Showtime

Okie, it took me a while but I've finally uploaded the photos that I took at the Perth Royal Show.
Once again, as usual, I apologise to Acci in advance for the big photo post ;-)

Ok, so the day didn't get off to a great start. Barb turns up at my house absolutely covered from head to toe in iced-coffee and in a very foul mood. Turns out Mikey had passed her the drink in the car and accidentally squeezed the carton a little too much, covering Barb and her nice white shirt. I had a spare shirt that Barb could wear though so it all got sorted in the end.
It took us a little while to transfer Caleb and Wil into my car along with the mountain of stuff required when taking children out for a full day but we still left my house at about the time we had planned.

Of course, I had completely forgotten that traffic can be a bitch in the morning. Especially through the tunnel.
Why the heck did I go through the tunnel? About half way through, doing 15kms an hour, the thought struck me that there is a much easier, and less congested way to get to Thomas road and that would be the way I go to soccer twice a week. Of course there was nothing I could do about it then but I filed that thought away in my head for the trip home.

So we reached the show grounds and paid ten bucks for some RSL guy to direct me to park on top of the highest curb he could find. I cringed when I saw where he was pointing and then winced when the bottom of my car thunked down on the curb and then glared when he said 'Come on love, just drive up, it's not hard.' I also made some retort about it not being his car so he can damned well wait but I'm not sure if he heard that part...

After we'd unloaded the contents of the car into the double stroller we headed off to get tickets, hoping the rest of the day would kick off to a slightly better start. It's always the way though with the show, it's so busy and packed and stressful that there's bound to be some hiccups.
Mum messaged us saying she wasn't far away and so once we were in the grounds we headed off to the Police Pavilion to get some Lost Children stickers for the kids. It wasn't too long afterwards that Mum, Jo, Darce and Chiara turned up and so we could finally get down to business.

This is Darcie and the boys. Caleb is a little older so he wasn't too bad walking around but the safest thing to do with Wil was keep him strapped in the stroller. He has a very bad habit of just running off (I guess he's at that age) and none of us really wanted to lose him

Chiara, all sunscreened up and ready to go.

Darcie, in her pink cargo pants, ready for action.

After we left the Police Pavilion we got down the really important stuff - kiddie rides!
The first thing the kids went on was the Merry-go-round. It was actually a really nice one, the horses were lovely and decorated and it was really colourful.

Wil really liked the horses when they were just standing still but as soon as it started to move he started screaming.

The whole lead up to the show all Caleb wanted to do was have a pony ride. This was the closest he got but that didn't seem to bother him at all.

Darcie doesn't like riding on the horsies but she was more than happy to go on the big pink bench.

Chiara however loved the horsies.

A close up of one of the horses.

And they're off!

After the Merry-go-round it was onto the bumper boats.
Caleb had fun crashing into other kids.

Chiara on the lookout for her brother. He's behind you!

While most of the kids just randomly floated about, Darcie figured out how to make hers accelerate and so she zoomed around the pool, changing directions and going from one end to the other.

Darce and Chiara after a collision.

Christian's Aunt and Uncle show their Suffolk's at the show and so after the kiddie rides we headed down to say hello. Only Ed was there as Sue was coming down later on for judging but it was nice to see him again.
Their sheep really seemed to like me, I spent ten minutes just scratching the heads of two of them.
This was one of them. He was also very interested in the camera.

We then had a look at some of the other sheep. And we found this one.
Biggest fucking sheep ever!

Not quite what Mother Nature intended, I'm sure.

Fluro sheep!

He he, the drapes match the carpet...

After the sheep, the kids wanted to get some show bags and so we headed down through sideshow alley to get to the show bag stalls on the other side. Fighting through the crowds with a double stroller isn't the easiest thing in the world but we managed it in the end. It didn't help that I was stopping every five seconds to snap away at random crap.
Like this.

Gotta get the treasure, gotta get the treasure, gotta get the treasure, gotta get the treasure...

After we'd loaded the stroller up with show bags we headed into the baby animals pavilion to have a looksie.
Now, this place is always packed with kids, but it wasn't too bad that day. So I managed to get close enough to take a few photos.
Emu chicks! How cute! They were still in their incubator and there were still several eggs still to hatch.

Goat kid. I'm king of the mountian!

I have no idea what the hell this is (Five hugs to anyone who can tell me!) but I really hope it's not a baby. Because it was fucking HUGE! As in taller than me. And if that was a baby, I really don't want to see what mummy looks like!

