Go the Eagles!

A couple of weekends ago I went to my first AFL match at the Subi Oval! The West Coast Eagles v Port Adelaide. Having never seen a match before, neither live nor on tv, I had an evening to get up to speed with the game. R ran me through the aim of the game - kick the ball through the goal posts. Okay. Easy. The match was great fun and I find it really exciting learning about the sport and the rules. (Oh, and we had pie at half time!)

Caveat. The following is written by me based on what i remember. It may or may not be quite accurate, but I'm sure it will sound very basic, and I'm sure there's probably a lot more to the game than i'm describing. Here goes!

At each end there's 4 posts, 2 tall ones and 2 shorter ones on each side. If you get the ball in the middle bit (the goal) you get a goal (6 points). If you get it in between the posts on either of the 2 sides, you get a behind (1 point). The ball is kicked into the goal. You can run with the ball but if you do you have to bounce it every 10 metres or so. You don't throw the ball over arm, you tap it to your team mates. If you catch the ball without dropping it, you can't be tackled.

Each team has 18 players on the pitch, and you can interchange players without subbing (meaning you can go off but still come back on). Whilst the game's in play, there might be men in fluorescent yellow running about, these are like messengers. They come on to pass messages from the manager/coach! (spot the one in the in middle in the second photo!)  There are a lot of officials wearing red - 9 in total. So, all in all, there are a lot of people on the pitch!

The match is played in 4 parts of 20 mins each. This is 20 mins of actual play time so usually a quarter takes longer, say about 28/30 mins. The bit i liked best is when the ball goes out of play, an official stands on the boundary line facing away from the pitch and throws the ball in backwards over his head! Funny. Oh, and the ball's like a rugby ball.

The games are a real family affair, all ages go from young kids to old grannies. There wasn't a great deal of shouting or chanting, until towards the end when people got a wee bit more excited. Although, we were playing Port Adelaide who are quite low down the table. Now, if it had been a derby (West Coast Eagles v Fremantle Dockers), it might have been a different story. Oh, and derby is not pronounced 'darby', it is pronounced 'derby'.


p.s. not quite sure about the date on these photos!  These were taken on R's little old camera.  

1 year in Oz!

At about 1am on 25th June last year I arrived in perth.  It was about -1 degrees.  I didn't think it got that cold!  Not only did I arrive on 25th, it's also the day that i started living with Mr R.  Ahhhh.  To celebrate our 1 year of living together bliss (ha ha), we had a yummy home cooked meal.  Master Chef (as he insists on being called, and i oblige because it means i don't have to cook at the weekends.  Yesss, i know i sound like a housewife but god, cooking every day has made me detest cooking.  Thinking up meal ideas and doing the grocery shopping is not fun).  Rusty made beer battered barramundi (we used the good old aussie favourite, Coopers green) with Mashy Peas (a Jamie Oliver concoction of peas, broccoli and potatoes with mint).  It was really tasty.


The second photo is of our salt and pepper mills affectionately called Oopsy Daisy.  Nowt special but Rusty inherited them from his parents and they're called this because they fall over very easily.  How cute it that.  And I love the fact that they have history and we get to use them in our home.

a blustery sunday

To make up for the fact that we spent an entire saturday in retail hell, traipsing around the big stores along Scarborough Beach Road (an area of town that is lined with store after store after store. It's basically one huge retail park. This is where you find Ikea, which actually i don't mind during the week ($1 hotdog anyone? Yes please! And of course, Spotlight, which is a fabulous craft superstore that sells absolutely everything and more a craftster could want - this week i'm making christmas crackers for our Christmas in July party we're having next weekend. Eek!) Anyway, i digress, so after a day of shopping and eating bad food (Subway for lunch and Nandos for dinner... I know! What were we thinking!), Sunday we went for a blustery walk along the beach. The beach was surprisingly busy, (which for Perth, means there were some other people aside from us there), a couple of fishermen, some bodyboarders, a few cyclists and other walkers. We had a lil' stroll along the beach, 'oohed' a bit at the big waves and then ducked into Clancy's for a take out coffee. Clancy's is a new bar/restaurant right on the beach. As we were getting take out coffee, we didn't have time to sit down and appreciate the view in the warmth but i did sneak a photo. How's that for a view!

