Last weekend I thought I had really cracked the whole volunteering/wildlife thang. I got to the RSPCA at 8am as I usually do, and I was the only one there! Which has never happened before. So I rolled up my sleeves and got on with it - sorted out the lickle birds (cockatiels and budgies and parrots and whatnot), fed, cleaned, watered - the whole kit and kaboodle. I even made friends with this little cockatiel who was just GORGEOUS. He came out of his cage and sat on my shoulder, and we had a little sing song while I was chopping up fruit and whatnot. I also managed to catch an escaped lovebird all by myself and re-cage it - I was feeling very super smug about it all. The other volunteers turned up and there was hardly anything left to do - nothing but clean up after this horrible looking corella (please note the mention in the wiki description of 'deafening screeching' and you can imagine why with a hangover I already was not keen on this bird).
So they got the corella out of the cage and popped him on a big perch which was in the doorway of the room I was in. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and in the split second it took me to realise that he had murderous intention in his eyes he had launched himself at my face. Whilst the other volunteers later assured me that he was just being friendly, I think that he might need some lessons in acceptable friendly behaviour - for instance when I am being friendly I do not try to sever someone's finger using my beak, or chew off their earlobes, or peck at their cheeks, or have to be forcibly removed by 2 other people wearing gloves and using towels for protection.
It's alright though, because as of next week I will be working on cat adoptions - yes that's right I get to spend my Saturday mornings talking about cats. And trying reeeeeeeeally hard not to bring work home with me....
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
And the restaurant that time forgot
I forgot to say that on Saturday night in Hervey Bay we went to the most retro restaurant in the world. The hostess lady had one of those crazy 80s mullets which was about 2 inches long and backcombed into a frenzy on top, and reached her bum at the back not unlike this one, but longer. And real.
The decor was all a bit burgundy, with splashes of colour like that offered by those lovely moving waterfall pictures you can get, and some kind of fibre-optic buddha. As we ate we were serenaded by the croonings of the incomparable Jon Devlin and his keyboard, who had clearly found some discounted score of the greatest hits of Ronan Keating in the local op-shop.
To be fair the food was bloody good though.
The decor was all a bit burgundy, with splashes of colour like that offered by those lovely moving waterfall pictures you can get, and some kind of fibre-optic buddha. As we ate we were serenaded by the croonings of the incomparable Jon Devlin and his keyboard, who had clearly found some discounted score of the greatest hits of Ronan Keating in the local op-shop.
To be fair the food was bloody good though.
A whale of a time
Yes I know - I'm not very funny.
So this weekend was another very touristy weekend. We had a public holiday for the Ekka last Wednesday (the Ekka is like a big country show thing and everyone in Queensland gets a public holiday to go visit), and then Stu and I took the Thursday and Friday off, so we had a lovely 5 days of sightseeing.
On Friday we hired a car and drove up to Hervey Bay, stopping off at a really really lovely little beachy town called Mooloolabah on the way (as we know, Australians are all about towns with loads of Os in the name). We had a nice spot of lunch, pottered around a bit, just generally enjoyed being by the sea and not in the big smoke. Then we went on up to Hervey Bay and found our B&B which was just scrumptious. From the road I feared that we had made a big mistake, but out the back it was all glass with a fabulous view of the lake and a myriad of wildlife, and a shitload of wee turtles living in the lake. Once again our hosts were just lovely. I just can't get over the fact that Australians don't really seem to be that into B&Bing as they really do have some fabulous ones.
Saturday was the main event - whale watching. Around this time of year the humpback whales are migrating down the east coast of Australia back to Antartica, and they hang out and have a bit of a rest just off the coast of Hervey Bay - it's the only place in the world where you're pretty much guaranteed to see them spy hopping, breaching and bobbing around and doing all the stuff they are famous for.
We went out on a wee catamaran, with only about 20 of us, which after seeing all the laden multi deck big yachty things we were pretty pleased about. We first came across a group of 3 'teenagers' who were doing a pretty good show for one of the other boats - at one point one of them stuck his head right out to the other boat to see what they were up to. I was quite crippled with jealousy at this point I must admit. The folk who ran the boat said that often they are attracted to interesting things in their environment, so they come up to the boat which is making the most noise. They are pretty much big show offs, so if they get big claps and cheers etc they'll do more.
We returned to those 3 again later in the day, and at this point we were the only boat with them, so we got very busy with the clapping and cheering. They were so so so close - and then someone noticed that we could only see 2 of them. We looked down and the sea under the boat was totally turquoise because just enderneath us was a belly up whale. He then spy hopped out of the water right in front of us - probably about as close to me as you are to the computer screen. I nearly wet my pants. They hung around for ages, and on about 3 or 4 separate occasions bobbed out to see what we were up to. It was AMAZING.
