betty loves blogging

Life isn't like the movies.

In the movies, my computer would be fixed now.  At least it would if it was a movie where I had written the script.

This week I had several examples that showed me that the movies are just FULL OF LIES.

1. At my normal cafe at work. Waiting amongst a crowd for my skim cappucino with one.  Barista comes over and goes "skim cap with one for you and skim cap with one for you too".  In the movies, the fellow recepient of the skim cap would have been my ideal man but we would have had a "will they won't they" hour of screen time filled with on and off dating with lots of comical mishaps.  Then eventually we would realise that we were perfect for each other and probably get married and pop out a few kids.

But in real life he was a balding middle aged man who was sweating profusely despite it being about 5 degrees celsius that morning.  He thanked the barista with a grunt. Try and make a romantic comedy out of that Hugh Grant!

2.  I was walking along the street reading a book... turned around the corner and crashed into another man who was also reading a book.  Dropped book and handbag. In the movies, he would have helped me pick it up, we would have got talking about what we were reading, ended up at a chic coffee shop and then eventually have bought our own book shop together which had a stream of customers despite it being located in a dubious spot and having a team of quirky staff who did nothing but talk about their love lives rather than serve customers.

In real life, he snapped at me "watch it" and proceeded on his walk, even though it was both our faults that the collision had occurred.  Especially since it was a blind corner. Tool.

So this, along with my computer still not having been returned to my loving arms, is conclusive proof that the movies are FULL OF LIES.

The end.  Not happily ever after.

A blog post... well, don't mind if I do then.

It's very strange living without a computer and the internet at home.  I find it a challenge to do the most basic things. Like figure out how much money is in my account. Find a recipe to cook something interesting for dinner. Keep track of how Britney Spears is doing. Write my Mills and Boon (not that I had started that yet anyway).

But I have been doing some other non-computery things like;

• cleaning
• reading (at the moment I am reading a couple of review books I scored at work. One, Paradise Lost by Kathy Marks, is all about the Pitcairn Island rape trials and what it was like to live there and report on it.  Sooooooo interesting.  Very freaky place.)
• knitting... very very slowly
• going for walks then regretting it because its FREEZING outside, especially in the evenings.  It's like 10 degrees or so at 6pm. (shut up pom friends)
• shorthand practice... but mostly avoiding shorthand
• taking iron supplements and cooking meat.  I found out I was really really badly iron deficient, and B12 deficient as well, which was why I had been feeling like crap on a stick for the last six months.  Trouble is that now I am on the vitamins and meat, I have all this excess energy... which is good... but it means that I run out of things to do that don't involve spending money, then I go out and spend money.  Which is bad because I am trying to save. 
• taking photos
• acting bizarrely, because it's almost like I have lost a child or something mourning the macbook.  Whenever I want to know something or do something, I look longingly at the space where he used to sit. So sad.

Today was a strange day.  I woke up at 5.30am, jumped out of bed and then decided to put on clothes, grab my tripod and camera and take photos of the sun rising over the harbour.  Then I decided instead that I wanted beach sunrise photos, so I drove to Bondi for some reason, but by then the sun was too high to be special.  And my camera battery then died. So then I decided I wanted to go for a walk, so I walked along the beach walk for some time.  By then it was 7.30am or so, and I decided it might be a brilliant idea to drive all the way to the inner west (there was no traffic, so it wasn't far) and go to Orange Grove markets in Lilyfield and to Rozelle Markets.  It was lovely, and I bought cheap flowers, amazing dolmades and a brooch.  Then I went for another walk in Callan Park. Then I went home and put through three loads of washing.  Now I am here.  Very bizarre.  But nice.

Here's some pictures... can't edit any of them cos I am at the dirty floral internet cafe again, but here's something.

Sunrise from Blues Point

Joggers at Bondi

My $5 tigerlillies from Orange Grove

Crayons on the table at Berrima

Trees in Berrima

Wow, that was random. If you visit Flickr there is more, but I don't have time to sort or name them or fix them up or anything. End of most rambling blog post in a long time. Toodles.

Computer disaster (again...)

