Had a couple of beers last night with an old familiar face from home – Donnacha Kennedy – weird how we find ourselves so far from where we grew up but then it seems pretty normal and natural for us. Two kids himself now, about a year behind where we are in child age stages but all very similar. He told me amount Tony Meagher and the op he’s undergoing to get the bastard stomach cancer out of him, so if anyone reading this knows Tony or sees him, please give him my best. Rough few months ahead I’m sure. It’s all a bit scary really.
So what else.
The girls are going well. Emma gets a bit crazier every day and is getting closer to real communication which will great, coz the constant pointing and grunts are all very well, but they’re not helping us too much. Aibhe’s addiction to Hi-5 is bordering on obsessive. But there are worse things. This is the latest version of our girls...
As a 5th anniversary present to ourselves, we got away last weekend without the girls to a remote Peppers resort about an hour from Brisbane – Barbie and Geoffie moved into our place to entertain the pair. We (well, I should say “I” given I was at the wheel) announced our Peppers arrival by reversing into a “small” lamp post – flooring it completely and smashing the light section. We subsequently discovered (through conversations with the guy in charge of maintenance over a cheese and wine at sunset 4WD thing) that it was one of only 2 originals left on the property. Fortunately, his view was that they were too hard to maintain and was quite happy to have to replace with a newer one. He didn’t take up my offer to reverse over the remaining one.The place itself was very pretty, looking over the hinterlands towards the appropriately named Great Dividing range. ‘Civilisation’ practically comes to a halt after you cross these rolling mountains that stretch for about 100km in width and as far as I know, a good 500-600 km in length. The property was basically 5 star quality cabins scattered around a kind of restaurant/bar/reception HQ. The whole raison d’etre for the place is the roughly 400 Wagyu cattle bred on the 10,000 hectare property, many of which we encountered on our 4WD trip. Happy chappies they all seemed, mind you there isn’t much longevity to their free range lifestyle which gets cut short about 18 months into their existence when their most tasty bits get shipped off to Japan.
Update on the house moving thing. We’re staying put. Having done all the work to make the garden and pool as flood proof as possible, and re-done a few bits and pieces around the house, we’ve decided we like the place and basically everywhere we’ve seen recently is either just wrong, or way over-priced. As for the f&ckwit next door, well, we’ve made up our minds to just deal with her as she or her dog transgresses and to retire to the “quiet room” downstairs in the event of her doing her karaoke thing. Or if it horses down with rain of course. Would you believe, she called to our gaf one evening to apologise in general for her behaviour. The place next door to her has recently been sold and there are renovations going on in there, and it has made her realise just how noisy things are. So the visits from the cops and the letters from the neighbours didn't quite register...... She was half cut at the time I reckon, and did use the words "I'm ashamed" so I took it in good spirit. She also gave us her phone number if things get loud again, so I guess that's a big step forward.
I was working away in the Perth office yesterday when I realised the lad behind me was Irish so I said hello. About one hour later he stopped talking. Lovely lad. Another one that married an Aussie girl and came down under once the family expansion thing was on the agenda. A big fan of the GAA, he gave me a great run down of the Leinster final last weekend – go on the Dubs wha! He said he’s got Setanta Sports and is practically glued to the All Ireland games they’re constantly airing over here. Am going to keep a careful watch on his figures in the accounts going forward to make sure he’s looked after… even if he's from Meath. It's close enough to Malahide.
In front of me on the flight is a young couple, both wearing baseball caps (backwards) and ridiculous shades. They look extremely alike, which is probably why they find each other attractive and why they can’t stop snogging (and being general pests to the Qantas attendants). The bloke has just managed to spill a bottle of coke on himself and has proceeded to take his top off - annoying the sh&t out of the attendant in the process who’s been quite funny and almost mother like way of dealing with them. I think she's about to send them to their room to think about what they've done.
Well that’s all for now folks. Any news? Don’t be shy – enda.foley@cbre.com.au. Aibhe has a new bike by the way.......
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