forward to reading more of your work
I don’t see the ute doing too much in the way of long trips for the forseeable future, Mum, Dad, two kids and the dog. Only three seats in the ute… Man of the House and I will have to wait until the kids are grown before we can take it too far. For now it will have to be the 4WD and caravan, still fine by me and far more luxurious than our old days of whatever we could carry on the motorbike!
We haven’t made it to WA yet either, we have seen a fair bit of this corner of Oz, and in 2010 we went from Vic to Alice Springs etc. We have been to the beautiful Flinders Ranges a few times and are planning to go there again later this year. If only we could win Tatts we could afford to see all the things we want! (and finish the ute…)
Thanks for commenting
Metan, thats a nice blog you got there. Some of the posts are cute and funny
By the way, we are still waiting for that book review from you 
Also, thank you for visiting our blog and liking it 
Thanks! Ok, here is my review… I really enjoyed the Terry Pratchett book [insert any title here]. It was extremely funny, making me laugh out loud on many occasions. I would highly recommend it to anyone with a sense of humour, alive or dead. Go and buy it right now! (I haven’t read a Pratchett book yet that this wouldn’t apply to)
I will be back to read more of your reviews, anyone who consistently gives 5/5 to Discworld is my kind of blog!
Lol! Great review Metan! However, I think after a while we might have a problem getting readers to believe the eerily similar reviews
However, I’ll make sure I add a footnote of “you can really on him for recommendations” to the posts!
Have a great life and we’ll see you at http://easyondeyes.wordpress.com/!
Cheers!
Yay! A fellow aussie
I live in a semi-rural fringe suburb of Melbourne. No utes in the family but we do have kangaroos, wallabies, blue tongue lizards, one very big, fat echidna, cheeky magpies, kookaburras and diverse imports such as horses, alpacas, dogs and cats. I know we have snakes but I’ve only seen one ‘maybe’ snake so far.
Looking forward to more posts from the real country
Great Blog Metan and very informative…and dare I say Funny. Enjoyed Tim Minchin when I wasn’t sure I would but that’s probably because acflory and her Alpaca stories have slowly warped my mind.
Best of luck,
David
Thank you, kind sir
I think it helps to have a pre-warped mind when first listening to Tim Minchin, Alpaca stories could definitely help with that…
Metan, dear friend and good buddy
I have just dumped you in at the deep end without a paddle but a pencil may do :p Get your tushy here :
http://barsetshirediaries.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/awards/#comment-518
And don’t forget you can nominate someone too. After all we should pass the love around
Thanks to the lovely acflory for nominating me for the very inspiring blogger award. You can see the 7 things you might not have known about her at http://barsetshirediaries.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/awards/#comment-519 . Or go and look at her own blog, http://acflory.wordpress.com/ .
Now I have to list 7 things you might not know about me….hmmm..
1. I love the Muppets and think that Kermit the Frog is a better actor than most humans (you know I’m right).
)
2. I think the entire world can be explained through the medium of Looney Tunes cartoons.
3. If we paid more attention to history we wouldn’t make so many mistakes in the future. (government? are you listening?)
4. I can’t crochet.
5. I prefer NRL over AFL even though I live in Melbourne. (If you are Australian you are gasping right now, if you are not Australian just go to number 6, you don’t care
6. I rock Scrabble.
7. Terry Pratchett is my favourite author.
According to the rules of the award I should now nominate 7 other bloggers. That’s a hard one and I know some are not accepting awards anymore, so instead I will just tell you who I like to read. Maybe you can go over there and have a look at them too. So, apart from acflory and lordprosser whose links are above you could also visit;
http://bluebirdblvd.wordpress.com/
http://southcarolina1670.wordpress.com/
http://fourthgeer.wordpress.com/
http://thedragonflywoman.com/
http://easyondeyes.wordpress.com/
http://brianwestbye.wordpress.com/
There are many others in my favourites list though!!
http://jenbeads.wordpress.com/
http://forgottennewengland.com/
http://sweetmotherlover.wordpress.com/
Ok, I’ll stop now!
