Friday Butt Crack

TGIF! Sorry for being noticeably absent this week but it's been a short week for work and I've been sweetly distracted by a new crushbubble on chat rather than blogging. I love young men who are stranded in the middle of the desert with nothing better to do than chat up out of date cougars into the wee small hours! Good for the soul it is, good for the soul!

Time to set things straight!

You're all familiar with Plumber's Crack right? Those larger than large men who seem to have difficulty finding a belt or a pair of trousers the same size? They bend under your sink and all you get is an eyeful of hairy butt crack and loathsome stretch marks?

Not quite the image of the well-oiled and buff porno tradesman that every housewife aches for now is it. Now this is more like it . .


Apparently plumber's crack is also a problem for the young and glam thanks to the popularity of low rise jeans but someone's come up with a less unsightly solution . . .well that's a matter of opinion . . .

The 'Backtacular Gluteal Cleft Shield' solves unsightly bum crack problems

Tired of low-riding trousers causing unwanted buttock-cleft exposure? Want to put an end to bending over only to find that your bum cheeks have been on display to the world? One designer may have come up with a solution for you.

The Backtacular Gluteal Cleft Shield in action

The Backtacular Gluteal Cleft Shield, created by designer Kimberly Brewer, is a stylish cover that prevents any unfortunate butt-crack revelations.

Made of hypo-allergenic denim, and decorated with studs and rhinestones for added bling, the Backtacular Gluteal Cleft Shield is applied directly to the skin, and sits above the waistband protecting the wearer's modesty and morals like a tiny, fashionable nun.

The BGCS can be bought online from Brewer's Kimberlily site.

Now all she needs to do to make it really take off is offer a customised version, which instead of rhinestones just features an advert for your plumbing services. She'd be on to a winner.

Have a great weekend and I'll try to catch up with you all tomorrow . . looks like a chilly and wet weekend so be prepared to PLAY!

Chasin' the Blues Away

Today is ANZAC day where Australia and New Zealand celebrate our worst defeat at Gallipoli although these days, it's a tribute day to all our troops at home and abroad.

So, while Adam attended the dawn service, got soaked on his motorbike and then made up for his day with a round of Two-Up and copious amounts of alcohol, the would-be-if-we-could-be's took off and did lunch!

Clare bought me a lunch voucher for Christmas that was burning a hole in my pocket so some time ago, I booked Doyles. totally overpriced but wonderful seafood restaurant on the bay beach at Watson's Bay in Sydney's exclusive Eastern Suburbs. She was blue, the weather was awful and we nearly called the whole jam off but . . hey, what else do you do on a chilly, wet, windy ANZAC day. I'm glad we went. It was wonderful.

Of course when I booked it was a sunny 28 degrees so I asked for an outside table on the beach . . brrrr . . it was windy and cold and black clouds threatened a downpour, so no comments about the frizz that occasionally goes by the name 'hair'. The sun did make an appearance just as we were eating so it was quite lovely sitting there and pretending to be rich and famous.

The skies were threatening but no rain thankfully

We shared a dozen Sydney Rock Oysters which were so perfect, so fresh, they winced when we splodged a little lemon on them . . . some garlic bread and this . . a seafood platter of garfish, calamari, lobster, scallops, prawns, smoked salmon and blue swimmer crab . . .all washed down with a nice Cockfighter's Ghost Semillon! I'm still pogged 4 hours later!

And this was lunch . . .we couldn't eat it all and left half a crab
nearly all the chips and a roll of smoked salmon . .
I know . .so wasteful

A very nice tourist eating all on his own
(if he'd stayed longer we probably would have asked him to join us)
took this photo of us both.Two up. Traditional ANZAC day game of heads or tails is played at the pub next door.
This guy's taking bets on his phone!

Time to walk it off at The Gap . . South Head looks at North Head.

Many have flung, or been flung, to their deaths here.
We just took in the view

Macquarie Lighthouse, the first in Australia.
Designed and built by emancipated convict Francis Greenway

Queen Victoria's surprised visage adorns the main
door to the lighthouse . . Oh hai! She lookz a bitz like me!

