Interior desecrations : hideous homes from the horrible '70s by James Lileks, ISBN: 0307238725

Continuing on the home renovations theme. Anxious to find inspiration for our 'new home' when it eventually gets done I reached for this little gem.

Bad taste in home decoration reached a peak, or nadir, in the 1970s, "a breathtakingly ugly period" as James Lileks demonstrates in this book. Interior desecrations show us the worst of the unlovely, unattractive, unlivable and unforgivable homes of the 1970s.

Room by room Lileks shows us hideous examples of 1970s interior design all accompanied by witty comment. I laughed till I cried over some of the pictures and their accompanying commentry. It's the perfect antidote to Country Style and Australian Home Beautiful.

Also by this author (and I'm reaching now for a couple of the library's Request for Purchase forms) : The gallery of regrettable food : highlights from classic American recipe books and Mommy knows worst : highlights from the golden age of bad parenting advice.

Trying again with the renovations lark

In April this year we had a house design/stuctural engineer guy come to talk with us about extensions to the house. He was recommended to us by a builder used by friends. He seemed nice enough for us to send him $1000 to make a start on the promise of a further $1000 on completion of the work.
The first time we made an appointment though he didn't turn up, didn't ring and say he was running late, or unable to make it, had some lame excuse. Long story short, that happened each time we made appointments. He was supposed to send us final drawings weeks ago and hasn't. Meanwhile, we have been becoming more and more uncomfortable, firstly with the design he'd come up with, and secondly with his knowledge of local building regulations and decided we'd perhaps be better to start again with somebody new.
Sharon used to work with a woman, Marie, whose partner is a house designer. Marie was also head of maths at Robbie's school for a while. It turns out that her partner, Rod, works with a builder that had been recommended to me by a man down the road who is a bricklayer, Nudge. Nudge has taken a little fibro ugly duckling cottage like ours and turned it into a beautiful swan (http://www.harveycarr.com.au/index.php?action=listingview&listingID=166). Thinking he'd done such a good job on his place he probably appreciates good workmanship, I asked him who he'd recommend. He gave me three names including the builder that this Rod guy is in partnership with, Michael Edwards. (http://www.michaeledwards.com.au/).
So we've had a chat with Rod and he's going off to do some preliminary drawings. We're talking having a room built out the back where the deck currently is and a master bedroom with ensuite and walk-in wardrobe upstairs.
Fingers crossed we get somewhere this time . . .

To practise your mouse skills . . .

When you are in need of a mindless break give this a try: http://www.sharkbreak.com/

Take the cursor up and down and watch it swim up and down. You can change the fish by clicking on the pictures down the left side and the background by clicking the top pictures.

Just catching up

We're having a bit of a quiet weekend - well, kind of. Nothing earth shattering to report, but lots of stuff going on as usual.
Ian is doing a First Aid course for Scouts this weekend. He came back about 4pm today, earlier than I'd expected. He had a deep red mark along the bottom of his lip - like he'd been in the wind licking his lips all day. Said it came from doing the mouth-to-mouth thing with the dummy wrongly!!! Then had the cheek to contradict me when we were discussing the breathe/chest compression ratios later on when Iain Hosking turned up. He's to go back tomorrow too.
Jamie is away tomorrow with the Venturer Scouts. They are going to be building a raft.
Robbie meanwhile is going to Bushfire Brigade training. His BF assessment day is the first Saturday in December and he has to get 20 hrs or so training under his belt before then.
I'll be at home with Ishbel. I've got a copy of The Railway Children on DVD from the library so perhaps we'll get around to watching that. There are markets on down at Richmond which I fancy having a look at but we'll have to be back about midday to get Robbie after training.
We've had rain all week but it's been clearer today (cloudy but no rain) and tomorrow is supposed to improve further so I'm hoping to get some washing out on the line. I don't know how I can stand the excitement!
I was at RFB training last weekend. The boys preferred a lie-in. It started out cloudy but fined up to a beautiful blue sky which was just as well given what happened later in the morning. We went down to the National Park at Glenbrook to a little dam (pond) there and practised drafting water into the truck. As the truck was already full however, we also had to get the hoses out and let some water out. It got a bit boring and was too much for Bec who started a water fight. Great fun! I could hardly breath for laughing and wincing at the cold water at the same time. The sunshine dried us out relatively quickly though as we got the generator going, boiled the kettle and made a cuppa.

Exit Music by Ian Rankin

As he is trying to tie up all loose ends before retiring, John Rebus is called to his last case. A Russian poet has been killed in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. To muddy the waters a high level delegation of Russian entrepreneurs, Scottish MPs and Rebus' nemesis Big Ger Cafferty seem to be involved somehow. Things go from bad to worse when Rebus himself becomes a murder suspect. Has Rebus gone too far in his zeal to nail Big Ger?

The last in the Inspector John Rebus series. Classic Rebus shambling about Edinburgh being belligerant. Several plotlines to keep you busy.

At the moment Rebus is on TV on a Friday night and we are very much enjoying it. Ken Stott is a much better Rebus than John Hannah, much as I like him.

