My Cat Bernie

Please Vote: Help Me Choose Which Bear Gets A Holiday

2011-01-04T08:20:00.013+13:00

I've paid $40 to a tiny school in the middle of the North Island which is raising money for new computers by offering holidays to teddy bears.

I like the idea of one of my bears getting out to see the countryside, trouble is, I can't decide which one should go.

The bears and I agree that it probably should be one of my 'foreign' bears, so that they see a bit more of New Zealand. I've narrowed it down a bit to the six here.

Can you please pick which one you think would benefit the most from a wee break?

Thanks,

Leigh & the Bears

Check out the website www.bearsbigholiday.co.nz

This is Victor, my well travelled friend Chris got him for me in South Africa. Victor would sort out all the trouble-maker bears on the trip.

This is Fao. My lovely friend Janelle got him for me in New York, at the famous toy shop FAO Schwarz. I don't really think he should go, he's a bit special.

This is Hugh, from the show 'Boy from Oz'. I got him in Sydney. He's very light on his feet and quite a cutie.

This is Domi, from Sydney. She's a bit naughty and likes wearing leather. Might not be appropriate for a primary school visit.

This is Ping Pong, another lovely bear brought home to NZ by Chris, from the Beijing Olympics. The only panda in this line-up.

And this is Will Sands, the convict bear from Melbourne Gaol - another contribution to the collection from Janelle. Will could use a holiday.

Which one?

Hortitude!

2010-08-08T14:48:00.003+12:00

This is what I was doing last week - Horticulture New Zealand Conference 2010 - it was all about the hortitude!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1opltd5VwhY

Road Trip!

2010-07-25T10:35:00.000+12:00

My friend Mandy doesn't mess around - when she decides to do a road trip - she owns it, in style! Take a look at her new 5th Wheel ... http://www.wearechangingplaces.blogspot.com

The Council's in a Hole, Again

2009-09-09T15:59:00.004+12:00

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to be employed to report on local authority council meetings, particularly in some of the tiniest corners of New Zealand (yes I mean you, Kawerau) will appreciate this blog.

It is a small town reporter's worst nightmare - the pothole story. Along with the dog shit story, the broken play equipment story and the missing road sign story. The latter being particularly hard to get a photo of.

2009 Holiday Check List

2009-04-07T09:29:00.003+12:00

The following is a Holiday Checklist found in my frontyard, presumed written by one of the young guys living across the street. I have not altered the order, or the spelling. I'm a little worried about what Anna eats.

ear plugs
towels
ticket/drugs
sunblock
cell phone charger
undies/socks
t-shirts/shorts etc
duvet
swap mattress
gas bottle
Anna's food
sunglasses
deodorant
toothbrush
jandles
condoms
pillows
water/lime cordial
Transfer money
hat
ipod dock

Sell That House!

2009-02-04T13:25:00.005+13:00

I love this blog. It is even better than the cake disasters one, but then I'm not in to cakes as much as houses.

I love the descriptions some of these people use in their advertising. Honesty is the best policy. That's what we spin doctors keep telling people anyway. Of course, it may not be true ...

http://www.lovelylisting.com/

And this is the cake disasters one, which is also funny and just another great example of how the internet brightens our lives ...

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

I love the 'ordered and received' section.

Film Reflects Life?

2008-02-21T10:02:00.002+13:00

I've now seen all five of the films nominated for this year's Best Picture Oscar.

All but one features death, despair and violent deeds.

This means I'm actually viewing teen pregnancy as a positive life-affirming activity.

Juno is the only one of the five in which nobody dies. In fact, someone is born! Hurrah. Yes, to a 16-year-old unwed mother who thens hands it over, with no strings attached, to another unwed mother. Ain't the 21st century grand?!

The only thing that really bothered me about Juno was none of the kids had cellphones. That's not normal.

As for the other four - Atonement is desperately sad, There Will Be Blood is long and gloomy, Michael Clayton is dark and lonely and No Country For Old Men is just plain horrible.

The movies themselves are all fine pieces of film art, but the stories they tell are miserable in the extreme. What has become of America?

If this is some kind of reflection of the national psyche .. even allowing that Atonement is British, the USA is in a very bad way.

I won't be the only one mulling over all the new techniques I've seen for disposing of people either.

It's going to take a lot more than a black man in a fat suit and Steve Martin dressed as a French policeman to balance up against these Hollywood grim-fests.

If this is all tied up with Iraq and sub-prime lending disasters, then next year's Oscar nominations could have us all reaching for the razorblades.

Or we'll be watching a whole bunch of people doing it on the big screen.

Top Ten Good Things that Can Happen In Rugby

2007-10-19T12:54:00.000+13:00

1. All Blacks win the World Cup

2. Wellington Lions beat Canterbury

3. Hurricanes beat Canterbury

4. Anyone else beats Canterbury

5. Johnny Wilkinson breaks leg

6. Any Argentinian player looses shirt in scrum, on camera

7. Wallabies get kicked out of tournament hours before All Blacks

8. All Blacks recover from yet another WC choking by winning all their games for the next four more years.

9. Stephen Larkham plays entire 80 minutes, of any game, anywhere

10. Murray Mexted says "that winger's calling 'come inside me, come inside me'" in a TV commentary

Blog Therapy

2007-08-05T09:08:00.000+12:00

The last time I wrote anything here it was May 23.

Now it's August. So much for writing every week.

I don't want to get too heavy about this - but obviously the blog thing came along just when I really needed the therapy during the bad ol' times working for some nasty bastards back in Sydney.

Now I'm home in NZ again, happy as can be, I LIKE my job, and well ... it's all good really.

Actually being able to tell people I like my job is a bit weird. People aren't used to hearing me say that. I'm not used to hearing me say that. It's a foreign concept. You go to work, get paid, and you enjoy it. It is fun.

Eh????? Fun? Excuse me but how does that happen?!

Strange times indeed.

As for being back in Wellington, my old home town never looked so good.

I stagger up the 50 steps from our house to the street in my big warm coat, wind howling around me ears, I drag open the car door and make sure it doesn't slam on my ankle as I close it with the wind gusts pushing it at me. I flick on the windscreen wipers as a few droplets of spitting rain manage to connect with the glass before the wind tosses them on.

I do the four-point turn in our narrow but yet typical Wellington street to get the car facing the right way and therefore saving half a litre of gas by not driving round the block, I'm off down the road, watching the wind gusts sliding in the puddles on the road ... and I'm smiling the whole time.

It's so good to be home. What a nutcase.

Turns out the therapy I really needed was a good southerly storm.

New Cat

2007-05-23T20:51:00.000+12:00

We have a new cat.

His name is Panther.

That's the SPCA name.

Yes, he is a black cat.

The SPCA said he was about 7 years old. Weeks later, the vet said he was at least 10. My husband thinks we should get some of our money back.

It costs $150 to get a cat from the SPCA, not counting the litter tray, which he refused to use on the first night and ripped up three times. At 5.30am I couldn't stand it any longer, and let him out. On the first night. This despite the SPCA advice to keep him indoors for TWO WEEKS.

The cat went mental when we wouldn't let him out. I guess by the age of 10 you are pretty clear about the difference between indoors and out, and which one you prefer, at which times.

Panther's photo was up around town for awhile. Even the vet's had his picture up on the wall with all the other homeless moggies. I told them to put a "sold" sticker over him.

My husband's osteopath said she saw Panther's picture in the supermarket. The cat is famous. He should have his own blog.

The early visit to the vet's was needed after he got into a scratch-up with another local and caught a claw between the ears. Left a big hole. The fur is just starting to grow back now.

The vet said it was a good sign that he got the ding on his head, and not on his rear. Means he was fronting up, not retreating. That's my boy.

Even with the head injury he's looking a lot better than he was when he came out of the SPCA. I think it's fantastic what they do, but this cat couldn't handle that social life. I think he spent his five months there tucked down the back of one of those plastic tube things they are supposed to play in.

Five months. Long time for a cat that likes to feel the grass between his claws.

He's still got a weird kind of limp in one of his back legs, and he makes a squeaky noise, not a meow. One of his eyes waters and he finds it very hard to sit down on your lap, even though he's really smoochie and likes a pat.

And his name is not really Panther. He doesn't answer to it. I've yelled every black cat name I can think of at him. No response. Not even to Sambo or Morpheous or Bast. Look it up.

Suggest black cat names here.

And yes, there is the thing about Bernie. Having a new cat reminds me often of the old. Bernie of course was completely different. He howled. He deliberately stood in front of you on the stairs. He banged his head on the edge of the bed at 6am. He was smarter than a US President and tougher than my grandma. As tough as my grandma.

I think Bernie would be pleased we'd pulled an old cat out of the SPCA and given him a cushy retirement. Or, Bernie wouldn't give a damn.

Either way, it's still ok.

Top Ten Things I Do Not Miss About Sydney

2007-04-10T19:06:00.000+12:00

1. Traffic
Tomorrow morning, at about 7.45am on a Wednesday, not far from my old house in Strathfield, out on Church Rd, Meadowbank, inner western Sydney, there are seven, eight lanes of cars, sitting bumper to bumper and they stretch from one end of the road to the other - about two kilometres. They sit, and then they hop forward a metre, then they sit, and then they hop. So it goes. It can take 15 minutes to travel those two kilometres. Most of those people in those cars - usually one person per car - do that every week day.

It's quite a sight the first few times you do it, get in amongst them on Church Road. You watch the bumper in front, and then you look up into the distance at the hundreds of cars and hope like hell there isn't an accident slowing the traffic down even more than usual.

I liked driving in Sydney, but only when the car was moving. There are 10s of thousands of people in cars constantly around the city 24/7 and the roads simply can't handle all of them, all the time.

2. Creepy Crawlies
I am a girl, and a bit of a sook at that. I don't like bugs much. I hate moths. Lots of things crawl and creep in the bushes in the Sydney suburbs. Lizards are okay, I saw a big fat blue tongue lizard in the frontyard once. Mosquitos, I hate 'em. And cockroaches, don't start me.

3. The Service
Maybe it's because NZ is small, maybe it's just a size thing, but the service in Sydney is bad. Really bad. From the people who serve coffees in cafes, to the people who fix your phone ... they just don't give a shit. Unless they think you are an American tourist, with a natural inclination to tip.

Take Telstra, trying to get the phone on. Telstra started out by telling me our house didn't exist. Oddly they said the same thing the previous time I tried to get a phone put on, in our apartment in the city. That time the guy said to me “our plans show that building as only having six floors.” I said, ”I'm standing on the 12th floor. Who do you want to believe?” Like I've said many times, they make New Zealand's Telecom look like customer service company of the year.

One exception: Jim the Lube Mobile guy. Came and fixed my car a couple of times. Charges huge money, but did a great job and was very good to talk to about cars and stuff.

4. Beaches
The whole beach culture thing is lost on me. I'd say to my Sydney mates ”but what do you do there?” And I never had a satisfactory answer. My aunt and uncle used to take me to swim in the sea pools at Curl Curl on the North Shore ... now that's nice. But I'm one of those freaks who just doesn't want to sit on beach, with sand getting in every crevice, and stare out at the ocean for an afternoon. Or lie snoozing in the sun. My pale skin tells the story of a woman who doesn't sunbake. I do tan, but only by accident and always below the knee/elbow.

5. The Coffee
Australia produces some very good quality coffee beans. There are a few companies who do a good job of roasting these beans. There are a handful of people who buy these beans and use them in their cafes. There are maybe two people who take these ground beans, and make them into a great cappuccino. I don't know who these guys are.

The cafe coffee in Sydney is pretty bloody average. Hotels and restaurants are worse. It is very, very hard to find a place that makes good cappuccino, day in, day out. Occasionally you'll get a good cap somewhere, and then you'll go back to the place, and they'll be back making caps with a bit of frothy scum floating like a frisbee on the top of a pond of pale weak white coffee.

The second worst thing about being made redundant last year was I'd spent a fair amount of time schooling up the barista in the coffee shop at the bottom of the building on how to make a coffee for me the way I like it. He was such a nice guy, and really appreciated it when someone was interested in coffee. He made my double shot long macchiato every day and it was heaven. I miss that guy. Actually that was the worst thing about being made redundant.

6. The Great Petrol Swindle
I don't understand how petrol can cost A$1.12 a litre on a Wednesday morning, and buy the afternoon, it costs A$1.27. Yes, I know that is still cheap compared to NZ, but it always will be, and that's not the point I'm making here.

The price fluctuates so much in Sydney, it can't be based on 'normal' supply and demand. It must be some kind of price-fixing set up and all the suckers out there in driving-land pay the price - whatever price.

They have this thing in Sydney where the petrol is always cheaper on a Tuesday ... supposedly the day it gets delivered. How can they possibly be delivering all the petrol all the stations in Sydney need, one day a week on the same day? That would be distribution madness, wouldn't it? But that's the line they push.

I used to drive a fair distance - more than two hours across the city - a couple of times a week. I watched the signs at all the stations, some routinely charged more than others because they were on main roads into the city. It is also generally cheaper at all stations in the morning than the afternoon, because people don't like to stop for gas on their way to work.

When petrol is cheaper, there are more cars on the roads. When it dropped back under $1.40 a litre, people got back in their cars. And when it gets warm no one wants to sit in a stinky train when they could be sitting in their own car's aircon.

