Shopping malls

Dear readers,

Today I had the car and went to the big Westfield shopping mall in Miranda. I hate going there, I really do ..... the parking house, the noise in the food courts, the  crowds in the shops, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and do it. It is the closest place to where I live where you can get my favorite Norwegian goat cheese and also French Comte cheese. It is also where the art shop is where I get my painting stuff. But I wasn't in a good mood when I swept down the escalator. I decided to have a cappuccino to calm my nerves after the parking palaver that took half an hour, and sat down and ordered one. The waitress was exceedingly nice and friendly. Then the people sitting next to me struck up a conversation, they were also extremely nice. It is hard to keep up your grumpy attitude when you are met by such kindness and friendliness. I ended up getting my errands done quite quickly and effortlessly thanks to this nice welcome.

The big news otherwise is that only son bought a Harley Davidson. You can hear him a mile a way when he comes to visit. Hubby is green with envy and he was so grateful when he was allowed to take the bike for a spin last week-end.

Hubby did lift his feet up eventually

When he had been away about five minutes our son said "Are you sure he took his phone?". After another five minutes he started fretting about the fact that Dad had maybe not thought to bring his driver's license, in case he was stopped. I must say it brought back memories of all the times we, as parents worried about our son being out on his moped, when we lived in France.

Anyway, hubby returned safely and now I am being bombarded with arguments for how practical and safe it is with motorbikes?!?!

Oh, by the way, we are now cat free, and it is amazing what a difference that makes. We can set the table and leave food out without fearing that the cat has jumped up on the table to steal a few choice morsels or just shedding some fur. Franjo is now reunited with his rightful owner and I am sure he is going to like it there.

Before I leave you I just wanted to spread the good news that the mayor of New York has initiated a campaign to try to stop the 'manspread', and I hope it reaches us here in Sydney too. When I went to Manly the other day, there were two men taking up a bench that could easily have seated four, it is so annoying, and the worst is that they don't even notice. Better go before I start another rant.

Wishing you all a great week end! Bye!

Yes, we are in....

....in the Eurovison Song Contest, that is. It will be fun to see what happens. I know that the contest has always been very popular  here with all the Europeans living  in Australia, so for the 60-year anniversary it is nice that Australia qualified. My loyalties will yet again be divided amongst Sweden, France and Australia. It happens all the time, in soccer as well.  Bring on the wind machine !

Swedish singer Carola who won the Eurovision once upon a time

And who can forget ABBA winning in 1974, especially
here in Australia, where they became very popular

So, continuing with art and culture, being a bit tongue in cheek here, calling our painting group, art, and Eurovision Song Contest, culture.

I went out for lunch with my ladies in the painting group. Some of the people in my group were there and the rest were "old" students. I say old, because they really were quite old but we had such a great time. You know elderly ladies are just young giggly girls when they get together.

One lady in her late 80's was wondering if anybody wanted to take her to see  "50 Shades of Grey" which is due to come to the cinemas here very soon. She had seen the ad on TV and thought it looked good! She wanted to go to the showing at 11 because they also serve morning tea. There might be an increase in whips and hand cuffs according to the press, so good business, I guess.

We have a spider living in the car door. When I first saw it I thought it was a leaf blowing away near the door because it was very windy but now I have seen it several times. It is very shy and just comes out for a second, then it goes back into the door somewhere. It is huge and I wish it could pose for a photo because I know you are not going to believe me. We have to get rid of it before my sister in law comes for a visit since she hates spiders, however, I think she has a hard time understanding why I am not very fond of cats.

Speaking of cats, they are nearly holy here in Australia. Everyone has one, or want one or had one when they were little. And not just one, it can be two or three in an average family. Maybe that is why this problem has cropped up, who knows.

Anyhow, let me post this now so I can leave with hubby and be dropped off at the bus stop. I am going to Manly to have lunch with a Swedish girl friend.

Thanks for reading, and come back soon!





,

Sad news from Asheville

I have been on my own for a few days while hubby has been to a conference. He is coming back today and I have to tell him the sad news that my stepmother, Mary, has passed away. She was 93 years old living in a nursing home in Asheville, and on her last day she did the crossword as usual, had lunch, then laid down for her afternoon nap, and when the personal came to get her she didn't respond and was taken to ER and then passed away in the night. I guess it is a merciful way to go.

Mary was my father's second wife and they never had any children so she considered me to be her daughter. I will miss her and our telephone conversations very much. She was always so interested in our life and what we and the children were doing.

Mary and my father in 2006

On a completely different note, today I read and article, in The Guardian I think, about the word mansplain, (or, better, the urban-dictionary definition) which is when a man in his superior way explains something to a mere woman. I will try to remember this great word together with all the other new words popping up all over the place. Don't know if I can use it in Scrabble though. I am sure that, if you are a women reading here, you have had a man doing some mansplaining to you once or twice in your life, right?

