normal service resumes

Thank fuck yesterday came and went. This morning I woke up and the foot felt OK. Considering it had been throbbing when I fell asleep last night I was quite glad about that. The house was all quiet. AJ didn't wake up for her morning milk so I quietly dressed, puled on my Asics Eagle Trail, shoes that I'd mashed about 2rs ago but haven't yet retired, and headed out.

Got back and the toe felt a little warm but mostly just like a toe. I was taking a day off of work to pack the house up before the painters arrive tomorrow to add lipstick to the pig and hopefully fool some buyers. At home I did some packing and then, with Sal about to give Alex some breakfast, I ducked out for a stock 7km loop. Legs still ache, heels ached, felt a bit wobbly but I was moving.

At 1.71km - I checked the Garmin - I started to think about my dad. Now I am a fairly simple, scientific, no-nonsense person. No time for sentimental, spiritual mumbo-jumbo. But something happens when I am on the run and need to dig a little deeper. I think about the old man. I want to make him proud, despite knowing that he was SO proud of both my brother and me. And I feel as if he is with me as I refuse - re-fucking-fuse - to give up. Mum and dad were not dealt a great hand, but they did an epic job with me and my bro.

Regular readers and lucky randoms may know that my dad was an RAF physical training instructor (PTO) and parachute jump instructor (PJI.) For my entire life - well, until he died - he was registered disabled. He had an accident while testing an ejector seat. That damn near killed him. So did the treatment. After mum died I thought a broken heart or the booze might get him. In the end it was a nasty stomach cancer. Anyway, dad taught me to swim without ever getting in the pool with me. He taught me to ride a bike. He helped and advised me on my exercise. I engraved my first marathon medal for him "For my dad, my inspiration." When the going gets tough (anyone else hear Billy Ocean? No? Just me?) I feel closer to my dad than I ever did when he was alive. It's not unusual (Tom Jones anyone?) for me to  well up and shed a few tears. But I love that feeling. It means that I keep his memory very much alive. I could do without the occasional sob-of-overwhelming-sadness while I'm trying to run, but what can you do?

By about 5km I was a little more stable. The old man had popped up to help and I knew - KNEW - that today I was going to get my 21.1km completed. In fact I had told myself that even if I had to fucking hop the last bit and finish at 23:59 I was going to get my target miles done.

I just had Sal read that and told her that's why I do it. She corrected me (she is my wife, after all) and told me that's HOW I do it.

So I notched up 7km-and-change and then got stuck into chores. I needed to work out how I'd get my remaining miles and thought a lunchtime loop and one in the evening would do it, but in the end it was 14km at just after 4pm. I decided that the best thing for my feet and mental state was to keep my shoes on all day and just not look at my toe. And that worked out really rather well, although 12hours stuffed inside some minging old Asics is not something I'd advise others to do to their tootsies.

Lap 2 saw the old man return briefly but by lap 3 I was thinking about my kids, mainly 29 month old Alex. Earlier in the day she had managed to thread a pair of her undies over the handlebars of her scooter and down the whatever-you-call-the-pole-at-the-front. She's tried a couple of times to remove them and then given up in frustration. She was telling me "can't do it." I wandered over and showed her what she needed to do. Lift them up, thread them back over one handle...I showed her a couple of times and then asked her if she could do it herself. Yes, she could. We high-fived.  I told her that sometimes you think you can't do something and you feel like giving up. Don't. And I didn't feel like a hypocrite. Which was nice.

House is packed away and ready to be painted, Alex is asleep and 5wk old Harriette is too (though the grunts and snorts would suggest otherwise.)  I have a glass (actually another glass) of red. I've run 21.1km and my oldest daughter knows she can remove her knickers from a pole.

A somewhat better day than yesterday.

There is one more thing; thanks for the tweets and comments of encouragement. I read them this morning as I walked the dogs and that was the extra bit I needed to get my mojo back.

tell me why I don't like Mondays

Somehow I managed to score the only bed in the house last night. Sal slept on the floor in the lounge with Harry in her crib, I slept in Alex's bed and Alex slept on her little fold-out lounge on the floor of her bedroom. Turned out to be a good plan; Harry woke up to fed pretty much to schedule, I got a decent enough sleep and Alex was still spark out when I got up to take Rowlf for his morning walk.