I feel like chicken tonight

This isn't news, but we had takeout Nandos for dinner. And it tasted good. And i was so impressed that the take out containers were environmentally friendly, i took a photo.

it's winter here so what better activity than a jigsaw puzzle. I was recently at the library and noticed that they had jigsaw puzzles to borrow. How exciting, I thought! An opportunity to sit in, don my head torch and unleash my inner dag (some might say, not so 'inner'). Anyways, so i spotted a jigsaw puzzle of a dolls' house! I tell ya, if I wasn't one of those people that still think you should whisper in libraries, i would have squealed. In fact, maybe a little 'eek' did escape. (I LOVE dolls' houses). At home, I set up the box lid for reference as I sorted out the straight edged pieces and realised, rather unhelpfully, that the lid didn't show the full dolls' house. Nope, instead, for the sides of the puzzle, I had to work from the teeny tiny image on the side of the lid that showed the 'actual puzzle area'. AND, i got to the last but one piece of the puzzle to notice that the last piece was missing. Ah well, it is from the library, probably borrowed by a lot of people, one piece missing aint so bad, i thought. And then along comes Mr R, finds the piece on the floor under the table and inserts it to complete the puzzle. (Call me cynical but I reckon he hid it up his sleeve just to take that moment of glory from me).

Birds of a feather

The other weekend we drove up to Caversham park, which is a huge park for picnicking, walking etc and there's also a wildlife park and a tractor park (i might have made that one up actually) and a birds of prey show. Now, we love birds of prey. I (oops, that's actually 'we') got a gift of a pair of binoculars from Tonica after their stay back in November and they've been put to good use spotting birds of prey, dolphins, dugongs(!). Anyways, i digress, so we decided to go up to Caversham park to check out the birds of prey. As i say, this is because we like birds of prey, but also because we had a 2-for-1 voucher from the entertainment book. So, it was a small affair, only about 8 people watching but we got to see the birds flying and landing and catching food and R even got to hold one. Now, clearly, if i hadn't just had a biopsy on my arm, i would have held one too, (yeah, right) but i couldn't because it had to be on your left arm. Aw shucks. The only one upsetting thing was that a very lovely and enthusiastic little girl in the audience, who had lots of questions, kept being told by her mother and grandmother to put her hand down and stop asking questions. Yeah, good one parents, how to discourage your kids from learning and having confidence.

Bol Reverse

On a trip to the Bottle-o (that's the offie to your english folk), Els spotted some Mauritian beer - Phoenix. Els lived in Mauritius for a couple of years and has fond memories so she was very excited. We decided that we would buy some Phoenix beer and she would cook up a mauritian feast. Et voila! Bol reverse. How cool is that. The dish is prepared upside down in the bowl and then put on the plate. If you twist the bowl a couple of times, when you lift it up, it stays like that. So, it's chicken, chilli, oyster sauce, mushrooms (tinned! because they don't have fresh mushrooms), carrots (which Els sliced very effectively and prettily into lil' flower shapes) rice and a fried egg. YUM! It was delicious. And, i think, pretty simple to make. I might even have a go myself. We do pretty well out of our houseguests, i must say. Our previous houseguest (R's sister) cooked us a three course meal from my new Jamie Oliver book which was pretty darn tasty (although, like most of the recipes in that 30 mins book, they take a lot longer than 30 mins!) Gosh, i love being cooked for.

No boys allowed

After our mammoth road trip, Els and I decide to take another lil' road trip, down south this time. R was due to to start his new job (deputy director dontcha know) and i think he's a bit 'girlied out' so we head off for a weekend of wineries and beaches. We arrive in Prevelly at dusk. Just as we get out the car to pitch the tent, it starts raining. We quickly get the tent up and try to inflate the air bed without getting it muddy. Camping's a wee bit more difficult in the rain. It's made better by our lovely camping neighbour who brings us over hot chapati cooked on the fire. Yum! We sit in the car and drink beer. We then get in the tent which seems to be leaking a little bit. Hmmm. I'm sure R would have something to say about our tent pitching abilities, but luckily he's not here! The rain is so loud throughout the night I keep imagining the tent is going to cave in. Needless to say i didn't sleep much. We spend the morning at the beach. Elinor's sunbaking attempts are thwarted by the clouds but she perseveres. In the afternoon we head to a couple of wineries.

Elinor tries a few wines and then a few more. I'm the skipper so I resist. We do however purchase a nice bottle of red which we drink with our supernoodles back at the camp. We're so classy.

