Anthony Malloy

Today was glorious but I couldn’t tell you what yesterday was like as I spent almost all of it asleep. Woke up yesterday, managed to stay awake long enough to have some breakfast but then the aches set in and it was all over for the day. I slept, slept and then slept some more – I simply couldn’t wake up or get get myself off the bed. Thankfully Rae was home, she got to enjoy a Dad free day with the kids.

The weird thing is that when I awoke this morning it had totally gone. I guess you’d hope this was the case after 30 hours of sleeping but to have absolutely no ill effects….just plain odd. Good thing too as we had to take Bert off for a quick trip to Royal Children’s Hospital today. Everything is fine, and when I tell you we went to see ‘The Prince of Poo’ (as the specialist calls himself) you’ll thank me for not going in to details! The RCH is an amazing institution, we are truly luck to live in a city with such a magnificent hospital but one thing they need to do is redevelop their web site. If there’s one thing in this world I know a bit about it’s hospital websites and the RCH deserves a lot better.

Anyway, after a great appointment (yes, it really was) we made use of our FOTZ membership again and went for another hour walk around the zoo. This time we we got to see the cool animals – gorillas, elephants and tigers – the kids loved them all. Next trip we get to see the crocodiles, the most requested animal of the lot. It’s fantastic being able to rock up and just go for a wander for free. It’s like having a neighbourhood park with really cool animals.

Now if you add an afternoon nap and great fish and chips you have a perfect day to balance the complete lack of a Thursday. Rae’s back to work next week so the fun stops and its back to earning a living full time next week. i don’t know who will miss having mum here the most, me or the kids.

At long last I made prawn and pork rice paper rolls. Delicious. Only problem is Bert likes them so we had to sacrifice two.

This morning I had the opportunity to head in to the ABC and be interview on Alan Brough’s breakfast show. Someone on his production team saw a mention of Our Fading Past and invited me in for a chat. It was great fun, he obviously loves Melbourne and its history and he knew his stuff. It was great watching the behind the scenes goings on, the signals, the messages popping up on screens, the puzzled looks as lines went bad. I felt really comfortable chatting away and there’s no way it felt like the 20 minutes it was.

If you’re interested to hear about the signs, and Dr Morse’s Indian Root Pills, check out the segment.

Listen at 774 Melbourne | Right Click to download, click to play)

I wondered if anyone would be listening but I’ve already had several emails and new contributions and I apparently surprised both a sister and uncle when I started talking to them on their radio.

After the excitement of that we headed off to the Zoo. Rae, in her wisdom, decided we should join Friends Of The Zoo. A single trip to the zoo would cost us over $55 just to walk through gates and after spending that sort of money you’d want to stay and wander for a fair while to get your money’s worth, not an altogether practical thing with the young un’s. Having a FOTZ membership means we can skedaddle on over for an hour and then head on home. It’s going to be fantastic for weekend strolls after the market or those Fridays when I have absolutely no idea how I’ll make it through the day.

Today we got to check our the roaring lions, lazy big cats, frogs, bears (Bert was scared!), the giraffes, the tortoises and a few dozing kangaroos before the kids had had enough of their big adventure morning. I can see that we’ll get our money’s worth over the next year, Mr Henry in particular was fascinated and was most reluctant to move on from each animal.

It’s late in the day and with Rae on a weeks holiday a very lazy mood has descended on the house,. I’ve just finished a book so now it’s time to decide which one to tackle next, Iain Rankin’s latest or Shutter Island.

At last, good weather on the weekend. Of course this means it’s time to get some work done outside. For now I only have to mow the back lawn but, before too long, it will be the front lawn as well. Yes after just a couple of weeks the first blades of grass are beginning to appear out the front. Thankfully this patch won’t have a swing set and clothes line smack bang in the middle of it so a couple of passes with the trusty mower and we should be right,

The lemon and lime tree seem to be in a little bit of trouble, the leaves at the top are turning yellow. I mulched them today so I’m hoping that may help but my bet is the soil may be a bit too much clay and we may have to replant to try again with the trees on top of the soil.

I should be weeding a garden bed out the front and taking care of the nature strip with another dose of weed killer but I’m running behind on a couple of projects for my business so it’s time to hang up the gardening gloves and switch in to nerd mode for a couple of hours. Then it’s then time to cook up some satay chicken on the bbq after which my weekend duties will be done. I love days like this, roll on spring and summer for many many more.

Rae has headed off to the Yarra Valley with her work for the next couple of days. This means having the bed to myself, Battlestar Galactica on the telly and dad making dinner. Now this isn’t a big deal, I can and do cook (admittedly not as much as I should), and Rae had even put takeaway on the menu calendar but this morning it dawned on me – I’ll make Dad Dinner!

Growing up it was mum who cooked, every meal, every day except maybe a couple of times a year when Dad would take a turn. My memory tells me it was generally a Sunday night when he would serve up the one thing, apart from barbecues, that I ever saw him cook; omelettes. There are eggs in the fridge, some ham, chives, cheese and that’s pretty much all we need. So in honour of dad, tonight the kids are going to experience their Poppa Ted’s Dinner Extraordinaire – omelettes fit for kings, princess and princesses.

