big day out

It's just taken me over an hour to log in to the new version of blogger and i've got no idea how i finally got through. Sheesh

Anyway, compared with our usual pretty predictable weekends, yesterday was a sensory overload. We've had a friend staying with us for the week so we took advantage of the live in babysitting and left Mr Moon with the girls (to play the straight guy for 500 knock knock jokes) and Mr M dragged me down to the beach for a surfing lesson on his new mal. I'm still floundering in the wash but did manage to get on my feet for a millisecond a couple of times.

Then after lunch we headed off en familia to see Circus Oz down on the foreshore. Their anarchic, punk, tattooed butch dyke antics were spectacular and reminded me of my years spent living in Sydney. We don't have too many of them types here in Perth, sadly. They're funny, and political in the personal kind of way and really, really athletic. We all loved it - from the grandies to the smallies.



After that we went to our local food court for dinner where i had Tom Yum Soup, Mr M had a curry, Rom had sushi and Bonny a chicken bento box. And with all tastes satisfied we went home and ate our first home-grown mango. It was one of only four that the tree produced but it was a whopper!



Then after that, my sister came to babysit and us three adults went to see A BAND! The Handsome Family, from Alberquerque, played their slightly eccentric, gothic country folk for a couple of hours on the outdoor stage of Beck's Verandah and were really, really great. Then a local band Schvendes took over the set and were really, really, really great.


All in all a day of wonderful experiences and i even slept well.

dem bones, dem bones

i've long been keen on bones. I used to make myself jewellery from little whitewashed bones i found on the beach and bone mobiles from bushwalks. Femurs, hips and jawbones complete with teeth dangle all over our garden and the bookshelves are loaded with bird, quokka and turtle skulls.

When i discovered osso buco a few years ago, it became one of our winter staples and i amassed a huge supply of those fantastic chunks of smooth white bone because i'm also notorious for not chucking anything away (well chicken carcases and chop bones usually find their way to the bin if the girls don't salvage bits first).

Anyway what i'm getting at is that whiplash has inspired me to get all those bones off the kitchen bench and on to the wall.



Haven't decided where to hang it yet but i think it has to go somewhere near this congan mask.


I'm not sure whether this would be considered a normal use of weird household waste or a creative use of normal household waste but i think i'll plug for the weirdest waste category.

out, out damn concrete!

When we moved into our house nearly four years ago the garden was basically four or five hundred square metres of concrete. It was built in the '60s by an italian grano worker who needed somewhere to park a truck. Hence this industrial size driveway that extended all the way to the back fence.

It was a labour of love and pure bloody-mindedness, but now it looks like this..

and this..

and this!

The most recent owner had covered the entire front yard with slabs leaving three trees floundering in a sea of concrete. We ripped the lot up (not the trees) and now it looks like this...

and at the right time of day, like this.

It's really flourished, all except for the ivy which i'm trying to get to cover the ugly house and which hasn't grown a leaf in two years! (And there were the mysterious deaths of several natives but we don't talk about them).

what we did

went to a rugby match for the first time ever this weekend (complimentary tickets) and after watching the Western Force bungle their way to a 7-8 loss by doing absolutely nothing, i don't think rugby will be taking up a lot of my time. Luckily the beautiful sky held my rapt attention for the 90 minutes and the misery of the Force supporters was quite touching so it was time well spent.


On Sunday we spent more pleasant hours at the Freo Arts Centre while John Bannister sang and played his trumpet. And during the rest of the weekend i made these Valentines Day cards to enter into the Craftzine recycled Valentines Day Card Contest.

Why is it so?

kids 'ey...
what planet are they from?

Uranus, i suppose, given the hillarity invoked by bums, poos and farts in our house. But that doesn't explain how my two Uranians can be so different. One would live her entire life eating nothing but white bread, yellow cheese and the fat off chops. The other wants chick pea salad please mummy with tomatoes, celery, cucumber and don't forget the red capsicum. And can i have some rye bread with hommous too? Weird. They cannot agree on one single foodstuff - whatever one loves sends the other into a paroxysm. Want some icecream? NO! You know i hate icecream i want a bowl of gherkins! huh?

And why is it that one cannot be at home and within minutes of waking up wants to know where we're going and what we're doing that day and who we're doing it with and here's the phone mum, ring someone up. Then revels cheerfully in the outing while the other one is mightilly pissed off at being dragged away from happy solitary playing in imaginary worlds at home - i hate the beach! Don't ever bring me here again!

What can you do hey? We're completely stuffed really and if it weren't so funny (as black comedy of course) it'd have us weeping into our beer.

Hmm beer ... there's a thought.