My laptop has died.  I think it's the hard drive.  So there won't be much blogging from me at the moment.  I am in mourning because I think I might have lost everything on the hard drive so bub-bye to lots of my photographs and music AGAIN. How annoying. The laptop is only six months old and trust me, the poor Apple employee that picks up the phone will get quite a blasting.  Angry Ash. (don't even start on the phrase "you should have backed up". I can't hear it now, alright.  Don't kick a girl while she's down.)

Ugh this keyboard is terrible, sorry if there is typos. I wish I had my camera here.  This convenience store cum internet cafe where I have popped in to check on my bank balance (I can't even manage my money without the internets, it's terrible) has plastic flowers suspended from the ceiling, cheap prints of the English countryside and passive aggressive signs saying things like;

"Dear Customers, please be advised that digital cameras are recording throughout this store 24 hours a day. To avoid embarassment please pay for services provided. Any wrong-doings maybe (sic) BROADCASTED ON THE INTERNET and reported to police. Civilised law abiding customers are welcome here."

I wonder what people were doing in the internet room that was YouTube worthy?  Maybe I don't want to know.

The store looks like it was decorated by a demented grandmother... but it looks like it has been cleaned by a teenage boy.  It's really filthy and I am so disinfecting my hands after using this keyboard. Ugh.

So no computer.  Except at work, where I am generally expected to write news stories and other such things, rather than stories about minute details of my life that most people probably don't care about.

That means that you lovely people will miss out on hearing all about my day trip to Berrima yesterday where I bought jams and ate scones and took pictures of scones, jams and trees.  It was lovely.

You also won't get to hear the long but hilllllarious story about my insane neighbour, complete with pictures of passive aggressive notes she has written.

You will also miss out on my review of the Sex and the City movie that I am hopefully seeing today or tomorrow.

Poor things.  Poor me.  It's a very sad situation indeed.

How? Why?

Lately I have become obsessed with the stats page on my Typepad account.

Apparently, on average, 20 unique visitors come to my blog a day!  That might seem really small, but considering I have done nothing to promote it and my mum only visits once every few days and most of my friends have forgotten about it, that means at least 15 randoms, on average, find this blog a day!

Hello random new friends!  Sorry I am so crazy!  Sorry for overusing exclamation marks even more than OK Magazine does in the last two pars!!!!

I'm always quite shocked to find people read my blog.  I mostly just do it so I don't self combust and so that my mother knows I am alive and doesn't ring me as often (just joking ma, I love our 4 hour phone conversations...).

The most interesting thing about the stats page though is that you can see how these randoms come to find your blog.

Today alone, these are the google search strands that led people to my little home for ranting and self-indulgence on the internerd.

• Bi lo Huey's cooking, 30 may 2008 show (wow, specific.  And I doubt my blog helped them at all, but thanks for visiting!  The answer for your recipe question is probably add more bilo butter.)
• betty good deal (well, I have always considered myself fair value for money, but not too cheap...)
• typepad betty loves blogging (wow, I have fans hunting me down especially. How exciting! But not particularly smart ones, considering blogging host + blog name= blog URL)
• bettylovesblogging (there were two of these... it just shows the magic of google that they found themselves here...)
• anne coren logies dress (umm, it's Anna.)

I also today got linked by a fan from the Augie March fan forum (Belinda, are you a member?).  And people came from Flickr, Facebook and Bland Canyon.

Some of the other searches people have done have been pretty funny.  Surprisingly, there are quite a lot searching for stuff on television weatherman Tim Bailey, who I ridiculed quite harshly way back when.

It's very interesting finding where I have been linked from.  It's like stalking, only I don't have to pull twigs out of my hair from hiding in someone's shrubs and it's not illegal.  So much more convenient, especially in these cooler months.

Decisions, decisions...

It can be tricky deciding what to wear.

But after you have drunk a few of these;



it becomes fairly inconsequential.

Went bowling last night for a friend's birthday (at a place full of neon lights, with tassels hanging from the ceiling and a soundtrack of pure cheesy pop), and then went on to a party.  It was quite fun, but I haven't done much today.  The really cold and rainy weather hasn't helped motivation levels... but it's nice to have a day of bumming around... playing with photoshop, watching dvds and pottering in the kitchen.  And sleeping... lots of sleeping.