The next day we visit more beaches and another winery. We sample a 'surfers pie' for breakfast - egg, bacon, onion and tomato - in pastry! Elinor has a successful sunbaking hour at Yallingup beach and then it's back to Perth.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 6

It's the last day of our trip. We pack up our tents (did i mention that not only can i inflate air mattresses, I can also deflate.... just one more of my many camping skills) and cook up some eggs and beans in the camp kitchen. It's about 8.45am and this time, we stand the pelicans up. We check out the coastal side of Kalbarri National Park and see pods of dolphins jumping in the waves.

We look out for kangaroos jumping over emus.

We make it home. It's dark. We're hungry. We order 2 pizzas. We go to pick them up via the cash machine, which doesn't like Elinor's UK bank card. I have no money in my account. I then forget where the pizza place is. My phone is dead so we have to drive back home to ask R where it is. I then have to drive back to get the pizza. On arrival, it's packed, everyone's had the same idea. The woman tells me she tried to call (my phone battery was dead) - they ran out of mushrooms, no mushrooms so no mushroom pizza. There's no point asking for them to make another pizza now, the queue's too big. We now only have one pizza to share between 3. I valiantly (it was my fault) sacrifice pizza and have something defrosted from the freezer. Not a happy ending to the camping trip. I'm such a dag.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 5

We leave Carnarvon sharpish in the morning. There's nothing to see. We're back on the road.

We visit Shell beach (no sand, just millions and millions of shells).

We have a picnic lunch in Denham and share an easter egg. We go shark spotting at Shark Bay. We don't see any sharks but with the binoculars we spot a dugong!

We drive carefully so as not to hit any big eared, long tailed animals that we don't know the name of.

We make it to Kalbarri for our last camping night before heading back to Perth. It's Anzac Day eve and Kalbarri is rammed. We head out for some food and are unsuccessful. It's 8pm and the restaurants have closed their kitchens (yup, it might be Easter weekend but things still shut early). We manage to buy a bottle of wine and head back to the campsite where we cook up a feast of supernoodles.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 4

After a few days up at Ningaloo, it's time to make the journey back towards home. We stop in Exmouth for petrol (and probably a pie of some description, i can't remember) and head away from the idyllic, quiet Cape Range. We drive, and drive a bit more, and a bit more and then we have a pit stop at Coral Bay. Now, Coral Bay was beautiful. Again, crystal clear water but busy.

It's Easter Sunday (or Monday, irrelevant) and it's heaving. Elinor sunbakes. R and I go snorkelling. I'm very much a snorkelling beginner. I find it quite odd to be able to have my face in the water and be able to breathe... oh, and i'm a pretty big fraidy cat when it comes to anything pretty much. Anyways, i'm getting better and i like it even if it is a bit scary.

After our brief interlude at Coral Bay we're back on the road. We pass over the Tropic of Capricorn.

We spend the night in Carnarvon where we enjoy having a proper shower for the first time in 3 days and scoff at the huge motorhomes with satellite dishes. Pah, this isn't camping. We know what real camping is. Our neighbour has wifi. He's staying for another 2 months.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 3

In the light of day we get to appreciate what an amazing camping spot we have. 80 metres from our tent is the beach and the crystal clear waters of the Indian Ocean.

We explore the beaches, there's some snorkelling action, Elinor is perfecting the art of sunbaking, R does a spot of fishing, I collect some shells (I didn't take them away with me though because that's illegal, kids)

and I laugh at the funny crabs. Seriously, how cool are crabs. They run sideways and these ones were kinda square with eyes on top of their heads.

We check out some sunsets...

Our trip to Ningaloo part 2

After a quick stop in Kalbarri National Park, we hit the open road and drive... and drive... and drive... yup, still driving. We stop at the Overlander roadhouse for sausage rolls and coffee and then it's back on the road. Like i said, it's a long way and not a whole lot to see.

We arrive in the Cape Range National Park after dark. It's pitch black (we are totally in the middle of nowhere - the last town Exmouth is about 70 km back).

