Stumps

Like many Aussie guys, when I was a kid I dreamed of one day playing cricket for Australia. My childhood heroes were guys like Allan Border, David Boon, the Waugh brothers and (of course) Richie Benaud. As primary schoolers, our following of the sport was nothing short of obsession; every break we would be outside with a bat, a ball and (to the perpetual frustration of the groundsman) a rubbish bin that had been used as wickets so consistently it was dented and squashed hopelessly out of shape. On the weekends we played grade cricket in the dry and indoor cricket in the wet. I played under thirteens and then under fifteens and had a great time, although I remember being quite annoyed by the fact that I wasn’t very good at it.

It didn’t take very long for me to abandon my dream of playing for Australia, but all through high school I kept on following the game with the same passion. Of course, it helped that it was easy to get behind the Australian cricket team at that time, as we spent most of the late nineties being practically invincible. The old heroes were gone, but had been replaced by such legends as McGrath, Warne, Ponting, Gilchrist, Hayden, Langer and Martyn to name just a few. I had to stop playing grade cricket to focus more on school and music, but I would still join mates occasionally for a backyard game. And every time I did, I would be quietly struggling to deal with the fact that for all my passion and enthusiasm, I wasn’t very good at it.

My university years were a time of great change. We could no longer rely on the great heroes of the past, and some of the core assumptions about our role in the world were being challenged. In 2005 the unthinkable happened: we lost the Ashes. Everything we thought we knew about the world had fallen around us, leaving us questioning even our fundamental understanding of the game. If ever there was a time to rally and stay true to our belief in ourselves, in our team mates and in the game, while everything else around us was in flux, this was it. I remember trying out rather optimistically for our college cricket side with fairly tragic results. I really wasn’t very good at it.

In 2009 I stepped out into a brave new world, and a brave new country. Even in the exotic lands of central Spain, I found ways to continue my connection with the game. My exploits with the Madrid Cricket Club have been well documented here, although they’re unlikely to be remembered anywhere else. And while everyone else at the summer school was down at the beach, I was in the internet café checking the score in the test match. But even though I could hold my own in the field against the English staff, it really wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. As the only Aussie English teacher, it was important that I could beat the English at cricket even if, once again, our test side couldn’t. And I did, but it didn’t matter. I still wasn’t very good at it.

I’ve been home in Darwin for two and a half years now. My relationship with the game is still strong, but changing all the time. I don’t watch it religiously on TV like I used to, mainly because the commentary team, rather than inspiring and educating me, now makes me want to throw things (Michael Slater, I’m throwing them at you). These days they spend more time cross promoting other Channel Nine products and selling us commemorative merchandise than analysing the game play. And when they do get around to commenting on the game, it’s nothing but a series of inane clichés. So now I just follow the games on the internet and keep tabs on the boys while they’re away on tour. Back at home, I’m part way through my third season of local grade cricket. I’ve been dutifully heading down to training twice a week and out for games on Sundays. After all those endless afternoons running around the mid-wicket boundary, I’ve come realise an important fact about cricket:

I’m not very good at it.

After all these years, you might expect that I would have developed an ability to bowl straight, hit a ball properly or catch with some sort of reliability. After nearly three decades of persistence, the time has come for me to face up to the fact that not only am I never going to play for Australia, I’m never going to play B-grade local competition in Darwin. And as the period of my life loosely referred to as ‘youth’ gradually approaches the tea break, I’ve finally reached a place in my life where I can say I’m alright with that.

This afternoon I called my E-grade captain and told him I was pulling out of the competition.

It was a surprisingly easy decision in the end; if I take the eight hours a week I was spending trying to learn to bowl and spend them working on something I’m good at, God only knows what I might achieve. And while I’ll have to start looking for new ways to keep active, for now it’s time to appreciate the game the way the rest of the country does: on the couch with a beer.

And I’m extremely good at that.




Garry with 2 Rs

Winners Are Grinners

It’s amazing what taking a month off blogging will do for your life. September has been a month full of… other stuff. Not having the nagging feeling of “I should be blogging about now” hanging over me has been great. And although I’ve missed Cum Tacent Clament (Is that weird? It feels like it might be weird), it’s also true that in the absence of blogging, September was month full of victory.

