Welcome back Robbie, DG's 36 and crows nests

3am and the mobile lights up the room and disturbs the slumber. Must either be someone from Ireland that's completely oblivious to time zones and wants to say hello, or........... its Iain from Prague letting me know that Robbie Fowler is back with Liverpool, leaving his (Iain's) beloved Manchester City. Only 12 hours earlier I had an e-mail "conversation" with one of our clients in Melbourne who also happens to be a Liverpool supporter, the general theme of which was how good it would be if God came back to us. Just for the sheer emotionality of it all. And of course the prospect of having one of the all time best finishers in football back where he belongs. We had concluded it would not happen. Bless Rafa. He's a good man. I returned to sleep a contented man. Alissa didn't think it was that important, however, as Ken rightly pointed out, entering my 35th year with Liverpool as European champions only lends an odd familiarity to an otherwise foreign situation.

DG, Happy Birthday boss. A Saturday and all? I hope tis a good one for you. 36? Jayyyyyyysus.

Every picture tells a story they say. Have I mentioned the crows before? Ah yes. Not satisfied with their painful cawking in the early hours of the morning, one bastard has decided to try hammering his way through our back door - resulting in a fair bit of irreparable wood damage. We are informed that it is mating season and it's his reflection in the window he's trying to get after. Gobshite. I thought crows were meant to be clever? Anyway, I took matters into my own hands and did my utmost to destroy the crows abode in our tree - with the assistance of the pool cleaner pole, a couple of golf clubs and a broom..... See first line of paragraph......

Am going to try do these updates once a week or thereabouts. Alissa's quite happy with the posting of the pictures aspect but am sure will add her tuppence worth in words every so often. For those that have been here, the pictures of the gaf as it is now, might (or might not) be of interest. We have Shelley here at the moment - up from Melbourne for the weekend - she likes the Vegas so hopefully we'll be seeing plenty of her in the future, as well as Rach of course when she finally comes home (welcome back from Kazakstan!!)

Alissa has well less than 4 weeks to go - still going very well, and no signs of early movement as of yet. But. Who knows what the next update might include. I'm reliably informed that we are next.

No wasting time about the weather, though it has cooled to a quite tolerable 28/29 recently. January nearly over eh? Its all downhill into Winter for us now!!!!

Of course Alissa reckons this is a little nerdy....

...... but now that I have discovered it, am going to bloody use it!! And some have responded already so this may just work. And she'll come round I know it.

So Happy Australia day everyone. When you're all lounging in your beds on Paddy's day, I'll be suffering at work, like you all will be today. So yis will have your revenge. For me, a day off now means doing the garden and cleaning the pool in advance of guests coming over. The garden, there's a thing. 10 years of living in an apartment and I could barely keep a plant alive. Now I have all these trees and plants that I can't spell and would look at home in the Day of the Triffids to maintain . Or let the sub-tropical weather look after of course. Round here, people really welcome "a bit of rain" - though they would prefer a week solid. Not happening though and the dam levels keep falling....... maybe thats a business opportunity? If Ireland could find a way of selling its rain to Australia, we'd all be laughing and I'd be rich, RICH I tells ya!!

So then, tis time for the whipper snipper........ as Triple J radio play the top 100 of all time. Honestly, do Placebo deserve to be in that FFS?

We'll talk.

And that was Christmas day down under... a good day, but so missing Marian.

Its still a pool! 

The gaf.... 

and its Australia day (almost)

Sharing my birthday with Australia..... some might say this was meant to be. Me however thinks it unfair. Everyone thinks its their birthday when its a bank holiday.

More importantly, Alissa is now 30. And very very pregnant. But playing a blinder. Unlike Pam of course who's now non-pregnant and the proud mother of 2 future Aston Village players.

First entry

Welcome. First test of this blog larkology. Never thought I'd bother with these but given how attentive we all were to Stef's when he was travelling the eastern parts, and all the jocular jibes we got out of it, I figured, WTF, lets see if anyone ever bothers their arse to read this. Now granted, this won't be exciting as Stef's far East travels, I mean, after another few weeks all we will ever be speaking about ever again will be our baby. Our child. Our vonderkind. Our leanbh. And the fucking possums and crows that wake him/her up every day. Thats it, end of story. Enda story.
By the way, thats us in Amsterdam last year. Brisbane's architecture hasn't changed that much and there's no way I'd wear a jacket in this heat.