Sunday, 20 June 2010

Lister saves wildlife and visits Aussie pub


I have been rabidly homesick for the last few days. Ironic, as the weather is finally glorious after months of crap - a thousand types of rain from drizzle to downpour and freezing freaking cold. Today the sun is shining and I have a delicious view out my window of the river (with boats bobbing about in it in v picturesque manner) rolling hills and trees. This is all offset by the sound of a cat fight taking place in the alley behind our house. They are really going at it.

Just went outside and banged a couple of shoes together to break up the fight. One v butch cat tormenting a scrappy little persian. Persian ran at sounds of shoe banging, but butch cat stayed behind for a couple of minutes giving me the eye. The cheek.

This is not the first bit of peace making I've done (with the aid of shoes) in recent times. As our house is set up a little hill we are witness to all manner of goings on in the seagull community (they live on the roof of a house in front of us). At the moment I am keeping an eye on some seagull chicks. They are so cute - like grey fluffy ducklings. There is one on the roof right now (see pic below). They can't fly yet and their numbers have dwindled - there were four or five a few weeks back but I think some crows have been picking them off. Indeed, during my last bit of peacemaking I was drawn outside by the cry of approx 20 seagulls tryiing to scare off some crows flying near their nests. Out I went with my shoes, banging them feverishly to scare off the crows. Neighbours also joined in - there was a lot of yelling and arm flapping and then someone set off a flare! Tres exciting!




The seagulls here are freaking massive. They are nothing like the petite Aussie seagulls. Some are the size of dogs.

Anyway, back to my homesickness. I haven't really had any major bouts of it before. I've had times when I've missed my friends and the weather, but apart from that I've been ok. Have been here two years now, which is my longest period of time away from home. Yesterday I was in quite a funk. I told Simonski (who was working that morning), and he came to the rescue. When he finished work at midday he took me to Newquay to the Aussie pub there so I could watch Aus v Ghana with 'my people'. The Aussie pub is quite dodgy - basically a big, crinkly shed with a couple of kangaroo murals. Still, it was nice to hear other Aussie voices moaning at the ref etc. One bloke even yelled out 'What a bloody moron!' - just like Alf from Home and Away. Warmed my cockles it did.

Sadly, it was a draw and now we are relying on a very complex and unlikely set of circumstances to make the next round. But we played well and I wore my Aussie scarf with pride for the rest of the day.


This is in extreme contrast to my mood of last Saturday when I chucked a huge hissy fit following our crushing 4 nil defeat at the hands of Germany (plus blind referee). I cried at the unfairness of it all, ripped my scarf off and went to bed. This was documented by Simon on the camera, but I don't want to post the series of photos as I am embarrassed by my atrocious attitude. Plus, I am wearing a tracksuit and one of the shots was taken from the rear. To quote Tyler 'If girls knew what they looked like from behind in tracksuits, they'd never wear them'. Too true Ty Ty, too true...

Newquay is a strange town. It's in a very picturesque locale, but is kind of like a mini Surfers Paradise. Loads of souvenir shops, pubs, bars, strip joints etc. It's the location of choice for lots of Northerners on bucks / hens nights and is the place that most of the schoolies flock to after exams. It's gotten a lot of bad press in recent years for underage drinking etc. They also had big problems with blokes peeing in the street (memo: men - the world is not your toilet) and in an effort to combat this they installed urinals that rose - phoenix like - from the ground in the evening. They are called 'pissoirs', or 'urilifts'. I shit thee not. A picture is below.







When blokes needed a wee, they angled their bods inside the pissoir, dropped trou and off they went. Alas, they have removed the pissoirs now so the menfolk are back to peeing in doorways and potplants.





2 comments:

  1. I would love to see a Lister 'Tanny' in action (I love how us Aussies are so lazy we use words like Tanny and to us it makes complete sense). Yes, Tyty was very wise re comments on Trackies, (there I go again-Trackies) and yet here I sit in my Trackies. xooxoxox

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  2. Forget Maya Angelou, I am ditching books in favor of your rants! Alas, I have read only one post thus far but assume you will continue poking fun at the Brits to my liking.

    Living With a Brit Abroad,
    Alison from Boston

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