Victory number one came for our Wednesday night C-grade mixed social volley-ball team. I’m now the proud owner of a trophy, upon which is inscribed “Wet season mixed C-grade division winner”. This in spite of the fact that we played in the dry season and we only made it to the playoff for fifth and sixth. And we lost. But a trophy’s a trophy, right? They must have had some left over from last year. So everyone’s a winner. Yay!

Victory number two came in the corporate environment. The company I work for was nominated for an award for excellence in staff training and development. Sure, we nominated ourselves, but that’s beside the point. It’s just nice to be recognised. What’s more, we won the award for employer of the year. What an honour! So in the finest tradition of nominating yourself for an award and then winning it, I’m nominating Cum Tacent Clament for the Booker Prize, my keyboard Samantha for Most Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Metaphorical Anthropomorphisation and myself for Female Eskimo Entrepreneur of the Century.

And last but not least, my cricket team took out the D-grade premiership. There isn’t anything to mock about this one, it was a proper win in a proper competition. I could mention the marked increase in success the team experienced when they finally got around to relegating me to twelfth man, but since this blog is about me and how awesome I am, I won’t. I'll just point out that I am now an award winning cricketer, volleyballer and staff member and a second place getting Inuit woman.

Make of that what you will.




Garry with 2 Rs

P.S. The next couple of weeks are going to get pretty insane as Princess Ida rehearsals go into top gear. Watch this space for the opening night wrap up!

The Death of Stroganoff

Wow. Two weeks without a CTC post. What a breach of trust. Ah well. The plain fact is the last fortnight has barely afforded me time to think, let alone write anything. All of a sudden my life is just a little bit out of control, but not in the good “anything could happen at anytime” way. More in the “stumble from one commitment to another and try not to drop anything” way, which is fun but brings into uncomfortable focus the fact that I’m really not getting any younger and can’t keep treating my mind like this or it will start to triangulate. I mean snap.

Mondays I work until five (usually five thirty) and then attend opera practice from seven thirty to late. I try to grab something to eat in the two hours in between while I’m getting over the stress of starting a new week at work and figuring out how all the vocal parts I’m supposed to have learned during the preceding week go.

Tuesdays are timesheet day at work, which means we do everything we normally do, but we do it with the HR ladies ringing us up every four minutes to ask us why the records being disparately faxed in from communities across several hundred kilometres aren’t perfect and in exact concordance with what the HR ladies think they should be. Then we have to change them to make them what the HR ladies think they should be. Milkfish. Then on Tuesday evenings I have some combination of cricket training, bible study and sepak takraw training, although they tend to overlap a bit, so invariably something gets dropped. Sometimes it’s bible study. Sometimes it’s catches in the outfield.

Wednesdays are hump day and I tend to be waist deep in paperwork by this stage, so after recovering from my customary Wednesday coughing fit, I, in keeping with the theme of the day, am usually fairly comprehensively humped. Wednesdays evenings are a bit nicer as all I have on are a couple of games of indoor beach volleyball. Unfortunately the game times vary each week, so I never know when it’s going to be until Wednesday afternoon. And if it’s really well timed, sometimes I make it home in time to watch Spicks and Specks, new episodes of which are becoming increasingly precious.

Thursdays are a bit of a pickle, which is okay if you like pickles. I don’t. I prefer ice cream. I’m supposed to cram in cricket, sepak takraw, church music practice and opera practice in the same four hour period. So far that’s not going so well, but that’s okay because every second Thursday is pay day. So sometimes I get to have ice cream.

No pickles!

By Friday afternoon I’ve generally had it with my job and I can be heard muttering to myself about finding a new one, or observed posting violent or despairing status updates to Facebook (posting them to the Governor General doesn’t have the same effect, and usually involves a day or so’s delay, plus an inquisitive email from the federal police). So on the one night of the week when I can get out and spend some time not being told what to do by anyone else, I tend to spend my time sitting calmly alone in a dark, quiet room and enjoying having absolutely nothing to think about, at least for one evening. Milkfish. Then it really get’s crazy.

Every second Saturday is prison ministry, which involves getting up on a Saturday morning and pretending to be cheerful, wise and loving. When I get home from prison, there’s usually about an hour before I’m supposed to be meeting someone for lunch, or checking in on the Tease production. Thankfully I’m no longer appearing in that as Phil has also pulled out due to Science. We found two other local guys to play our parts. I use this time to do laundry.

