Went Camping

Went Camping.

It rained.

A lot...

Actually I have to say I don't really mind camping in the rain much. so long as I have the right gear to stay dry and can retreat to the local pub for a few when it all becomes a bit much. Because we waited out those two days of misery and  wet feet. Because we spent those nights awake, with that 'desperate for the toilet' feeling, the one where you are waiting for that one bloody gap in the rain to allow you to get outside and pee against the hubcaps of your car. Because of all that, we were one of a few campers to witness the perfect weather that came in on Monday morning in Langdale.

On the way back home ... for the second time, I got to meet my beautiful baby niece Imogen. In fact I can now post up a photo of both of my nieces together. We Hugheses are multiplying don't you know.

The Misadventures of Lucky 'Little Bugger' Hughes - The Unfortunate Childhood Dog

I clearly remember being around 10 years old and sitting in the car as my mum drove me up South Lane. 

I asked 'can I have a guinea pig for my birthday?' 

She replied 'would you rather have a dog?'. 

This memory has obviously stuck with me because it was one of the most exciting surprises of my entire childhood. Offering a small child the option of a dog over a guinea pig is a bit like serving up a lobster dish when a visitor asks for a digestive biscuit to dunk in their tea.

Obviously at the time I didn't realise that this was a con job. My parents were planning on replacing the family dog 'Abby' anyway, regardless of my annual birthday plea. It didn't really matter either way to me.

So, off we went to the dog pound in Huddersfield one weekend around my birthday. I remember this being a little traumatic - looking at all of the dogs lined up in cages looking folorn. 

Most distressing of all were the little pieces of paper attached to the cages with the termination dates of the poor creatures.

One dog in particular, was very energetic. We were allowed in to see him and he immediately jumped up at us and ran in circles around my legs. He was a little black mongrel with quite a pretty face, but the most unfortunate body you have ever seen!

His head was about a foot off the ground and connected to these awkward looking bowed front legs. He had a long body and a bug bushy (frantically wagging) tail which arched almost in a full circle so that it rested on his back. They told me he was six months old. 

To this day I have no real clue what breeds were in him, but whatever he was - it didn't look natural.

I think this was pretty much the first dog that we saw, and as we were leaving his cage thing, I turned and looked at his little piece of paper. It said he only had until the Monday after the weekend before he was to be terminated.

'I want that one' I exclaimed stubbornly. My mum knew what I was up to. 

'Are you sure you really want that one, and are not just saying you do because of what it says on the label?'

'No I definitely want that one' I protested.

And thats the one that we got. Of course, I did choose him because of the imminent date of his 'elimination', but thats all water under the bridge now. I named him 'Lucky' (oh how I rued that name in later years) in light of his lucky escape.

I don't really know whether he was lucky or unfortunate throughout his life, but he certainly was energetic and had some eventful times. Within one week of getting him I contributed to him breaking his hind leg at the tennis club by pulling his lead too hard and sending him into a river where he landed on a rock. I can clearly remember his sad little face now. He licked by hand while my friends ran for help. He was a good friend for a boy to have.

He bore a metal pin in his leg which gave him a limp to the end of his days. Not that it really slowed him down. In fact the limp was probably exacerbated by the number of near misses (and hits!) he took from cars in the street...

....for Lucky was pretty much un-trainable...

...or to be more precise, he was untrained. I was never sure whether it was possible to train him, as to be honest as a 10 year old boy - I couldn't be bothered anyway.

He would escape out of the door (and even out of the cat flap before my dad blocked it up) as soon as there was any hint of it opening. And he would roam the streets of Holmfirth for hours looking for adventure before returning covered in mud or some other foul substance (I remember him falling in a pit full of slurry once).

We would get calls from people we knew around the surrounding areas telling us that they had sighted him, and off my dad would go to pick him up. He used to go to The Artist's house all the time when he found out where he lived.