We realise our campsite is not marked on the map. We're driving about 30 km/h because there are sooooo many kangaroos. I see a snake in the road. Did i mention how dark it was? We eventually reach our campsite. I have to psych myself up to get out the car. It's pitch black and I'm imagining all kinds of animals, reptiles, bugs etc that are waiting to get me. Once again i'm on inflatable mattress duty (if there was a girl guide badge for blowing up mattresses, i would have aced that one). Tents up, we cook up fajitas (yum!) on our gas stove and marvel over the stars in the sky (I've never seen anything like it. absolutely amazing) and then we see a light on the horizon around 9.30pm in land which gets brighter and it's the moon rising! I didn't even try to take photos but so cool, and i've totally forgotten about the bugs and snakes and killer roos.

Our trip to Ningaloo part 1

A few weeks ago, we took a road trip many, many, many kilometres north to Ningaloo. My friend, Elinor was visiting from the UK so the three of us piled into the trusty Subaru (see photo above) and headed North. After our first stop at the Pinnacles (yeah, you've heard it all before) we stopped for the night in Kalbarri. We arrived after dark so after pitching the tents (R and E) and blowing up the inflatable mattresses (me), we headed out to experience the night life of Kalbarrie. We had mammoth portions of fish and chips (and steak for the man) and enjoyed the dulcet tones of the locals in the weekly karaoke night. In the morning we waited 1/2 hour for the pelicans to show up for feeding time but we were stood up....

In stitches

This is a picture of my arm. A couple of weeks ago I had to have a biopsy on a growth type thing on my arm. Now, i've never really been to hospital. I've never broken anything or had stitches or anything like that, so this kinda freaked me out. I was fine at the clinic (I just didn't look) and then i had the dressing on (also fine because i couldn't see anything)... but then, when i had to take the dressing off... ick ick ick. Having a stitch in my arm made me feel really funny! I don't know what i expected but i think i thought the stitches would be see-through. i certainly wasn't expecting dark blue thread. Anyway i was a bit of a wuss for a whole week and made R put new band aids on so i didn't have to look at it. And then i was really dreading having the stitches out. Again, i don't know what i expected but the nurse took about 2 seconds and then it was done. In Australia the statistics for skin cancer are like 1 in 2 people will get it at some point in their lives so it's pretty run of the mill to have a dodgy mole or something, which meant i got no sympathy or even any interest (although i did manage to milk it a lil' bit at home). Poor me *sob*. Luckily however the results came back clear and it was actually a benign Lichenoid Keratosis. And now i think the scar from the biopsy is actually going to be bigger than the darn thing in the first place. And i'm about $200 poorer. But hey, as my dad says, 'your health is your wealth'.

last days of summer

on the verge of art

i thought i'd share with you one of our fantastic verge finds. This time around we decided to focus on things that we actually need rather than more furniture that we don't have any room for. Sooo, we got our hands on some plant pots and hanging baskets for the garden.... and this lil' beauty....

How cool is that! Why anybody would throw out such a beaut is beyond me but their loss is most definitely our gain! I love the fact that one of them is wearing a red jacket.

things i learnt yesterday

1. brian mcfadden and delta goodrem have split up! Maybe it had something to do with his latest song which rather unpleasantly talks about how he likes it when his girlfriend's drunk and he gets to take her home so he can 'do some damage'. yeugh, who uses such words? 'do some damage'? Like really? And did nobody listen to this record first and think, hmmm, not sure that's quite the tone we want to be conveying. Anyways, he is now donating all proceeds from the single (which probably won't be that much) to a rape support charity.
2. I can't make gravy. Is gravy that difficult to make? Well, i'm struggling. This is the second time i've attempted it and the second time it's not gone quite right. And the second time i've cried over gravy. I think i need to back away from the homemade gravy route and make friends with bisto.
3. Following on from the point above, i'm not cut out to be a housewife. I'm clearly underqualified (sssh, don't tell R, i might get the sack). Our house currently looks like we both work full time and don't prioritise housework.
4. Schindler's list is a looooonnnnng movie. I haven't seen it and i'm not sure i'm going to. (it was on tv the other day so i recorded it). Actually, geez, it's not like i haven't got the time... I WILL watch it (gimme a week and i'll report back).
5. I'm on my third Kazuo Ishiguro book in as many weeks. I read 'When we were Orphans' first and couldn't put it down. My friend then lent me 'Never let me go' (the one that's been made into a movie with the lovely Carey Mulligan and Keira Poutley) and now i'm on 'The Unconsoled'. It's v confusing (and big) and i'm not sure i can persevere. It's due back at the library today so i need to make a decision... renew and finish... or return and give up.

