Birthday Bonanza

Mark Thompson is happy and so am I! I asked for a Cats win for my birthday but they delivered a good old-fashioned shellacking! A 135 point victory, the biggest loss West Coast have ever had at Subiaco! 28 goals to 5! Gary Ablett was on fire, Chapman and Mooney kicked 5 goals each, Tom Harley dominated the air and the Cats were rampant all over the ground!
Favourite Daughter, Sport Boy and I had a ball, especially in the last quarter. 1000's of Eagles fans left at 3/4 time, where was their loyalty? They were only trailing by 116 points! So we took the chance to move out of the confines of the sub-zero altitude seats we were in behind the goal and up to the grandstand on the forward flank where the view was a million times better and the yo-yo exercise everytime someone in the row wanted to come in or out of the ridiculously narrow aisles gave way to a panaramic view of Subiaco Oval and the Cats continuing on their merry way to a thumping percentage boosting victory.
Add to that the fact that North Melbourne unexpectedly knocked off Hawthorn today and my birthday present was complete, Geelong now a game and percentage clear on top of the AFL ladder!

We sang all the way back to the car after the game!

It's been a great day. Sure I turned 47 and am feeling suddenly older slower and sorer because of it! But, the kids won their soccer game this morning 4-0 with Sport Boy playing really well, the CFFL mid-season draft went well as I traded aggressively and managed to outfit my team almost entirely with Geelong players, Sport Boy is over the moon at being able to buy a genuine FIFA World Cup soccer ball from Jim Kidds for $100 off the original price, and we dropped in to Leederville Oval on the way to watch East Perth hold on to win against Claremont in the last quarter of the WAFL.
And now we're at the Letchy's place enjoying their friendship and hospitality!

Happy Birthday to me
I'm as pleased as can be
The Cats won you see
And my family loves me

Look Out World

Busselton Scrabble Champ Strikes Again!!
I inflicted another merciless beating on the ladies at the Scrabble Group tonight. Sadly, they are so unconcerned about the score they hardly even notice whether they're winning or losing!
But I know!

There has been a bit of on-going discussion in the comments section of my "Opening Closets" post from last week. Wander back for a look and add a comment or opinion yourself if you feel like it.

Don't forget too that I'm now writing a Footy Blog. I am making good progress in preparation for the Melbourne Footy Trip, only three weeks until we go, yeah!

I think I should warn you that my "Coolness Quotient" has shot up several points today. I now have a page on Face Book! I can just feel the coolness radiating off me as I blog!
Obviously I don't have time to be a dedicated FaceBooker so I'm concentrating on one small area of interest, the Phat Phriday Group on Face Book! Favourite Daughter "invited" me to join!
Here we will discuss the intricacies and subtle nuances involved in planning and running Phat Phriday via virtual meetings, the sort of meeting you have when you don't actually want to meet with anyone! It is already working well, look how much cooler I am than I was yesterday!

Talking of Phat Phriday, I've posted a few collages of the action from last week, in reverse order just to confuse you!

Oh Dear!!!

It's half time in Friday night football and Geelong are getting "smooshed" as Sport Boy would say! I'm so glad I swapped my cab shift until tomorrow night so I could stay home and watch the footy!! The worst part is that it's Collingwood, the most hated team in football, that is doing the smooshing! The Cats are 51 points down at half time having only kicked three goals so far, by far our worst performance of the season.
I can't see the Cats getting out of this one!

Backtracking to Yesterday.
The day started in unusual fashion, with a student protest at school. They went on strike to voice their unhappiness that the teacher's dispute has not been resolved and as a consequence they are going to miss out on going to Country Week. Country Week is just about the biggest event of their whole school lives and they're starting to realise it's not going to happen. As Country Week manager I encouraged them several weeks ago to get political, yesterday they finally sparked into action. Alas I think it will be too little too late to change things.

After that I went to Bunbury to attend a Childwise workshop on Child Sexual Abuse. Interestingly, one of the biggest news stories of the day is the closure of a photography exhibition in Sydney which contained several nude pictures of a 13 year old girl. The police are laying charges against the photographer who is one of Australia's most highly regarded artists. It's a shame he couldn't work out for himself the difference between art and pornographic exploitation of children.
In this country 1 in 4 girls is sexually abused and 1 in 6 boys. Those are chilling and damning figures.