Now about those blues . . .my beautiful, confident, intelligent, fun-loving, talented, awesome daughter needs a man. Not a boy, not an accessory but a nice, well mannered, intelligent, independent, well-travelled man. He must be nice looking, affectionate, considerate, happy to back-pack a good conversationalist and it would help if he can find his way around a kitchen. Where on earth are they all?

Yeh I know . . . Nevada!

No Cobwebs in My Wallet!

There's a draft in my wallet . . .

It's 7:30pm as I write this and I've just arrived home. I left work at 4pm to go to a job interview, started my 1992 Honda Accord, the engine turned over but would not catch. In fact, it kept kerchunk kerchunk kerchunking even after I removed the key from the ignition.

So like any self-respecting auto owner, I opened the bonnet, looked studiously at the kerchunking interior and a sluggish drive belt and watched as the engine kept ticking over but still not starting. I rang the agency who had arranged the interview to find just one bar on my mobile phone so had to make it fast

"PleasecallthemanattheinterviewandtellthemmycarisabouttoexplodeandIcan'tmakethe interviewIknowit'salameexcusebutseriouslyIthinkmyenginisgoingtoblowup!"

Well eventually something went 'poof' and after wafting a little grey puff of smoke the car died.

Now this in itself isn't anything more than a costly disappointment but this morning I also drove Clare to work so she's stranded without a lift and off the bus route. My NRMA roadside assistance hasn't been renewed and I have one bar on my phone. So, call roadside assistance and pay $140 for a new annual membership, get the little man in the blue van on his way somewhere between 20 and 60 minutes. Message Clare to get a cab and meet me outside the Crowne Plaza but she hasn't got her wallet with her so I have to wait to pay the taxi driver $25 with my credit card.

Finally the little blue van guy arrives and tells me my starter motor is farked, better than I thought but he can't repair it because they don't carry ancient Honda parts. He seems surprised that there's actually a starter motor in a car so old and thought it might be one of those Flintstone jobs where you just peddle through a hole in the floor. Now that would be a bit drafty.

So, we resolve to leave the car on the roof and organise a tow tomorrow. Although the tow truck is too big to get up to the rooftop carpark so we'll have to 'push' the car down to it and Adam isn't confident that the handbrake is strong enough to slow it down the ramps!

By now I have nice blue perspiration stains under my arms, grubby grey marks on my pristine blue and white striped shirt and a glistening top lip. My heart is racing and my wallet looking decidedly drafty.

I go to the nice man in the carpark payment booth and explain that I have to leave my car overnight but am happy to pay for the full day parking and even for tomorrow's but don't want to cop an overnight parking fee. He doesn't have the 'authority' to wave the fee so gives me the number of Don and Pete who I have to call in the morning and beg to wave the $40 charge. I don't fancy my chances somehow!

We walk by the river towards the 601 bus as the bats move in for the night but due to the drafty wallet and the absence of bus fare, I need an ATM. No worries, in goes the card . . ."ATM Temporarily Unavailable".

I'm really getting the shits now. Clare's all "Mum this happens all the time when you're travelling, chillax!" Yeh but when you're being fucked over in a beautiful city it's different. This is bloody Parramatta. My car's dead, I've forked out $185 buckaroos, the ATM isn't working and I haven't got any bus fare! Thank goodness for the nice man in the 7/11 who gives me $50 if I buy a bottle of water . . .onto the smelly old 601 and fortunately Adam is there to pick us up in Clare's care which is . . .unregistered! Oh yes, that was the plan . .register the car tomorrow.

So, three hours later, I'm home, tired, hungry, broke and only half the problem solved. Beans on toast for tea . . I kid you not.

Ah look on the bright side, the engine didn't blow up. The car will be towed and fixed and I only have to catch the smelly 601 two more times! Ah yes and it's a long weekend coming up!
. . . and I thought I'd have nothing to post for Theme Thursday . . the topic being Draft!

A Little Auslish and Alabama Coons

Bit of a dog's breakfast tonight. Some of you were a little bewildered by the Auslish in the previous post so an explanation of a couple of terms:

A 'Ute' (no nothing to do with indigenous Americans) is an Australian pick up truck only instead of being large, it's as if someone has cut away the back seat and the boot (er trunk) of a normal sedan and left it open. This is the vehicle preferred by a number of farmer's and tradesmen and is in fact a "Utility" vehicle . . hence now a "Ute". The 'tarp' is the covering for the back, now usually synthetic but once just a plain tarpaulin cover held in place with rope.

