nature boy

a couple of Lize's mates, Lisa and Vicky had their combined birthdays on saturday night. The party was held at Lisa's bush block about 30kms from Ballafornia, a place called Cape Clear. The weather was challenging to say the least, but fortunately they have a very large shed where the majority of the festivities took place. There was also a bonfire of gargantuan proportions that both cheered the spirits and roasted the flanks of the merrymakers that gathered around it after nightfall. It was brutally cold though, with gale force wind and icy showers. To combat the cold the ladies laid waste to cases of champagne whilst the menfolk plied themselves with rum and bourbon. Vast quantities of steak and spuds were on offer, and later icy bottles of fortifying german digestifs were passed about. Hilarity and good spirits were in good supply and had some great converstaions with some really interesting people. One of Lize's workmates Darrel is ex-Navy and served in the Gulf and East Timor and had some crazy stories. Some pretty funny ones too about what the lads (and ladies) of the navy get up to in port. Also had a drink with a couple who are amongst Australia's premier dog sled racers (!!) as well as a young bloke just back from Beijing. The ladies one by one hit the wall as the night went on and I was fairly happy to retire when not long after Lize stumbled in to our little tent. I'm pleased to report the hitherto untested tent is both rain and wind resistant and the only disturbances during the night were a long walk to the conveniences and a spontaneous dawn chorus that featured birds, a dog, some Angus heifers and a fellow camper being heartily sick.

After bacon butties and pints of orange juice it was a pleasantly short drive home, where we spent the day flopping about lazily reeking of woodsmoke and enjoying toast and tea.

fat bloke and guitar

Me playing a song I wrote years ago http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0gfOwFe4zA

I walk the line

i'm really enjoying going for walks. The dog and I saddle up about 3pm each day and go for a waddle through the botanical gardens near lake wendouree. The old lake has done it tough in recent years, drying up and basically being an eyesore. But recent rain has put a thin sheen of water over it and it at least looks like a lake again. The swans, ducks and moorhens have returned and the grass surrounding is green and lush. Squitter and I normally go for a bit of a wander through the botanical gardens proper, generally taking the route past the prime minister's busts. I'm trying to train him to piss on the Tories if he has to go, but so far he seems to be taking a bi-partisan approach. The dog's unpredictable behaviour continues, with a headlong dive into a pond and a succesful theft of my lunch making headlines today.

I'm up to 45 minutes a walk currently and happy with progress. The belt has been reeled in to it's last notch and I'm not running out of breath going to the mailbox. Fitness ahoy!

pop musik

played a theatre show on Saturday night. It's not something I've done very often, most of my playing life being spent in pubs or parties. Christ I wish I'd done more of it. It was paradise -crystal clear sound, a sold out room, no clinking glasses and a crew of techs waiting on your every sonic whim. I was supporting the Dead Salesman duo again and it was of those nights that renews your faith in the old game. It was great to see a couple of players whom I respect both as artists and people play a great show and for once not be a mere soundtrack for drunks on a Saturday night. Had a good show myself, sang my arse off and the jumped up and played some pissed but enthusiastic mandolin with them in their encore.

As a change of pace I jammed with Ruddo and a couple of the Wednesday night pool boys tonight. Good craic even though the lads were a bit rusty, with a spanking version of Paul Kelly's Desdemona being the highlight of the evening. I haven't played with a straight two guitars, bass and drums combo for maybe ten years and to be honest it felt damn good. Like an old jumper that you had lost at the back of a cupboard and you put it on and realise how much you missed it.

showtime

played an afternoon gig on saturday at the Holgate brewery in Woodend. I supported my mate Hap from the Dead Salesmen as a warmup to their 20th anniversary show. I'm doing the main gig as well but Hap rather nicely put me on the bill as I haven't done a solo show playing my own stuff in eons. It was weird how familiar the nerves are and how the little rituals come back. The half drunk cokes and half smoked fags and the sudden blank where you can't remember the first line of the first song. I ended up playing mandolin on a couple of Salesmen tunes which was good craic too.

It ended up going quite well, nowhere near the class of the Salesman duo, but a reasonably solid effort nonetheless. The pub was intriguing, one of the few genuine microbreweries in Victoria. I wasn't really drinking but I did try the pilsener which was nice and the chocolate porter which was very good indeed. It was funny watching people being beer wankers, holding their glass up, swirling it and making wise pronouncements. Beautiful old pub too, lots of stained glass and irregular polished boards. Got home about 7.30pm pretty knackered so it was pizza in front of the olympics for me and an early night. Rock and roll!

two dogs

we're dogsitting at the moment. Dougal is Lize's parents' scottish terrier, a canine of advanced years and dubious bladder. Squitter and Dougal aren't fighting, but do seem to be bringing out the worst in each other. So far today they've had a pissing contest (currently deadlocked at 5 all), howled with gusto at varous upsetting events (Lize going to work, me going into the bedroom, the gate swinging in the breeze etc) and indulged in unhealthy bouts of dry humping. They're both neutered males so the doggie man love is a little disconcerting. They're both staring at me as I type, like some sort of four legged children of the corn. Its going to be long week.

cooking up

i left home without a lot of life skills. Irish Mammy had in her own loving way doted on her great lump of a son leaving him to read, play guitar and drain the cooking sherry while his clothes were washed, meals cooked and the house cleaned around him.

Moving to Melbourne a week or two before my eighteenth birthday, this lack of domestic ability didn't phase me as much as it should have. The 7/11 down the road provided fine chilli dogs for under a buck, and Four and Twenty products were cheap and plentiful. Dietary variation came in the form of fish & chips and pizza washed down with shit wine and worse beer. Laundry was a giant stripy bag dragged home to Ballarat on the train once a month and as for dishwashing cleaning etc it just didn't happen.

Meeting Lize should have fixed all this. Unfortunately it didn't work out that way. Lize, while a domestic goddess and harsh taskmaster, came unstuck on two fronts. Firstly the darling girl can't cook unless you count toast as cooking. Secondly my poor cleaning habits were ingrained at a level that would take a behavioural psychologist aided by a brace of Maori bouncers and numerous prayers to St Jude years to change. So the poor girl had no hope.

But slowly change did came upon us. I discovered I not only could cook, but actually enjoyed it. It started slowly, and suffered the rude interruptions of businesses and shift work, but it gradually came to be. Early days it was packet pasta, fish fingers, sausages and mash. Then came pasta from scratch, pot roasts, steaks and schnitzels. Then came the frills. I learnt how to make a roux. How good stock makes good soup. How not to turn vegetables grey with overcooking. The power of the fresh herb. Grilling over charcoal. Olive oil, sea salt, cracked pepper, chilli. Fresh fish. Slow roasting a joint for eight hours on low heat with the meat sticky, juicy and falling off the bone. Pancakes with bacon and real maple syrup on a hungover sunday. Dark chocolate, whiskey and cream with summer fruit. Chicken breast poached in semillon blanc with thyme. Home made souvlaki and pizzas. Caesar salads. Steak and fries with aioli.

I still like pies and the cleaners come once a week in the interests of domestic harmony. But the takeaways don't see much of us these days. Which ain't a bad thing.