At 12 o'clock I picked up Mrs Holt Press from the train station after her 10 days in Victoria visiting her parents. We returned home to Busselton after she forced me to stop at Spotlight first!
While I was there I at least availed myself of the opportunity to buy a frypan as a gift for my secret friend at work, this week being secret friend week. My surprises and gifts to an unsuspecting Ian included some lolly snakes, a can of soup, a packet of pink M&Ms for Breast Cancer, the fry pan, and a Leunig cartoon book, all accompanied by art cards I bought in Fremantle a couple of months ago.
My secret friend gave me chocolate, toasted sandwiches and today a footy magazine. It's a good fun activity to build staff morale and camaraderie.

Footy Update:
The Cats have kicked the first goal of the 2nd half!
And the 2nd!
And the third!
A good start but there's along way to go!

Last night I ran a quiz night for the BPW group at the Esplanade Hotel. They had plenty of people and everything went well, people seemed to enjoy themselves and there were no dramas or mistakes. Using the laptop and projector for the questions works really well and as one punter said afterwards, makes the whole thing more professional. The winners were a group of kids and adults from school; two of the boys are coming on the footy trip to Melbourne and two of them went on Rypen with The Hair last weekend so I'm getting to know them a lot more.

Footy Result:
Things did not get any better for Geelong, they ended up losing by 86 points!! A shellacking!!!
Having won 27 of our last 28 games I can't complain, we were "due" for a loss, but I'd have preferred it to be closer and not to Collingwood!!
Not surprisingly I had a message from Warren celebrating the Magpies win, thankfully it went through to voice mail!

Sport Boy's team have a bye tomorrow but The Hair is playing at 9 o'clock, it will be good to be able to watch him play as I don't see their team very often due to coaching duties with the 11's.
I'm driving the taxi from 4 tomorrow arvo.

The Cats Start Well

The Footy's back! And the Cats won, beating Port Adelaide in the Grand Final rematch at Football Park. Yeehaa!

And Tottenham came from behind three times to draw 4-4 with Chelsea last night.

It's also the Easter holiday break, 5 days off work, woohoo!

Gotta be happy with all that.

Sal's Painting

When sally and Warren came to stay a few weeks back she liked several of my paintings but one in particular attracted her, the one I gave to Favourite Daughter for her 18th birthday.
As we were coming to Perth for the weekend and staying with S & W I set about trying to re-create a similar painting to bring with me. It went better than I anticipated, I started it last night and finished it this afternoon, either side of my taxi shift. I put it in a frame and revealed it to Sal, who I'm pleased, and relieved* to report, "loves it"and said it is "perfect" for the place she had in mind for it in the family room. It does indeed match the colours and other pictures in the room very well. The photos above are not great, taken as they are with a flash but I photo-shopped them a little bit to try and make them a bit more accurate.

* My relief was not just based on wanting her to like it (Sally is one of my oldest friends, we met 30 years ago) but also because I had told her about a sculpture I'd seen at Art Geo that I thought she'd like and brought some photos up to show her, only for her to say how much she didn't like it and making a very unflattering comparison with what it reminded her of!
Thankfully, as I said, she likes the painting very much.


I came up with Fashion and Sport Boys for the Augusta Team reunion. Favourite Daughter came up with a friend and is joining us tomorrow. Mrs Holt Press is in Northam for the weekend with a friend; they are both doing a course that runs for 10 weekends over the next 18 months.
FD, SB and I are going to the football tomorrow night to see the Dockers play the Eagles in the pre-season comp. While on that subject, Geelong smashed Melbourne in their game today, showing good signs of their form continuing on from last season, although, as I'm the first to assert, the pre-season comp means nothing!
The Heir had to work and is minding the fort at home.

The Cats Win the Grand Final

The VFL Grand Final that is!

Sport Boy had a good day out at the footy in Melbourne watching Geelong beat Coburg to win the VFL flag, hopefully a good omen for next Saturday's much bigger and more important AFL Grand Final between Geelong and Port Adelaide.