Now I'll never be wise.

I went to the dentist today to hear the inevitable news that I have to have my wisdom teeth out.  Should be great.

The positive side is I have found a really nice dentist who I don't want to kick.  She's kinda like that happy doctor character on Grey's Anatomy, except less annoying.

It was pretty funny though.

In our pre-lean-back-in-chair-and-open-mouth sincere conversation:

Smiley dentist (SD): "So you're a journalist?"
Me: "Yep."
SD: "Hmm, journalists always have really bad teeth.  I think it's all the caffeine. Too much coffee, sugary snacks, energy drinks, all that."
Me: "That's probably right.  They also don't get paid very well and dentists are expensive." (notice tactic of talking about "them" in the third person, to disassociate myself from the manky teeth brigade)
SD: "I didn't realise that but you could be right. Plus they never come because they are always on deadline. It's hard for them to get away. There's lots of journalists that come here.  Lots of Sydney Morning Herald people."
Me: "Really?  I didn't realise this was such a popular neighbourhood for journalists."
SD: "Seems to be.  Lots of them. Their teeth are really bad.  They all drink those energy drinks all the time.  Do you drink those?"
Me: "No, just one cup of coffee a day. I'm only on a suburban paper, not a daily."
SD: "Oh ok. Some of the ones that work overnight, they are the ones I see. I wonder what the day shift people's teeth are like."
Me: "Probably way worse.  They probably can't get to go to a dentist unless there's a terrorist attack or something at a surgery.  They probably have mean editors and need more energy drinks."
SD: "Hmm..."

While rendered unable to speak because things were being jabbed in my mouth;

SD: "Your teeth aren't too bad for a journalist."
Me: eee errrr eh errrr errrr errrr  uk errrr (translation: Is that actually a compliment? Is that like saying "you're kind of nice for a mass murderer"?)
SD: (ignoring mumbling) You need some fillings though.

I was tempted at one point to ask which profession had the best teeth.

In journalism, they teach you that there are no such things as stupid questions.

But there are... considering how sparkly and perfect my dentist's teeth were, that would have been a really stupid question. Especially since my mouth was plugged open at the time.

A looooong photo walk...

Yesterday I walked to Kirribilli Markets, then over the bridge, over the Cahill Walk, through the Botanic Gardens and all the way to the Art Gallery of NSW where I saw the very cool Taisho Chic exhibition, which explored the conflicts in Japan's emerging modernity through art during the 1920s and 30s.  I really recommend the exhibition.  I would, however, recommend wearing sneakers if undertaking such a long walk because my feet are now covered in blisters... I would have looked at more at the gallery except my pained feet were making me hobble somewhat.

On the way I took lots and lots of photos.  Here are a handful or so, it's quite a mixed bag;

From the top; Cacti in the Botanic Gardens, Apartments in the Rocks, Flower outside Milsons Pt Station, Church at Milsons Point, Art Gallery of NSW, Circular Quay from above, Road in the Rocks from above, the nasty shoes kicked off in the Botanic Gardens, Kirribilli Cafe and a ferry shot from above while walking along the bridge.

There are so many more, but I think I have posted enough for now...

People think I'm strange sometimes

People think I am strange sometimes.  Understandably, my coworkers think I am strange because I do bizarre things, send them links to stories from the Border Mail as if they will care, sometimes randomly bring in baked goods, blabber on incessantly and talk about politics and Big Brother in the same stream of consciousness sentence.

My parents think I am strange because I borrowed their car a year ago and haven't returned it.

Some of my friends think I am strange because I still have the ability to do maths (namely, split the bill at a restaurant) even though I finished school five years ago.

But it's not just the people I know who think I am a little bit odd.

There I was, singing along to Belle and Sebastian's Lazy Line Painter Jane at the top of my lungs in the car at the traffic lights, and I all of a sudden noticed the guy in the next car STARING at me with a look of horror on his face.

Surely he couldn't hear me?  The music and the car windows should have been enough of a barrier against me screeching.

But he was STARING with an aghast look on his face, as if he was witnessing something horrific.

I looked back with a stunned reaction, like a deer in a spotlight.  It was very bizarre.

Seriously dude, get over it.

