Renovation Bum
There is a book by Kingsley Amis in which he lists the horrors of arriving at an airport:
Disembarkation bum
Customs queue bum
Luggage collection bum
Taxi negotiating bum, etc. etc.

Over the years Right Foot and I have adapted the Bum Recital to suit a range of unpleasant situations, most recently Kitchen Renovation Bum. Carpenters who put up a cupboard, leave the other six in a pile and don’t come back for weeks, incompetent plumbers who charge a fortune, and the biggest Bum of all, the painter who works for an hour, then announces cheerily that he is going into hospital for heart surgery the next day but hopes to be back soon! I may need some heart surgery myself.

Due Recognition
It had been a couple of years since we’d won a Trivia Night and I’d had to forgo the Mary Owen Dinner to attend this one but it was in aid of a very, very good cause and I do so love proper general knowledge questions rather than MTV videos and the other crapola that feature at many triv nights now. The downside of Friday night at the Hawthorn Town Hall was the appalling food but I’ll get over that. What’s really bothering me is the lack of acknowledgement for our performance. Oh sure the MC announced that Table 9 had won but we wanted the world to know that we were representing our University and stuff like that. So just in case anyone’s interested let it be known that Table 9 was occupied by seven librarians from Swinburne, one from La Trobe and one from Holmesglen TAFE. So there.

Grand Footling Update
Week 15 and Grumpy Girl’s grumpalino is developing finger nails and prints. Wow.

Eurothrash

For 11 years we have lived in an apartment building with communal laundries. For me, this has meant saving every dollar coin that came my way to use in the washers and dryers. It has meant going down two flights of stairs to look for a vacant machine, load the washer, unload the washer, load the dryer, unload the dryer, engage in barneys with my neighbours and stave off passing snowdroppers. It has meant engraving my name on four dozen pegs.

So the piece-de-resistance of our renovation was to be the installation of a washer dryer in the new Bunnings kitchen, Pommie style.
Such things are common in Europe and we finished up with an Italian number with the brand name Thor. For weeks we have been amusing each other with Thor jokes: “I’m thaw but I’m not thorry” and “I’m thaw too but I’m thatisfied”.

But the Thor has had the last laugh. The first plumber we contracted to install it took one look and fled the scene. The second did a bodgy job and when we attempted our first wash the kitchen cupboard filled up with water. The Thor’s next trick was to dance boisterously around the kitchen to its own bump and grind musical accompaniment.

At our next laundering attempt we both stood peering nervously at the Thor which sneered back, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

We were right to be afraid. Euro washing machines have very long cycles. The German one we had in Kuching took days to agitate, rinse and spin. The Thor wash cycle lasts 90 minutes. Our difficulty was figuring out how to get it to move on to the drying cycle and our efforts only succeeded in putting our clothes through the wash three times. That’s three times 90 minutes. At 1.30 a.m. the Thor was still boogeying around the room, the clothes were turning into mulch and Right Foot and I, bleary-eyed and anxious, were huddled in the bedroom awaiting the knock of the angry upstairs neighbour.

We were thaw all right but definitely not thatisfied.

The best news I have ever received in my whole life
After years and years of hoping and despairing, a miracle has occurred and Right Foot and I find that by the end of October, all going well, we will be Grand Feet! Yes it’s true – Grumpy Girl and Thieu (Guess what that’s short for) are having a baby (actually a Capuchin monkey if the photo is anything to go by).

We have been concealing this secret for five weeks now waiting for various genetic tests to be completed but Grumpy has finally given us the go-ahead to broadcast it far and wide.
So to the tune of “My baby just cares for me” please sing along with me:
Our baby’s got arms and legs
That’s what Dr. Skinner says
Our baby’s got eyebrows too
They’re all there on the ultrasound scan
Grumpy Girl is going to make me a gran!

Now at last Right Foot can make a start on all those wooden toys he has collected dozens of books about: Noah’s Ark, The Little Red Engine, A Victorian Dolls’ House and, above all, a stable full of rocking horses. Standby for ‘Rocking Horse Rampant with Flared Nostrils and Ears Erect’, Rocking Horse Couchant with Sable Bridle, Ermine-spotted Saddle and Tail Argent, and Rocking Horse a Little Wobbly, with Dodgy Paint Job but it’s only a Prototype.

My handcraft skills are at a much more rudimentary level so I have sought help from the ABC’s Play School website which has a long list of things to make that are within my capabilities, i.e. that of a preschool child. I think I’ll start with 'Toy Wok' (put a doll and a teddy bear into a wok and pretend it’s a space craft). Easy peasey.