Saturday afternoons are consumed by full cast opera practice, which seems to be gradually expanding to be (milkfish) slightly longer every week, despite the fact that the performance is still three months away. When I catch myself singing the act two finale at my desk at work I’ll know I’ve truly lost it. I estimate this will take about another week and a half to occur.

Saturday night is theoretically sepak takraw again, although this is supplanted more often than not by a wedding, birthday party or quantum analytical chemistry symposium. That last one doesn’t come up that often, but does actually turn out to be a real thing, however ridiculous it might sound, and however doubly ridiculous the idea of my attending it might be.

Sunday is, of course, a day of rest. So all I do on Sunday is get up early for music practice, do church for a couple of hours and then back up with five or so hours of cricket. Fortunately I spend at least half of that time not batting, although not batting in the batting side generally means umpiring or scoring, which requires a level of concentration slightly higher than music practice, but not as high as a kite. The other half I spend not bowling, which just involves standing around in the sun for two hours and occasionally not catching a ball.

At some point on Sunday I call my mother and attempt to convey to her the fact that everything is fine. This is about to become significantly more difficult, as my mother is one of about five people who actually read this blog. Oh well. Yes mum, I’m fine. I ate nearly a whole tomato today. It was a really big one.

By Monday morning I’m ready for a rest to recover from my weekend. So I hit rewind and start the week all over again. It’s getting to be a vicious spiral, and at some point in the next week or two something is going to have to give. Either I’ll triangulate… I mean snap… at work and start singing lines from Princess Ida instead of answering members’ balance enquiries or I’ll start attempting to cover drive a volleyball through the gap between the worship leader and the Governor General. Or maybe I’ll just schedule some time off work.

Make of that what you milkfish.




Garry with 2 Rs

The War of the Words

No one would have believed, in the early years of the 21st century, that fictional affairs were being concocted in the timeless worlds of cyberspace. No-one could have dreamed that pages were being scrutinised, as someone with a typewriter studies characters that swarm and multiply in a drop of ink. Few men even considered the possibility of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. And yet: across the gulf of cyberspace, minds immeasurably superior to yours regarded this task with manic enthusiasm. And quickly, and wantonly, they drew their plans and got down to it.

Oh damn. What I would give right now to be able to make my blog articles play music.

Yes yes, at some point, probably next month, I’ll get around to writing about what it was like being in an opera. But for now my literary attention is focussed squarely on Nanowrimo (which is obviously why I’m spending time writing blog posts…).

I probably wouldn’t have bothered, but a certain CTC commenter whose name may or may not start with K and rhyme with “Bali Belly Tim” has been sending me rude emails regarding her cumulative word count. Being American, Tim is obviously approaching the task in the manner of a 200 metre sprint, and as such is under the simplistic illusion that she’s winning, based solely on the fact that she’s written more words than I have.

I, being smarter, faster, more operatic, less red headed and more Australian than Tim, am approaching the task from the vastly more sophisticated point of view of the second innings of a one day international cricket match (Michael Clarke, if you’re reading, you could probably learn a bit from this too). While it’s true I’m about three thousand words behind on the required run rate, I also have weekends in hand and a powerful lower order pinch hitter known as “Rostered Day Off”. I’m also planning on setting a record for ninth wicket stands and ruining your summer, but I digress.

The point is …

Um…

Look how clever I am! I managed to code a graphic display into the side bar! Now those of you reading from America can kid yourselves into believing Tim is winning, while fellow members of the Commonwealth of cricket appreciating nations can calculate the required word rate and try to guess when I’m going to take the batting power play, whilst whinging about the fact that it really doesn’t belong in the game in the first place and keeping an eye on the incoming clouds in case Duckworth Lewis comes into play. But hello, it looks like 2 Rs is about to take the new ball.

See how much cooler cricket is than running?



Garry with 2 Rs

P.S. Don’t even get me started on how many words my roller skating freak of a sister has written. She’s in Canada in winter and has a broken arm, so obviously there’s nothing for her to do except be cold, write and drink hot beverages. Obviously this counts as pitch doctoring and is clearly not within the spirit of the game.

P.P.S. Ashes are just around the corner. Yeah yeah!

