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Published: March 21st 2008
Spider web..
The Redback haas a very strong web.. but not strong enough to stop Oggy ..Perth 3 - March 20th or there abouts…
Killer Spiders (Oggy)
My first sighting of the dangerous Red Back Spider….
Alcatraz (Oggy’s office) is starting to feel like home now.
On leaving the slowly becoming homely office, you have to pass through the big automatic glass doors at the front of the building.
As soon as the doors whush back, the heat hits you as if opening an oven door. The sun blinds you and you lose your breath instantly.
As soon as you have regained a level of consciousness, the pavement becomes clearer and the passers by start to come into focus.
Deciding to go left today, I walked about 20 yards before deciding it was too hot, and not enough cover to hide in the shade. Eventually I found a closed shop front with what was left of an old awning, and decided to grab the cooler spot before turning back and going the other direction. Whilst contemplating whether to have a fag, or make a dash back to the office, I spotted quite a large spider’s web in the corner of the steps leading up to the derelict shop door. Tentatively, I decided to tap the
Handle with Care
The Red Back Spider web with my foot (shoe), which resulted in the sudden appearance of the dreaded “Red Back”., which sprinted towards my foot at lightening speed with a view to devouring whatever it was that had been trapped in his lair.
Let me just give you the facts about one of Australia’s most recognisable spiders:
Redbacks, along with Australasian funnel-web spiders (a category of spider which includes the notorious Atrax robustus, or Sydney funnel-web spider), are the most dangerous spiders in Australia. The redback spider has a neurotoxic venom which is toxic to humans with bites causing severe pain.
On that note, and with this knowledge already imprinted on my frontal lobe, I decided to swiftly remove my size 10 from where it currently was, pretty sharp like.
But here’s the best bit…….
Obviously having read up on this little fella, I was prepared to withdraw without wishing to put up too much of a fight. But I have to be honest - It was TINY. - As a matter of fact so small that it was a bit of an anti-climax against my previous expectation, that this would be one of my better finds.
True it has a
Spider Bite
This is what happens if one bites you..... bright red stripe on its back which instantly makes it identifiable as a killer. But if I told you it was about the size of tic-tac from fang to foot, it doesn’t make the cut in our journeys awesome finds.
The totally harmless Huntsman spider makes you think twice before going near it, but micro flea springing forwards on his web here in front of me, doesn’t give me nightmares just yet. Although his bite is far worse than his bark, he was quite a cute little fella, and I decided leave him be, so that he can pounce on the next unsuspecting prey another day.
I may go back at some point and feed him a bug or two just to fatten him up a bit.
Chilli plants - Colin, Clarence & friends
Being fond of hot food and adding fresh chillies to anything from Chilli con Carne to Fish and Chips, we have always wanted to grow our own crop.
So here’s a little bit on our new venture……
We came across the plant sales department in Bunnings (The B&Q of Oz), after browsing some of the stores in Subiaco. In this particular store, there is a
Colin..
The rather weary dead looking plant... we had a short service small area which contains vegetable plants and seeds of various sizes and colours. To our surprise there was not just one variety of chilli plant but several to choose from.
We decided on one small fully leafed little plant, with the description “Chilli Long Cayenne”. It was quite short, full bodied with numerous fully formed fresh leaves and seemed to cry out “Feed me!!!”. So without much discussion, picked up a bag of blood and bone plant food and duly purchased him and hurriedly whisked him off back to the apartment. We decided to call him Colin for no other reason than it seemed to fit his stout demure and fit nicely as ‘Colin the Chilli plant’.
After watering him and sitting him in the sun in pride of place on the balcony, we sat back and admired our new addition to the family.
Colin seemed to glow and flourish in the sun all day, so we gave him a drink before going to bed.
I watered him in the morning before going to work, and Ang gave him some refreshment during the day.
This went on for about 3 days, when I suddenly get a text from Ang……..
“Colin’s
Our garden..
Clarence and Peter.. long may they live dead”.
I don’t remember much after that, apart from the sudden desire to rush home and hold his little leaves in my hands before he past over to the green house in the sky.
Our dreams of becoming self sufficient on a Chilli plantation were now in tatters.
What would we do now?