There was one disappointing incident today, I lost my new Geelong tracksuit top when we left it on the train. Sport Boy had been using it as a pillow laying on the floor beneath the seats and we both forgot it when we got off. We went back for it but it was gone and wasn't handed in by the time we got back to Geelong. Rats.

We ran into a few more Big Footyites at the game, following the pre-prelim final get together at Shmik Bar on Friday night. Cam, aka Mooney d'King was there and Ablett 5, and on the train home we saw Big Drop Punt (All Big Footy Nicknames, mine is Western Cat).
People are keeping their ears open for tickets on my behalf although there's gonna be stacks in the same boat, the GFC Ticket ballot results are in and a couple of people I know have already found out they missed out.

I've budgeted a "large amount" of money for the cause of getting a ticket but even that's no guarantee, I have to fine someone with one to sell first!


It's been a bad couple of days for losing things, we went to the You Yangs yesterday and climbed to the top of Flinders Peak, a place I haven't been since I was about 10 years old, but later on when we got to Point lonsdale we realised we'd left the football somewhere, probably at the You Yangs. Sport Boy is devastated cause we've been kicking the footy together every day and at the game today he looked with envy at every kid holding a footy!
I ended up ringing Favourite Daughter and asking her to pick up another one from home (I've got several) and sending it to us by Express Post tomorrow. Hopefully it will turn up at Leongatha post office on Tuesday.

Other than that our day out on Sunday was great. It was fun to revisit the places we knew so well from our childhood, Carolyn and I both having grown up in Geelong. We watched some of the Port V Roos game at the pub in Queenscliff and then had fish and chips for tea while watching some big cargo ships passing through the heads. It also inspired us to take the ferry across to Sorrento on Monday when we head off to Gippsland. It will save us going via melbourne and will be a much prettier drive skirting around French and Phillip Ilsands.
We also went on a pilgrimage to Pearl Bay aka Barwon Heads, the seaside town where one of our favourite tv shows, Seachange, was filmed.
I also showed the family where the Banfiels used to live, along with our old house in Wiggs Rd Moolap and the school I went to in grades 5 & 6.

We've really enjoyed our time in Geelong and look forward to being back here later in the week when things start hotting up for the Grand Final.

The Preliminary Final

24 hours later and I'm breathing easier, my pulse rate is lower and I'm starting to enjoy the feeling.
What feeling?
The feeling that comes when your team makes the Grand Final!
Last night was a very tense, very exciting, very stressful affair, and that was just for Carolyn!
Imagine how Sport Boy and I coped!
I'm serious actually, Carolyn couldn't handle it even in the first quarter and by the last she couldn't watch or listen to the radio!
Poor Sport Boy got very emotional and was crying at 3/4 time.
Geelong were not playing well, Collingwood were playing great and the most dreadful outcome was looking very possible.
I comforted SB and prepared him for the worst.
"We might not win"
He looked me straight in the eye and said "We're gonna win"

His faith looked justified when we got out to a 17 point lead half way through the last but when the Magpies inevitable comeback started to happen I again warned him that we may not make it to the Grand Final.

And again he looked at me calmly and said as if it was written in indelible letters, "We're gonna win"!!

I believed him, as much as I could, but the Collingwood army was in full voice as 98.002 fans roared and rocked the MCG to it's foundations and the Hot Pies kept coming.
It took all the heroics the Cats could muster to hold them off and cling to a 5 point lead as the final siren went and the pressure was finally released!
I just stood nward, glad and grateful and mightily relieved.

We had won a classic and now we're in the Big One.

The Geelong theme song never sounded so good as when sung by the delerious proportion of the MCG's new record crowd when the siren went.

I cried.
Sport Boy cried.
Carolyn just breathed a mighty sigh of relief.

The train trip home was fun even though we were sitting with a family of Collingwood fans.
They were disappointed not devastated, clearly we had a lot more to lose than they did.
In fact, my image of feral Collingwood fans was largely dispelled last night. Besides the fans on the train, we sat behind another family of Pie's supporters up in the nose-bleed section of the Great Southern Stand and we got along really well with them, all shaking hands after the game.

We are Geelong
The greatest team of all.....Preliminary Final

Preliminary Final Day

Things have improved since yesterday.

