Moby Swingset

The weather was not so kind today, no. Mist, drizzle, and then eventually rain. Nevertheless, local superhero Bobcat-Man turned up on time with his amazing earthmoving powers. The site was levelled in no time at all, and then, in a single breathtaking swoop, he used a couple of hardwood two-by-fours to convert the bobcat bucket into a makeshift forklift, and saved my aching muscles an hour or more of ugly work by simply picking up the entire arch and depositing it gently, neatly in position.

He went on to rip out a lot of old fence posts and wire, and followed it up with a determined entrenchment operation (so I can put some polypipe underground, away from sun, vehicles, bushfires and falling trees) which ended only when he was defeated by the villainous Bearing Failure Man. Although Bearing Failure Man escaped, I'm sure that Bobcat Man will meet him again someday, and emerge triumphant. In the meantime... thanks for the rescue, Bobcat Man!

Weather being what it was, I didn't get as much of the superstructure in place as I would have liked. I did seed the newly levelled area with grass, though. And of course, got in the daily shopping, collected kids from school, and ran up a nice risotto for dinner as well as put a few loads of laundry through the system. Oh - found a nifty present for the Mau-Mau while I was collecting the post, and something for Natalie as well, yep.

To round it off, Jake had to stand up at the school's Awards day today and accept an 'Academic Achievement' award for his class/age. He's pleased with himself, which is lovely. Report cards came in as well: all three of the kids doing very nicely, thanks, despite taking a significant chunk of the last term to go to Borneo, etc.

I doubt Younger Son will ever top the grades the way Jake does, but there's no mistaking his intelligence. He's a lot more hands-on and visio-spatial. He got in there today, handling a socket spanner and saving Nat and I a lot of fiddly, minor work. He's never happier than when he's building something, or taking something apart and figuring out how it works.

Hope I can get this stupid great swingset completed in time for his birthday party on Sunday!

Not As Easy As It Looks

I told ya there'd be more photos, didn't I?

The weather cleared up. Yesterday's gorgeous, misty, cool weather went away, replaced by Tasmanian early summer sunshine. Gaudy, green, golden. This place is just shatteringly clear and lovely the day after the rain.

Today, however, I couldn't revel in the loveliness of it all. For today I had a rendezvous with... The Play Fort.

There it is, all spread out on the ground In bits and pieces. Would it surprise anyone here if I said that the fifty-eight page assembly instructions were pure shite? No? I didn't think so. And indeed, they were shite. My work-buddy and I spent the first hour trying to figure out which of our pieces which looked NOTHING AT ALL LIKE THE PIECES IN THE STOOPID DIAGRAMS could be fit together in a fashion resembling the product.

In the end, after a few terse phone calls from Natalie, she confirmed that the thing is supposed to be a King Kong III Playhouse With Bells And Whistles. (Great forkin' name, eh?) That gave me the chance to look it up on the 'net, and print off a few photos of what it's supposed to look like. And yes, the photos were a FUCKLOAD more helpful than those diagrams.

The problem is that these Rainbow play thingies are modular, and they give you one set of instructions that's supposed to be adaptable to a dozen or so different outcomes. Except the instructions illustrate only the basic model, so you have to try and guess which of your upmarket pieces replace which of the generic pieces in the diagram.

And once you've guessed -- successfully or otherwise -- the second surprise lunges out at you. Drilling holes.

This giant pile of timber you can see -- it's got more goddam holes in it already than a leprous cheesegrater. It's more or less an enormous pine colander. And yet despite this amazing array of holes, in order to get various bits to fit together and bolt into position, you actually have to drill still MORE holes in the forkin' thing. And of course, all the goddam bolts and the required drillbits are measured in Ancient Babylonian units, as opposed to simple metric - so after an hour of cursing, swearing, separating, classifying, and lining up, we had to do a run to the hardware store to get a bunch of idiot-measure drillbits that I didn't have. GrrrRAAAHHHHHHH!

Not to worry. I am, after all, some kind of genius - and my work-buddy there is certifiable, so between us, we managed to make some kind of connection between the Internet photo and the chicken-scratching diagrammes of the assembly instructions. Holes were drilled. Things were bolted onto other things.

And then I had to lift the goddam frame into the shape you see, an arch. You bolt these things together flat on the ground, you see. Then you raise the centre span, put the corner-braces in, and tighten the major bolts, and it's solid.

Raising the end of the arch that connects to the steps and the stairs was no problem. I pulled it up to my chest height, adjusted my stance, raised it, and the braces were placed and drilled. No worries. But that other end - the one with the solid wood panel... whoa.

