friday I'm in love ... with waffles of mass addiction

i don't care if monday's blue 

tuesday's grey and wednesday too

thursday i don't care about you

it's friday, i'm in love

it's friday & it's all about love. 

not the soppy stuff. well, maybe, sometimes. but mainly the stuff I love, you love, we love. 

why not? it's friday ... you gotta love that!

wwwcs


It's a fact. you have one, or even a tiny part of one, and you're hooked. With a capital H & a capital OOKED. 


They're from Barefoot Cafe in Manly. It's a tiny place. If you sneeze as you walk past you've missed it. If you don't sneeze and you spot it, you've discovered a little gem. A belter of a place. It's a simple coffee joint. It only serves coffee and chai latte. & waffles with warm chocolate sauce (wwwcs). The waffles are hot and crispy on the outside and warm and chewy on the inside. The chocolate sauce is ridiculously good. Belgian apparently, but who cares where something's from when it's that good. When it's too good to be true. But in this case it is true. & I've got a couple of lumps of lard on both of me thighs to prove it! 


When Pearl was really, really tiny, me and Picky quickly slipped into our little 'Barefoot routine. We'd wander down with Pearl in her pram for a coffee and wwwcs. Picky had chai cos she was breastfeeding and had read that coffee was bad. (is it really? I have no clue). Barefoot is about 15mins from our apartment. By the time we got there Pearl was usually asleep. 


You can go a bit barmy in those first 3 months. It can be a really hard slog - with skipped sleep, frayed nerves and short fuses. Barefoot saved us both from going loopy. The coffee would pep us up and the waffles would help to make the world seem a much better place. We'd go there alone, meet people there or just hang out whilst Pearl slept. It became a bit of a home from home for us. The haze of the first few months wasn't quite as hazy after an hour in Barefoot Cafe with a waffle and a coffee or 2.


We had a newborn baby back then. She was a perfectly good reason to eat them. I'm not sure what our excuse is now that Pearl is 20-months old. The one in the picture was scoffed only yesterday. By me. Don't worry, Picky had one too. I suspect she also had a mouthful of mine when I was taking the snap. 


have a super weekend. mine will include a wwwcs at some point, no doubt. I hope you have something just as delicious planned for your weekend. Whatever it is, enjoy!


pip pip


ps ... there's a little story about skiing and the differences between men and women heading your way on Sunday. Men, women and skiing. I thought I'd tackle something oh so simple!

in the day ... 14th feb 1977

A snippet of stuff from the past. A little jaunt down memory lane if you like. 

The older I get the more I hear myself saying that awful phrase, ‘back in the day’. When I used to hear an ‘oldie’ say it I would think ... ‘Ah shush about the old days already. Focus on today, mate’. Funny thing is that nowadays I hear myself saying it more & more. C’est la vie!

in the day ... 14th february 1977


There's cycling and then there's cycling.

I've done the former and I don't do the latter. The former involves pottering around on a bike, getting from A to B on two wheels in however long it takes to get from A to B on two wheels. And not really caring. The latter involves pulling on multi-coloured lycra, a funny little hat, mounting a seriously expensive machine, dodging the dangerous traffic and giving the roads a right good nudge.

I'm not, and never have been, a serious, lycra-loving type of cyclist. And nope this isn't a rant against cyclists. Not at all. It's the exact opposite. I love cycling. From the sidelines. I'm a kerbside cyclist. I bloomin' love the Tour de France. LOVE IT. I'm a 'non-cyclist', a cyclist without a cycle, but I stay up to watch Le Tour every year. It starts at 11pm down here too, but I reckon it's one of the best sporting events on TV. 

The Tour is really amazing to watch. If you've watched it you'll probably know what I mean. If you haven't, give it a go. If you do decide to dip your toe into the 2012 Tour, try to catch one of the really hilly stages. I'd recommend Stage 16 on 18th July when the silly billies tackle 4 of the steepest hills all in one gruelling day. 197kms. Madness.


This year's Tour is the 99th, and it actually starts in Liege, Belgium on 30th June. It'll cover 3500kms through Belgium, France and Switzerland, before ending in Paris on the Champs-Elysee on 22nd July. The winner will lead the peleton (the big bunch behind the leaders) into Paris. That's the tradition. The last day is more of a celebration than a proper race.

There are three things I love about Le Tour de France - 


- The commentary. Phil Liggett is one of the best commentators on TV. He does the Aussie commentary on SBS, he really knows his stuff and he presents so perfectly for non-cyclists. He explains the ins and outs really well. 