We had failed to get even a single whiff of cayenne from Colin and dreams of providing the whole of Western Australia with its entire supply of chillis for the next decade were now just a distant pipe dream.
Oh well - Colin’s gone in the bin, as we found two more better developed Chilli plants at a Veg Market in Midland who are already abundant in produce and cost half the price.
Sad but true - You can’t cry over spilled milk, and must embrace change. Guess you get the picture.
So Colin the second and Clarence the first are doing nicely. Perched on the balcony, joined by Peter the Yellow Pepper plant, and yielding fresh produce already. We shall enjoy our first harvest shortly and eat in Colin’s memory.
The Hire car…..
We will be picking up our new car soon (once we have
Km per hour
On any one stretch of road, these signs are in abundance.. ranging from 40 - 120 sorted out the transfer of monies).
But until then we have been driving around in a hire car. The Toyota Camry is used all over Asia as a Taxi. As a matter of fact it is the weapon of choice in Dubai, and we have spent many hours in traffic in the back of one of these recently. ((Read Dubai Blog)).
It is an Automatic petrol version with loads of room in the boot and we must say, quite a comfortable drive/ride. It looks fairly ordinary and apart from the scratches running all the way down the drivers side (Ang’s close encounter with the Bin wagon) it has no other Go Faster Stripes to give it any credibility. That said, it is still a pretty well performing car.
On that note - How fast can it go?
Well fast enough to get pulled by the police on a stretch of road which didn’t have any signs indicating that the speed limit had been reduced.
I wont go into too much detail, about the reasons why we were zooming along, without taking too much notice of the car in the lay-by ahead with a chap in blue leaning up against it,
The Fuzz
Gotcha!!!!! pointing something resembling a gun directly at us.
Needless to say, he jumped out into the middle of the road, legs akimbo, and arms waving like a Man City Fan after a miraculous goal. Trying to attract our attention didn’t take much, as he was in our direct path and as previously noted, holding what looked like a big gun.
We duly pulled over, not wishing to damage the car any further, or being sent to jail for knocking over an Officer of the Law in the course of his duty.
He eventually approached the drivers’ side, and I wound down the window.
“Do you know what the speed limit is down this road sir?” he asked in a dry, monotonic voice. Not wanting to get into too much trouble, we made some pathetic POM like noises and apologised prolifically whilst explaining that we were new to the country and made a mistake which should ordinarily get 90 lashes, but in our case should be made to feel small and send us on our way.
He responded by requesting the production of a license (which I didn’t actually have with me), but Ang obliged by showing hers. This seemed to
Melting at Margaret River
Sun is hot, band is playing, chocolate is melting! appease his desire to fine anyone within 20 feet of his location, or more likely thinking that he couldn’t be bothered with these two foreigners whom he couldn’t add points to their licences in any case. He then sent us off on our merry way, with a warning and a rye smile.
We had hardly set off, when he was already pointing his Speed gun at more unsuspecting candidates winging their way around the blind bend he had positioned himself.
As we slowly pulled away, he was already doing the arm waving and jumpy up and down thing in the middle of the road at the poor guy, coming around the corner.
Reckon Perth City Council made up any financial deficit by the end of the day…………………………
Last Sunday we were invited along to a neat little area in the Swan Valley called Oasis, for a game of ‘super golf’ with Colin & Nicky, their son Matt and Nicky’s ‘visiting’ parents.. So with Tee off booked for approx 2.30pm, we set off around midday exploring the ‘Swan area’ and stumbled across Midland market and ‘swap meet’ where we purchased a rather large chilli plant, a thai chilli plant and
Go Nicky!!
What a great leg swing..! a capsicum plant.. Tom & Margo eat yer heart out… ( The Good Life)
When we were out here last year Colin took us on a fleeting visit to the chocolate factory/shop at Margaret river. As this was on our way to Oasis we thought we would partake in a latté (and some chocolate) prior to Tee off.. There is every kind of flavour added to the chocolate at Margaret River, and more shapes and types than you can imagine. From the obligatory chocolate bunny for the kids at Easter , to chocolate body paint for mum n dad... On waiting for the latté to arrive, there was a live band playing on the terrace, the sun was beating down and our chocolate purchase we had made 10 minutes prior was melting in the shade, we may have chocolate paint without intending to…
Super golf is played with golf balls that are the size of a regular tennis ball and each player selects a trolley with a set of 4 types of clubs, a big boy, a striker, a jigger and a putter, you also have a choice of playing either 9 or 18 holes, we were booked
Hole in 1?
more like hole in 8... Ang gets a second, third, etc etc shot at the par 5 hole... for the 9.
