Country Snoskred

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Somewhere within a 50km radius of where I live, there is a town known as Sussex Inlet. When I was working, customers from that place were always.. how can I put this nicely.. trouble. For example – a lady wanted to return an item she bought from us because it did not match her curtains. The item? An LCD tv set. Now I don’t know about you, but I rarely try to match my electrical appliances with my curtains.

So the other half and I avoided the place because we thought it was a haven for lunatics. Then one day, we took a wrong turn, and somehow ended up there. I have to say once you’ve been there you know why everyone is so loony – the place is amazingly incredible. I go loony just driving around the place. To any Adelaideians reading this – imagine West Lakes, but with crystal clear green colored water. Most of the houses there are waterfront, somehow.

sussex

Of course, like all places in NSW, they have an RSL club, and a bowling club. Soon one of the two will be having an AC/DC tribute band drop past to visit, and all day long today while we were driving, every second song turned out to be an AC/DC song. I think there is some higher force at work, and it wants us to go to the AC/DC tribute show. However it is on a weekend when family will be here to visit so we might not be able to make it. :(

It’s been a long day, more when I have got some decent sleep!

adelaide, country life, electrical appliances, New South Wales

Stunned.

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You would not believe my Dad.

We went to the pub tonight for the usual meat raffle night. When the other half and I got there Dad’s standing out the front and he says “I can’t get any money out of the ATM, Mum’s put it in the wrong account or something”. So he was standing there waiting for her to go online and transfer it to the right place with the atm slip in his hand – it says insufficient funds, and he’s got the sad face on. “I can’t even get a beer”. The other half gets him a beer, he goes and tries the machine again, he can’t get anything. Mum sent $20 over with the Tamworth boys because that’s all she had on her.

At the end of the meat raffling you put your membership number (or name) on the back of your raffle ticket and then it goes into a barrel and they draw out a number, you win a $20 voucher.

So somewhat prematurely, and because the boys from Tamworth were there and he was explaining how that worked to them, Dad pulls out his membership card and puts his number on the back of their raffle tickets. Then he goes away and starts winning money on the pokies.

I’m sitting there drinking coffee and watching the meat raffle, we win one, then another meat tray. Then they do a membership draw, which is basically all the members numbers and if you’re in the club you win it. The number pops up and it looks familiar, so I look at the back of the tickets Dad wrote on, and it’s his! I jump up to go tell him, he’s in the middle of getting $180 that he won on the poker machine. He goes over and he shows them his card, and that’s $1,600 and change right there.

He takes $10 of the $180 and wins another $130, and while he’s waiting for the attendant to pay the credit then he hears his membership number called out again – he’s also won the $20 voucher he put his number on the back of the tickets for.

He never did manage to get any money out of the ATM, and now he certainly does not need to!

He is always most likely to win. ;)

Aussie Culture, country life, family, pokie machines, yay

No images

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Blogger is not letting me put images here, which is making me really mad. :(

While I wait for it to fix itself, let me tell you a few things that happened over the past few days. On Thursday we went shopping. We drove about 65kms to go where we wanted to go because the other half had a voucher and that was the nearest shop. We had a lovely hour or two wandering around just choosing various items that we needed, ended up spending $280 of the $300 voucher. Among many other items we bought two fridge door jugs, because I have found the best apple juice on the planet but it does come in these HUGE glass jars which I am a little scared of.

So we drive home, only to find one of them is broken, and not a fixable kind of broken. Normally I check things over before we leave the shop but this was very late in the shopping trip and we were looking for other things, and yeah, I fucked up ;) The jug was worth $10 but now I will put it aside until the next time we go back that way in the hope that I might return it. It might be a few weeks before we go back that way, though. The lesson in this for people moving from the city to the country is, you always have to make sure things are 100% intact and risky free before you leave the store.

So last night some visitors from Tamworth arrived to stay with my parents, and we went out to dinner at the Chinese. Seeing the visitors dressed in Tamworth clothes gave me that one second of home sickness, you probably know the one I mean. If I were to draw it as a painting, it would be a big red heart being squeezed hard by a hand. It’s like you just remembered that you’re missing something important.

Now it makes no sense, because I love where I live now, and I wouldn’t change it. I don’t think I would want to move back to Tamworth. I love the beaches here, and many other things about this place. But you can’t change what is, and it just is, that place will always be where my heart lives. Though I never lived there myself, for longer than two months. ;)

I’m gonna do some more painting today, and watch a little more West Wing, I guess.. :)

country life, Home, shopping

Blogger Non-Beta

2 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

dolphin, originally uploaded by sn0skred.

I liked the beta better, I’ve been trying to upload pics for a few days and it’s not working. Check this pic The Other Half took while fishing recently. We have a lot of dolphin pods around here and while they were out on the local river they saw about 40 of them. It was a really sunny, glary day and if you look closely at this shot you can see that star effect – he must have had the aperture set really low on this shot in order to get that. It looks stunning.

You can see the big version of the photo here.

beaches, photography

Strawberry Madness

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Well it’s not Christmas without strawberries in my opinion, so I was looking everywhere for the darned things. All the local grocery stores had them but I would not buy them – they were all yukky and some were even *mouldy!* Eew!