-giggles- stop it woman! Just about to check out Daud’s blog to see what you’ve written
No! Come baaack! It’s all here!! Damn….she’s gone.
Metan, thank you so much for the nomination. Sorry for a late acknowledgment. We just stumbled upon it now, as it wasn’t up as a post. Congratulations for all the awards you have received till date
You are welcome
I am full of admiration for you guys reading AND reviewing so many books. Every time I look at your blog and you have a new book there I remember that I am still reading the same one!
Lol…well, to be honest there are days when it feels like there either aren’t enough hours in the day or enough eyes and brains to read because you can’t just shrug and say “yeah, it was a nice book, whatever…”
So, thank you so much for this award. We promise to think of it next time we’re digging through piles of books in the middle of the night, in panic and praying really hard there was just one book in there we hadn’t read or reviewed!
I know how you feel, lately I have been wishing for an extra 5 or 6 hours a day just to get things done too!
-blush blush- totally stuffed up on the instructions and now I’m so jealous I didn’t think of your 3. and 6. Admittedly history is your area of expertise but I LOVE scrabble. Ok. After dinner I am going to go fix up my website so I can pretend I knew how to do all this stuff all along
-hugs-
No need to blush! If you are anything like me you are certainly not used to getting public awards!
(I wanted to put ‘I always try to see the silver lining’ but you beat me to it!)
lmao – ok so we’re even on the Scrabble then
I was very excited to be nominated for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award by the lovely acflory yesterday and when I went by barsetshirediaries today I saw another award nomination! It was completely unexpected to get one, let alone two and I am very grateful to have been nominated by both wonderful people!
Following is the comment I left on barsetshirediaries, I thought I had better bring it over here too or having the award in my sidebar looks a little like I awarded it to myself!!
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I’ve just come back to re-read acflorys list and what do I see? A blogger award for me! (it rhymes, but it isn’t poetry…) Thank you, thank you, kind sir
I would like to take full credit for the scouring of the newspaper offices, but I suspect that there is some poor dust-covered person at the bottom of the office hierarchy supplying my on-line needs. I do have to be creative and persistent in my searching, and am quite good at digitized document correcting now, so I will pretend that I have earned this award through my hard labours instead of from the comfort of my couch… I will dedicate half of my award to the unnamed, dust-covered, office gnome though
My five bucket list items…hmm..
1. Get the children to school on time by my own efforts, not those of ultra organized son number 1.
2. Learn to crochet.
3. Drive across the Nullarbour.
4. Build a proper vegie garden.
5. Find that ever elusive article about the badly-behaved Margaret Shaw in the newspaper archives. (My GGG Grandmother and the whole reason I started blogging in the first place!)
Now I have an embarassment of riches in blogging awards, and my head may have swollen to a large enough size to make it difficult to fit it into the car to pick up the kids!
How on Earth did I miss that ‘Stuff about me’ is as funny as your ‘Addicted to History’?
Your bucket list No.2 is admirable. I tried it once and ended up with more fingers that I started with.
No 3 .If I remember rightly this is a desert? Please beware any ancient battlegrounds
No 4. Remember Sprouts are NOT a veg but a punishment so don’t grow them.
No 5. Is this so you can relive the episode annually as family tradition?
Yes, the Null arbour is sans trees, It is still a battleground though, with trucks and the caravans of the grey nomads battling it out every day.
NO sprouts.
According to records it wasn’t just one time. After being transported from England for highway robbery she was regularly sentenced to solitary confinement with bread and water for her bad behaviour in Van Diemens Land. Absconding, multiple counts of drunkeness, swearing at the masters children, not a great example of rehabilitation really!
We have nominated you for The Versatile Blogger Award! Congratulations!!
http://easyondeyes.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/awards-night/
Thanks you!!
See below for my efforts to fulfil the nomination 
My goodness! Not only did easyondeyes nominate me for the Versatile Blogger Award, but hours later I also find the message;
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I’ve nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award here: http://jgburdette.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/the-versatile-blogger-award/
Love your history posts!
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I want to thank you both very much!
I read both of those blogs regularly and enjoy them greatly.