To "Pay someone out" is to give them a hard time. Stir them up . . .

The "Irish Mitts" is a phrase my father used to use. He and I both have 'square' hands. He used to refer to them as Irish Mitts, worker's hands. Nobody else in my family has hands like it with square palms and squatty fingers.

The "Crows" are the Adelaide Crows, an Australian Rules Football Team and the "Victor" is a lawnmower, (actually it's a 'Victa', shows you how often I mow a lawn!) an iconic brand of it's kind and again an early invention and institution for the 50's suburban man.

Yakka is a brand of workwear. Blue singlets, overalls, dungarees and hard wearing shorts and trousers . . it's become a part of the vernacular much the same way 'Hoover' has when we refer to a vacuum cleaner. Hard Yakka .. was and still is their slogan so a day of hard yakka is a day of hard physical labour.

A "Schooner" is our version of a pint. A large glass for beer. A size down is a Midi although in many pubs these days you can buy the old fashioned English 'pint'.

So nyah! Just as well I'm not writing for the world. Nobody would understand a word of it!

Now for something completely different . . . .

Way back in 2008 I wrote a post about a couple of Lullabies that my Grandma used to sing to her son, then my father sang them to us and we sang them to our own children. I often wondered how a Northern English, working class baker's wife even learned such a song which seemed to have it's roots in the deep South of America.

Out of the blue, as sometimes happens, I had a comment last week on that very post. An unknown commenter who gave me a link to a delightful You Tube clip of her wonderful elderly mother actually singing one of these old lullabies whilst being filmed by her Grandson.

Isn't the internet wonderful, some stranger, 12,000 miles away who just happened on a post from 2 years ago, had the same song sung to her as I did as a little girl in
and gave me the heads up on some of the lyrics that I'd long forgotten. Then four generations later and we're still singing about Momma's Alabama Coon . . only now we do it in suburban Australia to our own children . . takes six degrees of separation even further, through four generations and across three continents.

Awesome.

Pristine Green Nylon Rope

I'm still really battling writer's block so have decided once again to participate in Tenth Daughter of Memory a cute little vehicle for writers hacks and in my case, those who have nothing to post! This week we're being 'Hounded':

He bought a length of pristine, green, nylon rope.

He hadn’t tied this type of knot before. He hadn’t tied any complex knots beyond securing the tarp over the back of the ute. It took a couple of goes before it looked just right and slipped well tight.

The pristine green nylon rope was still stiff with lack of use but it would be used today. Oh shit yeah! He’d get right on up ‘er for her insolence. He’d ‘pay her out good and proper’ for her constant hounding and complaining. He’d teach her a lesson she’ll never forget. This would hit it’s mark!

Clearly he’d missed his mark when he hit her cheekbone with his knuckle-dusting Irish mitts. But this little trick, this little 'beaudy', tucked beneath his flannelette clad arm, would definitely connect. He’d show her and her apron-clinging brats who has the upper hand. His grip tightened, he let out a blow and gritted his teeth.

He was a working man, a simple man. Not the sharpest tool in the shed but he’d provided well. He’d kept them clothed and fed and a roof over their heads. He’d given her a few bucks each week. He’d not been too demanding other than wanting to watch the Crows play on Sundays and have control over the remote. If push came to shove, he could swipe the Victor over the front lawn. Shit, he even let her have the window side of the bed the stupid cow, because she liked the way the light played on the wall in the early mornings. Sentimental bitch, he’d wipe that look right off her face and in a heartbeat, now that he has his pristine green nylon rope.

She hated the company he kept but a man needs his mates and a coldie after a hard day’s yakka! The local drew him in more often than it should. What could be more Aussie than a beer with your mates? The barmaid wasn’t half easy on the eye to boot!