Dog walked I said my bye-byes to the family who were of to a relatives house, what with Kylie coming back to her place. I put on the running gear and headed towards the City. For a change my left little toe felt OK, but I have since put that down to wearing sandals when walking Rowlf; the cold must have dulled the feeling. But feeling quite good I made it to the City early enough to do a bit around the foreshore before heading up through the Botanical Gardens, across the city and to the office. I stopped to take a picture of some fruit bats in the gardens. I thought there had been attempts to get rid of these residents. Some sort of acoustic-doo-dad. If there was it looks like it didn't work out too well. First run of the day done, a couple of hundred metres short of 14km.


The second trot was out to the Anzac Bridge and back at late-lunchtime. This time the toe did play up a bit and that was a bit worrying. The run was OK, but heading home the toe was really playing up. I'm also getting an ache in the outside of my left shin, which suggests my gait is a little off. Not happy about that. But there is no running until about 06:30 tomorrow morning, and that is a break of about 15hrs. Hopefully that's enough.

I'm getting proper pissed-off with my toe.

In other news, we've had an offer accepted on a house we want to buy. Which is all a bit exciting. Now we just need to flog our place and get the money to buy it - anyone wanna buy a house?

breaking the rules

Me and my monkey, a photo by Auswomble on Flickr.

Well actually I only broke one rule and it was one of my own rules. I don't pick up free stuff from people on the street, I also don't sign any petition thrust in my face and don't stop for chuggers. There are just too many of all-of-the-above and I find it sometimes overwhelming and sometimes a tad depressing. I especially do not take free stuff thrust towards me in the street; a free sample of Nivea for Men, a goody-bag fro Qantas, a cheap fluro pen from the Cancer Council. Don't need any of it and would rather keep my carbon hoof-print down to the extent of said tat. But today I took a bottle of water thrust before me from the guys at Vision Personal Training on Victoria Road. I had rather fooloshly hit the road without taking a water bottle with me on a route to work that has few water-stops. I was glad of the drink because, despite being a very pleasant 14 degrees this morning, I sweat my arse out and needed a drink. So thanks personal trainer people, but no, I will not be taking you up on the 2 week free membership thingy that you were hawking. What with the several km run most days and, fingers crossed, every day of June plus bench pressing my daughter (low weight, high reps for the gym junkies) I think I can get by without a trainer.

The day had started as most weekdays do with a walk to the dog park, the little monkey on my back. Actually, let me rewind; it had started with me finding a small bit of rubber on the kitchen floor that looked suspiciously like it should be stuck to the bottom of my newest Asics Cumulus. Odd. Sure enough it had come off the sole of my shoe and I'll need to glue it back on. Considering I've run in Asics for many years, absolutely hammering most pairs, I was surprised but I'll not complain about one rogue pair. So, I dug out an older pair, drove over to Kylie's to drop AJ off and got ready to run to work.

I checked my Blackberry to see what time I was interviewing someone this morning; 9:30. Bugger. I then thought sod-it and took the longer way round anyway, which is around Sydney's western edge, passing over a number of bridges which give lovely views of the City out to the east. It is also a bit of a lung buster, but check out this piece of awesome, if utterly flawed, reasoning: I'm fighting off a cold and cough up gunk each morning. Therefore any diesel fumes will coat not my lungs, but the gunk. So meh, I'll run the rush hour along one of Sydney's busiest arterials.

I stopped once to take a picture of the view and twice more to pat dogs, the first a 2yr old Newfoundland and the second a 4month old pug. You would be hard pressed to find two dogs further apart on the size scale. So I made it to work for 9 and by 9:30 wasn't too sweaty and the interview went well and the guy may get the job. Work followed, which was predictably dull, but distracting enough to see me miss lunch. I had a bottle of some overpriced sugar-water and a brownie and, jacked up on sugar made my way through interviewing a guy who will not be offered a job. And then it was near enough time to head home.

