Thanksgiving. Sounds like everything I love about Xmas, only without the presents…as far as I know. I’m not up on Thanksgiving history/culture.
It does seem odd that in such a God-fearing country as America is, a lot more people seem to put more emphasis on Thanksgiving than on Xmas. As far as I know, it is when the turkey dinner is traditionally eaten, not as it is in Europe and in particular Britain when it’s at Xmas. Families seem to try harder in the U.S. to be together for Thanksgiving. People don’t feel pressured into exchanging presents, as we do with ever increasing financial strain, year after year at Xmas. Lastly, it doesn’t seem to be an overtly religious event (despite it being called Thanksgiving – IE: giving thanks to God – I assume – for a plentiful bounty and all the “good things” in our lives), despite the name of the holiday. I wish we had Thanksgiving in England. But then, maybe not. I do love some of the aspects of Xmas. I think the time of year is better. It’s just that little bit later into winter. Not so ideal for shopping, but lovely for Xmas eve and Xmas day, sitting around the fire, having lovely, big and hot meals that make you feel like you’ve put on 10 pounds in 1 hour! I love Xmas decorations, trees, garlands, wreaths. As a kid I use to LOVE making paper chains! And of course, although I rarely get them these days, I LOVE the presents. I love sending cards. And although some are religious, and although I’ve been a total hypocrite and been to church a few years back to enjoy them, I LOVE Xmas carols and Xmas songs. We have a church not 5 minutes walk away, and we went in 2005 for the carol service. But it was really lovely. It’s a non-domination church, and it was quite liberal (as churches go), not doing lots of preaching and stuff. It was a really nice service, and we all sang carols. It was lovely. As much as I love Xmas though, there are things that are overbearing about it. The compulsion to buy presents. The more expensive, the better. And the relentless ad campaigns that go with it. I mean, it’s in full swing on TV (and all other media) now. The supermarkets started filling their shelves with Xmas themed food weeks ago. I haven’t been in a supermarket for about 6 weeks (last visit, early October), but the last time I went, there was already stock on the shelf. The campaigns on TV will just get more and more manic. Soon the Xmas songs will start (mostly in shops and that, so I have been spared so far, as I really don’t get out much these days), and so by the time Xmas day comes, you’ve heard “White Christmas” at least 50 times (subliminally, and non-subliminally), Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” about 100 times, and the new favourite for “playing to death”… The Pogues “Fairytale of New York” what feels like 500 times, but is in reality probably only 150 times!! Supermarkets start to look like we’re heading for The Blitz at around December 18, and if you’ve missed something off the shopping list and don’t remember it until Xmas eve, you might just want to write out your last will and testament before heading off to the supermarket for that last vital thing, because you may just die there, waiting in the queue! One last thing that I use to hate about Xmas as a kid. The only thing in fact. Australia. I HATED living in Australia at Xmas. Xmas in the northern hemisphere looked SSOO lovely. And all the stories whilst growing up were all northern hemisphere biased. All the little things like Santa arriving by coming down the chimney! HEEEELLLLOOOO…no house in Oz that *I* ever knew of had a chimney. How was Santa ever going to leave our presents? Break in through a window? Then of course there was the sleigh and the reindeer. Rudolph with his shiny red nose. Not because it was minus 10 degrees in Oz, but because it was more like bloody 25 degrees on Xmas eve NIGHT! Silent Night? Silent night…on a tropical evening in Sydney?! Doubt it!! The one nice thing that Oz has for Xmas though is Carols by Candlelight…outdoors! That’s nice. Although, again, traditional carols are a bit northern hemisphere/wintery themed. Very odd to sing “Winter Wonderland” on a summer’s evening in 25 degree heat! I really do love my winter Xmases though. They are the best. So, happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. Xmas, the steam train, moves ever closer.I’m a Lark trapped in a night Owl’s body.
I don’t know just how long through my life I have craved to be able to arise in the morning with the birds. I’ve been a night owl for many years. Mum tells me it started from the moment I was born really. I’ve had brief dalliances into the world of the lark. Mostly when it involved being awake for SSSOOO long that I was already awake the next morning! A few times it’s happened due to jet-lag. And a few times it’s been down to pure luck and I’ve “fluked” a few weeks of larkish behaviour.
