Little Stalky and the Gang Go Canoeing

It was Australia Day yesterday and in the spirit of spending time with family whilst enjoying the country in which we live, we decided to head out for a spot of canoeing.  There were ten of us in total and thanks to the expert planning of Treacle, were all kitted out with sparkly hats, party poppers and noise makers.  What more do you need whilst canoeing.  Beer?  Yes, we had that too.  The weather behaved and we were able to set off on the river with just a light smattering of cloud and nice warm temperatures.  It was a nice route with the river flowing steadily and one or two rapids to challenge our paddling skills.  Most of the rapids were tackled with no problem - a few of us back to front - but mostly no problem.  But there was one rapid that thwarted a number of us.  I was thwarted.  But thwarted only because I'd gone to rescue Mystical Roo's hat.  It had flown into the water and Mystical Roo had gone through the rapids seemingly unaware that he'd lost his sparkly headpiece.  I dove to the rescue but then got myself in an awkward position for going down the rapids myself.  In fact I got wedged against a rock and was unable to free myself.  Every time I pushed myself away I got pushed back again.  I was stuck.  And what did Mystical Roo do?  He turned around, pointed, laughed and then got his camera out.  And that's the thanks I get for saving his hat!  No, it was Monster Noggin who came to the rescue.  She heroically paddled over, risked getting stuck herself and then pulled me to freedom.  Women have got to stick together because men just point, laugh and take photos.  Meanwhile, after being freed, the rapid then took another two victims.  Two who happened to be sharing one canoe.  Two who happened to hit a rock, wobble, unbalance and then capsize.  Mystical Roo was still on the camera and managed to get actual video footage of this along with evidence that he was laughing the whole way through.  Ok, I'll admit it - we were all laughing.  But it was rather funny.  There were party poppers floating down stream so we had to coordinate the canoes to undertake a party popper rescue mission.  After the excitement of the rapids there was much lizard spotting and although no one believes me because I was the only one that saw it, bright purple bird spotting too.  I hadn't even had any beer at this point.  Or been attacked by leeches.  I was NOT hallucinating.  It was a nice way to spend Australia day and a great way to enjoy the outdoors.  We finished off with a surf at the beach followed by fish and chips.  Now that's a good day.  

Monster Noggin Meets Trolley Dude

This is quite possibly the biggest development in Trolley Dude history.  So big in fact that I don't even know where to start.  Trolley Dude, hard working herder of trolleys, best Woolworths worker out there.  We've followed him for a while.  We've commented on his hair.  We've seen his rise, his fall and his rise.  And now...Monster Noggin has actually spoken to Trolley Dude (cue dramatic music).  I was tucked up in bed on a Saturday night when my phone awoke me to advise that a text message had been received.  A text message?  In the night?  Who could it be.  It turned out it was Monster Noggin.  But it wasn't an ordinary text.  Oh no.  This was a photo message.  And who did I see in the photo?  Monster Noggin posing with none other than Trolley Dude.  I was agog.  And totally impressed with Monster Noggin's Trolley Dude spotting skills.  It was quite possibly the best picture I'd ever seen.  Yes, I was shocked that Trolley Dude was out and about in public but who knows, he might have been on a covert trolley mission.  He might have had a trolley with him for all we know.  Anyway, Monster Noggin later told me that she had a full on conversation with Trolley Dude.  She explained that he was famous and appeared regularly on a super amazing blog.  Trolley Dude seemed unaware that there is an international Trolley Dude signal and that a number of us use it when we spot him at Woolworths.  Monster Noggin also asked if he'd lost his Trolley Dude powers when he cut off his hair.  Trolley Dude had apparently seemed confused at this question.  Confused?  Or feigning confusion because we know too much.  I say that's more likely.  So, contact with Trolley Dude has been made.  What will this mean for the future?  How will this change the way Trolley Dude spotting works?  I guess we'll have to wait and see.  

Will is Overthrown

I've not made mention of that feral pigeon in quite a while now but Will, as he is more commonly known, has been about and up to his usual tricks.  Until now.  It appears - and I don't want to jinx it - but it appears that Will has been overthrown by a massive posse of cockatoos.  I have never known cockatoos to hang around our neck of the woods but for the past week they've been flying in and taking over the place.  It's always the late afternoon and early evening and they arrive like clockwork.  These birds are fairly large and they seem to fly in packs.  They also make on hell of a racket.  They squawk when they fly, they squawk when they land.  They squawk when they're sitting still.  And this isn't a gentle cooing or a melodic bird tune.  This is full on screeching.  They're possibly the noisiest birds in the world.  So they fly in, noising up the place before performing a variety of acrobatic tricks.  You've got cockatoos hanging from branches by their beaks, cockatoos spinning around electricity wires, low flying cockatoos that skim your head.  It's a cockatoo circus.  They're like a rowdy gang.  And they're a rowdy gang who have totally taken over Will's territory.  I haven't seen that pigeon in days.  He's obviously gone into hiding.  The question now is whether or not Will will return.  And if he doesn't, does that mean the gang of cockatoos is here to stay?  