He liked the barmaid. He'd daydream and gaze into the amber draught and drift off, unaware of surrounding conversations about big donks and shithouse foremen. “If only the ‘little woman’ showed a bit of tit and arse.” He’d bet anyone who could pull a beer as well as her would be good in bed. Oh yeah, she’d be a wriggler, a screamer. He sipped away at the froth of his schooner imagining what he’d do to a pretty thing like her, or better still what that pink and pouty perfect mouth could to for him . . how that tongue would lash and curl, how those polished nails would feel gliding along his hersuit spine . . Someone yells “Your shout arsehole!” and his fantasy pops before he does.

All he’s left with is her, the cow, the ball and chain, the trouble and strife and the memory of her underneath him like a dead fish waiting for the filleting knife while he satiated his needs and grunted his relief. Yeh, that sheila was crap between the sheets.

It was all her fault they weren’t together. The bitch had done the dirty. She'd picked up sticks and left him. Scarpered with that trumped up tosser without so much as a note . . . he'd give her a fuckin' note!

He reached upward and pulled tight, the pristine green nylon rope threaded easily through the exposed aluminium rafters. His grip softened slightly as the hint of a tear welled momentarily teetering on the brink of his bloodshot eyes but not quite taking the plunge down his cheek. He took in a deep and raspy breath, collected himself and reminded himself of his ghastly purpose . . . he slipped the makeshift noose around his neck and kicked the stool from beneath.

The letter fell from his unclenched, swollen, fingers and floated feathery to the oil-stained garage floor.

It would be over a week before his son found it, and its vitriolic contents. Its accusatory verbage blaming his mother and his sister and him for all the woes that caused their father grief. It spat the venom of a cut snake and pointed the bone at them all.

They’d never flaunt their happiness in his embittered face again. Yeh, that skank would pay!

He'd shown her a thing or two. . . he and his tight pristine green nylon rope.

Friday Fuckwits or Good Vibrations

Friday once more and frankly, this week's gone slower than frozen treacle or a dust cloud oozing over Europe but here we are . . Chardy chillin', music playin', pasta cookin' (love you Adam!) a dozen muscles (of the fishy kind) in the fridge and a bouillabaisse just waiting to be made. In keeping with the blatant sexual inuendo afflicting this blog of late (it's not deliberate, honestly) I bring you a couple of interesting fuckwits that could work together to solve each other's problems:

A woman claims falling from a Wii Fit board turned her into a nymphomaniac.

Amanda Flowers told the Daily Star she now needs up to 10 sex sessions a day after damaging a nerve after falling off her Wii Fit.

She has been diagnosed with persistent genital arousal disorder, a condition which gained global attention when it featured in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in 2008.

Ms Flowers, who lives in Manchester, said the urge to have sex was irresistible.

She said small vibrations from her mobile phone or food processor were enough to turn her on.

"It began as a twinge down below, before surging through my body," Ms Flowers told the Daily Star.

"Sometimes it built up into a trembling orgasm."

The single Ms Flowers said all she could do was try to control it with deep breathing, or "find a superstud who can satisfy me".

Now if Ms Flowers met this lady, they might be able to come up with a compromise:

Police buzz in to solve vibrator mystery

A WOMAN phoned police after hearing "suspicious noises" in her flat, but much to her embarrassment officers found the source was a vibrator, authorities say.

The noise was so loud and strange, even over the telephone, that police in Bochum in western Germany decided to send a patrol car around to the "scene of the crime", a statement said.

"Daringly, and with the occupier's permission, one of the officers opened the drawer of a wardrobe where the noise was coming from.

"Underneath some clothes he found a very personal, battery-operated object which had obviously switched itself on... The tenant's face abruptly changed colour."

Police then "wished her a nice evening and left".

Excuse me, I'm off to buy a Wii or a battery operated device . . . .have a wonderful weekend! Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii . . . then maybe I'll just find a coin operated boy!

Dresden Dolls - Coin Operated Boy

Evan | MySpace Video

Let's Do Lunch

Liquid lunch . . .


Light lunch . .


Quick lunch . . .


Sweet lunch . . .

Hot lunch . . .



Oh alright then . . one for the lads . . .COLD lunch:


Theme Thursday again . . c'mon you didn't think I'd gone all cerebral now did you?