After the baby animals it was about time for lunch so we made our way down to the arena and managed to snag a place in some shade.
I made sure to get a photo of Mum for Boo and Mouse, although it did kind of surprise her.

Gah, it's a Nettie!

While we were having lunch we watched some stunt drivers do some jumps on motorbikes. I took about ten pics but didn't want to bore you with all of them so here's just one.

We headed off for more kiddie rides and on the way I found this sculpture. It was really cool and just really really random. It was just sitting in a little niche just out of the way...

Some of the skulls had writing on them but I didn't have a chance to see what it said exactly as I had to hurry to catch up with the others.

On the way to the rides we passed these really creepy performers. Everyone was dead still except for the guy in the middle and he would call out these lines of dialogue and one by one each gypsie would change positions and then freeze again.

Don't know why, but they just freaked me out a bit.

While the kids went on more rides I went over the check out the dogs. There must have been judging on at that time though as the pavilion was almost empty.
Apart from these two.

I'm tired and wanna go home!

I passed these weird looking hairy snail things on the way back to Kiddie Land. I'm not really sure what they were meant to be...

The eyes blinked and the mouth would open and snap at people and they left trails of slime behind them. And the people on their backs reminded me of the Specks from Robin Hobb's latest series.

This is quite a crappy photo but it's showing Chiara and Caleb getting strapped into the dragon rollercoaster.

Chiara loved it but Caleb spent the whole ride with his eyes squeezed shut and his head down.

Mum took Wil for a walk around and figured he'd be ok to go on a couple of the rides. So here they are in the helicopter ride.

Say hello Wil!
People seem to have issues figuring out how to focus my camera which can be a good thing as most photos of me tend to be blurry but I can live with that :)
We didn't hang about too much longer after that. Jo and I went down to sideshow alley and went on a couple of rides which was fun. It was kind of a new experience for me in some ways. I never realised just how much of a difference 13 kilos can make! I was thrown around a lot more that before and it's quite a bit scarier when you're loose in the harness!
We also called in at the rice writing stand and I got a pendant with my name on a piece of rice. Jo picked up one for Darcie too because Darce gets upset that you can never get stuff with her name on it.

We headed home and of course we managed to get stuck in peak hour traffic. Hurrah. It took us over an hour to get home and I must say, my clutch foot was killing me!

No matter how much fun you have at the show, it's always good to get home and I was so tired. Although I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't get too sunburnt. A first for me!

And that's our day at the show.

Randomness

I went to the Perth Royal show today with my family and plan to do a big photo post for you about the day. However our net connection has been shaped (we've used up our ADSL quota of our plan and have been shaped to dial up speeds - blurgh) so that's going to have to wait for another day.

Instead I'll share some random stories with you.

I like stories :)

First of all, I was out shopping the other day at the large shopping centre where I work, looking about for a birthday present for a friend. I had in mind what I wanted to get him but I just couldn't find it anywhere (it was one of those novelty wine glasses that holds a full bottle of wine for those of you who care). So I was a bit distracted as I walked along, pondering what to get as a replacement present.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a Green Peace stand with active looking members trying to gather support. Now, I don't have anything against Green Peace in general, I actually used to pay my twenty bucks a month for membership, but these days I have more important things to spend my money on. So I walked on by as quickly as I could, trying to avoid eye contact and attempting to look very interested and distracted by the fruit and veg shop on my other side.
Now that tactic usually works. It's a rather polite way of pretending they're not there and showing disinterest.
Alas, not that day.
I was suddenly and abruptly brought to a complete halt by a girl who jumped right in front of me and demanded of me 'So, how do you feel about the whales?'

Whales?

Unfortunately I'm not one of those people who can come up with a witty comeback on the spot so I kind of 'errred' and 'ummmed' and using a dazed and confused expression I made a hasty getaway.
Looking back on it now I'd have loved to have replied 'Oh, very tasty' or 'They're a menace and have to be stopped!' or even 'Sorry, they're not my type, just don't do it for me'.
If only we could turn back the clock, eh?

