Hysterectomy and Hawkwind

Well it's been a while, but here I am again rabidly typing away like a two fingered half wit, just trying to keep a full log of my doings, so that when alcoholic dementia finally sets in I'll have some sort of record of what passed for my life. You're welcome to sit back and laugh at it.

Oh god, Bethy's Xmas present, the bloody laptop? You may remember the last time we spoke  the first one we purchased off e-bay had failed to arrive. So we got, after much farting about, a full refund. The second one we  purchased off e-bay, well they had run out of the model we wanted so they offered us an upgrade, which we were then (late January,) still waiting for it to arrive. They ran out of them too, so we got a second refund. The third one purchased off e-bay arrived within three days. This was a very prompt and good service, and she's very happy with it all. I've had to up our download quota to cope with her facebooking, youtubing and messagining.

But getting someone their Xmas present delivered in mid-February isn't really that clever is it?

Seeing as Bethy now had her laptop, I decided to dismantle "Frankenstein I" our main computer, and to add any useful/newer/functioning bits from it to "Frankenstein II", Bethy's old computer. Anything which involves me taking the covers off our computers normally results in a lot of heartbreak, expense, swearing, expense, time off line, expense, and eventually a trip to the computer repair shop and lots more expense. This was soon remedied though as, after much cursing and swearing and blood on the mainboard,  I found out that abso-fucking-lutely nothing from Bethy's computer was compatible with Frankenstein I. So I put them all back together again.

There's another day of my life that I won't get back.

Oh, taking about presents, the total absence of "Stilton Beer" and "Marmite chocolate" and "Tea Party newspaper" having not been sent to the usual address is soon to be remedied I take it?

We went to see Billy Connolly. Great seats, two rows from the front, centre of stage, I could see right up his nostrils. Oh god, the old boy's still got it! He came on stage at 8.00 pm prompt, and didn't leave until 10.45, no breaks, no intervals. I thought Bethy was going to have a seizure at one point, she was laughing so hard. Don't ask me what he talked about, or to relate any of his jokes, as not only can I not remember them, but seeing as with Billy 90% of the humour comes down to his presentation, typing them out would be futile at best. But he was good value.

Though Lee-Anne was ever so annoyed to be later told, by some friends of ours, who live in Queensland, that he had spent a good 20mins of his act there slagging off Canberra. Funny that, he seemed to love the place when he was here…

Bethy started college and has made a new bunch of friends, and, rather nicely,  it would seem that she's also kept up with her old ones. We've been to two "breakfast get-togethers" there, met some of the course tutors and had a chance to meet the other students. It all seems rather good. Well, at least they serve good croissants.

In the first week of college Bethy came home waving a sheet of paper, obviously excited; "We've got the chance to play host to a Japanese student for a week!" Yes, and? But we agreed we would offer a berth. One week of having an incredibly polite, nice, Oriental person in the house will make a change from us usual rabble. So we signed the sheet. The next week, I happened to ask Bethy about it; "Oh yeah, I said we'd take two as they were short on people offering accommodation." Ok, one week of having two incredibly polite, nice, Oriental people in the house will make a change from us usual rabble. A week later; "Oh, I said that if they had, like sisters or whatever, who didn't mind sharing a bed we'd take three. That's ok isn't it?"

 

While we're on academic achievements, a big "CONGRATULATIONS!" to Clarkie's daughter, Emma, who has just been nominated "Irish Young Writer of The Year." (14-16 yr) They say that talent runs in families. She must take after her mother then.

Bethy also turned sixteen in February, or "legal" as one of her male friends put it. (Luckily not within my earshot.) I've paid for four driving lessons for her as a gift, she's not driving my car until she's taken them. She had a party down by the lake for her birthday bash, a good gang of people (about 15 all told) turned up, and the inclement weather, ( read "pissing down",) didn't seem to put them off partying. We were ushered away from the party as soon as we'd delivered Bethy and the food to Lake Ginninderra, with strict instructions not to return until Bethy phoned us to do our taxi duty. Funnily enough when we did go to pick them up, there were no pissed/stoned kids, no pools of vomit and no unclaimed underwear in evidence.