So I said to my Mother the night before that we should go to the Organic Grocery in a town about a 20 minute drive away (coincidentally where my PO box is and where the best pies on the planet are) and she said ok, be ready at midday. Well my sleep patterns were as usual all messed up, and I got into bed about 7am which gave me about 4 hours sleep before I had to get up, and even though I was really tired, I got up with the assistance of Lukas Rossi singing to me.

So I got dressed, walked down the street to the parents house, nobody there. Not even a mouse. So I turned on the TV and waited, and they showed up about an hour later, and then Mum was all “I didn’t say we’d go, I didn’t say midday” and she didn’t want to go but I talked her into it, so she decided we would try another place here in town before we went driving “all that way” (16kms) to the other town!

This from a woman who used to whinge about driving from one side of Tamworth to the other, when Tamworth is half the size of this place. It’s to be expected.

We ended up at this place in town we’d never been to before and I am soooo thankful because not only did they have great, non-mouldy strawberries (which I have a desire to go and eat the whole punnet right now but resist I must) but their other fruit and veg was incredible. I even got cherries, all perfectly the same ripeness. YAY!

Now I just have to make sure she’ll keep going back there, because I am soooo tired of crappy fruit and veg from supermarkets..

Aussie Culture, country life, family, food

And now for something completely different..

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As I type this now, it is pouring with rain. Since 9am we’ve had over 40 mm of rain, and the average for this month is just .3mm less than what we have had in just one day here today.

It’s a beautiful sound but very unusual for this time of year. I have not seen blue skies for some days now, but this is ok, we need the rain. I just hope some of it falls inland where they need it even more than we do.

General Chit-chat, weather

Invasion

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There’s not long to go till Christmas now, and the population appears to be growing. There’s been an explosion of interstate number plates

– Victorians

EEK! no offence to the Vics reading this, I know there’s a few of you, but damn many of your fellow Victorians have absolutely no idea how to drive! The worst ones are the ones with numberplates that say “On the move” because you can bet, they won’t be. Moving, that is. Or, they’ll be trying to move into your car with their car. One almost merged into us today. I usually let out a scream of terror and say “Look, a Victorian, keep off ooooooo” when I see a VIC numberplate.. and the other half knows this means stay well away from that car. ;) I had not seen one for about 8 months. What an idyllic time that was. I forgot how terrifying they were.

– Canberrans

OMG run and hide. Those people live in a state where they have high speed limits all over the place. These people want to get where they are going fast, and they want you out of the way, and they’re happy to run you off the road if possible.

– Queenslanders

SCARY! one drove into our estate today, it was almost enough to make me go looking for the boxes and get packing. You just never know what those people are thinking, but you often suspect they have a hidden stash of guns around somewhere.

– South Australians

RUN AWAY! Hey, I used to live there, I’m happy to say those people have no idea how to merge. And you need to merge a lot here in NSW. NSW people can merge at 80kms an hour. South Australians can’t do it unless the road is clear of other vehicles. That’s not merging, people. That’s something entirely different.

The worst invasion of all is the City People

If this were being made into a movie, they would call it “Invasion of people with carrots wedged firmly in their rear passage” and it would actually be a comedy. The other half and I sat at the petrol (for you Americans, I mean Gas) station for about 20 minutes today laughing at the sitcom unfolding before our eyes.

First, this chick who was probably 50-60 was with another chick of the same vintage. They were in a Subaru Forrester (there’s your first clue right there, a 4wd for people who have no clue!) and they were clearly suffering from the heat – it hit 27 degrees here today whoa evil I was here on a day when it was 45 degrees C, and we went bushwalking, you city people are WEAK!, but they also needed to discuss majorly important issues as one of them pumped petrol all over the side of her car, and herself.

One chick went in to pay, and the other chick picked up the windscreen washer out of the bucket next to the pump, put it aside, and proceeded to tip buggy dirty water all over the side of her car to wash the petrol off. She did not notice the watering can (full of *clean* water and there for the purpose of washing petrol off your car) sitting right next to the windscreen washer bucket.

They had a Sydney City Petersham Subaru numberplate identifier, but I knew they were from the city long before I noticed that, because they were walking around like they’d just been cavity searched, by a guard with really huge hands.

Next, the guy in the car next to us filled up his boat tank with petrol, but forgot to put the lid on before he put it in the car. Petrol went everywhere. That’s a nightmare waiting to happen right there.

Then a guy in a Jeep Cherokee pulled up so far from the petrol bowser pump thing that you could have parked two cars in between the car and the hose thing. He then tried to make the hose reach his petrol tank, which was on the *other* side of the car. He realised it would not work, and then tried to get closer to the pump. It took a good 5 minutes of moving the car around somewhat aimlessly before he managed it.

Shopping is a nightmare, you can’t get a park. Lunchtime is pure evil, because everyone wants to go to little cafes and eat. The shops are open to midnight here, so my strategy for the next two weeks is, if we need anything, we’re going after 8pm.. :)

Australia, city people, country life

Today we go out..