Moving right along...
As most of you probably know by now, I'm not much of a gardener but I really give it my best shot. Once summer comes my little potted garden should be thriving and most of the plants will be flowering, filling me with a sense of fulfilment. I love it when plants that I've cared for and nurtured really take off and thrive.
And so I was extremely happy with the way one of my plants was coming along once spring had arrived. I had planted two seedlings last summer in an old shallow pot that I put onto of a birdbath stand, the plan to be that once it started flowering (a cute little flower in shades of purple and yellow) it would grow over the pot and hang down, with a curtain of flowers (don't ask me the name of the plant because I'm useless with stuff like that). At the start of winter they had died right back until all that remained was a few twigs sticking out of the pot. A couple of weeks ago though when the weather had gotten a bit nicer, I ventured outside and was amazed to find a thriving plant, already starting to overflow from the pot and small flower buds already developing.
I was so pleased, I made sure it had plenty of water and kept an eye on it, looking forward to the explosion of flowers I'd soon be seeing.
So, Mum comes to visit me and we went out the back and were chatting while I watered my garden. I told her all about how happy I was with this plant and she goes over to look at it. Mum turns around with a look of disbelief on her face and just stares at me.
'What's wrong?' I ask.
'Annette, are you serious?'
Huh? 'Uh, yeah. Why?'
'Because this is a fucking Bindi. Don't you recognise Bindi's when you see them?'

And yes, my mother does swear like that.

I couldn't believe it! The plant I had so lovingly nurtured turns out to be the same nasty weed infesting my lawn and planning on giving me nightmares all summer! And I had no idea!
In my defence I must say that this is the first time I've ever really had a lawn. At our old house we had a kind of clover ground cover around the washing line and that was it and at my Mum's the grass there is pretty much weed free. I had no idea what the heck a Bindi looked like!
Mum pulled the cursed weed out and underneath was the sorry remains of what was my little flowering plants.
The good news is that they seem to be recovering nicely and will hopefully make a spectacular comeback this summer.
The bad news is that I still have a nasty Bindi infestation on my front lawn that no amount of Weed and Feed seems to be able to eradicate.

*sigh*

Lastly, Bimpkin has returned from his trip across the US and is now with Alex again. Hopefully Ale...I mean Bimpkin, will update his blog very soon with photos of his adventures. He has spent the past month or so on a cross country road trip with one of Alex's friends, visiting graveyards and cemeteries. I'm looking forward to it!

You guys understand, don't you?

I went out last night and during the course of the night I was given grief about having a blog by three different people on more than three different occasions.
Apparently Christian, Lachlan and Mike don't feel that blogs are worthy of their attention and would prefer to be mean to Netties who do...

Christian (being Christian) got really vocal about how blogs are shite and couldn't understand why I use one. I have explained to him on numerous occasions that due to a thing called 'time zones' and the fact that I have 'friends' that live in other 'countries', a blog is the easiest way to keep in touch. That didn't sway him though. He still thinks they're shite.
Mike was talking like all I do is post random everyday crap that no one in their right mind would ever want to read about (I won't give you the examples he used because it's just childish toilet humour but I'm sure you can guess).
And Lachlan just laughed derisively at me.

So I've come to seek reassurance from you guys that I'm not insane and dumb and boring (just to name a few).
I guess I'll never truly fit in with the people I hang about with in real life, I'm just too different, even from Christian. They're super intelligent, confident, everything I'd love to be. But instead you've got bumbling, daft Nettie with a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. If I wasn't Christian's wife I know that none of them would give me the time of day. I'm just not the sort of person they'd chose to know.

Gah, this is turning into a self-pitying post, isn't it? You really must stop me when this happens you know!

Anyway, so I won't post about what we did last night and where we went and with whom because no one wants to read about that now, do they.

Instead, I'll harp on about something completely random.
Now, I've mentioned before that certain songs or smells evoke really strong memories in me. Well, lately I've been wearing my Vanilla Perfume oil and it's the same one I took with me to Edinburgh last year. So every time I turn about and get a whiff of it, I keep on remembering all sorts of things about my trip.
Like how amazing it was to meet up with people I'd never actually met before but with whom I clicked right away.
How much fun did we have gallivanting around the place, climbing the big hill, looking for orbs, going Goth for a night and generally misbehaving?
The excitement from being so far from home with no preconceptions, nothing to live up to and having people love you just for being you.
The regret that our blatant lesbianism didn't quite eventuate (your bathroom just wasn't big enough Boo ;-) ...)
And the anticipation of our next get together.

So, who is going to come visit next year?

Smerk is a given (living in the same city kind of helps), Boo and Mouse have assured me they're still coming, but what about the rest of you?
I haven't heard from Amber in forever so I don't know if she'd be up for another adventure.
I really hope that Alex can make it, it just wouldn't be the same without him. I can't believe how much I've missed him since we got back. Emails and messages just don't cut it.
Tah, Neo and MC, I know you've all got kiddies so it'd be hard to get away but I'd love it if you would come.
Acci, your passport excuse is wearing a bit thin. You'd better get your butt here or there'll be one mighty pissed off dragon!
Trans, I think you'd have a right laugh with us.
Joe and LaMa, you definitely need some R and R, this is the perfect place!
And Thundy, I know you want to go to Spain next year but I think you should come here instead!

