Musings of a Demented Soul – Andy Barrow

I thought it was nearing that time again, but sadly, all too soon for my liking. The current house we rent, is ok, apart from being small, very small, especially the kitchen. The garden is quite a fair size at the rear and the front lawn and nature strip is ok. The owners of this property have decided to sell the house, therefore, we must move out eventually. I would rather move out now, before we get hordes of people wandering through. So time to pack belongings into nice boxes and label them, so we know, or at least have a better idea of what is in them, unlike previous moves.

Luckily I will have use of the works truck or Ute if need be, which will make life a lot easier than last time. This time we have made a better attempt at getting organized.  The only drama we have had to face is the house we want to move into, does not have Cable or Cable TV. Ahh yes, the old dial up was rearing its ugly head. NOT!!! I would rather shave my scrotum with a blunt spoon first. The good news is that we can get the ADSL2+ which in lay mens terms is DS. Not sure if thats a good thing or not, I have always used cable for my tintyweb connection. The Optus Help desk advised that we could just swap over to the ADSL2+ as we have just signed up for a 2 year contract with them.  The professional Package offers upto 20M/bit download and 512kbps upload and a 30 gig bandwidth which is keyed off both up and downloads.

The previous package which no longer exists had a 20 Gig bandwidth peak times and 40 Gig off peak, giving a fair amount of Bandwidth to use. Sadly this is not the case now. So close watch on the usage. Bitlord will have some major changes being made to its upload allowance!

The weather here has been, what can only be described as SHITE! Rain, thunderstorms like you wouldnt believe, more rain, then sunshine, which then brings about the humidity. Considering this is our ‘summertime’ it has been shot to shit with rain, rain and more rain. I shouldn’t complain, because we really do need the water, just not so much and in one go please!

Yes, it has been a 3 whole years living and working in Australia. I have also been with my current employer for almost 12 months. 25th of this month and it will be 1 Year.

Am I enjoying living in Australia? Yes, I am looking forward to gaining Australian Citizenship, I just have to wait a little under 12 months for that.

Well, it finally came and now its almost over. Last week was shocking. Our computer system at work went down. All week we were in and out of our citrix server, one minute we had e-mail, the next we didn’t. Friday came and at the last dying moments I managed to get my e-mail.

The drive home was the same as usual, upon arriving home, i found two packages sitting on the doorstep. Intrigued as to what they were, I opened the one with my name on it. It contained a letter and a small box. The letter was from my web hosting company, thanking me for my custom and please accept this small gift as a way of saying thank you.  I opened the box and inside was a small to medium sized desk calculator. I have to say, as sad it may sound, it was a perfect end to the week, it really cheered me up.

I forgot to mention yesterday, that when I arrived home, pulled into my driveway and saw something out of the corner of my eye. Upon investigation (a blokey look), I was under the impression that it was an announcement to the neighbours that a new house was being built next door, not the arsehole side, but the other side. I never even considered the fact that was anything other than Robert wanting to rennovate his home, as we had spoken about this a couple of weeks back.

I looked at the picture and thought cool! I first thought that it was a For Sale sign, but was wrong (I had a second blokey look). Sam came home and looked peaved. She said, ‘thats great, they are building a Duplex on this land!’ (Town house or Semi-detatched as they are called in the UK)

To which I replied, nah, its Robert building a new house.’ Sam said, Nope! Its our Landlords building a new House. When were they going to tell us!?!?!’

So I was wrong on both counts. Yep, twas not happy. So that night was spent looking online for new rental property and planning the dreaded moving house scenario. Oh Joy! With that in mind, we decided to wait and see what our estate agent said in the morning. So today, Sam called them up first thing and was told the news. No they are not building yet, they are just putting in the planning permission and they have to advertise the fact as to what is going there/here.

Phew!!! So we don’t have to move, well not for a while anyway.

At last, I can come home from work and not have to start working on the deck. The hard labour is done. All I need to do now is oil/stain the decking and paint the uprights and bannisters. That is if the weather is kind enough to allow. We have had some really bad rain of late and storms to die for. Yep free light shows nearly every night. Most of last week and this week too. Thankfully the weekend brought some decent weather for my party.

Yep Forty years old and still as stupid when it comes to drinking. Yes I should know better, but seeing as I have been slaving away fro over 2 weeks now on building this deck, plus all the overtime at work, it was my plan to write myself off on Saturday night. The theme was ‘Mexican’ so poncho’s and sombreros were all the go. As for drinking, we had Coronas (with lemon as they taste shocking without), Tequilla and the favourite but not quite mexican was the Chilli Schnapps purchased at the Golden Grape in the Hunter Valley. This has been with us for some time now and has produced some painful expressions on many faces. However, my expression was vague, moreso towards the end of the evening, when I quite happilly slipped into a drunken stupour then a coma as my head hit the pillow.

The day started out with the intention of having to do as little as possible, we had pretty much set everything up as we wanted for all of our guests and familly. All that had to be done was lay a few more chairs and put the decorations up. Done! So all that remained was to have a few drinks before the party started. This is a silly thing to do, I know. Now I know, never to do that again. (until the next time of course). So 1pm AEST time and the first drink was going down my neck. Mark was joining me in the Coronas, seeing as he bought them for my birthday pressy, was only fair that he shared the experience.

So on we went, one bottle, two, three and probably 6 or 7 later before the guests arrived, I can truly say I was getting drunk. The coordination was going and my drinking increased. Chris and Shawn came from work, with their wives Rachael and Carmel, Adam and his new Girlfriend came, Paul and Karen came. Lisa, Sams friend came up from the coast. All in all it was a fun day, plenty of nibbles and food.

The Sad part was it had to end as all parties do, but I don’t regret one minugte of it, as throughout the entire night, I had a smile on my face which finally ended up as a big daft grin and then giggles as i slipped into my drunken stupour, thanks to drinking the rest of the Chilli Schnapps, My boss looked on, as did Sam and thought, this is going to be the last drink of the night. And they were correct.

Sunday was a total loss to me, I do believe that around 5 pm I was actually able to stand up without feeling like I was walking on 3 feet thick sponge. The room had stopped spinning and the furry mouth syndrome had left me. I felt like shit, but could at least manage some food and water.

Will I do it again, NO! I will have a drink like I normally do, but not write myself off. The only good thing is I didnt make an arse out of myself.