So anyway, the lights changed.  His stare kind of put me off my singing, so I flicked on the radio and took up my other crawling traffic pastime... repeating things on the radio and trying not to lisp (apparently, according to a failed job application for broadcast journalism, I have a slight lisp, and my neurotic tendencies mean that it drives me absolutely mental and I can hear it all the time and I want to get rid of it so that maybe if more people read my blog like Marieke Hardy I too can host a radio show with Robbie Buck because I think he sounds very nice... then I could make my living from talking crap and blogging crap and it would be amazing).

But as chance would have it, more red lights (thankyou Sydney!).  And yet another person in the next car looking at me funny.  This time they looked like they were chuckling at me.  How dare they!

So I wound down the window and screamed at them "HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A PERSON HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH THEMSELVES IN THE CAR BEFORE?  WHAT ABOUT HANDSFREE MOBILE PHONES, DID YOU EVEN THINK OF THAT!".

Just kidding (about the screaming, not the talking to myself, that's true... I do like to share on here, don't I?).  I'm not that strange (yet).

A plus size lardy assed rant

Shopping malls are horrible horrible places.  They trap you with their convoluted carparking, convoluted floor plans and lifts and escalators filled with convulsing tantrum-throwing children.  Not to mention the flickering fluorescent lighting.

But being a PWINAAS (person who is not at all small), it is even more depressing than whatever existential crisis is making little Skye/Gwynne/Georges throw a spat in the lift.

Why, despite shopping malls often being filled with fellow PWINAASes, despite the constant hype about the obesity crisis, why are there barely any clothes for us fatties to wear?

Shopping for fashionable clothes for anyone above size 14 is a nightmarish exercise. 

Step one often involves going out to the suburbs... because the only chance you have of finding suitably sized clothing is to go somewhere where most women have reproduced already.  In the inner city, where most people have dogs rather than children enrolled in private school and hence have figuratively not "lost their figure", the pickings for generously sized garments are slim (get it?).  So a journey to the 'burbs is often in order.

Step two then involves trawling through stores to find things in the right size.  The range is always limited, and usually really ugly.

Step three usually involves being disappointed.  Either you like it and it's not in your size, or you hate it and it's the only thing in your size.

I have been looking for tights (don't get me started on the blatant sizing lies on tights packaging... how come my weight and height is well within the specified range for the pair of tights purchased and then I get home and find they are way way way too small? so much wasted money), a nice cut pair of black pants, good fitting jeans and a nice black pencil skirt for MONTHS and MONTHS and MONTHS.  You wouldn't think it would be so hard to find these basic wardrobe items.  But no.  They either don't fit well, are made of shitty material and are way overpriced or are just generally shit.

So very much of my weekend time (and my money) is spent trying to find respectable, fashionable, flattering, affordable clothes that don't make me look decades older than my 23 years.  And so often I fail.

Is this some sort of cruel punishment for enjoying too much chocolate-related decadence?  Is it like the anti-smoking lobby, hoping more people will quit by pushing them outside.... hoping more people will join Fitness First instead of either walking around naked or in printed sacks that look like they have been made from the offcuts of RSL club carpet?

Anywhere that does sell stuff that is ok and bigger charges through the nose for it because they know that the clothing will send the fatties into such a flutter of excitement they won't even bother looking at the price tag.  It's true.  I have so many items of clothing made from flimsy crap material that I could have picked up for $10 if I was a size 10, but have paid $50 or more for just because I am desperate for something nice to wear.

While wandering around looking at the floral sacks available for the low price of $120 each in Myer, the boringness and shapelessness of the clothes on offer made my mind wander...

The fashionistas are in their drawing room, putting together the new designs for winter 2008... Jennifer Hawkins is inexplicably in the corner in a half sewn garment (I really doubt models have to deal with that)... a group of sharply dressed men with a few scrawny ladies running to and fro with bits of flimsy fabric and sketch drawings are in the middle of a floodlit warehouse.  I don't know why this is so, but clearly this is how fashions are made.

"All done, except for hemming Jen's skirt... now, what shall we design for the fatties this year?" a man in a pink shirt quips.

"Well, the sacks always sell well.  The fatties love the sacks.  They fly off the shelves.  Let's just use some of the extra bits of fabric we have lying around and sew it into sacks!"

