Big weekend of glamour

It has been a big weekend. Together with Glen, we headed up to Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Friday evening to see Liza Minelli's show. Fantastic night, lots of energy and wit and powerful songs. And that was just us in the car on the way up :-) Nah, was a great night and glad we saw her live. Brisbane Entertainment Centre, located out in the boondocks well away from the city was kind of like a large RSL. The doroman greeted us by saying 'There aren't going to be many hot chicks here tonight'. Such perception...anyway a couple of hot chicks however are Caroline and Julia, seen here in the very early stages of transformation...

And here they are after a few kilos of makeup and big wigs. The Radical Faeries, a gay men's community located about 20 mins north of us, held its annual Glitter Ball last night at Jiggi Hall. Jiggi is in the valley next to ours. So, the girls, together with Glen, and Stewart and Matt and myself headed there last night for another fantastic night. This was the first time Caroline had been seen in the Northern Rivers.

Julia very kindly brought with her a friend, Lesley, who enjoyed meeting the girls and spending some time at Maryville before the dance.

Goodbye to Gabriel

Gabriel, who is a backpacker from Taiwan, stayed with us for ten days as a help_exchange worker. He did lots: painted the last part of the front fence; painted the railings on the verandah; mulching and watering. Lots of watering.

On his final day we took him down to Casino station where he caught an overnight train down to Sydney and then on to Melbourne.

He really enjoyed staying with us apart from the next door neighbour's elderly dog (Gabe was canine-phobic) and the dead rats under his bedroom floor which created a rather horrible stench for a couple of days.

We treated ourselves to Thai cuisine in Casino before putting Gabe on the train. He plans to return in the new year.

Python rescue

Last Thursday, I was heading back home with my colleagues Maree and Kay, to have a session of creative brainstorming about a new degree we are working on, when I saw this carpet python on the side of the Rock Valley road, taking in some warmth. I was concerned that it might get run over so I caught it and released it later that night on our property, well away from busy roads. Here it is making its way to an area of forest.

Curled up in my backpack after being rescued from the road

It's R_A_I_N_I_N_G

Woo hoo..after a few false starts over the past couple of days, the skies have turned grey and begun leaking....hard. Although we had only recorded 1mm by 5pm today, there have been some fairly heavy downpours with more predicted for tonight. The frogs are chirrupping and the air smells fresh and heavy. Let's hope we get 100 mm over the next few days. Julia's Little Creek, which flows into Leycester Creek on our place, had stopped flowing and many of the the plantings were struggling so this rain is so welcome. It will be wonderful to fall asleep to the sound of heavy rain on our iron roof as well.

Post Script: We recorded 40 mm last night (Monday night) which was wonderful..but we need another 40-60mm over the next week or so, please.

Two professors and a jacaranda tree

Sometime after the family had departed back to the Gold Coast (see posting below), friend and former colleague, David Rowe (Newcastle and now Uni of Western Sydney on the left), and his friend and my former colleage, Jim McKay (SCU) arrived for drinks. They arrived a little later than had been expected due to a navigational malfunction, but once they did arrive, they relaxed and enjoyed a couple of rejuvenating drinks. It was Jim's first visit to Maryville@Larnook and though a coastal person, certainly enjoyed himself.

The fam pays a visit

Mum, my sister Leanne and her three kids, Liam, Taryn and Ashleigh, my other sister, Alison and her partner Steve and their two kids, Dylan and Jordan, plus Steve's mum, Lyn, his sis, Sonia and her partner Rob, came for lunch on Sunday. The gang had spent the past week going from world to world at the Gold Coast and by the sounds of things, had been enjoying themselves immensely.

Steve made several delicious salads and his famous ice cream slice and chocolate cake, while I cooked bits of varios kinds of animals on the bbq.

The we were entertained by Newcastle's Spice Girls....that's Taryn Spice on the left, Ashleigh Spice in the middle and Jordan Spice on the right.

