{"id":872,"date":"2013-09-16T00:04:03","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T00:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?p=872"},"modified":"2013-09-17T08:51:16","modified_gmt":"2013-09-17T08:51:16","slug":"pushing-50-but-not-speeding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"Pushing 50, but not speeding…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well Lee-Anne turned fifty this month, so a happy half century to her. We\u2019re going out for a meal to celebrate this on the day before we leave for Blighty, at Water\u2019s Edge<\/a>. She already knows what she\u2019s getting from me for her birthday, as we booked it in January, a two day cookery class<\/a> at Rick Stein\u2019s Seafood School<\/a>, (there may be a little bit<\/em> of self interest displayed by me there.) She also got a ticket to see the Aussie folk hero Paul Kelly <\/a>play, (see below.) I\u2019m under strict orders that I\u2019m not to buy her any more gifts, so I won\u2019t. By god she\u2019s a fine figure of a woman for her age. Saturday the 8th of September, a fortnight before her 50th, she run the Canberra Times <\/a>ten kilometre fun run<\/a>.\u00a0 Puts me to shame.<\/p>\n

Now lets get onto the bit you enjoy, the cock ups…..<\/p>\n

Cock up one:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I e-mail Jamesy, all excited! \u201cJamesy, “Otway the Movie<\/a>” is playing Cardiff on the fifth of October. We\u2019ll make a night of it, and I\u2019ll introduce you to Otway!!!\u201d<\/em>
\nI get a reply; \u201cThomas, \u201cOtway the Movie\u201d is on in Cardiff\u00a0 SEPTEMBER the fifth. On that day, I\u2019ll be in Croatia, you\u2019ll be in Australia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Cock up two:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Booking a table at \u201cThe Water\u2019s Edge\u201d<\/a> for Lee-Anne\u2019s birthday. There will be me, Lee-Anne, Bethy, Brandon, and Mary going. Being Mr. Efficient I decide to book it two months in advance ….ring, ring…<\/em> “Hello, I\u2019d like to book a table for September 28, for 7.30 pm. It\u2019s my wife\u2019s birthday. How many? Oh a table for six please.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

You do the maths.<\/p>\n

Cock up three:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having watched our idol Heston<\/a> on \u201cMasterchef\u201d<\/a> we (I) decide we must have a \u201cSous Vide\u201d cooker<\/a> as he uses one all the time, and I\u2019m a kitchen gadget addict. Ok, Lee-Anne spots one in \u201cGood Guys\u201d<\/a> for a reasonable price. On my day off I go to get it, I don\u2019t tell Lee-Anne this, as she\u2019d only tell me not too. I see it on the shelf, read the spec, and fall in love. I grab the box and go to an assistant; \u201cWhat\u2019s the best price you can do me on this mate?\u201d<\/em> He scans it in; \u201c$149.00\u201d<\/em> Bargain! Lee-Anne had said it was $180.00 I throw my credit card at it and it sticks. I rush home with it.<\/p>\n

Bethy takes a look at it; \u201cWhy do we need a slow cooker with a meat searing <\/a>function Taff?\u201d<\/em> Bollocks! I\u2019d grabbed the wrong box. Took it back, paid the rest of the $180.00 and now we have a Sous Vide cooker.<\/p>\n

I did “salmon in ginger teriyaki sauce”<\/a>\u00a0as my first dish using it, it was fab.<\/p>\n

Cock up four:<\/strong> (Lee-Anne\u2019s go now,)<\/em><\/p>\n

Remember I was telling you about the wing mirror debacle<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Due to the house and garage being chockers full of crap, yet again, we hired a skip in for four days, a bloody big 4 m3 job. We filled it full of junk within a day, mainly dead kitchen gadgets. As a consequence of this we now had masses of room in the garage. So the next day, while reversing out of the garage, Lee-Anne was totally awed by the amount of space and room available. Unfortunately the room available between the garage doors had not changed one bit. She therefore managed to\u00a0 smack the wing mirror\u00a0against the garage door, neatly shattering it again. The same bloody side. The same one I had sweated blood over, and forked out 40 bar to replace,\u00a0only six weeks prior.<\/p>\n