7. The Rules
There are rules for everything in Aussie. And if they happen to find they need a new one, well hell .. someone tell the government! Federal, state, local, whatever, any government will do. Get that new rule going quick smart.

New rules suggested in the media in the week or so before we left included: making it illegal to use a phone in the car, fining people who manage to avoid road tolls and stopping players changing back to rugby league from union .. or was it the other way around?

And my favourite .. making a law forcing country radio stations to run local news. Now I know that'll be a disaster, cos I've written news for regional radio. It's hard enough when you want to write it, let alone being forced to do it.

8. Sheep Jokes and Accent Jokes
Although I have been teased, now that I'm back in NZ, about my 'Australian' accent. Which is most unfair.

9. Losing Time
Sydney steals your time. It takes too long to get simple things done. If you have a doctor's appointment at 11am, and she's running late and you are still waiting to see her at 11.30, and you have another appointment somewhere on the North Shore at 2pm ... then you have to leave the doctor's. You can't wait because otherwise you won't have time to get to your next appointment - in two hours time! In Wellington you can take clothes to the drycleaners, see the doctor, get a key cut and pick up your car from the garage all in the same day. And go to work!

10. The Heat
Yes the weather in Wellington is not flash. Although it's been fantastic since we got here in January. People keep telling me how foul last winter was, and I know they are not exaggerating. But. Sydney gets real hot. Too hot. And if you don't have aircon, it's real bad sometimes. The hottest day we had while we were there was New Year's Day, 2006. One of my girlfriends spent the day lying on the floor of her bathroom, on the coolish tiles. Dumb Kiwis like me and my husband got on a train and went to the movies, with about 120,000 other Strathfield folk without aircon at home. Walking around outside you could feel the heat hanging around your legs like you were walking with a hot towel wrapped around them. Not healthy. Unless you like really hot towels.

Missing Morse

2007-04-06T11:17:00.000+12:00

Dear Time Life,

Thank you for your letter of January 11, 2007, enquiring as to why I didn’t answer my phone.

It has prompted me to put my thoughts about your business on paper.

Dealing with Time Life has been one of the longest-running dramas of my life. It would probably sell better on a DVD than ‘Happy Days’.

All I ever wanted was a complete set of ‘Inspector Morse’ DVDs.

There are 17 in the set, I’m still waiting for the last two.

I’ve called, emailed, called again, left messages … sent money, called again … even answered your call once when one of your customer care folk proactively called ME to ask about my experience of Time Life …

I told you in March 2006 that I was leaving the country in December, and needed to buy the complete set in bulk.

Your operator persuaded me to go with the “introductory offer’ and then the rest would be sent. This never happened. Total DVDs purchased: 5.

One arrives on it’s own in April, my card is charged full price. 6.

I call again in May to get the rest in bulk, you can’t find my original order. I cancel the month by month order. I ask for the remainder in bulk, you say you don’t have them all, but will send when they come in. Five disks arrive, 11.

By August, I’m starting to panic. I call again. You can’t find my order. I convince the guy I AM in the system. He sends me some DVDs. Two more. He says more will follow, they don’t. 13.

In November, a very smart sounding young woman appreciates I’m in a difficult mood, and says she will sort it. She makes it sound as if she will go down to the warehouse and put the last four disks I need in a box, right then and there.

I tell her it said on my last invoice “the remainder of the set will be sent as they arrive in stock”. I ask her if this will actually happen, she says “No, probably not.”

There is a short discussion when she says she is unable to send a bulk order of less than five disks. I desperately offer to purchase a Hercule Poirot.

Incredibly, later this day one of your customer service people chooses to call me. I tell her your ordering system is a shambles. She says “Yes, I’ve heard that before”.

No disks arrive.

It’s December, we leave Australia and come home to New Zealand. Our mail is forwarded to Queensland. Total IM DVDs which leave Australia with me: 13.

In January, two more disks arrive, in Queensland. Miraculously, I don’t have them already. 15. So close, but yet … not 17.

Now it’s April. A full year has passed, and I’m still two disks short. I doubt even Inspector Morse himself would be able to find them.

With Regret that Our Business is Not Concluded,

Visit consumer site Not Good Enough

Settling In

2007-03-23T13:20:00.000+12:00

1. Car breaks down. We'd had it three days. Two weeks later, it's still with the mechanic.

2. Sacked the painter. Turns out the guy was in the middle of a marriage breakdown and income tax crisis. He was still painting at 3am on the day we moved in ... hence the white paint down the back of one of our couches ...

3. Hot water cylinder burst last week. $3K plus bill.

4. Rushing to get to work after dealing with plumber/tank bursting ... I drop my favourite greenstone pendant on the bathroom floor. Very unforgiving tiles. It loses a big chip off the bottom (it is a heart shape). Me very sad. Sadder than I was when I found the wet carpet. Now a Maori friend of a friend tells me it's a bad omen to break greenstone and I should not get it fixed. Even more sad now.

5. There is no 5. I'm loving being home. Truly.

Deep South

2007-01-18T14:40:00.000+13:00

Ten day road trip around the South Island. Just magic.

Long enough to get blase about mountains, lakes, long stretches of uninhabited coastline, native bush, possum slippers ...

Caught up with usual mixture of relies and friends.

This is Hayley's Wanaka Wheelbarrow.

Home

2006-12-21T20:05:00.000+13:00

Back in NZ. Doing Christmas in Dunedin. Cold here. Hail today. Wearing three layers to the shops.

It's great to be back.

14 Years

2006-10-28T15:34:00.000+13:00

My husband and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary this week, on Tuesday.

I cooked one of my favourite meals - Surf and Turf - steak, prawns and bernaise sauce. Followed by chocolate mousse with strawberries.

Then the next night, Wednesday, after an evening in the city, he got on a train home without me, and I spent half an hour wandering around Wynyard station looking for him, thinking he'd been bashed and left for dead in the toilets.

After 14 years, you think I would know better. He thought I'd pulled one of my "fuck this, I'm not waiting around" routines, and had got on the soonest train home.

But I didn't did I? No, I waited in the station, for him to come out of the loo. And he didn't. I waited 15 minutes .. thinking maybe he had some kind of serious gastric problem (after all the prawns). So I mustered my courage, shoved my foot in the toilet door and called out his name a few times.

Someone replied with "no Greg in here love" so I went to get the station manager.

Incredibly, there is someone on duty at 10.30pm in Sydney's second busiest train station on a Wednesday night.

I told him I appeared to have misplaced my husband and could he quickly check the toilet for me. Which he did, with remarkable acceptance ... I believe he may have been asked to do this before.

He said "He's not in there love" and when I just kinda stood there, he said it again. "He's not there." Oh. Ok.

So where did he go? The bastard just got on a train, didn't he?

I kept wondering why I wasn't getting mad. I was very cool-chick about the whole thing.

He left me in a CBD railway station at 10.30 at night, wandering around for half an hour, not getting to Strathfield til 11pm, to get a cab home by myself.

And I wasn't really mad.

He rang my phone as soon as he got home - I was still at Central, still half an hour from home.

He was very apologetic.

So you are wondering - why didn't I just call his phone? Good question. I couldn't call his phone. It was in my pocket.

It was in my pocket because he had been at quiz night, had plenty of beers, then was making noises about calling people in New Zealand. With daylight saving, it was about 1am in NZ.

To stop him doing this, I took his phone. This has happened before.

Where I went wrong - was not giving it back BEFORE he went into the men's at Wynyard.

After 14 years, I'm still making these basic errors.

Top Ten Things I Will Miss About Sydney

2006-10-13T14:16:00.000+13:00

1. The Pyrmont Growers' Market

The sun, the coffee, the catching up with friends and family. It is a supremely idyllic thing to be able to do in this world, wander around among high quality produce, on a beautiful morning, beside a glistening harbour, with a cappucino.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to say pull-along shopping trolleys, coloured purple, are trendy and very cool.

2. The Weather

Compared to Wellington, NZ, lots of places have great weather, and Sydney is one of them. A bit too hot in summer, not quite cold enough in winter, but generally - fantastic. Today: 24 degrees, fine, calm, again.

3. Pasenella Cheese Shop, Haberfield

Haberfield is the 'real' Leichardt. Both Italian suburbs, but Haberfield doesn't have the flashy restaurant spruikers and the lousy parking. This shop sells the best parmesan in Sydney, and the most amazing caramelised semi-dried tomatoes. I take friends there and make them buy them. Oddly, this is where I was when I heard Steve Irwin had died. So the shop will always be included in my list of 'JFK' moments.

4. Rubbish Collection

Apart from some initial problems figuring out what to do and when, I have come to adore the suburban rubbish collection system. Three big bins, no hassles with buying the right bags and all that other nonsense we have back home. One of the bins is for recycling so you still feel like your doing the right thing. Which the council probably isn't once they get your stuff back to the depot - but well, you tried. They also have 'clean out days' a couple of times a year when you just put all your old junk on the roadside and they take it away. Brilliant.

5. The ABC

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation costs about $700 million to run and is almost entirely non-commercial. I've always been a bit conflicted about taxpayer-funded media because it can have a significant financial impact on commercial media, and it's pretty much always been commercial media that pays the bills in my house. However, since there is nothing I can do about it, I figure it's ok just to enjoy it. In fact, as a taxpayer, it's my investment and I should watch to get my return. I don't think Australians have any idea how lucky they are to have this kind of broadcasting - of course it still has flaws - certainly for the indigenous population, but overall it's just a great big rich helping of untainted media every day, the Belgian chocolate mousse of information and entertainment. Which probably makes Television New Zealand a Kit Kat and Radio New Zealand a carob-topped rice biscuit.

6. The David Jones Food Hall

I hardly venture in there anymore because it's so expensive and I don't have a real job anymore to support my DJ's habit. But I still know it's there and I regularly direct visiting folk to the place. I've been in bigger food markets and probably seen more amazing produce in places like France, and even Melbourne, but for Sydney, this is pretty good. Indulgent. Have a coffee and rub shoulders with the old ladies from the Eastern Suburbs. If you want to go really posh, find the tea rooms upstairs dear, by the men's suits.

7. The Lorikeets Outside My Window

Lorikeets are the most gorgeous pretty little green birds, with blue and red cheeks. They are so pretty. So bright and cheerful. A couple of them like to hang out in the tree right outside the window over my desk. They chirp away to each other and hop around in the bush, and they don't give a damn about me. Nature is so, natural.

8. Umbrellas

Not sure whether this is a plus or a minus. I like being able to use an umbrella here .. which you don't really in Wellington. But on the other hand, I always carry one here, which I don't have to do in Wellington. You learn to keep one close at hand most of the time here after you've been caught in a downpour and have to walk through the streets trying not to look like the last-placed entrant in a wet t-shirt competition.

9. Fruit & Veg

Fresh fruit. Cheap in season, sometimes very cheap. All kinds of vegetables, some that are a mystery. Dozens of different kinds of Chinese cabbage. There are so many different kinds of fruit and vegies available here, our last quiz night used to have a regular “what is this vegetable?” question.

10. Juice & Gluten free beer

They don't really go together except I had to stick to ten, not 11. I guess they are both liquid refreshments. The fresh juice in Sydney is brilliant. Most cafes etc make their own juices. Some of them go in for exotic combos, or let you choose your own. My favourite is watermelon and mint. As for the beer, O'Briens. Very special people. I buy their beer in Manly. Will have to import to NZ.

New Blog Link: Sip Slurp Suck

2006-10-10T11:36:00.000+13:00

No, not my favourite porn site.

Food writing blog for those who like to feel the tastebuds tingling as you read.

Hmmm .. maybe that does qualify as porn.

Hello Wind, Goodbye Tree

2006-09-27T11:41:00.000+12:00

Bit of excitement here at the weekend. The wind kicked up Sunday afternoon and suddenly I was feeling all homesick, listening to the sound of branches thrashing against the house and bits of backyard rubbish blowing down the street.

Then things really got interesting ... a crash, a tearing noise and all the lights in the house start flicking on and off. The tv goes 'splut, splut' and disappears. The computer kinda blinked on and off, then just sat there with all the little lights blinking, ominously, as they do.

Obviously I knew the power had gone. I was cool about it til I looked out the window, saw the neighbours gathering to gawk at the tree on the corner, just one house away from us, a big branch down over the power lines. The power pole directly outside our house swaying, the street sign flapping in the wind like a flag.

There were lines dangling everywhere. I had a couple of thoughts - first, this is not my house and we have insured our stuff for a decent sum. Second, houses never catch fire when power poles fall over. Three, can I be electrocuted if a power pole falls on my house? Four, I think I'll get the hell outta here.

I rang my husband - careful not to use the landline because I heard once you shouldn't do that in electrical situations. Asked him what I should do. This alarmed him greatly. He rang the emergency people and I said "I think I'll go out somewhere".

I pull on some decent outside-the-house clothes and swiftly go for the car. I'm driving down the street past all the trees, all the power poles thinking .. hmmm ...maybe it's better to stay near the ones that have already fallen over ...

I make it to the local pub and I calm my nerves. Power poles never fall on pubs. I hear later a man riding a motorbike was killed by a falling tree.

