Facebook Misunderstandings

Sometimes I feel guilty about my Facebook posts and the things I inflict on my friends; relentless photos of my spoiled, hate-filled Chihuahua, obscure and irrelevant observations on the meaning of life and the occasional, tipsy, angry rant at the government.

Last week I wrote an unintelligible comment about me suffering the ill effects of a head cold accompanied by a random photo of a decidedly sick, but arbitrary chicken I’d sourced from Google.

Everyone thought it was my chicken who was sick so I received no sympathy but lots of lovely messages directed towards the unidentified chicken.

I was a bit upset about that… but I brought it on myself, I suppose.

The truth is that one of my chickens is actually mortally sick now. He’s been quite off for about six months and I’ve been researching the symptoms on the Internet. 

He’s stumbling around like me on a Saturday night after a long lunch with Scotto and yesterday he performed three, very feathery, dramatic forward rolls and then couldn’t get up again… just like me on a Saturday night after a long lunch with Scotto.

It was very upsetting to witness.

Today, in a last ditch effort to reclaim an innocent and virtuous, galline life, Scotto and I headed down to Uncle Tom’s Chicken Establishment in order to acquire some chicken antibiotics.

“Is that the same sickly rooster you asked me about months ago?” asked the incredulous lady at Uncle Tom’s.

She was probably wondering why we haven’t taken an axe to it.

“I think he might have an ear infection,” I stammered nervously. “I’ve looked it up on all the chicken forums.”

She looked at me with a sense of benevolence and leaned in confidingly. “You know he might just be a special needs rooster,” she whispered. "Inbreeding is a common thing around these parts," she added supportively.

“No!” I barely stopped myself from shouting at her. “He’s not special needs! He just has an ear infection!”

So anyway, tonight he is locked in the cat cage with the (expensive) antibiotics fizzing malevolently away in his water supply and I’m expecting a miraculous recovery by tomorrow.

If not… (fx) sound of axe being sharpened.

I'm Not Judging...

It's not my foot but it could be...

Scotto and I were standing in the queue at Aldi on Saturday, when I suddenly noticed a guy in front of us wearing a Pink Floyd t-shirt, circa 2005.

‘Cool,’ I thought (even though I would never say the word ‘cool’ out loud because it’s 2017 not 1967 anymore). 

Scotto and I recently had an argument because he kept saying ‘cool and I became irritable with him and in defence, he accused me of saying ‘True Dat’ which apparently annoyed him quite a bit and we promised never to say either vapid phrase again in each other’s presence. We made passionate make-up love after that argument. No we didn’t. We may have done a fist- bump to celebrate, I can’t recall.

Suddenly I noticed the Pink Floyd gentleman’s son was sporting one of those geometric haircuts; his hair appeared to be sliding off his head it was so triangularly cut. I couldn’t help staring. I don’t care about kids with startlingly geometric haircuts but I do wonder about the point of them and if the hairdressers that can still do them are becoming a rarity because they are all either retired or dead because they spent their heyday in the 1970s taking drugs and having parties with Vidal Sassoon at Club 54. Apparently some people think angular hairdos are still fashionable. Good for them.

Anyway, for some obscure reason I glanced down at this man’s feet and noticed he was not wearing shoes.

That’s okay, I mused serenely. Jesus Christ, our very own redeemer, went around the Middle East on those dusty, stone-bruising, possibly leprosy-ridden roads, sans shoes. 

Besides, we were only at Aldi... and it was Nerang after all, where pretty much anything goes. Gah, people in Nerang wear t-shirts that say things like…

Remember that woman I spotted in Nerang with a t-shirt that said, “Kill All Pedofiles” (sic).

I don’t negatively evaluate people who walk around the shops barefoot, though. Who am I to judge with my deformed left toenail and my inferior, cheap, bargain-basement footwear from Shoe Barn?

My left toenail is a particular disgrace, frankly.

I have to keep a scrupulous eye on the feral thing, let me tell you. It spends most of its leisure time burrowing up through the top of the upper segment of my shoe. Every closed-in pair of shoes I own has a hole in the left toe. I’ve had three pairs of shoes patched professionally in the last three months because my toenail has wormed its way up through the tough leather exterior of my boot/sandal/shoe.

“Mmmm,” the cobbler chuckles as he peruses my shoes with a certain bewildered amusement, “it looks like someone might have a toenail like a hacksaw, huh love?”

But, I did notice this man’s big toenails were about three centimetres long and curling over like talons.

Clearly, he had the same problem as I have and he’s just given up the ghost.

Weary of lugging his toenail-pierced boots into the shoe-repairer business people, he has just decided to fuck shoes off altogether.

Good for him I say.

If I didn’t have a job that required me to wear shoes, I’d do the same.

