Wedding Pictures

The present and the future? Me and my Dad. Is this a vision of what I'll look like when I'm 70? If Dad and Dad's Dad are anything to go by the answer is yes as Dad looks more and more like Big Pa every time I see him. I don't know whether he'll like that or not but there's no arguing with the facts. Similarly my Mum is looking more like her Mum, my Nan, too.
He is currently sitting beside me as I post this, playing with his lap top as we compare blogging and computer notes.
My sister Vicki, mother of the bride, and Dad who always refers to her as his favourite daughter. No such preferential status is conferred on me! May have something to do with him having 3 sons and only the one daughter! I hope so!
L-R Dad (Grandpa) Stacey, Jake, Mum (Nan)

The Foster family at the wedding in Adelaide on Saturday.

Home in One Piece

We're home.
After 35 and a half hours on the road we arrived in Busselton safe and sound.
Apart from the hordes of kangaroos taunting us after Eucla everything went smoothly and we touched down at 8.45pm.
The kids were excited, having a real live Grandpa come to visit them.
Grandpa was a little too tired to be excited but he enjoyed their welcome.

Back to work tomorrow after a very BIG weekend so it's time to go to bed!

Kangaroolette

We're at Balladonia. Where's Balladonia?
The middle of the middle of nowhere!
About 1000km from Perth actually, at a Roadhouse, the first one we;ve found open in the last 4-5.
We left Adelaide at 8.15am Sunday, stopped at Wudinna for a couple of hours and left there at about 5.pm.
It's now 9.15 am WA time and we've been on the road about 26 hours.
Someone warned us that there was 300km of kangaroos from Eucla onwards.
Sure enough, there was 300km of kangaroos from Eucla onwards.
For about 4 hours we played Kangaroolette.
While one drove the other spotted and it was a full time job.
Most of the roos had the brains or the decency to get off the road or stay out of the way but every now and then 1-2 of them would decide to tempt fate and jump straight across the road in front of us.
We were driving pretty slowly so managed to avoid them all although the jury is out on whether Dad has lost his 100% clean record of never having hit a native animal; one little roo scampered across the highway and sharp brakin resulted in the bumper bar just clipping the tipof his tail. Neither roo nor vehicle were harmed but we await the decision on whether this constituted an official "hit".
We were mightily relieved to see the last of them about half way between Caiguna and Balladonia.
We were both pretty tired by then so stopped for a rest and got about three hours sleep in the front seats of the car, not a bad result.
We've stopped for breakfast, then onto Norseman, approx 300km west of here before taking a dirt road from there to Hyden then on home to Busselton.
ETA. 9.pm

A Good Day

The wedding was lovely. Not without it's disappointments but considering all the factors it went well. Familys are very difficult animals at times!
I just finished my painting by the time we had to leave, and even did a few little touch ups once we were at the wedding to finish it properly.
Afterwards we had dinner at a pub and I was able to watch the frst half of the Geelong game on Foxtel. I listened to the rest on the radio as we drove home and back at the unit and got very excited as Geelong first snatched a draw then again came from behind to win in extra time against Port.
We leave for Wudinna early in the morning then onto WA. Should be home tomorrow night all going well.

Arrived Safe and Sound

Other than my flight being delayed about half an hour everything else went smoothly today and I am now at my sister's unit in Adelaide the night before the wedding.
Dad and Rex picked me up from the airport, Vicki and Mum, Matthew and Rhianna (and their sleeping boys) were all here when I arrived.
Amidst plenty of laughter and stories I pulled out my paints and set to work on a wedding present for Stacey and Jake. There was plenty of "creative input" from the family audience who I think are skeptical about the final product having only seen the preparation stages tonight!
Hopefully it will be pleasing to the happy couple and satisfactory to the various family art critics by the time it's finished.

It's only 12.30 by my body clock but 2.00 Adelaide time so it's time for bed.