Autumn!

I'm so excited that Autumn is here. It's still warm (hot) here and i do hope it stays that way for my friend, elinor who arrives in 2 weeks! (Eek! I'm so excited about her forthcoming visit) but, it's so nice that summer is on it's way out (sorry UK peeps, i know you've probably only had about a total of 11 hours of sun (our daily average) in the last 3 months). It was a pretty brutal summer, heat wise, especially for a newbie like me. Perth had a record 57 days of more than 32 degrees and it hasn't rained since 1 february (0.4 mm. does that even count?)... Anyways, more importantly, i'm bored of wearing flip flops and shorts and vests every day. I wanna wear clothes! I'm yearning for coloured tights, jumpers (yesss, i'm so excited about getting to wear a jumper), jeans (i tried to put on my skinny jeans the other day and had to peel them off straight away, they were so uncomfortable), oooh, my pink gloves! AND i got my mitts on a copy of UK Grazia the other day (Thanks Tam) and now I really want a cape and some ski pants. (And as i re-read that sentence, i do appreciate that wanting a cape and ski pants makes me sound like i'm about to adopt a super-hero fashion sense).

Cake!

Lime yoghurt cake with rosewater and pistachios. It's a Rachel Allen recipe but I was a bit disappointed. The cake turned out well but i wasn't convinced by the flavour. As you can see from the photo, it was quite sticky. The rosewater and lime syrup is poured over the cake and soaks into the sponge.

I even threw the last slice out because it'd been hanging around for that long it'd gone a little bit dry... Now throwing cake away is not something we usually do, especially with a cake/biscuit/pastry/chocolate/i'll take anything sweet fiend in the house (that's not me by the way) so i think that's a sure sign that i won't be making this cake again.

No, not sharks, dolphins!

On Sunday R and I set off for a cycle ride to Fremantle. Our route took us south of the river and along the cycle path that runs all the way along the Swan river into Fremantle. I had an awesome day. It was so lovely being out on Sunday morning in a new area, (I've never cycled this route before), seeing the families picnicking on the riverbanks, people kayaking and fishing. And the dolphins! We saw dolphins. I saw a dolphin on the Swan river once before when we were out on the boat but that was more of a glimpse. This time we stopped and watched the dolphins swimming and playing about in the water. I did have a little moment of realising how bloody lucky i am to be living in such an amazing place.

The photo above is a pelican on a lamp post. Unfortunately the pelican rather stubbornly wouldn't turn around so i couldn't get a good angle on his beak!

In Freo we stopped to watch local band, San Cisco, play at a mental health awareness day (where we also got free water and fruit. We love a freebie! The bananas were V popular and we didn't manage to get our hands on one of those. For those outside of australia, bananas are currently about $11 a kilo. That's about £7!) Triple J (australian radio station) have been playing San Cisco's record these last couple of weeks so it seemed like a good opportunity to catch the band live before they potentially get big and popular. They've got a good sound to them... a bit Vampire Weekend-ish.

We were going to jump on the train home but i suggested we cycle along the coastal path to cottesloe, which we did, and we stopped for fish and chips on the grass in the shade of the pine trees. R had a little snooze and then we jumped back on the bikes and decided we might as well cycle all the way home. (We worked out it was probably about 55 kms in total)

We stopped in our local, the Paddo, for a well deserved pint, (a midi for me) and bumped into a couple of friends, so 1 drink turned into 2. We then went home watched the last of the Twilight movies (god, can she get any more drippy? I'm interested to see what she's like in the Runaways movie, which we've going to watch on dvd this weekend) and ate cheese and crackers. An absolutely perfect day!

Hands up if you like art

Every year Cottesloe hosts the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition, which means at this time of year if you go down to Cottesloe Beach you'll be sharing the sand with many wonderful and odd sculptures/installations (as well as a ton more people than usual!) We sensible parked at Swanbourne and enjoyed a lovely relaxed walk along the sand, watching the kite surfers, into Cottesloe.

The sculptures are simply dotted about the beach and grass areas under the tall pines and people carry on their business, picnicking, sunbathing, building sandcastles, as if it's quite normal to have 10 pedestal fans right next to you. We didn't check out all the sculptures but it's on for a while so i'm sure we'll head back before it finishes.