Every time I lifted it, the damned thing would slip back on the wet grass. Eventually, I got my work partner to brace it by ramming a pry-bar into the ground against it every time I managed to slither it up a few more centimetres. But then it got to that terrible middle point, just above the bellybutton, where you can't really pull up any more, but you can't quite switch your grip around to get under it and push.

I worked it out. I spun around until my back was to the wood slab, got my hips under it, and drove up with my legs. Then when it was braced with the pry-bar, I bent my knees again, wiggled a little farther under, and lifted again. And it worked - which was a source of considerable satisfaction, since both Natalie and my co-worker were telling me we'd have to wait until the bloke with the Bobcat turned up, tomorrow.

Fuck that. Bobcats are a convenience, not a necessity.

Once the main arch was up, Natalie decided to start tacking on the climby bits. There's a lot more superstructure to go on top, but until Bobcat Bloke levels the final site, I don't want to increase the weight of the structure a whole lot. I wanted to get it to this stage so I can simply plonk it in place on the newly-levelled earth without a lot of fuss. It's going to be damp and slippery enough. Trying to raise and assemble that arch on a bed of slippery clay would have been a real bastard. At least now, the bulk of the work to be done is well off the ground, minimising dirt and mud and slippage... but yeah, moving it into position is going to be entertaining. I'm hoping Bobcat Bloke is built like a brick shithouse.

Younger Son took to the climbing wall like a deranged monkey. Note his elegant climbing shoes: gumboots, spray-painted silver sometime around June for part of a birthday party costume.

Meanwhile, the Mau-Mau decided she absolutely HAD to decorate the Christmas tree. This is, I suppose, the first year in which the Christmas propaganda machine has really levelled her in its sights. She's at Kinder now, so she's hearing all about Christmas from friends and teachers and so forth - and it's really taken root. For the last month, she's been giddy with excitement over every single piece of crapulous tinsel hanging in every single store we've entered. "Oooh, look, Daddy," she gushes, as we enter the local Woolworths, pointing at a manky plastic-and-tinsel tree standing on a cardboard box, "It's Christmas things! I love Christmas things! Oooh, I can't wait until Christmas!"

Then the next shop: and there she sees a box full of tinsel, waiting to be sold - and we get the exact same lines, with the exact same degree of Oscar-winning enthusiasm, and all the cute-factors turned up to eleven. Okay, yes, I get the goddam message, kid.

Unfortunately, she's going to be slightly disappointed if she's expecting some kind of Christmas bonanza. Neither Natalie nor I has had anything like time, and frankly, with new bicycles and now this terrifying overkill playhouse, the Christmas budget is well and truly blown. I've found the Mau-Mau a nice easel and got her a big artbook of her very own (she adores painting and drawing), and I'll get her a groovy caddy for all her pencils and paints and colours, and we'll find a few silly bits and pieces to fill a stocking -- but this is going to be a low-key, family-oriented goddam Christmas if it goddam well kills me!

Still. You gotta love the decorations on that tree. There are belts from four different bathrobes there, and a silk scarf, and a couple of unfinished papier-mache baubles that Natalie was working on with the kids. When Younger Son saw what was going on, he got into the act too: that's why there are several socks and a couple of brightly coloured pairs of underpants up there.

Of course we'll have to get some tinsel and some sparkly crap for the Mau-Mau's sake. But I think I'm going to leave the underpants as well...

More Madness

But fewer photos.

Today is not a repeat of yesterday. Yesterday dawned wet and misty, and stayed alternately rainy and misty pretty much all day. Lovely stuff. But today? Sunshine -- and merciless, clear, ultra-violet laden sunshine at that.

In one sense, that was a good thing. Today is the Scottsdale Christmas Parade, a ritual much beloved by all in the area. Trucks get gussied up with all kinds of decorations. Children wedge themselves into bizarre costumes. (Elder Son is a 'Tourist', for his classroom float. Their theme is 'Outback Australia', for whatever reason. Very Christmassy. Anyway, the boy has a huge straw sombrero, large sunglasses, loud shirt, giant flowery shorts down to his knees, and camera. He insists that he follows the Way of Twoflower. I am proud of him.)

In another sense, not so good. As part of the festivities, the ju-jitsu group was asked to put on a display, so for the last two weeks, I've been putting the kids through their paces. And they rose to the occasion very nicely. But of course, on the day of the demo we're out in the middle of the street, in the full sun. The mats underfoot get hot very very quickly. And all those full-length uniforms, many of them black (including mine) are a bit of a hazard and a handicap.

