The Mighty Cats

Just enough time before I go to work to say the Cats were awesome last night!
I went to the game with Favourite Daughter who, with the benefit of a radio and binoculars loved it too.
We sat next to a family from Kojonup who know my Cats mad friend Julie, and in front of us was a family from Manjimup.
It was Geelong's best game of the season, right when they needed it.

Go Cats.

Recent Drawings

Sleep? What Sleep?

My holidays ended yesterday. I leave for work in 10 minutes.

In honour of this occasion I had the worst night's sleep in the history of sleep.

I was still hyped up after getting back from the football, despite Geelong's disappointing but expected loss to Collingwood so the first half hour was doomed to keep me awake. Just when sleep looked possible the loud and distinctive car horn beep of my phone in the study shattered the silence. Who on earth was texting me at 1 in the morning? Some unaware Magpie fan on the other side of the country no doubt! 5 minutes later the reminder beep went off and the third and finally signal followed 10 minutes after that. 

From that point on there were snippets of sleep but nothing restful or extended. I observed the clock change from 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 throughout the night. I tried changing positions, deep breathing, holding my breath etc all to no avail until of course the inevitable irony! With less than an hour until I had to get up I fell asleep for the longest uninterrupted stretch of the night!

The 7.20 alarm was not received with joy.

Despite this sad tale, I had an excellent two weeks off , and I'm not unhappy about returning to work.

There are worse ways to spend a Sunday than being paid double time to drive a bus and listen to the footy all day.

Pictures and stories of the holidays to follow, including visits to Warrnambool, Mildura, Swan Hill, Benalla and Tatong.

Holidays!

I'm on holidays! Woohoo! Two weeks off. In the middle of Winter! We had hoped to go up to Queensland but the trip to Perth to sort out Spike's move to Victoria scuttled that plan. It's great having him here though so it's all good. All of the Holt Press kids have been here for the weekend and this afternoon I took The Heir, Favourite Daughter and Sport Boy to the footy at Kardinia Park. It was a cold wet grey wintery day but we managed to enjoy ourselves and the cats had a win. If you want to read my report on the game you'll have to wait until the publication of the 2012 Footy Almanac because I have the gig of writing up today's game for the book. This occurred because Mrs Holt Press and I chatted to John Harms (TFA Editor) at a Lord's Taverners Dinner we went to in Melbourne on Thursday night, this a gift from the kids for my birthday. We enjoyed our night out, tasty food and interesting discussion.
Yesterday was a momentous day in Holt Press family history: Sport Boy played his first game of Aussie Rules, turning out for Barwon Heads against Corio in the U14s. Having spent all of his sporting career up until now playing soccer , he did not star, in fact his modest statistics read 1 mark, 1 handball and a few scrambles according to his Mum's match report, sms'd to me as I drove a bus to Deakin Uni, but he apparently enjoyed himself greatly.
He too is on holidays for the next two weeks and in a bizarre observance of this fact has committed an act that has brought shame on the family name: he has got himself a mullet!!
Needless to say, the rest of the family are not impressed! He, for reasons known only to himself, is very proud of it!!!! In the interests of public decency I will not be posting any pictures of it on this blog!!

Meanwhile, Favourite Daughter concluded her first semester at the photography school with a presentation of her portfolio of pictures to her classmates and lecturers. She was pretty stressed getting it finished so I'm glad to report that she received a lot of positive feedback and feels very pleased with what she accomplished. We looked at the pictures, in 4 categories, people, place, object and concept on the big screen TV on Friday night and were all impressed with her pictures.
The Heir and Spike are both injured at present. Spike  broke his hand in a skateboard crash and it will be in a cast for another couple of weeks and his brother had boiling water spilled on him at work and his foot is burnt and blistered and he's struggling to walk on it.

I am in both good health and good spirits, all the more so that I don't have to go back to work for two weeks. For those who have been following my exploits on ebay selling old Coles Football cards I'm pleased to report that a new record high price was reached today. Last week I sold a John Coleman card for the most impressive sum of $113 but today that mark was soundly beaten with the sale of another Essendon legend, Bill Hutchison, for the price of $150!!!!! Remembering that I bought the cards along with a box of old footy records for the total price of $50 a few months ago, I have now sold cards to a total of over $1500!! And I still have several left including some big names that I hope will continue to bring very good prices.

Tomorrow , after watching the EURO 2012 Final, Spain v Italy, The Heir and I will pick up the stuff we shipped over from Perth from their Geelong depot and then I'll take him and his big screen TV up to Melbourne in time for him to start work at 5.
I have no other firm plans for my break but I hope to take a day trip on the train to Warrnambool and go on a family excursion to Daylesford. Throw in some reading, some drawing and some watching of the Tour de France and it should be both relaxing and enjoyable.