Archives for August 2009

This was going to be more about seahorses

August 16, 2009 by Jen

On Friday my son’s school had a pupil free day which means his teachers had a day of staff development. When I went to school I wonder if staff development existed back then or whether they just did it during our holidays.

Rather than just hang around here doing the normal procrastinating I thought we should go and do something. I suggested the museum, the art gallery – he suggested a movie – and after a bit of research on the internet we settled on the Seahorse Farm at Port Adelaide. Excellent, I thought, I’ll get some great photos there. Except I didn’t because you’re not allowed to take photos.

So you’ll just have to take my word for it that we saw lots of seahorses including baby seahorses, a pregnant dad seahorse, a leafy sea dragon, and even some little sharks. We also patted a little shark – the skin felt quite rough.

It didn’t take that long to watch the video and have a look around in there so we went for a bit of a wander nearby afterwards.

I was very lucky to get this photo of him as he’s becoming a very reluctant model these days.

But then he gets into a shot when I don’t want him to and this shot reminds me that I need to cut his fingernails.

I really like visiting Port Adelaide as it’s one of the older parts of Adelaide and the buildings are a testament to this.

It was a good way to spend a few hours on a warm winter’s afternoon.

The Pink Pussycat

August 10, 2009 by Jen

photo credit: ** Maurice **

Inspired by Me & Boo’s precarious travel tale #2 I have a travel tale. Don’t know that it’s that precarious but it’s one I’ll never forget.

October 1992

I’d spent a few days in beautiful Prague despite a case of the flu. My next destination was Budapest and I hopped on the train, sat myself down in a seat feeling a bit revolting and my hair felt greasy even though I’d washed it recently. All the way to Bratislava (on the border of Hungary) people had been speaking non-English and I didn’t understand a word and I didn’t understand why they kept looking at me.

In Bratislava two men stood outside my carriage door and one of them said in an American accent, ‘someone’s sitting in our seat’. Now I understood why the others had been looking at me strangely, I’d been sitting in their reserved seat. The man’s words took a while to sink in as I realised he was speaking English and I could understand him. He was very cute so I said ‘there’s more than enough room for you here, I’ll move over’ and patted the seat next to me.

All the way to Budapest we chatted. It was the usual travel stuff, where have you been, what have you been doing, where are you from. The cute one, Eric, was from Iowa and had been in the Peace Corp in the Gambia in Africa for the past two years. His English mate Dave with a very dodgy looking moustache had also been in the Peace Corp.

I had nowhere organised to stay in Budapest and no friends there so after a while I suggested that perhaps we could find accommodation together, trying my hardest not to be too obvious that I was finding Eric very cute indeed. They thought it was a good idea as they had no accommodation organised either, and when we arrived in Budapest’s train station a woman with some bed and breakfast accommodation approached us and convinced us to go with her. She was only a short way from the train station she said. It wasn’t that short, 20 minutes or so my car and longer by bus. We had a room all together with three beds.

That night we hung out in a local bar and Eric mentioned that it was his birthday the next day. As I didn’t have any definite plans for sightseeing so I said I’d love to celebrate his birthday with him. Their idea of spending a day in Budapest was to do a pub/bar crawl. We managed to do that while incorporating sight-seeing and meeting locals. After all, what better way to meet locals than in a drinking establishment, or ten?

The day started at around midday and we spent it travelling from bar to bar, including catching the Funicular railway and spending some time at the top of it before descending and going to another bar. Towards the late afternoon Eric and Dave told me that they’d arranged to meet up with two fellas they’d met in Prague and meet them we did.

The first thing they told us was that they’d been to a great place the prior evening called The Pink Pussycat and they were really keen to go again. Without too much prompting they told us it was a lap dancing place. Obviously it wasn’t the type of place I would normally frequent but I was going to see the day out – after all it was Eric’s birthday.

The Pink Pussycat was one of those establishments where you don’t pay upon entry, but pay when you leave – you pay for everything when you leave, including the lap dances. After we sat down and I had a chance to look around I realised I was the only woman there who wasn’t an employee. All the seats faced towards the dance floor and all the girls wore were g-strings and when they weren’t doing lap dances put on various dancing shows. All I can say is I’m glad I was drunk because being in an establishment like that sober would have been too much. At some stage during the evening Eric and I held hands and through the drunken haze there was a definite connection there.