Adelaide Here I Come

I'm about to pick up Jordan from school and head to perth. He's going to a concert tomorrow, I'm flying to Adelaide tonight to go to Stacey's wedding tomorrow. One of the best bits about weddings is getting together with family and friends. I'm looking forward to seeing my sister Vicki, pictured above. She lives at Wudinna, a small town on the Eyre Peninsula and the edge of the desert in South Australia. We don't see one another very often so it's always special when we get together.
Dad has driven down from Queensland already, and likewise, visits are a long way apart so it will be great to see him, and the rest of the clan.
The day after the wedding Dad and I are heading west, driving home across the Nullabor.
The following weekend even more of the family will regather in Perth for Jenna's wedding.

Bring it on, it's party season.

Reading the Cards

Apologies that these pics are sideways, it's too late to work out how to fix it now.

These cards are from the AFL Ambassadors function at Subiaco Oval on Sunday night that I went to with Sport Boy. At the end of the function I found them on the seats in the front row and thought they were interesting.


The first is for Peter Bell, senior player and former captain of the Fremantle Dockers, who spoke to the group about his life in football. The card is in good condition as you can see. Admittedly Belly arrived late and was not seated for long before he got up to speak.


The second looks quite different as you can see. It was for Chris Judd, captain of the West Coast Eagles. I don't know if he was bored, or anxious or nervous but he certainly gave his card a good hammering in the half hour he was sitting there before he too spoke to the group.
Perhaps he was concerned about the latest indiscretion of one of his team mates who had been arrested the night before for serious assault?

The final card is fro Dr Neale Fong, head of the WA Football Commission. If anyone should have been nervous it's Neale. In his other life he's head of the WA Health Department and is Australia's highest paid public servant, earning twice as much as the Prime Minister. Why should he be nervous? Because the health dept is continually under fire and he has been taken to task by the media many times for perceived shortcomings in fixing the problems in the health dept. His wife also got into trouble last year for a driving offence which attracted some negative publicity. Despite this, he was cool calm and collected. I know Neale from yet another previous life, as head of Youth Ministries in the Church of Christ, and apart from being a West Coast fan is quite a nice bloke.

Opposite Sexes

Found this on Cliff's Blog (one of my Dad's bloggging mates).
Very funny.

The Difference between men and women.

Stormy

Wild weather has hit town today, making my bike ride with the year 10's a dodgy proposition this afternoon, and causing the cancellation of Beach Volleyball tonight. When I got there not only was nobody there, half the beach was missing too.
I came home and painted!

Only two more sleeps until I fly to Adelaide for the weekend to go to my niece Stacey's wedding.
Dad is coming down from Queensland and then we're driving back to WA across the Nullabor together, for driving companionship, and "some bonding" as Dad put it on the phone, pretty enlightened for a 70 year old Aussie male!

Good For Business? Hardly!

I don't drink alcohol.

I don't smoke.

I don't use other drugs.

But I am very partial to Vanilla Diet Coke.

I buy it in bulk when it's on special. I've been known to drive around to half a dozen shops and service stations looking for it, quite prepared to stay thirsty until I find some. (A fruitless search in Dunsborough by the way!)

So it's no great surprise that I drove 5km out of Bunbury to the Shell roadhouse yesterday afternoon in search of a VDC. (I was already in Bunbury for a doctor's appointment in case you're wondering.)

No good.

They didn't have any. There was row upon row of straight Coke, and even plenty of Diet Coke, but no Vanilla Coke, let alone Vanilla Diet Coke.

I wasn't happy.
I asked to speak to the manager. I figure I'm a customer, if I don't let him know what I'm looking for how can he provide for me?

After a couple of minutes he appears.

One of my kids has called me on the mobile so I can't speak to him straight away.
He walks away, wiping his hands on a paper towel, showing very little interest in me or anything I may have to say.

I get off the phone, follow him and introduce myself as a customer, offering a handshake and saying my name is Marcus. He didn't tell me his name.

"I'm a customer who comes through here reasonably often. I'm disappointed that you don't stock Vanilla Diet Coke, not even Vanilla Coke."

I don't know exactly what response I expected, but it certainly wasn't the one I got.

"No, and I won't be getting it in either, not just to satisfy one person".

He was wiping his hands of me in exactly the same manner as if I was the dirt he washed off before coming out at my request.
Am I naive or are people in business supposed to have a vested interest in gaining, keeping and satisfying customers?