Taken from the Manly ferry - two icons in one!

Must go now and get some stuff for the pool since it has gone all greenish while hubby has been away. We are having a bbq on Sunday so it needs to look inviting in case it is hot and people want to have a dip.

Have a great weekend!

Long absence

Dear readers,

Sorry I have been so quiet lately but I am just now able to crawl out from under the big rock where I have been hiding. Lots of things have been happening, both good and bad.

Amongst the good things would be our neighbours from Montbonnot visiting, which was great and also our Swedish friends, back for their second visit, and before that our Spanish and Japanese friends staying with us while working with hubby. There was also hubby's end-of-year party which was held in a Spanish restaurant with tapas and flamenco dancing, good fun but thank goodness we didn't have to do the flamenco dancing; it is pretty intense!

We also had a nice wedding to go to in Hepburn Springs which was lovely.  As the name indicates there were natural springs there and we had a good soak the day after the wedding. They also had mineral water that was good for different things, that you could collect yourself in bottles and take home. One man told me he had bad arthritis before, but since he started drinking this water he was cured! I tried the mineral water, of course, but I was not a great fan, unlike hubby who has strong pleasant memories of it from when he was very young.

Here is a sight you do not see so often!
Do you like the formal silver thongs?

Testing the waters of Hepburn Springs today ...

... and a scant 60 years earlier

Near Hepburn Springs is the cute town of Trentham, which
plays on its nearness to the Wombat State Forest.  When did
you last visit an Emporium?

Then on to Melbourne and a very quick visit with family, finishing off with Christmas lunch at the eldest niece and her husband; we were over 20 people I think and it went very well.  It was great to see everybody but unfortunately the host became very ill with some sort of tummy bug and had to be taken to hospital later on.

No visit to Victoria would be complete without seeing the
12 Apostles (make that nine thanks to erosion).

Continuing with the bad side, was that we hit a kangaroo driving back from Melbourne to Sydney in the night. It was quite upsetting. He died right away so we just pulled him of the road and we were able to continue driving even though the front was pretty badly smashed up. It took almost two weeks to be repaired.

Oh, almost forgot, we also had a flat tyre driving down to Victoria, fortunately hubby was able to change it so we could continue and have it fixed properly later on.  It was my fault, I thought I was just driving over a piece of paper. Instead of swerving to avoid it I drove right over what turned out to be some very hard cardboard with nails in it.

To continue with unpleasant things, I also managed to get a very long lasting flu which already started on Christmas Day and I am still coughing. I guess I was due since I have not been sick since we came to Australia four years ago.  So there you have it, my life in a nutshell, since last time I wrote here.

I have to continue mentioning bad and sad things, because we can't forget the terrorist attacks. The one in Sydney in a coffee shop in Martin Place where three people died and the one in Paris where many more people were killed. There have also been other terrorist attacks and sometimes it is increasingly difficult "looking on the bright side of things" as they sing in Life of Brian, but I guess you have to try, right!

Kissing

Going for a fishy kiss

or as the French say "faire la bise", is an art that is not always so easy to master. I mean first you have the different regions where they either do two kisses, one on each cheek or you have areas where they do three and even some regions where they do four kisses. I mean one on one cheek and then one on the other and then back to the first cheek and finishing off back on the second. You really have to know and this is only in France; Heaven knows what they get up to in the other Mediterranean countries.

The other conundrum is whom do you kiss. Foreigners frequently make mistakes here and think you kiss everybody you know, but no no no. There is a protocol even here, but generally children always kiss adults as a greeting when they are friends of the family. You kiss your friends and family and sometimes your friend's friends.

In high school teenage girls kiss both their male and female classmates, every morning. Boys kiss the girls and shake hands with other mates, again, every morning. I used to be so intrigued by this, I would sit outside school for a while in my car after having dropped the kids off, just observing this little endearing ritual.

The same kissing procedure is also common in a workplace, where the female workers kiss each other and also the male workers, and the male workers shake hands. Of course you don't kiss your boss. I worked in a place with mostly foreigners and we sadly didn't kiss.

Here in Australia they also kiss but just once. However if you are family or close friends you can also kiss on the mouth. Obviously it is just a peck, not a long lingering kiss but still, I was quite taken aback at first. If you are of the older generation, like my dear departed father-in -aw, you tend to shake hands, I think. At least that is what he did with hubby when we were picked up at the airport for my first visit to Australia. I thought it was a bit cold at first, since they hadn't seen each other for years, but I guess it was a very hearty handshake and he had tears in his eyes.

In Sweden it is a little different. Of course you have the people who have traveled the world and who have adopted the cheek kissing or rather kissing in the air since most people don't even touch your cheek with their lips. But generally we Swedes, like the Russians, hug, mostly big bear hugs full frontal. Sometimes it's manly touching of the shoulder in a hug while also shaking hands, it depends. Hubby finds these hugs difficult and can't help himself going into Sheldon mode .