They sang a version of ABBA's Dancing Queen but changed the lyrics, the jolly rascals. They enjoyed using the spa deck as their stage.

Simeon and Norma come a visitin'

Simeon (on the right) and his fabulous mum, Norma, stayed with us from Thursday through till this morning,Monday, when we waved them goodbye at about 6.15am. We've been close friend's of Simeon's for nigh on 20 years and we were very happy when he and Norma decided to spend a few days R and R up here. It's Sim's 40th on Thursday but alas we are going to miss his 40th birthday. Actually I missed his 21st as well, but that's another story.

On Friday evening we travelled up to one of our fave places, Mavis' Kitchen, in the foothills of Mt Warning/Wollumbin, for dins. We all had a fabby time. Also in ths photo is Gabriel, a Help_Xer who has been staying with us for about a week. Gabe leaves for Melbourne on Thursday.

Sheep Rugby - the Casino Way

Was just flicking through the local rag, The Northern Star, when I came across this headline: 'RSPCA tackles sheep footy complaints'. Seems that one of the highlights of the recent Casino Show was a game of sheep rugby involving 5 'trained' sheep matched against 10 footy players. The sheep's trainer, Mr D'Arcy Martin, was apparently taken aback by the involvement of the RSPCA, stating that 'I do shows with ducks, sheep and dogs and I'm very careful...I've never had a complaint'. Well, no, most of the ducks, sheep and dogs that I know, can't speak English. But the sheep were 'well trained...we brought them in a float and at the end of the first half Iblew a whistle and they raced off to their dressing room (the float). It was hilarious'.
Now I know I don't have a lot of experience with sheep but from my admittedly limited experience, I think it would be hard enough to train a sheep to walk from A to B let alone understand the complexities of rugby union. And not quite sure how the sheep actually managed to pull off a tackle. Anyway, the Northern Star revelled in the story stating thta '...the match is under a rugby rev-ewe...' oh how I threw my head back and guffawed at this clever pun. The Star also likes to involve comment from those on the street in their 'We Asked' section, so five punters were asked: Do you think sheep rugby is fun or cruel?. Just for the record three went for cruel, two were ambivalent. I'm more concerned that sheep rugby hasn't displaced dwarf throwing at the soon-to-be held Lismore Show. Now that would be a tragedy.

New living room

OK, so for the past week, Steve has been painting the living room and the kitchen. This included the laborious job of painting the ceiling which the previous owners decided for some reason best known to themselves to paint. White. Luckily the rest of the house has stained timber ceilings intact, but Steve had to repaint the living room and kitchen ceilings. Back and neck-breaking work. Once the ceilings were done then the walls were painted. The blue shrouding gives it a certain surgical space look, doesn't it.

And the finished look. Once the walls were painted we could throw up our art and this wonderful big mirror on to the walls. Steve became very frustrated with the studfinder...no, not that kind of stud....timber studs so he could safely drill for the screws.

The famous leather lounge we bought up at the Gold Coast on the pretence of going into Freedom to look at cushions.

And we unloadedall the boxes of CDs and DVDs which are now finally back in their rightful place. We have a Help_Xer, Gabriel from Taiwan, staying with us at the moment, so he carefully catalogued and arranged in alpha order all the CDs. Oh and I scrubbed, yes scrubbed on hands and knees, each one of those floor tiles. Yesterday. So now all we really have to paint are the wardrobe doors and the interior is done. Then it's exterior walls and verandahs and railings....

The palette of late spring

The jacaranda trees on our property have burst forth in great crescendos of mauve about a month earlier than last year....the trees look so beautiful...I'll take some pics of some of the trees in Rock Valley and post these...so beautiful....the flame trees are also in vivid red at the moment but we onlt have youngsters that are some years away from flowering

and the silky oaks are also on flower...smudges of golden amongst the hoop pines and eucalypts on the other side of our property....