I am pretty sure that he had a network of friends across the town who he would go and play with (probably within about a 1 mile radius), but who would be just as unsuccessful at catching him as we were.

He was also hated by a fair few people in the area. One time he ran into a garden which happened to be inhabited by one of our classmates and picked up their family rabbit. I am not sure he meant to kill it - rather just play with it. 

But kill it he did. And my classmate declared a blood feud on the poor little bugger. But he never caught little Lucky. He was too fast, his little metal enhanced leg going like the clappers as he played the 'keep away from people' game.

Another time he followed my sister onto a bus and she had to pretend that he didn't belong to us to save embarrassment as the driver shooed him off. These events happened regularly. It got pretty bad, and I do remember disowning him in the street myself a few times. 

Particularly when asked 'is that your dog? I see it around all the time?' I didn't like walking him on a lead, purely in case he was recognised and some piece of damage could be traced back to me.

I loved that dog though. In his older year he became less excitable and went to live with my dad as I left for university. He would sit on my dad's workshop floor and wouldn't stray more than 20 metres away from his side. He was probably a bit more adorable then, and certainly easier to get along with. I was quite upset when he died 4 or so years ago.

He still did have the odd little adventure in his teen years. Every once in a while he would disappear off for a few hours and my dad would find him at one of his old haunts near our old house (3 miles away).... 

Subjects I Dont Usually Talk About

I got some bad news over the weekend. A girl that used to hang around in our ‘gang’ in college died of bowel cancer last week. I only found out on facebook having lost contact with her pretty much during my university years about 10 years ago. She was only 28 years old.

When I was in college we spend an inordinately large amount of time hanging around in the kind of common room area, where there was a couple of tables pretty much devoted to those students that came from my highschool. We played a lot of cards during free period, breaks and lunchtimes and I dodged my history teacher whose class I had more than likely skived that morning (she was gutted that I still managed a B in History A-level despite my attendance record).

There was a group of guys I hung out with, most of whom I am still best friends with today, other of which I have lost touch with over the years . We affiliated ourselves with a group of girls because of the mutual benefit of appearing less socially awkward by having friends of the opposite sex. One of my friends still goes out with one of those girls 10 years later.

One thing we would do was to meet up in town for our regular jaunts to either Visage or Beyond Beach Babylon or whatever other nightclub happened to be letting in underage drinkers. In those days I used to take £20 out with me and get thoroughly sloshed on Caffreys (it doesn’t taste like proper beer) and Southern Comfort (it doesn’t taste like proper spirits) in the Welly and Flares and still be able to pay for my club entry and a taxi ride home.

This particular girl was one of the group I hung about in. She was one of the (if not THE) friendliest and smiliest people I ever knew. The type that are actually 100% nice. You know them, there aren’t that many around.

She was the kind of person who would be extremely upset if she ever found out that she had offended someone, and would be completely incapable of ever bitching about anyone behind their back (there are very few women who fit in that bracket). She always made me smile whenever I spoke with her.

She was also a little more troubled than your average teenager (not that you would know if when you first met her). She had a form of manic depression which only really seemed to manifest itself in public at times when she had alcohol. Even a bit of alcohol. She would get upset and drunk really quickly. I forget how many times we must have carried her out of places, comforted her, bought her coke and told her it was vodka and coke, defended her from over-aggressive revellers or bouncers.

She wouldn’t remember what had happened the next day and would see alcohol as her only escape (causing her to drink more).

This problem led her on to incidents which I am not going to go into. She ever showed evidence of this to anyone during her everyday life. She was polite, pretty, fun to be around, well loved.

I noticed she had about 280 friends on facebook – I don’t think I know 280 people! It just goes to show the impact she had on the world. I scrolled back through her profile and saw that she was still posting humorous updated about losing her phone in the laundry, even when she was in hospital.