At this point in time I’m further away from being a lark than I ever have been. I was in Australia for several months at the beginning of this year. It started out well. Jet-lag allowed me to be a lark for about oh…two weeks! Then the old owl crept back in, and eventually took over. This was helped greatly by some inexplicable, freakish event that overtook my nerves and made it almost impossible for me to sleep for the rest of my stay in Oz. I was like it for weeks. Most nights I wouldn’t get to sleep until around 5-6am. If you can still regard that as night? No, it isn’t, is it?! And that’s my point. I’ve always loved the idea of waking around 6am, watching the sun come up, hearing the birds wake up. But instead that’s when I’m fast asleep from only nodding off just a couple of hours before. At the moment I’m getting to sleep around 4am. Then I’m DRAGGING myself back out again around 10.30-11.00am. If I was getting my recommended 8 hours sleep, I wouldn’t get up til midday (and on the odd occasion I do, because I’m just SSOO dog-tired)! I’m a creature of habit really. And this behaviour is habitual. It’s fueled by two things. Firstly, I can never drag myself away from TV at night. I’m always finding something to watch around 10.30-11.00pm which gets me hooked for an hour or so. Also by this time (well, use to be, not so much now), Em is asleep, so then I spend some time on the Internet. Which means I go to “bed” at any time between midnight and 1.30am. Then I don’t turn in straight away, I’ll play my Nintendo DS, or play games on my mobile phone, or listen to music. So, probably by around 3am, I’m ready to turn in. I don’t know. Sometimes I get REALLY guilty for being like this (night owl) and other times I think “why do I care”? It’s not like I’m some super-fit person or something. It’s not like if I got up early, I’d be outside with the birds or anything. I just think I’d feel better being a lark. Photo supplied by: Spirit635 under creative commons (some rights reserved)
Happy Pussy?
Mrs Slocombe anyone?
I received a birthday card in the post yesterday from Cheryl. It’s of a picture of a kitten surrounded by CGI frangipani flowers. Anyway, there was a caption on the back which described the picture on the front (printed down the right side):
Who The Hell Are “Family First”?
Looking around on the ‘net, I decided to go to some Australian news web sites to see what’s going on “Down Under”. Of course one issue that is taking up a lot of media coverage at the moment is the upcoming federal election on November 24th. As I was looking around the news.com.au web site, I saw the “vote-a-matic“…great name! This little questionnaire is meant to help the “swinging” or “marginal” undecided voter who to choose on election day. I decided to do it for a bit of fun, mostly in the hope that it wouldn’t show me up to be a right-leaning Neo-Nazi.
As you can see by the image, gladly the outcome was such. But it left me with the question, “Who the hell are Family First?” So here they are…Family First. Yes, I have a lot of time to kill, but it was a bit of fun, and I enjoyed seeing the result.
Why ‘Antipodean – The Right Side Up’?
I was sitting around waiting for my turn on the Internet (yes, we are a one computer household – although I can write posts via my mobile phone) watching Em reading RSS feeds of blogs when I was noticing that most peoples blogs have “catchy” names, whereas I had the rather bland “Larelle’s Blog”. I was wondering what made these people choose a somewhat obscure name for their blog and so I thought to myself “what kind of ‘catchy’ title would I use for my blog?”. I use to stick with “Larelle’s Blog” because I was worried people who visit wouldn’t realise it was my blog, but the people who are coming to my blog from www.larelle.co.uk SHOULD know it’s me, so I thought “why not”! And so here’s what I came up with “Antipodean – The Right Side Up”. Don’t ask me why. I was just sitting there still waiting my turn, and it came into my head. I just like the word Antipodean (and that’s what us Aussies and Kiwis get called in the UK). I also thought that although I am Antipodean, I’m now (metaphorically) the right side up. I suppose I could’ve went for something inane like “Down Under Girl” or “Upside Down Girl”…but I wanted something arty-farty.
It’s been a LONG time.
Hello Everyone,
I have been away for just over 4 months. I went to Australia and had all intention of writing about my travels in another blog I created called “Return 2 Oz”, but I ended up with the most DISMAL Internet connection in Oz. Let me tell you now, if you are planning to stay in Oz for an extended period, and are looking to use an ISP while there, on my recommendation, do NOT use Brown Bear Internet. I thought it was a good deal. It was $9.90 a month for 160mb of use, then something like 5 cents a MB for exceeding that, capped at $16.95. I thought I wouldn’t go over the monthly usage and I didn’t in the end because it was almost unusable! I would have to dial in several times as I continued to be disconnected after around 3 minutes. And the connection…although I know it’s dial-up and I expected it to be slow…MY LORD, was it SSSLLLLOOOOWWW!! As a consequence I didn’t spend any real time on the Internet when I was there as the experience was just beyond infuriating.