There's no doubt, it was a big wind, even by Wellington standards. But the damage a good wind storm does here is considerable. Stuff just isn't nailed down here like it is at home. Not even the trees seem to put the effort into staying in the ground. Maybe it's something to do with the dryness of the soil. The plants just don't have a decent grip on the land.

Our friends up the street have rescued their tent-like pagola thing from their neighbour's backyard twice. A one and a half metre square tent, manages to escape from a two metre square courtyard, over a metre and a half high fence. The funneled force of the wind just lifts it up and plops it over the fence, with its little pagoda legs waving in the air. The last time, it was even tied down. At least, they thought it was.

Clothes blow off clotheslines cos people don't know how to peg stuff up properly, or insist on hanging stuff out in a windstorm!?

The State Emergency Services people and the power company were great. We had power back again in five hours. In NSW 120,000 houses had power cut that day, three days later 7000 were still waiting to be reconnected.

As I write this I can hear the chainsaws cutting into the tree on our corner. This mighty tree has to go because one branch fell off. It's very sad. They are very protective of trees here in Sydney, but it's just too dangerous to leave it.

Now I can hear the shredder turning it into woodchips. It is a sound more painful than the noise it made when the branch fell on Sunday.

Handy Tip No 2

2006-09-21T11:45:00.000+12:00

Secondhand coat shopping.

It only takes one winter for folks from NZ and the UK to get here to Sydney and realise they ain't gonna need all those coats they brought with them anymore.

I got two winter coats dry-cleaned this winter and by the time I went back to pick them up, winter had finished.

This is not the case in Wellington.

So, I'm about to set off on a detailed and thorough investigation of the secondhand clothes shops of Sydney, to find all those lovely coats that the Poms bring here and then flog off because they never want to wear a coat again.

I'm thinking full length leather and plenty of fur. And maybe something in a moleskin.

Handy Tip No 1

2006-09-21T11:39:00.000+12:00

Very nice and extremely astute removals person told me last week to buy up Aussie wine before we go to add to our "cellar" (yeah right) and NZ Customs don't charge duty on it, and there are no quantity restrictions.

She said as long as we've owned it for a couple of months, and don't have 20 cases, should be ok.

Very useful tip.

Have since found man on eBay selling 5 cases of SA red at a time for about A$150. It has no label, so you have to guess if you've opened a shiraz or a merlot. Like you can tell the difference anyway.

As long as no one in NZ Customs finds this blog before Christmas, I should be sweet.

Countdown Starts

2006-09-15T10:39:00.000+12:00

Time to go!

We are off back to NZ. End of the year - 13 weeks.

Damn it, I haven't seen as much of the place as I said I would.

I've been to Terrigal but I haven't been to Darwin.

I've been to Woy Woy but I haven't been to Alice Springs.

Shit I haven't even been to Adelaide. Or Tasmania. Or Lizard Island. http://www.lizardisland.com.au/

Actually Lizard Island is a bit pricey - probably won't be getting there any time soon.

Will I be sorry to go?

Ah, no, not really. There's way to many Australians living here.

Meet the Quokkas

2006-08-27T11:37:00.000+12:00

I wrote all that stuff about Perth and WA and didn't mention anything about the quokkas!!!

Quokkas live on Rottnest Island, off the coast of Fremantle.

They are small and look like short, chunky wallabies.

The little guy above thought I was going to feed him another wattle gum seed. You are not supposed to feed them, but when the lady taking the "quokka tour" says it's ok ... well, get those gum seeds out.

She had a better trick - getting them to drink water from a bottle cap. The poor little buggers struggle with finding water the whole time (as many Australians do) so they are not going to turn their furry backs on tourists offering capfuls of spring water from the supermarket.

Apparently it is the influence of the tourists on the quokkas' food and water supply that has turned this supposedly nocturnal animal into one you can easily find while strolling around the island.

It is certainly different from the meaning of nocturnal in New Zealand - "animal you will never ever see in daylight in your lifetime in the wild." My husband is more nocturnal than a quokka.

It's the same with the possums here .. or should I say "opossum" (they are only 'possums' in NZ, little furry bastards). I've seen a couple of possums in daylight here, in parks and gardens. They are supposed to be nocturnal too.

I call out to them and say, "you are lucky you are in that tree here in Hyde Park you little furry bastard possum, for in NZ I could shoot you right now and turn you into a keyring." They just sit, staring at you. I don't scare them at all.

I wouldn't ever want a quokka keyring tho. They don't seem to damage the ecosystem on Rottnest Island, it damages them more. A friend told me there have been reports of kids going to the island in the summer to play 'quokka soccer'. Something very bad will happen to those people.

Rottnest is quiet in August, and warm. You could wander off and actually find places where you could just sit and look out at the ocean, no one around you, the footsteps in the sand are yours, the sun slowly setting over the horizon and ... you have about 600 quokka pics on your digital camera.

The Big State

2006-08-26T11:33:00.000+12:00

Now I can say I've been to WA.

Spent four days in Perth last week, which yes .. is in Western Australia .. but given the size of Western Australia, spending four days in Perth means you've seen, well, bugger all of the state really. It's like saying you've been to New Zealand after spending two hours in the transit lounge at Auckland airport.

You can buy a tea towel that has a map of WA on it, with the countries of Japan, Germany and the UK all sitting within its borders, with room to spare. You know Australia is big, right ? Well, WA takes up a third of the Australian continent - with less than a 10th of the population. The population of the state is about two million, and just over half of those people live in Perth.

It feels big. Everything is big. Perth has a big river running through it, called the Swan ... looks like the ocean, or at least Lake Taupo. It's a wide, wide river, miles from one side to the other in some places. It takes an hour to get down the Swan from Perth to the ocean at Fremantle ('Freo'). But only 25 minutes to drive there. The river winds in and out on itself, and is flanked on all sides by marinas and wharves and jetties, with some very tidy real estate sitting up on the banks.

Australia's most expensive home is here ... owned by the family who have the most shares in mining company Rio Tinto. The home is valued at A$60 million. It has a bowling alley and a movie theatre soundproofed with water.

I loved it. It's not like Sydney at all. Perth spreads far and wide because there's plenty of room for everyone ... a little like the way Auckland just spreads in all directions, except Perth has tended to stick to the coast. It goes for miles and miles, along beach after beach.

There's plenty of money here, but it's not flashy like Sydney. A long time ago someone told me "In Australia, when they need more money, they just dig another hole." Western Australia is where they dig the holes.

Businesses do well because the money flows round and round. Everybody earns, buys, earns, buys ... round and round the money goes. But every second car is not a convertible (like Sydney), people travel and have holiday homes, but they drink beer and eat pies.

I've checked and the state's GDP is about US$30 billion. Probably quite a bit more now since the "commodities boom" they all talk about over here. That's the kind of figure that would bring tears to the eyes of Treasury officials in NZ. People in Perth supposedly also earn about the same on average as people in NSW. This makes sense to me, as I see people in NSW struggling on average money to pay enormous mortgages. In Perth they get the same average money, without the enormous mortgage. Sounds like a good deal.

The Perth CBD is surprisingly restrained, the corporate blocks are simple and efficient. The old and historic buildings scattered around are delightful, the old 1830s courthouse still sits in its original gardens.

There are trendy shops, but they are new-looking and confined to small streets and malls. Some of the trendier food places looked really good and the handful of coffees I had were .. actually not too bad.

Perth is often criticised by those from the three larger Australian cities for its lack of nightlife and its tendency to close up shop early. The reason this happens is because everyone is off doing stuff. These people surf, and cycle, and run, and drive, and fish, and garden and build holiday homes and ... when you do all that there's only so much time left for standing around in bars.

It does have a bit of that 'small town' thing going on, which you would just have to do your best to ignore if you lived there. I noticed the "West Australian Club" having a gathering one night - no one got in without a bow tie. No blokes anyway. It's not often you see women wearing what can only be described as "a gown". Not a frock. Not a dress. Not an outfit. A gown.

I have a friend in South Africa who has been talking about moving to Australia for years. Up until last week I'd been recommending Brisbane as the spot she should settle in first. I told her Sydney was too expensive, and just too hard to live in, Melbourne too cold - and that Brisbane would remind her more of Cape Town, her home town. Of course that's all changed now. Now I think Perth is the place to be - although it gets stinking hot in the summer and I think most Kiwis would struggle with that. There are plenty of South Africans and Kiwis already there, so if you are looking for a new home, it would be a place to seriously consider, as long as you don't mind aircon.

You'll see a lot of references to its "Mediterranean climate" and although I haven't actually been to the Mediterranean, somehow it just doesn't feel like the right description. Does the Mediterranean have strong coastal sea breezes? Perth gets a good strong sea breeze blowing in off the Indian ocean, and Fremantle is well and truly exposed to some very blustery conditions - the day I was there reminded me of Wellington. That ain't Mediterranean.

The really interesting thing about Perth, and WA, is its distance from everywhere else. Perth is closer to Singapore and Jakarta than it is to Canberra - the nation's capital. That's weird.

This reminded me of home too. That feeling that you should just get on and do what needs doing, and not worry about the rest of the world too much, because they are miles and miles away. We have that in NZ, and they have it in WA too. I think they always have. I'm reading Henry Lawson's short stories, and he spent a lot of time wandering about NSW and NZ, and he often refers to blokes "heading for Maoriland or Western Australia", as if it was the last resort. Your last chance to find somewhere to make your way in the world. Also the last place anyone would ever look for you.

When a nation, or a state, is built by people with such direction, it must always retain some of that feeling. The tyranny of distance is no tyranny at all. It's the reason we are here. We came for the distance. We love it.

In Perth they start looking at their watches at about 3.30, 4pmish, look around and say "Hey, they've all gone home in Sydney" .. and they head for the bar.

Great people. Smart people. People just getting on with it. Show ponies need not visit.

More Favourites

2006-07-10T10:26:00.000+12:00

I should have also mentioned in my last post that Stephen Larkham's nickname in rugby circles is 'Bernie', which is a little weird considering the name of this blog. I didn't know that when I named the cat, or the blog.

Poor Steve had a tough day at the office on Saturday night, the All Blacks winning fairly convincingly and they didn't give 'Bernie' much of a chance to shine. In fact they worked pretty hard to keep him out of the play and out of the game. A sensible tactic.

My favourite Kiwi player, Jerry Collins, also had a difficult night as he got caught on camera taking a pee on the field just seconds before the game started. Apparently it was nerves .. when you gotta go, you gotta go ... The camera caught Jerry kneeling down, trying to be discreet! In front of 40,000 people and millions of tv viewers!! Poor Jerry.

We got to the pub early to get a good spot, and I was very surprised at how long it took for the place to fill up. I don't know whether the Australians are all 'sported out' after the World Cup soccer, or whether they just knew this game wasn't going to go their way ... but relatively few of them turned out to watch on the big screens at the Oaks. I've certainly been in much more enthusiastic, larger crowds in that hotel.

We got there early enough to have mussels and 'frites', sitting outside in the courtyard under the big Oak tree, in the warm winter sun. Lovely.

The cat, by the way, was named after Carl Bernstein, of Watergate fame. I got the idea from an episode of Murphy Brown, in which Murphy is trying to decide what to call her new child. She's trying out different names and in this episode, was experimenting with 'Woodward' - obviously referring to Bernstein's colleague Bob Woodward. I didn't think 'Woody' would suit the cat, so went for 'Bernie' instead. Given our household was concerned with journalism, and filled with journalists, most of the time, it seemed appropriate.

It was also not too far away from the dreadful 'Bertie' the woman at the pound had been using, so I figured the cat would not notice or mind too much. The pound lady was a very nice woman but she had an unexplainable fondness for Engelbert Humperdink. Hence Bertie.

Over the years Bernie got a few variations on his name, mostly 'Fat Bern' from my brother and 'Barney' from another friend who just likes to wind me up. It was my brother who took the photo that goes with this blog, and doctored it to include the FALSE measurements.

The speech bubble tho is probably fairly accurate.

My Favourite Australians

2006-07-08T11:00:00.000+12:00

Today is the day they play the first game of the Tri-Nations series. All Blacks v Wallabies. Rugby union. South Africa make up the rest of the 'tri'. It's going to be great.

As usual, I am wildly confident about the ABs and I know we will win.

This despite the Wallabies having the world's best rugby player in their team, and my favourite Australian, Stephen Larkham. The game changes when he gets the ball. Anything can happen. Kiwis have a grudging respect for this guy, the same way we used to feel about David Campese. Drives us crazy that someone so good should be in another team.

We are going to my favourite Australian pub to watch the game this afternoon. The Oaks in Neutral Bay, northern Sydney, is just a great pub. It's big and it loves sports occasions. It also does very good mussels.

The northern side of Sydney is known as rugby union country, where the rest of the city embraces rugby league. I like that game too, but union is my birthright. Of course, being a girl I can't talk about it much, and even Kiwi blokes think they like it when a girl knows about rugby, but when you start saying things like "we need to concentrate more on getting height in the lineout" ... well, that tends to freak them out a little. My husband challenges the comments I make all the time, but it's only because he doesn't want me going around sounding like an idiot.

