September
This month: A Wedding! > Window Cleaner & Memory Lane > A trip to Bellingen >
Really Windy Hollows
Wednesday 27 - A Wedding!
The big news on the Hanlon side of the family is that Marnie (the Elder) and Hugh were married the other day... (Well it was actually the 17th of September - 15 years to the day since they met each other). To put it in Marnie's words, the wedding "was a joyful event and we are now an old married couple!"
Congratulations Marnie & Hugh... May you be firm and fast til the end of your days!!!! To see some more photos of the wedding and of Marnie's birthday the day before the wedding, click here to take you to the corkboard. There are lots of other new photos there so make sure you scroll down for a look while you are there.
On the home front, me and Pa have been busy eating, napping and seeing movies (as one does)... I've also extended my range of activities to include some time in the garden weeding (gasp) and planting my new spring crop which so far consists of cucumber and rocket (the 2 essentials) and most amazing of all, watering the garden too. Mum commented on my dying gardenia the other day... something about it really needing water, to which I replied... oh, is that what its problem is? I was spurred into a frenzie of (guilt-ridden) action, watering with the hose on our allotted days and most amazing of all, watering with the watering can in between. What an effort! You should see how happy the gardenia is now though. It's got new leaves and buds and smiles every time I walk past.
Meanwhile, Pa's got a sore tooth which has to be extracted (poor dear Pa!!) and is therefore living on slops for the meanwhile to avoid chewing on the said tooth. There goes my evil plan to fatten him up, I thought to myself. Although he's still getting his morning egg via a high protein milkshake and I've devised a way of making his bowls of soup more hearty by adding great chunks of blue castello cheese. He loves it! After lunch today he said, "Well that should keep me going til Christmas"... Thought I might have overdone it a bit, but he still managed to eat a full-cream (7.5 grams of fat) yoghurt for dessert!
Monday 18 - Window Cleaner & Memory Lane
I just discovered two more photos on my camera that I took while we were up in Bellingen and I really like them so here they are:
The exciting news of the day is that after nearly 7 months of being here I actually bought a window cleaner for the house. I mean one of those ones that has a spongy thing on one side and you flip it over and there's the rubber bit for removing all the water. It was on one dazzlingly clear sunny day when Pa remarked at how hazy a day it was that I knew something must be done. I was appalled by my (suddenly so obvious) neglect of basic million-dollar-view maintenance and went immediately to the phone to arrange the borrowing of Bernard's professional window-cleaning gear. The difference was embarrasingly astounding. One week on and the hazy effect was threatening Pa's priceless view once again and it dawned on me that an investment should be made!! The house must have a window cleaner!!! So I went and got one. How excitement.
Today Pa and I took a trip down memory lane...
We drove over to Eastwood where Pa grew up to see if we might rustle up a few old memories... Driving down Balaclava Rd where Pa's house was didn't help much because it's changed so much since the 1920's when it was all paddocks, horses and cow-pats. But when we went to his old primary school - Eastwood Public - he remembered the new building that went up in 1923 (when he was 10):
The lady in the office was very helpful and let us look at the old photos on the walls and browse through a 'History of Eastwood Public' book which we bought a copy of for $10. Couldn't find Pa in any of the photos but I think he enjoyed the experience none-the-less. We finished off our day with lunch in Eastwood proper which was more like a trip to Korea than anything else, but we did manage to find a cafe with comfy padded seats which was really fab because I forgot to bring the cushion for the bony you-know-what.
Saturday 16 - A trip to Bellingen
Mum and I went up to Bellingen this week to visit Tina and her significant others. For a pictorial essay of our time there, click on the Bellingen '06 photo album to your right (or you can just click here if you're too lazy to go and find it).
You can tell we're related by looking at the chins...
Lots of new pics on the corkboard too...
Thursday 1 - Really Windy Hollows
It's a bit blowy today. Actually, it's a lot blowy. While we were having breakfast this morning I heard a horrible tinny crash which sounded like it was coming from next door. I was just thinking to myself, there goes something-or-other of theirs (next door) and wondering what it might have been, when a very similar tinny crashing sound occurred which somehow sounded closer to hand. To my horror, further investigations revealed 2 rather large pieces of guttering had blown off our recently repaired roof. Obviously the roof man had no concept of an Addison Road southerly, or he would have used a few more nails I'm sure.
To my surprise Pa was determined that a bit of wind wouldn't stop us going to the movies. I quietly thought to myself that it's alright for some, being dropped of at the door and all, while others of us have to park the car a few blocks away, thereby showing up at the cinema decidedly windblown... but I decided that that would be better than dealing with a restless Pa so off we went. We were quite settled in to a rather entertaining movie called Thankyou for Smoking when the movie suddenly died and we were left sitting in a strangely quiet darkness. I had a little reminisce about being in India where power failures are a continual part of daily life. If there was a power failure during dinner in a restaurant the conversations of all the Indians around us wouldn't even skip a beat, despite being left in total darkness to eat by feel. It wouldn't be long before a noisy generator would start up out the back followed shortly by the restoration of light. There was no generator at hand today at the cinema however, and soon a man came into the theatre appologising prefusely that there was another blackout in Manly and hopefully the power would be restored shortly. After about 10 minutes (or so) of sitting patiently (or otherwise) in the dark and trying to explain to Pa why we shouldn't demand our money back because it was a power failure due to the stormy weather, the man returned to the cinema armed with free tickets for us to come back and try again another day.
See the corkboard for latest pics...
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