Royal Adelaide Show

A few weeks ago we, like most people in Adelaide, went to the Royal Adelaide Show.  This annual event lasts about a week and is a bit like a mixture of an agricultural fair, an ideal home exhibition, and Blackpool.  They're much more relaxed here about you bunking your kids off school, which we did. For 2 days.  Many schools have a dedicated 'show day' for this very event anyway.

We watched sheep shearing, Pig racing/diving and woodchopping competitions.  There was formation stunt Ute driving, Ute racing and some really spectacular motorcycle stunts, followed by fireworks.  We went on the ferris wheel, the ghost train and the big dipper.  Robert was particularly chuffed to be big enough to go on the Big Dipper, which went upside down and everything.  I observed that fairground ride staff are much the same the world over - just rough enough looking to worry you about their ability to run a safe ride, but too scary to actually approach for any other reason but to give them your money.

A highlight for the children and, erm, some adults is the show bags. It's the tradition that everyone buys a goody bag from an enormous hall selling an enormous variety of themed showbags.  robert and Owen opted for Wall-e ones. They could have had Ben 10, Superman, Spiderman, Hanna Montana, anything really.  I couldn't resist the 'Don't Hassel the Hoff' David Hasselhoff  theme bag, complete with T-shirt, mug, air freshener, medallion, sweat bands and, the crowning glory, a Hoff wig.  I had great fun embarrassing everyone I was with by sporting as much of the garb as possible immediately, although I did keep under wraps the Hoff Glow in the Dark Love Dice. Ace.

We spent a fortune, but all in all it was good value and we had a really, really good day.

Not being there - clarification

I've given the wrong impression on my last post when I said, 'you have to get that sort of information 3rd hand'.

This reads like I'm saying we're not kept in the loop.

That's absolutely not the case, and not what I was trying to say. My family and everyone have been great at letting us know as much as they do, when they do.

What I meant was Mum, not wanting to bother anybody, always down plays any suffering she goes through. Even when we could call in in person regularly she'd say, "ooh I'm alright". A couple of weeks later she might tell you how rotten she was feeling.

One of the dangers of the written word I suppose.  It was a pretty downbeat posting I wrote, but there is a down side to being here, and I thought that should be reflected in what I write.

In the next one I hope to share with you pictures of the David Hasselhoff wig I bought at the Royal Adelaide Show.

Not being there

We always knew a difficult part of moving to Australia would be missing our families, especially when they're ill (Sharon's Dad, my Mum), giving birth (Sarah in November), getting new glasses (William) or generally bungling around (Emma Beddows).

Sharon's Dad had a vertebroplasty recently (cement injected into a back bone to strengthen it and reduce pain), and now my Mum has just had fairly major abdominal surgery. It was difficult knowing that if we hadn't left, and I was still working at Manchester Royal Infirmary, I could have been just down the corridor from both of them during their hospital stays. Instead, we're 24 hours of travel and a few thousand dollars away.

When we did leave it was knowing there would always be very good reasons not to leave, and to some extent there's a selfish element in us having decided to go anyway. I sometimes feel a bit guilty, and pretty helpless. I'm aware I'm presuming in the rest of my family to 'be there' for Mum. It's even harder for Sharon, as she's an only child and Brian has less people to look put for him.

Thankfully, Brian is in less pain now, and Mum is reportedly recovering well at home. Not that she'd ever tell us if she wasn't so well - you have to get that kind of info 3rd hand off the rest of the family.

Get well soon.

Middle Eastlands

I don't know, I'm out of the country 10 minutes, and overnight Man city become the richest football club in the world.

I can't help thinking that if anyone could stuff up and under perform when backed by trillions of oil dollars, it'd have to be City.

However, I had the misfortune of living in Blackburn when they had millions of pounds pumped in. I had to suffer the indignity of previously oblivious glory hunters pretending to be life long rovers fans as Shearer et al won them the premiership. Crap town, crap team, but several million quid later, the investment paid off.

So one can only hope Robinho, Jo and Yohoho or whoever can adapt to Manchester and bring home some silverware.

Incidentally, it's interesting to note that Australians, who are generally relatively ignorant about 'soccer' automatically presume you're a blue if you are from Manchester, fully understanding that most Utd fans are poxy southerners.

Anyway, the last word on the subject should go to Noel Gallagher, who has clearly retained his
Burnage sense of humour. He told BBC 5Live:

“It’ll be nice to know that every gallon of petrol a Man Utd fan buys will be
going into City’s transfer kitty.”

Read his full comments here

Look a like gag

from Private Eye magazine.

These aren't as good of course as Rob Graham's lookey-likies, which you can see on facebook if you look for photos tagged with his name.

New link

I've added a new link on the right, to 'found magazine'. I've been occasionally checking in on this for a few years now, usually on quiet nights at work. People send in scans of photos, hand written notes, shopping lists etc. I don't know why, but they're fascinating, often funny and sometimes disturbing. I think it's because each entry gives you just a little glimpse into someone else's life, leaving you to imagine the circumstance or what happens next.

I've been spending some of this set of nights trying to find out what has been going on at the Olympics that doesn't involve Australians. Watching Channel 7 here, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Olympics was simply a swimming gala set up for the Australians with a few other sports happening on the side.

Another time killer we played the other night was to Google your own name and see what comes up. I was disturbed to find there's a Colin Taylor on the run in Europe for the worst of crimes, but rather pleased to find out there's a Colin Taylor Band. I wonder what they sing? I bet they dance badly. You can also try searching "Colin likes to" (with the speech marks) and see the top 10 of what your namesakes get up to. Only do it if you're not of a sensitive disposition, though.

I'm off to pen that Number 1 hit for my band.

More tea, vicar?

Sharon has developed a bit of Friday morning routine, which I try my best to gate crash as often as possible.

We go with several of the other parents of children at Owen's school to McDonald's McCafe in Reynella. This is on a corner of a big main road and is referred to locally as 'junk food corner', it having a KFC, Hungry Jacks (Australian version of Burger King), Dominos, Fasta Past (urgh) and of course Maccas, as the golden arched fat fest is known here.

I'm sure the staff at Maccas really look forward to Friday mornings when about 10 of us and what feels like 20 toddlers turn up, asking for coffees which have to be just-so and asking them to turn the heating up/down and generally being a nuisance. I have to hand it to Maccas though, they do really good, relatively cheap coffee. And they've given us key fobs that gets us a free slice of cake with every coffee purchased. Until 2010. That's potentially alot of cake. After the 12k run, naturally.

After that, we go next door to the 'Salvos Op shop'. I'll translate: that's the Salvation Army Charity shop. The sense of adventure is hightened by cutting through the palm tree bushes between them, which makes it feel like you've stumbled upon an abandoned enclave. I've only ever really been to charity shops for fancy dress before. You know, a dress or skirt for a game of football at camp. But this has actually got really quite good stuff, and I've picked up some good shirts. Sharon says they're from the designer boutique 'Sal-vos'. Equally as important though is having a good laugh at some of the crap they have too. Hideous crockery sets, a salt and pepper pot set that say 'atishoo' and 'bless you'. A Barry Crocker album.

It all adds up and has helped us make some good friends.