It went well, though. I kept it to half an hour, out of consideration for the sunshine and the kids, but they would happily have gone much longer. We did throws, and locks, and self defense. We demonstrated games and learning techniques. Then all the kids got into the pine-board breaking (they really love snapping pine boards. I've never quite understood why. But they do.) and finally, I did a draw-cut with the katana to bisect a watermelon (which was conveniently balanced atop a bag of ice on a small table) to close the show -- and of course, to distribute pieces of chilled watermelon to the kids. Yay!

It's all very small-town. Nobody expects Bruce Lee and a team of ninja - which is good, 'cause we're all samurai here. But it still takes energy, particularly from me.

Those of you who've seen me in full flight will know that... ahhh... not to put too fine a point on it, I'm a performer when needs be. I've done enough work on stage and similar to understand the principles. I know you have to project, to have presence, to fill the workspace and engage your audience directly. I can ad-lib pretty fluently, and speak with sufficient power to fill a country concert hall as needed.

It's odd, though. You hear about 'energy', and it certainly takes something to fill all that space, keep things moving, keep interests up. But -- it's not like actually training, or fighting, or working in the sun. You wouldn't think there was really much of a strain to it. And it's not a very stressful venue. It's a friendly crowd of people who are interested mostly in their kids, so I'm not particularly nervous or adrenal beforehand.

Despite that, without fail, half an hour after the show I'm good for nothing. Wiped out. Utterly drained.

So, here I am at home, quietly recovering. And with the boys going into town this evening for an orchestra do, I even get a night off from cooking and family. Yay!

That's okay, though. Tomorrow we dive right back into it: community bike ride involving Nat and the kids, and then Nat will go to music in the evening so I'll be Parent In charge.

Swings and roundabouts. For the moment, I'm going to get some rest.

There Is Madness Afoot

This is my esteemed cat Toxo. There is a small plastic cup balanced on his head. There are those who say that cats don't really have facial expressions. My cat disagrees with them almost as much as he disagreed with that plastic cup. Balancing things on cats heads is madness.

This is a photo of Younger Son. That isn't a cello. That's a 1/8th size double bass. This occurred because he completed his second violin exam and got a High Distinction. But he does not enjoy the violin. He enjoys the double bass. Very much.

He is quite small, being only seven years (nearly eight, I admit.) He's also small for his age. The double bass, on the other hand, is the single largest frikkin' instrument in the orchestra (if you exclude the piano, the calliope, and the Mad Scientist Pipe Organ - which last he would surely covet if he thought he could get close to one.) Nevertheless, he stuck out his time with the violin for two years in order to be able to pick an instrument he truly wanted to play... and he made us stick to our end of the bargain too.

So now, Smaller Son has a double bass. This is, of course, madness.

This particular bit of madness was at its best this morning. The Mau-Mau has her piano lesson today, so I had to pack the electronic keyboard and stand into the car. But the Younger Son desperately wanted to show his new instrument to his class, and his schoolteacher has given permission... so I had to pack the double bass in the car. Ah, but young Jake is planning to play 'Three Kings Of Orient' for the school assembly on Friday, and first had to audition for the school principal. So I had to pack the cello in the car this morning too.

Mini-piano. Double bass (one-eighth size). Cello.

Hello? Any other members of the farkin' orchestra want a lift? I can still see over the dashboard a little... we can probably fit a couple of tubas in here if we try!

Madness.

Here's Younger Son again, and a friend. He went fishing on Saturday, after the little string-student concert in our house. (The string teacher is a friend of ours. She needed a venue. More madness.) In Younger Son's proudly outstretched left hand is his first-ever wild-caught fish. It is, I am given to understand, a 'Cocky Salmon'.

He ate it, fried, for lunch the next day. With a very nice tomato chutney and some fresh bread. The smaller of the two cocky salmon was offered to the cat. Then to the other cat. Then to the dog. Then, in desperation, to the pet rats. Last I heard, the chickens were getting the opportunity to reject it too.

But Younger Son enjoyed his.

Madness.

That pile there? More madness. That's roughly 800kg of timber and plastic and metal. You can't really judge the size in this photo, but that's okay: you're going to see more photos in weeks to come. As I put it all together. Because this is the playground setup which is to replace the Legendary Lost Blackwood tree.

It is fucknormous. There are six respectable-size boxes of nuts, bolts and screws. There are bags of climbing-wall handholds. There's a periscope. Binoculars. A sunsail.

