Clearly there is Something Going Around as I have had one sick child home from school each day this week.
As mentioned in my previous post Number 1 son was home for the first two days before managing to crawl back to school on Wednesday.
Just as well he recovered, because after picking up a victorious Number 2 son from a basketball round robin on Tuesday (victorious, but in a state of collapse), they switched places and Number 2 has spent much of the remainder of the week in a fevered sleep on the couch.
Of course, if the Man catches this variety of plague I may well have to resort to extreme measures to deal with him because I’m all outta sympathy. 😉
As I have had no time to myself this week and can’t think of anything intelligent to write, I had to share this clip which, appropriately, includes a couch funeral and the exhortation to get off the couch and do something, people!
After posting my original tin-kettling entry on Friday I thought it might be the end of that subject, but I was wrong….
At a family picnic on Saturday (Happy first birthday Rocket!) my Dad pulled me aside and told me he had read the post. He then admitted to being guilty of tin-kettling in his misspent youth.
*shakes head disapprovingly* Dad, Dad, Dad…. tsk tsk….
I told him the only way he could make up for committing such a heinous crime was by emailing me about it so I could use it for a post in the coming week.
As instructed, on Sunday morning he dutifully wrote a brief account of his misbehaviour. As you will see, he and his fellow hobbledehoys weren’t as determined as the tin-kettlers in my previous post, so we might be able to forgive him for this evening of naughtiness 😉
Cute on the outside, a ratbag within…..
I have included this photo of him as a cute little boy, standing with his girl, just to show that even the most innocent can be enticed into a life of crime.
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I did go tin kettling when I was a kid, I must have been about 9 or 10 at the time.
A few of us found out a couple of just married people were moving into their new house, and were spending the night there. Her young brother told us and said we should do something about it. So about 10 or 12 of us got together and did something about it.
We all arrived at the house after dark armed with buckets, kettles, tins, sticks and stones. Anything that would make a noise.
When we got there we let loose and made as much noise as we could, banging buckets and kettles with sticks and then let fly with stones on the roof.
After a while a chap came flying out the door yelling and screaming and threatening us with everything.
It frightened us so much that we all went off in different directions and all got home safe and sound.
I did not do any tin kettling again.
Don’t think badly of me.
Dad.
Can you imagine your first night in your new house being attended by a dozen noisy 10-year-olds? There is probably a good chance any previously planned additions to this little family were put off for a while in light of this introduction to ‘Life With Kids’!
Last week it was my birthday and in my family that means all of us getting together at Middle Sisters house for a birthday lunch over the weekend.
I thought I would post a picture of one of my presents and the birthday cake for your entertainment. My family knows me very well!
Thank to my bookish sister one present was books, including a Discworld title, Miss Felicity Beedle’s The World of Poo. This book added a new word to my vocabulary, gongeformer* and ensured an entertaining afternoon reading about a small boy on the Discworld, his poo collection, and his very understanding grandmother.
I am now trying to get number 1 son to read it, fortunately there is no fear of him taking it as a hint and starting his own collection…
As for the cake, I invite you to imagine how useful having a brother-in-law who is a pastry chef is. The candles were inserted (all credit to Middle Sister for that bit 😉 ) into a selection of yummy cupcakes that included puppet heads eagerly sought after by the kids. Actually we had to fight the ravening horde off to get a photo before they descended.
Thank you E___ for making sure your mum and dad decorated them correctly! 😀
And before you ask, yes, the other presents and celebrations were appropriate for an adult, these were just the most entertaining parts of the day!
Thank you family!
mmmmm…. yummy puppet heads…..
*A gongfermor (gong farmer) is the person Tudors called when the privy was full. Ewww…
Regular readers might remember that the Man purchased a vinyl album, Moving Pictures – Days of Innocence, while we were on holiday for a mere $10. I knew at the time it couldn’t end well and I was right.
He was hugely pleased with his purchase and decided that instead of borrowing a converting turntable he may as well buy his own, his excuse being that he did have a ‘few’ other albums he might like on his ipod.
After the turntable was purchased I casually mentioned that the total cost for that particular second-hand album is now far more than $10 and he looked at me with a “you don’t know what you are talking about” expression, but scuttled guiltily out of the room.
I don’t have a problem with him getting a new toy like that, after all, he loves his music, but I do have a problem with being tortured every night and all weekend with the playing of all of his beloved records.
Don’t get me wrong. I can handle his musical tastes in small doses but having to sit through album after album every night? Well, it is a little more than I can bear. Those ‘few other albums’ are more than just a few. Calling it a ‘few other boxes’ might have been more accurate. Hopefully he will be finished soon and the albums will be packed safely away, never to be heard again….. 😉
Debbie Harry is someone I have heard waaaay too much lately, so I am going to share my preferred version of Call Me, the one where she sings it with the Muppets.
We went for a drive through the bush last Tuesday. For us a drive through the bush means picking a track and driving until we find a more interesting one, then driving down that one, repeat, repeat, repeat.