- The hills. Seeing the cyclists - especially on the hill stages - is truly amazing. Look I know that the sport's a wee bit tainted with drugs and stuff, but to be honest, the speed they go, the risks they take, and the hills they tackle, I'm happy to pass over the controversy for the sporting occasion it produces. And finally...


- The scenery and the crowds. The French are (by and large) barking mad, and French lovers of the Tour are the maddest of the mad. Plus, the scenery is stunning. It always makes me want to hang a string of garlics around my neck, open a bottle of chilled red wine and eat smelly cheese. Chilled red wine? Apparently they do that in some parts of France. Told you the French are barking mad.

Ah. So why am I rabbiting on about a cycle race in France? I hear you ask. Especially when today is February 14th? Shouldn't love be in the air? It's Valentine's Day for heaven's sake. 


Indeed it is. But it's also Cadel Evan's birthday.

Cadel Evans - world mountain bike champ in 1998 and 1999. Only took up road racing in 2001. Finished second in the Tours of 2008 and 2009 and then won le Tour in 2011. He'll be back to defend his crown this year. He'll be 35. That's pretty old to be whizzing round the French Alps at well over 100km/h on a piece of flimsy carbon-fibre. 


Happy birthday and good luck, Cadel. I will be watching ... sans lycra!

pip pip & of course Happy Val Day to lovers and dreamers everywhere.

I broke The Golden Rule

I’ve been in two minds about this post. About this entire topic really. I’ve been vacillating wildly all week ... should I, shouldn’t I, will I, won’t I, can I, can’t I. It’s been a bit dizzying to say the least. 

So I wrote it, and then I left it. I slept on it. It’s sometimes best to sleep on things. I’m sure we’ve all done things that we later thought we should really have slept on. Sent an email, or a text or a dreaded fb message. And then all hell breaks loose. Whoops! Mostly there’s no going back. So with this topic I left it for a day or two. And then I thought, stuff it, I’m going to post it, because it’s really how I feel. Post it and be damned.

Parents can be a real nightmare! 

There I said it. 

Parents can be a real nightmare (I said it again. It’s quite cathartic).

We all know that kids can be a nightmare too. Frequently. That’s OK. Everyone knows that, but mostly people accept it because they are, well...kids. But parents? Parents should know better. Parents can give parents a bad name. 

So, I’m on the Manly ferry on a Friday afternoon with Picky and Pearl. The three of us have been in the City for an hour or two. 


Picky grinds her teeth. That’s by the by, except that she was at the dentist in the City to collect a plastic guard that will apparently stop the constant grinding at night. Teeth grinding is apparently a common problem. Everyone’s doing it. The world is full of people who grind their teeth. Especially at night. It's pretty much a nocturnal problem, like possums in Oz and foxes in London.

Whilst Picky's was with the dentist, I let Pearl run around Martin Place. She likes to chase the pigeons. To be honest they don’t seem to mind too much. In any case, she’s never caught one. 

The three of us then hopped on the Manly ferry and headed home. The ferry was busy. During summer they lay on extra ferries to transport hoards of locals and tourists between the Circular Quay in the city & the beach at Manly. I don’t blame them - the beach at Manly is stunning. I reckon that the Manly Ferry is probably the best journey on public transport anywhere in the world. I read once that the Staten Island ferry between Manhattan and Staten Island was officially given this honour. I’ve been on both and I reckon the Manly Ferry is better. It’s a close run thing, and the Staten Island ferry is free (or it might be a quarter these days due to the GFC). The Manly Ferry is $7.00 each way & it's worth every cent. Plus you get free wi-fi.

OK, so we’re on a packed ferry on a hot Friday afternoon, we’re sitting inside and there’s a couple of mums in the row behind us, each with a couple of kids - two babies and two aged somewhere around 5 or 6. The two older ones are playing. I say playing. Not really. They were playing at first. And then they stopped playing & started screaming. First at each other. And then at their mums. When I say screaming I really do mean screaming. Screa-Ming! As loud as they could. Louder than they could. They were trying to see who could scream the loudest. And for the longest. For at least ten or fifteen minutes. Neither was going to be the first to stop. It was a game to them. It was that good old 'which one of us can scream the loudest for the longest' game. On a packed ferry on a hot Friday afternoon. 

Their mums? Well, they just sat there, happily chatting to each other, two meters from their two screaming kids. To be fair, they did stop chatting when the screaming started. They had to. They couldn’t chat above the dreadful screaming. 

The kids weren’t upset, they hadn’t had an accident, they weren’t crying. They were just screaming at the top of their voices. As loud as their little lungs would let them. For fun. Their mums did nothing. Nothing at all. They didn’t ask them to stop. They didn’t tell them to stop. Nothing. They did laugh at their kids a few times. Oh and they pointed at them a fair bit. As if to say, 'that’s fun kids'.