The Lives of Others

I work in Parramatta,Sydney's second city. A river runs through it and my building is in the restaurant district among Pizzerias and poshness yet the streets are full of hopeless people, office types, tourists and an a plethora of races from Arabs and Indians to Chinese and Koreans. The high density living is attractive to the lower income brackets I suppose. It's a strange place with three or four international hotels, flats and luxury apartments. Homeless and drunks, racial mixes and bustle. Yet the city has a 'dead' feel about it despite the best efforts of Parramatta Council to keep the streets clean and the gardens maintained.

It's my habit to go down to the well-manicured riverside once a day to have what I laughingly call a lunch break, and a dose of sunshine beside the rather muddy and carp-filled Parramatta river. Today hundreds of Corellas were high in the trees making their lovey dovey squawks, tiny swallows were dipping along the river in what looked like dog-fighting fun which I'm sure was motivated by hunger as they seemed to snap up invisible delights. Seagulls nestled on the newly mown grass along the river bank. Pigeons cooed and strutted their stuff as pigeons do. Joggers and lunchtime office types jogged along the riverside pathway, tourists looked obvious in their sandals and socks and oversized camera paraphenalia.

Then reverberating rather menacingly from the public picnic table behind me was a strident, deep-voiced woman having what can only be described as a guttural and profane rant at her equally sauced cohort. Unashamed of her loud and base vernacular, every word bounced across the river onto the skyscraper opposite and reverberated back in ever increasing decibels. Her hurls of abuse enough to make a sailor blush!

There's a picnic table with a bench on each side, near where I sit. It's frequented by regular drunks. They're not homeless as far as I can tell, no trolleys full of bags, no swag and frankly not particularly scruffy but they congregate there for hours. They're often well into it when I arrive at work at 7:30am and always there when I take a short break anywhere between midday and 3pm. Downing their oversized bottles of beer and canned spirits and fizz and by 2pm have completely lost the plot. They're staggeringly abusive towards each other. This band of brothers pissed as newts and raving wildly at each other. They're shouting in the most profane way, they threaten each other (never a passer by), they have faux fights and run after each other, then settle again as if emulating the seagulls that rise and fall with equal fervour on the other side of the bank every time a crumb is dropped or one's sovereignty threatened.

The woman today pulled a small pocket knife on her compadre and I was about to get up and sound the alarm when the incident was self-diffused and she was content to slap the hard wooden bench so hard that it must have bruised her flattened hand. Just as well because she couldn't have knocked the skin of a rice pudding in her state!

I'm dying to ask them why? Why are they there? Why are they alcoholic? Why do they argue? Why do they drink themselves into oblivion and smoke like chimneys? How do they afford it? Where is our fantastic social security system? Why do they go over the same rants? The same issues? Hang with the same people? Nothing is ever resolved by them. The woman with the gravel voice has a partner in gaol, her children have gone . .she will sleep with whoever fancies her at any given time. . I know this because I've overheard her conversations. I can only assume her kids were confiscated by community services because apparently it's one of her drinking pal's fault that her partner is in jail and her children with someone else yet they keep company, every day. They argue, every day.

A large aboriginal man, clearly not starving or in need of a feed is so comatose that he falls off the bench with regularity and needs two more women to right him until he takes the last slide off the bench and decides to just stay put on the concrete path. It would be funny to watch if it wasn't such a frequent event. He feels no pain at this point so sympathy is wasted. Joggers jog round him, tourists pick up pace, grandparents with small children avoid him and the locals just don't see him or don't care.

What a way to live! It's the little moments each day like this that remind me no matter how introspective I become, no matter how disillusioned with my lot, my bank balance, my frustrations, I have children who love me, employment, friends who care and a life that's pretty fabulous.

Sometimes we need these drunken down-and-outs to sober ourselves with the fact that life for some, is a repetitive hell. Then everybody already knows. They just don't care.

Welcome to My Chicken Coop or "Capoeira" in Portuguese

It was advertised as the International Capoeira festival in Darling Harbour, running from 1-4 today so Clarebear and I wondered down on a gorgeous Autumn day in expectation of colour and dance and drums and samba and flags and all that is Brasil at its best.