Bella's 1st Birthday

Today, according to the paperwork we have, is Bella's
1st birthday. Ishbel had been banging on about having a birthday party and inviting some people with dogs so we rang Auntie Karen and Uncle Dan and invited them and their dogs, Sasha and Mishka for a little tea party.
Ishbel also insisted we got Bella a birthday present so here she is with a tyre on a rope. To Ishbel's intense disappointment, Bella initially wouldn't have anything to do with her new toy but later she got right into it and she's had a ball, throwing it up and wrestling with it.
When Karen, Dan and the girls arrived this evening Bella was out in the back garden, barking. When let into the house she went tearing along the hallway then saw the two big dogs and stopped in her tracks - at least she tried to stop but with our polished floors she skidded about 4 feet before she could turn back, hackles in a ridge from neck to tail. A very funny sight.
We made a birthday cake this morning before going out to school - how's that for organisation! And this afternoon we made a doggy birthday cake with chicken, doggy biscuits and gelatine.
We put a candle on the doggy birthday cake and sang Happy Birthday.
All three dogs seemed to enjoy their cake and Sasha and Mishka went home with doggy bags of extra cake, a paw-shaped doggy biscuit and a Smacko snack!

Ishbel has her wish come true

She's nagged and nagged and nagged about doing this for ages. She wanted to do this for her birthday party. We have resisted as long as we could.

Here you see Ishbel with her new friend, Angel. Angel is a Build-a-Bear toy - you go to the shop, choose the casing and stuff it yourself. You even get a little heart to put inside. Apparently Ian had to kiss the heart before it went in. Angel was also kitted out in a top, jeans and shoes and Ishbel is already planning to purchase pyjamas for her too.

. . . and the worst of times

About 12 yesterday I got a call from a friend saying she wanted me to go round to see her. I said fine but I had to leave to go to book group at 1pm.
I ended up staying all afternoon until after 4pm.
I've known this friend since first coming up to the mountains as she was in the same new Mum's group as me, although she and I didn't see each other a lot, it was nice to bump in to each other every so often.
She rang while I was down in Canberra. She was in hospital having had a bowel cancer removed and wanted to speak to someone who had experienced chemo, etc so Ishbel and I went down during the holidays to say hello. She was then doing well, the surgeon had not had to remove as much bowel as he'd thought and she was expecting to have the chemo and then make a good recovery.
I saw her again on Thursday morning while doing an errand at work and wished her luck as she was due at the Cancer Care Centre for the first time that afternoon.
What she told me yesterday is that, at that appointment, rather than discuss the chemo, she was told that the biopsies had shown that, although the surgeon removed the main tumour OK, there are lots of little microscopic cancers all over the peritoneum (abdominal covering) and that the chemo will be life-prolonging rather than curative. She was told she probably has another two years to live.
She is a few years older than me. She has four children who range in age from the oldest daughter who is the same age as Jamie and Robbie down to a 9/10 year old. She has a drop-kick of an ex-husband who is currently a bit of an unknown quantity in the support department. She is from New Zealand and that's where her family lives. One sister is here just now but goes home on Friday. The other sister comes then for a few weeks and then her brother, but in the long term, support will have to come with friends.

The best of times . . .

Busy weekend with the boys and I up and at 'em early on Saturday morning to join in the Valley Heights Rural Fire Service annual doorknock appeal. Round the streets of our area we trudged, knocking on doors asking for donations (sausages and beer money). Because I had my full gear with me I was assigned to the tanker so that if anything happened (and it was a hot, dry day) and we were called out we were ready for action. Jamie and Robbie were teamed up with adult members of the brigade and went with them.
Our first stop was the local retirement village. I caught most of the oldies in their pyjamas, apologising that they weren't ready they'd been away - there had been a DAY trip to Victoria the day before (that's like going to London from Edinburgh for the day!!) Then we hit some of the streets around the station before going back to the station to count up the loot and have some lunch.
One of the houses I went to did not look promising, all overgrown and unkempt looking. I assumed the ihabitant would be a cranky old hermit who hated to be bothered and had "issues with you people" as one man had already told me! How wrong, the lovely lady with the north American accent had me wait while she rootled around for yesterdays clothing, she'd got money out for us specially (there had been a letter drop during the week letting people know the door knock would be on). When she handed me a $50 note I offered her change, not only did she refuse, she gave me a second $50 note. When I stammered my thanks for her generosity, she was astounded that everyone else wasn't as generous and scandalised that $5 was the norm (I didn't tell her about Mr Issues!)
Not only did I collect around $670, I also scored a Bible - the only one in the Brigade to do so.
After lunch we hit the streets again. Not such a good haul this time. In a couple of hours I made $47.70!! There were an awful lot of houses with cars in the driveway, front doors and windows open, but no-one home!! After losing my partner, Nige, and a couple of hours of trudging in rising temperatures I was bored and ready to go home.
We got home about 4:30 and after a shower I was right back out again to have dinner at Jackies. Her boys were camping for the night so she had Gabi and I round for dinner and games.

Fiddling

Last night we went to Fiddler on the Roof put on by the Blue Mountains Musical Society. It was a special preview showing for volunteer organisations which we got alerted to via the RFS. Sadly for the musical society, there weren't many people there so hopefully the official opening tonight will be better patronised.

It's a long show and it was after 11pm before we got home, a long stretch from 8pm for the early to bed types like Ishbel and I but it was pretty good. A big improvement on the performance I remember going to with the school in Ayr. We all got into trouble from Miss Higgs for laughing when the snow scene dumped all the snow in about two seconds.

The man in the lead role was especially good.