So by now I am quite versed in solving this problem, I’ve\u00a0had plenty of practice. \u00a0I took the backing plate back to the nice people who had cut me the last mirror. Seeing as it had only been six weeks since they cut \u00a0the last one I\u00a0felt lucky they didn\u2019t recognise me.\u00a0\u00a0I said to the girl; \u201cOh, when I\u2019ve had mirrors cut before, they <\/em>(meaning “you”,) made the mistake of gluing the mirror to the backing plate, which isn\u2019t much use as I need to screw the plate on before mounting the mirror.\u201d<\/em> We both had a good laugh about that.<\/p>\n

Guess what I found they’d done to it when I called in the next day to pick it up?<\/p>\n

Cock up five;<\/strong> (my turn again,)<\/em><\/p>\n

I bought a 32 gb \u201cCF Card\u201d<\/a> for my camera the other day. I\u2019d been putting off buying one of these as they\u2019re bloody expensive. Being a\u00a0 cheap sod, I bought a crappy one off e-bay for $45.00. I impatiently waited for it, and when it eventually arrived, I rammed it in, and shut\u00a0camera door\u00a0on the card. Net result? Total failure of camera, and one devastated Welshman.<\/p>\n

No matter what I did, the camera failed to start. I was looking at sending it back to Canon for repairs. Their turn around time ranged from four to nine weeks, so it would be with them\u00a0 when we set off for our holiday, plus it would be hugely expensive. We contemplated hiring a replacement camera for the holiday,\u00a0but found out that to hire one similar to mine they wanted $120.00 a day!! Luckily, by\u00a0going online, I found a person who had had a similar catastrophic failure. They had fixed it by taking out\u00a0 the deeply hidden “time and date battery”. This involves a jewelers screwdriver,\u00a0 a torch, a magnifying glass, lots of swearing,\u00a0and me utterly crapping myself.<\/p>\n

Luckily it worked. I returned the card to the people on e-bay, accompanied by a ranting e-mail and threats of suing. I informed them, in rather intemperate language,\u00a0 about how much damage it could have caused my camera, and how I would have expected them to repair it at their cost. They offered me a full refund, (less postage.) I sent it back, and paid out $103.00 to another supplier for a good brand model.<\/p>\n

Only then<\/em> did I find out that you\u2019re supposed to format the card before inserting it into the camera, otherwise, guess what happens?\u00a0If you don\u2019t tell the people who are giving me my refund, neither will\u00a0I.<\/p>\n

(Edited to add: I’ve now found out I have a “bent pin” in my camera, which will cost me $400.00 to fix. Bollox.)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s enough cock ups for one episode I think.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What with us now having all that space in the garage it gave me the chance to\u00a0 hang a punch bag up in there, something I’d been meaning to do for yonks. So, first of all I bought a punch bag obviously. I haven\u2019t done any punch bag work, or kamite, for donkey\u2019s years, so I soon found out;<\/p>\n

a)\u00a0It\u2019s bloody hard work.
\nb)\u00a0I\u2019m bloody unfit.
\nc)\u00a0It makes my knuckles hurt lots.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve been persevering, every day I take my frustrations out on it, (not\u00a0sexual ones, for god’s sake!) I had to order sparring gloves in the end, as my knuckles were getting raw. But! What size gloves do\u00a0I take? Fuctifino.\u00a0So I ordered medium sized ones, and they sent me large ones. Weirdly they fit, if anything they’re a bit too small. They must be made for Japanese people.<\/p>\n