Nothing fancy about the run home; straight over the bridge and up the hill to meet Sal and Harry who were at home (for a change) and then a quick shower (handy for washing away popped-blister-blood; little toe needs to harden the hell up) before heading out look at a house I will think about buying for what little remains of this evening.

I really should not have decided to give up the beer this month. Rather than log two runs I simply started the Garmin up again. Here's the map.

Fuck me, that was a lot of life story for very little running detail.

you just don't get it

Here we go again, more well intentioned nonsense in the do-good arena. Walk Against Warming is, on the face of it a fine idea. What could be more green than walking to raise awareness of something we're all aware of, letting politicians know what we the people know they already know?

We are encouraged to wear sky blue laces.

OK, but what if you, and almost everyone else, does not have a pair of sky blue laces? How are people supposed to know just how green and caring you are if you're not wearing some badge of honour? I guess you'll need to go and buy some sky blue laces. Laces that you almost certainly don't need. The production of which has raised your carbon footprint just a little bit. I'm sure no one will notice. After all, being green isn't about you, it is about big nasty polluters. The bastatrds! The most important thing you can do is put on a big visible "green as fuck" something or other that is, lets face it, far easier than actually doing something yourself. THINK, for fucks sake.

The website, of course, sells laces. It also sells Walk Against Warming t-shirts. Maybe I'll buy one. No wait, I don't need another t-shirt. Ah fuck it, let me consume a bit more anyway. After all, it is for a good cause, the cause of everyone being able to see how green I am. Good old me!

If I click through I get to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW website where they tell me I can

Show your support for Walk Against Warming and buy a t-shirt - revenue helps fund the organisation of the Walk.

So the revenue from shirt sales goes towards funding the walk. It does not go towards any initiatives that could make the slightest difference, like maybe the Stop Buying Shit You Really Don't Need fund? Just once I'd like to visit a do-good site, click on the always-present Shop link and be presented with that message; Don't buy stuff you don't need.

No chance.

say hello to my little friend

A post in more need of a picture is hard to imagine. On the way home, as I cycled along the bike path next to the freeway, I peddled past a magpie chick, all fluff and few feathers, sitting dejectedly right next to the road. I made it about 50m past the little fella before stopping and turning back to see what was wrong. He was alive, just sitting there, and after a few moments wondering whether or not he'd peck me or not I decided he'd not and picked him up. His wings were not fully developed but he was walking pretty well, and almost as soon as I placed him on the grass verge he waddled to his feet and started trundling back towards the road. At this point he looked more like roadkill than cat food.

Another cyclist stopped and we had a quick chat, the conclusion of which was I'd not be able to do anything. He rode off and I had a pang of conscience. Could I do anything? I quickly decided putting the little fella in my bag was not a good idea as he may shit over everything. I had a clear plastic bag that I'd taken my lunch to work in that I popped him into, then got back on my bike and rode on, making sure I didn't close the bag and suffocate him or bang him against my knee as I held him dangling from my handlebars.

We made it home and I pulled him out of the bag, went inside and told Sal what I'd done to which she seemed a little less than impressed. She has a bit of previous with maggies. I got a shoe box, ripped some paper and constructed a make-ship nest. Once Sal had finished feeding AJ I took Mike-the-Magpie inside and let Sal take a look at him. He was pretty cute. I went down to get some worms from my compost bin, but he didn't seem too hungry. Fair enough, he'd had a bad day. Jason popped around and we had a natter and he looked in on Mike. We weren't all that clued up on what to do, but keep him warm in a box seemed about right. He seemed to like having his head stroked, but probably didn't.

Anyway, in the end I called a local vet who was open until 20:30, loaded Mike, in his nest-box, into the car and took him over. He was looking a bit grumpy still, but I think he is in pretty good shape. He had made a few decent attempts to escape from the shoe box, but at the same time didn't seem too stressed. I'll give the vet a call tomorrow to see what the prognosis is.

I kinda miss him already, but not sure I'd enjoy feeding the little fella every three hours. A pet Maggie would be cool.