"So you're not interested in my business?"
(Sure, I know a bottle of Coke isn't worth much, but if, as often happens, I want a drink and need petrol then he's got a potential customer of worth. I've bought fuel there plenty of times.)

"No I'm not".

I'm amazed at his bluntness and lack of courtesy.

"Well if you're not interested in my business I guess there's nothing else to say".
and I head for the door.

Not content with losing me he throws a taunt after me.

"I'm not losing a customer, I'm gaining business."

This totally flaws me because he's said directly to me that by not stocking a product I'm interested in he is improving his business!

How exactly?

Due to his lack of interest, rude response, dismissiveness and arrogance I can promise you that I will never buy petrol, Coke or anything else from his establishment again. How that can be good for his business is beyond me.

I want to stress that throughout this exchange I was polite and friendly, certainly up to the point when he treated me with such disdain.

Make up your own mind but I certainly won't be recommending the Shell Roadhouse just before you get to Bunbury to anyone!
PS. I couldn't find a picture of the Australian version of VDC on Google, but I did find disturbing news that both Vanilla Coke and Vanilla Diet Coke have been phased out in America and the UK!
That's not good!!

Willy Willy at school on Friday

How do these work? So many mysteries in the world!

Sunset over Subi

The good news started early with Geelongs big win against Richmond, continued on with the Dockers win over West Coast, and looks like concluding with a Tottenham win against Bolton in London which I am tracking on the web at the moment. Spurs are 3-1 up but have had a man sent off.

Wow!

It was a hot day and the sun was still high and hot at the start of the game, but by the 3rd quarter it was going down and we were treated to a stunning sunset over the stadium. I took several pictures then put my camera away but the sunset just kept getting better and more beautiful and I pulled it out twice more to take more shots.
How I'd have liked a wide angle lens and a higher quality camera to fully capture the scene.

Familiar Faces at the Footy

We sat quite close to two old mates from Carine, Big Bad Bruce, and Mike who is a fanatical Freo fan, consequently, by the time I spoke to him at 3/4 time he'd lost his voice from cheering the Dockers towards victory.
He and Bruce were both merry as a result of their hip flask enhanced Diet Cokes!
At the pre-game function for the AFL School Ambassador Program I met up with a former Carine student, Brad Smith, who plays for West Coast. Sadly he's had two knee reconstructions in the last two seasons, one of which resulted from an injury at a scratch match down at Busselton that Sport Boy and I went to. While I was chatting to Brad and listening to the lows and depression he went through dealing with his injuries, another former Carine student, Nicole came over and said g'day. She's a primary school teacher and a school ambassador. With all this reuniting of Carine people happening, (incidentally, Bruce Mike and I are all former Carine students as well
as staff members) it was sad to hear that the father of one of Nicole's school friends had died suddenly last week, aged just 53, of a heart attack. I encouraged Nicole to never pass up opportunities or waste time waiting for life to happen, we never know when we're going to die or how long we've got.
It was great to catch up with old friends, and to enjoy the footy.

Sport Boy Flying the Flag For Freo

Celebrating another Docker's goal in their convincing win V West Coast. We went up with Rod and Kate, having gotten free tickets as AFL School Ambassadors.

G'day Mate, it's Bruce, you know our boat?

Yeah.

Would you like it?

Confused silence.
What do you mean?

We don't have room for it any more and we were going to sell it but Simon said, "Why don't we give it to the Holts?

Wow!

So, would you like it?

Yeah! Fantastic. Thank you.

This conversation took place three days ago. This evening we met up at the Augusta Mission Team reunion in Bunbury and Bruce delivered the boat! He oriented me to it's features, how to load and unload it, how to start it and drive it, even how to clear the tricky little blockage that occasionally occurs in the carby etc. Never having owned a boat it was a bit of a crash course and I'll need some practical experience to really get the hang of it. It's not suited to real ocean going, more for rivers, or the days when Geographe Bay is calm and tranquil. It comes with a "Biscuit", an inflatable raft that you sit or lie on while being towed along by the boat! That's pretty cool!
I'll need to get my Skipper's Ticket and find out the ins and outs of owning a boat. One of the teachers at school runs classes to get a Skipper's ticket so I should be able to get that without too much drama.