After we left the Pink Pussycat we’d missed our last bus so stayed at the other guys place as they were more sensible and had a central location. As they were also staying in a room in someone’s flat we left via the bedroom window so the owners wouldn’t see us.

I had one more night in Budapest after this and I had a chance with Eric to take things further and I never did because I knew it would only be for that one time and I didn’t think I could bear it. We parted ways and I had a day in Budapest by myself before boarding a train to head back towards London as I’d run out of money and needed to get some more work. Eric and Dave were heading off to Poland. I was sitting on the train waiting for it to leave the station when I looked out the window and saw Eric walking up and down the platform. I’d told him where and when my train was leaving from. I leaned out the window and chatted to him for a couple of minutes before the train departed and we held hands again just as the train started.

I’ll never forget my time in Budapest. I’m sure it would have been quite different if I hadn’t accidentally sat in reserved seats en-route to Budapest. I’ll never forget Eric either. After I got back to London I wrote to him in the States but I never heard back from him and I sometimes wonder if he remembers his time in Budapest?

The smell of books

August 9, 2009 by Jen

I may have said it here before but I’ve always loved books. As long as I can remember I loved to read. On family holidays mum was always commenting on how I had my nose stuck in a book and not much has changed. While I don’t buy that many books I am a regular at the local library. I really don’t know what I’d do if this wasn’t available. I’d probably be stealing just to keep my book habit going.

At primary school we’d get the Scholastic catalogue and I was allowed to buy one, or two if mum was feeling really generous, books. They took what seemed like forever to arrive but when they did I would inhale the new book smell and I couldn’t wait to get home to stick my nose in my new book.

We grew up in the country and didn’t have a local book store so whenever we visited the city we’d go into the book shop and I’d get my fix of the new book smell. Even now, going into a large bookshop brings back those memories of a little country kid walking around a book shop inhaling the new book smell and dreaming of what I could buy if I only had the money.

I’ve kept pretty much all of my childhood books. When I moved from the country to the city my books outweighed my clothes and I’ve been moving those damn books ever since. I kept them for my kids, or when I thought I’d decided not to have my own, for my niece and nephews. One day – it must have been before JJ was born – my oldest niece and nephew were here and I invited them into my bedroom where my childhood book collection is kept and we went through them. They took a few and I wonder if they ever read them. Neither of them are great readers – not like I was anyway so I was a bit disappointed that they weren’t thrilled to have this vast supply of books on offer. I never opened up my collection to them again.

Now that I have a son, he probably won’t like most of my books as they’re girly, so I’m not quite sure what to do with them. Perhaps I can sell some of them to a collector.

I’ve been meaning for some time to share some of the books I’ve got and a recent post about MiscMum’s vintage young adult books inspired me to dust off the suitcases under my bed to see what gems I’ve got.

I might make this a bit of an ongoing feature because I can’t do it justice in one hit.

‘Our Own Schoolgirls Annual’ was published in 1958 and was given to my aunt in 1965. I don’t remember her giving it to me but I’m sure I was very grateful.

‘Mandy for girls 1977’ doesn’t have any publishing information but because it has 1977 on the cover that must have been around when it was done.

Even if I hadn’t mentioned dates it pretty obvious that the book above was published in the disco era of the 1970s.

Other obvious differences, black and white versus colour. Mandy for Girls had activities contained within while the Girls Own Annual didn’t. The stories in Mandy for Girls were all cartoons too and Girls Own Annual had some cartoons but the rest were mainly straight text with a few images here and there.

I remember reading these books all the time which is probably why the spine is a bit worse for wear on Girls Own Annual.

For your info I didn’t just have Girls annuals. Dad had kept some of his boys annuals as well which I was just as interested in. Unfortunately I don’t have them any more and have no memory of what happened to them.

Do you remember girls or boys own annuals? Did you have any?

Makeover

August 6, 2009 by Jen

I’ve been wanting to change my theme for some time now. It takes a LONG time (for me anyhow) to find a theme that I like to start with and am confident enough to change. I’ve installed quite a few themes, had a bit of a play and just given up. Using the theme test drive plug-in is an absolute godsend.