The infomercial: So, if you find an injured native animal call your local vet or local Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service. But don't take a native friend from the wild; that's illegal.

nostalgia

There was an article in the local press about Paul Keating's vision of the huge Barangaroo waterfront development that is to take place in Sydney. It foccused on his desire to get rid of some industrial heritage in an attempt to put the foreshore back to something like the shape it was before European settlement. Well, I assume they mean European settlement, the article says

In a stinging letter to the Department of Planning, the architects Philip Thalis, Paul Berkemeier and Jane Irwin accuse planners of cutting 1.7 hectares of public land from their vision, in a misguided attempt to recreate the pre-settlement coastline.

Maybe they are talking about proper pre-settlement, in which case they mean returning the foreshore to the river valley it was before the last ice age; that'll see my taxes go up. The Guringai people had lived in what is now Sydney for a while before the Europeans arrived. The clever money says they were probably here before the last ice age, a mere 6500 years ago. I digress; we all know Australia didn't exist until 1770 and 1606 if you're Dutch. Ahem.

Anyway, I can see and understand Keating's vision, but don't share it. The shore is what it is and you cannot go back. Make the area as pleasant as possible, but don't harken back to a past none of us actually know.

OPEN space will be stripped from Sydney's biggest urban renewal project at East Darling Harbour for the sake of a ''Disneyland view of history'', say the architects who won the design competition for the site.

They go on to say it is a Mickey Mouse view of history. Ouch.

I had my own moment of nostalgia this morning. I looked at a google maps picture of a lake where, as a boy, I spent hours fishing. I wondered what it looked like today. I had a moment of sadness when I saw the dirt road around the lakes shore. There used to be only overgrown muddy paths. The scrubbland that had surrounded the site had been cleared and looked like bare earth. Where a small car park had been was a roof suggestive of club house. The picture made the area look as if it were being turned into a golf course. If the last owner of the land I knew was the owner when the pic was taken I would wager that is exactly what is happening. The lake has avtually been aplit in two with what looks like a dirt road cutting it in half. I suspect half of it will be filled.

So to the nostalgia. I would spend hours fishing that lake, some times days on end. When the fishing season was closed I would prepare areas to fish, flattening land for my chair, pruning trees, making gaps in reeds. When I was not doing that I would walk around the lake's edge, looking for fish, observing their behaviour. I have one of my very few - possibly my only - physical memory from a time at the lake. Whenever I walk into a "puddle" of cooler air it reminds me of taking the short cut from the car park to the bay with the small island and the stream that flowed from the lake. I remember a night of fishing when mum and dad were out with me; I fell asleep on a sun lounger and they stayed awake, huddled under an umbrella in the rain. I stocked some of the first carp into that lake, lifting them form the plastic bins they arrived in. I later caught one of them, far larger but definitely the same fish, easily indetifiable by its distinctive scale pattern. Some years, in the off-season, travellers would rest up in the car park. One year a guy's dog had a litter and as I chatted with him his alsatian puppies literally covered my feet and damn near chewed through the laces of my (gandad's old) walking boots. I remember waking one morning in "swim 1" and seeing the rising sun shining through lifting mists that swirled over a still lake surface. One night, while fishing for carp I caught an eel that managed to piss me off to the extent that I packed up and went home in a huff. It was a very special place. And it is sad to see its destruction.

But hold on a moment.

The lake is not a real lake. It is a gravel pit. It was dug a little more than 40 years ago. I know that because my folks had me in a pram on one of the mounds of gravel when Concord made an early fly-over. The land had previously been owned by family on my mother's side. An ancestral genius - my great grandfather I think, maybe my grandfather - had been approached by the company wanting the gravel. Instead of selling just the gravel he sold the whole 25acre site to them. The land had been rough scrubby bushland, farmland but not good farmland. Unused, apart from a few cows, only two of which I met. It was owned by someone with no vision for it, so why not offload it and take the cash? Seems fair enough.

The town, Mytchett, is not a throbbing metropolis but is a built up area. Twenty five acres of scrubbland with a 12acre water filled hole in the middle is not a great use of that space, no matter how much it meant to me. For every tree-hugger there will be a hundred golfers and a hundred families that will go to the bistro in the club house and look out over the prettied up lanscape that I had enjoyed watching get overgrown. C'est la vie. I live thousands of miles away and I have found other special places. I, for instance, like the old wharfs and the rough stone walls of Sydney's early industrial years. OK, maybe they should be tidied up so more people will enjoy them, and yes, that will spoil them a little for me. But I still prefer that to pretending it never existed.