Two weddings and a funeral (with another one to come)

Who WAS that insufferable American with the Kermit voice who presumed to translate the Latin mass and talked over the inspirational music at the Pope's funeral? How crass, rude and arrogant!
We couldn't get a descent picture on SBS so ended up listening to Ray Martin's inanities for a couple of hours. When Ray is the best thing going times are tough.

The rottweiler didn't look too bad in that first outfit but how about her teeth? Why wouldn't you get them fixed when you had the heir to the throne to foot the bill?

On the subject of 'The Bill' spunky June Acland married boring old Jim Carver on Saturday night in the latest episode of the ridiculous soap opera this once great show has become. Will we ever see real policing again? Bring back the scrotes and toe-rags PLEASE.

Bunnings men have taken over my place completely now. Roy Replacement for Peter who spat the dummy Plumber is, I hope, doing his best to make water come out of the tap at this very moment.
I have to keep escaping to nearby cinemas and have seen three movies in five days. On Sunday, all movied out and with Joe Carpenter firmly ensconced in the kitchen, I took Right Foot to the G to see the Hawks robbed of their only likely victory for the year. Right Foot does not know much about footy and asked a number of very elementary questions to the bemusement of the young woman sitting in front of us. "Which one is Spider?" "Who are the guys in orange?"
The high point was late in the third quarter when he asked, "Who is the one in the lime fluoro pixie shoes?" It was, of course, the great, high profile, former captain, Shane Crawford. General merriment for all within earshot.

On the other hand, the Richmond supporters were still wearing their bloody idiot tee-shirts. Ha!

Part two of the Great Renovation of 05 is underway - the installation of a Bunnings kitchen - which means a constant succession of tradesmen:
Andrew Apprentice Electrician
Peter Plumber
Joe Installer
Frank Tiler
Aldo Not Sure What He Does But Seems To Be Indispensible And Will Have To Be Paid.

None of these guys much likes working on 50 year-old appartments. Peter Plumber was the first to spit the dummy. It was all too hard so he packed up his tools and went home, throwing the schedule into disarray and forcing Right Foot and me to camp in the dining room, boiling kettles and cooking toast on the floor. It's going to be another fun weekend. Grrrr.

Floored by a flawless floor.
The delays and cost blow-outs are over. We now have an ice-rink gleaming, ballet rehearsal room sheening, Tassie Oak MAGNIFICENT floor. It looks a million dollars which is roughly what it cost. You could eat your dinner off it and we may have to.

Desperate Housewife

There is no furniture in our appartment and the carpet has been torn up revealing the concrete beneath. And not your smooth grey, parking lot, could-draw-a-hoppy-on-it, kind of concrete. Instead there's a vulcanic, granitey Martian landscape, sulphuric and acne-pitted.

We have rented a neighbouring flat which, despite having no power or hot water and all our stuff piled high, is Ritz-like by comparison. We need so many candles to be able to read in bed that it looks like a black mass and I choke on the smoke when I blow them out. We do the dash between Number 22 and Number 24 in our PJs each morning to take a shower and forage for food.

But amidst the Hell that is renovation I think we finally turned the corner when Right Foot painted the Feature Wall in brilliant yellow. A glimmer of hope is flickering in my heart.

Twelfth day of Christmas yesterday so I took the tree down. It is a melancholy task.

We have only room for a small tree which does its best to showcase our gargantuan collection of gorgeous, gawdy, and oh-my-Gawd! decorations which include a few home madeys and many we have picked up on our travels. My favourite overseas decoration is the cross-eyed Vietnamese Santa and the most intriguing home made one is a glowy white ball with a Christmas wish in red glitter pen from Julianna and Glenn. Nobody knows who Julianna and Glenn are, why they are wishing us 'Merry Christmas' or, more likely, how we have managed to pilfer someone else's Christmas decoration. Just one of the many mysteries to ponder at Christmas time.

Christmas positives
(1) Trying on a skirt in Myer. They don't have my size so the sales assistant goes down to David Jones to get it for me. By the time she gets back I have settled on something else. She smiles.
(2) Buying a set of bowls and the young casual has no idea how to wrap them. She makes two or three attempts while I make helpful suggestions and the queue behind me grows and grows. I turn and offer a general apology. The woman immediately behind me says, 'Don't worry, it's fine.'and leans forward to massage my shoulders.