Below are some pics etc - they don't really do it justice as we were pretty busy just watching to be honest, and Stu couldn't follow my very simple instruction to put the camera onto record instead of pictures (I was very cross). A word of warning with regard to the videos though - you might just be able to make out the sounds of a very over-excited and annoying pom whooping and cheering for all her life's worth. Let the record show that we had been asked to do this - and by heck it paid off.
So this weekend was another very touristy weekend. We had a public holiday for the Ekka last Wednesday (the Ekka is like a big country show thing and everyone in Queensland gets a public holiday to go visit), and then Stu and I took the Thursday and Friday off, so we had a lovely 5 days of sightseeing.
On Friday we hired a car and drove up to Hervey Bay, stopping off at a really really lovely little beachy town called Mooloolabah on the way (as we know, Australians are all about towns with loads of Os in the name). We had a nice spot of lunch, pottered around a bit, just generally enjoyed being by the sea and not in the big smoke. Then we went on up to Hervey Bay and found our B&B which was just scrumptious. From the road I feared that we had made a big mistake, but out the back it was all glass with a fabulous view of the lake and a myriad of wildlife, and a shitload of wee turtles living in the lake. Once again our hosts were just lovely. I just can't get over the fact that Australians don't really seem to be that into B&Bing as they really do have some fabulous ones.
Saturday was the main event - whale watching. Around this time of year the humpback whales are migrating down the east coast of Australia back to Antartica, and they hang out and have a bit of a rest just off the coast of Hervey Bay - it's the only place in the world where you're pretty much guaranteed to see them spy hopping, breaching and bobbing around and doing all the stuff they are famous for.
We went out on a wee catamaran, with only about 20 of us, which after seeing all the laden multi deck big yachty things we were pretty pleased about. We first came across a group of 3 'teenagers' who were doing a pretty good show for one of the other boats - at one point one of them stuck his head right out to the other boat to see what they were up to. I was quite crippled with jealousy at this point I must admit. The folk who ran the boat said that often they are attracted to interesting things in their environment, so they come up to the boat which is making the most noise. They are pretty much big show offs, so if they get big claps and cheers etc they'll do more.
We returned to those 3 again later in the day, and at this point we were the only boat with them, so we got very busy with the clapping and cheering. They were so so so close - and then someone noticed that we could only see 2 of them. We looked down and the sea under the boat was totally turquoise because just enderneath us was a belly up whale. He then spy hopped out of the water right in front of us - probably about as close to me as you are to the computer screen. I nearly wet my pants. They hung around for ages, and on about 3 or 4 separate occasions bobbed out to see what we were up to. It was AMAZING.
Below are some pics etc - they don't really do it justice as we were pretty busy just watching to be honest, and Stu couldn't follow my very simple instruction to put the camera onto record instead of pictures (I was very cross). A word of warning with regard to the videos though - you might just be able to make out the sounds of a very over-excited and annoying pom whooping and cheering for all her life's worth. Let the record show that we had been asked to do this - and by heck it paid off.
 |
| The great Hervey Bay Wildlifeat |
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
England regain the Ashes!
Busy old weekend last weekend...
On Friday - miracle of miracles our stuff finally arrived from England! It only took a brief 5.5 months for them to get their fingers out of their arses and sort it out. Also we didn't get any customs or quarantine charges or anything, which I was a little surprised about, but pretty pleased. Maybe this is because some senior people from customs were at our conference and I pestered them to just wave it through or I would stand next to them scratching my lurgy til they were sick.
Saturday morning I volunteered, and Stu went to look at a house. I had a great morning volunteering - a rainbow lorikeet was brought in, and decided that I was his best buddy. He wouldn't budge off my shoulder all day and ran away from anyone else who tried to handle him. As I was chopping all the fruit for everyone else he kept climbing down my arm to pinch it. It was very sweet and I am a little bit in love with him. Unfortunately no-one warned me about their amazing liquid projectile poo. Also I got chatting to one of the cat ladies, and she said that there are some vacancies coming up there soon, so I might get to indulge my love of the kitty soon, and help find them all new loving homes. Yay!
Stu went to look at this house, which is in Paddington, a very nice burb of Brisbane and next to my work which is nice. We have put in an application, but are having some trouble with getting a reference from our current apartment. The staff here are about as much use as tits on a bull, and keep on losing the reference requests. If we lose out on the house because of their crippling incompetence you will probably be able to hear me shouting from the UK.