Darling Harbour is one of those tourist spots that has a Convention and Exhibition centre, the Powerhouse Museum, The Maritime Museum, Sydney Aquarium and Australian Wildlife park (where the roos live on fake red dust) plenty of eateries and restaurants, some kitch shops where you can purchase your cork hats, bobble-headed kangaroos and digeridoos and an Imax theatre, plenty of buskers and 'spot the Aussie' - today it was totally packed with tourists. I mean, you'd never see an Aussie wearing a "Bondi" T shirt or socks with their sandals! There's little there to attract a local other than the overpriced restaurants. . .well there was the bridal expo but since neither of us have a potential groom, we dodged that one!

The 'festival' ended up being a Sydney capoeira school running their students through the ropes and awarding, well, 'ropes', to those who passed their levels. There were a couple of flags but the music was I have since learned very authentic and true and not a Samba to be seen!

Very interesting though and a great way to keep fit. Still, an excursion in the sunshine is an excursion in the sunshine.

Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, music, and dance. It was created in Brasil by slaves brought from Africa, especially from present day Angola, sometime after the sixteenth century. With little contact, it's very controlled and slow and incredibly powerful. Although we both laid bets that now and then, a foot connects where it shouldn't! Apologies for the quality of the photos, the musicians were in the shade and the 'fighters' in brilliant white sunshine. Bit trixy.

Unfortunate camera angle! Caption that!

Hello boys!

We have lift off!

Being the shallow women that we are, we were hoping for a little more skin . .

Boxed In and Beguiled By Night

I was once loved in a way that I thought no man could ever love a woman. To me he was the wrap that warmed, the anvil that stood solid, the smile that lifted my spirits. I was touched and held, excited and needed. I was respected and appreciated. I was toyed with and encouraged to ‘stretch’ my limits. I happily complied. I enjoyed it. I loved it, I needed it.

He was lost, and so began my descent into darkness the unwanted transition from happy housewife into something else altogether. I’m not sure whether the two were related whether his passing led to something dying in me but life changed.

In those heady days of wealth and prosperity I was suckered in to living beyond my means, accumulating debt, enjoying the good life but it wasn’t long before the walls caved in, the ceiling came crashing down and like a character in a fairy tale who promises to betroth the ugly or repay a debt with their first born child I was awash with the desperation of my own folly and faced a demise engineered by my own greed.

That demon on my shoulder speaks of ‘consequences’ and tells me that I must pay. I made my bed and now it’s time to perform. It’s time to lie . . roll over . . play dead or turn a trick and if necessary, to beg. Time to smile at the sullen, suck up to the powerful, take it on the chin or wherever else they choose. And so I do as I’m told no matter how demeaning the task.

Touch it, turn it, fill it, stick it, push it, bend it, get it, work it, book it, fetch it . .jump however high and sink however low . . . just do ‘it’.

Now I am accomplished in a craft not beguiled by night but one which takes place in the bold fluorescent light of day. I am humiliated, broken and practising manoeuvres that belie my character, make a mockery of my education. I endure in a profession that belittles, reduces and disempowers. A livelihood as old as the hills dominated by men and frequently borne by women.

Sometimes I work my wiles among many but more often, with one or two or maybe three. I don't discriminate between genders, race or creed. All have their way with me, all are equal in their lack of respect and demeanour. Each smile and pretend that I’m of value to them in the heat of the moment. Both are amenable when they think I have satisfaction to offer and can fulfil their needs. With me, their expectations are met often exceeded. I'm good at what I do, very good.

I don’t complain that I have a headache or it’s ‘that time of the month’ impairing my functionality. I just do as I am asked no matter how slavish that might be. The workload varies, sometimes steamy and hot, never passionate, frequently hurried and fervent, always timed and diarised. It’s largely tolerable, polite and impersonal. They come, they leave. Repeat, rinse, repeat. They share nothing of themselves other than their gaping mouths and flailing arms, their licked fingers turning the pages. They ask nothing about me. My sole purpose is to sate whatever appetite they have and send them on their corporate way smiling and satisfied. They never ask about me, who I am, what I am, they aren’t interested in my personal life or my past, what makes me tick, laugh, cry. Their only interest is in what I offer, how I can service their needs, meet their expectations, save their bacon, and offer gratification.