Her premature death shook me a little. Out of the 30 or 40 people I counted as my acquaintances and friends at college, she is the third to have died. One through a car accident and two through cancer. All of them people who I admired in some way. Added to that, my housemate Mark who helped bring Lucy and I together also passed away prematurely.

But I knew this girl a little better than the others and it all seems a little more unfair due to the sadness I know she had during her life.

Insight into the Mind of an Eight Year Old

When I got hold of those old photo's from my mum, which I scanned into my mac, with which I attempted to embarrass my brother and subsequently managed to lose all of due to a hard drive failure, I also found a few of my old text books.

One of them was from 'Class Four' which I think means I was about 8 years old. I was perusing the pages and found this gem of a short story (potentially eligible for some kind of literary prize) which I thought I should read out:

Sam said "coming for a walk by the river?"

Robert said "yep".

When they go there Robert said "I bet you I can swim across the river".

So he jumped in and went down down down and died.

Funny thing is, I am still friends with Robert (often referred to a 'The Artist' of this story and this story), he still is a competitive git, and I still hold him in just about as much contempt.

(p.s. what I want to know is why te teacher didn't submit me for psychological testing after that one)

On Sleepwalking

You may have read such tales about young Sam as 'In Which I Make my Mum Proud!' or 'Being Felt up by an Indonesian Transsexual' or my favorites stories of my Peter Pan-esque friend The Artist to be found in my archives such as 'Under the Bridge' and 'The Artist and the Moped' (The Artist always was much better at making a fool of himself than me). Well I think I will add this one to that drunken teenager collection:

Throughout my childhood years and well into my university years, maybe up until the age of around 22, I was plagued by bouts of sleepwalking. I know what you are thinking - but I have to tell you that the sleepwalking was not always alcohol induced. Ok, it was alcohol induced most of the time, but not all of the time.

When I was very young, maybe 7 or 8 years old I suffered one of the first sleepwalking incidents that I remember. My parents were out and we had some poorly paid babysitter at the house looking after us. Imagine her fear as she saw me walking down the stairs into the living room, I don't respond to anything she says and then proceed to plonk myself down on the sofa and go to sleep.

There were very few incidents following that (or at least I didn't remember and nobody else was around to remember them) until I was well into my late teens. This somehow happened to co-incide with the period in my life when I first met my friends Caffrey and Carling.

Once in my second University year when I lived on Belle Vue Road (incidentally the view was rubbish) in Little Woodhouse in Leeds I had a pretty bad experience. It was the middle of winter (January or February I think), and it was freezing. I had gone to sleep, not under the influence, wearing  pair of tracksuit trousers and nothing else. Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the middle of the street (woken by the biting cold), frozen to the core with absolutely no clue where I was!

It probably took me a couple of minute at least to orientate myself and work out that I was only one street or so away from my house. I was still in a daze when walking back, and I don't really remember it. All I remember is being in the front garden of the house, thanking the lord that at least I had some form of clothing on, only to be confronted by our locked front door (it had shut locked behind me). 

With no doorbell to the relatively large house, and me occupying the ground floor bedroom (it was one of those awful student house where they convert the living room so that they gain get one extra bedroom and one extra student's rent), I had to spend the next five minutes throwing  an old mouldy tennis ball I found at my housemates window, who incidentally was apparently entertaining a young  lady that night and wasn't best pleased by being disturbed.

Over the next few years (particularly in my third year and masters year) there were a few incidents of me walking into my house-mate's bedrooms. Generally, it seemed I would just hover in the doorway and switch the light on, then they would tell me in no uncertain terms to bugger off, and off I would tottle. There was also a bad incident (I have no memory of) when I was around 22 and after a night of heavy drinking I woke and mistook my mums bedroom for my own in my mums house and tried to get into the wrong bed, I was once again ushered on my merry way.