Fun for them maybe, but not for anyone else on the ferry. There were lots of shuffling feet, eyes staring at the ground and glances between uncomfortable passengers.

& then this happened. This is the bit that I’ve been thinking about. It’s the part of the story that I question. I ask myself if I did the right thing. I could have just kept quiet. I could have said nothing and just got off the ferry in Manly with Picky and Pearl and headed home.  That would have been easy. But I can be a right gobby chap sometimes. 

Perhaps this time I shouldn't have been. But I was. I’ve been thinking about why I did what I did. But anyway, it doesn’t matter. I did it.

As we were making to get off the ferry, I turned to the two ladies and I said - nicely and calmly - but I admit it, I said it,

'Ladies, why are you letting your kids behave like that in public?'

That’s all I said. Honestly, that’s all. I freely admit that I said those exact words. No more. No less. Whoops.

It didn’t turn out well. I don't suppose it was ever going to turn out well. One of the ladies went ballistic. At me. I suppose the good thing was that her screaming at me drowned out the screaming of the two kids. But scream at me she did. It was clear where her daughter had inherited her ability to scream from; her mum.

I also freely admit that I have no idea what kind of day the two mums were having. I have no context to place the situation in, no history. I only know what I saw. And that was two parents of two kids allowing them to ruin a beautiful ferry journey for a whole bunch of people who didn’t deserve to have their ferry journey ruined. They didn’t once ask their kids to stop screaming, or try to distract them ... or anything. They just let them scream their heads off on a ferry. Inside the ferry. I think that’s what annoyed me the most. They could at least have tried to do something to stop the screaming.

I think as parents we owe it to others to do our best to make sure our kids don’t disrupt, destroy, run wild, run amok or cause havoc. Of course, all of these things will happen from time to time. That’s OK as long as the parents have at least tried to do something to prevent it. Surely we have to 'at least try'.

I’m a parent myself and I don’t think it’s acceptable to ‘just do nothing’. Doing nothing tells your kid that it’s perfectly OK to scream at the top of his or her voice for 20 minutes in a public place ... just for fun.  

Now you can see why I was agonising about posting this. I’ve gone and broken The Golden Rule. Parents stick together. They don’t question other parents. Not in public. Not with non-parents around. It’s us against them. 

Except it’s not. Sometimes even parents can be a real nightmare.

pip pip


Ps ... so what happened? how did it end? did the parents all end up as friends and go for a drink together in a child-friendly bar on Manly Wharf. Alas no, she screamed at me for a few seconds. It was all a little incomprehensible really. The gist was that the kids were tired, they had been out all day in the city and how dare I question their parenting skills. I was holding Pearl and so I decided to hold my tongue too. 


Picky, Pearl and I stopped at Chat Thai on Manly Wharf to grab takeaway. The 'ladies with the screamers' were met off the ferry by their husbands. They were a pair of big blokes. I could see them all looking around. Scanning the wharf. Were they looking for me? Seeking me out? I have no idea. I was hiding behind the counter in a Thai takeaway.


(photos from panaramio.com & sayhellostephanie.com)

friday, I'm in love with the squealing pig

i don't care if monday's blue 

tuesday's grey and wednesday too

thursday i don't care about you

it's friday, i'm in love

it's friday & it's all about love. 

not the soppy stuff. well, maybe, sometimes. but mainly the stuff I love, you love, we love. 

why not? it's friday ... you gotta love that!

squealing pig

Some men know a thing or two about wine. other's wish they did and pretend they do. I'm in the latter group. I love me wine - I could drink it through a sweaty sock - but I have to admit that I don't know too much about it. That doesn't stop me studying the wine list at a restaurant and flicking the pages as if I'm looking for something very specific. I have even been known to look vaguely disappointed when I can't find the imaginary wine that I've spent a few minutes giving the impression that I'm desperately seeking.


still, I don't mind a drop of the old vino. given my lack of knowledge on the subject I often fall back on that age-old and typically trusted trick - choosing based on the name and the look of the label. (We've all done it, even those shaking their heads right now). 


Every now & then the trick works and I come up trumps.


Squealing Pig is a cracker. A real belter. I spotted the label first. I think it's the first time I've really laughed at the label on a bottle of wine. And the name. Squealing Pig. Ha ha! Only the Kiwi's could get away with that. I can't see the French letting that one through, no matter how good the stuff in the bottle is. I loved it - the label and the name. So I bought a bottle. And me and Picky drank the lot in one sitting. (Picky had a glass). 