I have become something I’m not. Submissive and compliant. Whatever they want, they can have. I let them pull and push me, I let them argue over me. I let them dictate the terms of play, lay down the rules while I just lay down. I let them berate. I pretend I enjoy their compliments, flirting and flattery but I don’t care. I am impervious to them. They mean nothing to me. They’re soulless and needy. Demanding and cowardly, conniving and competitive.

In the end, they pay me for my efforts. It never varies and the payment is always made on time. Clean and easy, direct into my account. No emotion, no bouquets, no 'thank you’s' no interest.

Yes I have a degree. And I use it fetching coffee, sticking tabs on board paper dividers, smiling at Chairmen, complying with fools and putting up with patronisation from princesses. I work in a job I dislike but it pays the bills. Prostitution of the worst kind. All the ‘fun’ of wifely duties and none of the benefits! Time to start thinking outside the box!

This is a joint entry in Tenth Daughter of Memory and Theme Thursday thingies so pop along to both if you have time and check out how they're taking on, "Beguiled by Night" and "Box"

I've been a bit quiet on the ether recently thanks to delightful and very persistent young man who has been badgering me daily to have a bash at something creative. He nags worse than any woman I know! Don't worry, I'm not making a habit of it. This after all a personal blog but in the absence of my inner muse, I've stolen him as a fill-in for a while!

Ironically I arrived in my soulless little corner this morning and was given two pleasant surprises - I'll receive a back-dated partial higher duties allowance as PA to the MD and and also an email from the
Chairman of the Board telling me that I'm an "Angel" Thank God they don't read the blog!

Yellow

I don't like bananas. Go on . .call me 'bananas' you know you want to. Probably some truth in it.

I'm quite partial to a piece of toasted banana bread with lashings of butter or even a green banana barbecued with a nice steak but . . I just don't like bananas on their own in their perfectly packaged, well wrapped mellow yellowness, in or out of pyjamas.

My father was a war child. During the entire second world war he was a tween and a teen only to enlist in 1945 when the whole shebang was over. His experiences in Manchester were told and retold under the influence of Dr Jamieson, Dr Bells or even Dr Dimple if it was on special.

He often regailed us with tales of being a child during what was affectionately referred to as the blitz. Coming out of bomb shelters to find their house intact and the neighbour's gone. Collecting shrapnel for 'show and tell' at school. Being dragged out of bed at night to be taken to safety while the Germans did their best. Lack of fresh food, school closing due to a strike. Even my mother remembered making a dance dress out of blackout curtains and was severely chastised for leaving the upstairs window so exposed.

One of Dad's big claims when we complained about having to eat fruit as teenagers in sunny Australia (invariably Bananas because my mother used to swear 'there's a meal in every banana and force them into us even if they were a bit brownbespeckled and 'floury' because they're a wonderful source of fibre and potassium) was that he didn't eat a banana for 10 years. We should be grateful that this creamy goodness that reminds me entirely of making esters in Chemistry class, was freely available, cheap and nutritious.

As children we thought this a strange complaint, I mean who would miss bananas?

As I studied high school and university wartime history from a number of perspectives, I realised the magnitude of war time shortage and rationing and the scarcity of fresh food. I began to understand that this humble fruit shunned by me was indeed something exotic 50 odd years ago, especially to a boy living in Manchester's industrial heartland.

Not forgetting my father's frequent lament, we road tripped to Queensland one year, as you do. Travelling along the Pacific highway takes you first through freeways and nondescript countryside, further north into staggering eucalyptus forests, further north banana country before hitting sugar country. Acres and acres of the bloody things. A stop at the "Big Banana" in Coffs Harbour is simply mandatory on any road trip north.

So, cogniscent of my Da's lament, I bought him some bananas. Not one, not two, but an entire hand.

They were green on purchase but yellow and perfect by the time we arrived home. Which meant he had to eat the lot . . and quick before they spoiled. He appreciated the joke if not the quantity . .I didn't hear him complain about never having a banana ever again. And I've never taken such an amazing fruit for granted. It's sweet really. The memory not the fruit although the fruit is sweet but you know what I mean.

I never visit his grave but something as simple and yellow and bendy and peely and nutritiously yielding as a banana brings back wonderful memories of my Dad, every time I shop.

Pop along to the other Theme Thursday contributors and see what goodness they've embraced with 'Yellow'

Torrific!