I really stirred up trouble the other night by saying I'd learnt a lot about rugby scrums and rules here, because the tv rugby shows we watch here actually take the time to explain some of this stuff. I don't think they do that in NZ - you are expected to be born knowing how a scrum works. To explain it would be belittling your audience. I've been working on writing a Girl's Guide to Test Rugby for years .. so maybe I need to do a section on scrummaging. Fantastic!

The other good thing about northern Sydney is the large numbers of Kiwis living there ... meaning when we go into this pub today (and I'm wearing my ABs shirt already) we will be heavily outnumbered .. but we won't be alone!

The other challenge at The Oaks today will be to get there early enough to get a decent table with a good view of a screen. This will require about three hours of sitting there before the game starts. I'm up for it, just have to go off and motivate a few others now.

Go the ABs.

Sydney's Ugly Mugs

2006-07-06T10:40:00.000+12:00

Friends from home have just arrived here in Sydney, found a nice apartment, in a nice building, in a nice part of town.

Moved in their stuff (after of course the standard losing of freight in transit delay) and began the process of settling in. Figured out how the front door buzzer works, set up the clothes rack on the balcony, bought the IKEA sofa and ... cleared out all the former tenant's mail from the mail box.

It is probably relevant to point out these two people are journalists. They have curious minds. So when they found the big yellow folder hanging, half open, out of their letterbox .. well, it was an interest raiser.

It wasn't even specifically addressed to anyone .. so they opened it. As you would.

Well now they are the proud owners of a copy of Sydney's Prostitute Collective's "Ugly Mug List" ... a who's who of the scumbags who are low enough to cause pain, rip off and otherwise abuse Sydney's 'women of the night'.

It's a helluva read.

Obviously this very useful publication is circulated on a regular basis to the women who need to be on the lookout for guys like; "calls himself 'Jacko', 35, of middle Eastern appearance, told worker to get out of the car after the job was done and left her on the side of the highway".

The descriptions are short and .. well .. some are graphic, but at the same time only designed to inform, to help a girl spot a trouble-maker before she gets too badly hurt or .. um .. screwed.

The "UML" also comes with a copy of the PC's latest magazine and that's full of interesting bits and news and advice. What to do when a client leaves a condom in. Where to go to get tax advice. Keep your nailpolish in the fridge.

It has of course crossed the minds of my friends that they might get some late night 'buzzing' on the doorbell that now they can at least explain. But so far it seems the previous tenant has made sure her clients have her forwarding address, shame she forgot about the mail.

Sydney's Worst Kept Secret

2006-06-23T12:37:00.000+12:00

Marquee under construction at the International College of Management, Sydney, on North Head overlooking Manly Beach. Guess who is getting married here this weekend?

The tent has been constructed right up close to the old sandstone building, so the bride and groom can walk undercover from the St Patrick's chapel at the city end of the building through to the reception in the marquee. The tent has been built over the stone entrance steps to the building - something not done on this site before despite the hundreds of weddings they've had here. This means the bride and groom will walk in to the tent at the top of the stone steps, giving a very grand entrance effect! The tent has a balcony built into the end so the guests can appreciate the view.

I wonder how many photographers will spend the night in the bushes, scrambling up the cliff face, in the hope of getting a pricey pic?! I don't think they should bother. There's only one road up the hill to the College and there's plenty of room for a helicopter landing. Have a great day Nic and Keith!

So You Think You Want To Live In Sydney?

2006-05-30T16:19:00.000+12:00

A Kiwi friend of mine got back to Sydney last week after a three week trip around NZ's South Island.

She and her Sydneysider-but-born-in-Liverpool-and-will-never-forget-it boyfriend borrowed her parents' motorhome and went for a spin. Apart from dodging other motorhomes, it was a restful, uneventful trip.

At least until they got to Christchurch. In Christchurch my friend 'J' took her man to visit an old school buddy and her bloke. This is a woman who in true Kiwi fashion, doesn't hold back, if she's got something to say, she'll say it.

She started off by asking my friend "so are you guys going to have children here or in Australia?' and the evening just careered along from there, like a motorhome going over the Crown Range.

The bit that really made me laugh out loud was when this woman made a comment assuming my friend J was "rolling in it" in terms of cash. Poor (in more ways than one) J had to try and convince this woman that just because she was living in Sydney, she wasn't fabulously wealthy. J has a respectable job with a respectable large corporate, but she ain't breaking any records for attracting big money, just like 99% of the other people living in this town.

J tried valiantly to tell her friend that Sydneysiders shell out heaps of cash from the moment they swing their legs out of bed in the morning, until the blissful moment usually (unfortunately) much later in the day when they can swing them back in bed again.

This is not a cheap place to live. You don't come here to earn big money, you don't come here to save money. If you want to find somewhere to spend a large amount of cash in a short time, this is the place for you. Even my wealthier friends and family members can have the breath stolen out of their mouths by a bill in a CBD restaurant, or the price of a round of drinks at Darling Harbour.

Of course it all looks fabulous, hip, trendy, everything you could want at your fingertips. Trouble is, you can't have it! More friends arrived last week, these ones are staying for awhile.

Their little eyes were wide and round as we pushed our way on to a bus in George St and struggled down to BBQ King in Haymarket for Sydney's most famous BBQ duck. It's great food. But the service, also famously, is lousy. I think these words had only just left my mouth when one waiter in his haste to throw sizzling prawns on to our table, knocked over a cup and my friend K found herself doused in Chinese tea. This seemed unfortunate, but when it happened AGAIN, to her boyfriend sitting next to her, courtesy of yet another dumping of food .. well as Oscar Wilde would say, once is unfortunate, twice is just plain careless.

At least Chinese tea doesn't stain denim. Of course, this is Sydney, so there was no apology, no discount, no drycleaning, no extra ice cream for dessert. They didn't even bring more tea! That meal, for four of us, cost A$150. No wine, just three beers, a Coke, a couple of entrees and four servings of Chinese food.

Welcome to Sydney! Oh yeah, it's a goldmine!

Speaking of goldmines, everybody's favourite miners, "Todd and Brant" were back on the tele last night. This time at a big flash afternoon tea in Canberra for practically the entire town of Beaconsfield. John H and the boys in Parliament thought they should show their appreciation to the little town that could. It all went horribly wrong for John H and his people when Todd and Brant stood up and said the new industrial relations laws make mines even more dangerous and the laws should be changed. Hmmm, seems John H couldn't have put quite enough effort into getting the boys on side before he let them get in front of a microphone.

Todd and Brant seem to have a real way about them, these two must have spent the entire two weeks they were one kilometre under, sorting out their lines for when they saw sunlight again. They haven't put a foot wrong so far, even when it came out they will get about a million each from the Channel Nine tv deal.

Right now they are off doing tv interviews around the globe and I hope we get to see those interviews here in Australia. These guys are great characters, and the spirit and resolve in their faces harks back to a time most Australians have little or no memory of.

Two honest, straight up guys with an amazing story to tell can do more for the image of a country than any multi-million dollar ad campaign with a slick slogan and a girl in a bikini.

Teddy bear Collector - Bear No 236

2006-05-13T11:50:00.000+12:00

I bought a new bear for my 'sports bear' collection yesterday.

It's the Socceroos World Cup bear, and when you "press here" he waves his arms and sings "ole, ole, ole, ole."

You can tell its an Australian bear cos you have to pull his pants down to switch him on.

It's Not Cold Is It?

2006-05-04T10:52:00.000+12:00

I think I'm losing it. I'm losing my cold tolerance. My body thinks 17 degs is a bit chilly.

It's not. I'm going soft here in Sydney where the Asian students wear t-shirts with a scarf as their winter outfit.

Women wear long boots all year round because ... they're not for winter are they? That's not enough time to wear your lovely expensive boots.

And you see people with gloves on. I still don't really get that. Once again, it's just a case of wearing gloves for the sake of it. Gloves are nice.

This winter does already seem to be colder than the ones we've had in the last couple of years. There's a lot less rain too. I'm back recycling water out of the shower to get my struggling new grass to grow. Real grass. It's green and fluffy and needs plenty of water. That's probably why it died out from chunks of space on our small back lawn. For some reason I've assumed I'm the right person to rectify the lack of grass. It's turned out to be a bit of a struggle. New Zealanders aren't used to struggling to get grass to grow!

To make matters even more confusing this house we live in now, out in the deep dark suburbs, seems to be very good at keeping cool. Too cool. It was warmer outside yesterday then it was in the house, I have to figure out a way to let the warm air in. Opening the windows when the house is already cold seems a total contradiction. But that's the way it works here.

I fear the only way I'll preserve this grass patch is by taking a photo of it and putting it up here on this blog.

Little Pigs Have Flown

2006-04-09T09:54:00.000+12:00

I haven't even got to the Show yet and I'm already disappointed - there's no pig diving this year. I missed it last year because of the huge crowds and the year before because it was raining. Pigs don't dive in the rain. The diving board gets too slippery. Truly!

I even called the Show Infoline to double-check on their mysterious absence from this year's show attractions line-up, and was told by a very good natured young man that "the pigs have flown". Ha ha ha. He went on to say maybe they've ended up on a table somewhere!!!! Surely not, such talent shouldn't be ... um .. eaten. They will be missed.

On The Road To Woy Woy

2006-03-20T11:45:00.000+12:00

Got in the car, took a mate and went out and discovered the NSW Central Coast at the weekend.

It's great. Beautiful beaches without highrise apartments blocking the sun and carloads of cruisers blocking the streets.

I wanted to get to Woy Woy because it's the little town Spike Milligan's folks fell in love with when they arrived from the UK. It's not hard to see why. They must have truly believed they were in paradise, or at least you could see it from there.

We motored in and around Gosford, Erina, Terrigal, The Entrance and ended up in a pub in Wyong for the night. Then toured back via WW to Sydney. We were really not more than two hours from home the whole time, but it felt much further, because it was so completely different.

Mostly these are beachside towns. There are cute cafes, board shops and homeware stores selling beach toys. Lots of retirement villages. Nice organic honey. We found a fruit winery, and I was thinking 'oh this is going to be bad' but I was proved wrong. So wrong I even bought some. The winemaker was planning a trip to NZ so she ended up with one of my 'Guide Rangi' tour maps written on her desk calendar. I can't help myself. She seemed grateful. Didn't get me a discount tho. I hope there are whales at Kaikoura in May?

Getting in and out of Sydney is a bit of a drag. It's at least an hour from where we are, and would be a whole lot longer from the east of the city. If you time it right, leave really early and come back mid-morning, the traffic's not too bad. Although it helps that it's a) not summer and b) not school holidays and c) the price of petrol is still rising.

If you like self-drive holidays - now is the time to get out there!

Even though you are on the coast, it's easy to turn towards the inland and you'll find yourself in rolling green farmland within minutes of leaving the highway. Fruit stalls, reptile parks and art galleries. There's not much sign of drought here. So different to the NSW central west countryside I saw two weeks ago. It's so dry out there ... they don't talk about it anymore.

We came away saying we will have to go back - always a good sign for any holiday/trip/minibreak. Apparently there is a ferry boat restaurant at WW that takes you out on the estuary, feeds you, gets you pissed and brings you home. Next time we will find it.

Milligan would approve.

Car

2006-01-25T14:40:00.000+13:00

I bought a car on eBay yesterday.

Turns out that was the easy part. I live in New South Wales, so the whole car-owning thing is taken to heights not even dreamt of by car drivers in NZ, or even car driving regulators.

First there is the "rego". Then the forms. Then the pretty colour-coded 'slips' of various shades. And the insurance.

And of course, the money!

It appears, after only being a car owner for just under 24 hours, that car ownership in NSW is the ultimate blend of scam-encouraging, red tape binding, totally over-regulated, over-priced and over-paperworked inefficiency.

I've often bleated on about Australia's over regulation, and willingness to tax and tax until you can't feel the pain anymore, but this is the worst yet. I must have had some idea in the back of my mind that it would be this bad. That's probably why I've walked, and walked and walked and never taken the car owning step - for three years. That's a lot of walking, on some very warm days. Some very warm train rides and some very long bus rides.

And I was right. Car ownership here is a nightmare. A complex, expensive nightmare and I'm not even going to start on the all the environmental stuff. And the time wasting of sitting in traffic etc. I haven't even experienced that yet, although I did only narrowly avoid a toll road while managing to get lost while driving home from the car seller's place last night.

In the process of transferring ownership from the very nice bloke I've bought the car from, I have to have him sign his original registration document, and I sign it too. Then I take that, and another "change of ownership" form to the Road Transport people. With ID, which has to be a NSW driver licence. I have one of those. So that's three pieces of paper. Then because the car is already registered to June - although I am "re-registering" it in my name, the original rego the previous owner paid is still valid til June. And so is the "green slip" compulsory third party insurance. This is the first of three 'slips' they talk about here.

Don't forget the visit to the RTA involves taking a number like a Chinese restaurant and watching for half an hour while half the people ahead of you give up waiting and leave.

The others are a 'pink' slip which is like the warrant of fitness back home. The previous owner had one of these so I don't need to do that til June either. Then there's another colour, I can't remember which, for any modifications done to the car.

Starting to get confused yet?

As for the money, when I go to transfer the ownership, I have to pay a "stamp duty" which will be 3% of the value of the car. The previous owner told me it is standard practice to lower the agreed price, just for the form, so the new owner pays less stamp duty. Typical, I thought. But I went along with it. I will also have to pay a transfer fee. Of course. So that's at least $200. Just to change the ownership.