Our main challenge is working out where to store it. It will have to live in the backyard for now, in between the trampoline and the rabbits.

Ahoy!

Wow!

At the Augusta Reunion tonight our team cook Jenny was a little late, having been at her son's wedding all day. We were all rapt to see her, especially as she looked so lovely all dressed up. I want to say this tactfully but this is not normally how we see Jen. She looked great and was glowing, a product no doubt of it being such a special day.
Mum and Walter called in for a while before heading to Perth. Mum flies out to Adelaide on Wednesday and I fly on Friday night, we're going over for my niece Stacey's wedding.
It's obviously wedding season because the following weekend is another niece, Jenna's wedding back here in Perth, so we'll be enjoying a double dose of family gatherings.

Mermaid Boy

At the beach carnival on Friday I went down to help Sport Boy and his friends in the sand sculpting competition. From the outset SB insisted that he be the subject of a mermaid sculpture so that's what we created. His faith was well founded because his team won first prize!

Ouch!

This happened at volleyball on Wednesday night. Despite this severe injury, and Carolyn's absence due to a 3 day headache, Quicksand won the match and secured our place in the finals in two weeks time.

A Good Night on the Road

I had one of my best nights ever in the cab, including 5 Dunsborough fares. These are the little gold nuggets we all seek after in amongst the common fares around busselton. On rare occasions there's even a diamond fare to Margaret River or Bunbury. The Dunsborough trips are fairly frequent but it's highly unusual to have 5 in one night. I was driving the Maxi Taxi tonight which means bigger groups and higher tarrifs. It was a pretty good night behaviour wise except for a very drunk and obnoxious mob from the footy team I picked up at the Esplanade! Not the sort of young men you'd want your daughter to bring home!

We have a busy weekend ahead. I'm on roster at the gallery tomorrow afternoon, then we're going to Bunbury for the Augusta mission team reunion. On Sunday Sport Boy and I are going up to Perth for the footy, the pre-season game between West Coast and Fremantle. The footy season is just around the corner! You Bewdy!

Good news, Carolyn is feeling better and is up and out of bed. She's not 100% yet but much better than she was.
I've just come from a staff sundowner playing beach volleyball and jumped in the shower before starting my Friday night taxi shift.
More good news, Sophie started a job at the Esplanade Hotel restaurant tonight as a waitress, it's been a while since she quit the Corner store so it's great that she's doing some work again.
If you aren't in the habit of visiting my Dad's blog, he has an awesome picture on it today taken at Hillarys Marina, truly amazing.

Wayne

I was just looking for a random picture to go with tonight's post, and found this one of a mate, Wayne, a real character and a great bloke.

Carolyn spent the day sick in bed, that's the second day in a row, and day three of a headache she can't seem to shake.Sophie cooked tea tonight and everyone was very complimentary.

I worked on paintings! I finished and framed the one I wasn't sure about last night. I'm still not totally sure but it's better than it was yesterday! I also bought some cards of local beach scenes painted by Jenny Taylor and put them in a frame which is now hanging in the dining room. We are seriously running out of wall space to hang things!I dropped my two bits of blokey art off at the gallery today for the "Modified" exhibition coming up next month and if I have time I'll make one or two more because they've only had two entrants so far! The main exhibition is by an artist called Paul Caporn, I looked at a catalogue of his work today and it's fantastic, full of humour and ingenuity, I'm looking forward to seeing it in the "flesh".

Jordan rang up a theatre director last night who is putting on a play about 5 young women and the 5 young men they go out with. He had placed an ad in the paper looking for young people to try out for the cast and he's very keen to meet Jordan and get him involved. I'm very pleased that Jordy is going to get involved in a drama production, the only small drawback is it is happening in Margaret River, with rehearsals twice a week for 10 weeks!

Keep Looking

Another recycled canvas, creating an interesting backdrop to this "patchwork" style picture, again combining textures, shapes, patterns and colours. It's probably my most unusual piece to date. Carolyn and Sport Boy both like this one. It needs framing to complete it.