Here is another way of greeting each other, rubbing noses,
Maori style. It has not taken off in Europe yet though.

Let me see, what is there to tell otherwise. Oh yes, our Swedish friends, from the north of Sweden are here visiting their daughter and her family. They came to our house for a barbecue last week, on the hottest day for a long time. I think it reached +40°C. It was okay though, thanks to the pool, but I am not allowed to publish any pool photos.  I wonder why!

The parrot is King!

My tomatoes are coming on and the first one to savour one of them was this King parrot, who comes around now and then. I guess they have to eat too, but I wish they would finish their food. He just took one nibble and let it drop.

So, time to say goodbye. Thank you for reading. Wishing everyone a good week! Hope to see you back soon!

Two thirty

... or as hubby always says "Tooth hurtee. Time to go to the dentist.". This was very much the case with me the other day. I had had a toothache off and on for a while and the time had come to bite the bullet (silly expression in this case since I would probably injure another tooth) and go to the dentist. I just went to the closest one to where we live, and what a stroke of luck that was. It was a true gentleman of Asian descent and his surgery was topnotch. We had to decide on how to deal with this tooth, extraction, inplant, bridge, or a simple root-canal job with a crown. I opted for the last, wanting to hang on to my own stumps as long as possible, and then the fun started. He took some X-rays and showed me the inside of my mouth on a big TV screen - not a pretty sight.  Then he started giving me loads of injections which I love him for.  He also gave me a pair of chic sunglasses to put on (for the bright overhead light) and ear phones (so I wouldn't hear the drilling etc) and put a chick flick on the TV. All we needed was a palm tree and a pool, it was so comfy there in the lounge chair. Sadly, he finished before the end of the movie so now I have to go out and rent it.

Now over to King Valley where we went last week. It is becoming a bit of a tradition that we go away over a long week end once a year with hubby's old bikie friends and their wives. This time it was a seven-hour drive for us but of course less for them coming from Melbourne. The owner of King Valley Estate where we were staying was called Trevor Knaggs. He is a really pleasant and hospitable fellow. If you are a backpacker looking for farm work, give him a call.

Last night's pizza dinner made in Trevor's pizza oven.

Serious winetasting taking place.

When Trevor heard I was Swedish he gave me "the task"
of finding him a Swedish wife.

The time passed very quickly in King Valley with wine tasting and sightseeing. When we returned home we found that our French visitors had adapted very well to Australia. The day after our return we took them up to the Blue Mountains. There we met a lady who overheard us speaking French who was herself from Bordeaux but from Touareg origin.. She let me take her photo. She was dressed in a Touareg outfit since she was visiting Australia for some international project

It's time to say goodbye for now and hope you enjoyed your little read and that you will come back.

A good deed

....is sometimes quite difficult to accomplish. Take hubby's last effort for example. The following incident took place when I was in Sweden recently and hubby was on his own.

It was a very grey and miserable day, pouring with rain as he was driving to work.  A particularly determined fellow commuter passed him just before the two lanes narrowed into one, finishing by swooping into his lane a little too soon for comfort.  Hubby then noticed a bunch of keys dangling from the boot lock of the other person's car.  He flashed his lights a few times to try to attract the other driver's attention, but that was probably mistaken for a touch of road rage.  He hoped the person would turn into the road leading to his place of work, but no, the other person continued along the main road.

That's when the Good Samaritan gene kicked in, and despite risking being late for work, hubby continued along the main road to stop just behind the other person at the next traffic lights.  He hopped out of his car, ran up to the other driver's window, and tapped on it.  The other person, a woman of a similar age, overcame her fear of a road-rage attack and wound down the window.  Hubby said,"You have left your keys in the boot. I'll get them for you."  The last words must have been lost in the wind and rain, because just as he went back and took them out, the lights changed and the woman drove off.  So here he was, standing in the rain with a set of keys on a Hello Kitty key-ring, and a bunch of angry drivers queued up behind his car that now blocked the fast lane.  He got back in his car, and took off after the woman, after the next change of lights.

Five kilometres down the road he saw the woman parked at the end of a rest stop. She was walking back to the driver's seat, clearly puzzled by the lack of keys in the boot.  Hubby swooped into the rest stop, just as she took off again!  Back on the gas pedal, and a kilometre of light flashing later, she pulled over, and he could finally give her the keys.  She was very grateful though, and hubby was only half an hour late for work and soaking wet. And I guess he could look himself in the mirror the next day and feel proud.

I meant to tell you all about our weekend in the King Valley, Victoria that we spent with hubby's old bikie friends and their wives but I have to save that for next time. I just want to say that I highly recommend the Estate where we were staying.

This is the cottage where we were staying in the King Valley

King River Estate

Well, I am off now to take hubby to work so that I can have the car and take our French visitors to the fish market or somewhere else.

Take care! Come back soon!