It's a Savignon Blanc from the Malborough Region in the north-east of the south island of New Zealand. It's hard to go wrong with the a Sav Blanc from the Malborough Region. Most of them tend to be good, and this one has solid, oaky overtones and .....


..... y'see, there I go again, sounding like a know what I'm talking about, when in truth I bought it 'cos the label made me chuckle, and cos it's called Squealing Pig.


It's a good drop. Try it if you can get your trotters on a bottle.


Have a boozy (but seriously safe) weekend. cheers.


pip pip


ps ... I'm thinking of tackling a very tricky topic on Sunday. Parents.

in the day ... 8th february 1983

A fairly regular snippet about stuff from the past. A little jaunt down memory lane and perhaps even beyond, if you like. 

The older I get the more I hear myself saying that awful phrase - the one I used to hear older people saying - ‘back in the day’. When I would hear an ‘oldie’ say it I used to think ... ‘Ah shush about the olden days already. Focus on today, mate’. Now I hear myself saying it more & more. C’est la vie!

Giddyup! ... 8th February 1983.

I was 13 when Shergar was kidnapped. 

I still remember it like it was yesterday. First off let's get a few vital details out of the way. Shergar wasn't just a horse. He was a top horse. It'd be like Black Caviar just disappearing. Poof! Up in smoke. Gone. 


It begs the question - how the heck do you steal a horse? And the inevitable follow up question - why the heck do you steal a horse?

Shergar was owned by the Aga Khan and he (the horse, not the Aga) won the Epsom Derby (think the UK's Melbourne Cup) by 10 lengths. That's pretty much like a horse crossing the line at Flemington whilst the others are just coming round the final bend. In 1981 Shergar was the European Horse of the Year. In 1983 he disappeared. Just like that. He had already retired and had produced 35 foals in his first year alone. Each sold for anything up to $100,000. When he went missing there were another 55 lady horses lined up to 'meet' him. Nice work if you can get it! 


& then he disappeared from the Ballymany Stud in Ireland.

On the morning he was nicked the stud owners were held hostage with machine-guns, one was kidnapped and driven around for a few hours whilst they nicked his horse. Shergar was loaded into a horse box and he disappeared. It was huge news. HUGE. Front page of every paper. For weeks. Ransom demands were made, but no money was ever paid. Detectives were assigned by the bucketload. The media went nuts. The IRA was widely blamed. A photo of Shergar was sent to the media. An insurance policy of almost $20million was mentioned. 


But Shergar was never seen again. Nor was anyone arrested or charged. Ever. It remains a complete mystery. Despite the passage of time, and the inevitable loosening of tongues and relaxing of consciences, no-one has talked. No body was ever found. Shergar simply disappeared. Poof! Any one of the kidnappers could have made a mint by talking - 60 Minutes would pay big bucks. He (or she) would have easily got a gig on Dancing with the Stars or I'm a Celebrity get me out of here.... But no. Nothing. Complete silence. For almost 30 years.

There were many official 'Shergar legacies' - a race was named after him, a statue unveiled at a race-track. 


& then there was the one and only schoolboy legacy. Back in the day, anytime we had a dodgy kebab after an evening in the pub ... it was always speculated that it could be 'Shergar'. And who knows, it could very well have been. 


(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)

Ze Germans & (stereotypical) me ...

OK I admit it. I’m English. 

It’s hard to deny when you hear me talk. I can get away with it quite easily on here. You can hide your accent on a blog. But as soon as I open the old cake-hole the cat leaps from the bag and legs it. I’m from Manchester in the north-west of England. Everyone has a funny accent up there. It’s got something to do with all the rain, I think. 

I went for Yum Cha at Manly Phoenix one lunchtime and I ordered some dUck  (with a very heavy emphasis on the U...as in yUk). The waitress stared at me blankly. I repeated “dUck”. She was still blank. Blanker than blank. So I did the natural thing. I stood up and made like a dUck. Fully. With elbows flapping, and accompanying quacking. I was very clearly a dUck. (Or perhaps a chicken). The poor lady was mystified. I didn’t blame her. Some idiot was standing flapping his elbows and quacking in front of her on a Thursday lunchtime. Picky intervened. She ordered some duck (pronounced 'dAck') for the table, and I sat down.

Picky is German. Fully. 100% from top to toe. Mind you, she speaks better English than me and she can order duck or 'dAck' perfectly at Yum Cha on a Thursday lunchtime. But that’s the German’s all over. Ze bloody Germans!