Lee-Anne watched me working out on the bag once. Her verdict was rather surprising; \u201cOoh, that’s really\u00a0sexy!\u201d<\/em> I\u2019ll keep it up then, (Benny Hill did not die in vain.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ok, election day here in Australia is a bit of a party day, despite voting being compulsory<\/a>. Voting always takes place on a Saturday, the polling booths are usually hosted\u00a0in the local schools. Charities, and the schools, set up stalls flogging edibles to the voters. Some sell cakes, some soft drinks, some sell crafts and stuff, all home made of course. But the classic Aussie charity money raiser is a “sausage sizzle.”\u00a0<\/a>Sausages are cooked on a barbie (BBQ) , and sold in a slice of white bread, accompanied by ketchup and onions.<\/p>\n

Some bright spark has taken it upon themselves to map out where the best sausage sizzles are all over Aus, so people could vote at a station which has good catering. As you can vote win any polling station in your city, and some people will go the extra miles to get a good quality banger in bread! It also maps out those which cater for vegetarians, or “perverts\u201d as they are known here.<\/p>\n

Check out the interactive map here.<\/a><\/p>\n

This is where I voted, as marked on the map above;<\/p>\n

Aranda Primary
\n<\/span>Sausage sizzle
\n<\/span>Egg and bacon rolls, sausage sandwiches, cakes and craft, face painting. <\/span>Lots of fun!
\n<\/span><\/span>Cake Stall: Yes
\n<\/span>Sausage Sizzle: Yes
\n<\/span>Banambila St Aranda Primary School, ARANDA<\/span><\/h5>\n

It looked like a\u00a0 celebratory festival, not a bloody election, and\u00a0was taking place in Bethy\u2019s old primary school.<\/p>\n

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Even though I was there early, at 8.20 am, there were queues out the door already. It was a\u00a0 bit odd being back in that school, Bethy is now, as you know, a fully fledged adult, where have all the years gone? This year I used an online gizmo<\/a> to plan my voting patterns, and numbered my choices from 1, (I luv you lots,)<\/em> to 27, (fuck you, you fascist bastard.)<\/em><\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s two of the more “interesting” parties I votes for, (marked them first and second in fact,)
\nAustralian Sex party.<\/a><\/p>\n

Drug Reform<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of the campaigning was pretty forthright too, as you would expect from Aussies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the wanker got in, so let’s hope he doesn’t bugger things up too much. A dislikeable man,<\/a> despite being a pom.<\/p>\n

Some quotes:<\/p>\n

\u2018What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it\u2019s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up, every year\u2026\u2019<\/h5>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u201dJesus knew that there was a place for everything and it\u2019s not necessarily everyone\u2019s place to come to Australia.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a very Christian thing to come in by the back door rather than the front door,\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201cClimate change is absolute crap\u201d.<\/h5>\n
\u00a0\u201cI probably feel a bit threatened (by homosexuality), as so many people do.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u00a0\u201cThere may not be a great job for them (Indigenous Australians)\u00a0but whatever there is, they just have to do it, and if it\u2019s picking up rubbish around the community, it just has to be done.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u201dI think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.\u201d<\/h5>\n
\u00a0\u201cIf you want to know who to vote for, I\u2019m the guy with the not bad looking daughters\u201d.<\/h5>\n

It was Bethy’s first vote in a national election too, I don’t know how she voted, but I’m sure she’ll not have been too different to her mum.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Well Bethy managed to last a whole six weeks in her job before getting promotion. Yup, she was so good that they decided for two days a week she would work with the nutritionist for the wards, ensuring that people got nutritionally complete meals which match their diagnosed needs.\u00a0 She\u2019s also clocked up a couple of six day weeks, having been called in to cover on the weekends.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately she\u2019s not getting along with her supervisor, but as I said to her; \u201cThis is a middle-aged woman, who has reached the dizzying pinnacle in life of pushing meal trolleys about a ward. You are a young, very pretty, student, who is doing this before going onto University and a career. Don\u2019t you think that there may be a little jealousy involved?”<\/em><\/p>\n