Then in June when it is registration time, I will have to get a pink slip from a garage, and a green slip from my insurance company. The green slip is considered to be just your average government cash-grab scam. It's also about $200 and is some kind of government funded insurance for when I run over a pedestrian. It pays the pedestrian's hospital bills. Not mine. Nice.

Finally - I think - there's ordinary old insurance. I went with comprehensive insurance and that's $850 for the year. The area we live in is considered safe so that's helped bring the price down. Usually it's $1000 or more. I also got a slight 10% discount - cos I'm a girl. Don't go thinking they went tough on me because I was a new owner/insurer - they told me they took my NZ driving and insurance history into account.

Everybody knows it's expensive to have a car. I'm not complaining about that. It's just the mind-boggling complicatedness of it all.

I can't help thinking - there must be LOTS of people who just don't bother. The more complicated and expensive the system, the more people who bail out of it altogether.

I used to work with a girl who used to say (in NZ) "your warrant of fitness is due 30 days from the day the cop stops you". And she was right. I hate to think how many people have an attitude like that here, and who could blame them!?

Mozzie Magnet

2006-01-10T17:02:00.000+13:00

Okay so I'm not someone who likes bugs.

It's only a couple of blogs back that I went on - at length - about my total dislike of the moth, especially the big brown Sydney variety.

Now I'm on about mozzies. Mosquitos. I've come up against them before, but never like this. In NZ we have sandflies, and they can be pretty sizeable and can slow you down with a decent sized lumpy, itchy bite. But they just don't compare to the Aussie mozzie. These things have staying power, attention to detail and determination that makes the Kiwi sandfly appear only slightly more troubling than a baby lamb. The Sydney mozzies are out to get me. They love me.

I'm scratching right now as I write this. I've suggested to friends I could hire myself out for outdoor parties, to ensure no one else gets bitten. The Mozzie Magnet Girl. A mozzie will fly past six people to get to me. I've seen them do it.

I must be tasty. I've read that scientists know some people are more appealing to mozzies than others, but they don't know why. Where the hell are they wasting medical research money when they could be figuring that one out?! Baldness? The mental health effects of soap operas? People like me are out here really suffering! I have at last count six bites on one leg and four on the other, in various stages of aging. I have four on my back, two on my feet and one on my bum. Don't ask.

Last weekend I'm out in the garden planting a shrub that was a gift, so I had to make an effort, even in the blazing heat. When I get back inside I realise I've been bitten by a mozzie down my back FOUR times. I was wearing a tee-shirt at the time. How did it get me? Did it fly up the sleeve or bite me through the shirt? A couple of weeks back I arrive home, stop at the front door to put the key in the lock, and while I'm standing there for one minute fumbling for my key, I'm bitten twice - once on each ankle. How did they do that?! Do they attack in tandem?

Another time - this week while cooking on the barbeque - I'm bitten on my feet, once on each foot. Not remarkable - except that I was wearing socks! Little bastards.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet I have been able to do a bit of research on this, driven by my husband saying 'do something about it' when I start bleating AGAIN about another bite.

So I found a couple of sites, one that had some really good tips for using natural remedies to either protect against bites, treat bites or even keep the damn things away from your house altogether. It's got a great name: http://www.mosquito-kill-net.com/ and the tagline is "The Buzz Stops Here". In my case I'd prefer 'the itching and scratching stops here' but I suppose that might have given the wrong impression through a search engine.

Anyway this very good US site has some handy hints and makes the useful point that not all treatments and remedies work for everyone the same. A good point to make, as I've been covering myself with commercial DEET type products and it simply doesn't work. Believe it or not I've been using Vicks VapoRub, which I have traumatic childhood memories of, but it works a treat on mozzies. They won't bite you if you smell like a tub of Vicks. Nothing will.

Of course there are places where you just can't go smelling like a tub of Vicks, anywhere outside your own home for example, so I'm going to have to try a few other remedies as a back-up. This site suggests vanilla, rosemary and tea tree oil. Also an essential oils mixture of clove, eucalyptus, geranium, orange, palma rosa, rosemary and sage, which sounds lovely!

The one thing I don't want to do is resort back to using the mosquito coils - the incense-like slow burning chemical pollutant which unfortunately works very very well outside. They are also apparently full of lethal carcinogens and should never be used indoors - which I have done in a night of desperation. Sigh.

I'm also trying to improve my own reflexes - so I can tell when I'm being bitten and I can slap the little bastard flat before he can do any more damage. Trouble with this is I find I'm tending to over-react to any little skin twinge, and that coupled with my bad eyesight, finds me standing outside cooking on the barbeque, slapping away at my own freckles. Needs work.

I'm going to plant rosemary, catnip amd marigolds in my garden and I'll try not to get bitten four times through my shirt this time. I might wear a jersey and a coat. And boots.

The fight goes on.

Mainstream

2006-01-06T12:04:00.000+13:00

I popped up in the mainstream media this week - albeit with my name spelt incorrectly. Journos are good like that.

The Sydney Morning Herald has this light-hearted section called "Column 8" which is intended to be for little bits and pieces of general discussion about life, all generated by readers.

I found myself leaping to the keyboard this week to respond to this item:

Column 8, Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday Jan 3"I was browsing through my new 2006 diary," writes Fiona Choy, of Castlecrag, "and noticed that Tuesday, January 3 is marked as 'Day after New Year's Day' in New Zealand. I found it puzzling to say the least." Could it be that the day after the designated New Year's Day holiday, which would have been yesterday, is also a holiday in New Zealand, and thus falls today?"

So they printed my reply in the paper today and here it is online ...

Column 8January 5, 2006
URL: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/01/04/1136050494936.html

And if that doesn't work:
"The Day after New Year's Day (Column 8, Tuesday) is indeed a public holiday in NZ - a much needed and sensible one it is too," writes Kiwi Leigh Catkey, now of Concord West. "Your head's only starting to come right by January 3. I bet I'm not the only Kiwi who arrived in this country, didn't know it wasn't a holiday here, and happily failed to show up for work. Nobody cared, so I reckon it should be a day off here too." This is the most astute thing we've heard a New Zealander say since "Piggy" Muldoon described the exodus of Kiwis to Bondi as having raised the IQ of both countries."

Well - I don't know if being compared to Rob Muldoon is a compliment or not (my Uncle Bill says it is but he's a nice chap) and my husband Greg says it's just as well they spelt my name wrong cos otherwise the company I used to work for would want to be paid back for the day off they paid me for, back in 2004. Now I can say it wasn't me. Obviously they will have to remain unaware of this blog. Which I'm sure they are, as nobody knows about it except that park ranger guy (see previous blog).

They used a bit of literary licence to shorten it ... this is what I sent them:

Yes Fiona, (Column 8 03/01),
"The Day after New Year's Day" is indeed a public holiday in NZ - a much-needed and sensible one it is too. (Yes I am a Kiwi). Your head's only just starting to come right by Jan 3 and another day off means two really decent short weeks if you have to work in between the 'stats' - not just one.
I bet I'm not the only Kiwi who arrived in this country a few years ago, didn't know it WASN'T a holiday here, and happily failed to show up for work on this particular day. Nobody cared. So I reckon it should be a day off here too ..."

This is the second time the SMH has printed something I've written. They are so discerning! It is interesting I get a much bigger kick out of seeing 'opinion' I've written printed than I used to get from seeing news stories I'd written printed. I guess the opinion is me. The 'facts' in a news story were not.

Ah Christmas!

2005-12-26T12:07:00.000+13:00

I've always been a big fan of Christmas. I know it's commercial and only thinly connected to any real spiritual experience, but hey, when the hell else do you take any time at all to think about your fellow man, woman or child? Ever?

It's a testing time for brotherly love here in Sydney, as the whole world has now seen Sydney's soft underbelly of racial disharmony exposed on the TV news. What happened at Cronulla beach happens in microcosm around this city every day. People don't like people from other ethnic backgrounds. They don't like them because they don't understand them. They might even fear them a little, because they don't understand them. It's a nasty vicious circle.

I've had a young, white Australian male I worked with tell me once "we like Kiwis because you look like us". Geez. It's not even true. I don't look Maori. And this was not a guy you would call racist. He never made casual comments about other people and race, or used words like "wog" in a sentence. But on a quiet afternoon having a chat with me about sports and the myth about Kiwis at Bondi ... He drilled down to the guts of it. Racial discrimination is based on appearance, because that's how we can identify each other quickly. It's even faster than waiting to hear someone speak. Such a solid foundation for judging someone's character@!

It was a fascinating thing to be in Northern Ireland a few years ago and have everyone look at me twice once I'd spoken - they don't hear too many Australasian accents in Belfast. But more than that, that's how they tell who you are and where you are from. Your accent. Particularly if you are southern Irish. Or British. And judgments are made accordingly. It's absolutely crucial information to gather about a person in Northern Ireland, where people look mostly the same, but carry enormous baggage about religious differences.

Like me hearing a South African or Afrikaans accent. I'm going to assume there is a fair chance that person will be racially intolerant. That's ridiculous, but I know I do it.

Just to really force home the brotherly love "at Christmas" thing, the Sydney Morning Herald this morning has printed a story about a "racial tension map" devised by two Sydney academics. They have produced a map of Sydney which colour codes the racial tolerance around the city. I've written in earlier blogs about the uber-suburbia we have shifted to here in the inner-west. Now I find this area is also a red-necked pocket of racial intolerance. It shows up as a "red zone" on this map. So does the entire southern area of the city.

This map, of a city of 4 million people, covering a couple of hundred square kilometres, is based on interviews with .. wait for it ... 1800 people.

What a vast cross-section of the community they must have been. Our little pocket of Sydney could be tagged as a red zone based purely on the comments of one or two people. How useful. This is crazy science. I don't see what purpose it serves except to alienate parts of the city and its people further. And here's the local paper printing this junk on the day after Christmas!!!

It's no wonder people here hate each other and fight over beaches. The media is prodding them along and the community laps it up. And I don't play "the media" blame game often.

As for my Christmas day yesterday, we spent it very quietly here in the red zone. The first bottle of specially bought NZ bubbly I opened was flat, the flowers my grandma sent me didn't arrive and the meat pack we sent her didn't make it either. Just to really engrave the day in my memory - the barbeque caught fire. Very exciting. The thick clouds of smoke did not alert any neighbours or the fire department so I cleaned myself and the BBQ off and managed to produce a pretty good roast lamb out of it anyway. Quite pleased with self.

I don't think I did anything to improve Sydney's racial tolerance and brotherly love all day, but I didn't do anything to make it worse either. And that's something in this town.

Trans Tasman Irritation 2

2005-12-09T09:32:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I finally got around to getting a NSW driver's licence.

My NZ licence was vaild till 2011 but I could not drive on it here. In fact Kiwis are supposed to get Australian licences within three months of arriving here. For everyone else it's six months.

When I get back to NZ with my NSW licence, I will be able to drive legally with it for a year. Then I will have to get another NZ licence cos the NSW people took my NZ one and put a big hole in it.

We've been here three years so I guess it was time I did the right thing - although we don't have a car and I've driven here about three times in three years.

More anomalies - the NSW licence only lasts for three years, and cost $100. An NZ licence lasts for 10 years and costs $45.

The place here in Sydney where you get your licence, the RTA, is absolutely packed all the time. The big office in the city has one of those machines where you take a number and wait. Like a Chinese takeaway. People get sick of it and leave. Yesterday morning I figured about 10 out of the 35 people ahead of me (at 9.30am) left before they were seen. A typically Australian wildly ineffective system.

On the upside, I did receive my new licence straight away, which is fantastic. They took the photo, took the signature, pumped out the little plastic square and away I went. But the thought of having to do that every three years!! No wonder people walk out.

Maybe I will get a car now. Get my money - and my time's worth.

Life in the Suburbs - It's All About Rubbish

2005-11-29T11:09:00.000+13:00

I know I live in suburbia because when someone passes me on the footpath they say hello. They look a bit sheepish, but they say it.

Very few people walk anywhere, they all have cars, several of them. In fact you never actually see many people. They are cocooning. Just like Faith Popcorn said they would 10 years ago.

It's nice and quiet, but I'm struggling with a few issues. I'm struggling with my rubbish. I have discovered rubbish collection is a suburban artform. Here in this part of Sydney you get three enormous bins - red, green and yellow. And you put them out on the street in front of your house, on the right day, just like everyone else in the street. It seems to be some kind of secret code that everyone knows but it never gets talked about. Everyone who lives in the suburbs anyway. A true citydweller doesn't have to put bins out. Your rubbish goes down a shute and it's gone forever. Fantastic.

Luckily for me the cable tv guy came round on Thursday last week, and explained to me I'd put out the wrong bin. He also fixed the cable tv which is miraculous in itself. It appears I've been doing the wrong thing with my rubbish for a month.

I was under the impression you put all three bins out on rubbish day - Thursday. Would this not seem the obvious thing to do? Nah. As this very sensible cable guy explained, the green bin for garden rubbish and the yellow bin for recyclables are rotated, week and week about. That's why I've noticed some of my bins haven't been emptied. I wonder how long it would have taken me to figure this out on my own? Years probably.