Kids today eh? Tch! They just don't know how to party.

 

Bethy's mate "Rin-Rin" took some fantastic portraits of Bethy that day.

Beth

Click here for more!

The strangest event of that day occurred earlier, when we were picking up the food. We had to be in the city centre at 8.30 am, as Lee-Anne had ordered trays of Sushi, boxes of cake, and helium filled balloons, from some top notch caterers for the party.. So there I was carrying three trays of Sushi, and an armload of balloons, walking through the city centre, when I see this geezer walking towards me. He looked like just your average tramp, greasy hair down to his shoulders, tattered clothes, barefoot, dirt begrimed face. Normally I wouldn't have paid attention, as these characters infest most city centres,and noticing them seems to give them the urge to talk to you. But the closer and closer he got, the more and more I got the impression; "this fucker's going to throw a punch at me…"

I was all ready to drop the Sushi, release the balloons, and prepare to slap him one. He came just that little bit too close for comfort to me, but just gave me an INSANE grin, and turned on his heel and walked off.

It took me a good ten minutes to realise who he was. He's an old client of mine, one whose over-protective mother had PAID  a lawyer get his treatment  order taken off him, against our judgement, and that of two treating psychiatrists. This was someone about whom we'd always said; "If he doesn't stop smoking the dope, he'll end up on the streets."

I'm guessing he still enjoys his dope then.

Lee-Anne and I had planned to take Bethy out to our favourite Ethiopian restaurant, Fekerte's, for a  family birthday celebration. But the night we chose to go, the only night I was free, the bloody place was shut. Typical. Of course we didn't find this out until we'd got there and saw the sign in the window. So instead we ended up at our favourite Thai Vegetarian Restaurant, Au Lac, and had a great time there. It's something  which has become a much anticipated event in our house, is eating Ethiopian food. (We've heard all the jokes about "sharing a grain of rice between the three of you", thanks. ) We were turned onto this food when we saw a great review on a local website for it. So we tried it out, and it was every bit as good as the review claimed. We then got lots of Friday night takeaways from the three Ethiopian restaurants in 'Berra. Funnily they sell some amazingly different, (and fortunately vegetarian) foods in each of them.  But we've have now progressed to cooking it ourselves.

We had it again the other night, Lee-Anne as  head chef, supervising and cooking, Hatch as sous chef, me cheering from the sidelines as KP. It's so good I thought I'd share.

This is what we had. Injera this is the heart of the meal, the food is served on, and eaten with this bread.

Ethiopian Beef Stew in Berbere Sauce Very spicy, good for a nice clean out.

Yellow Split Pea Stew

Chicken wot

Of course, much to your disgust I should imagine, we used meat substitutes in the recipes.

While walking the dogs at the Pinnacle nature reserve, as is my wont, one morning, I came across Canberra’s latest and most exciting venture into the public arts.

Canberra is infested graced by public art as a tribute to the Chief Minister, sorry actually a  way of enlightening the proles, oh sod it, a way of cheering the pace up a bit. This was situated just off the track I normally use. It is bold, confrontative and rather excellent. It consists of five stainless steel posts in an asymmetrical pattern. Each pole is roughly six feet tall, the height of an average man.

What are we to make of it?

The poles, being stainless steel, suggest perfection. They reflect, but also contain the scene, however as they are round  they also distort our perception of the view, forcing us to re-examine our outlook of the area. They are artificial in an area of natural beauty, do they claim man is more capable of producing beauty than nature? They are incorruptible within an area of growth and decay. They display neither craft skill, nor workmanship, however they are an artifice. Their asymmetric placement  contradicts fractal natural growth. They are the height of a man, neither overbearing, nor under-aspiring. All in all, truly beautiful. As the philosopher Wittgenstein once said; “Ich habe keine Ahnung, was hier vorgeht, geben Sie mir eine Pause. Ist diese Kram oder was?”*

A while back, for shits and giggles, as the Aussies say, I signed up to the Canberra Declaration. I think I wrote something along the lines of; "All homosexuals should be burned at the stake, publicly, in front of the Aussie parliament building, and their families exiled from Aus". Just to keep in with the mentality of the fundy morons who sign such stupid homophobic and "Christian" petitions. The funny thing is they keep sending me e-mails. It's a real joy to keep getting their mails, but I  thought the name I used, and the declaration I made was going to be a litte too unsubtle, even for them.

