Monday, May 28, 2007

Enter the Cheese Man

Well, I'm currently writing this update on a laptop borrowed from a friend here at Cornerstone. Our laptop died again a week ago and has been in for repair ever since. At the same time the network PCs here at Cornerstone have stopped working too, so we've been totally isolated from the World-Wide-Interweb for a whole week. In other news, the world has kept on turning.

Apart from death-by-no-Internet-access, things have been pretty interesting here. The Sunday just gone was the fortieth anniversary of the Referendum that classed Aboriginals (the term used here is 'indigenous Australians') as citizens. It came as something as a shock to me to find that the original occupants of this country have only been allowed to vote for the past forty years. I've been ambivalent about this information. On the one hand it seems crazy to me that such a simple thing as being allowed to vote could be so recent, but on the other hand I can't forget that it was us Brits that started the ball rolling when we claimed this country for our own and imposed our culture on the people of this land. On Sunday evening I went to West Dubbo Parish church for a 'Service of Reconciliation' to recognise the Referendum of forty years ago. The Church of the Good Shepherd is, interestingly enough, a majority Aboriginal congregation so the service was especially poignant for many people there. It was quite an experience to be on the other side of the world sitting in an Anglican church being led in a Graham Kendrick song by guitar-playing indigenous Australians. It was probably about as English as it's possible to get in a foreign land, but the focus of the service was something that transcended national boundaries and I was glad to be there. I missed the end of the service though as I had to leave early to make an 8pm appointment with Matt. We had prearranged to play Tekken on the PlayStation 2. Feel free to judge me.

Calvin has been given the 'all clear' as far as his grommet troubles go. In case you didn't know before we left there was some uncertainty expressed about whether or not he would need an operation to remove a grommet that might have fallen into his ear. We had an appointment with a doctor here, who told us that he's sure that the grommet has fallen out rather than in so everything's fine. The doctor turned out to not only be a fellow Brit but one who had done time at The Princess Royal in Haywards Heath so he was well acquainted with all of the various specialists who had seen Calvin.

It's actually been a great experience to spend even just a few months as a visitor in a foreign country. It has enabled me to empathise a bit more what it must be like to be a visitor to the UK. True, it's no real hardship to be a Pom in Australia, especially in a place like Dubbo - everyone here's really friendly and we speak the same language (mostly) - but it's still a different land. There are enough differences in society and culture and enough nuances in the language to make me very aware, at times, of the fact that we are strangers here. For a Christian it can never be a bad thing to experience something different, something that enables you to better understand others and aid them in their troubles.

Reid has been showing signs of a highly-developed sense of humour for a nearly-three year old. It's good that he's advanced in at least one area of his life because he's still in nappies and stubbornly refuses to use a potty or toilet. Never mind. I heard once that Einstein was still in nappies at twelve years old or something like that. It must be true because I saw it on the Internet. Anyway, the other day the boys were commenting about Xanthe's baby rice and Ruth was reminding them that they used to eat that kind of thing. She said to Reid that he would eat anything except cheese, which is strange because now he really likes cheese - "don't you Reid?". Reid replied "Yes I do. They call me the cheese man". Where this particular slice of comic genius came from I don't know, but the idea of a two-year old proudly declaring that the world knows him as 'The Cheese Man' has made me and others laugh all week. That'll do pig, that'll do.

All the best for impending fatherhood Bendle McRendle. May I recommend the name 'Cheese Man' for your firstborn?

Maybe next time I can write from my own computer. Maybe not. We'll see. Have a great week guys. Thanks for reading.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Back in business.


Hooray! Our laptop has been fixed so we are now able to e-mail more regularly, use Skype and I'm able to work from home instead of having to venture into the computer room and use one of the network PCs. I thought I'd celebrate by showing you a picture of Australia. This is what it looks like. I think it's pretty beautiful and I didn't even take a photo of the best bits.

Last night (Friday) I was at a party to celebrate the launch of the 2007 Rhino Awards. The awards are organised by Dubbo Chamber of Commerce and Industry and it's kind of like the Oscars for local businesses. It's a big deal in Dubbo. Pizza Runners won a couple of things last year if I've understood correctly. I don't think that The Mat Exchange won anything but that doesn't surprise me. We're a humble, low-key but essential service provider. Without us the War on Dirt will remain unwon. I think that you get hundreds and hundreds of people at the actual awards ceremony but last night was a much smaller affair. I was there mixing with financial experts, media whiz-kids and leading exporters in the field of biotechnology as a guy who cleans dirty mats and drives a white van around Dubbo. I think we're a shoe-in for an award this year. Whatever happens my presence there last night might have been enough to get my photo in the freebie local paper Dubbo Photo News and possibly, just possibly in the not-freebie paper The Daily Liberal. I am concerned, of course, that appearing in a paper called The Daily Liberal will damage my hard-core Evangelical street cred. Still, it'll make a nice change to appear in a newspaper without the words "Laughing Stock of the Entire Nation" being used in the accompanying article.