We split into 2 groups with Matt & Nicky’s parents going first armed with video camera..
Colin Teed off 1st - now for those of you who know Colin, you may understand when we say that he can be competitive.. And he also plays ‘real’ golf every weekend..
At the more difficult holes, Oggy and Colin proceeded to use the ‘big boy’ and whack the ball with a force that shook the trees and frightened the parrots from their nests.. Especially when the occasional tree would get in the way of the shot and the ball would start to act like a boomerang.. Nicky & Ang on the other hand used every type of ‘stick’ regardless of the ‘par per hole’, and hoped for the best as the ball headed off in a direction of its own. It sometimes disappeared in the opposite direction of the desired flag and on occasion into the bush scrubs, where not was it only nigh on impossible to get it out without the use of a strimmer, but more importantly it was probably being looked upon as a new egg by a broody snake….
Some of the shots were worthy
Whack!!
Oggy does a very demure sort of shot.. similar leg swing to Nicky there Oggs!! of Tiger Woods approval while others are not worth mentioning. Even the boys made a few off green shots and had to climb down some fairly steep ledges to retrieve the straying ball, and Ang managed to finish a par 4 in 3 shots at one hole.. But above all, it was extremely good fun..
Scores at the end..?
After a tot up of accumulated points over a well deserved coke, the Australian open ended with…
Colin - 1st
Oggy - 2nd
Ang - 3rd
Nicky - 4th
After an afternoon of sport and exercise what better way to relax than with a nice family meal.. Colin had booked us all in at a Japanese restaurant at Floreat for 7pm, just enough time to get back have a shower and change before meeting up at CJ’s.
As there were 8 of us in total, we were shown to our own private room at the side of the restaurant. At first sight as we looked into the room through the glass sliding door at the top of the 3 steps, it appeared that we would need to sit crossed legged on the floor and feel uncomfortable for the
Sushi anyone...
Nicky's mum and Em look at the rather interesting food... evening. But bizarrely the table was sunken into a pit in the floor, so we stepped into it and sat on the legless chairs. It was strange at first, but we soon got used to it soon enough.
The food was surprisingly good with plenty to choose from the buffet affair, with the restaurant owner bringing extras from time to time.
All in all it was a pleasant evening with plenty of repartee and flowing wine……
The MIB come through….
In our last episode, you may remember that we mentioned the rather ‘different’ way in which one purchases a house in the ‘land down under’ and how ‘foreigners’ have to apply to the Men In Black for approval.. well we are very pleased to say that the MIB have returned our plea to enter into the realm of eternal debt with a YES!
We expected, and were told, that this process could take up to 28 days, so once we had signed on the dotted line, we set ourselves up for the long wait and have been browsing through more furniture and ‘household’ shops than are listed on Google.. which by the way is soooo much easier than back
What is it?
Not so sure but Ang tucks in.. chopsticks n all in UK, where unless you go to the Trafford Centre or similar where Selfridges and Debenhams have limited stock, you find yourself having to drive from one place to the next, each at the opposite ends of town…you can spend a full day in the car and about an hour deciding which cushions from the selection of 5 will go with the settee you saw 3 hours ago but cant remember the exact colour…
Here in Perth there is a suburb called Osborne Park and it is worth saying that you can park at one end of the road (Scarborough Beach Road - we did briefly mention it in the last episode) and whilst walking up and down, which is not an easy thing in itself as this area has a shop on every sq foot, streets going off right and left, in total it is approx 6 sq miles and full of different types of businesses, you can buy anything from a deluxe pet bed to a 9 metre swimming pool… it has outlets ranging from Bose to Ikea
On most days (especially weekends) each proprietor will be sweating over a ‘hot barby’ out front of their establishment to entice the hungry shoppers in…bonus.
