Thoughts And Recollections Of A Tree Spirit

Farewell Harold Bishop

Monday, March 31st, 2008

Friday marked a sad occasion in the history of Neighbours as Harold Bishop said his last goodbyes before driving off into the sunset to travel Australia. Apparently he will make a few guest appearances over the following year but basically has left the soap. I was somewhat disappointed at the anti-climax of his departure and think that, after nearly twenty years, he deserved more of a monumental send off than a few chants of his name as he drove off down Ramsay Street. After all, he was one of the last few cast members from “back in the day”. Even when he got washed off the cliff back in the early nineties I kept the faith and knew he’d be back. What more can I say but “Harold Bishop, you were much loved and will be sadly missed”! :(

Harold Bishop

31.03.2008 Personal No Comments

First Night in the Blue Mountains

Friday, March 28th, 2008

After leaving Gideon’s we called in at Brendan’s house to pick up two camping mattresses he kindly said he would lend us, then made one last stop at Paul’s house in Parramatta to check his post as he is currently back in the UK and finally we were on our way to the Blue Mountains.

Tom and Chris were also coming camping with us but we planned to meet them at the campsite as they wanted to watch the football (zzz) first. It didn’t take us that long to get there from Parramatta (roughly 1.5 hours) and Brendan’s directions to the campsite were exceptional. We were very lucky, in fact, that Brendan was round at Gideon’s house on Thursday evening when we popped in after work, as the whole trip was a bit last minute and we had initially planned to just drive around until we found a campsite that wasn’t fully booked. On hearing this Brendan immediately said he knew of an excellent place that he goes to every Easter (this one being an exception as he and his wife now have a 6 week old baby) that always has space, is next to a river, has toilets and showers and allows open log fires. He then drew me an intricate map as standard Australian road maps don’t seem to cover the Blue Mountains in detail and stop entirely short of the campsite. Very handy! (more…)

28.03.2008 Aussie places/info of interest, Personal, Pictures 4 Comments

Redback Spider in the Log Pile

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

I am now back at work after having had a fantastic Easter weekend camping in the Blue Mountains. However, before I post any accounts of our adventures away I want to start at the beginning.

Before Mat and I started off on our trip we stopped at Gideon’s to pick up a few bits and pieces he was kindly lending us. As well as some spare tent pegs, ground mats and camping stove he suggested we also take the ute down to the bottom of his paddock and load up with wood from his log pile. As it was already spitting slightly and the weather was likely to get worse in the mountains we agreed this was a good idea and went off to get some.

We all started piling on the logs and were nearly finished when Mat suddenly exclaimed he’d made a discovery; he’d picked up another bit of wood and was about to throw it in with the others when he spotted this little beauty:

Redback Spider with Egg Sac Redback Spider closeup
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25.03.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Pictures No Comments

Easter in the Blue Mountains

Friday, March 21st, 2008

Just a quick post to say we are off camping in the Blue Mountains today until Sunday with Tom & Chris.

I’m very excited as we have booked to go adventure caving in Jenolan Caves which involves some abseiling and proper pot holing – should be much fun. We also hope to have a ride on the world’s steepest railway and obviously go and see The Three Sisters. We meant to do this back in November for my birthday but it was raining and we never got around to it since. It’s raining a bit now but hey ho, apparently it always rains over Easter and it doesn’t spoil the fun.

Right, better go finish packing and do last minute organising. Hopefully will be back with some great pictures to post.

Happy Easter everyone :-)

21.03.2008 Personal No Comments

Lizard in the Toilet

Thursday, March 20th, 2008

Last Friday Hayley returned to the office after visiting the lady’s dunny across the yard saying there was a lizard on the toilet wall, so of course I grabbed my camera and ran off to see for myself. This is what I found:

Lizard on toilet wall 1 Lizard on toilet wall 2

This is probably the second most common lizard I have seen here so far. I have seen them up to about 10cm in length not including their tail. They are very smooth and skink like in appearance but as much as I have tried googling various descriptions I cannot find out what exactly they are.

If anyone has any ideas or there are any experienced herpetologists out there that can help I would love to hear from you :-)

20.03.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Pictures 4 Comments

Sunday Breakfast, Surfing & Another BBQ!

Friday, March 14th, 2008

Mat and I had a bit of a lie in on Sunday, finally getting up around 9am when Mat’s stomach started yelling at him (this is the usual factor that determines when we get up on the weekend and when you’re used to getting up between 5 and 5.30am, 9am is a considerable lie in). Unfortunately we had forgotten to go shopping and get bacon and mushrooms etc for our usual Sunday fry up so instead decided to go out for breakfast.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day so we thought we would drop in on the boys first, wake them up and see if they wanted to join us for brekkie. We all ended up piling down to Narrabeen and finding a little cafe that did freshly squeezed juices and the biggest fry ups you’ve ever seen. Not even Mat could finish his and that’s saying something! After breakfast we went to Warriewood Mall to do a quick spot of shopping before going home to change into our swimming gear, then back round to the boys’ to go surfing.