And then there's me, and my box of spanners.

Madness. Purest goddam madness.

I Loathe This Time Of Year

I do. I loathe this time of year, because of all the stupid pressures that come with schools trying to wrap everything up, and communities playing pre-Christmas sillybuggers, and orchestras trying to have wayyy too many practices and performances and birthdays and Christmas and, well, yes.

Never enough time to fit it all in. Always something or someone forgotten. And if, Cthulhu forbid, anything actually goes wrong, you have to go to positively Herculean lengths to fix it.

So yesterday, Natalie's car died. She was on her way back from Launceston, having taken the Smaller Son for his double-bass lesson (yes, he's graduated from violin. He looks ludicrous playing an instrument roughly a hundred and forty-five times his own size, but he loves it, and he's good at it.) when somewhere in the boonies past Nunamara, the car -- in her inimitable technical jargon -- went 'phoot'. And stopped.

Of course, there's usually no mobile phone signal out there. But yesterday, perhaps due to her shiny new iphone or perhaps due to remarkably kind weather conditions, she managed to get half a call through to me. Couldn't reach the RACT, no. But she could reach me, and I could reach the RACT.

The operator was really nice. Naturally I didn't have Natalie's RACT membership card or number. And I only had the first two letters of her license plate, because that was all Nat gave me before her phone and Telstra conspired to funk out together. And I couldn't actually remember the model of car... but I knew it was a very dark grey Honda. Yeah. Two-door. Sports. That.

Anyway, the operator dug Nat's details out of the database, and volunteered to try to call her to let her know help was due. (Miraculously, that call went through. Natalie is still marvelling at it.) And I packed up the Mau-Mau, and we drove out to where the afflicted car sat by the roadside, and I collected the two boys, and went back home. Eventually, a tow-truck dropped Natalie off and continued through to Scottsdale. Scratch one family vehicle for an indeterminate period of time.

So this morning, I went down to run the pump. And it started just fine, sure. But as soon as it came under load, it started to cough, labour, and limp. Didn't generate any pressure to speak of, either. I ran through the usual routine (spark, air, fuel-flow) but the fact that the pump was starting so nicely made me think something else was afoot. And indeed: when I opened a backflow stopper, the water that emerged from the actual pump/impeller chamber was disturbingly grey. Not mud-grey, because our mud is brown, but super-fine metal shavings grey.

I think the impellers are fucked, to be honest.

I checked the water level in the tank, and then I cursed. Evidently the failure occurred during the last run of the pump, because we've got maybe a week of very carefully water usage left.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.

So I've disconnected the pump, as one does. And meanwhile, I've picked up Jake's good friend who's visiting for the afternoon, and I've dropped the Mau-Mau at a birthday party. The party-people will return the Mau-Mau, and Jake's friend's dad will come to collect his son (I hope!) sometime this evening. This is all necessary so that Natalie has the chance to go in and play music in Launceston, which is her major relaxation for the week. But it does leave us stranded here, what with her taking the operational vehicle.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow I will arise quite early. I will load Natalie and the boys and the Mau-Mau into the Mighty Earth King, along with the pump. I will drop Natalie at her work. I will drop the boys at school. And then I will do the rounds of hardware places, farming co-op stores and small-motor driven device stores until I can lay hands on an appropriate replacement pump. This one is seven or eight years old, and it's done solid work. It's going to be expensive, but the best strategy is to replace the goddam thing, and have the old one repaired to act as a backup.

And of course, that means that most of tomorrow will be spent connecting the new pump, and running a load of water up to the tank, and collecting kids and wives after they've done their daily stuff, and all this with the Mau-Mau underfoot...

... I really hate this time of year.

Forsooth, Verily!

Lo, it hath come to pass that Jake, the Elder Son, hath discovered ancient Avengers comics, which depict the Mighty Thor. And in these venerable tomes, Thor doth discourse in a much bastardized form of Elizabethan English, full of "thee" and "thou" and "thy" and "verily, forsooth!"

Much smitten is young Jake with this ludicrous patois, and armed with an inflatable hammer of vile chartreuse vinyl, he doth wander the house crying 'Yea, verily!' and smiting all and sundry. And if the son shall speak with the rolling tones of the Thunder God, shall not the father arise and perform alike?

Thus it is that Flinthart the father and Flinthart the son now do berate one another in most excessively elegant language. Indeed, so furious our verbal strivings wax that Younger Son hath himself betrayed a kindred interest. Yet the Younger Son hath not yet the fullest understanding of this older tongue, and for him, 'most everything is 'thy'. Which is not meet, but certes, doth much entertain.