I'm also a little disappointed none of my friendly - but distant - neighbours has popped over to take me in hand and explain it all. I expect they simply don't realise that it's possible to live in Sydney for almost three years without putting out a rubbish bin. I never did this in the city. I had no idea. They must think I'm nuts. Or very very stupid.

I referred to my mother for further instructions. She lives in Queensland but apparently they have a similar system. Amazing. I told her I was confused because the people in the next block had their green bins out, and they were emptied, but mine wasn't. I thought it meant the people in my street didn't have any "green" to put out. But she says no, what happens is the people around the corner are on another rubbish collection route and might have completely different days for collection.

My God it's so complex! The system itself is fantastic, much better to have these great big wheelie bins than the silly little blue bin we had for recycling in Wellington. Back home you go to sleep listening to the sound of the wind blowing your neighbour's little blue recycling bin down the bank beside your house. Smacking into the wall just outside the bedroom on the way down. Ah, the memories.

Of course the environmental side of the coin is the theory that if you give people big rubbish bins, they'll just fill them up. When they should be ploughing it all back into the earth. Or paying a lot of extra money to have it disposed of. I wish councils gave out compost bins. If I had one I'd use it. But I'm not putting one in a backyard I don't own.

That would be a great thing to make out of recycled plastic wouldn't it?

Sux

2005-11-12T23:20:00.000+13:00

It can't be coincidence.

I'm not a believer in conspiracies generally, but this is getting beyond a joke. Four years I've lived in Australia, a struggling Kiwi just trying to get by and pay the bills. Some enormous bills too, because we live in Sydney with the rest of the First world's wealthier refugees.

In four years I've been issued with four phone numbers in this country, the most recent only four weeks back. ALL four numbers have had the number "six" in them. Or should I say "sux"?

It's a plot to make us Kiwis identifiable. They know the 'sux' is the last thing to go from your Newzild accent. The 'sux' hangs on long after the 'fush' has become 'feesh' and 'chups' are ... fries.

I can say "Stray-ya" like everyone else in Stray-ya. I can pronounce the name of the nation's cricket team captain using only half its consonants, with no spaces "Rrieypon'ing".

But while I still say 'sux', they can spot me.

It started way back in 1990 when we lived here for a year and our first phone number had a "sux, sux, fow-ve" in it. I remember phoning in a pizza delivery order and getting to the part right at the end where you give your number in case they need to call you back, and after I'd give the number the guy would ALWAYS say "Aw yura Key-we arna ya?" Everytime. And we ate quite a lot of pizza.

Oh yes. And here we are, 15 years later, back in Sydney, not ordering pizza anymore cos I'm allergic these days ... but still getting the "yura Key-we arn ya?" after EVERY recitation of my phone number. Although I admit these days we seem not to have to give out phone numbers so much. Maybe email has spared us. Maybe it's because most folks have clever little phones that remember the numbers without being told. I love that.

Oddly though I believe my accent is much stronger now, even after being here three years, than it was after only a year of living here way back in 1990. Is it possible that as we age we fall more heavily into our vocal speech patterns, and it doesn't matter what you hear around you, it's not going to change?

Or, and I like this theory much more, maybe it is that the Kiwi infiltration into Australia for decades and decades is having the effect of watering down the Australian accent? I can't pick the difference anymore between my accent and an Australian's, because theirs is milder? This isn't my theory, I've heard it said in linguistics circles. So it must be true. Although I think those circles are in NZ.

Anyway, we Kiwis can't take all the credit for the elimination or at least tempering of the ghastly Australian drawl. There are plenty of other people living here speaking all manner of weird languages. It all helps.

In a shop window today I saw a sign saying "We speak .. Italian, Mandarin" and then it had some other funny foreign language listed written in the correct alphabet, and I have no idea what language it was. It didn't look like Arabic, or anything European, or Asian. Next time I go past the shop I will go in and ask. There's no point living here if you don't learn from it.

This morning on the train a Chinese woman asked if the train stopped at a particular station. She was obviously visiting the area because she was trying to find the right page in the timetable while keeping her son under control, speaking to him in Chinese and me in English, virtually at the same time, as mothers do. I know Chinese, or Mandarin, are impossibly difficult languages to learn and I know English is just about as bad. I sat there on the train thinking how smart that woman must be that she can not only keep Chinese and English in her head but can try and actually read and understand a Sydney CityRail timetable as well.

I've always thought I should be able to speak at least one other language. I've felt stupidly monolingual when in the company of businesspeople from overseas. I was heartened to read an NZ news item recently quoting some language expert saying all New Zealanders are bi-lingual, because we absorb so much Maori just from the environment around us. It's certainly true that I know plenty more Maori than your average white Aussie knows of any Aboriginal language. I don't know any either. You just don't hear it. Certainly not in Sydney. Or on TV. Or the radio.

I remember causing a strange little incident at work one day here in Sydney (yes back when I had a job) by making the off-hand remark in a chat with a few workmates that I could sing the song "Run Rabbit Run" in Maori, if anyone wanted to hear it. The song was being used (the English version of course) in a commercial at the time and we'd been talking about the commercial, it was for Melbourne. I stopped the conversation dead. It was weird. I think I made them feel bad.

Oma Rapeti, oma rapeti, oma oma oma.

The last word on language: I saw a sign tacked to a power pole today that said "For Sale. Everything Must Gone".

Activities for the Unemployed No. 2

2005-11-10T10:46:00.000+13:00

Mid-week horse racing! So you've got a bit of time on your hands during the week?

Well, here's a great day's entertainment - midweek horse racing. Yes, it's true, it will cost you, but if you stick to your budget you could manage on $50, here in Sydney anyway.

Sydney is the proud home of the lovely Royal Randwick racecourse. Randwick is a classy place and it does a good race day.

Midweek, it's kinda slow, so that's a good thing for us unemployed folk. It's good because they make it much cheaper to get in. Much cheaper than a Saturday at Easter, for example.

Here's a little comparison - gate entry at Flemington in Melbourne during the Melbourne Cup carnival is at least $50, more than $75 for a seat in the stand - the public stand. A member's ticket (if you can get one) will set you back more than $200.

In contrast, a Wednesday afternoon at Randwick in November costs $10 to get in, and another $10 to get in to the member's stand. To get into the Members you will have to tell them you belong to another racing club, and they will have to believe you. You are supposed to take your out-of-town member's pass with you as proof. It just so happens I do belong to a racing club in New Zealand, but had no pass with me yesterday at Randwick. I got in, I guess the accent and the NZ driver's licence helped. They are willing to believe because they need people to spend as much as possible because the crowd is so small.

When I first got to the course yesterday, there were more horses there than people.

Most of the time it will cost you a fortune to get into the Members at Randwick, so this is a good way to get in and have a look around, just to be able to say you've been there.

As for other spending: I bought a racebook for $5, but that's not essential. I bought hot chips, a coffee and one glass of bubbly, all of which are essential and cost about $15.

Then I spent $6 on a bet and made $20, and another $4 on a bet and made $12. This was a complete fluke and should not be taken as a general guide or indication of likely success.

It cost about $10 to get to the course and back on public transport.

So I didn't finish 'up', not quite 'even', but it was good fun. Randwick is a jewel in Sydney's crown, so when it's so much more accessible, and cheaper, take advantage.

More On Super - But Life First

2005-11-09T11:59:00.000+13:00

It's been awhile - lots of stuff going on. There's nothing like shifting house to upset your life.

Finally got the internet back up and running, no thanks to that marvelous tribute to modern customer service - Telstra. They started out by telling me the house we were moving into did not exist, and things just got better and better from there. It's a 1950s semi. It's been on this planet longer than me.

A warning: if you let Optus rewire your connection, Telstra will wipe you from their books like you never were here. And if you move into such a place, it's going to mean a nice shiny new $200 connection for you! Which is tough in a rental situation. Plus another $150 (and a 10 day wait) to be connected to your ADSL provider.

Life's been a bit on the tricky side lately - lost my job, lost my cat and now an uncle has cancer. These things better happen in threes cos I've had enough dramatic life stuff to last me for at least 12 months.

I had a job interview last week but didn't get it cos they thought I would be bored. I love being bored! It's one of my favourite things. The money was really bad, so I was looking forward to being able to surf the net and IM friends for hours on end.

But on to more important things:

I have more info on getting Australian superannuation money out of Australia and back to NZ. I'm about to dislocate myself from a very big super fund, because it was a work one. I don't have an employer so it's easier to shift to a new fund - a bit less paperwork. So might as well take the opportunity.

There is also the possibility it will be easier to move the funds back to NZ from a smaller fund. This is just a theory BUT the rules are you have to apply to the super fund saying you are in "extreme" financial difficulty, and then they will let you have the money back in NZ. I was given the examples of "extreme" as not being able to afford to pay for a funeral or being about to have your house repossessed. One of those does seem a bit more extreme than the other, so I guess it's all in the way you express yourself.

My theory is very few funds - especially smaller ones - get many of these applications so I would guess the chances of getting your money back are higher from the funds with less experience of handling this sort of thing. So if you were thinking of changing to a small industry super fund, do it.

Another interesting aspect is what if the fund is a DIY? What if you manage your own fund? Do you have to apply to yourself to let yourself have your money back? The problem with this is managing your own fund is a significant undertaking, not for those of us who still count on our fingers.

The "extreme" hardship thing would only work once you were back in NZ too, so that would mean phone calls and chasing up from across the Tasman. Now that funds are portable, it's possible you could just keep shifting the money around until you found a fund that would let it go. I didn't ask but I also assume they don't care if it goes into another fund or not back in NZ. They seem to think once it's gone, it's gone.

Here's another theory, don't ask for all of it. It's possible it might be easier to get some of the cash - leave some of it behind. Say you suddenly needed NZ$20K because your daughter was picked up carrying dope in Singapore, the super fund would let you have NZ$20K if you left another A$10K behind in your fund.

If that was actually possible, then I think the whole issue of the civil rights of citizens in other countries starts to get very blurry. I already think the rules are much tougher for NZers than any other nationality here in Australia, and this is just another magnificent example.

I've just been reading about the Polish/Australian guy who ran away from Aus in the 80s with $1.5 billion that he owed to other people. Now he's happily making mega bucks in Poland and the Australian authorities can't touch him, because he's a Polish citizen. They are unlikely to extradite one of their own. He also has Australian citizenship.

So how come then they can 'touch' me!?? And my super?! Would I be extradited if I ran away to NZ with my super?!! Oh yes indeed. I'd be back here faster than you can say "Alan Bond".

Surely there must be someone in the New Zealand government who realises that ALL the Kiwis working in Aus who will eventually want to return home are NOT going to be able to bring home all those Australian dollars? It would be a great source of foreign investment for NZ.

I really hope there is someone in the NZ government somewhere who is battling away on this one, trying to get the Aussies to loosen up. Australian super fund and investment companies routinely buy up NZ ones. They already own most of the banks. What difference does it make to them if my super sits in the Australian fund or its NZ subsidiary? I would think the companies would actually make MORE money out of all the fees they charge when people shift funds.

So it must be an Australian government 'initiative' born out of the myth that NZers are a drain on the glorious Australian lifestyle. We just sit around drinking beer and smoking and filling up hospital beds and getting old. We don't do any work at all (especially me).

Did you know New Zealanders can't get the dole in Australia unless they are Australian citizens? Other nationalities can, just not Kiwis. But when we work here, we pay exactly the same tax as everybody else, and we have the same amount of super taken off us. And of course we can't have that either. At least, not until we make it to 65.

I'm going back to NZ to wait for that day.

Bernie

2005-10-12T15:21:00.000+13:00

Now this blog is a memorial.

Bernie died last week. I'm still so upset about it I don't really want to write anything here. But I said I would write every day and I haven't been here for a week.

Poor Bernie had diabetes. There was no way my grandmother could give him shots every day. So he was put to sleep by the vet. He was 14 years old. The cat, not the vet. Maybe 15.

When I got him from the SPCA - 13 years ago - the SPCA told me the guy who had brought him in had asked them to put the cat down. They didn't, and I met him when I went to take the "Pet of the Week" photo for the little paper I worked for. The SPCA lady was calling him "Bertie" after Engelbert Humperdinck. Poor cat!

So I went home and said to my husband "can we have a cat?" and he said "No". If only I had listened to him, I would have spared myself and my grandmother and the rest of the family the gut-wrenching feelings of losing a much-loved pet.

My poor grandmother now has to go on about her life without Bernie's company - and fairly demanding company at that. He literally gave her a reason to get out of bed in the morning. She had to get up and let him in, feed him and then let him out. And then let him back in again, cos he liked to be brushed at about 10, 10.30am.

There are lots of Bernie stories. I'll save them for another blog. Or two.

The Moths Are Back

2005-10-04T13:07:00.000+13:00

I really don't like moths. Never have.

I mentioned this to my husband when we were out on our first date (because there was one climbing on the window behind him in the restaurant) and he thought this very amusing. Years ago he was given the nickname "The Moth" because of his habit of tapping on the windows of friends' houses with their lights on after dark.

Very cute I'm sure, but not enough to cure my life-long dislike of those furry unpredictable stalkers.

They are stalkers because they follow the light, and usually that's where I'm headed as well. And they are unpredictable. Flying around all over the place. You never know where they are going. And they are furry. I hate that.

