Thoughts And Recollections Of A Tree Spirit

A Yorkshireman’s Advice to His Son

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Last Saturday afternoon Tom came round to our house to help make some beef burgers and lamb burgers for the barbequeue we were having at Collaroy Beach. It was to be the last proper get together we would have as the famous five (+2 with Gabbie & Nickie) before Chris, Steve, Tom and the girls all left.

I couldn’t resist filming Tom and his infamous Yorkshire accent – something which will be much missed after he has gone:

See all, hear all, say nowt,
Drink all, eat all, pay nowt.
If ever tha does out for nowt,
Alus do it for thi sen.

30.06.2008 Personal, Videos No Comments

Friday at the Surf Rock

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Last Friday was Tom, Chris and Steve’s last day at Plateau Tree Service. Tom will be heading out to Perth for a couple of months before returning to the UK. Chris and Steve are going to Cairns for a few days, then coming back to Collaroy for a day or two before heading out to Thailand. They are doing a bit of travelling before also then returning to the UK in September.

After work the lads came back to the yard for the usual Friday beers and we also had snags on the barbeque as is traditional when it’s someone’s last day. After this some of us decided to meet up again later at the Surf Rock in Collaroy for a proper knees up.

By the time Mat & I arrived at around 7.30pm everyone that was there was quite merry already.


Tom, Chris and Johnny


Chris and Steve
(more…)

27.06.2008 Personal, Pictures 1 Comment

New Walking Regime

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Tonight I started on what is hopefully going to be a road to recovery for my recent slothfulness.

It was Kat’s idea (as she has started a new office based job also) to join up and support each other in going for a brisk walk three nights a week. As it is winter at the moment it gets dark around 5pm (though now that Longest Night has passed the nights will be slowly drawing out) so we figured as well as having moral support and encouragement from each other when we may not be feeling as enthusiastic as we should, it would also be a lot safer going out together.

We set off from Kat’s house and walked to Narrabeen Lake, round the edge until we got to Woolworths (Aussie NSW equivalent to Tescos) where we crossed the road and nipped in so Kat could purchase a few groceries. We then continued to follow the lake edge for a short distance until houses prevented us from going any further, then we went east towards the sea and walked back via the road.

The whole walk didn’t take us much over half an hour but we were taking it at a brisk speed and by the time I got back I had worked up a good sweat so I think the length and pace was just right to start off with. We are all set to do the same again tomorrow :)

25.06.2008 Personal 1 Comment

Reccie of West Head

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

On Thursday, James (another Pommie) at work asked if Mat and I would be interested in getting up early Saturday morning and going somewhere nice to watch the sun rise for Winter Solstice. I was previously not aware that he was a fellow Pagan so it was nice to discover. He explained that when he was back in England he always used to spend Summer Solstice at Avebury and wanted to at least do something to acknowledge the Sabbat even if there are no standing stones here in Australia.

We asked a few people in the office of suitable places and one suggestion was made by Hayley of West Head. This is within Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park and there was a bit of debate as to whether the gates would be shut or not that early in the morning so we discussed a few other places and left it at that.

When I got home I relayed the discussions to Mat and we decided we would go out, there and then, on a reconnoitre. Here is another map from Google Earth that I have annotated slightly to show where we went:

(more…)

23.06.2008 Personal, Pictures No Comments

Palm Beach Jaunt

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

After a lazy loll in bed on Saturday morning until 9am Mat and me decided it would be nice to go out for a late breakfast/early lunch. A quick shower later we were in the Suzuki and on our way to find a nice little cafe somewhere we hadn’t been before. We ended up on Warriewood Beach (the second one up from Narrabeen) which was absolutely chocker with surfer dudes as the waves were pretty big. After paying $3 for a parking ticket however (something which isn’t all that common except in the city and on the popular beach fronts) we were disappointed to find the beach cafe was just closing so we went for a little walk up to Turimetta Head to watch the surfers instead.

After we’d been blown about by the wind for a bit we made our way back to the car and ended up in a little cafe in Narrabeen that we had actually been to before with Tom, Steve and Chris back in the summer. We had to sit inside this time but it was nice and cosy and I had the most fabulous huge vege burger for less than $9 with a camomile tea. If I could remember the name of the place I would highly recommend it.

After our meal we decided to go for a little jaunt and ended up driving all the way up the Barrenjoey peninsula to Palm Beach where I took the following photo:


(more…)

19.06.2008 4x4, Aussie places/info of interest, Personal, Pictures 3 Comments

Moonrise Over Collaroy Beach

Friday, June 13th, 2008

Last month I was driving home from work and was stopping off at Tom and Chris’ on the way to pick up Mat as he was round there having a beer with them. As I was driving down the hill I marvelled at the beautiful mauve sky which complimented the almost full (it was one day off), silvery moon perfectly.

As I approached the turn off to Fielding Street instead of turning right I decided to pull over into the beach front car park and take some pictures first.

The following are some of the better results I got and considering I did not have a tripod I think they have come out quite well (if you click on the photos you can display them at full size if you wish):

This photo shows the moon over the sea with a bit of Norfolk Island Pine showing in the foreground (a tree which is prolific along many beach fronts in the Sydney area due to it having favourable properties for making ships’ masts; in the olden days damaged ships could pull in, cut them down to build new masts and then continue on their way).
(more…)

13.06.2008 Personal, Photography, Pictures 2 Comments

Bare Foot Bowls

Friday, June 6th, 2008

The Sunday before last (25th May) was the Plateau social event, Bare Foot Bowling, at Manly Rock & Bowl Club. Work has this new system where everyone (if they want to) pays $2.50 a week into a social club kitty and then this goes towards social team building events like this.

I was a bit worried that it would be cold and damp as the weather forecast was not very promising but luckily it drizzled a bit in the morning and then turned into a beautifully sunny day. Despite being called bare foot bowls we were allowed to wear shoes as long as they had completely flat soles with no heel. This I was glad about because I get cold feet very easily and if my feet get cold then the rest of me gets cold – I think I am showing my age!

After taking a while to find a parking space (Manly is horrific for metered or time limited parking, something which isn’t generally a problem compared to the UK) and finally finding the place Mat, Tom and I met up with the others in the club bar. We had drinks and snag sizzlers to start off with while we waited for more of the Plateau crew to arrive.

Not everyone showed up but we finally decided we had better get started and all made our way out onto the green for instruction and a demo as most of us had never played before.

A motley crew
(more…)

06.06.2008 Personal, Pictures 1 Comment

Hip Hop Lyrics Deciphered

Thursday, June 5th, 2008

I owe my appreciation of hip hop and rap to my bro who introduced me to the genre about ten years ago now. I used to spend long hours just chilling round at his yard and consequently, as he is big into his hip hop, got to listen to a lot of it.


Rap Artists is a website which lists hip hop and rap artists’ song lyrics. As well as this, each artist that is listed also has a biography and other information of interest, eg. discography listing. The site is quite comprehensive and has a lot of useful information aside from the lyrics including a forum. The one disadvantage that I can see is that so far it only lists what I would class as popular artists or American artists. I did a search for a few of my UK faves, Taskforce and Phi-Life Cypher, and these were not on here, neither was The Herd or Pegz (Aussie hip hop artists that I have discovered since living over here). However, new artists are being added all the time so maybe they will feature in the future.

05.06.2008 Beats, Miscellaneous 2 Comments