The dog is fat. I leave for five months, come back and our dog is fat.
After I emailed you last, I hopped on a plane to travel in luxurious business class from Bangkok to Perth. I may have eaten a bit in the lounge during my stopover, and had a couple of beers, but even if this was a red-eye flight there was no way I was missing a chance to indulge in business class. My first chance in fact.
So I got on the plane and indulged in the food they offered: a three course meal with real cutlery and crockery, no less! Plenty of room of course, and I was the last one awake in business class. I needed some help to get to sleep and, perusing the drinks menu, decided on a Bloody Mary. When they poured in vodka and then reached for the tomato juice, I thought that was all I was gonna get, but they added everything to it (except the celery and horseradish). It wasn't enough to get me to sleep so I had another one. Two Bloody Marys, mixed in front of me!
The drinks allowed me three hours' sleep on the plane. So I arrived in Perth a little bushed, and unlike last time did not deny mum and dad the chance to anticipate my arrival and meet me at the airport - they knew I was coming this time.
After getting a wonderful surprise of being invited to the footy, and the less wonderful surprise of seeing the Saints lose to th'Eagles live, I headed to Mikey and Sarah's excellent wedding reception. By the time I got home I was very very ready to sleep. And a little drunk.
Since then I've started work again, which has offered some exciting new challenges. Also there's been a reminder of some of the old stuff, like having entertainment in Forrest Place. That's pretty good at the moment because they have a big screen up for the Olympics. Just as well because we have no choice but to hear whatever goes on in Forrest Place.
But last Monday they had homeless week, with a few musical performances on the stage. Microphones and all. They got gradually worse through the day, soon approximating karaoke. By the end it was pretty much Hobo Idol.
That's not a joke - it actually happened.
What else? Birthday drinks with Stevie et al were fantastic. Thanks to those who came. Check out the pics on Facebook. Actually there's pics of Bish as in Bish's Précis in that album. He's not a myth, he's a real person.
And speaking on photos I'm gradually putting up photos and links from my trip. I will send out an email when they're up. Should be soon.
But now its back to a fairly mundane routine: looking for a house to move out, desperately trying to pay off my credit card, the usual. To top it off, the first school I went to is about to be torn down. How very depressing!
There are a couple of glimmers of hope before I melt into suburbia though. Firstly, I'm falling for the hype and getting an iPhone. Well, OK, that's not really me sticking it to suburbia and mass-marketing, but I'm excited enough by it to not care what you think.
The second thing? I'm learning French. After 31 years I'm just fluent enough in English to be willing to try a second language. It's not bad actually - I'm finding the theory that you learn English better when you learn another language quite true. Thinking about subject, verb and object (especially to conjugate verbs etc) is making me think about English a bit more.
I think it's obvious that my English still needs some work though.
Of course, I miss London heaps at the moment. It's wonderful to be with all my friends here but you're always going to miss a place you didn't really want to leave. But I suppose you can't get upset about something you can't control. In the meantime it's goodbye tube, goodbye decent local pub, goodbye Guardian, and goodbye easy and frequent international travel.
For now I have to content myself with fighting canine obesity.
No comments:
Post a Comment