I wonder if there are any jobs going for a new Messiah, or even a mere disciple? Or even a job in Nerang?

*No offence to people who live in Nerang. I'm sure you're lovely.

Husbands and Bunnings. Part 117.

I looked out on my chook yard earlier this week at twilight and admired the string of solar lights strung along the fence.

“They look quite nice,” I commented to Scotto in a vague, half-hearted manner.

And they did. They were a subtle and delicate, ornamental addition to our idyllic little garden.

Scotto must have really cherished the uncommon praise because the very next night, after I arrived home from work, he dragged me to the window and gestured out to the yard with the type of expectant, hopeful look on his face that invited gushing admiration.

Does not show what it actually looks like!

Festooned with a plethora of glittering lights rivalling Clark Griswold’s elaborate and decorative creation in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, my chook yard glowed like Kiev after the Chernobyl meltdown. Chicken Kiev.

“Was there a sale on at Bunnings?” I asked in astonished wonder. “Do you think the neighbours might complain?”

Scotto grinned and shrugged.

“Oh well,” I sighed. “As long as the chickens don’t mind sleeping in downtown Las Vegas every night. And as long as we don’t have a Jumbo Jet land in our backyard because the pilot mistakes it for the Coolangatta airport runway, it should be alright.”

Scotto loves colourful lights. Don’t get me wrong, so do I, but clearly my husband is secretly harbouring a desire to live in Santa’s workshop.

“Wait until Christmas!” he enthused, his eyes taking in the display with rapture. “You should see what I’ve planned for the front yard!”

Since the installation of this spectacular light exhibition, I’ve noticed a lot of strange looking and various shaped poops in the garden. I’m imagining all the tiny rainforest critters are emerging from the leafy foliage at night and converging on our backyard for Mardi gras time.

No wonder the dogs are so restless at night.

I can just picture all the little bandicoots, koalas and possums frolicking around, getting high on bottle brush and terrorising the wild eyed chooks every night.

At least they’re solar lights and don’t use electricity, I suppose.

Even so, some people should not be allowed to go to Bunnings without a responsible carer.

The Trouble with Being a Unisexual

Unisex gloves and sunglasses

Now that I’m back at school, Scotto feeds all the animals every evening (except for the cat, who swipes me on the ankle with her venomous claws as I’m juggling with my thermos, lunch and laptop on the way to my car every morning. It’s her way of gently reminding me just who is in charge of the Whiskers bag at the front door).


I usually arrive home as the sun is going down and the cruel and bitter mountain wind starts up and I shout to Scotto (who is hunkered in the garden cleaning up chicken shit) from the back door, not wanting to venture out in case of frost bite, hypothermia and frozen corneas.


One evening last week I blinked when I spied what seemed to be one of the swamp people in my backyard.

It was Scotto, who feels the cold quite badly, I must add.



“You aren’t going to wear that thing out in public ever, are you darling?” I gasped, trails of frost emanating from my iced up mouth.


“No,” Scotto replied nervously, as if I’d caught him out wearing my high heels and suspender belt. “I bought it for chicken feeding time.” *

“It’s just that you look like you’ve just stepped out of a movie about illegal whiskey manufacturing in the Ozarks,” I continued, my teeth chattering violently and breaking off in small pieces in my mouth. “The only thing missing is a banjo and a possum skin over your shoulder.”


“It’s cold,” he wailed. “Did you accidentally take my gloves to work today?” he said suddenly, shivering, hands in pockets and looking a bit accusatory.

I don’t blame him for immediately suspecting me, after all I had taken his sunglasses to work on a previous occasion. I don’t know how I didn’t realise because they’re quite a strong prescription. I think I merely assumed I was having a stroke, had a case of diabetes or the windscreen was dirty.



I guiltily stared into the distant houses with their chimney smoke spiralling towards the overcast sky and vaguely remembered picking up a pair of leather gloves and putting them in my glove box as I left that morning. It had been the first time I’ve ever put gloves in a glove box and I recalled how amazed I’d been at the revelation that a glove box was designed to house gloves and that’s why it’s called a glove box.



“Sorry,” I said. “I thought they were my gloves.”

I hate wearing gloves even though my hands turn white and useless when it’s cold and I’d just picked up a pair of these at the IGA on my way home.

If you turn your phone/laptop around you will be able to read this

I was excited that someone finally had the common sense to invent air-activated hand warmers you can keep in your pockets. How lovely and thoughtful.


I fished into my pockets and pulled out the unopened packet. “Look what I found at the IGA!” I dangled them in front of Scotto’s dubious face, in an attempt to appease his anger at me for swiping his gloves.


“Did you buy those for me, Pinky?” asked Scotto, his face relaxing in instant clemency and a little smile beginning around his lips.