But we have to rewind a few years to hear the two worst sleepwalking incidents of my life, to when young Sam was but a mere 1st year university student and '£1 a drink' at the Dry Dock caused him some heavy nights:

In my first year I stayed in Lyddon Hall at Leeds University. Lyddon was a horrible old hall of residence which was full of misfits and weirdos who apparently couldn't get into any of the proper halls. It prided itself on being the oldest hall in the University, which meant it was falling apart and smelt of sewage. The most unfortunate thing about Lyddon was that it was all male (oh how I wish I had read the application form properly!) and I was in one of the cheaper shared rooms where I lived with an Irish guy (actually he was from Nottingham but claimed to be Irish) called Collins.

Collins and I got on pretty well apart from on one fateful night in May 1999. We used to go down to this horrible club in the Merrion Centre called Ritzy. Thankfully Ritzy is closed down now as it was biggest crap hole I had ever known in Leeds. Anyway in Ritzy on a Tuesday night was an event called 'CocSoc', that is 'The Cocktail Society' (Universities being the place of clubs and societies and all). At 'CocSoc' one could get 'cocktails' for some ridiculous amount like 3 for £1. That is, the kind of cocktails which are served with a ladle out of a bucket.

On this particular evening it was my birthday and a bunch of guys from my halls decided to treat me to the Dentist Chair Treatment. The dentist chair treatment, much to my surprise consisted of me sitting down and leaning my head back (in a pretty much similar style to a dentists chair surprisingly) while all of my friends poured their cheaply obtained 'cocktails' straight down my throat.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I arrived about 8pm, left at around 10pm because I was too drunk and Collins was tasked with escorting me home. Apparently I sang 'I'm Irish, I'm Irish, I'm an Irish Faggot' at the top of my voice to the tune of the Irish national anthem all the way up Woodhouse Lane. I, of course have no memory of this.

That night Collins awoke in the early hours of the morning to a vision. Next to his bed was a sink which we both shared, and hovering over the sink, was a still sleeping and standing me - poised and ready to relieve myself into it.

Not wanting to wash himself in a soiled basin he grabbed me and directed me toward the door out of the room where the toilets were. Apparently I spent a number of minutes grasping for the door handle but actually grabbing the hinge side of the door and wondering why it wouldn't open until Collins finally opened it for me and ushered me out.

Collins then realised this to be a mistake almost straight away. For the room that we were in was on the 1st floor and I had gone out into the stairwell and decided it might be a good idea to do my business through the banisters directly onto the floor below. Apparently there were still people up and about down there, but that's just here say and rumour. Collins spent the next few minutes trying to wash evidence of my discretion with cups of water. A thankless task as I remembered nothing the next day!

Another night in the same year I had another sleepwalking event. I knew absolutely nothing about the it until the next day when being served my awful weekend breakfast (at the weekend you got some additional rubbery eggs and soggy bacon on top of usual rations at Lyddon Hall). Everyone was looking at me a bit wierdly in the  queue for the food. Particularly a Mexican guy who's name I forget and a friend of mine from Liverpool. 

I didn't know why. As far as I knew I had gone out for a perfectly normal night out in the Observatory (another hole) by the train station in Leeds centre and then had gone to bed. A far as I was concerned it was a better night than most as I had actually made it to the dining room for breakfast in the morning, something that I rarely did at the weekend.

My little Liverpudlian friend delighted in telling me the tale of the young meek Mexican guy who had being playing pool in the common room  all evening. He had retired to his room (which stupidly he had left unlocked) at around 1am. Much to his surprise he had switched the light on in the tiny cell-like room, tried to get into bed and been confronted by some slumbering drunk, oblivious to the world.

Scared he had gone back down to the common room and got my bolshy Liverpudlian friend who had accompanied him back upstairs and helped drag me back to my room. Apparently I was completely incoherent and couldn't even utter an understandable word during the march back.

The daft thing it that, not only was my room in a completely different building around 500 metres away, but the Mexican guys room was at the very end of the corridor on the 3rd floor of the main building. I obviously slept walked all the way down the road, into the main building and up three flights of stairs. Obviously at that point I must have got tired and looked for the nearest unlocked room in which to rest my weary head. I would have had to use my swipe-card twice to gain access, so I must have had a little sense with me!

