Do I still call them “children”?

Disneyland For Adults - ska band

It’s official. I now have two adult children. The Boy turned 18 last week. In Australia, that means he can vote, drink and generally raise mayhem whilst being entirely responsible for his own actions.

To celebrate, we hosted about 30 of his friends to a party in my back yard. The highlight of the evening was a performance by a ska band “Disneyland For Adults*” on the rear porch.

We’d warned the neighbours that there would be noise by leafleting the previous week. There were no objections, and I even got a couple of phone calls thanking me for the warning and wishing us well.

Because at this time of year it can get cold and wet, I’d erected a large awning and there was a patio heater. We only got a spot of rain, and mostly the heater wasn’t much in demand.

The Boy and His Girl

The guests were well behaved – no unpleasantness, no overt drunken behaviour, some dancing (that left my lawn a bit the worse for wear, but it will recover!)

I did supply nibbles, but thanks to my clumsiness, only one oven load of hot food made it to the kids, as I broke the door catches of the oven, and it refuses to work without them. (The subsequent repair is a story of its own, since the manufacturer doesn’t make the parts any more.)

A good night!

*alternate name: “Daisy Duck Does Dallas”

Seasons bleatings

I’ve had a couple of Christmases at the “new” Chez Moi now. The kids are late teeners – so I haven’t gone overboard with the whole Christmas schtick. This year, though, Ms Canada decided to buy herself a new “tree” and offered me her old one. The Daughter accepted the invitation and, $20 worth of decorations from the “Reject Shop” later, we have a festive living room.

The only problem is, if we let the ferrets in to play, they proceed to attempt to steal the decorations and pull them, (and sometimes the whole branch) off the tree. We have to put it on a kitchen chair while they’re inside.

Arrghhh.

I’m just going out the back for a while.

Across this wide brown land, when the going gets tough, the man of the house gets going – out the back door to his shed.

My blog readers who hail from non-antipodean shores may not be aware of this Australian obsession. Traditionally, the Australian urban dream has been for a house on a quarter acre block. This is plenty of room for a good sized dwelling, a garden just large enough to require an unreasonable amount of maintenance and a nice, cozy shed.

A sign of thrift.

I’m blessed with living 1-1/2 blocks from a very nice little strip shopping street. You can get (almost) everything you want, including a quite reasonable (IMHO) haircut for $14.

You can also get a fix of grease. The closest shop is a fish and chippery. It has burnt out twice in the last year. They’re not good with cooking oil. It’s just been rebuilt, and opened again last week. Unfortunately, the owners are all -too-obviously feeling the financial pinch and have done all the signwriting themselves. I leave you to marvel at the attractive, mostly hand-lettered-with-a-wall-paintbrush street sign and a furtively snapped shot of the menu board…. (I’ve obscured the phone number for obvious reasons!)

The menu is in dayglo yellow on white using badly applied stick-on lettering. It’s damn hard to read.

Paternal pride

Here’s the boy (in black on lead guitar) performing at his school at lunchtime with others from his music class. The piece is a series of variations on Kasey Chambers “Not Pretty Enough”.  They deliberately chose the “worst” song on the list of options available to them, and it ended up a hoot.  Here they are playing it for laughs – and getting audience participation.

The (improvised) guitar solo at the end was overlong due to some confusion – it was supposed to keep going until the drummer gave the wrapup…

Not a bad effort, I think, both arranging and performing this piece after only 2 years since starting to learn the guitar.

Sad news from Canada

This morning we learned that Isabel, Ms Canada’s mother, died peacefully last night.

We were to attend her 90th birthday party near Toronto in 3 weeks. What was the birthday party will be a celebration/memorial to her with all the same folks coming, including us. I had never met her; she was apparently looking forward to seeing us together.

Mood: solemn.

Be afwaid. Be vewwy, vewwy afwaid.

Yes, the Daughter has just passed her drivers licence test on the second try after missing out by 0.7 marks out of 100 last time.

Watch out for a deep blue Ford Festiva hatchback with “P” plates. And stay vewwy, vewwy clear.

Pretty as a picture

’nuff said!

Appliances, I salute you!

My kitchen is, well, basic. I don’t have a proper oven or stove, just a large convection-microwave and a pair of portable electric hot plates. I will get around to renovating it. I will!

But this post is a salute to two other appliances.

The Cordless Electric Kettle. What can you say? Hot water when you need it. No watching and waiting for it to boil thanks to the auto cutoff. No wasted gas, no danger of burning the house down. No unplugging and no long inconvenient cords. It’s a winner.

And here’s a free tip for you – how to get rid of scale in the kettle. Just fill it with water, slice up a lemon, toss the slices in, boil it and let it sit for a few minutes. Then (and this is important) pour out the contents and give it a very good rinse. Or the milk in your next cup of tea will curdle.

The second is an electric mixing wand that Ms Canada gave me for Christmas (yes, sad old folks exchanging appliances as gifts!). BUT the great thing about this one is its’ ice crushing blade that allows you to whip up a crushed ice drink that rivals the 7-11 Slurpee in every way. It’s been HOT lately. I loooove that wand.

Cold comfort

The hot humid weather we’ve been having has made it glaringly obvious that our ancient refrigerator Has Got To Go.

It’s frosting up big time and very quickly. Presumably this is costing mucho electricity in inefficient operation. And I hate defrosting fridges. Fortunately, a 3L container of milk generally lasts only 24 hours the way the Offspring go though it, so it doesn’t have time to go off. (Those kids are going to have unbreakable bones!)

So I’m doing the rounds of the electrical discounters, trying to get the best price I can.

While not one of nature’s hagglers, I do regularly encounter folks who try to haggle with me in my own business without embarrassment on their part. Fortunately as I also deal through agents and have an agreement with them that I won’t sell below recommended retail if selling direct, I have a ready-made excuse for not haggling.

Haggling for a fridge doesn’t come naturally. But so far the price on the model I want is down by between $90 and $50 depending on the retailer.

I just wish people would advertise the price they actually will sell at instead of making me go through all this!

Update: It’s a couple of hours after I wrote the original post, and I’ve just signed up for a fridge after beating them down to between $140 and $100 below retail (depending on the retailer). Hurrah!!!