Suddenly the warehouse doors burst open and there, chunky thighs silhouetted by some sort of backlight of unknown origin, stands the one to save them all.  This is dream me. 

"Nooooooo" I scream, dashing for the design table, doing some fully sick aerial acrobatics along the way.

"They only buy the sacks because you scrawny bastards don't make anything else for them to wear," I scream, while pinning down a designer and holding a set of pinking shears at his throat.

With my free hand, I grab a glam dress off the table and shove it in his face.

"Make this three sizes bigger or die a slow death through ineffectual zig zag shaped cuts to your neck!" I scream.

"But the integrity of the fashion... I.... I.... just won't.  You... can't..." he splutters.

"Do it," I demand, while pressing the pinking shears closer to his pretentiously groomed facial hair.

The saleswoman snapped me out of my daydream by asking if I wanted to try on a hideous satin top I had been gazing at for five minutes with a delirious look of glee on my face.

All jokes aside, it's pretty damn annoying.  The most hilarious catch-22 of today was the difficulty I had finding a sports bra.  You would think the slim army would only sell sportswear for the fatties (no after 5 wear until you lose 15 kilos... get jogging!) but it seems I must be too fat to do sports.  I am beyond hope. 

So after a day where I managed to spend money but not have much to show for it, I came home to try and look if I could find the objects of my desire by dipping my toes into the hit and miss world of online shopping.

The postage and chance of stuff not fitting was just too much risk.  But while looking around I discovered that designer Leona Edmiston is expanding her range to big sizes, which is exciting, cos her stuff is glam (damn expensive though).

But then I found a blog post about it at the Daily Terror where the comments just made my blood boil.  Crap about how people shouldn't whinge about not having plus sized clothes they should just go to the gym and stop being fat and a burden on society and all of that or should learn to sew.  There are also things posted by other people that underline how shit it is trying to find clothes that fit well. (Note, there are also some anti-skinny people comments that I also think are offensive and petty and unnecessary.  I'm no skinny person hater.)

Sigh.  It's enough to make a girl write an angry blog post while rewatching Skins on a Saturday night.

The John Winston Howard memorial walk

I've been going on lots of long walks this week (after being supremely lazy for quite a while), and today I did what I like to call the "John Winston Howard memorial stroll" all around Kirribilli, past the gates to Kirribilli House and Admirality House, down around the bottom of the bridge, then heading back towards where I live.

It got me wondering if the council might rename it in his honour when it next does improvements on the foreshore walk. It was such an iconic part of his leadership, the morning walk around Kirribilli... just like overuse of the phrase "battlers", the complete disregard for the merits of a strongly supported public education system, unflinching support for ill thought out military campaigns and blatant lies (i.e. Tampa).

Then all the battlers, who will apparently still be mourning the demise of Howard and his economic rationalism when the budget comes out this week, can come in their green and gold tracksuits and do a loop around the Johnny Howard track to make themselves feel better... and fight obesity. They can cast their minds back to a better time, when interest rates weren't rising, good ol' Pete was handing out tax cuts willy-nilly and their local school didn't have a roof.

The path should have as many options for directions as Workchoices (so just one, our way or the highway) and as much openness as Howard's immigration policy (barbed wire fences to stop undesirables walking on it).

It should be a pretty curvy path and should bend back on itself several times... they could also have some exercise equipment next to the path... bars for backflipping, a podium for spin doctoring, etc.

And obviously, it would be user pays.

At the end of the path, when you are leaving the John Howard memorial walkway, there could be two signposts. On your left, one that says "optimism" and on the right one that says "economic ruin". You choose which way to look as you head forward...

Rudd's not in da hood very often (if only he was... I'd be popping in for tea and scones and a chin-wag with Therese if that was the case) so I'm sure it wouldn't offend him to rename it. And really, since Howard was PM for so long, there will be some sort of memorial/sculpture/something that springs up eventually to honour his service to the nation... so it may as well be a foreshore path rather than a naff piece of contemporary sculpture, or a spot for him on the Australian cricket team or in the Big Brother house or something.

Ways to improve the Logies.

Last night there was pretty much two choices on TV.