I think I only made one blog entry while I was Oz. Not exactly productive.
As a result, there is much to catch up on. I will get to it over the next coupe of weeks. Not much to report really. I spent most of my time at my mums house just wasting the days away.
Birds and Popcorn.
As you may or may not know, I am a couch bird-watcher. That is to say that I love birds and find them fascinating, and dare say have bird-watched, from the comfort and privacy of my own home. I have yet to enjoy the “pleasure” of a true bird-watching experience at a local RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) or similar establishment or park.
Today I was dabbling a bit with the old couch bird-watching from the loungeroom window. It’s been a bit bleak of late, after a lovely little collective of summer visitors. At the moment the resident birds are the ubiquitous starlings, a robin (our first regular robin since moving here, normally only to be seen around Xmas, he has been here since late summer) and a bird that has been making me refer to my birdfeeding book for a while now, in search of its identity. The problem was finally solved today, more in a bit. Also, not as frequently, but still quite often we get a goldfinch visit. We did have a pair for a while during the summer, and it was lovely seeing them visit. A breeding pair seemingly as they were male and female (the male has more red colouring around the head than the female, easy to distinguish through binoculars). After a few weeks, it seemed that only the female was visiting. I thought the worst had happened to the male as goldfinches seem to be seen if not in pairs, at least in number, so to see a lone female was a little worrying. But today, the male was back! Although he didn’t seem to be allowed to eat from the nyjer seed feeder we put out for them, for only she was eating from it and when he would approach he seemed to be told off!
(male Goldfinch pictured)
As for the mystery bird, I have deduced with the help of my trusty birdfeeder book that it is a dunnock. At first I thought it was a sparrow, but then started to think again, as it was always alone (sparrows are way too a communal type of bird for one to always be alone) and any sparrow “like” features I was seeing on this bird were not prominent enough, and the beak was too narrow (sparrows have a broader, finch-like beak than what this bird had). So after weeks of being miffed about its ID, I had it! I read up on it in my birdfeeding book and what a kinky little bird it is! The book said that during the breeding season it would not be unusual to see a female with two males, or vise virsa or even to have two breeding pairs together, swapping partners! Swinging birds!!!
(Dunnock pictured)
Another couple of strangers that are only just starting to make a comeback to our garden are blue tits (just the one so far – we used to have a resident pair) and blackbirds (well, just the one again so far). We used to have a regular female blackbird come round (the female blackbirds are actually mostly brown), who was a real hen-pecker, and the odd male, but not as much a regular visitor as she. But I haven’t seen a female in ages and have only just started to see a male in recent days. Also there was a greenfinch. Haven’t seen one of those since the summer!
I miss Australian birds. I miss (rather bizarrely) magpies and (not so bizarrely) kookaburras. I miss hearing their calls in the morning.
Our neighbours next door went away to America for a holiday recently, and came back baring a few gifts for us – which was a surprise as we don’t know them that well, but it was as a thank you for making sure their house was safe (not that we really did bother anyway, one of their parents was coming around checking on the place anyway). We got a pack of mini oreo’s (what is with the oreo obsession? They are just – not very good I might add – bloody chocolate biscuits!), a pack of boiled lollies (sweets) and this thing called Jiffy Pop. It was popcorn in a pan! So tonight we finally cooked up the popcorn. It was brilliant! The pan has a foil top, which inflates like a big foil balloon as the popcorn starts to pop!! When cooked, you just carefully open the foil top and eat straight from the pan! Lovely warm popcorn, just like from the cinema! It was buttery and salty and yummy! It’s like about $1.00 a go in the USA. We can get it here in the UK at a shop called “Cybercandy”, but they want effing £2.80 per pack!!! Bastardosses!
Anyway, enough boredom from me…I’m outtahere!
PS:
The bird calls I miss
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7nwPZrs5sc]
Magpie.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il98W12WqH4]
The beautiful kookaburra