The surf was pretty pants on Collaroy beach but from what we could tell it wasn’t much better anywhere else so we decided to stay local. This time it was Chris who brought his camera and started happy snapping before we got in the sea:

The Famous Pommy Five on Collaroy Beach Three Surfer Dudes Picking on Tom Again Cis & Mat, Surf Dudes (more…)

14.03.2008 Personal, Pictures No Comments

Saturday Beer Session, a BBQ & a Possum

Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

After the previous night’s beer session I wasn’t sure if the boys would be up for another one so soon but after Mat and I enjoyed a nice relaxing day we gave them a ring mid-afternoon to discover they were. The Sunday previous, Mat and I had invited Tom, Chris & Steve round for a BBQ (our first chance to entertain with our newly acquired beast which we got for a bargain $40 at a garage sale). We had much fun so they offered to do one for us the following week but on a Saturday as opposed to a “work night”.

We bought the beer and they bought the meat and after meeting at their place we then all trekked the massive two minute walk across the road to the beach. The boys don’t have a barbeque so they suggested we use one of the public ones on Collaroy beach.

We got there at about 9pm only to discover a group of Aussie lads appearing to be already using the barbies. On closer inspection we saw that they had finished cooking and after introducing ourselves as visiting Pommies they made room for us. However, one or two of them were pretty drunk and an especially obnoxious (and probably twatted on something) lad decided it would be fun to start throwing leftover snags at us followed by a handful of margerine. Fortunately most of them were appalled by his behaviour and apologising, managed to herd him away leaving us in peace. (more…)

12.03.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Pictures 1 Comment

Friday Beer Session

Monday, March 10th, 2008

It has started to become a bit of a habit of mine and Mat’s now of finishing work on a Friday, going back to the yard for some Plateau beer (the boss buys a crate for the boys once a week if they’ve been good) and then going back to Gideon’s house for more beers (Gideon has his own tree surgery company but contracts for Plateau sometimes). This will have been the third Friday now, only this week there were no beers at the yard due to too many fag butts being left lying around!

Gideon has a fantastic house about five minutes drive from the yard. It’s a massive crib with a big workshop underneath to house all his kit and a big paddock on the side, perfect for hosting beer sessions and barbeques etc. And what a host he is! The Friday before last he provided all the beer and last Friday, all the beer again plus his girlfriend bought and prepared a lovely barbeque for us, Chris (aka Dolph Lundgren due to his massive stature) and his Canadian girlfriend Lindsey.

This week myself, Mat, Steve (aka The Inch due to his constant tales of and references to his “angry inch”) and Chris (sometimes known as Caravan Chris because he used to live in a caravan or Mr Bean due to his gait) went to the bottle shop/bottle’o (Aussie for off licence) handily located just over the road, to pick up a crate of beer first. When we arrived we found Gideon, Dolph, Lindsey and Christian already sat round a newly constructed beer table relaxing in true Aussie fashion. (more…)

10.03.2008 Personal, Pictures No Comments

Eastern Water Dragon

Friday, March 7th, 2008

So far I’m really enjoying my new role in the office. However, one downside is that I will no longer be out in the field to spot all the wonderous wildlife that comes our way.

Yesterday I had a pleasant surprise though; I was quietly working away at the crews’ work schedules for the next day when Ant suddenly calls out for me to come and have a look at the big lizard running across the yard. We have a cocus palm round the back which has been dropping it’s little orange fruits and it had obviously been having a munch on these because it still had one in it’s mouth as it ambled along. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera on me but I instantly recognised it as an Eastern Water Dragon (Physignathus lesueurii lesueurii). Me and Mat had the pleasure of seeing one of these earlier on in the year when we were doing some tree work at a client’s house and took the opportunity of taking some photographs:

Eastern Water Dragon Eastern Water Dragon closeup Eastern Water Dragon

(more…)

07.03.2008 Australian Flora & Fauna, Personal, Pictures 1 Comment

Happy Announcement

Wednesday, March 5th, 2008

Some of you may have noticed that I have updated my relationship status on Facebook to show that Mat and I are engaged to be married :-)

Yes, last Friday I decided to take advantage of the fact it was the 29th of February (a leap day or intercalary day as it seems to be known as here in Oz) and as tradition allows, propose to Mat.

The tradition of women proposing on this one day in every four years is said to stem back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland. Saint Bridget complained that the nuns were unhappy about their lack of control over marriage proposals (celibacy vows were not a requirement then) so Saint Patrick agreed to give them the right to propose one day in every four years. Upon this, Saint Bridget proposed to Saint Patrick to which he declined, but to soften the blow he gave her a kiss and a silk gown. This gave rise to another tradition whereby men who refuse a women’s leap day proposal must pay a fine, ranging from a kiss to a silk gown. I am happy to say I will be claiming no such fine. (more…)

05.03.2008 Personal 6 Comments

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