The range is so vast and it makes sense to have everything on one road. You could buy a car from one of the many dealerships at one end of the road and would have filled your boot, trailer and back seats with goodies by the time you have got less than ¼ of the way down the road... another good point of shopping up there is that as the name of the road suggests, once you have shopped out and are in need of a relax, there at the end is Scarborough Beach calling to weary shoppers with the warm smell of sea air and a rather strategically placed café promoting iced Latté..
Needless to say we cant decide on which settee to get for the lounge area or which one to purchase for the theatre room.. It may be a great idea to have 15 rooms/areas in a house, but trying to agree on furnishings to fit them out with is another thing…
In respect of the 28 day wait… at the beginning of this week, we received an e-mail from the MIB to say they too had no objections to a pair or Poms investing some of their hard earned pennies (cents) into their country… The nice man at the Bank came back within 2 days with his stamp of approval for the finance, and arrangements have since been made for the surveyor to visit the house to ensure that we have sold our souls to the devil for the amount that the house is worth…. so currently we are patiently waiting the ‘Yes’ from the survey result Once we have that we will move to ‘unconditional offer’ which means that the current owners will be legally bound under the ’28 days to vacate’ order.. Regardless of whether their new house is ready or not..
All in all we now have a house and can look forward to giving a checking out date of our compact yet bijou city apartment and swapping a small balcony overlooking the trees and rather noisy parrots, for a long veranda overlooking 5.5 acres of peace & quiet up in the hills with a few years of DIY…
As with all intended debt comes the need to earn cash.. As I (Ang) have been making the most of the beaches here over the past few weeks and Oggy has been off to HMP Leederville bright and early each morning, it seems only fair that the beach days end and the 4 letter word starts … My original start date was 31st March but as there is only so much shopping and sunbathing one can do, I decided to bring my 1st day forward and take the plunge back into reality a week early. To be honest I am ready for it (and the tan is really good now!!) and cant wait to get back into the swing of good old Project Management Methodology.. And it will make me feel that I am contributing rather than lying in the hot sun and ringing Oggy at work to tell him the surfers were at the beach and the waves were huge… As you can imagine its not what you want to hear when you are slogging it out with new processes within HMP walls…
I have already met with my new program manager and have some details of what I will be picking up. Unfortunately I wont be joining Oggy at HMP Leederville, I have a rather nice desk on a high level of the tower overlooking Swan River.. sorry dear..
This weekend coming is a long bank holiday weekend and in true government style of celebration, it’s a buy one get one free weekend… no its not that every retailer must relish in the happy thought of giving something away every time a sale is made. It means that if you are unlucky enough to have a police officer jump out from behind a small shrub and point a camera at you and then proceeds to wave you in with that ‘tut tut’ look on his face.. Not only do you get the standard fine and 3 points but as it is a bank holiday weekend, its ‘double demerit time’!! Yes, not only were you unlucky enough to be spotted and dragged in, but while you are stuttering feeble excuses you also get a double whammy of demerits.. 6 points instead of 3 - Happy Easter!!! Lets hope Oggy is more careful this coming bank holiday..
Another way that Easter is being celebrated here, is in the form of an adjustment in Petrol prices. It has been estimated that there will be more than 30% of additional drivers using the roads this weekend and that the average family will be travelling further in order to enjoy the vast numbers of beautiful retreats along the North and South coastline. So petrol has gone up today with the forecast that the cost will reduce again mid week next week when all are back at work…
The cost per litre yesterday was $1.16 and has rocketed today to $1.40………In UK terms, at the current exchange rate of approx $2.12 to £1 (this fluctuates and may increase or decrease each minute), this translates to £0.66 per litre which is the equivalent of £3.30 per gallon (approx)……… Canny little Aussie Government isn’t it..
Happy Easter everyone…!
Special message for Poppie…
Happy Birthday for next week little one x we love u lots
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Claire
non-member comment
Happy Easter
Hi Oggie and Ang, glad to hear it's not just me that works in a dungeon! Sounds like you're having a great time and you're certainly going to need the big 'B' with all those rooms to fill and those animals to feed, hope it got sorted. It's been snowing here this weekend, so my chocolate is frozen but it taste's just as good. Good luck with the new job Ang and enjoy the view. Looking forward to the next chapter, speak soon, Love Claire