Jaded Rock Stars

An airport is a little bit like a tardis. It doesn't matter how hectic your life is, commuting, working, trying to get all those other daily tasks (such as maintaining basic hygiene) done in between, the moment you get to an airport - everything slows almost to a halt. You queue. You sit. You contemplate. You think about how much you would like to punch one of those smarmy security guards who single you out for a bag search right in the face.

Leeds Bradford Airport is even more like a tardis because it looks like it hasn't been refurbished since 1960. The foam is coming out of the seats, the carpets are worn away to nothing, and the seem to be the only airport left in the world that still makes you take your belt (even though it only contains approximately 1 gram of metal and doesn't set the detector off) and shoes off.

Still, here I am trying to get to Northern Ireland with my plane 3 hours delayed, andI finally have the time (and the internet access) to write a blog post:

You may remember some time ago, me writing this post about the Fun Lovin Criminals playing at the Picturedrome in the tiny little town in which I was brought up?

Well at the weekend, I went to see another band whose albums (or at least one of their albums)were even more overplayed by me than the FLC. At the weekend, I went to see Ocean Colour Scene. If you are an American, you will probably not know who Ocean Colour Scene are. In fact you will probably even baulk at the spelling of 'colour'. But OCS' retro Mod style album Moseley Shoals came out when I was at the beginning of my musical awareness when I was around 15 years old - and I loved it!

I spent many an hour arguing the merits of Ocean Colour Scene's Moseley Shoals (excellent musicians with excellent voices) over Ash's 1977 (could neither sing nor play) - though I loved them both.

What was most impressive about this Ocean Colour Scene gig was how the lead singer managed 4 pints of lager during the relatively short set.

In fact, judging by the colour of his face (i.e. very red), the tiredness in his face, and the dissinterest shown in the set - he had probably indulged in one or two too many pints of lager over the last 10 years or so. I dont know whether anyone else has had the same experience, but seeing rock stars somewhat past their prime can shatter boyhood illusions.

Still, he managed to pull out some golden oldies and the crowd finished off some of their songs for them. And I enjoyed myself.

Mosely Shoals will always remain in my top 5 albums of all time.

Cosgrove Hall

Recently my brother over at Allthatcomeswithit has been reviewing his top 10 TV shows of a time, and one of the ones that came up was the Muppet Show, the Jim Henson classic.

I don't know a great deal about Henson as I was pretty young when he was in his heyday, but I used to love the Muppets. I also loved Fraggle Rock, Dinosaurs and The Storyteller. I recently obtained a Storyteller disk and it really reminds me of the times I had in front of the open fire at our old house on a sunday evening. This got me thinking about all of the other shows I used to watch with my dad.

I have very fond, but very hazy memories of being around 8 year old and my dad taking me to a magical mystical place called Cosgrove Hall. This was a brilliant trip for me as this was the place that they made some all time classic viewing; Dangermouse, The Wind in the Willows (of which we got to see the set), and Count Duckula.

Dangermouse

Dangermouse and his loyal sidekick Penfold lived in a post box somewhere in London. They trevelled around in their flying car fighting crime in the form of Baron Greenback. According to Wikipedia it was some kind of parody of Bond films. Of course all of this was lost on me.

Classic viewing.

The Wind in the Willows

The Wind in the Willows I am talking about here is the stop motion puppet version. Apparently they made a film and a subsequent 52 episodes. This was must see childhood viewing for me. I absolutely loved this show.

Wikipedia has told me something else I didn't know here. Stone roses guitarist John Squire apparently worked on this series!

Count Duckula

This one has to be my absolute favourite of the three and probably the latest one, so its the one of which I have the best memories. Count Duckula is awesomely funny, even now I can still laugh at Nanny and Igor.