Natheless, Jake and I hath laid a wager slight betwixt our selves, in secret. We dispute the length of days his mother's sanity can withstand our present amusement. Jake holds that she will split asunder within three days, at best, while I maintain she hath easily the stamina for five, perhaps as many as seven.

We shall see!

Random

I hate this time of year. There's always so much that has to be done, and no time to behave in a civilised fashion, get a little rest, whatever.

Yesterday, for example. Student-free day at the school, Scottsdale show-day. I wish I could have dodged the show, but the kids were adamant and Natalie insisted too. Of course, SHE didn't have to take them, did she? (To be fair, she did it last year.)

But before the show, we had haircuts booked. First opportunity I could make for the kids and I. Haven't been that long-haired in a decade or more. So: 1000hrs, haircuts. 1045: sandwiches and fruit from the local store for lunch. 1100: enter the Scottsdale show and meet up with Tiny Viking Neighbour and a few of her brood.

It was still early, so the crowd wasn't. (The Scottsdale show tends to get crowded and... enthusiastic as the night wears on. It's a country town thing.) There was an archery stall that caught the boys' eye, so I ponied up some bucks. The stall-operator was surprised when Younger Son seized the bow and bent it like a pro; she was in the process of offering to help him draw it when he put the first arrow downrange. Can't say he hit any bulls, but he did himself proud. Elder Son put most of his over the top of the targets, so I smiled, bought a few arrows, put three out of four into the bull, and awarded the Mau-Mau a blue velveteen teddy bear which she duly clutched with considerable delight. Something to be said for the calming, meditative shooting of arrows in one's back yard.

The boys decided the dodgems were next. I wish I'd remembered the camera. The expression on Jake's face as he slowly, slowly mastered the art of steering and accelerating... it was gorgeous. His eyes were popping out of his head, he was hunched over the wheel, his teeth were gritted, his knuckles white... give him a Bowls hat and a Volvo and he'd have been a dead ringer for any octogenarian road hazard you care to name.

We mooched around for a while. It was unseasonably hot and humid. The kids got snow cones to compensate. The Mau-Mau spent an unfeasibly long time on a bouncy castle with her best friend - since there was hardly anyone around as yet, the show-folks just smiled and let 'em go on.

Eventually, they ran out of steam, which was good. I took 'em home (with showbags full of lollies, naturally) and after an hour or so of downtime, we packed up and raced into Launceston. Orchestra practice for the boys. And while they were practicing, the Mau-Mau and I found the only store in town which sells white, long-sleeved, cuff-and-collar shirts for boys, and updated their orchestral garb. Post practice, we had dinner at Morty's and headed home.

Meanwhile, the dog has been running off. Natalie took him for a walk to visit our neighbours (they live a kilometre or so away) a while back, and now he thinks it's all part of his territory. He's been running up the highway, down their very long drive, and annoying the shit out of their dog, which in turn annoys our very fine neighbours. So: Sizzle the Dog is now chained.

But that's okay, because part of my job description is Fixing Up After Other People's Miscalculations. So today, I took the boys into Launceston for yet another fucking orchestra practice (prior to tonight's performance.) And while they were sawing away, I went and bought an Invisible Fence -- a shock collar keyed to a radio signal propagated on a very long loop of wire. You set the wire around your designated dogzone. You switch it on. You put the collar on the dog. You go through some training manuevres... but the upshot is that if he gets too close to the goddam wire, it puts the righteous zap on his furry fucking ass. (Okay. He gets some warning beeps. Then a mild static-electricity jolt. But hey: it's the thought that counts.)

I also bought some more timber for gardening bits, and did the grocery shopping, yep. Thus, once we were home (after the practice, and after lunch for the boys) I spent another two hours setting up the shiny new Invisible Fence.

Natalie has now taken the boys in to their concert. They'll be in town until after eleven. Meanwhile, I found a movie -- "The Secret of Moonacre" which is keeping the Mau-Mau entranced ( I'm pretty sure it has unicorns in it. And the cast list is impressive as hell.) so for a couple hours, at least, I get to sit and write, and think, and ruminate.

Oh... here's a thought I sent to the redoubtable Cat Sparks today, while I was listening to the boys practice. I call it:

Flinthart's First Law of Living With The Human Race -- The Smarter You Are, The More Of Your Time Is Spent Compensating For Stupidity. Including Your Own.

So, that's how I spent my day.