Since we don’t live by politix alone (I sincerely hope), what did people get up to this weekend? Join in, share some tales, regulars and lurkers all!
I’m thinking of heading to the Powerhouse this afternoon to see Rachael Brady play @ Live Spark, where she’s launching her new album, somewhere sunshine:
….drawing on the best of folk, roots, blues & jazz influences: billie holiday meets jack johnson meets joni mitchell meets rickie lee jones – soul buoying, intelligent, acoustic quasi pop with equal parts grunt and delicacy…..
I saw her live a few years ago @ the Troubadour – always neat to support a Brisbane muso who combines a bit of a political theme with excellent tunes. Will post some photos later if I take any good ones! Now that I’ve got the heavy lifting on the phd thesis out of the way, and semester’s wrapping up, I’m really looking forward to getting out to some more gigs, so today might be a good time to start!
Update: Enjoyed the gig, took some photos, bought the cd!
If you’d like to see a larger image of the photos, click on them then click on “full view” once you’re inside the gallery.
Brisbane Jazz Festival by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Jacarandas by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Susanna Carmen by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Susanna Carmen II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Susanna Carmen III by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Rachael Brady by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Rachael Brady II by *phenomenologist on deviantART
Not so lazy.
We finally have water [besides rain] at our place, albeit a minimal amount and expensive [$600 for 20,000 litres].
So we have started our garden patch again which was compulsorily abandoned 2 years ago when our usual water source died up.
This morning we planted beetroot, cucumber, coriander, tomato, beans, peas, rhubarb, oregano, basil, rosemary, lettuce mix, spring onions and a couple of others I can’t remember offhand.
And to celebrate, it rained. Well sort of, about 35 drops, but we took it as an auspicious omen.
The patch may not be profitable, given the price of water, but it will be enjoyable and we are looking forward to the flavour.
Saturday night was Pride night in Perth and I joined about 30 other Greens in parading through the streets of Northbridge. Our two WA Senators and all 4 MLCs and MLC-elects who won seats at the recent State election were there.
Full of French Champagne and 2002 Shiraz.
We used to have the Troubador’s play at the Muntadgin Community Centre, man they’re version of Black Magic Woman just used to cook the dance floor. Funny thing was, they also used to play at Mandurah, where we had our holidays.
Today? Lazy breakfast of baked eggs, listened to some music, wandered around Hawthorn, then hit our recently-reopened local to have a few beers in the courtyard. Bliss. Home now for a dinner of rice and beans.
Yesterday was a long day blazing a trail through Melbourne with our guests from Perth: brunch, beers, more beers, champagne, dinner, cocktails, more cocktails, and more beers.
Update: Enjoyed the gig, took some photos, bought the cd!
Remember me whinging about my dog? running past me instead of coming to me on recall? Well, things have changed a bit! this morning she did a recall so smart the other handlers were calling out ‘show off’ etc very nice!
Planted several native trees/shrubs, hoping to get a hold of soem muntries: my ‘native quarter’ has to be productive as well as pretty: two quandon and a lillypilly tree in it so far.
Made potato salad for dinner: steamed some baby Nicola potatoes in their jackets till just tender, rolled them in butter & sprinkled with hot paprika powder. fried some bacon till almost burned, added to the potatoes and bunged this into a fridge.
then made a ‘normal’ salad, added the spud+potato mix, poured vinaigrette over, yum! Nice yellow fleshed tasty spuds instead of that revolting mix of tasteless white spuds that have soaked in mayo for hours
errr spud + bacon mix!
Magic weekend.
Despite it’s reputation for being real hillbilly country (which it is), the discovery coast between Bundaberg and Gladstone is a lovely spot. Over 150 km stretch of sparsely populated coastline, not greatly different from the day Cook, Banks and Solander looked at it as they sailed past in 1770. Sweeping beaches, national parks – really nice area.
Found a lovely little spot I never knew existed. Six, fully modern cabins, complete with all mod cons supplied by big banks of solar panels (no town water or power) tucked away in the scrub just behind a nice sandy broadwater with the open ocean beach just on the other side of that.
Drank some beer, drank some rum, caught some whiting, forgot all about politics for almost two days.
Friday night full of angst. Our language disordered son went to Mount Gambier for the day and rolled his car about 10Kms from home. I had been panicking because he wasn’t answering his phone, so was very relieved when I heard a car pull up about 11pm. Relief turned to shock when some friends of ours come through the door with the son who was in tears and very shaken.
He’d managed to get out of the car and had then walked nearly 6 Kms in the pitch dark to Alex’s. He’s very sore and sorry, but apart from a bit of bark off his knee is OK, thank God. The car wasn’t so fortunate and is a write off. We’re just thankful it wasn’t the other way round.
Spent yesterday clearing #2 son’s possessions form his wreck, then doing maintenance on my house in Robe-my parents’ house built in 1963 in a then undesirable part of town, now very desirable and rented out to white-shoers in the high season.