The thing is that we’re not supposed to get on, ‘us’ English and ‘them’ Germans. There’s the small matter of a couple of world wars & the far larger matter of a football World Cup to get over first - and those things aren’t easily traversed. Especially the World Cup. (1966. England won 4 - 2. Geoff Hurst scored ‘that’ goal. See YouTube. The English have NEVER forgotten it. Even the ones who weren’t born in 1966 remember it like they were there. There’s a small part of the English brain called the ‘1966 World Cup Thalmus’. Or something. We all have it. All 40million of us English - not the Welsh, Scots or Irish, they don't have it).

And then of course there’s the beach towels. More accurately, there’s the Germans and their damn beach towels.

Whenever you go on holiday the Germans are famous (infamous, even) for getting up at the crack of dawn for the sole purpose of leaving their enormous beach towels on the best chairs and beds in the best spots around the pool. Or on the beach. That’s the Germans for you. Efficient, ordered, clean, regimented and obsessed with bagging the best bits of the beach.

Picky’s parents were with us recently. Hagen and Karola. They’re the best parents-in-law known to man. Well this man anyway. They visit us in Sydney every year. One morning, on their most recent visit, we were driving along the beachfront at Manly. They noticed a neat row of towels spread out along the grass in front of the beach...the towels were clearly snagging the best positions for the New Year's eve firework display, with just enough shade to protect the towel-owners from the harsh Sydney sun. 

Ha ha. How ironic! A car-load of Germans spot their fellow countrymen (and women) doing what they do best! Ze Germans were, in a word, busted, up to their old tricks again! Caught red-handed.

& then Hagen said something to Picky & Karola in German (they do that, those German speakers). I asked what he said and Picky told me he said, “I see the English are in town”.

I was stunned. The English! Ze English! We...they...us...? Beach towels? No way. WE DON'T DO THAT. Do we?

We spent breakfast, including the 2 or 3 coffees we knocked back after the poached eggs had long gone, discussing national stereotypes. Here’s what I learnt from Ze Germans...

• German trains RARELY run on time. They are pretty much always delayed, and they are frequently cancelled at the very last minute due to bad weather, or leaves on the track
• Most Germans think that most Germans couldn't organise a drinks party in a brewery. The Germans think that the Germans are disorganised!
• The traffic on German roads is awful. It’s gridlock. Everywhere. The entire German autobahn network is one huge carpark of BMWs, Audis and Merc’s ... all going nowhere fast
• German drivers are angry. In fact they are all - to a T - on the verge of mass road rage. Anything could set them off at any time
• German women detest hairy armpits. In fact, neither Picky nor her mum - or her dad - know a single German woman who has hairy armpits or who wants hairy armpits
• Your average German thinks your average English holidaymaker gets up at the crack of dawn to bag the best spot on the beach

They could just as well have been describing England and the ze English. 

I was stunned.

Stereotypes are silly things, don’t you think? They’re too easy, too simplistic. Lazy really. They mean you don’t have to think. It’s easy for us to sum people up based on assumed national traits, or on how the place they are from is portrayed in the media. It allows us to avoid having to chat to people. We miss out on getting to know them. Stereotypes let us off the hook. They encourage us to 'stick with our own'. How boring is that?! A lifetime of me hanging out with me. Good heavens...NO!

Stereotypes mean that you can lie on your beach towel with your head in the sand without getting to know a single thing about the different people around you. If we choose to do that we had better remember to get our towels out early -  before the Germans get there first. 

Or is it the English?

pip pip

(photo from jaunted.com)

friday, I'm in love

i don't care if monday's blue 

tuesday's grey and wednesday too

thursday i don't care about you

it's friday, i'm in love

it's friday & it's all about love. 
not the soppy stuff. well, maybe, sometimes. but mainly the stuff I love, you love, we love. 
why not? it's friday ... you gotta love that!


cats


pearl loves cats. 


she can spot a cat at 100 yards through a crowded room. when she sees one, she bolts towards the poor unsuspecting thing, crouches down, or sits next to it, and says 'miaow-miaow' as many times as she can. to her they aren't cats at all. she calls them 'miaow-miaows'. we find that a bit odd given that it's far harder to say miaow-miaow than 'cat'. i suppose that's kids for you.


the cat in this picture lives on our street. pearl and the cat are in a stand-off ... well, a sit-off. the cat was going nowhere and pearl was going nowhere as long as the cat was there.


it was a long day for me and picky that day. enticing pearl away from the cat was a tricky business.


these are the kind of issues that crop up when your kid loves cats!


have a lovely weekend...pip pip


ps ... on sunday look out for an insight into the germans & their damn beach towels!