Little Stalky Goes Deaf

As a learner surfer I spend a lot of time under the water.  I somersault beneath the waves whilst Watson flies off in another direction.  This time spent underwater had a bad side effect the other day when it caused me to go totally deaf in one ear.  Shocking.  You might think I had a load of sand in there.  Maybe some seaweed.  Maybe even an ear dwelling crab.  But no.  It was wax.  And not of the board variety.  My ear clogged up and for a few days it was like living in a bubble.  Everything was echoing and seemed very far away.  It made going to work a barrel of laughs.  I was fine on the phone, with the handset pressed up against my good ear, but I couldn't hear a word anyone was saying in the office.  I encouraged my colleagues to throw things at me but I could hardly do that with customers.  Instead I opted for shoving my good ear in their general direction and hoped that my squinty concentration face didn't scare too many people away.  There were many things that got misheard but generally I made it through.  In fact, I think the bad ear did me a service when it calmed down a potentially angry customer.  Gearing up to give me a mouthful about something that was totally out of my control I actually stopped the man, indicated the bad ear (which had cotton wool shoved in it) and apologised because I couldn't hear properly and could he possibly speak up.  I obviously won the sympathy vote because after that he was perfectly pleasant and even seemed apologetic for getting angry at the girl with the bad ear.  Maybe I should go around with cotton wool in my ear more often.  Anyway, I'd been on the ear drops for three days but nothing had cleared so I made an appointment to see the doctor.  The ear was so bad that when I was in the surgery I didn't actually hear the doctor call my name.  I apologised and advised it was because of the ear.  The doctor asked me if I'd hurt my neck as I was holding my head at a funny angle.  I replied that I was simply angling the good ear at people.  She laughed.  The cause of the blockage was wax and I was offered the chance to get my ears syringed.  The nurse warned me that some people get dizzy and find it a weird experience  but I found it to be quite pleasant.  It was almost refreshing having warm water whooshing around your ear.  Apparently I have very small ear canals, which is why they got blocked.  It also meant that a lot of water went whooshing over both me and the nurse.  The hazards of small ears.  But I felt the ear clear and my hearing rushed back to me in a matter of seconds.  I excitedly announced that I could hear again and the nurse excitedly showed me all the crap that had just fallen out of my ear.  No ear dwelling crabs in sight.  I had both ears done for good measure and now my hearing is as good as new.  So far, it's been a very productive day!  

The Beach Umbrella

Don't trust me - I'm evil!

When you're on the beach, what provides equal amounts of hassle and entertainment?  No, it's not a land dwelling shark.  There's nothing funny about a land dwelling shark.  It's large, it's round and it's often stripy.  Not a sunburnt tourist but a God damned beach umbrella.  Beach umbrellas. Why do we even bother.  They're nothing but trouble.  The coast is inevitably windy so unless you've got some sort of anchor attached to your beach umbrella then you can be fairly certain that at some point during the day the beach umbrella is going to make a bid for freedom.  And as I said before this can be a hassle.  Or this can be highly entertaining.  It very much depends on whether or not that beach umbrella belongs to you or someone else.  Because watching someone else running down the beach, chasing their beach umbrella can be hilarious but when you're the one doing the chasing it's often embarrassing and humiliating.  And that's what you get for laughing at someone else's misfortune.  You end up running down the beach, bikini bottoms working their way up, bikini top working its way down and then the next thing you know you've fallen over a small child and fallen into a pit.  A pit dug by the small child.  And your umbrella is half way down the beach attacking unsuspecting tourists.  I suppose you could always ignore the beach umbrella and give it up as lost but someone would know it was yours.  Someone would have been watching and laughing and knowing that you were letting your beach umbrella attack other beach goers.  It's enough to sully a reputation.  So you have to chase your beach umbrella.  Our beach umbrella leapt out of the sand the other day and hurtled off down the beach.  I jumped up just in time to see a startled man holding the umbrella.  He'd caught it mid flight.  I apologised on behalf of the umbrella and he confirmed he was unharmed, merely startled.  Well, an umbrella in the face will do that.  Those things move fast.  So fast in fact that they can fly out to sea, as witnessed today by Bear Z, Rabby and myself.  Luckily for us, it wasn't our beach umbrella that had decided to take an ocean voyage.  This was a red and white striped thing that literally bounced across the beach before ploughing its way through a group of swimmers and over the heads of some unsuspecting surfers.  Nowhere is safe.  A beach umbrella can attack you from anywhere.  I saw a woman in a swimsuit make a vague attempt to follow her beach umbrella but she quickly gave up when she saw how quickly it had headed out to sea.  But there were some valiant swimmers out there who grabbed the thing and pinned it down.  It was a surreal sight to watch three or four swimmers trying to bring in the beach umbrella that refused to go back down.  I think one of them finally managed to tackle it into submission and the beach umbrella was returned to its red faced owner.  I think that beach umbrellas have an agenda of their own.  They're obviously not happy sitting on the sand and giving shade.  They'll do everything they can to avoid this.  Turn inside out.  Flip upside down.  Flop over.  Head out to sea.  I'm starting to think the beach umbrellas are more hassle than they're worth.  I might just invest in a really big hat instead.  