1. A house full of people of questionable talent... Big Brother.
2. A casino showroom full of people of questionable talent... the Logies.

I caught a few brief moments of the Logies, and it was, as is to be expected, pretty damn terrible.

But I think the lowest point was when Bindi Irwin won best new female talent... and beat actual grown up actresses, because according to the Australian public, she has "talent"... I'd call it "a good marketing team and an overbearing stage mom dealing with her grief in a way likely to mean her daughter will need serious counselling for a long time".

But hey, what the Australian public says goes I guess.

There were a few things I would suggest to improve the ceremony.

1. More Mr G/Chris Lilley characters.
2. More Chaser and Adam Hills.
3. Less of anyone that has ever appeared on Sunrise, Today, Today Tonight, A Current Affair or 9am with David and Kim, minus the ones that appeared only in file footage as part of a one sided slur piece against them.
3. Less of anyone from Dancing with the Stars, It Takes Two, or other show that involves B or C grade celebrities doing something they aren't good at.
4. Actually, less of anyone from a commercial TV station. Unless they are making a speech so idiotic it's actually comical.
5. Kate Ritchie not winning the gold Logie.  The upset would have been great.  As long as Rove or Lisa McCune didn't win it either.  It would be amazing if an actor or actress won it (or comedian that's funny, i.e. not Rove, or an interviewer like Denton), rather than just a TV personality.
6. More old school show and dance numbers.  If it's going to be lame, it may as well be really lame.
7. More taking the piss out of Channel 9's program line up this year.  My Kid's a Star?  Seriously...
8. Drastically reducing the length of the telecast... as in, shrinking it to the length of an ad where they flash up a website you can go visit to find out the results.
9. Introducing a reality program called "Logies Night Up Late", showing everyone sloshed and acting like the classless fools we know half of them probably are and hooking up with each other.  It would be hilarious.
10. Daryl Sommers... being carried off in a straight jacket for being crazy for thinking his jokes are still funny, or ever have been funny.

So basically my awards ceremony would be compeered by Kerry O'Brian, Andrew Denton or Tony Jones and would involve ABC comedy stars doing a song and dance routine paying out Kate Ritchie for losing the gold logie and Channel 9's program line up, handing out a few statues to some notable actresses like Tammy Clarkson, watching the "personalities that died this year" montage (you can't get rid of that), clapping as Daryl Sommers gets carted up a red carpet to the loony bin, then going home.  Half an hour, tops.  So much better.

Photoshop, how I have missed thee.

Oh, how I have missed having photoshop.  Following the combustion of my old computer last year, I have been living without it... but now I have it back, and it's amazing... and it runs even better on a mac!  I'm going through finding some old photos that were too boring/crap to post without a photoshop boost or treatment... like the one above, which I took at an op shop at the end of last year.  A heavy crop and some PS tinkering has turned it into something cool (I think so, anyway...)

A heavy rainy day, through the car windscreen.  I took it ages ago while pulled over because the rain was bucketing and I couldn't see.

Blue sky and electricity poles, taken up in Rozelle the other day.  Yayayayayyyyy so happy to have photoshop back!

News from the border

One of the best parts about going home (besides seeing friends and family and all of that) is reading my hometown newspaper, the Border Mail.

It's always full of interesting stories, and I do try and keep up with it when I am in Sydney (my coworkers can attest to this... I am always forwarding them crap from it).

Lately there have been a few stories that have grabbed my attention.

-There was a big story in when I was down home about how anyone caught buying Underbelly DVDs in Albury (which is in NSW) and taking them back to Wodonga (a 5 minute drive from Albury, in Victoria, where Underbelly has been banned from being screened to due to court proceedings) will face the full consequences of the law. Good luck policing that one.  Are they going to search cars?

-Lately there has been a massive war in the letters page over whether it is rude to stare at baby twins in prams that has had the whole town talking.