New fruit

These are young pears that have started appearing on, surprisingly, our pear tree - you can tell that it's a pear tree on account of the single partridge that persists in roosting in it..boom tish....last year the tree only produced a few fruit and they didn't ripen...hopefully this year will be better....

and our mango trees are laden with fruit, so with a bit of luck (shoo bats, shoo parrots) we shall be eating hoe grown mango around xmas/new year...the young fruit are growing quite quickly

A little concerning

This water tank is filled with water we pump up from a bore and we use it to fill the toilets, do clothes washing and water plants. The concrete tank has had a fairly major crack in it since we bought the place but over the past week or so the pressure of the water in the vinyl bladder (20 000 litres = 20 tonnes) has pushed out the concrete and widened the crack considerably.

The bladder also has a small hole in it

So...a solution.....the least expensive option is to empty the tank (through usual water use and not refill); try and jimmy the concrete back again so that the edges are closer together and then brace it somehow using big staple kinds of things; failing this will require the purchase of a new poly tank and the removal of this one...the removal of this one will be a major job cos the cement is reinforced.....sledge hammer anyone?

Weekend trip to Newcastle

How goofy do I look? I am green suited not because I have just come from an audition for Wicked the Musical, but because this is what I was asked to wear to perform an MC role at the opening of the You are Here history and photographic exhibition put together by several staff of the University of Newcastle, Marguerite and Gregg. It was an excellent event and I really didn't mind the suit - just the rose was hard to cope with. About 60 people attended and it also served to launch the Rainbow Festival for 2009. In this pic are Geoff, me, Casey, Ross and Graham.

Steve, Geoff, Casey and Ross

Me not looking up at the audience - bad, bad, kevvy

At the after-launch seminar where I was one of six people to speak on our connections with the University of Newcastle as gay/lesbian/bi/trans/queer. So we spent 3 nights from Thursday, making the drive home on Sunday. Many apologies if we weren't able to catch up with you! Our time vanished,....

Dead snakes on a road

The warmer weather has brought out the snakes and unfortunately some of them end up on the road under a car. This little beauty is a brown tree snake that was dead on the road last Wednesday morning, just past the creek that forms our boundary. Glad to know that we have them around but pity this littel fella copped it.
The weekend up here was apparently cool as it was over most of the state but today we had hot temperatures and this always means more snakes on the road. I saw three in the last 10 minute stretch coming home today: one dead carpet python and two live brown snakes.

Faunal goings-on

OK, OK, yes I know this image is of flora and not fauna. Indeed it is a very fine paper daisy that is self-sown following a plant that flowered and then died late last year. So I was very happy until I took a peek at the bower bird's bower on Saturday to see a lovely arrangement of my paper daisies scattered amongst the blue trinkets! On closer inspection of the plant I could see the stalks where flowers once bloomed.
I also scared a rabbit from under the hydrangeas yesterday. This is our first rabbit on the property and I'm not happy. Pass me that litre of calici virus will you...

Andy comes to visit

Meet Andy, those who don't know him. I first met Andy way back when he was a 17 year old interested in rock-related activities and I was a camp instructor. He's now one month shy of his 40th - well preserved boy isn't he. Anyways, we finally managed to persuade him to come and visit us, so he hopped on the XPT last Thursday afternoon and I meeted and greeted him at 4.35 at Kyogle Station. Because I had to get up so early to pick him up he had to do garden duty.

Oh, but Andy loved the spa. All that sparkling clear, warm, bubbly water...actually here he is desperately trying to get out but the force of the water was holding him in like some hungry whirlpool. Note the glass of champagne in Glen's hand. One word: lush.

Monday afternoon saw us drive up to the Border Ranges National Park, which is about 20 minutes up the road from us. Here we are enjoying the spectacular view at Pinnacle Lookout.

And again, admiring the work of millions of years of geothermal activity. Steve put Andy back on the XPT this morning, Tuesday.