In Defence of Our Stupid Warcry

Recently news.com.au published an article from Brisbane’s Courier-Mail and a poll calling for the banning of the Aussie sporting warcy “Oi! Oi! Oi!” on grounds that it’s embarrassing. When I last checked, the yeas were outnumbering the nays two to one and I find that distressing.

I’m not remotely embarrassed to say I love the Aussie Aussie Aussie warcry. Some of my most pleasant memories are of watching cricket on TV, hearing Bill Lawry say something insightful like “There’s a hush around the MCG as McGrath comes in from the members’ end” and being able to hear nothing through the field microphones except bay thirteen yelling “Oi Oi Oi!” at the top of their lungs. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for five minutes after I heard then IOC chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch close the 2000 Olympics by trying the call for himself, and getting a 70000 strong response.

Yes, I know Glen McGrath has retired. Yes, I know the Sydney Olympics were a decade ago. Big deal. Waltzing Matilda is older than both of them. You want to ban that too?

To me, Oi Oi Oi expresses in a most efficient manner the very character of Australian sport; it’s loud, it’s straightforward and it’s awesome. On the other side of the coin, it’s also overly simplistic, slightly annoying and at its most expressive under the influence of alcohol (consumed responsibly, obviously).

What’s not to love?

I know there are those who campaign for an Australia with higher cultural aspirations, free of the cultural cringe of the past and representative of a more modern, intelligent and mature Australia. I’m all for that, and I’ll happily join you for an opera, cello recital or stroll through the national gallery (just don’t ask me to write about it), followed by a rousing chorus of “I Vow to Thee My Country” back at the members’ lounge.

But back off and leave my sports chants alone!

I think some of the problem might be with the over application of the chant. As I wrote earlier, my fondest memories of it are as background noise during a one day cricket final. With the coming of the Olympics in 2000, the chant went spectacularly mainstream and starting appearing in rock concerts, telethons, youth conventions and, most recently and hilariously, the canonisation of St. Mary MacKillop. I have to agree, things have gotten a little out of hand there.

But let’s not get too excited and start banning things like an out of control web filter. Let’s put the chant back in bay thirteen where it belongs and get on with banning something sensible.

Like the Courier-Mail.

...



Garry with 2 Rs

Specialist Outfielder

The extent to which I’ve become an inactive layabout is starting to annoy me. I spend far too much time with my computer (so I decided to blog about it… hmm…) and not nearly enough time outside.

This is partly due to the Darwin climate this time of year. When it’s not 33 and sticky, it’s 29 and pouring which makes outdoor pursuits a little inconvenient. However, the Dry is fast approaching and that means only one thing:

Cricket season.

Yes, I know that rest of Australia has only just got over the monumental waste of time that was this summer’s so called ‘competition’ (although as I’m typing this, Mitchell Johnson has just taken 10 wickets in the second test in Hamilton to clinch the series against New Zealand) and is stolidly pushing on with fanatic devotion to games played with balls that aren’t round.

But up here we do things the other way around: we play cricket in the dry season when it’s slightly cooler, less humid and not pouring with rain all the time. We play football in the wet season because if we didn’t, the guys playing both cricket and some code of football (which is generally half the team; there’s only a limited pool of players to draw from) would be screwed, and also because football players usually aren’t smart enough to realise that running around in the sun in November is a stupid idea.

You may already have read of my previous adventures in international cricket. It could probably be said that as a batsman I make an excellent spin bowler and that as a bowler I make a fantastic… goal keeper. Nonetheless, I’ve decided that in order to break out of the inactive slump that has elevated my pant size to unacceptable levels, I’m signing up for the next season.

The last time I played club cricket in Australia was when I was in high school, playing for Tracy Village, which was just around the corner from our old house in Wanguri. I managed to earn myself the nickname “Kamikaze” due to my distinctive ground fielding style and was renowned as the most consistent number ten in the league (I can’t remember the name of the guy who batted at eleven. He must have been woeful). I bowled occasionally, but spent most of my time running around at deep mid-wicket being noisy.

Not much has changed, except that Tracy Village is no longer just around the corner. I’m living out in the wilderness of Woodroffe and I have a heart rending decision to make.