Bloody drill ran out of battery, so I watered plants and watched the honey eaters dive bombing the bottlebrushes and went home harumphing.
Last night, cooked a piece of eye fillet with mustard crust along with Helen’s yummy smashed potatoes and other vegies, celebrating having the daughter home for the weekend.
Finished the maintenance today courtesy of a million drills and an enormous amount of swearing and no help from the daughter who’d had a very late night. Pizza for tea, suggested by the husbandy substance, so I didn’t have to cook. Yay!
Jane, what a rollercoaster weekend you had!
Mine was very tame in comparison. I caught a couple of comedy shows – impro on Friday and stand-up on Saturday (still writing up that review). Both were terrific fun, and I’m very much enjoying seeing live comedy again.
Saturday morning we took my mum down to walk the Sculpture By The Sea trail. I’m never doing that on a Saturday again – the crush! I’ll take the camera back down during the week to take some shots with more time and room for framing.
Sunday was quiet after that, other than the imprecations my husband was hurling at his new computer that came with Vista installed. What a palaver Micro$oft has made of getting one’s favourite programs to work on the new OS. He’s a gnat’s whisker away from uninstalling it and going back to XP.
Extremely quiet weekend. Saturday, took somew notes on a book I’m reviewing, then got back into the American Revolution – taking notes from Bernard Bailyn’s The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson. I’m enjoying this book of Bailyn’s. Found his Creation of the American Republic very hard going – still haven’t finished it. Watched Rough Diamond, The Bill. Did some more note-taking, then to sleep.
Did some note-taking on the lasdt chapter of the book I’m reviewing. Will be able to write it today, Monday. Dipped into John Shy’s book of essays, A People Numerous and Armed. Spent the afternoon updating my bibliography from Amazon. Hope the dollar goes up by December. Didn’t bother to watch too much of Galapogos – a bit repetitive, I thought. Looking forward to the doco on the Howard years. But will the Libs tell the truth? I doubt it. Watched The Long Firm. Liked it, but wasn’t too sure about the stereotyped second half. Not as good as last weeks’ episodes. To bed.
Jane, glad to hear your son is okay.
Two recipes:
1. How to stop water getting in the cabin of your jeep
Pull off silly American style foot brake.
Undo screws and remove useless vent in kick panel (great for getting fresh air on the top of your shoe). It’s made of metal and will cut your hands.
Reach inside panel and pull out leaves, then dirt, then leaves, then OH SHIT A GREAT BIG HAIRY SPIDER RUNAWAY!!!!
Spray inside of panel with insect spray. Come back an hour later with gloves.
Finish cleaning out panel and find the drain hole blocked, clean that too.
Reassembly is reverse of dismantle procedure.
Pour bucket of water into cowl, be very pleased with oneself as it pours onto the ground rather than into the truck. Rue the $300 it cost to get the floor welded up. Gasp in awe and wonder at the sheer over-engineering required to create the stupid vehicle in the first place (typically american – made out of iron girders held together with chewing gum).
I claim the prize for Most Suburban Weekend. The Sprig needed to go to the doctor on Sat after developing conjunctivitis on Fri evening. Picked up a few things at the shops. Bit of cleaning. Harvested our broad beans. Watched ep of Blake’s 7. Church on Sunday, followed by a celebration of my mother-in-law’s birthday at our place with BBQ leg of lamb and salads. Spent time in the evening planting pumpkin, bean, watermelon, corn and cucumber seeds with the Sprig. Watched Galapagos. Great film, shame about the overblown narration. David Rubie complains about spiders… well, then the ABC ruined my pleasant weekend by putting up a great big scary Howard on the screen — AIEEEE!
Put on a batch of Summer Ale early on Sunday arvo (wheat beer, flavoured with Goldings hops, coriander seeds and some glace ginger), then went to see “Burn after reading”. Great flick, very amusing. The closing credits rolled up to a live version of the Fugs’ “CIA Man”, which I haven’t heard for nearly 40 years. I was stoked.
Saturday, rode from Lilydale to Pakenham via Silvan and Cardinia reservoirs.
67 kilometres (80 once you throw in the ride back and forth to Flinders st), and 1000 metres of often bloody steep climbing.
Sunday, took some Chinese visitors to Healesville Sanctuary via a winery restaurant. Think the Age Good Food Guide got it wrong; food was mediocre and overpriced. Healesville Sanctuary is terrific for foreign tourists, not so exciting if you’ve seen red-tailed black cockatoos, tiger snakes, koalas, and half a dozen different kangaroo species in the wild…
I agree about the great big hairy Howard. But I’m looking forward to the expose. Somehow I don’t think the Libs are going to come out looking bright and shiny.
Tigtog, I haven’t heard too many people being overjoyed with Vista. I was lucky enough to snaffle one with XP installed, not that it makes Quicken any less irritating. And I’d still like to make those shits Howard and Costello do my BAS every quarter. Grrrr!