If ever more of us want to live on this rock then ever more of it will change. Just deal with it dude. Change for the future, not for the past.

Right, gotta run, so no more of this at the moment.

horny horn shark

I was fortunate enough to see some shark mating activity yesterday morning as I snorkelled over the rocks and sand weed just off of Shelly Beach in Sydney. I'll get to that in a bit.

Yesterday was the first family expedition to the beach. After boob and food for Alex we loaded the motor and headed for Manly, where we could get coffee and breakfast for ourselves and then head for the sand before the crowds arrived, which most assuredly they would with the temperature on its way to 31degrees.

Luck was with us; in fact, lady luck was smiling all day long. Weird; my luck is typically average. We found a superb free and unrestricted parking spot within an easy stroll of town and the water. Then we picked a random cafe that, despite looking a little poncy served suitably caf style fare. Well, it did to us, maybe the chef was hungover and didn't give a shit. Sal's pancake and my omelet seemed to have been slung on their respective plates. Some folks may give a toss, but we are not those folks and the nosh was top notch and the coffee on the good side of acceptable. Fed and watered we headed for the sand.

We got a good position in a shrinking patch of shade and were setup in next to no time. The Cancer Council beach shelter popped up and was staked out, towels were laid out and we settled in for the ten minutes of relaxation we were permitted before AJ's next feed. Being essentially boobless I was essentially useless, so I pulled on a rash shirt - I mean, how cold could the water be? - grabbed a mask and snorkel and with my temporary free-pass headed off to the water.

As it happens the water can still be really rather cold. But hey, I'd be able to warm myself once I came back out, and I didn't want to look too soft. A quick spit in my mask, dipped my head under water, sluiced the mask out and headed out towards the rocks. Maybe I should not have shaved into near extinction what little hair I have on my head; a small ice-cream headache started, but it passed and as I started to see a few fish all thoughts of being cold started to fade.

A quick aside. I can understand how easy it must be to drown. You lose heat rapidly when immersed in water, and most of us think the best way to stay warm is to move. Only it isn't. It fools you into thinking you are staying warm while actually you get cooler. And more tired. And if you do that while in water you can easily end up cold, numb, confused and exhausted. Not a great combination. I digress.

Almost as soon as I got to the rocks I say a Port Jackson shark, maybe 3ft long. I stopped to watch her (more of that later) and quickly realised how little natural buoyancy my legs have when not in a wetsuit. I ducked down the 10ft to get a slightly closer look. She had a mark near her dorsal fin that looked as if she'd been bitten; I didn't think too much of it. She started to swim off and I followed, on the surface. I followed her across the bay, looking every so often to make sure I'd not get run over by a kayak or surf-ski. We swam right across the bay ending up so close to the rock wall that with my mask half in and half out of the water I could see the shark over the weed below and walkers on the path above. Very cool indeed.

She started to swim in circles over the weed, moving quite lazily and in a manner that suggested she wasn't too pissed off with my company. After a few circles a smaller PJ came up out of the weed and started to follow her. He (more of that in a bit) looked like a kid following mum, if I may anthropomorphosize a bit. It was quite cute, especially in the very clear water. What was a little less cute was when he sped up a little, bit down just behind her dorsal fin and dragged her into the weed. She didn't seem to struggle that much, maybe a bit exhausted after the swim over the bay. But after a short while she shook him free and swam off. He stayed nearby, just ender me in about 4ft of water, which was a little too close to my feet than I was comfortable with, despite knowing them to be harmless. Hmmm. I headed back to shore, starting to feel a little chilled.

Right, I'm off home in a couple of minutes. A brief websearch has convinced me the activity I saw was not one shark attacking another, but rather a horny little bloke - he was only around 2ft - trying his luck with a larger lady. Good on him, that's what I say.

GM artbitrary line

Apparently, and I cannot find a link so you can believe I'm lying if you like, certain pointy heads have managed to grow veggies with higher levels of antioxidants. We are told that is a good thing. The boffins were at pains to tell us the veggies were not genetically modified, or GM, but the boost had been achieved by selective breeding.