Palmerston cricket club trains at Woodroffe Oval, which is just around the corner from where I currently live. The logical thing for me to do is to sign up with them. But, as a born and bred northern suburbs boy, it seems a little unnatural. Like a boy from Longreach growing up to play State of Origin for New South Wales, or an Oxford law student rowing for Cambridge. Or a former Liberal leader crossing the floor to vote in favour of Labor’s Emissions Trading Scheme. Can I really bring myself to represent Palmerston on the cricket field?

I think convenience is probably going to win out over district loyalty. I also think the Tracy Village sports club can probably count themselves extremely fortunate. Either way, I’ll be spending less time in cyberspace and more time in the outfield, which can only be a good thing from my current perspective.

This has been another presentation from Nine’s Wide World of Sports.




Garry with 2 Rs

Away in La Manga

I spent last weekend in a resort town in South East Spain called La Manga. It’s a little village close to the south east coast. The closest notable cities are Cartagena and Murcia (the regional capital). It was a bit of a hike from Madrid; I had to take a five hour train ride to Cartagena and then a twenty minute taxi ride, but it was a great place to kick back for a few days once I got there.

I was a bit out of place though. La Manga has the look of one of those southern Spanish villas that’s actually just a retirement village for British billionaires. It’s technically still under Spanish sovereignty, but as far as local culture goes, it belongs to England. And possibly also to the 20th century. Everyone speaks English and all the restaurants sell beef burgers and fish and chips and … whatever other stuff people eat in England. And all the prices are adjusted to suit the local clientele, so it’s not the sort of place a normal person could stay for more than a weekend or so, and not the sort of place you would normally find me at all.

So what the hell was I doing there?

Madrid Cricket Club was hosting a twenty-twenty tournament with a bunch of teams from Europe getting together for a weekend of good old-fashioned British culture, which seems to be what sleepy towns in south-east Spain are all about. And I was there in my freshly purchased MCC whites, ready to represent Madrid along with all the other ex-pats.

There were two other teams from Spain, three teams from England and two teams from the Netherlands. The English teams weren’t such a big deal (as is usually the case with English cricket teams), and actually the teams to watch were the Dutch boys. Amsterdam and The Hague were the strongest teams, since both teams had members who played for the Netherlands, and were fitting the weekend in between preparations for the world cup qualifiers. The English teams, like the Spanish teams, were mainly amateurs looking for a fun weekend in the sunshine.

I ended up playing most of the weekend as 12th man for La Manga CC, who hadn’t quite managed to bring a full team (despite the competition being held in their town) and needed to borrow some Madrid players. I wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that even the team that couldn’t field a full side didn’t want me in their first eleven, so in the end I decided not to make anything of it, and just ran around at deep mid-wicket for a while.

As you might expect my batting was nothing to write home about, and certainly nothing to write a blog entry about, so I won’t.

I did manage to sneak in a couple of overs for Madrid with the ball when we played against La Manga, and took figures of two overs, no maidens, one for six which wasn’t too bad. Especially since the wicket was a Dutch national player from The Hague who had been called in to take my spot (make of that what you will).

Over all Madrid finished fifth, behind the Dutch teams and two of the English teams, but ahead of the other Spaniards and one particularly unfortunate English side.

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs

A visit to the MCC

Well, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself; Madrid has a cricket club. And what’s more they’re recruiting for the up-coming season. After getting word of this most perplexing of cultural dislocations, I felt it was my patriotic duty to investigate. So I slipped into the closest thing to sports clothes I own these days and headed out for the MCC.

To tell you the truth, as well as being a little culturally curious, I was also quite looking forward to the chance to pursue an unfulfilled childhood dream; being good at sport. I mean, come on. I’m in Spain. Most of the people here haven’t even heard of cricket. I was fairly likely to dominate simply by being Australian. Okay, so back home I would struggle to be picked as twelfth man for the Tennant Creek East local derby against those pie-chuckers from West Tennant, but here in the land of football and nothing much else (except for one random guy who seems to be pretty good at tennis) I might as well be Michael Clarke. Except without the crazy fiancée. I had visions of me raising my bat to the dressing room after scoring a hundred on debut, or taking five for twelve including a hat trick.

If I had any brains at all I’d have realised that this is Madrid; one of the most multi-cultural cities in Europe. The Madrid Cricket Club consisted of a bunch of English guys getting together for a match a little closer to the backyard on Australia Day than the MCG on Boxing Day. There were also a large group of sub-continental guys chatting to each other in a language I couldn’t make out. I’d like to assume it was Tamil, Hindi or Urdu, but it might just as well have been Spanish. I’m really not getting anywhere with the whole local language thing. Possibly because I spend all my time at English teacher agencies and… cricket clubs.