Little Stalky's Shocking Discovery

I currently have three tomato plants on the go at the moment.  Two Baby Romas and one Baby Cherry.  The word "baby" is, in my opinion, a ridiculous adjective for these plants as all three of them are monsters.  Monsters.  The "baby" Romas are so big that they had to be strapped to the railings of the balcony in order to stop them from toppling under their great weight.  A stick was not enough.  No, they needed full on, metal support.  Baby?  I don't think so. But monsters or not, that has not stopped this bad boy from taking up residence in a tomato.  Look at the size of him!  We'd become aware of the fact that there was something - probably a horned caterpillar or doom - munching holes through tomatoes.  I wasn't impressed.  I wasn't happy.  But I did not expect to see this thing!  There he was, in the middle of the day, face down in tomato, ass up in the air, completely unaware that fists were being shaken in its general direction.  This greedy little (the term little and baby are just being thrown around here today) caterpillar had been gorging on this one tomato for so long that his ass had gone all dry in the sun.  He'd burnt his bum in favour of food.  In my humble opinion I think that caterpillar had eaten so much tomato that his burnt bum had then become too massive to actually remove from the aforementioned tomato.  That fat ass caterpillar just couldn't move.  And that is what happens when you eat too many of someone else's tomatoes.  You get a fat ass and then you get stuck face down in tomato.  Unfortunate yes.  Unfortunate to the point where I think I actually took pity on that caterpillar.  Felt bad for the fact that he had a burnt backside.  But he had to go.  I had to think of my plants.  And whilst I've been known to go at the caterpillars with my secateurs I just couldn't bring myself to do it to the burnt bottomed caterpillar.  Instead he went over the balcony.  Away from my tomatoes.  Now it's up to him to defend himself.  And possibly go on a diet.

To Wetsuit or Not to Wetsuit

I have the blue one

With summer (finally) here, Monster Noggin, Mystical Roo and I have been doing much surfing.  I'm pleased with the fact that I can pretty much stand up every time and picture myself as a kind of crab as I bend my knees and balance atop a wave.  Pretty soon I'll be doing handstands and everything.  Anyway, with the hot weather we've been less inclined to wear our wetsuits.  Wetsuits are great in the cooler months but when it's thirty degrees outside and the sea temperature is up a wetsuit can seem pretty uninviting.  Smothering almost.  The thing about wetsuits though is they act not only as a kind of insulating blanket but also as a protector of modesty.  You're free to do what you want in a wetsuit without the risk of things falling out or off.  This is probably less of a problem for Mystical Roo but for Monster Noggin and I, the decision to go wetsuitless is a considered one.  Because without  a wetsuit, what do we wear?  I recently opted for my most secure pair of bikini bottoms and a scratch vest.  I must say that not only did everything stay where it should have done, it actually felt quite liberating being in the water without the wetsuit.  I could feel the water on my arms and legs and had more room to move.  To bend and stretch.  To attempt handstands.  I also felt like I was about to slip straight off of Watson.  He needs more wax.  It's no good leaping on the surfboard only to slide straight off the other side.  The only other issue is I now have surf rash.  Sore arms and sore legs where my skin was unprotected.  So it's a tricky one this whole wetsuit business.  It's hard work putting it on and it's hard work taking it off.  It's very hot.  But it does prevent surf rash and helps keep you stuck to your board.  Perhaps I should be in the market for a lighter version, suitable for summer.  Perhaps I should just man it up and stop complaining.