We returned the car this morning and hopefully won't be penalised.

I picked up the remainder of the tickets for tonight's game and then hitched a lift into town with a bloke who knew someone who is looking for tickets and so I'm meeting him in half an hour to sell one of them.
Looking out for a blue Camry on the corner of Brougham and Moorabool Streets at 10 past 12 for the deal to go down! Just gotta get a brown paper bag first!!

We're heading for melbourne on the train about 3.00pm.

The game starts at 7.40.

Hopefully the celebrations will start about 3 hours after that!

Geelong

We arrived in Melbourne ok, got a car and drove to Geelong, found the Caravan Park and settled in to a very nice chalet, getting to bed about 2.00am.

Not much has gone right today though.

I discovered to my horror that yesterday was the only day to register for the Grand Final ticket ballot and I missed it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Disaster!!!!!!!!

There was only a limited chance of getting aticket via the ballot, but not being in it means no chance at all!!!

I'm not giving up (should Geelong make it) but it may mean trying to buy one from a scalper or some other source!!!

I'm determined to be there if at all possible!

Meanwhile the Ticketmaster debacle took a bizarre twist when I discovered that my "aborted" order yesterday morning was actually successful!
So, instead of 3 tickets to the preliminary final I now have 6!!!!!!
At least the three of us will be able to sit together but it leaves me with three extra tickets to dispose of.
Hopefully I'll find some fans still looking for tickets at the ground.

I was pretty stressed out by all this making things tense in the Holt Press world.
The stress leves rose higher when we tried to return the hire car and couldn't find the place to drop it off as the address was wrong on the form and the peak hour traffic was making driving difficult.
So, we still have the car and will have to drop it off first thing in the morning and hope we don't get penalised.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, and especially tomorrow night will give great cause for celebration.

The Weekend Wrap

Great number plate spotted on our trip to Bunbury on Wednesday.


Lately I seem to enter a blogging black hole over the weekend. It's because of driving the taxi on Friday and Saturday nights and sleeping late the following mornings. Throw in Sport Boy's soccer on Saturday mornings, a Geelong game some time over the weekend, and the mandatory eating, showering and domestic requirements and the blog comes last until about now (Sunday evening). Not through lack of care, just lack of time.

I spent a few hours picking mandarins on Friday afternoon to help a family from church who have an orchard. Jamie has a brain tumour and is having a pretty hard time physically. Carolyn goes and does some exercises with him to help try and keep him mobile. It was my first experience of fruit picking, one of those seasonal jobs people often consider when they're travelling. I'd have to say that although manadarins are not hard to pick and the trees are fairly user-friendly, I won't be quitting my day job, or even my night job to take it up. It was good to be able to lend a hand to some people in need though and I couldn't help but marvel at the bountiful fruit on each tree and the wonderful way God has made things work in the natural world.

Friday night was a very busy shift and a late finish ($$$). The boss knocked off at 3am, leaving two of us on with the observation I'd probably be able to knock off in a few minutes (leaving just one car on the road to carry through till 6am and the day shift drivers). Ha! The moment he parked up the phone went ballistic and we were run off our feet, if you know what I mean, for the next hour and a half. Last night started very quietly but finished strongly and I didn't park up until 5am. That's OK ($$$) :) Nothing much to report, no major dramas or difficult customers, but an interesting encounter with one teenage girl who was going home because she felt guilty about deceiving her parents that she was staying at a friend's place when she was really at a party!

Sport Boy got back on the score sheet on Saturday morning in Cornerstone's 9-0 win over Capel. It was another good game, the team are getting better all the time, with improved skillls and a better sense of how to play as a team: "Passing, passing, passing". Only three more games till the end of the season and I can have my Saturday mornings back for uniterrupted recovery.