Apparently not,  the mails arrive, leading with;

Dear Anus P Wankstain, the time for action approaches…

Anus P Wankstain, your support is now needed….

Anus P stand up and be counted!

Did I tell you we've gone all hi-tech now? Bethy wanted a new mobile phone for Xmas, so  we got her a Samsung Brooklyn. Seeing as the guy was prepared to do me a deal, I got one for Lee-Anne as well. The mother in law saw that, and decided that she needed one desperately as well, so I got another two. Fucked if I'm being the only one without one.

The mother in law, as is par for the course, despite stating she wanted hers for texting, music, surfing the net and other invaluable functions, has only just worked out how to use hers as a phone. But seeing as she spends 99% of her time at home she prefers to use her land-line for calls. (Remember the laptop she desperately needed for all sorts of uses? The "doorstop" as we now refer to it,)

Let me quote Lee-Anne here; "Oh … My … God. Just got a call from my mum. I asked her to call me when she arrived into the city on her bus. She thought she would call me from home instead and arrange a time because she can't work out how to call someone on her new mobile. I have asked her to bring it in with her and I will teach her (again) how you make a call."

In fact it was Lee-Anne who was first to be able to go online using hers, though she still doesn't know how she managed it. She was so chuffed with herself over this, she even declared it on the forum;

Sorry about that folks. ive had this phone for two months and this is the first time i have manage to get interwebz access on it. Note, this was NOT the phones fault. Well that was certainly exciting. Not for any of you, granted. But I sure got my jollies over posting whilst on the bus. (Fuck, I am so old and so easy to please!)

It took me ages to get mine running, and I'll happily admit it was Bethy who copied the settings from her mother's phone onto mine so I can use the web while skiving off at work. I was so at the end of my tether in  e-mail battle with "Virgin Mobile" over my settings, that they wrote stating they were close to banning me from their service for "threatening and abusive language."

Hello, I have tried every fucking thing and I still get SERVICE UNAVAILABLE!!  My wife is sat next to me using virgin mobile online so it's NOT a network problem.I've tried the generic codes and nothing. I phoned your help line to be told the phone is not one you sell, I fucking know that.HELP!! Before I go over to another network, because frankly I'm toatally pissed off with virgin

But Bethy fixed it for me, so fuck'em.

I've now got 47 albums of music on my phone, ranging from old favourites (John Martyn/Mahavish/Alan Stivell)to new favourites (Arvo Pärt./Ludvico Enaudi/British Sea Power) . God I love technology.

Ok, now for the important news. Mid-January we got a card in the post; "A bed has been reserved for you in Queanbeyan hospital for your procedure. This will happen at 9.00 am on Weds February 9 th. You may need to remain in hospital for up to five days." Immediately I was panic stricken! You know how I worry about these things.  "I'm supposed to be seeing Hawkwind on the 11 th!"

Lee-Anne, being the cool calm collected one, insisted I go. No honest, she did!

She said I should go ahead as planned, after all she'd be in hospital so there'd be little I could actually do, and it would be more nerve racking for her having me fannying about there. "But Bethy will have to stay with your mother if I'm not there!" The thought of Bethy being driven around by the mother in law, whose driving skills are questionable even without the stress of her daughter being in hospital, was not a good one.

It was agreed at first that, on the night I was up in Sydney and Lee-Anne was in hospital,  Bethy should have a night alone at our house, this was quickly altered by Bethy into; "Having a few friends around for a girlie's night and sleep over, with pizza delivery and lots of snacks." I banned her from mentioning it on facebook.