There's a party at Nettie's and you're all invited!

Ok guys, hopefully I'll catch you all up sometime on the forum, until then.
*hugs*

Why can this not be simple???

I've been trying to share some photos I've taken recently with some friends but to share pics through snapfish or facebook it seems you have to create an account. How bloody annoying is that? So I thought bugger that, I'll just do a blog post.
I have no idea if photobucket is the same or not. Hopefully one of you guys (Neo, Tah or Transfrmr) will be able to enlighten me on the best way to share pics without running into all this crap. You know how useless I am when it comes to technamological things like this, I'm lucky I've got you guys round ;-)

Okies, here goes (and sorry to Acci in advance)


The boys were mucking about with my camera, taking pics of the Levin and GTR with a 15 sec exposure time. It looked awesome when a car drove past in the background.






These next ones were from across the street. We loved the fact that the tree was outlined against the blue sky and we had fun turning on different lights on the cars and seeing the effect.



Mike flicked on his fog lights for just a second in this pic.

They must get some kick-arse fog in Japan to need fog lights like these...

Kat and I...you've all seen a billion shots like this before but still, we keep on taking them.

Kat sneaking up on her Mike.


Christian avoiding the camera, as usual.

Got him (kind of).

The following shots are of Jacoby Park up near Mundaring. I thought I'd posted them here before but obviously not.

I love the pine plantation thing they've got going on. Jacoby Park is my favourite place in the whole world. I love going there. It's just so beautiful.



Spider web. This was my fist attempt at the manual focus thingy. As you can see, it didn't work out the best.

This hill is actually quite steep but you know how it is, photos just can't capture it. Standing at the top though, the pine needles are quite slippery and you feel like you're going to just topple over. It's awesome being up there and the climb is heaps of fun.


This is 'The Big Tree' in the middle of the park. She's lost most of her leaves because it's winter but in summer she's really beautiful.


The little creek that runs through the park.

Gotta love the pipeline. When we were kids we'd take towels with us and 'slide down' the pipe. Of course, it's too rough to really slide so you kind of just scoot down on your arse. Again, in real life it's much steeper than depicted here. With my intense fear of heights I really don't know what the hell I was thinking as a kid...

Just a another view from the top of the hill.

Boo and I are kindred spirits. We just can't go past graffiti without getting a snapshot...

Baby maggie. Gotta love my zoom.

My old dog Sam used to love swimming in this dam...
I love taking photos of water and seeing the reflections that you get.

Naked tree! Cover your shame!

I love the stark difference between the white gums and the other trees.

I haven't played with the macro setting yet (I need a tripod first) but I did have fun playing about with the manual zoom.

Anyway, that's it for now. Sorry bout the two posts in two days and the ridiculous amount of photos. Catch you later loves.

Cinema advertising

On Friday night we went to the movies to see Stardust with Barb, Tiho, Mel and Mike.

Our fridge is still broken (God, how I've adapted to living in the dark ages...) so Christian, Barb and I went out for dinner first at a place called Retro Betty's. As we were eating our tea, Christian and I were telling Barb about the latest series of The IT Crowd which is just fucking hilarious. By the end of it I was in such a fit of giggles that I could hardly breathe, let alone finish my food. Barb, who has seen the first series but none of the second, just looked at me like I was odd or something but Christian and I has so much fun re-living our fave bits from the first three episodes.

Anyway, so we meet up with the others and head into the cinema about three minutes before the 'start time'. I was sitting next to Tiho and after about twenty minutes of ads he turns to me and says 'I haven't been to the movies in ages, I forgot just how many damn ads they make you sit through' to which I replied 'Yeah and all the crap about how cinema advertising can work for you.' Tiho then asks 'Have you seen the latest series of The IT Crowd?'.
I couldn't even answer, we just burst out laughing and started quoting bits from the anti-piracy spoof from Moss and the German. We both just had exactly the same things on our minds. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the spoof below.




I swear if they had actually shown the proper ad, I would have wet myself laughing so it was best for everyone that they didn't.
Anyway, so the movie was fantastic. Robert DeNiro stole the show in my opinion, he was hilarious but the movie overall was great. I really enjoyed it and I'd recommend it to anyone.

