Apart from the fact that it was home to an amazing race track and fairy penguins I had no idea what to expect when I reached Phillip Island. Therefore I was completely unprepared for the sight of cattle everywhere, and the fact that most of the buildings on the island seemed to have been slapped together out of fibro without much concern for aesthetics or building codes.
The house we stayed in was an interesting exercise in seeing how many rooms could be shoved into an incredibly small space, outdone only by the bonus round where an attempt was made to fit as many beds as possible into the afore mentioned small rooms. The only consolation for me was that as the Dave from Albury Compound has the smallest bathroom outside of a Collins class submarine, I had no trouble with the tiny bathroom in the rental house. The most important thing about the house was its proximity to the track, and on that detail it scored quite well, but I did wonder why on earth anyone would stay there during the 49 weeks a year that there’s no big motorsport events on.
The trip to Phillip Island commenced under grey skies and the threat of rain. While I had envisaged a leisurely departure my travelling companions wanted to be on the road by 7am, so that is when I found them, bikes mounted and engines started, ready to hit the road. As everyone else in the party was from Queensland I was informed that it would be my job to find our way to Phillip Island, so eschewing the freeway and the boredom of its long straights we headed for the back roads and the hills that they traversed.
I spent the weekend washing and shining the Ducati. Today she had a service to ensure all was well. Tomorrow I’ll be packing and repacking to ensure I have my bag exactly right. Thursday I’ll be hitting the twisty bits all the way from here to Phillip Island. Friday, the real bikes and their riders will begin to attack one of the best motorcycle race tracks in the world. Sunday, we’ll see who masters the island this year.
Caption comp time. What is the brains trust of the Federal Liberal Party saying here?
“For the last time Chris, you’re not the only one here who can wear a lilac tie”
Some friends of ours are moving to Sydney and we have inherited their backyard swing-set. I bought it home and re-assembled it today under the watchful eyes of Buster Boy and the Troll Princess. On the first test run of the two seat swing Buster Boy noticed a squeak coming from the pivot point where the swing meets the crossbar, without missing a beat he turned to Mrsdave and said
There’s a squeak there Mum. You better get some WD-40 to fix it.
All that time in the shed is beginning to pay off.
Those of us who live in the premier state know that the rest of you are insanely jealous of us, and that you talk about us behind our back, but do you really need to be so petty?
We are still the most populous state you know.
One of the things I love about twitter is the instant feedback that you can get when you send a tweet, whether it’s seeing people like it enough to re-tweet it to their own followers, or having someone respond to it. Last night I got both types from a single tweet.
I wasn’t watching the Hey Hey reunion last night, but the regular appearance of the #heyhey tag in my feed alerted me to the fact that quite a few people I follow were. I felt compelled to comment
I was happy to see my tweet re-tweeted, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as seeing the following reply.
There’s nothing as wonderful as constructive criticism.
I know that many of you have been slavishly waiting for more of Mrsdave’s insights to be dripped across the pages of this blog. Sadly for me she knows that her star power far outshines mine and has decided to bypass me on the way to her own blog. Check out mrsdave.tumbler.com for snippets of stuff from the Dave from Albury compound that have grabbed Mrsdave’s attention.
Every day I seem to find another thing to fix or refine around the house. It’s not that the house is suddenly falling apart, but that I’m now noticing all of these little things and doing something about them. It’s incredibly satisfying and also nice to know that the burst of enthusiasm that I felt after returning home from holidays wasn’t just a passing fad.
When I was a kid I often wondered why my parents music collection seemed to stop a few years after I was born. Now that Buster Boy and the Troll Princess are with us I think I’m beginning to understand it. It’s not just about disposable income disappearing, although that doesn’t help, it’s about time.
The opportunity to sit down for an hour and listen to music is a luxury that simply unattainable for most parents, it certainly is for us. Luckily for me I have a friend with impeccable taste in music and the time to seek it out, however as he lives about five hours away it’s rare that I get the benefit of his insight. So it’s great that with very little nagging he’s agreed to start a music blog to help hopeless people like me hear new music and avoid the type of embarrassment that usually occurs at Hottest 100 time when you can’t identify a single song.
So make sure that you add his tumblr feed to your RSS reader.
He’s started off listing some of his top songs of the year, and there are some real gems there – go now and have a listen.