The house was full on Saturday arvo: Mum and Walter came for a visit after spending a riveting half an hour at the Nannup Tulip Festival!
Sport Boy had a friend over to play, which stretched to a sleepover. Rhys is a nice kid so it was no trouble. Carolyn went into a manic cleaning frenzy on Saturday morning in preparation for the arrival of ........ The Nutrimetics Party!!!! Two friends, Carolyn and the Nutrimetics Lady with her bag of smells and potions for the beautification and healing of just about anything you could think of. There was an inordinate amount of laughter for such a small and serious gathering and I had to admire the NL's perseverance as she battled on against the constant interruptions and outbursts of laughter from the "clients". It sounded like they were having a good time but it did go on for a very long time! "I didn't expect it to go that long" was Carolyn's half-hearted explanation for the lack of dinner or any junk mail folding by Saturday night! I didn't mind, although that may change when I see the credit card statement!!

This afternoon I folded the junk mail while waiting for the (delayed telecast) of the football to start, Geelong v The Kangaroos. It was a tough game which the Cats won by 27 points to take the streak to 15, their best ever in a single season. I compiled a list of all the companies whose ads aired during the game and am considering writing to them to say I'm boycotting their products because of their complicity in a lousy TV broadcasting arrangement which sees a game delayed three hours, presumably for financial/advertising reasons, rather than telecast live, despite there being no other games on at all for the day. Why should we wait, running the risk of some dunderhead revealing the result, in order to watch our national game?!! Then there was Channel 7's increasingly inane and annoying commentary to put up with! Just as well Geelong won or it would have been a completely unpleasant experience! (End Rant)

The final piece of good news for the weekend is that I won my elimination final in the Chaplains Fantasy Footy League by 1 point, 245 to 244 over The Slayers!-coached by Peter and Kent from SU (Barring protests! I forgot to submit my team on Friday afternoon-something to do with manadarins and taxis!) Hopefully the Bussel Muscle will have progressed to the Preliminary Final next week.

All Footballed Out .... For a Week Anyway!

My footy feast is over and I head home in a couple of days. It's been a lot of fun but the end has come. I went and saw the Geelong VFL (Reserves) team play Port Melbourne today, and had a chat to Brian Cook, the Geelong CEO, about tickets for next week and for the finals. Geelong won by 85 points.
Then I caught the last quarter of Richmond and Port Adelaide at the MCG, before my final game, the Kangaroos v Melbourne at Docklands. In 2 weeks I have been to 12 games and seen 13 of the 16 teams in the AFL play. My philosophy is "Too much football is just enough"!

Tomorrow I'll have a look around Melbourne, check out a couple of galleries and do some last minute shopping.
Tuesday I'll drop the van off back in Geelong and head back to Tullamarine for my flight home.

I had a treat last night when Gary's Mum Jan arrived. I haven't seen her for over 20 years so it was lovely to catch up. She reads my blog fairly regularly and gave me her honest opinion about my paintings! (She likes some of them!)

Happy Little Cats Fan

How good were Geelong last night?

They were awesome!

Smashed the highly rated Western Bulldogs by 75 points for their 11th win in a row to stay very clearly on top of the ladder.

My enjoyment of the game was only marred by that unfortunate modern species, the "ugly footy fan", the sort of bloke who yells swearwords and obscenmities constantly, ompletely disregarding the feelings or sensitivities of all thos around them, in this case a family with two young children sitting in front of us. Further to the swearing was a continual stream of vitriol and invective directed towards the opposition borne out of some sort of spite or hatred. It was not enough that Geelong were winning by 10 goals, this fan had to look for every opportunity to pour scorn and derision on the Bulldogs, and the umpires too of course, and even on occasion his own team!

It was unpleasant and uncomfortable, it was ugly and aggravating and I observed many people sitting in the vicinity looking around at him and shaking their heads at the continual stream of abuse.

At the end of the game the family in front got up to leave and I apologised to the mum for having to put up with the swearing. She said "no worries, they come to the game every week and their used to it." What a shame!

Football should be a safe fun family friendly event, not one where you run the gamut of this sort of abuse and anti-social behaviour.

What a shame that it has become so common-place that people are forced to accept it as the norm instead of being able to expect not to put up with such ugly attitudes.

I am not against passion or emotion at the footy, I get as fired up as anyone at the footy, but that doesn't mean you have to become abusive or swear your head off. It took the edge off a good night for me, and I daresay for other people too.

As a Cats fan I was embarrassed, as a Dogs fan I'd have been infuriated.

C'arn the Cats.