9 Blue Squares

My Mum gave me this set of small canvases for my birthday in June but I haven't known what to do with them until now. Again, playing around with textures, the hot glue gun, and shades of blue. Sport Boy really likes these and has asked me to get him some so he can have a go himself.

Blue Coils

I painted over another picture that I wasn't happy with in order to make this one, you can just make out some of the shapes of the original beneath the blue, which I think adds something to it. I've been playing around with hot glue guns lately, trying out different effects, as you can see here.

Finished?

I've been working on this one for a few days but I can't decide whether it's finished or not! I added the diagonal "trunk" section last and I'm not sure what to do with it, remove it or add more or leave it as it is!

Ocean

One of my recent paintings.

Ocean

One of my recent paintings.

Meelup

Carolyn and I went for a walk along the rocks at Meelup on Sunday evening and I took lots of pictures trying to capture the textures, colours and patterns of the great wave washed boulders. Some worked, some didn't. I love the cracks in this rock and marvel at the forces that can split something so large and solid.

Today was the yr 8 swimming carnival; my only job was to set up the PA in the morning and pack it up in the afternoon.
After work I completed one of my artworks and pottered around with a few more then Sport Boy and I went down to the school oval at Mckillop to hit catches. I was belting a ball as high and as far as I could with a tennis racquet, Sport Boy was trying to catch them; it wasn't easy but to his credit he managed to catch 4-5. He just loves getting out and doing something with a ball or a bat or a racquet etc.

Later on I went to the movies to see The Good Shepherd, the story of the beginnings of the CIA. It was an intense and complex film, not easy to follow but still quite good and with a very strong cast. 7 out of 10!

Give me the Jackhammer

I had an MRI in Bunbury this morning, on my ankle. The Dr warned me it sounded like a jackhammer and then gave me chunky headphones with piped music; literally, there were two plastic pipes attached to the ear pieces, and proceeded to play me a selection of crooner music circa 1965. The only track I can recall the name of was "It's Not Unusual" by Tom Jones! It was a close contest between the piped music and the jackhammer!
The results will come back in a few days, requiring another trip to Bunbury to see the surgeon.

While in Bunbury I went to the Post Office to pay one of my speeding fines, preferring the relative anonymity of Bunbury to the "can't get away with much cause someone's always watching" confines of Busselton to pay my debt to society. It didn't work. The bloke behind the counter plays in my footy team! Busted!

After work I came home to work on a project in my makeshift workshop, the table on the back patio. I'm making a "Blokey" sculpture/piece of art out of an old jarrah weatherboard and a bunch of old guages, door handles, hooks and assorted hardware. It looks pretty good and once I apply the finishing touches I'm going to enter it in the Bloke's Art Exhibition down at the Courthouse Gallery. (Well, that's the plan, based on them accepting it!)
I worked on several paintings tonight, using a hot glue gun to create some interesting texture and patterns before applying the paint. It's quite effective, and fun to play around with a new technique.

Good news on the Sports Result front, Tottenham beat Fulham 4-0 last night to proceed to the quarter-finals of the FA Cup. I'm trying to arrange for The Heir to go and see a Spurs game while he's still in England, and I commented to him last night on Skype how cool it would be if Tottenham made it to the Cup Final and he was able to go, repeating my experience of 25 years ago. Here's hoping!

I Can See Our House!!

Our place is the 4th house along from the left, black tile roof, big trees in the front and back yards. Check out the size of the house with the white roof diagonally to the left, It's HUGE!! And you can see Alan and Sue's new shed and patio next door!

Preparing for Take-off

Ozzie took lots of groups up for scenic flights over Busselton and the jetty in his plane. I went for a flight which I enjoyed, I always like being up high and having a good view, but I must confess that the bumpiness didn't do my stomach much good and I've been burping and bringing up gas ever since!

Busselton Fly-In & Air Expo

We've just come home from an afternoon at the airport where they held an Air Expo. There were at least 50 planes and a few helicopters, scenic flights, aeronautic displays and skdivers.

Col. Mustard

Sport Boy went to a Cluedo Birthday Party & Sleepover last night, playing the part of Col. Mustard. He had a good time and got very little sleep. (Miss Scarlet did it, in the Conservatory, with the candlestick!)