“No,” I replied tartly. “They’re for me, silly.”

Later on, I scrutinised the packet and there are several alarming warnings about the hand warmers regarding allergies, poisonous lead residues and accidental swallowing, so I’ve decided to gift them to Scotto after all.

He can be my experimental guinea pig.

He was extremely grateful when I gave them to him.


I think I am forgiven for the glove thing.

* Poetic licence. I haven't owned a suspender belt for at least two and a half years so get your mind out of the gutter.

Holidays are Over Fudge It!

My two weeks of holiday is over.

I hosted my lunch with the girls from work who all drove the one hour and fifteen minute trip up the mountain. I decided to be clever and order some chicken and salad platters from our local deli instead of doing any actual cooking because that is how I roll.

Scotto was commissioned to go and pick up the pre-ordered platters for me whilst I nervously sprayed the toilet with Glen 20 and wiped dust from the skirting boards.

When he walked in, five minutes before the girls were expected, with the said platters, I began to dribble in a fit of apoplexy.

“What the FUDGE are THEY?” I screamed. “Platters for fudging ants?”

Honestly, they were pathetically minute. They wouldn't have fed fourteen pygmies let alone fourteen teachers with hearty school holiday appetites.

So poor Scotto had to drive back up the top of the mountain and get more chicken and salad.

Lucky I had plenty of champagne. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life it’s that you basically can’t trust any bastard. Especially delicatessen bastards.

My luncheon girls

So then I had my trip to Townsville to catch up with my kids.

That was really lovely. I won’t mention the fact that I had no sleep the first night because the ‘person’ I shared a room with snored in what I would describe as a fudging DEATH RATTLE all night. At 4:00 am, in desperate frustration, I even tried to video the earsplitting sound on my phone but I was too delirious to be able to get it to work.

I was waiting for her to wake up the next morning with a wild eyed, manic, lack of sleep hysteria expression on my face.

“I have to tell you something,” I hissed like Linda Blair in the Exorcist and wringing my hands in a demonic fashion.

“What?” asked my oblivious companion shaking out her hair in a casual manner, clearly refreshed and chipper.

“YOU SNORE!” I whistled through grinding teeth. “YOU SNORE REALLY BLOODY LOUD!”

My companion (who I can’t name because she would disinherit me) denied any part in my dearth of somnambulism and said I was imagining it and that she didn’t snore and that I was basically making it all up and how dare I accuse her of snoring.

Family Reunion

I had a lovely night with the family though and we celebrated our new found Scandinavian heritage which we didn't know about until my DNA results came through.

Recent photo with my apparent relatives (who don't snore).

Then I came home to the mountain and celebrated a reunion with my friend Kyles, the music teacher, and we had such a good time that we stayed up drinking until 12:45 because she thought the time was 8:45 because she wasn’t looking at her watch properly and she got the small hands mixed up with the big hands and we all had horrible hangovers the next day.

Kyles and her husband and us.

Then I went to Sydney Town with my eldest son who I adore with all my heart and we walked and talked and went to shows and the beach and it was all wonderful.

Finally, I had lunch with my very handsome husband and now the holidays are over and I haven’t done any planning for school. At all.

Oh well. Fudge it.

Ancestry DNA Surprises!

                                                                                              Image Credit

                             By Lestat (Jan Mehlich) - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1048337

The news is in my friends.

My Ancestry DNA results arrived yesterday and as I was at a reunion with my family yesterday, it was the perfect time for the big reveal.

“I’m 19% Polish which means you must all have Polish in you too!” I screamed whilst miming playing a piano accordion.

So ecstatic at the exotic heritage revelation, last night we all danced around doing the polka, eating sausage and generally celebrating the fact that I had 19% Polish DNA (which was a bloody surprise let me tell you). 

“Hey Pilchowski!” someone would call out in a Bronx accent. “Pass the sausage, Werkonski!” someone would holler amongst various other names that end in ‘ski’ which were thrown back and forward with gusto all night. This went on incessantly as we told Polish jokes, shared war stories about the German Invasion in 1939 as if we had actually been there and basically celebrated the Fatherland in joyous patriotism.

The unfortunate thing was that I had been forced to read the results of my DNA test on my phone as my laptop carked it just before I left to go on holidays and I read the wrong results because the stupid phone screen is so small. This morning, however, I realised I’d clicked the wrong button and I have NO Polish DNA whatsoever.

Nary a scrap.

I have 19% Western European DNA, which is the Belgium/France/German/Swiss combination and nothing at all Polish in me, apparently.

Oh well. It was nice being a one fifth Pole for one night anyway.

So, as I predicted, I am 43% Great Britain, 21% Irish and delightfully 13% Scandinavian (which explains why I seem to have turned into a blonde over the last six months and it’s nothing to do with Stefan Hairdressing salon visits. It’s all natural.