The girls from easyondeyes have set themselves the unenviable task of reading (and reviewing) 366 book in 2012. Now, I love to read but that is a superhuman effort! They have wide-ranging tastes so have a look over there, I am sure you will find a review that will pique your interest. http://easyondeyes.wordpress.com/.
Over at Map of Time jgburdette has a great history blog, telling us much of the little-known backstory behind an event or person, always with great pictures. http://jgburdette.wordpress.com/
In order to fulfill my obligations to this award I have to tell you seven thing about myself, I will confess to being lazy and admit to copying the first seven from the list above, but using a small amount of imagination to add an extra few…
1. I love the Muppets and think that Kermit the Frog is a better actor than most humans (you know I’m right).
2. I think the entire world can be explained through the medium of Looney Tunes cartoons.
3. If we paid more attention to history we wouldn’t make so many mistakes in the future. (government? are you listening?)
4. I can’t crochet.
5. I prefer NRL over AFL even though I live in Melbourne. (If you are Australian you are gasping right now, if you are not Australian just go to number 6, you don’t care )
6. I rock Scrabble.
7. Terry Pratchett is my favourite author.
8. I hate housework. HATE…. With a passion….
9. I get ridiculously excited every time someone reads my blog, yes, EVERY time.
10. Forget-me-nots are my favourite flower.
Instead of nominating blogs for the award (because soon they will be adding me to their spam folder
) I will be making a page with links to my favourite blogs. So thank you again for the award nomination, and keep up the good blogging work everyone!!
Metan, I love your blog and am going to enjoy reading all your posts (and learn lots along the way). Thank you for visiting and liking our blog!
Thank you very much and I’m glad you enjoyed it! I am very envious of your crochet ability and love your little cup cosies
I am ever hopeful that I will develop some sort of skill with wool but I expect that it will only take the form of being better at making knots…
Making knots is an ‘art’. I borrowed a DK book by Des Pawson that was fairly easy to understand. Also there are the Celtic knots, I don’t think I’m crazy enough to try that though, but we’ll see
Thanks for that, I will be using the excuse that I am creating ‘art’ in the future! I think the crochet hook wedged tightly in the wool might give me away though
I recently bought a book called Crobots (tiny crochet robots) with the reasoning that the tininess and cuteness of them will make me more motivated to get into it. The book is still on the coffee table, mocking me…
Oh, yes, I guess the hook would give it away
I find that when I attempt smaller things I do horribly. Amigurumi for instance. I tried to make a dog but it’s head looked like a head and neck wrapped into one because it was so long. With that look I only attempted to sew on two legs and tossed it to the dogs. Dr. Legless, as we call him, held up for a very long time. Sherlock, our dog, can destroy anything but he only managed to get one leg off.
Poor Dr. Legless.
Sounds a bit like you should take up knitting chain mail if he lasted that long with the dog.
I figured that if I start small I will know it has gone wrong faster!
“Sounds a bit like you should take up knitting chain mail if he lasted that long with the dog.”
Very true, but I guess there isn’t much of a market for it
Beautiful background theme on your page; reminds me how much I love this wide clay red open land!! so much so that I packed up my life, house, husband, and two kids to bring everything that we owned and we are all the way from the UK in 2005. Thank you so much for stopping by and liking one of my blogs yesterday, it really was much appreciated and I’m so glad you did, because now I have found your awesome blog to follow!
I’m glad you enjoyed it, thanks for coming by
I’m always on the look-out for Aussie blogs!
What a fun idea for a blog. I am a storyteller, and am intrigued by all kinds of stories everywhere. I often cut exceptional stories out of the paper when I see them, just because I know I will want to read it again one day. And here you are, finding them in history, and sharing them with the world. Well done!
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it. Sometimes the most amazing things are reported in the papers (even now) and like you I just have to read them and enjoy them more than once!
And…. We have nominated you for the Beautiful Blogger Award.. yaaayyy!! Congrats
http://easyondeyes.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/were-beautiful-d/
Thanks
Beautiful blogger, awwwww… Clearly you haven’t seen me first thing in the morning 
Hahahaha!! Well, don’t we all look scary first thing in the morning