It started with this letter;

To all the sticky beaks, well-wishers and the plain just rude people, stop looking in our pram.
We are 4-month-old twin babies and wherever we go people are leaning in our pram breathing smoky, germy breath on us, needing to know if we are girls - yes we have pink dresses on. are we identical - no.
Yes we are cute and yes our mum is very lucky.
We are human beings not a stage show for you to invite your kids or your sister over to have a look after you have stopped us in our tracks, we have somewhere to be as well. what gives you the right to stand in front of the pram and stop us from walking down the street.
We are twins and that does not give you the right to invade our personal space, people with single babies dont get this nearly as much or if ever.
...
So if you're one of those people who just can't resist looking in someone's pram and stopping mothers or fathers in the street just think how would you feel if your car got stopped every five metres on the road and people poked their head in the window and asked you a million obvious questions.
We don't care what your story is just leave us alone.

This controversial letter prompted a huge backlash from people who thought it was rude, unAustralian, all manner of things.  Then more people chimed in to support the obviously stressed young mum, and it was going back and forth and back and forth. 

And now, there has been a final part of the story.  A last response from the mother;

"To all the negative people who responded to my letter regarding people looking in my pram, I didn't realise that I would be the talking point at a lot of places in Albury-Wodonga.
I did not ask in here for your opinion only that you keep your heads and hands out of my pram and leave me alone. Only I tried to write it nicely the first time.
I don't want people stopping me in the street and I am sick of trying to get somewhere only to be stopped twenty times, so just leave me alone."

The scary thing is, people are STILL probably talking about their outrage over these letters.

-There is a suburb/housing estate in Albury called Norris Park.  And a plucky young local signwriter then decided to rename it "Chuck Norris Park". See here.  Then, someone else decided to redo the whole thing as Mr T Park.  See here. (from Albury Wodonga Online, the Border Mail doesn't have the stories online).

The council, of course was pretty pissed off.  And then, the cheeky signwriters started fueding.  Apparently, the first one only used vinyl stick on letters that were easy to remove, while the second prankster used paint.  The first one believed that the second's action were really irresponsible.  Hilarious!

The local paper is always worth a read.  I don't know whether it's because there are more quirky characters down there, less serious news, or the paper is a bit tabloid and maybe the editors and journos just see the humor in it all, but you usually find a laugh in there somewhere.

Birthday flowers

Yesterday was my birthday (23... it's almost mid 20s... argh, cue another life crisis!), and among other things I got a gorgeous bunch of flowers from my coworkers which I have been obsessed with photographing (I go through such phases on here... it was all food food food now it's all nature nature nature).

Anyway, feast your eyes on more photos of a single bunch of flowers than you could possibly ever imagine.  Or just come back to the blog some other time, in the hope that I might have posted something interesting.

There's more on Flickr.  So very many more.

But I had a really lovely festival of birthday the last few days.  Last night we went out and had tapas at Kika Tapas in Darlinghurst (which is amazing), drank tons of sangria, then went for drinks at the Victoria Room and managed to score ourselves a couple of the huge ornate sofas they have there to spread out on, so we settled in there until the wee hours watching the beautiful people, desiring the beautiful decor, drinking and talking.  Very tired today though and will be on a tight budget for the rest of the month...

And the day before my birthday I got a mini party at work with an amazing chocolate cake as well as the flowers!  So I've been getting a pretty good deal out of this birthday...

In exciting news, I also now own a red trenchcoat!  It's amazing!  I have wanted a red coat for ages, then yesterday the birthday gods delivered it to me on a clothing rack in a store in a perfect colour, fairly reasonable price and absolutely perfect fit.  So, of course, it is now hanging proudly on my bedroom doorknob.  It will quite possibly be the only thing I wear for the next month though (not in an open said trenchcoat and flash people way, more in a "this is my favourite thing in my wardrobe and I refuse to wear any other coat or cardigan" way).

Autumn leaves in Albury

   

I was down in Albury for the long weekend, and being autumn, it was very pretty. So very pretty.  Can't say much else really.  Just very pretty.

My sister and I had lots of fun playing in the leaves.  It was a shame it was so wet though.

Faces in the park

A photo I took out at a mental health protest I had to shoot today for work at Rozelle. I put this one up here because it's probably a bit abstract for work and I thought it was kinda cool. The plates represent people who have died from a lack of mental health support.

Note to self...

Should really stop taking so many photos from car windows... while car is moving.  Not particularly safe driving practice.

Sydney Harbour Bridge on a stormy day.