It started almost five years ago when I bought my first iPod – a 40GB white 3rd generation. It was fantastic. This lasted a couple of years until the hard drive failed so I replaced it with a reconditioned 20GB 3rd generation. This one is still going strong with Rae using at work but I replaced it a couple of years ago with an 80GB classic. Last year I found a 1GB shuffle on sale and added that. Now any normal person would be happy with a two sitting on their desk, or so you’d think.

Last week I added a 32GB Touch to the family, and it’s superb. I wanted a way to take my notes in Evernote with me and to carry my Google calendars, mail and contacts too. It does this and sooooo sooooo much more. I can see I’m going to go broke with buying apps, although the free ones are amazing. I can Skype for free from the beauty, have installed a spirit level, can play air hockey against Rob on his Touch, check my RSS via Google Reader, check my Google apps email, send Tweets via Twitterific and Facebook is better and easier to use via their app.

Now my holy grail for tech has been to find a way to stream 6 Music and my Canucks home games no matter where I am and, with thanks to the Touch, I’m almost there. Fstream is a fantastic app that lets you listen to almost any radio stream off the net – and it has no problems with 6 Music or the Canucks broadcasts. I can move away from the desk and as long as I have wifi I can listen and once I upgrade to an iPhone (yep, I can see it coming a year away) I’ll have my stations wherever I go.

For now though I’ll be happy and take delight  in my shiny new toy and drive Rae mad by making her look at every new feature I stumble across.

We’ve been waiting for a beautiful weekend afternoon like this for months and months. It’s glorious outside, the sort of day that’s perfect for mowing the lawn, doing some weeding, cleaning the bbq or washing the cars – all of the things we should be doing but aren’t. Instead, after a morning spent doing the fortnightly shop and wrangling three grumpy not quite 100% kids we’re sitting here doing, well, bugger all.

Thankfully the street has enough to keep us interested and distracted. Next door have their three motor bikes and two cars arrayed for cleaning (okay, we get the hint). Across the road the land lords are in clearing the metre high weeds in the backyard that the previous tenants had left for them. The ferals across the way had a brief spurt of playing music so loud the whole of Melbourne could hear, although as it was Peter Andre’s ‘Mysterious Girl’ I’m not sure they earned the badass points they were aiming for. Two doors up new owners are facing the excitement and drudgery of moving in to their new home. So far they’ve had a new bed and new telly delivered and an alarm system installed. Now someone is playing ‘Take On Me’ in their backyard so I’m off to investigate.

Today we moved in to the realms of official suburbanites – we planted a lemon tree. We’ve always said we wanted a lemon tree and now it’s Spring the time is ripe for planting so we found a great place in Sunshine where we picked up a lemon tree, a lime tree and some potting mix. We wasted no time when we got home and dug the holes (finding an old anti-freeze bottle exactly where we wanted to plant the lemon tree), planted the trees and gave them a good soaking to start them on their way.

Apparently it’s best to remove all the fruit for the first year of their life so where a while away yet from lemon and lime in our G & T (sorry Mel) but we couldn’t be happier; one more little thing to make this our home.

(Hmmmm, probably should have run the mower and whipper snipper around before taking the photos…)

First one down.

When we moved in we didn’t know anyone in the street. It was the fourth night we were here, New Years eve that I met Chris. He was sitting in his front step, keeping an eye on the ferals who were running amok outside their house. In a most un-Tony move I went and introduced myself and spent an hour or so keeping watch with him.

We said hi every now and then, did the neighbourly wave and the like. He told me that he and his girlfriend had moved in in October after moving down from Queensland for her work. They often sat on the step in the evening, having a drink and a chat. Then they weren’t sitting on the step, there was no sign of his car for a few weeks until he appeared one day, back on the step. I went over to say hi and he told me he’d been in a pretty severe car accident but that things were getting better.

I think I saw him once or twice after that, it must have been around April, but then he was gone – no sign and his car was no longer parked out the front. One afternoon I notice a different car pull up and he hopped out. I was busy so I didn’t go out, and when i saw what he was doing I was glad I didn’t. He opened the garage door and picked up a piece of paper resting on two striped bags. He read the paper, folded it back up and dragged the bags in to his car before driving off.

Not long after a different car, with a different guy, was parking out the front of the house. I have no idea who he was although we decided to ignore him when one night he stood outside the house yelling at a taxi driver, telling him “at least I’m not driving taxis” and to “go back home”. Lovely.

For the past few weeks the place has been quiet, with only a couple of appearances. Today she drove up early in the morning and wandered inside. Ten minutes later the removal van appeared.

So, first renters out of the street. Fingers crossed the new tenants will be quiet, in these cases it’s sometimes the better the devil you know. I guess we’ll find out this weekend, and with the last two houses apparently done and awaiting their new residents the street is complete and it’s time to see how our little piece of the world is going to turn out.