Count Duckula was a spin off from Dangermouse. It was a parody of Count Drackula (as you might guess), and due to an accident in the Count's re-incarnation - in which tomato ketchup wa s substituted for blood - duckula was a vegetarian (much to the distress of Igor).

Anyway, enough talk. Here it is.

A Group Portrait

Due to the lack of any real news, I am launching a new regular feature looking at some of the most memorable photos I have taken over the last few years...

Picture the scene ... its Christmas Day and I am just getting out of bed early in the morning to sunshine over the harbour, the glorious Sydney sunshine pouring in through the windows. Lucy is mid-way through her month long visit and a usual is hard to wake up (despite my best attempts). At this point I am missing home somewhat, its the first real Christmas I have spent away from my family and friends and I have woken to an extremely quiet flat.

I switch on my Mac and load up skype to see what is going on and see that my friend The Sergeant Major is online as we had pre-arranged. I called him up and an image popped up on my screen ... a big group of my mates somewhere in Yorkshire, already pretty beered up and on their way out for our annual Christmas Eve celebrations. 

They had projected me onto the wall at the Sergeant Major's house and we proceeded to have the most bizzare long range conversation, including a quick game of round the world flip-flop tennis (I will have to explain the rules to this someday). I was shouting out loud by the end of it, until Lucy politely reminded me that we live in a block of flats with a bunch of OAPs and it was 7am on Christmas Day morning.

This photo is one taken of my computer screen of the larger part of the gang - from left to right: 

The Artist;

The Rock Star; 

The City Worker; 

The Nurse; and 

The Sergeant Major

This photo makes me remember that it doesn't matter where you are in the world, its the people that you keep around you that will make you happy (puke).

This is what you get for writing a post whilst listening to Radiohead!

Ah the Nook

Today is Christmas Eve evening. Its 24 degrees C according to my computer (not so hot for Sydney). I have spent the day bathing in sunshine (and buying a fridge). But I have to say that for all the bikini clad girls and suntans in the world, it doesn't yet feel like Christmas. It might be the lack of freezing cold weather, it might be the absence of 8 hour traffic queues on the M1, or it might be the fact that I haven't bought my Christmas presents yet - but it doesn't quite feel like Christmas.

After some thought today, I have come to realise what it is that my life is missing. What I need to complete that Christmas circle. Its at times like this that I long for that great Holmfirth institution ... the Nook!

For those not in the know, the Nook (aka the Rose and Crown) is a bit of a Yorkshire legend. And here it is for your delectation in all its glory (don't get too overwhelmed, it actually looks a lot grottier than this in real life):

As a baby, I spent many an hour here (apparently) wedged under one of the scarred, battered and beer stained wooden benches, happily sleeping away whilst my parents supped on the glorious (filtered back) real ale. Ah the sweet nectar!

When I was a small child, I vividly remember my first sip of beer (in the Nook, where the pool room now stands). How I hated the vile fiery liquid (if only it had stayed that way - I would be a millionaire!).

During my teenage years, my Dad abandoned the Nook, claiming that it had been lost to undesirable local druggies and underage drinkers, reminiscing about the time that the Nook was the only place around where you would see a workman in his scruffy overalls sitting next to an accountant (or more probably an alcoholic).

At this point in the story alter egos will be assumed to preserve annonymity.

During my underage drinking years, the Nook became a haven. A place where my obligatory friend (lets call him "The Artist", the one that had more facial hair than the rest of us) could get served, whilst the rest of us cowered in the corner for fear of discovery. There is even a facebook group dedicated to those who had their first ever alcoholic beverage in the smoke filled air of that great building.

Eventually, as we came of age another of my good friends (lets call him "The Nurse" (followed years later by "The Artist") got a job there and spent 3 years observing the fruit machines (reading the fruit machine manuals) and emptying them of their wares at the end of the night, and we spent 3 years trying to empty the bar for free. Those were the good years!