Lee-Anne declared that if she was going into hospital she wanted an i-pad to amuse herself on. I ordered one off e-bay (do you need me to tell you how long it took to get here?) The day after ordering it I read an article in the paper on the new faster, slimmer, shinier, i-pad, which was going to be released in Australia in two weeks time. The article also informed me that there would be a glut of cheap older i-pads on e-bay in three weeks time, cheap as chips, giving the bloody things away, so not to buy one until then.

Thanks a bunch.

So come the big day I drove Bethy into college and Lee-Anne into hospital, and went home and fretted. Queanbeyan hospital is a new place, about a half hour drive from our place in Canberra, actually it's over the border in NSW. As it's new it's very well equipped and staffed, and the Gyno, Dr Armellin, knows Lee-Anne well and is a very good surgeon.

Interlude; read the article below; and tell me I'm not alone in thinking these two silly bitches are in need of a good slapping.
A lesbian couple who said having two IVF babies instead of one damaged their relationship have won an appeal against their doctor and been awarded $317,000 in compensation. In the first Australian case of its kind, the Melbourne parents of the twin girls sued Canberra obstetrician Sydney Robert Armellin for implanting two embryos instead of the requested one. During the initial proceedings, the ACT Supreme Court heard that following the twins' birth, the mother had lost her capacity to love. The couple's relationship had also suffered as they became mired in everyday tasks associated with raising two children. The couple, whose combined income is more than $100,000, sought $398,000 from Dr Armellin to cover the costs of raising one of the girls, including fees for a private Steiner school.

I rang the hospital at 12.30 to find out that Lee-Anne was out of theatre, awake, still groggy, and not yet up to talking on the phone. All had gone well. I was a bit concerned that Lee-Anne was going to have a laparotomic hysterectomy. In this a  transverse incision is made through the abdominal wall, usually above the pubic bone,  similar to the incision made for a caesarean section. As you may know, Lee-Anne has abs that most women in their 20's would give their left tit to own, (I've seen her knock out more crunches in a set than I could do in a day,) so I was worried that the incision could be really tough to make, and the healing process long. But Dr Armellin assured us that as Lee-Anne was in such good physical nick she'd have a good recovery.

I visited her later that day, taking Bethy and the mother in law along. Lee-Anne had  insisted that if she didn't want to see anyone that day then she would let us know, and that if that's how she felt, we were not to come up. The mother in law insisted that she was going whatever Lee-Anne said as; "She's my daughter". Work out the logic there if you can.

I was due to go up to see Hawkwind on the Friday, that morning Lee-Anne rang me; "They're letting me out today." What, after two days stay? Apparently Lee-Anne was recovering well enough to go home. Oh and her i-pad had arrived. So, I was cleaning the house out, Bethy was at school, and Lee-Anne was ready to come home.

Plans were changed. Lee-Anne was taken to the mother in laws place by the mother in law, to be "treated" and to be looked after for the night. I cleaned the house out so as it would  not shame Bethy in front of her friends, as we live in a tip (or at least we do when Lee-Anne's in hospital and I'm left in charge.) I fretted about going to Sydney without Lee-Anne to hold my hand. Actually for all my knocking of her, (it's traditional isn't it?) Lee-Anne said her overnight stay at the mother in law's was a blessing and she felt all the better for it.

I travelled to Sydney by coach. On the way up I got a fat bird sat next to me, half in my seat, who spent the entire journey texting and giggling to herself. I listened to my music on my phone and dropped silent farts. At least I think they were silent, I had my headphones on so couldn't tell. Seeing as I'm as deaf as a post these days, and had the music up full-blast, they may have been loud as Motorhead.

I  got to Sydney and took a train to Newtown, I turned left out of the station and started looking for my digs for the night. I walked down King St,  as indicated by my map. I must have walked for a good half hour before realising I had my map upside down.

I walked back. I found "Billabong Gardens" eventually, and showered and changed and went out. I love Newtown, it's a studenty area with a really massive fun vibe about the place. I found a vegetarian restaurant and filled up on good curries, (3 different curries plus rice $10, serve yourself, you can imagine how high I heaped the plate.)