Some really yucky moth incident must have happened to me when I was a child. Maybe I swallowed one by accident. I've blocked it out so I don't have to relive that trauma, but the fear of it happening again remains.

And now it's back.

Alarmingly we have been living in a flat for almost three years now, that holds some kind of attraction for the yuckiest moth of them all - the Bogong.

Bogongs usually live way out west of Sydney but when it starts getting too hot out there - right about now at the beginning of spring - they migrate to the mountains, where it's cooler and they hang out in caves til the heat goes away.

The Aborigines used to find them in the caves and knew they were a delicious summertime snack. Very nutritious too.

Well I wish someone or something was eating them now. Cos some of them get blown off course and instead of ending up looking for a nice mountain-top cave in the Great Dividing Range, they are walking all over my balcony on the 12th floor of an inner-city apartment.

And it gets worse. Someone stuffed up when they were fitting the sliding doors in the aparments on this building ... there are gaps at the top and bottom of the sliding part. The doors aren't air-tight - or even moth-tight. Yes, that's right, the horrible furry bastards can crawl into my living room, and bedroom, right through the doors. Yeah.

The first year we were here was a bad moth season - it starts in October. I didn't know about the doors then, so couldn't figure out where the hell all these moths were coming from. One day I came home and found about a dozen flying around. Nearly had a heart attack. I pulled out the vacuum cleaner and sucked them all up, then put the vac away in the cupboard. About an hour later I saw them crawling out under the door of the cupboard. Another heart attack. The vacuum spent the next week sitting out on the balcony.

Finally I spoke to the building manager about it and he told me to stuff paper towels in the gaps in the doors. Now this I am happy to do - except I know there are other people in the building who won't know any of this moth stuff. So there was a moth in here last night, because it came through from another apartment. It's dreadful really. I'm glad I don't own the place. The building manager told me it's worse for the apartments on our side of the building because of the direction the moths are coming from. Terrific.

I'm not the only person in Sydney who can't stand them. Bogongs get blamed for all kinds of bad stuff. When they come into the cities they are a "plague". They are a pest because they eat cauliflower. One of them supposedly landed on the breast of the woman singing the anthem at the Sydney Olympics - but moth specialists say it wasn't actually a bogong. Too bad, the rest of us prefer to think it was.

The Bogong (Agrotis infusa) is almost completely brown and quite big for a moth - about the size of a 20 cent piece, sometimes bigger. This is a good website http://linus.socs.uts.edu.au/~don/larvae/noct/infusa.html

Although why people want to actually spend time studying these things .. I don't know.

I read somewhere else that Australia has about 20,000 different kinds of moths and only about half have been given official scientific names. Doesn't surprise me! Although it would be a great fundraising opportunity for some smart university - charge people money to have a moth named after them.

No thanks.

Bad Days

2005-10-01T15:47:00.000+12:00

A few years back I spent a bit of time in hospital, I was sick for awhile. Had to go through a bit of yucky stuff ... not really life-threatening, just scary. You keep your perspective because there is always someone in hospital worse off than you.

I know from back then, that when times are tough, there are good days and there are bad days. Oh yes it is a cliche, but I didn't really know what it meant until I got sick. There were days when I just wasn't firing. And there's nothing you can do about it when they happen. That's a 'bad day', plain and simple.

I had one yesterday. It went from average at about 10am, to bad by 12.30. I even shed a few tears at about 2pm. I didn't want to write here yesterday cos I knew I would be shitty and horrible.

A couple of things lead up to it. Number one I went out for a drink with my former workmates the night before. They were nice. Too nice. I don't want to hear how upset they are. The cynical part of me thinks they are not just upset for me, that I was made redundant, they are upset for themselves.

Let's be honest here, the first thing you think when someone is made redundant at your work is "shit what if it happens to me?" not "oh my goodness, how dreadful for 'x'. That comes second. Especially if the workplace is known to be 100% dysfunctional anyway.

And then I feel guilty for thinking that way about them.. They do care. I know that. And then I feel sorry for myself - they still have jobs. What a mess!

So there was them being nice on Thursday night, and then a recruitment consultant was nice to me yesterday morning. Not only did this company email me after I'd submitted my CV online to them, but the consultant talked to me when I called up and was really helpful and positive. I was totally floored. Just over 99% of those people really are no fun to deal with. This woman was the recruitment industry equivalent of finding out someone has handed in your lost wallet to the police. And it still has money in it.

Another thing - my lawyer hasn't called me about taking action about my old company, I've called her but she's not returned my calls. And to top it all off nicely, my husband and I had a fight about the size of the crowd at the parade in the city yesterday. How dumb is that???!!

Suddenly I found myself feeling so angry with absolutely everything I couldn't even answer the phone.

It's that 'seven stages of grief' thing again isn't it? Trouble is I seem to have gone through all seven, now I'm going back through them again!

Maybe you keep going through the seven stages over and over until you don't feel them anymore. Yeah.

Time to get some perspective from somewhere. Maybe I should pretend I'm back in hospital. That could be weird. I'll walk around the flat wearing only a sheet with a gap all the way up the back. I'll pulp up all my food and eat it off a large plastic tray. I'll wake myself up by shining a torch in my face at 6am.

Yeah that'll work fine.

Super

2005-09-28T18:13:00.000+12:00

Ok so I seem to have struck a nerve talking about Kiwis getting their super out of Aus.

Yes Ed, last time I worked here, 15 years ago, I took my super with me back home when I left. It was about $500!! After a year's worth of toil over a hot keyboard.

Not this time .. at least, will find out. It's more like $5K now and I don't wanna wave it goodbye when we get on the plane home next year.

It's true I certainly have the time to explore this further right now and it will do me good to be using my brain. Because I'm sure it's going to get weird. I fear it will involve complicated equations about tax and things.

Whatever, it's got to be worth doing if there is a way to get the money back to NZ. It's no use having money sitting here because you can't borrow against it in NZ. It just sits here and costs you money.

ON a completely different subject .. I was just interrupted by a young man calling on the phone to tell me he was doing a "survey" about internet use. And when he eventually got to the part about saving me money on my mobile phone ... I said thanks but no thanks. Now I've made a few cold calls in my time so I always try to be nice, but firm. This guy used the line "but can I just say one thing" and then he told me about saving money ... and I said 'NO' and than he said again 'but can I just tell you one thing" ... and I waited and he said "you have a very beautiful voice"!!

Good try! I don't think I ever used that line myself. Didn't work tho. I'm not buying yet another mobile phone plan, no matter how nice I sound on the damn phone!

PS. And no, I will not be providing audio clips of my voice on this blog. Although, podcasting might be fun ...

Trans-Tasman Irritation

2005-09-27T10:40:00.000+12:00

At the best of times, it annoys me, but right now it really pisses me off.

New Zealanders constantly compare themselves to Australians and conditions in Australia. I hate it.

Australians get paid more, Australians drive bigger cars, Australians all have plasma TVs, Australians pay less tax ... on and on it goes.

I don't know where it comes from and I certainly haven't conducted any research of my own, but a lot of these statements are completely without foundation. They must be. I just don't see people in Australia - as a whole - enjoying a better life style. And I see a lot of people much worse off than you see in NZ.

The single one thing that is better in Australia, than in NZ, is the weather. And that's only if you like it hot and clear and don't mind sitting in air-conditioning for hours.

The constant comparisons are foolish and at best, unhelpful. At worst it is destructive and it undermines the efforts of New Zealanders, in New Zealand. It might even have something to do with the brain drain - young people actually think it is better to be in Australia. They hear these mythical comparisons all the time as they grow up.

Now I am not someone who regularly blames "the media" for misrepresenting or highlight issues that would otherwise not get attention. In fact I'm the opposite. Usually I'm the one saying, 'it's not the media, they just write what they see'. But in this case, I can't help thinking it is too easy for journos to run out the "Australia is better' angle, on just about any story.

New Zealand is constantly comparing itself to the rest of the world, always looking for reliable benchmarks. Do we have enough superannuation savings? Do we have better after-school childcare? Do we have safe hospitals? Do we have higher property taxes?

I know from my time as a journalist it makes sense to use comparisons in a story like that, so it has relevance to the reader. You can decide if you really think our lack of savings is a bad thing, if only three other countries in the world save more, per head. Maybe our mental health system isn't so bad, if we spend more on mental health, per head, than any other country in the world?

That I understand. What peeves me is the media - and the general population - use Australia as a benchmark for everything! It's like saying everything in Australia is better so we should compare ourselves to where they are at.

Here's a newsflash - they ain't better.

Here's an example: Did you know it is impossible for a mature student to get into a university in New South Wales? It doesn't matter what your marks are, or how much money you've got. There are no places. You can not get an education. You don't hear about that in NZ. I was a mature aged university student in NZ. I have a degree because my country let me get one.

I've just finished reading a story in the NZ media about retirement savings. It's about how NZers are saving less. Various economist types are saying that Australians save more, and the super system in Australia is better. It's just not that simple!

For a start it's compulsory in Australia. At least 9% of your pay disappears before you even see it. Into a super fund. Very recently the system has changed so you can choose which super fund your money goes to. Up until now the employer decided. Of course there are people now wandering around with at least half a dozen super funds on the go, cos they have changed employers and not shifted over their super.

These are not the kinds of people who will now fill out all the forms and do all the research and move their super into one place. So straight away the system starts to magnify itself. Huge companies are now sitting on ever growing piles of cash, basically given to them - no questions asked - by law. And the person who actually owns the cash can't get it til they are 65.

And of course all those little accounts have fees and charges on them ... it's a great scam for your average finance company or bank.

And as for the "employer contribution" this is pretty much non-existent in the circles I move in. Occasionally you see a job advertised where the employer kicks in another couple of percent, but the salary is usually lower to off-set the higher contribution. And you can say, 'actually I would like to be paid all that money now please, cos I want to invest it myself' but it involves setting up your own investment fund ... and the advice from all the super advisors is that it's too hard. They would say that wouldn't they!? And it is hard, because the government doesn't want to have to monitor them. It would require yet another government department of say 1000 people!!

And there's a nice little catch for us Kiwis. You can't take the money when you leave. I'm struggling to find anyone who can advise me on this, but what I do know is that we can't take our super when we go back to NZ. It stays here, sitting in a fund with fees coming off it every year, til we are 65. I've heard a rumour it is possible to shift it back to NZ - to another super fund - but I can't find any info about this. The search continues.

Next time I get pissed off about this "But in Australia ... " thing I will write here about property taxes. And the great "better pay" myth. And the Kyoto Protocol. And Baxter Detention Centre. And racism. And burning coal for electricity. And Medicare.

One day NZ will grow up, and we won't need to measure ourselves anymore. We will look back at people like David Lange and we will know we have always been strong enough to say what we think and work together to figure out what is best for us.

I fear that day is some way off.

Side Effects

2005-09-26T10:39:00.000+12:00

One of the nastiest side-effects of redundancy is an immediate lack of cash flow.

When I lost my job, it halved the amount of cash coming into our household. This means we will have to cut back. Although I've noticed another odd side-effect of not having a job, is that I spend less money. I eat almost all my meals at home, which is about twice as many as I ate at home a month ago. This is Sydney - that saves a lot of money. I don't buy coffee anymore either.

And I haven't bought drinks. Funny thing, but I needed to drink a lot more alcohol when I was working back at "that place". I used to be a big fan of 'Monday Night Drinks'. Getting through even one day, after being away for two, required an alcohol softener.

As John Irving says in his latest book, "it was a good job to lose". I'm starting to realise this more and more.

With the halving of the income comes the need to find another place to live. This was already on the cards before, now it's just become something I have to do, sooner rather than later.

Looked at a place on Saturday. It was fine. Would be perfectly ok. But I didn't like it. So I'm not taking the first thing I see. That's a huge step for me.

I didn't take the first job I was offered either ... I appear to be becoming a lot wiser, or at least more patient. Shit I must be getting old!

One of the main reasons I didn't like the place was because it didn't have a dishwasher. I like having a dishwasher. My husband said 'we don't need a dishwasher'. He doesn't.

The place had a pool as well but it was a bit exposed and looked a bit dank. The building we are in now has a pool and I've used it many times, but I wonder if I would use one that was outside surrounded by a block of about 50 flats.

The search continues. I've noticed these places seem to go very fast too, so when I get the hang of the competitive battle for an apartment I might be better equipped to handle the competitive battle for a job.

Suing the Bastards

2005-09-23T20:52:00.000+12:00

Isn't the internet grand?!

I love it. This afternoon I've been reading up on the Industrial Relations Commission and I've downloaded one of their forms. I'm all set to go now when my lawyer gets back next week and we go to work on my old employer. Bastards.

The law says I have the right to compensation if their decision to make me unemployed was "harsh, unjust or unreasonable". And I reckon it was. Mainly because it was very sudden and there was a distinct lack of interest in finding me something else, despite the fact I'd worked there for two and a half years in a sales role, and there were sales positions available. Classy people.

Anyway it's going to cost money but hopefully they will be encouraged to soothe my pain with enough to pay off the lawyer and maybe give me enough left over to invest in a new computer.

This one does okay but it's struggling under the weight of our new iPod and the digital camera.