Now the Nook is much as it was. The management has cleaned up the clientele significantly, though you can still find some of the underage drinkers chancing their luck. Over the bar hangs a cast iron rotating spirits dispenser that my Dad made for the place when he used to own a blacksmiths shop back in the 80s and that "The Nurse" used to complain about regularly for releasing Captain Morgans all over his head (I believe there is still a poker by one of the open fires made by him too). It still smell of stale beer and Seabrooks Crisps.

If you go there when its not busy, there is always a dog or two to pet, and a pickled onion or bag of pork scratchings  behind the bar for sampling (as well a some good real ale).

We tend not to frequent the place much nowadays as the gang and I are scattered across the globe, except at those times when we are all back in the 'firth, such as Christmas Eve. Hence the nostalgia.

Around about this time on Christmas Eve, we would be gathering (The Nurse, The Artist, The Rock Star, the Sergeant Major, The City Worker and I) - the only time that I can walk into a pub and expect a drink on the table waiting (assuming I am not first) for me. We would spend some time discussing how events over the last year had transpired. The conversation would go a little like this: 

"Alright mate?"

"Yeah, I got you a pint of Kronenburg"

"Cheers [drinks] ... its Carlsberg isn't it?"

"Yeah ... its cheaper"

This has always perplexed my other half who always asks me about how my friends are getting on, and about their relationships. I always answer - I have no idea about their relationships. I still don't understand why she would expect us to discuss all of that boring rubbish, when we still haven't concluded the argument on whether 50 midgets would beat a lion in a fight?

We would then proceed to spend most of the night avoiding people we went to school with. Either those who had never left the town, telling you how there was no point in leaving Holmfirth as there is nothing out there (always reminds me of the Arctic Monkeys song "Vampires", or some boring idiot telling you about successful they are as a London Banker and how you could never possible earn as much as they do (why do these guys think that you care?). 

Then we would get slowly drunk, do the beer salute (demonstrated kindly by the Rock Star - below) a few times, and stumble home, swearing at the local Indian Takeway which astonishingly isn't open at 3am on Christmas day (which we alway forget from the previous year).

Unfortunately tonight, I will have to make do with Coopers Pale Ale, Bundaberg Rum and coke, and watching the sunset whilst the boats manouvre around Sydney harbour with the lovely Lucy.... I guess its not so bad.

 

P.s. I did have a picture of all of the Rock Star, the Nurse, and the One That Got Away all pulling moonies in the Nook doorway, but I thought it a bit blue for publication.

The Kookaburra Laughs

When I was young, I remember listening repeatedly to an old tape of Australian folk songs. I'm not sure whether this was enforced, or whether this was through my own choice. One of the tunes I best remember is the Kookaburra song (my family will hopefully help me with the titles of the other songs which have since escaped my memory), which is a bit of an Australian institution.

The reason I am reminded of this is because this morning, I awoke to the sound of what I believed to be a gaggle of rampaging monkeys, escaped from the nearby Taronga Zoo intent on slaughter. Then I saw this enormous bird perched on our balcony. "Come quick!", I shouted. "I think we have some king of bald eagle perched on our balcony!" After some work on google, the reality (disappointingly) is that we seem to have adopted one of the neighbourhood Laughing Kookaburras. If you click on the link and go to the Kookaburra clip, you will understand the confusion (with the monkeys, not with the eagle - that was just stupidity).

Lucy wants to name the little chap Percy, but I think that Barry is a much more fitting name:

I have to report that we have finally managed to sort out something that resembles a living room, and importantly we managed to achieve all this on a shoestring budget whilst still managing to color co-ordinate the place with my new Mac-book. 

Mr (storm trooper) Potato Head is certainly very happy with the results:

All is going well, Lucy spends her days walking the streets of Mosman looking for nic-nacs while I work my new job (I'm hopefully going to write a big post on this tomorrow).