... but I couldn't help at get a good old laugh at what the local kids did to the scoreboard at the local footy oval last night.



He he - it says boobies - he he he!

This weekend just gone has been a bit of a blast back to my childhood. Starting Friday night when I got along to see The Goodies. Like every other 30 something nerd in Australia, the goodies are childhood heros of mine, starting a love of British comedy that would later extend to everything from Monty Python to Men Behaving Badly to the Office.

It was an absolutely, face acheingly (is that a word?) night, with Greame and Tim recounting old stories and telling jokes. They should quite a bit of archival footage, from their Cambridge University days with other famous comedians such as Eric Idle, John Cleese and Marty Feldman.

Since I went straight from work to the show (via the Adelaide oval to watch the last hour of the first day of the first test) I forgot my trusty camera. Fortunately, as it turned out, we were sitting right behind some other guys from my past, Orge and Don. Orge had his camera and got a few photos, and promised to email them to me. I got to be honest though, I wouldn't stake anything valuable on the chance of me actually seeing them. Oh well.

The other blast back to my childhood over the weekend was when I was sitting out on the lawn of Karen's Parent's property at Aldinga. I was enjoying the afternoon sun and could hear the distant strains of an AM radio that they keep on in the fruit orchard to keep the birds away. It was set on Adelaide's newest radio station - Cruise 1323

I gotta tell ya, sitting around on a sunny afternoon, listening to all those classic easy listening hits of the '70's in glorious low fidelity AM, is like a time machine back to being a kid in 1981. I kept waiting for my mother to come out and serve cordial.

First of all, I wanted to share with you all the fact that William is cutting his first teeth, and is currently competing with Floyd for the title of Grand Drooling Champion of the world. Like the title says, its a Slobberpalooza here, I gotta tell you.

The other William thing worth mentioning is that we put him in his jolly jumper for the first time this week, and needless to say he loved it. He hangs in it like a thunderbird and bounces for absolutely ages - until he gets so tired he can't hold his head up anymore! Of course, he still doesn't want to get out even then.

Also over the weekend, aside from being my birthday, which was just a regular eat meat and drink beer affair, we attended the wedding of Karen's cousin Matthew and his new wife Kristy.
A sensational day weather wise, and as shows go, it was one of the better ones to be sure.

Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a 2,000 word dissertation on the day.

As you can see, I've given the ol' girl a bit of a scrub up.

That's all really. I just wanted to state the obvious

Just quickly, before I get into an account of my boys weekend to Queensland, here is the photo of baby Kiah I promised.

She's a cute one isn't she? I don't know, I wasn't really that clucky for babies until I had my own, but now I am lining up with all of the women for a cuddle.

The funny thing is, to my mind, William is still a tiny baby, but put him next to Kiah and he looks enourmous.


Anyway, on to the Queensland trip.

Andrew and I met at the airport, and I was dissapointed to discover that construction delays had preventing the new terminal from coming into operation. So we boarded our plane the good old Adelaide way across the tarmac. Maybe its just me, but I would have thought you would have waited until the new terminal was in operation before you started pulling the old one to pieces, but apparently not since the old terminal feels like a half finished renovation project at the moment.

Once we landed in Brisbane, we grabbed our hire car and after I remembered how to drive a manual, we headed for the Gold Coast. The fact it was pissing with rain didn't dampen our spirits. We got to our hotel, a "resort" on a place called Hope Island, which was just a mangrove swamp with houses on it. The hotel looked over a Marina which was quite nice.

This particular resort was built in 1991 (which means it was designed in the 80's) and it showed. It was every Gold Coast cliche all done in a neat package, the bad pastel decor, hordes of Japanese tourists in Hawaiin shirts and a cheesy bar with a god awful lounge singer. We dumped our stuff in the room and headed out for dinner.

We hit Surfers Paradise, and I've got to admit, I wasn't quite ready for the sheer number of hi-rise appartment blocks. I also always had this idea that there was a boulevard down the beach front where all of the cafes, restraunts and bars were, and have to admit I was slightly dissapointed that it wasn't the case.

Eventually we found the restaraunt strip, a couple of streets back from the beach, and had a pretty nice meal al-fresco whilst chatted and enjoyed the passing talent.

Saturday we checked out of the cheesy resort, and headed for a much better resort, Royal Pines. Very swish - championship golf course, 4 restaurants, swimming pool with a swim up bar, day spa - the whole caper. It is a bit of a golf Mecca - and is home of the ANZ ladies masters. I don't need to tell you then that we blew the whole day Saturday trying the course out.

If you ignore the fact that I lost (count 'em) 9 golf balls in water traps, and generally played a very average game, it was a great day all round. Andrew and I were paired up with a couple of old blokes from Canberra for the day who were good fun. Almost as much fun as blasting around in the GPS equipped golf buggy. The fact that I am so shit at golf makes the buggy driving all the more fun, because I got to drive between trees and up hills and throught the rough chasing my wayward balls.

Weather was that odd tropical mix of stinking hot and raining, and by the time we had finished we were ready for a swim in the pool and a drink at the swim up bar. However, in the time it took us to go back to the room and get our togs on, a cold change had blown in, the pool had emptied and the bar had closed. The spa was warm though....

Saturday night was a feast of eating and drinking, I pushed the ol' gut o meter right off the scale at the all you can eat seafood and all you can drink beer and wine buffet in the hotel.

Sundays activities were limited by the torrential rain, so we headed back for Brisbane and spent a good part of the day at the historic Breakfast Creek Hotel, eating some very fine steak, drinking brews and discussing Midnight Oil. The weather did fine up enough for us to go for a stroll around South Bank late in the afternoon, which was pleasant.

The weekend was rounded out by a bit of Sushi, and a visit to a couple of bars in Fortitude Valley.