Right now I'm listening to the mighty Wellington Lions trying to beat those evil men from Canterbury in the New Zealand provincial rugby competition. It's a top-of-the-table clash, and even more importantly it's a Ranfurly Shield game. Real important.

I wish I could watch it, but I guess I should be grateful I can even hear it!!

Internet radio is not perfect tho .. I have to suffer through some longish silences.

13 minutes to go. Canterbury's ahead. Come one Wellington, get the bastards.

Activities for the Unemployed No. 1

2005-09-22T18:25:00.000+12:00

Visit An Art Gallery

There's something about wandering around in an art gallery that makes you feel ... smart. You have the right to be there. Your opinion of the art is as valuable, or valid, as the next person's.

And usually it's quite cheap, probably free, therefore making it an ideal activity for the unemployed.

Sydney is blessed with a bunch of public art galleries, and of course a pile of pretentious swanky ones as well, in places like Woollahra (posh eastern suburb). A Google search on "woollahra art gallery" returns 22,000 results.

Of course there's nothing to stop you popping into a bunch of posh eastern suburbs galleries and pretending you have $5K to spend on a picture of ... yes, well whatever it is. Something "topographical". Two pieces of wool stuck to a white canvas with red enamel paint and bird feathers around the edges. Lovely. Just right for the landing on the second staircase, just underneath the Aboriginal bark painting series.

In reality, the art gallery visit is about expanding one's mind, and distracting it. Useful pursuits for the unemployed, when your ego's been shattered by restructuring and rejection. You can still appreciate art. And it just hangs there, doesn't care who you are or what you do. Some of it challenges you to approve of it, other pieces try to make you love them.

Like a pile of resumes on the recruitment consultant's desk - some are better than others and the selection of the "best" is entirely subjective.

Knowing

2005-09-21T10:19:00.000+12:00

To start the redundancy story from the beginning, it makes sense to start with the premonitions.

There were two. One was mine, the other was my friend MD's dream. Or nightmare?

Sometime in the middle of August I saw a guy interviewed on morning tele about his book "Fat, Forty and Fired". He's a Englishman who came to Australia for the good life, got himself a high-powered advertising job, and then was made redundant. Unlike me, he had a fair bit of warning and a huge payout. Also unlike me he had four kids and a wife, and had to tell all his employees they were redundant also.

So I went out and actually bought the book. About a week before I was made redundant myself. I hadn't even started reading it. Have now!

Now I think "damn, I could have written "Fat, 39 and Fired"!

The second premonition I found out about, the day after "R Day". I had made plans to visit a former work mate, to see her new baby, on the Saturday after I was laid off. It was very hard to front up not just to my friend, but to the two workmates I went with. They are great women, they were very good for me.

At about this time I was starting to feel physically quite ill, I'd had no sleep and had taken rather a large amount of Arnica drops! But there was no way I was going to miss seeing MD's baby! Gorgeous creature she is too.

Turns out my friend had dreamt I was made redundant. About a week earlier. This made us all shiver. Apparently she's done this sort of thing before. I never remember my dreams, and I'm often thankful for that. But this was weird. Now I wonder if I would have wanted her to tell me or not? If we'd been still working together, she easily could have.

When she told me I said "What happened next?"! Spooky.

Silver Lining

2005-09-20T11:05:00.000+12:00

It's time I took this blogging thing a bit more seriously.

And as luck would have it, I find myself right now with a great deal more time on my hands. I'm time-rich and cash-poor - the ideal place from which to start a long and rewarding relationship with blogging.

I was made redundant very abruptly three weeks ago - August 26 to be exact. Yes it was a huge shock. Didn't see it coming, no warning, no announcements, nothing. Just "thanks, but goodbye". All very weird and honestly, I guess I'm still working through it now. The therapeutic benefits of blogging are about to be tested.

I haven't felt like writing about it til now, and really, I've been too busy.

For about a week it looked like I was going to get another job virtually straight away - I would have started today. But I changed my mind and turned them down. A friend said I was just on the rebound - like a boyfriend! Good analogy.

Anyway plenty of time over the next days, weeks, months for my dissection of this "turning point". Stick with me, I fear it's going to be quite a long ride, maybe a little bumpy, but if nothing else it will make me sit down and write every day.

That's the goal, to write every day. Not much. Just enough to keep the brain lining up the words in my head and the fingers tapping them out. Long enough to make myself think about what it is I'm actually doing with all this time, and come away at the end of every 24-hour block knowing I've at least achieved one of the things I set out to do today.

I might not go to the gym. I might not email my mother or call my grandmother. I might not cook my husband a meal. But I will write something. Every day. Right here.

This is my silver lining.

Getting Paid to Write

2005-06-22T17:46:00.000+12:00

It probably goes completely against the philosophy of blogging, but I've set up an off-shoot of this blog for some of the columns my husband writes for his work - GT in Sydney.

It is also probably a breach of NZPA's copyright but I'll be very apologetic when they call.

Greg's a real life proper journalist who writes particularly freely, and quite well, about rugby, racing and beer. Those of you familiar with the "average Kiwi bloke" will recognise these as some of the most significant and long-standing pastimes of New Zealand males. He can even write about other stuff, in fact he wrote about Chinese dissidents in one of his recent columns but his Mum told him "we don't know any of these people". Which is very true.

He does drink wine too - is a great fan of Central Otago pinot noir.

His writing gets printed in papers and goes on websites and stuff in NZ, but I wanted to have my own record of what he's been writing, especially while he is posted here in Australia. The stuff I like, anyway.

He actually even received his first "hate email" this week, from someone who basically had a go at him for repeating discussions verbatim he'd picked up from talkback radio. To set the record straight, I can verify that GT does not spend much time listening to talkback. When I go into his office he's always got the racing channel on the tele. No radio.

L.

South Seas Paradise - Shushhh! Don't Tell Anyone

2005-05-22T10:36:00.000+12:00

We are just back from 10 days in the Cook Islands. Get out your maps - that's somewhere near Fiji, about half way give or take a couple of hundred miles between New Zealand and Hawaii.

And it is everything you would expect in your average Pacific Island ... white sand, palm trees, warm and tropical weather. We loved it. Especially the island of Aitutaki in the Aitutaki lagoon .. population 1100. Just a few of the treats tourists like - a couple of good bars and a couple of good restaurants, one or two shops, and the rest is just walking on the beach, lazing by the pool etc.

You hire a car without signing a form, the same person serves you in two different stores and you go to church on Sunday just to hear the singing - from the entire congregation not just the choir.

Don't go there.

L.

2005-05-22T09:51:00.000+12:00

Cook Islands Holiday - Ready for lunch? Organic cafe menu, Aitutaki

2005-05-22T09:50:00.000+12:00

Cook Islands Holiday - Aitutaki Lagoon

2005-05-22T09:49:00.000+12:00

Cook Islands Holiday - main street, Aitutaki

2005-05-22T09:48:00.001+12:00

Cook Islands Holiday - Sunset from Samade Bar, Aitutaki

2005-05-22T09:48:00.000+12:00

Cook Islands Holiday - View from our room, Rarotonga

2005-05-22T09:46:00.000+12:00

Cook Islands Holiday - On the Beach, Rarotonga

Poor Bob

2005-05-22T09:01:00.000+12:00

My brother and his wife have just had their first child.

They also have two Jack Russell terriers in the family. The older dog has a reputation in our family for being a handful at the best of times. At the worst of times he's a damn pain in the ... backyard.

This is the dog that ate the crackers off the table at Christmas. The dog that throws his body against the French doors outside the spare room when he knows you are in there trying to sleep. The dog who gets up behind you on the sofa and eats your hair. The dog who looks you square in the eye when you tell him to go outside and he carefully puts his body behind you and the doorway, and won't budge. The dog who won't go outside until you throw grapes out into the backyard for him to chase. He's ... full on.

And he didn't get what was going on when the baby arrived. He was jumping up, trying to play ... just generally going nuts. Now we've all heard of this before, that thing where dogs don't like new babies ... so my brother and sister-in-law weren't surprised to find they had a bit of a problem on their hands.

So they did what modern folk do these days - they brought in the dog psychologist. He calls himself the Dog Whisperer or something like that. They had an intense five hour session with the whole lot of them, my brother and sister-in-law included, trying to set the dog some new guidelines. This doesn't mean just training the dog .. it means retraining the people as well. I bet the dog psychiatrist doesn't exactly say that, but that's what he's thinking!

It all has something to do with the dog thinking he's the leader of the pack and not accepting authority.

And the "treatment"? Well it includes nobody being allowed to look the dog in the eye or use his real name. The family's going around calling the dog Bob. And apparently it's working. "Bob" has been a model family member and no longer spends his days running around the house like a lunatic.

Sounds to me like the dog whisperer should be expanding his range. I might start calling a few people at work Bob. You never know ...

Sydney's Royal Easter Show

2005-03-21T20:14:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - it's a BIG day out.

Sydney's Easter Show is a full-on event. Many of the locals don't bother cos it's just too ... much. The crowds, the money and the travel to get there. It used to be held in the city but now it's held at Olympic Park, about 40 mins by train from the city, and the whole site is huge. By the end of the day your feet feel like you've competed in a couple of Olympic events.

This year I went with my friend Janelle, who had not been before. She said the whole thing was a lot more impressive than she expected, well organised and with an enormous choice of stuff to see and do.

But we both agreed it would be a nightmare if you had kids in tow ... and expensive. I forked out for a Darrell Lea chocolate show bag ... always worthwhile. Janelle bought a show bag that came with a singlet top - and then disappeared into the ladies to put it on! Very handy show bag.

I have been told the whole "show bag" phenomenon is entirely Australian. These days there is an entire pavillion with more than 250 bags available .. full of all kinds of junk. Everything from chocolate and lollies to toilet paper!

And there's all that other rural show stuff .. animals and rides and candy floss and woodchopping. No chainsaw sculpture tho - that must be a Kiwi thing!?

I enjoyed it, but alas AGAIN missed the pig diving. I missed it last year because it was cancelled due to rain, and this year the place was full by the time we got there. Next year I must see the little pigs diving into the pool. Watch this space.

I got a photo of another pig. But it's not the same.

L.

2005-03-21T20:13:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - the Wood Chop Bar. A peaceful haven .. cos these blokes don't say much. But they were selling bubbles for the ladies ..

2005-03-21T20:11:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - the Show Bag Hall appears to be a drain on the finances of many Sydney families!

2005-03-21T20:08:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - the Darrell Lea Chocolate show bag stand. The "choco-block" bag was $10 and mighty good value.

2005-03-21T20:07:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - See! It's not true that dogs all look like their owners.

2005-03-21T20:06:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - the junior woodchopping event.

2005-03-21T20:04:00.000+12:00

Sydney Easter Show - Big Pumpkin in the District Displays. You can see someone has written '230kgs" on it.

2005-03-21T20:02:00.000+12:00

Pig photo just for my Mum

Bitching About Time At Work

2005-03-09T19:03:00.000+13:00

Today we got a note from the boss reminding us of what our hours of work are supposed to be.

IE it was a big fat signpost telling us she thinks we are not working all the hours we are supposed to .. and we aren't covering lunch breaks properly.

This of course only serves to piss everyone off and start yet another round of discussion about what hours we all actually do work, and how we thought we did a pretty good job of covering considering we are understaffed right now. As usual.

We also wondered how it is that we never know what hours she and our immediate boss keep - let alone where they are when they leave the room. I guess they don't have to say.

It just reminded me of some line I read in a management textbook sometime once - if you treat people like children they will act like children.

It is all very disheartening. And downright irritating.

Our supervisor is a guy who arrives after everyone, and leaves before everyone. He lives about a million miles away and has a train trip home that takes more than an hour. Poor baby. Buy another house!

As my dear old Dad would have said "don't tell me your problems!"

Exactly.

How Close Can Your Boss Get?

2005-03-07T21:11:00.000+13:00

Tell me what you think your "personal space" is.

Where does it start and end?

Last week my boss came up behind me as I was sitting at my desk, placed his hands on my shoulders and leaned forward so his head touched mine. He then made a fairly uncomplimentary comment about something I had done in a recent staff meeting, and pulled away again.

It was extremely yucky. There was nothing particularly sexual about it. I'm not saying I was harassed ... it just wasn't right. He came into my personal space and I guess I felt it was disrespectful.

And yeah, sure it didn't help that he was making a criticism. I think he thought he was doing me a favour by telling my quietly, instead of telling the whole room.

Do you think I'm being too sensitive? What happens when people who are "touchy" think it's okay to touch people who are not?

2005-02-25T16:28:00.000+13:00

Bernie.

Pain & Pills

2005-02-25T15:38:00.000+13:00

It is probably highly unadvisable to write one's first blog under the influence of migraine pills.

The incidence of bad spelling, grammar and typos will be high. I've already been back twice to correct typos.

But there's something about a computer screen that dulls my pain. This is very weird and I don't think it's been widely discovered and documented by medical science. They hate stuff like that. Although my doctor did tell me today some people get headache relief from coffee, as I have, but I've never bothered to trouble a doctor with that kind of anecdotal medical misadventure information before. Now they are telling me. Third correction.

I shoudl go back to lying down now. Just in case my boss is also home sick and reading blogs online to relive her pian.