Anyway, the pitch for our epic match consisted of a rubber mat laid out in the middle of a rugby field. It was only half of the standard 22 yards, but as long as we only bowled from one end and didn’t pitch too short, it worked alright. The bounce wasn’t exactly what you’d call predictable, but dealing with difficult conditions is part and parcel of being a professional sportsman in the modern era.

It won’t come as huge shock to anyone back in Australia, but, in fact, there were no great heroic sporting feats on my part. I’m still just as woeful with the bat as I always was. I wasn’t too bad with the ball, although I’d have been a darn sight better if I hadn’t had two catches dropped at mid on. To top it all off, I seem to have forgotten how to catch too, although thankfully this didn’t come up as an issue during the match.

Apparently there’s a Spanish twenty-twenty tournament coming up in April. Remarkably enough, some of the other large cities of Spain have cricket clubs as well. I’m definitely going to try out if I can manage my time-table. Some of the other club members were also talking about a tour of England, but something about that doesn’t sound quite right.

I mean, yeah, England suck, but surely it hasn’t come to this, has it?

Far from home



Michael Hussey … I mean … Garry with 2 Rs

A Good Week

I dunno... what's it been? Ten days since my last blog entry? I'm starting to become a serial blogger, I think I may be developing a problem. Nonetheless here are some things that have made the last few days good for me. Were they good for you?

I went to Adam Hills' stand-up show 'Joymonger' at the Thebarton Theatre on Friday night. He was really funny, but the more impressive thing was how genuine he was. Just being himself, telling stories about things that annoy him and things that make him laugh. He had a really positive message and angle, which was refreshing after seeing a lot of performers stand up and be negative about themselves or others. That was really cool.

Australia mopped the floor with South Africa. Obviously I'm talking about the cricket world cup, as opposed to some sort of monumental tectonic upheaval resulting in the continent of Australia literally mopping some floor (probably the floor of the Indian Ocean, which admittedly is very wet) with the country of South Africa. Clearly this is a highly improbable event at best, and it was a waste of your freaking time to have even suggested it. I apologise. The point is, or was, that Australia's national one-day cricket team soundly defeated that of South Africa. One more for the good guys!

Josh Lyman kissed Donna Moss tonight on Australian television. This would count as one for the good guys, except for the fact that both parties were, and remain thus far, fictional. Nonetheless, it's about time. As Donna herself put it, "it was bound to happen sooner or later".

On Saturday night I babysat (babysitted? Babysunk?) my cousins, who are 6 and 4 (at last count). Catherine, the six year old, introduced me to her new favourite musical, believing it to be one that I might be interested in. She was quite amazed to discover that I'd actually already heard of Cats. Boy oh boy am I going to be cousin of the year when they get around to asking me if I can play anything from it...

I have just four days left on my CELTA course. This is a very good thing. Not that it hasn't been enjoyable, just a whole heap of stress and an intense workload. Still, it means my job prospects are good here in Adelaide and, more importantly, good in Europe. Trust God to come to the party just when it looked like I was starting to lack direction, hmm?

Oh freak me sideways, this is by far the longest blog ever. No way has anyone stuck around to read this far. And to prove it, I take this opportunity to announce my candidacy for the position of chairman of the Western Australian branch of the Country Womens' Association. Drop me a comment letting me know what you think if you've actually read this far.

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs

Things that amused me this week

Things that amuse me this week:

Bangladesh beat India.

My CELTA teacher looked at me like I was an idiot when I said the sentence "I used to drink champagne every day" has an infinitive in it. This probably won't amuse anyone else but me (except maybe Beth) but I've included it for completeness' sake.

Ireland beat Pakistan. Furthermore they did it on St. Patrick's day.

Despite losing two days to a serious fever, I still managed to complete two CELTA assignments this weekend.

My family described Phil Denson as the easiest house guest they'd ever had. I'm not sure why this amuses me, but it does.

Fat people on bicycles.

Until next time then, when I might have something more substantial or meaningful to say (this is highly unlikely).

Far from home




Garry with 2 Rs