I made my way to the Manning Bar at Sydney University where the gig was. Ok, I'm stood outside waiting for the doors to open. I'm  wearing a "Goodies" T-shirt, (hey I'm hip on cross-cultural irony ok?) This guy comes up to me and asks; "Is this where Hawkwind are playing?" I look around me. Every middle aged and older hippy in Aus is stood around me, about a thousand of them, and they are all wearing Hawkwind t-shirts, and smoking dope, and this dim fuck asks a geezer in a "Goodies" t-shirt that? "Nope mate, I think they're playing just up the road," was  my reply. He strolled off in the direction I had pointed.

The twat.

What can I say about the gig? It was superb, the best live show I have seen in years, I kid you not.  The support band "The Night Terrors," were brilliant, but Hawkwind were just in another league. Old Dave Brock must be about a hundred and eight years old now, Tim Blake even older. But boy they can still put on a show and a half. (Tim Blake now looks like he spends his days cadging fags down at the bus station.) The rest of the group I hadn't heard of (Mr Dibs?) But the set was full on, a few old classics (Psychedelic Warlords/Levitation/Born to go) and a few new songs I hadn't heard before.

The thing with Hawkwind is that the music, although regarded as THE classic guitar driven "space rock", it is still timeless compared to other geners. I sang (howled) along, and was in seventh heaven. They even had a couple of exceedingly tasty young female  dancers, which certainly enlivened the night.  Although I must admit I still carry a candle for Stacia, the owner of the first  pair of tits I ever saw. The dancers stilt walking alien costumes were impressive as hell, but not as impressive as their semi-clad costumes.

I tried phoning a few people in the UK from the gig, left messages on some answer phones etc. The only person I actually spoke to was my nephew Shaun, a fellow headbanger.  "Hey Shaun listen to this..BALLAGGHH BLASRRGHH BLARRGHHH SHOT DOWN IN THE NIGHT!!! BALLAGGHH BLASRRGHH BLARRGHHH!!! I bet he was dead impressed.

I shot loads of movies of the gig on my phone (those above are two of t.eeh 20+) , which certainly taught me that my phone is pretty shite for that sort of thing. The gig was so good it made me feel like taking up smoking dope again after twenty years abstinence. But then I looked at the rest of the audience and was put right off that idea.

I found my way back to Billabong gardens, a happy, if slightly more deaf, man. The next day I shopped for gifts for Lee-Anne and Bethy in the studenty areas, I got lots. I then caught the train and bus back to Canberra, I had the whole two seats to myself on the coach back. I wonder if word had got out about my farting prowess.

I really must get back into the habit of having disasters on these trips, it's much more interesting to be able to say you ended up in the wrong city, or were kidnapped by Cornish separatists, or somehow lost a limb in a  bizarre unicycling escapade, when you come to write it all up.

So I had a week off to look after Lee-Anne and I'm glad I did. She's had a fair bit of pain, having been discharged on Panadol, believe it or not. She has restricted mobility, and has had to spend much of her day in bed. So at last I've been able to be some use. We've just changed her dressing, and I must say the wound (no stitches on a six inch scar?) is healing rather well.

  The other day , walking as per norm with the dogs at the Pinnacle, I came across this little chap.

Luckily I got to him before the dogs did, or there could have been an early breakfast on the cards. I took him home, and, leaving the dogs in the car, took it in to meet Lee-Anne who was still laid up in bed. "I swapped the dogs for this!" "You didn't?!?!" The poor rabbit was in a bit of a state, obviously he was a domestic escapee, and more obviously living wild didn't suit him. So I took him over to the local RSPCA, best of luck to him.

Oh I've found a great way of making the bike go faster, saving gas, and making it run quieter. Putting oil in it before it gets dry.      

With any luck you should be able now to add comments below. Go on, be rude about me.

*Roughly translated; "Don't look at me, I haven't a fucking clue what it's all about!" Oh, it turns out they are the posts for corrals, for horse riders to park their horses when picnicking.