Canberra

Canberra
15 December 2006 - 1 January 2007

Staying in Canberra is like staying on the set of a Spielberg epic about the end of the world; cars and people on the streets are a rare thing, but at least there's no one to take the pi*ss out of the cricket















This is Ant, he taught me too blame Daddy when something naughty had 'happened'. Watch this. Poor old Daddy; when he was 9 and Uncle Henry was 3, Henry pulled a solo pear from a tree and threw it into Uncle Bob's ditch. When asked who the culprit was, he blamed Daddy. Daddy was in England, the Peargate incident was in Spain. Still, its good fun

Waifer thin Ant inspired Daddy to do some bike rides up the 3 hills overlooking
Canberra City. One of the hills had the Telstra Tower at the top and as you can see Ant is still to scared of heights (he's the blob of orange 'guarding the bikes')






























See the fella on T'Left of Daddy? That's T'Mark who Daddy last saw 10 years ago at a Uni re-union, he popped down from Sydney to sink a few. He was to let us stay in his place which was very nice of him, so I won't mention he's lost all his hair

The old Ant returned pretty soon as he shoved a can of beer up a chicken then set his flat on fire. Let me explain. Beer butt chicken is an Aussie speciality, where herbs and spices are added to half a can of beer which is then inserted where the sun doesn't shine. After 3 hours on the bar-b, Mama said 'Ant - I think its a bit smokey'. Ant replied 'It's OK we need the birds core temperature to hit 180' at which point the flames took over and no amount of beers thrown at the bird would put it out, so we turned off the gas. Here's a 'before' and 'after'





























There's no two ways about it - the Aussies are hopeless at Xmas. It just doesn't feel Christmassy. But we gave it a go, turkey with all the trimmings and a tree ...





























Me Julie gave me a little cuddly doggy for Xmas, mainly because I was dancing to The Wiggles (which I LOVE) with her BIG doggy





























Mama and Dada got given a balloon ride as a present, so 4am the next day up they got up up and away ... they also crashed landed which happens on about 10% of flights (Not to be confused with our San Francisco friends who survived a balloon flight incident that made the front page of The Times. They hit some power lines, a story Daddy told mid-flight!)





























Daddy had some work to do (apparently he has to get something called a 'job') so he rode the 20km with Ant to his work for 2 days. Sounds like they worked pretty hard - on a game called cricket darts (explanation to follow). The view from the top of the Multiplex building site pretty much sums up the Aussies - drought everywhere apart from the well watered footy pitch















On the Friday, there was huge hailstones which meant that Daddy and Ant had to stay at work and drink beer, and play that cricket darts I was telling you about. They had a quick toss and the batsmen goes first, any score over 30 (with 3 darts) counting towards the first innings. Bowler takes wickets by hitting the 25 (one wicket) or bull (two wickets). We played 4 wicket innings with 2 innings each. 300 was usually enough to win! (Some minor rules - bowler misses dart board and/or dart falls out; 20 runs to batter. Batsmen hits 25/bull - loses appropriate amount of his own wickets). So then they set off home, Ant streamline in his lycra outfit and racing bike, Daddy on Me Julie's mountain bike. Not since skiers vs snowboarders have I seen such rivalry between two related disciplines. Which was why it was funny seeing Ant fall off his bike only moments after being refused entry into a bar where he was a member. It wasn't the comment about his incredibly tight shorts that upset him, more the beer breath comment

So 2006 drew to an end and its fair to say it was a big one for me - my only full one to date. Daddy looks back to some fond moments he shared with Mummy, like the time she asked him how old Barrie was, just after they went to his 50th birthday party. And the time that she said she could see how biscuits made a better road surface, even though Dada pointed out it was 1st April (a Daily Express wind-up). And the time she offered her Dad a drink. They were on Skype (an internet phone call!). So I stayed up really late and we did manage to see the fireworks at 9pm from the same hill that Daddy and Ant had ridden up that morning, but here's a word of advice - fireworks aren't as spectacular from above! Soon after Me, Daddy and Ant fell asleep so we missed the stroke of midnight but managed to get up in time to start back on the champers and ring in the UK new year! It was now 2007 and time to follow the directions on the map below - to Sydney (after one more story from Ant) ...