Excuse me? Isn't that just a bit of arbitrary line-drawing? My cocker spaniel is a forever infantile, neurotic dullard but very pretty. That is because similar looking pretty dogs have been selected to hump in order that the cocker spaniel results. Seems pretty dogs are also stupid, a bit liek humans. Dogs would all be mutts were it not for us. I guess there is a chance that the cocker spaniel could have evolved, maybe if mid sized pretty dogs were left alone in, say, Iceland. Unlikely though.

What about fine wine? Plenty of wine varieties come from vines that have had others grafted to them. That is stretching evolution just a little bit. I guess there is an outside chance that one vine may, in a storm break and fall on another also broken vine in order that a new one may form. Unlikely though.

I do understand a lot of the fears and scaremongering that goes with GM, and I'll admit that crossing a fish and a tomato (yes, it has happened in order that toms will tolerate lower temperatures) does not sit quite right with me. But come on, we've been genetically modifying all and sundry for centuries. Why stop now, just when we're about to get really good at it? There are far more important things to be concerned about, like habitat destruction and energy security. GM is not the bogeyman the hippies have you believe it is.

In my humble.

Saving the Seas

Following my earlier rant about the Australian Marine Conservation Society (note the lack of a link to their site) I decided to check other websites that aim to help save our seas from overfishing. The Aussie site has a publication that informs us which fish we should and should not eat - that is great news. However, they sell the information rather than make it available for free - that is not a good idea. Make the information free, get a wider audience and save more fish. Simple, innit?

What do others do?

In Britain The Marine Conservation Society publishes for free lists of fish to eat and fish to avoid. Free. Good work, hence the MCSUK get a link.

Over the Atlantic the Blue Ocean Institute do likewise, hence their link.

So the information is out there and you can make an informed decision. I think I'll ask the Aussie mob why they want our money. Maybe I am alone in wanting just the information, not a book made of trees delivered by someone burning oil.

After a more thorough browse things start looking worse for the Aussies. They have links to both the MCSUK and Moteray Bay Aquarium site, both of which have excellent free guides. So why not tell us? Why not highlight where we can go - right now - to get the important information? Dear oh dear, it looks like the Australian Marine Conservation Society is more keen on taking money from our wallets than helping us take fewer fish from our oceans.

Save the world. Well, some of it.

I do so love the lack of joined-up-thinking in many areas of do-goodery. I am re-reading Charles Clover's book The End of the Line about how we are stripping the oceans of their fish in an unsustainable-verging-on-lunatic free-for-all. So when I saw last night's Masterchef Australia's main dish challenge was Ling I decided to check how sustainable stocks of that fish are. Not great, it would seem, but not critically endnagered. Yet. Best to avoid.

The stock levels of ling is not the point of this vent, nor will I bore you with my views on whether prime-time TV should be encouraging people to buy fish that are in danger or critical stock collapse. No, this vent is about the good folks at the Australain Marine Conservation Society. First let me say that I am sure they are a well intentioned bunch and they probably do a lot of good work. That said, I do find their online shop a somewhat bizarre place to browse.

In the name and support of conservation you can buy some shit you don't need. You can buy a pencil case made from neoprene which, they point out for the thick, is wetsuit material. Now I am not sure, but I suspect synthetic rubber is not an especially environmentally friendly matierials. So I'll not be buying a pencil case. Maybe I could buy a T-shirt (that I do not need) to advertise to the world my dislike of shark-finning. All very "look how environmentally aware I am!" for those people who really aren't. The Australain Marine Conservation Society helpfully tell us the shirt is 100% cotton and sweat shop free, which sounds great when mentioned at a dinner party over a chardy or two. We are not told where the cotton comes from but the shirt is made in Australia, making it one of a scarce few garments able to make that claim. I hope the cotton is not grown here on the driest continent. I can think of better ways to use our water that to irrigate my t-shirt. Maybe I should buy the Save The Grey Nurse shark shirt; that is polycotton, so some of the water-hungry cotton is mixed with, well, plastic. It would be nice if they told us the cotton was certified organic. As they don't I must assume it isn't, so there could be nitrates and pesticides used in the growing process that will, ultimately, end up in the ocean. Oh dear.