I even mucked around with a theme framework but gave up on that because it was too hard. After all the playing around I did, I still wasn’t convinced that it was a long-term good thing to do for me. I probably just don’t understand how they work or there isn’t enough documentation to support them – the free ones anyway. And that’s quite understandable because I know from experience that documentation takes time and effort. (Upon looking at the above website I note that they’ve now got documentation for creating a child theme which wasn’t there earlier. Still, I didn’t want to create a child theme, but use someone elses.)

I did contemplate paying for a premium theme but I didn’t even find one of those I liked enough to shell money out for and the more expensive (to me anyway) themes like Thesis just isn’t warranted for a hobby blog like this.

Anyway, I finally settled on this Blogwerx theme. I’d found it a couple of months ago, played around with it and moved on, but after unsuccessfully mucking around with theme frameworks I went back to it. I’ve changed it a bit and I still have the three column layout with the content on the left and sidebars on the right. I like this layout because if something stuffs up with loading in the sidebars at least the content is available due to the order of the page loading.

I even used the widgets this time, and made a new widget area for my Reviews and Giveaways section because I can’t show BlogHer ads there due to their ads policy. I was very proud of myself.

Now that I’ve implemented this new theme hopefully I’ll be more motivated to get back into the content side of things. If my blog was seven years old (and not five) I could blame the seven-year-itch for wanting something new and exciting to happen and inspiration to hit me in creating some exciting content. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way.

I’d like to know what your favourite WordPress themes are, or even if you care about them. In the meantime I’ll stick with this for a while.

I recommend the ladies lunch

August 4, 2009 by Jen

On Sunday I, along with 25 or so other women (friends), were treated to a lovely meal cooked and served by the boys. The boys being friends who love to cook and they’ve started doing this – this being the third ladies lunch in as many years.

I organised childcare and caught the train to the venue – a friend’s house. It was a horse cup theme and we were instructed to wear a hat. I have a hat that looks a bit like a jockey’s hat so I went as a jockey. At the last minute I found my horse whip in the form of a long stemmed heart shaped bubble blower.

They’d even organised friends who work at a local TV station to voiceover a Melbourne cup race for our viewing pleasure. This was after we’d drawn names out of a hat, names that were more double entendres than traditional horses names. There was a first and last prize – neither of which I won.

But that didn’t matter. We were fed, and we were fed very very well. Yesterday at work because of meetings and so on, I ran out of time for lunch but I didn’t feel like it because I was still SO full from Sunday lunch. But not only were we fed but I didn’t have to pour one drink for myself. I could get used to lifting up my glass and it being filled. During the main course I wanted another piece of roast meat but they were too large. Normally I would have just left it, or cut it myself but I didn’t have to do either. Upon my request, the meat was cut into smaller pieces for me. Oh, I could get used to it.

I love the ladies lunch, I really love it. It’s not often that I’m spoilt which makes it all the more special.

Funny? Not much.

August 3, 2009 by Jen

I went to French and Saunders the other day and was really excited to see two comedians I really admire up close (well not that close actually because of the seats we got).

Having no idea of what their show would be like I went in with a fresh mind and there wasn’t an empty seat in the house. So many people either took the day off work or left work early that day that offices in Adelaide must have been fairly empty – I do exaggerate slightly.

Overall I was disappointed with the show. Perhaps their comedy doesn’t translate well from the small screen to the stage? I’ve never seen them live before so I can’t compare this show to others. Don’t get me wrong there were some funny bits like Jennifer Saunders doing her Madonna impersonation, but lots of it fell flat particularly during the last half. I didn’t leave there feeling all buoyed up like I was expecting. Their Mamma Mia film ripoff was pretty good and it was good to see the original sketch that inspired Absolutely Fabulous. Dawn French went into the audience and took away peoples’ chocolate so if you go see them don’t take chocolate with you if you’re up the front.

Probably the best bits were the accompanying videos that played to introduce a sketch and I thought that I could have just got the video and been just as happy with that and it would have been cheaper.

After the show finished I overheard some people say it was hilarious and others said they were disappointed too so there were mixed reviews.

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