Christmas negatives
(1)'Bad Santa'. Very bad movie.
(2)Living on shortbread and champagne. Longing for tofu and beans.

Ah, the bliss of living in a post-ANZIIL symposium world. There is nothing more to mop up except accolades. The international students were brilliant. Joy to the world.

On Saturday night we cooked Chicken Kiev to empathise with Petite Soeur who is currently shooting a Dulux commercial in the Ukraine. Oi! Garlic! Butter! More Garlic! More Butter! No vampires came near us all evening. Yesterday Petite rang to wish me happy birthday and told us that the hotel, the weather and, above all, the food in the Ukraine are excruciatingly bad. No Chicken Kiev to be had anywhere.

We have started feeding the possums again after neglecting them for weeks while we travelled. I gave them strawberries last night to assuage my guilt. Paris has no possums but our appartment was in Rue d'Esquirol - Squirrel Street. We didn't see any squirrels but we did see beautiful beautiful Paris and all its wonders. And tasted the best ice-cream in the world, excellent crepes, leaden croque madame, tolerable wine and vastly inferior fruit and vegetables. I bought two jumpers in Gap and lots and lots of books, all written in French so requiring concentration.

We went to a revue at the Lido which looked a lot less sleezy than the Moulin Rouge from the outside. The show itself was colourful but rather lame: I think it had been toned down for the more conservative tourists. I have seen far racier things in Melbourne.

One Saturday we went to a marche aux puces (flea market) where Right Foot was in his element. He even found an aeroplane ashtray, at a price no Aussie could consider. Much of the stuff there would have been in an antique shop in Australia. When I could finally drag Right Foot away we went to Pere Lachaise Cemetery which was cold, wet and pretty miserable. We struggled with our map in the wind and rain, trying to find Abelard and Heloise, the original residents. Several people asked us for directions to Jim Morrison's grave. We eventually caught up with them all - Spaniards, Italians, Japanese, all way to young to remember Jim Morrison but making the pilgrimage all the same. The young Italian was quietly singing 'Light my fire'. Right Foot had only one question - 'who was Jim Morrison?'

Snapshots from Shanghai.
The photos are back and show us cavorting along the Bund on China's National Day(s) holiday, mixing with the locals all of us wearing party hats. Coming from 'Audalia' seemed to be acceptable. We didn't get the negative reaction we often did in Malaysia.

We visited the museum which was beautiful, restful and very interesting.Museums in Asia are unpredictable: this is one of the best.

I had no trouble fulfilling my desire of purchasing a hot pink cable-knit jumper - gorgeous! But our quest to buy coffee was a major undertaking, requiring a lot of miming and head-shaking. We eventually found a small, hard-to-open jar of bitter instant coffee in a locked cabinet in a supermarket. Everything else on offer was self service but the coffee was obviously too precious a commodity for that.

It was a shame to leave the wonderfully comfortable Broadway Mansions hotel, especially for an overnight flight with the capricious and, dare I say it, inscrutable China Eastern Airways. Never mind - at the other end was Paris and our first-ever landing on continental Europe. So very exciting.

Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport in the early hours of next morning took the edge off the excitement. We had to wait for the Bureau de Change to open before we could buy a rail ticket to the Gare du Nord and on to our accommodation in Place d'Italie. Our early attempts at communicating in French were disappointing but at least we could read the signage.

Meanwhile back in the real world.
Last night on SBS a program on ancient Greece explained that the word 'symposium' originally only meant a 'drinking session'. WHY did they change it? Helping to organise the ANZIIL symposium is quite a responsibility. I don't think I'll ever be nervous again about writing and delivering a paper. That's for babies.

Today is that horrible first day back at work after a holiday when you are deluged by emails, questions, gossip and backlogs of urgent stuff as you grimly fight to rise above residual jetlag and depression.

Two weeks in France left me cursing my English and Irish forebears for emigrating and depriving me of my European birthright. How could they leave? How COULD they? Wonderful Paris: the culture, the architecture, the sophistication. Amazing Avignon with a view of the Papal Palace from our hotel window and where I danced along the 'pont' of song and story. Although Right Foot loved it all too he did not share my sense of loss, becoming more and more Aussie every day. And there ARE negatives. Here are some: the high carb diet of croissants for breakfast, baguettes for lunch and crepes for dinner makes you feel sluggy and spong. The fruit and vegetables are essentially compost and good coffee is hard to find. And as for tofu. Quand?
In Avignon we stayed at the Ibis which is pronounced 'Abyss' in French and the breakfasts were exactly that, abyssmal.
Worst of all, smoking is public places is still permitted and prevalent. As an American girl we met at the Arc de Triomphe said, "Like, didn't they get the memo?"