It's rained a lot since we last wrote, but the country is still in the grip of a severe drought. You wouldn't know it though - everyone is perpetually positive and optimistic about the future.


We've had plenty of brushes with the local wildlife recently. Ruth lives in mortal fear of the mice that have been spotted around the centre, the wet weather has brought some of the spiders inside (a couple of days ago I saw a large spider that had the gall to rear up and show it's fangs when it felt threatened) and we've had an echidna in our garden. An echidna? "What's one of them?" you may ask, to which I reply "Look it up on Google you lazy so-and-so". But for those of you who don't know what Google is (even though you're looking at this page on the Internet) I basically tell you that it's a spiny anteater. They roll up into a ball when they don't like what's going on, so the photo below is of an inverted echidna. It's in a ball thinking "I'm nice and safe in here. Ha ha!" totally unaware that we've picked it up and turned it upside down to expose it's soft underbelly to my camera. You can see it's long snout and super deformed 'hands'. Isn't nature wonderful/really ugly?


Xanthe has started on solids and been feasting on butternut squash mixed with milk and baby rice. It looks disgusting and probably tastes even worse but she doesn't know any better so wolfs it all down. She doesn't have a clue! Hah! Once again I prove myself able to outsmart a five-month old baby.

We saw Spiderman 3 a few days ago. Although it wasn't the best of the trilogy it was still, ironically, about 300 times better than 300.

Well, hopefully things will get back to 'normal' now so the updates will be a bit more informative. Have a good week!

Sunday, May 13, 2007

A Lemon Tree, My Dear Watson.

Still no laptop so still no photos. I'm sorry, because I've got a couple of beauts to show you.

Reid introduced Laurie and Elvira to the delightful English custom of scrumping today. We were at their house with a couple of other families enjoying a lovely Mexican feast to celebrate Mother's Day, yes - that's right, down under they have Mother's Day in May. I got stung having to celebrate twice this year. Stupid custom. Where was I? Oh yes. I went outside to get Calvin and Reid so that we could go home and found Reid with two fistfuls of lemons that he'd helped himself to from a lemon tree growing outside Laurie and Elvira's house. I felt it was a very British response to the situation. "Thank you for inviting us to your country and feeding us. We'll now help ourselves to your home grown produce and be on our way". Of course, Laurie and Elvira didn't mind. Australians are, in general, lovely.

On the subject of fruit, we visited the nice town of Orange last week. On the way there we stopped off at Wellington and had morning tea at The Cactus Cafe. It's a brilliant place. Possibly the best milkshakes that I have ever tasted. And that's no fib.

I've discovered that another name for 'morning tea' is 'smoko'. It comes from the typical Aussie approach to long words which is, as previously mentioned, to shorten them and add an 'o' on the end. Smoko is short for 'Smoking Break' and has found its way into general parlance to the extent that it's even possible to find preschools that talk of giving the children smoko. I can now understand why Ramsey Street and Summer Bay are full to the brim of morons and wayward psychopaths. They were given smoko as children.

Some more Aussie words - muso (musicians), compo (compensation for injured workers - c.f. benefits) and - a splendidly Christian example - devos (for 'devotions' and not 'deviants').

I'll try and keep the blog updated but I'm sure that you appreciate that it's a bit harder without a handy computer in my room. We might be able to borrow one shortly, which will help, and hopefully PC World will return my e-mails and advise me as to what to do next with my laptop. Have a nice day. I know that we will.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Disaster Strikes!

This is a very brief post to let loyal readers know that our three-month old laptop has gone a bit wrong. Don't buy British! Or Chinese. Or wherever my PC was put together out of reject parts by someone who wasn't concentrating on the job at hand.

Anyway, this'll be the last post (pun intended) until I can get it fixed. I just hope that people out in the Australian outback know what they're doing with high-tech equipment.

"Hey, thanks for fixing my....what the Dickens have you done?"

"Well, the blades weren't turning and I couldn't..."

"MY LAPTOP! NO! MY BRAND NEW LAPTOP!"

"Laptop? I thought it was a combine harvester..."

Better go as it's 10am so I'm officially late for work.