Anthony Malloy Between Coffees

And that’s it for another year…

Miss Marita won the Anthony Malloy Memorial Trophy for the second time and Rob finally got it out of his house. I’m not sure who was happier.

The television is home. It’s fixed, I’m over the moon. I’ve spent all day cleaning and straightening up around the house so now it’s time to sit down and get reaquanted with my gal.

If you’re looking for a television repair or service business in Newport, Spotswood, Williamstown, Yarraville, let’s just say anywhere in Melbourne’s West, give John a call. He’s at 40 Hall St in Newport, his businesss is called Micro Television Service, and he went out of his way to help. I can’t recommend him highly enough. His phone number is (03) 9391 1238.

As The Eurhythmics once said “it’s alright, baby’s coming coming back”.

John, hereby officially the best television repair man in Melbourne, is dropping her back to us tomorrow. He’s had her running all day yesterday with no problems so fingers crossed all will be well when she’s back home.

I was planning on cleaning the house and catching up with paperwork on my day off but I guess that’s going to change now, especially as I have 12 episodes of Battlestar Galactica sitting in all their DivX glory just begging to be watched.

As my baby is still in hospital Rae arranged a replacement television. It came from a guy in Newport. He’d had it since his 18th birthday but his wife had put her foot down and demanded an upgrade (and if you saw the house it came from, they look as they may be able to afford a new LCD, or two, without too many problems). So, this aged beauty made it’s way in to our home.

A little different to the usual occupant of this spot.

Yes, those silver dials are what you use to move from one channel to another. How quaint. I’d forgotten all about the static burst as you clunked past the empty channel 8 to and from 7 and 9. It even has a little flip down door with a few knobs that allow you to adjust the colour, ’softness’ and other sundry analogue things. 

It’s been 18 years since I’ve had to get off the couch to change a channel. Thankfully in this time I’ve had children so I’m not missing the remote that much. The funniest thing was when we first asked Phee to change the channel. She picked up the set top box remote and pushed the button. Nothing. Perplexed she looked at the new box. “Um, dad…?”

We then had to explain she needed to walk to the telly and turn the knob at the top. The novelty will quickly wear off and I think she will be as happy to see our remote controlled beauty back as much as I will. 

I was good, I held back the tears as she was placed in the back of the van, covered in a nice warm blanket. It won’t be long, she needs this, he’s a professional, she’ll be back before we know it, feeling and looking better than ever.

The television has gone to television hospital.

And I miss her.

I wonder if I should call and see if she’s okay?

I’ve spotted another couple of signs around town, including one in Yarraville I must have walked past a hundred times and never noticed. I think I need to take a couple of weeks off and just go walking around inner Melbourne snapping away.

a quickr pickr post

Heh, I think it was Penfolds that my nana would have a sip of every now and then. Purely medicinal, of course.

Kids and sleep don’t really mix. Two nights ago it was Bert who decided to cry from midnight to 2.00 am which made for a blurred day on Thursday. Last night Bert slept but it was one of  the fury kids who has me wanting to go to bed at 8:30 on a Friday night.

I woke up an hour and a half before the alarm and as I rolled over to go back to sleep I had a thought. “I can’t remember seeing Bella last night.”. As everyone else was asleep I couldn’t really go around the house calling for her or turning on lights. I checked Rae’s side of the bed, no cat lumps there so I was convinced she wasn’t in the house.

Now I really couldn’t sleep, going over last night trying to place Bella in the house but I still couldn’t remember seeing her. Then I realised it was blowing a gale outside and I had pictures of my little girl being picked up in a cyclonic gust and deposited on top of one of the lights in the middle of the Westgate Freeway.

Thoughts of flying cats kept me tossing and turning until the alarm went off. Even though I could barely open my eyes I got up, walked out to the lounge and saw Bella sitting on the couch. I swear she knew and was having a little chuckle with Thomas about what a panic merchant I am.

Kids. Harumph.

Well, at least for this weekend he will.

At the footy a while ago I took a photo of Richo. It’s one of my favourite footy photos and I uploaded it to Flickr that day, Richard was even kind enough to leave a comment. And there I left it.

Fast forward a few weeks and an email drops in to my inbox. It’s from Sue and she wants to use my photo to advertise a talk at her local church, which just happens to be in the next suburb over. The chaplain from the Richmond Football Club is giving a talk this Sunday entitled ‘Does God go the footy?’ and my picture, she thought, would be perfect to promote the event.

So now my picture of Richo has been blown up to life size and adorns a billboard outside the Newport Baptist Church (and I’m amazed at how well the image has coped with being enlarged so much). It’s been used on flyers too. We’ve nothing planned for Sunday morning so we may even head on down to hear what Paul Cameron has to say, that is if they’ll let a very very very very lapsed Catholic through the doors. Ah well, at least I’m on one of the right teams.

Bugger. Television is still stuffed and Grand Final is coming up. Anybody know a good and reliable television repair person who can come take a look?

As Phee was sleeping overnight at Nana’s we took the opportunity for a grown-ups morning out (with Bert in tow) and shouted ourselves breakfast in Yarraville at Cut Paw Paw. A little luxury every now and then ain’t such a bad thing and Bert got to point at the trains as they thundered past. He’s such a boy when it comes to trains and trucks - the louder, faster, noisier and bigger the better.

It’s such a glorious day I’m trying to get work finished so I can go sit outside and not mow the grass. I swear someone comes along and sprays it with a magic speed growing spray every night. I did them only last weekend and they’re almost back to the same level but now they can wait until next weekend when they’ll get their Grand Final BBQ trim.