They smoke all over you in China too but the food is much better - beautiful vegetables, plenty of tofu and magnificent brekkies at the Novotel in Beijing and the Broadway mansions in Shanghai. It was National Day celebrations in Shanghai and life was one long street party. They have lovely museums and nice shops. The Bund was everything I hoped.
Beijing has nice places too but the museums are badly curated, poorly lit, dusty and dingy. It is also scam city and the harassment on the street is fierce. Our best day was a trip out to Simatai where you can walk on the only remaining authentic section of the Great Wall. It was exhilarating and hugely satisfying.

And now we're back in little old Melbourne which is OK I suppose. At least the smokers have to stay outside in the cold, tee hee hee.

This morning Right Foot and I withdrew all our money from our running away account. We have done quite a bit of running away over the last few years and there was only $164 left but we hope this is enough for a Supreme de Volaille and a Crepe Suzette which we have been hanging for since 1968.
We have also voted in the federal election, packed the vegemite and a selection of native flora which I suspect will not get past the first customs officer who sees it and certainly no where near its intended destination, the Australian memorial at Villers Bretonneux. A lady in the tourist office in Peterborough, South Australia has sent over several Glad resealable sandwich bags containing sprays from indigenous shrubs so Right Foot can leave them in memory of his great uncle, a 19 year-old Peterborough local who was killed at the Somme in 1915. I hope these tributes don't end up in a bin along with a collection of putrid salamis, raw cheeses and ostriche feathers. The kind lady deserves more, so does Right Foot and so, especially, does great uncle David.

Two more sleeps and Right Foot and I are off to Shanghai, France and Beijing in that order. I am very excited, never having been to Continental Europe before. But before we get there I'll see Shanghai in all its Last Emperor glory (I hope). We are flying with Dodgy Air and they are even more obsessive about reconfirming flights than I am. We arrive on National Day, a major public holiday, so are expecting chaos. My Mandarin teacher has written down the address of the hotel in Chinese characters for me so that's gotta help doesn't it?

My last civic duty before I go is attending tonight's graduation ceremony, wearing my highest heels so I don't trip over my trailing gown, and with my mortar board rammed down over my eyebrows to prevent its slipping off. I don't do costuming-up well.

After months of "Yes I will, no I won't" I posted my cheque for Membership of the MCC and am now awaiting the arrival of a shiny medallion or something. I wrote the cheque out weeks ago and twice walked to the postbox and came home with it still in my hand. After 20 years on the waiting list I couldn't decide whether I really wanted to join up but now the deed is done. It was the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony that made me decide.
Soon I can start dining with the nobs and frocking up for the footy. I wonder if I ever will.

Matt is back so Grumpy Girl has moved out leaving a very small footprint and a beautiful box of Belgian chocolates (and I don't mean those overly sweet shell numbers). She was an exemplary guest and we miss her company.

It is only six weeks before we are scheduled to make another attempt to see Shanghai and I am wondering what could go wrong this time. Not 'til I am strolling along the Bund will I really believe I'm going.

Petite Soeur is off to Bora Bora early next week to film a glam advertisement. I never get sent to places like that for work. Only places like Glasgow.

Grumpy Girl has been back from Europe for a week now and is staying with us. She's great company: so interesting to talk to and so helpful too. She cooks for me, vacuum cleans for me, wears my clothes for me.
GG sets a fine example for anyone trying to live a healthy life. She walks to work, St Kilda to Collingwood, every day and never a morceau of unhealthy tucker crosses her lips. Last night she had dinner with a friend so we took the oppportunity to get meated up. Roast beef. Very good. A bod can only take so much tofu.

One of my dad's favourite sayings was, "There's no prizes for second". Only winning was good enough. He was a keen tennis player and when he moved his young family to the outer eastern suburbs in 1953 the first thing he did was establish a tennis club. He was president for eight years and became the club's first life member. In 2003, a year after Dad died, the club celebrated its 50th anniversary. At the anniversary dinner someone suggested selling the naming rights to each of the six courts. Family members were slack and it was an anonymous donor who paid for one of the courts to be named after Dad. We were touched but wondered how he would feel about having his name on court number 2. No prizes for second. But at the ceremony on Sunday the numbers were taken off and the names unveiled. Dad's court is in the middle of the three at the front - Centre Court. He would have loved it.