buter's BABY blog

Apparently this is the coldest Sydney winter for 8 years. Combine that with our recent moving house experience (from an air conditioned, carpeted townhouse to a double brick, polished floorboards, no heating, awesomely cute freestanding house) - it's *rooly* hard to get out of bed in the mornings.

AFAIK D™ is still *in* bed. He worked late last night on some photo editing for work and decided that entitles him to a sleep-in.

Sigh.

Recently received in email:

A major flood hit the Campbelltown area on Sunday March 4 with its main disaster point being Queen Street, Campbelltown.

Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering "Faaackinell".

The flood decimated the area causing approximately $30 worth of damage.

Several priceless collections of mementos from the Macquarie Fields Riots were damaged beyond repair.

Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were woken well before their Centrelink cheques arrived.

The Macarthur Advertiser reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Campbelltown.

One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 17 year-old mother of 5 said "It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Kevin and Jason,slept through it all."

Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried on as normal.

The Australian Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Bacardi-Breezers to the area to help the stricken locals.

Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, including Health Care Cards, Jewellery from Kmart and Bone China from Big W.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster.

Clothing is most sought after - items most needed include: baseball caps, tracksuits, singlets (blue & white) white sport socks, reebok boots Any other items usually sold in Go -Lo or The Reject Shop.

Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.

Required foodstuffs urgently needed include:
Microwave meals, Baked beans, Ice cream, Chips, Fizzy drinks.

Donations: $15.00 will be taken to buy a packet of winny blue 25s and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

**Breaking news**
Campbelltown Uniting Church has cancelled their local "Nativity Display" due to their inability to find three wise men or a virgin.

The internet is a funny place ....

So, last Friday night D™ and I went on a ghost tour of the old Quarantine station at Manly. The guide was doing his very best to make us all spooked out, but I didn't see any ghosts. The tour was fun - and you learn a lot about the history of people arriving in Australia, and how hard it is to keep the country free from diseases (especially if you don't know how the disease is spread, or cured).

However even though we didn't see any ghosts I did have a weird feeling during parts of the trip. At the top of the hill is the hospital wing and we went inside one of the wards. On the verandah outside, I had the strangest feeling, like I was falling, or like something was about to happen, and then as we exited the ward I felt very queasy and had that weird feeling when you just *know* your blood pressure has suddenly dropped.

D™ reckons it's to do with the fact that we were on a peninsula and the wind was changing all the time. At the end of the tour a serious southerly change came up and sent us all inside to have a cup of tea, when the rest of the night was quite mild and humid. So maybe that was it. But the guide told us about others who have seen/felt ghosts on that site so .... /shrug/

But it makes me think about what it is that happens when you see (feel?) a ghost.

I think that a ghost might be an impression left behind by someone when they experienced strong emotion in a certain place. When we went to Wombeyan Caves (or Wombleyan, as I like to call them) we went on a guided tour. In one of the tunnels, the guide said "imagine the 18th and 19th-Century tours down here, ladies crawling along in their dresses and petticoats..." and I had such a massive freakout. The cave, the enclosed space, the darkness, flickering light, all that was fine. But the thought of all those people crawling about just unsettled me. I get the same weird feeling seeing the depressions in old sandstone steps behind Cadman's Cottage - from all the hundreds of thousands of people who have walked there since they were cut. So I'm weird that way, but maybe that's what I'm sensitive to - just the feeling of hundreds of years of people doing things in one spot.

So ... on the quarantine station tour, maybe that's what the weird feeling was - just knowing that hundreds/thousands of people had been processed there. But it was diluted by the modern touches so I was only partially spooked.

Add your ghost stories in the comments.

I was going to write a post about how I'm such a perfect driver and everyone else out there should drive the way I want them to, but then re-read it and realised I sound like a total idiot, so I deleted it. And replaced it with a total ramble through the trackless waste that is my mind on coffee.

If you suffer from road rage, or even just if you're human, you must read the Consolations of Philosphy (it must be good, my mum likes it), which has an interesting thing to say about other people: you have to remember that they aren't doing what they do *just* to annoy you. They are doing it because they just don't care about you nearly as much as they care about themselves. Just like you. So deal with it.

Speaking of dealing with things, our lunchtime poker game has experienced tragedy of a sort that is hard to recover from: the 2 of clubs has a tear in it. I guess that's what's known as a marked card. Put that together with our "if you've got a pair of twos, go all-in" rule and you end up with an interesting game.

Meanwhile my favourite sister-in-law is getting on a plane tonight to go to Europe. I'm insanely jealous, not about Europe (though I'd love to visit there one day) but because we haven't had our annual ski trip this year due to house-bound imperatives like renovating, and house-hunting. Have a nice time Mandy and don't forget to email us, at least once!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. It looks wrong. It should be trooper shouldn't it?

Apparently not .