On Sunday we went over to a park in Kangaroo Point for the inaugural SMS ashes. Stu's company have hired a shitload of poms lately, and in the interests of fostering cordial international relations they arranged a poms v strines cricket match. Which bright spark thought it was a good idea to organise a competitive event in order to bring peace, harmony and understanding between these 2 nations I don't know. The important thing is - we won. In your FACE Australia. Stuart Robinson (despite having an interesting running style) managed to take out 2 wickets. I was all proud.
Today is a public holiday here, which is nice. Then we have Thursday and Friday off, and on Friday we go on a wee road trip up the coast to go whale watching. I am quite excited, and may have to invest in some Tena Lady to avoid embarrassment. I am also quite interested to see how our driving is after 6 months off. You can expect an extremely over excited blog next weekend sometime.
In other news, we are now fully set up on Skype. If any of you have the equipment and want to talk to us (and see us!) for free, our username is teamrobinson. I have to say it is ace and I am quite the convert to internet calling.
On Friday - miracle of miracles our stuff finally arrived from England! It only took a brief 5.5 months for them to get their fingers out of their arses and sort it out. Also we didn't get any customs or quarantine charges or anything, which I was a little surprised about, but pretty pleased. Maybe this is because some senior people from customs were at our conference and I pestered them to just wave it through or I would stand next to them scratching my lurgy til they were sick.
Saturday morning I volunteered, and Stu went to look at a house. I had a great morning volunteering - a rainbow lorikeet was brought in, and decided that I was his best buddy. He wouldn't budge off my shoulder all day and ran away from anyone else who tried to handle him. As I was chopping all the fruit for everyone else he kept climbing down my arm to pinch it. It was very sweet and I am a little bit in love with him. Unfortunately no-one warned me about their amazing liquid projectile poo. Also I got chatting to one of the cat ladies, and she said that there are some vacancies coming up there soon, so I might get to indulge my love of the kitty soon, and help find them all new loving homes. Yay!
Stu went to look at this house, which is in Paddington, a very nice burb of Brisbane and next to my work which is nice. We have put in an application, but are having some trouble with getting a reference from our current apartment. The staff here are about as much use as tits on a bull, and keep on losing the reference requests. If we lose out on the house because of their crippling incompetence you will probably be able to hear me shouting from the UK.
On Sunday we went over to a park in Kangaroo Point for the inaugural SMS ashes. Stu's company have hired a shitload of poms lately, and in the interests of fostering cordial international relations they arranged a poms v strines cricket match. Which bright spark thought it was a good idea to organise a competitive event in order to bring peace, harmony and understanding between these 2 nations I don't know. The important thing is - we won. In your FACE Australia. Stuart Robinson (despite having an interesting running style) managed to take out 2 wickets. I was all proud.
 |
| The SMS Ashes |
Today is a public holiday here, which is nice. Then we have Thursday and Friday off, and on Friday we go on a wee road trip up the coast to go whale watching. I am quite excited, and may have to invest in some Tena Lady to avoid embarrassment. I am also quite interested to see how our driving is after 6 months off. You can expect an extremely over excited blog next weekend sometime.
In other news, we are now fully set up on Skype. If any of you have the equipment and want to talk to us (and see us!) for free, our username is teamrobinson. I have to say it is ace and I am quite the convert to internet calling.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Itchy and Scratchy
Not much to report this weekend, as I have been hiding out from the world due to my unsightly lurgy. I'm really not sure what happened there - I ate some strawberries and some seafood at the conference, which are both apparently pretty common instigators of lurgy style allergic reactions, but I've eaten them both plenty of times before, so god only knows why this time I went into histamine overload. Anyway the itch is now slowly subsiding, but I still look pretty minging. I have smothered myself in calamine, but now I'm struggling to get it all washed off because I obviously can't scrub, so I look pretty interesting. At least it got me out of the conference though - I was sent home on Thursday as we all pretty unanimously much agreed that I was not really a suitable face of the company. Unfortunately I couldn't go the RSPCA yesterday - so I haven't seen any kitties this weekend. My favourite doesn't seem to be on the internet any more - I hope he's found a home!
We went to look at a couple of houses this weekend - one was minging but one was really nice. Just having a bit of a debate about it now, as it is quite expensive, but ticks all the boxes....
In other news - we have a delivery date for our stuff. Apparently it is coming on Friday. I am still sceptical, as I believe Allied Pickfords couldn't run a bath. But hey - at least it's progress!
We went to look at a couple of houses this weekend - one was minging but one was really nice. Just having a bit of a debate about it now, as it is quite expensive, but ticks all the boxes....
In other news - we have a delivery date for our stuff. Apparently it is coming on Friday. I am still sceptical, as I believe Allied Pickfords couldn't run a bath. But hey - at least it's progress!
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Be careful what you wish for
I wanted to get out of going to the Conference, and lo a plague of the lurgy was visited upon me.
It sucks.
It sucks.
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