And that's really about it for news from me at the moment. I'll keep you all posted :)

I haven't posted in a little bit and it's all Barb's fault! And everyone else's too! I shall blame everyone on Facebook as for some reason I've been spending all my time there and not bothering to do blog updates.

So there :-P

I never had any interest in joining the Facebook ranks even though Barb nagged and nagged me. She keeps in touch with Dad and my brother on there and wanted me to join in.
But I resisted.
Then MC goes and invites me to join so I did (I don't like ignoring requests to be friends!). Barb then finds out and that's my resolve down the drain.

I'm on the bloody thing way too much. And don't even get me started on that pirate game! I always say the next island I come across I shall bury my coins but I just can't resist looking for treasure! Gah, I'm pathetic!

Anyway, so that is my blog update. All I have been doing is wasting time on Facebook. I'm hardly even bothering to do more than have a cursory glance at MoH. What is the world coming to???

I shall make more of an effort to keep this up to date though, I promise. Until then, ciao!

Blatant disregard for the law

Well I've kind of recovered from my bout of self pity from the other day. The problem is still there, it's not something that's going to go away in a hurry but I'm learning to deal with it. Thanks for all the hugs though, it really does help.

Now, I have a story to share with you all.

Last night Christian and I went to the movies (saw Bourne Ultimatum again - it's good) and ended up seeing a late session. We'd gone to a cinema complex rather far away from us as we met up with Kat and Mike ... ok, I wasn't going to mention the name of the suburb as it's just plain embarrassing but I may as well so you can all have a good laugh at us Aussies and our funny names.

Innaloo.

Yes, we've heard all the jokes before, there's no need to repeat them people!

So, Innaloo is about a half hour drive away from us, depending on traffic and we were heading home rather close to midnight. We come up to a set of traffic lights and needed to turn right. The lights were green but with a red arrow, meaning you have to stop.

Apparently the rules don't apply to my husband though! He just drove straight through it. I saw what he was about to do and I let out a babble of words along the lines of 'Red light, it's a red light, Christian it's red, red means stop, red light, can you not see that?' but it didn't do me any good as he drove straight through it.
I was shocked I tell you, shocked! His reply to my minor panic attack was 'There was no one about and if I had stopped we'd have been there for another five minutes, I just want to get home.'
I then spurted off a whole heap of reasons why he should have stopped anyway including that there could have been a cop behind us, a pedestrian may have been crossing, numerous other unlikely events. Christian shot them all down and then demanded to know why I was so worked up. 'Because it's a blatant disregard for the law!' I managed to splutter indignantly.

To which all he could do was laugh.

As we continued to drive home Christian then pointed out other people flaunting the law.
There was one guy who didn't fully stop at a stop sign. I told Christian that he must be part of the same club, that I'm sure he reads his blog and they attend meetings together, figuring out the best ways to break the road rules.
A little old lady with private plates hurtled past us doing about ten k's over the limit. I said Christian is probably chummy with her too to which he replied 'Oh yes, Ida and I go waaaaaaaay back, she's a veteran when it comes to speeding.'
The guy who drove through the orange light in front of us is apparently just a newbie but he'll get the swing of running red lights soon enough.
And on it went.

I guess I've just taken better notice of all the road safely campaigns and their catchy slogans over the years. When I was in Edinburgh we all talked about different slogans and I don't think anyone had any as fun as ours. Here's a few.

Pedestrians have right of way - ok!

If you drink and drive, you're a bloody idiot.

Drop five - stay alive.

Remember, yawning is a warning.

Road safely is no accident.

Driving this Christmas? Don't be a turkey.

Tired if living? Drive tired.

As Christian doesn't read my blog perhaps I should email him a list of these slogans and hope they'll sink in that way?
Or maybe I'll just save my breath.

Gah, I've caught the bug

*sigh*

As Thundy pointed out in her blog the other day, everyone seems to be having a rather shit time at the moment.

It seems to have caught up with me. Dammit.

I was rather hoping to avoid it.
So, life isn't the best at the moment, everything seems to be going wrong and I've spent a good deal of time lately in tears. I'm just lucky that I have such a wonderful and understanding husband. I told Christian the other day that I'm thinking of running away somewhere but he managed to put it a little into perspective.

Anyway, I apologise for the rather abrupt change of tone, I try not to be too down when posting.
For that reason (among others) I won't go into details on here but I do promise that as soon as anything exciting or upbeat occurs, you guys will be the first to know.