Speaking of trooping though, the other day I caught the train from Telopea with a dozen hand-picked fellow commuters. Not that it was my hand doing the picking, but they all chose to be there that morning.

I've caught that train before, and you come to recognise people on the platform. Commuters, you see them every day, but you never say anything to them, that would be weird.

Like, the guy with the soccer ball.

And the lady in the long black coat.

And the Chinese guys who park their car opposite the petrol station in the closest parking spot to the station. I only mention them because they're the only people I've ever seen who actually drive to Telopea Station. Everyone else walks. If you have a car, you'd drive to a different station, at the very least. Telopea is just above the arse-end of stations (as in, it's one stop closer to the city than Carlingford station).

So anyway, I always see these two well-dressed business ladies, probably in their early to mid twenties. They have immaculate hair and very classy outfits, usually a skirt with a business jacket, and spiky heel shoes of course. They always arrive together. And then get on the train together. And then sit together. And then listen to their (singular) iPod together. Yes, one ear each. And then chat together till about Rosehill (2, maybe 3 stops along).

And then they fall asleep. Together. With their heads tilted. Together.

I can only assume that they doze off while thinking "mustn't.. pull.. earpod.. out.." which is why their heads always rest together.

It's very cute.

Someone commented to me recently, that I do weird things for someone who's lived in Sydney all their life. I was waxing lyrical about a coffee and chocolate tour DTM and I went on one Saturday morning. More about the tour later. Much, much more!

But the thing is, I guess I do explore Sydney doing touristy type things, because I love my city, I love going in and feeling the buzz, I love seeing the old buildings and I love having stories to tell about all the places you see. Like, "here is a sculpture that looks like a public urinal". "And here is one that doesn't". Stuff like that.

I also like to try seeing things with new eyes every now and again. And seeing as we're not going on holidays till (at least) the reno is finished, (at which time we will buy a new house, and then we will have a new mortgage and we won't be able to go on holidays anyway till 2099), by turning on my "see Sydney with new eyes" ability, it's just like being on holidays in a new city without all the hassle of passports and language barriers. I'm sure at this point all my well-travelled friends and acquaintances will jump on me saying this city or that mountain is "like, waaay better than Sydney", but that's not the issue. What I'm trying to say is, we often don't appreciate things we have right here, and I'm one of the people who wants to try that. That is, in lieu of using passports and language skills to travel, because - well, see above about renovations and mortgages. (Speaking of which, why does the credit card company offer me *more* credit when interest rates just went up? Isn't that just like handing a waterbottle to someone who's drowning in the ocean?)

Aaaaanyway, a very close friend gave me a couple of vouchers for this coffee and chocolate tasting tour of Sydney. Mmm, coffee. Mmmmmmm, chocolate. Here's the rundown:

You start at the Strand Arcade with a cup of coffee then go touring round Sydney's CBD visiting chocolate shops (and sampling! Oh, the samples!). We started at Haigh's - and I very nearly stopped there, I love Haigh's. Oh, the truffles. Oh, the dark chocolate buttons. Oh, the divine hand made chocolates. Oh, the friendly staff. Oh, oh oh ....
Then we visited Darrell Lea (ok, I'm not that much of a tourist here, I must say it bored me), Jeff de Bruges (oh my, it's expensive!), Lindt (mmm, Lindt balls) and the DJ's food hall chocolate store ... which, while conveniently located opposite Max Brenner's, was not our final stop ... no, we ended up at the Sheraton on the Park having a very civilised final cup of coffee.

Chocolate samples, and the two hot drinks, were included in the tour, as well as discounted shopping at all the stores we visited and loads of interesting tales about that good brown stuff. I must say, after 2 1/2 hours of nothing but chocolate, really really good chocolate notwithstanding, I was choc-full! But oh so happy - in fact the entire tour group were getting on very very well by the end ... must have been those endorphins!

Next weekend DTM and I are going on a dinner cruise round Sydney Harbour. Maybe this time I'll take photos .... naaah, I'm a local, why would I need to do that? hehe.

A totally fun aspect to living in Telopea is the absolute mind boggling astoundingness of the daily commuter train to the city. There's 1, count them, one, (which by the way is neo spelled backwards) train that goes direct from our little station all the way into bustling Sydney town without having to stop and cool your heels, your backside, and other important parts, at Clyde for 20 minutes waiting for a connection. So if you've got any brains in your head, you'll either buy a dinosaur, or you'll make sure that you get to the station in plenty of time to get on the commuter train.

Once you've arrived at the station, with nothing to do apart from fight with the ticket machine, you might stand at the railing watching cars, err dinosaurs, go past. And if you do, you can't fail to notice the big ol' gazebo summerhouse thing...

Or is it?


Yes well I've been staring at it for nearly a year's worth of train trips and I still don't know what the tank thing is for.

Here's a close up in case you thought it really was a summerhouse:



Yeah. Didn't think so.