We never get lost because we never have a destination, and we never really know where we are in the first place! The only rule is that we have to be looking for a main road by about 4pm-ish, otherwise it will be dark before we know it.
We have found the most unexpected and interesting things on these trips; ruins, bushfires, wildlife (scary and nice), giant mudpits that make the kids scream with delight…
Jacky Dragon.
Once we found some bushwalkers, one of their group had twisted his ankle badly and it was pouring with rain. We stopped and managed to stuff him, and his huge backpack, in the 4WD with us and give him a lift back to their camp at the bottom of the mountain. He was pretty lucky we chose that particular track that day, it would have been a long hop otherwise!
We always drive slowly, as we are too busy looking at the things around us to be bothered getting to the end of the track quickly.
This slow driving was helpful on Tuesday, when we were passing a rocky outcrop number 1 shouted incoherently from the back seat. The Man stopped quickly and it turned out that the incoherent shouting was “I see a lizard on a rock!”
We reversed back and sure enough there was a Jacky Dragon (I love that name!) sucking up the last few rays of the day. The kids and I got out quietly and wandered over to get a better look. The lizard was very cute and wasn’t too bothered by us. I managed to take a few photos before we left him to finish his sunbathing.
I couldn’t believe that number 1 had even spotted him as he was well off the track, and so camouflaged on the rock I needed him to be pointed out to me!
At least this lizard was a happier specimen than the last one I posted about. No grumpy hissing and tongue flicking this time!
On Friday we finally bit the bullet and decided it was time to return to reality. We had spent the last few days of our holiday within 3 hours of home, doing our best to pretend we would never have to go back, but, as always the day came when we couldn’t kid ourselves any longer.
Usually on a morning we are moving on the kids are ready early, with all of their stuff packed up before the Man and I have even crawled out of bed. Friday morning was a different story. None of us wanted to get going, and the kids climbed into bed with me and moaned while the Man made a start on packing up.
We were grumpy too….
Eventually we were ready to leave although it was in record slow time, all with sad faces. This evil eye I snapped, glaring out from a hole in a tree on the side of the road, perfectly fitted our mood too.
We stopped at the Bridgewater Bakery for some morning tea. The town of Bridgewater is only small, and a pub and bakery are pretty much all of it. On Thursday we had a counter lunch* at the pub, and dessert at the bakery next door.
Both of them do exceptional food so the chance to get morning tea as we were driving through the next day was too good to resist. The kids wanted to stop for lunch but we knew if we stopped we would never get going again!
With the dubious help of the GPS we were lucky to make it home at all. At the time I voted for listening to her directions, if we had we would still be out there, driving around aimlessly instead of being home.
No, we didn’t need her, we have been to Wedderburn a number of times before, but we are always interested to get the opinion of a person reading the maps from another reality and so we turn her on, purely for entertainment purposes. (I have posted about her crazy directions before).
Can you see the imaginary road through the windscreen?
As you can see in this photo she has no idea where we are, although we were driving on the Calder. The only road she could find was that small purple line in the corner of her screen, not the major highway we were actually on. We will have to update her soon but I would like to know what reality she is from so we can send her back to her own spacetime.
When we do get a new one I hope to fulfil a not-so-secret desire of mine download the Darth Vader voice for it.
After seeing this clip below I am not sure having that voice directing us will get us where we should go without a few unexpected turns though. If I was driving I can guarantee I would make a wrong turn far more than was necessary just to be reprimanded by Lord Vader!
One of the things you pass when you drive on the freeway into Melbourne as we did, is the Melbourne International Gateway. This is one of the first things international visitors will see. I didn’t know it was called the Gateway until just now when I searched ‘cheesestick’ because, well, that’s what everyone calls it. I think you can see why. I want to hate these sticks but I can’t. The sheer silliness of having a giant yellow beam leaning over a road lined by red sticks just makes me wonder how much money the designer was paid.
It makes me sad that international visitors see this first instead of the wonderful historic terrace houses and cottages that are in the area.
It just needs some giant crackers…
I will probably be doing holiday posts for a few more days even though we are home. I am in denial…..
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*A counter lunch (or counter tea) is an Australian tradition. It is a meal in the lounge at the pub. (The menu for the bar and the lounge are different.) Traditionally a counter meal was sausages and mash, steak or a parma** served with either vegies, or chips and salad, but these days pubs don’t just serve snags, steak or parma, they serve gastronomic delights. I had a field mushroom stack, with grilled capsicum, feta, fresh spinach and balsamic vinegar jus on Turkish bread. Yum! Of course there is nothing wrong with a good parma, that would have been my second choice if the mushies didn’t sound so good.
If you wish to use any images or text from my blog be sure to ask permission and include a link back to Buried Words and Bushwa, and full credit to it.
Trove.
The newspaper articles here come from the National Library of Australia (trove.nla.gov.au). Get on there and do some text correcting! You never know what you might find...
Buried words and Bushwa. 
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