Poor Bethy did make the mistake of leaving her bedroom door open one day, with the savage mutts around. This is what became of her favourite shoes.<\/p>\n

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As part of my abstinence program, and because Aussie TV is total shite, I\u2019ve been going to watch Bethy playing for her women\u2019s side. It\u2019s great fun, very physical, and as it’s all over 19 yrs old women playing I don\u2019t feel like a pervert when snapping off photos of them. Here\u2019s a couple of good\u2019n\u2019s I got of Bethy shooting and scoring.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“. .and manages to cast a swan shadow shape at the same time ! – Unbelievable!!!”<\/em>
\n(H. Midwinter.)<\/h5>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For Fathers Day Bethy bought me a range\u00a0of teas from T2,<\/strong><\/a> which was lovely. One of the ones she got me is “Really Russian Caravan Tea”. Gorgeous stuff, tough I must say I do love my pot of Assam<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Really Russian Caravan<\/a>: Taking inspiration from the Silk Road, our blend of China black teas, including keemun and lapsang souchong, is a delicious road to travel. An orange hue through this smoky brew reveals a medium-bodied infusion that’s like passing through a pine forest. Soft tannins temper the fire, making for all-day drinking with flavour.<\/h5>\n

Bethy’s boyfriend, Brandon, recently passed his driving test, though he opted for an “automatic” license rather than a proper manual one. To be fair he is half American, and as they tend to prefer autos,\u00a0\u00a0 it’s understandable really, (a cultural thing I suppose you could say?) All excited he went out and bought a car. Oddly, he bought a Sunbaru Liberty Staion Wagon<\/a>. One just like ours in fact, except auto natch, and newer and shinier and without the dents and bits hanging off it that ours has. It also has the 2.5 litre engine, which I’m a bit jealous of. A bit weird him buying a car exactly like the one the in-laws own, but sweet too.<\/p>\n

The other day I asked Bethy; \u201cIs Brandon staying over tonight?\u201d<\/em> I was cooking duty so had to get the grub sorted. She replied in the affirmative. I turned to Lee-Anne and in a stage whisper said; \u201cI always wanted a son…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Brandon spends at least three or four nights of the week at our place. Now he has his own wheels I should imagine he\u2019ll spend more, as he won\u2019t have to take two buses to get into work during the week. He\u2019ll be moving in with Bethy while we are in the UK, which we\u2019re really happy about, (Bethy especially.) They are planning a Halloween party while we are away, Bethy knows not to promote it on Facebook, and also which section of the wine rack is out of bounds, but I\u2019ve really no concerns over her having a party or two.<\/p>\n

Talking of camera stuff, as I was earlier, I decided that my \u201cdedicated time-lapse camera,\u201d (Ok, my aging 450D camera,) needed a wide angle lens in order to capture the best frame size for of time-lapses. I was loathe however to ask Lee-Anne if I could spend more money on camera gear, (mainly as I was going to be asking her if I could spend another couple of hundred on new chips soon in any case.)<\/p>\n

However, looking for a cheap second hand one on e-bay, I came across brand new wide angle attachments<\/a>, selling for silly money, so I ordered one. When it arrived \u00a0I fitted it to the old camera, and fell about the living room laughing.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s so funny?\u201d<\/em> Bethy asked, giving me that look I get when I\u2019m being the \u201cmad dad\u201d again. \u201cIt works!!!<\/strong>\u201d<\/em> I exclaimed, and fell about once more. Bethy paused, \u201cYou\u2019ve ordered something off e-bay, and when it arrives, you find out it works, and piss yourself laughing? Jesus, you are mental Taff.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t care, mental or not, $19.00 for a working wide angle is a killer deal.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I was walking the mutts up at Shepherds Lookout one night, to try a new time lapse thingy I\u2019d read about. This is how it worked out, not bad eh?<\/p>\n