7 Hours to Go

Until the bouncedown of the big game, the Cats and the Dogs.
Pre-match nerves are starting to bubble.
We owe them one after the first game of the season, everything was doom and gloom after that game!!
Obviously things have improved dramatically since then!

It's another grey day in Melbourne, the weather has oscillated between ordinary and atrocious since I've been here! Not complaining about the rain, just the COLD!

I had a text message from Dave yesterday, seems he was missing me at the Chaplains Conference back in Perth! I usually enjoy those events but can't say I was sad to miss this one.
I don't go back to work until mid-October!!
By then the Cats should be Premiers and I'll have a permanent Cheshire grin!
Hopefully!

A message for Fashion Boy: You're coming to Melbourne in September, don't spend all your money now! You know the shopping is much better over here! And I suggest you don't tell your grandfather you're lazy again! Enjoy your last weekend of freedom before school restarts.
Hi Sport Boy, only another week until soccer starts again!

See you all next week.

Another Great Day at the MCG

The Cats won again, beating Collingwood by 16 points to extend their streak to 10 wins in a row.

It was great to be there, along with 85,496 other people.

I sat with Cam, aka Mooney d' King from Big Footy.com and a bunch of his friends, half of us going for Geelong, the other half favouring the Dark Side.

At half time I rang Nick, a mate from work in Busselton who I knew was also at the game and as I put the phone to my ear he walked up to me and said g'day! I kid you not! Amazing!

After the game I also caught up with some old friends, Russell and Lucy and their kids David and Sophie. Only Sophie has the good sense to barrack for Geelong, the other three are afflicted with the Collingwood Curse. Sophie and I were happy!

I went in to the player reception inside the MCG after the game, one of the privileges of being a member! and got a few autographs for Sport Boy.

Then it was off to Docklands for the second game of the day, Essendon v Western Bulldogs, a good game won by the latter, who also happen to be Geelong's opponents next week so a bit of scouting was useful!

By the time I got home to Doreen, an outer outer suburb of Melbourne Gary and Christine were in bed. We're all going to the Richmond v Hawthorn game tomorrow afternoon.

Life is good!

Go Cats!

Friday Friends and Footy

Allan and Lorna, friends of the family for over 40 years, with whom I stayed last night. (And did my first lot of washing in a week and a half!) I picked up Mum and Walter's campervan which I'll use to get around Victoria for the next couple of weeks.
I wandered up and down Pakington St this afternoon looking for the Word Bookshop without success (turns out it was at the other end of Pakington St, and didn't have the book I was looking for, although they reserved a copy for me to pick up from their Melbourne store) but in the process of searching I found a fantastic Antiques and Collectables shop where I could easily have spent a lot more money than I did! I bought a Gary Ablett figurine, for me, and a Route 66 belt buckle, for Jordan whose blog name might become "Fashion Boy".
I resisted the temptation to buy this John Wayne statue but figured I'd post a picture here for the owner of Holtieshouse to check out just in case he wants to part with $50 to gain possession of it. (Let me know Pop) (it's about 15" high and is a bit chipped and damaged, as befits the Duke, a little worn and torn!)

I called in to visit my in-laws, Alan and Mary this afternoon. Alan's eyesight has degenerated dramatically in the last 6 months, though at 88 he's in pretty good shape. I asked him about his memories of following Geelong and he recounted players and games stretching all the way back to 1925 when he saw them win the Grand Final. He has the had the privilege of seeing the Cats win 6 Grand Finals in his life time! Although Geelong have won a premiership in my lifetime, in 1963, I was only 2 years old at the time and was oblivious to the event. As my readers will know, I'm hoping Geelong will break a 44 year drought to win the premiership this season and am devoting a chunk of my long service leave to the goal of seeing it happen. I recorded about an hour of Alan's reminiscences, not just of Geelong but of other teams and players and games over the last 80 years.

After going to the footy tonight to see the thriller between St Kilda and Adelaide which the Saints won by 2 points I'm now out in the far reaches of Melbourne at Doreen, staying with my old mate Gary. He's just gone to bed and I'm heading there shortly now that the Tour de France is over and the blog is up to date.

Heading for the G!
The footy feast continues.
Saints and Pies.