3 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

For a little drive. We went to some beaches! YAY!

drive0

First we went to Murray’s Beach, where you may hike, sightsee, bicycle and fall off cliffs. You may not light fires, camp, or stick spear things with ropes attached into fish, as you can see in this picture.

drive01 We walked through a little forest (300 metres, according to the sign) and the forest was quite pretty and possibly a little scary.

drive

Then we ended up here.

drive1

We started walking down the beach this way

drive3

but soon after the other half was surprised by a naked man venturing out of the bushes and into the ocean. He promptly suggested we go the other way. I did not even notice they were naked, I was too busy taking photos of shells.

aadrive

He was most disturbed as there were children on the beach and felt it was very inappropriate. I disagreed, hey, if they want to let it all hang out, and nobody’s arresting them, and it doesn’t say on the sign you can’t take off your clothes, I don’t mind them wandering around in their birthday suits. I would be much more offended by a dog on a beach than a naked person. Then he said he was worried they might think we were trying to take photos of them, as we have such a huge lens and all. I said, well as long as I am pointing it at the sand and shells, I don’t think they’ll be worried about that, but hey, there’s rock pools over there, lets go that way.

aadrive1

It’s lucky we did go that way, because we made a new friend.

drive2

After a nice long beach walk, we decide to leave.

aadrive2

Other half was not happy because I had sandy foot (both were sandy but this is a photo of one of them and the only photo of me ever on this blog as yet so enjoy it) and no place to wash off sand. I said not to worry, I will vacuum the car. And I will, one day, probably right before we sell it. ;)

So we get back in the car and venture off to other beaches. We drive to Jervis Bay (the entire bay is named that but there is also a town named that) and I cannot show you a photo of a wallaby standing right beside the road because I apparently do not point very well. I’m yelling “Look over there, look over there!” and pointing wildly at the side of the road at this rather large brown creature, and the other half was unable to see what on earth all the fuss was about. We drove back around the block to see if we could see it again, but it must have crossed the road.

And now here is a photo of the beach that belongs to the Navy. In an interesting change of procedure, they have actually something that resembles a port nearby. *near* WATER! I have always found it hilarious that there is a Navy base in Canberra, with only a manmade lake nearby and nowhere to launch ships within a 100km drive. But they do have all those handy helicopters and jets and stuff.

aanavy1

All the places above are a part of Booderee National Park. All this less than 50kms from my doorstep. Wow, I’s lucky. :)

Tomorrow, I may show you more pics from this lovely drive! Except we loved this place so much today, first thing in the morning we’re going to check out snorkelling gear and wetsuits. Well, a wetsuit for me at least, there’s jellyfish in those waters, and it’s a little cool. :)

beach walk, beaches, New South Wales, photography

I’m so lame..

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I can get addicted to reality tv so easily.. there’s this lame show on late night pay tv called “High School Reunion” and just one episode last week when I couldn’t sleep, I’m suckered in. Trouble is, it’s on at 3am.

must… learn… to…. use… dvd… recorder… thingy… soon…

Today the other half had to work till 10pm. A 13 hour sale. Life in retail is no fun. However, it did mean I got to eat a frozen meal for dinner and icecream with ice magic and sprinkles. yay!

Here’s a pic from the trip down the coast on the weekend..

0412

New South Wales, photography

I can’t decide..

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… whether I’m annoyed or not. The internet was down, so I SMS’d the other half asking him to call me. By the time he rang, I’d already fixed it (Yes, I am a GENIUS!) but that was not why he was calling me..

OH – Would you like to go for a drive about 290kms south tomorrow?

Me – I thought we were going to Wollongong with my parents. (Wollongong is north)

OH – Well, I have to deliver about $15,000 worth of stuff to a customer. I can either pay $600 to get the truck driver to do it, or we hire a truck for $390 and do it ourselves, or we have a very unhappy customer.

Grrr. GRRRRR. I would not mind if we could go in our own car, but obviously the stuff won’t fit in there. However, we do get to go past a number of incredibly gorgeous places, so I’ll take the camera and try to make the most of it. But it is really REALLY annoying, because it will take ages to do this in the truck.

One of the places we will pass through is Narooma, it’s just the most beautiful place. I can’t describe the peace of it to you. Photos won’t even do it justice, and the only pics I have are from the one time we drove through there just about as the sun was setting. Even though it was getting dark, when I got close to the water I could tell it was the most incredible shade of green. There’s this inlet, and the water is going past at a decent speed, so you can just sit there on this little jetty and watch the water go by. So I’ll see if I can get some good pics for you tomorrow.

narooma

Edit to add – no, now I am annoyed. The other half forgot he’d already arranged to have our airconditioner installed tomorrow. He’d done a deal with the guy because he was going to be at home so he would work as the laborer and it would cost us less. And now, not. :(

Another update – now he has arranged the airconditioner man to install on Sunday instead. This means no trip to Wollongong this weekend. It’s not meant to be, clearly. But I can have me another watermelon candle from Batemans Bay..

Angry Snoskred, New South Wales, photography