I'll skip on the shirts. I would buy some staionary if they told me it is printed on post-consumer recycled paper. But they don't. So maybe I need a brooch in the shape of a baby loggerhead turtle that

Compliments any outfit and shows you not only care about the environment, you can look good doing it

And therein we find the truth. You can look good. That is who we are appealing to, those who vainly wish to look good wearing their questionalble green credentials as they might wear some Jimmy Choo shoes. Or the dim, who simply don't get it. One of the most environentally responsible things you can do is to stop buying shit you don't need.

Back to the ACMS. One thing they can do is allow us to view their publication, The Sustinable Seafood Guide, online and for free. Because I support this

Concerned about the sea? This will tell you all you need to know to make an informed choice when selecting seafood. AMCS removes the spin and shows you exactly the best seafood to support a sustainable future.

But I don't see why you need to charge for it - reducing the readership and hence hindering your cause - and I don't need a carbon-hoofprint-heavy printed copy delivered to my door. I would be far more inclined to support you if my support was not environmentally questionable and if it went towards your disseminating important information for free.

I am sure your hearts are in the right place and you do a lot of good work, but for fucks sake THINK.

lazy days

A day off work to relax before the marathin on Sunday. My long weekend started reasonably well with a Friday morning walk to Clive Park where I let Rowlf have a swim and I enjoyed the clear, crisp morning. The hound was loving his fetch games and I was taking a few pictures and everything was well with the world. Apart from it really wasn't, and a call from my bro saw me making haste away from the water to catch up with him and fail to help him through a few issues. The important thing is that I was there. He chuffed off utterly non-chuffed and I took Rumpole for a walk around St Leonards Park, a rare solo walk for the crazy little hound. He loved it; each morning when I walk Rowlf and Rumpole the little fella mooches around in a sort of huff while Rowlf goofballsa round with any and all other dogs. Solo Rumpole was running all over the park trying to wind other dogs up so they would chase him. I'm convinced he is broken in the head.

So despite the happiness of the dogs the day was a tad flat as I kept thinking about my lil' bro. At least that kept my mind off of Sunday's marathon. Saturday I woke up typically early and took the boys for a quick walk around the neigbourhood, got home for a little bit of family time before heading off to the airport and my flight to Coolangatta, the Gold Coast Airport. Made a quick call to my bro who was leaving for London on Sunday for personal reasons and who, unfortunatley, I'd not be having a beer with upon my return. In a bit of good news he told me his return flight was a return and he'd be back for my 40th, a somewhat winful piece of news.

Flight. Dull. Picking up race kit equally dull and achieved in 18minutes, three minutes more than the time required to get my parking for free at the Gold Coast Conference Centre. I'd borrowed a friend of the families car at the aiport (they were on holiday and it worked out well for me to take their car back to their home from near the airport where they had left it) and after dropping it back at their home it was relax-o-clock. I chilled with sis-in-law and the youngest of her three boys. Mostly mooching around the house, but we did take a drive to Murwillumbah where the in-laws have a house they are about to retire to and according to this website is one of the ten most desirable places to live in Australia. That is a grand claim and I am not sure I completely agree, but is a cracking little town. It has plenty of old housing stock which I find architecturally appealing. It has a few churches that I can take of leave (well, leave) and a town centre with some solidly imposing colonial-come-art-deco touches that I also like. Nostalgia for a past I didn't experience over, we took the scenic inland road back over the border to Queensland's Gold Coast.

Final thought for that day. On the way back we stopped in at The Eco Village in Currimbin where we gawped at a few houses (so many skillion roofs to yawn at) and saw a few wild roos. Which was nice. The website is full of self-congratulatory grandiosity and it does not hold back on telling us how many awards it has won. Which is all very nice, but I cannot help but think a greener alternative to building new houses would be to buy an existing house and set the new land aside for sustainable farming. Don't get me wrong, I love the green concept, but surely the best house for the environment is one that already exists and it within walking or cycling distance of everything you need? This strikes me as green-for-the-chardonnay-set. Anyway, we headed home, had dinner and everyone crashed out.