It seems my ancestors liked to hang around Western Europe and not move about very much.

I’ve decided to completely ignore the 43% British component in my DNA but I do like the Irish element. I’m almost a quarter Irish so that means I can celebrate St Patrick’s Day with some authenticity now instead of faking it like all the other drunks.

The Scandinavian bit must be from the Vikings when they raped and pillaged the Celts and Saxons. I’ll have to get one of those little hats with horns and start naming my pets after characters on Vikings instead of Game of Thrones.

The Ancestry DNA people also send you the names of close and distant cousins who have undergone the testing process.

My closest match was my uncle! I haven’t seen or spoken to my uncle for about twenty-five years (no one in the family has) and it shocked me how accurate these tests must be for them to identify us as a very close match. There are over three million profiles and they matched me with my uncle!

Anyway, yah, I’m off to the spa, yah. I’m going to eat some pickled herrings and meatballs and listen to ABBA songs yah!

Top o the morning to you. May the wind always be at your back and may you be at the gates of heaven an hour before the devil knows you’re dead! It’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love.

Fiddle-dee-dee potatoes!

The Sound of Dust Mites

I have twelve ladies coming for lunch tomorrow and have been cleaning my dusty house so that they don't think I'm a filthy pig. 

I picked up some Gumption at the IGA and it inspired me to write a song (as various things occasionally do). 

You have to sing along in your head to the Youtube song at the bottom of the post... k?

Warning: It's very deep. Very.

The Sound of Dust Mites

Hello Gumption my old friend

I’ve come to scrub with you again

In my vision softly cleaning...

Til my fingers are all bleeding

And the vision that is planted in my brain

Has no stains

Around the kit...chen island.



The counter gleamed, I scrubbed alone

My spouse was on the telephone

And my hand joints ached with raw cramp

I squeezed my sponge into the cold and damp

Then my eyes were stung with the splash of some Ajax White

It blurred my sight

So then I swore... with violence

But in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand dust balls, maybe more

Dust balls gathered on the bench top

Dust balls hiding from the duster mop

Dust balls telling tales... that vacuums never share

They’d never dared

Disturb that mound... of dust mites




Fool was I, you surely know

Dust mites like a cancer grows

"Hear my words that I might teach you

You filthy dust I’m going to reach you"

And my sponge... my silent loofah,  fell

And mopped up… all that mound of dust mites.




And then Pinky bowed and prayed

To the Gumption, God had made

But the label flashed its warning

In the words I saw were forming

And the words said, the stains from the dust are coated on the kitchen walls

And in the halls


They whispered… those mounds of dust mites.

Why School Holidays Rock like Ozzy Osborne

Scozzy Osborne

It was Crazy Hair Day, plus State of Origin Day at school the other day.

The perfect storm for primary students to express their personal identity.

The perfect storm for extravagant silly behaviour, excessive absurdity and disgraceful ambiguousness, and that is just the teachers.

Naturally, I went for it hell for leather.

I wore my maroon Qld supporter’s shirt AND a three foot long, black wig.

The black wig drew a mixed reaction from my class.

One kid regarded me thoughtfully and said, “You should make that your normal, Mrs. Poinker. It looks good on you.”
One kid looked petrified and started firing at me with an imaginary machine gun as if he had come face to face with the queen of the zombie hive of the apocalypse.

To be honest, I only kept the wig on for fifteen minutes and that was only to impress upon the parents who attended morning assembly that I was a bit of a good sport… and also to keep my ears warm in the bitter cold.

When I arrived home from work, Scotto asked me how the wearing of the wig went. After half-heartedly listening to my reply, he then disappeared for a few minutes into the depths of our bedroom.

I gasped in horror when he reappeared around the corner of our bedroom sporting the three foot long black wig looking like Mortcia in drag.

“I’d better not catch you dressed up in that wig and togged up in my undies!” I shrieked in alarm.

He shrugged and grinned.

I worry about Scotto sometimes.

I like the end of term because we do fun things like athletics carnivals.

When I say fun things, I mean fun things for the kids. 

Athletics day feels like the Education Minister has just slammed teachers in the kidneys with a cricket bat. Standing up from 9:00 am until 3:oopm in the hot sun and playing an unending game of Whack a Mole and Herding Cats in an attempt to control multitudes of blue and yellow, zinc sunscreened feral kids… well… that’s a recipe for a grand mal seizure if there ever was one.

But today is the end of term and all is good.

I have three things to look forward to.

Pretty much my entire school teaching mob are coming to my house for lunch on Tuesday for a champagne lunch (note to self: under no circumstance get pissed and reveal true nature and also don't forget to clean dog slobbered back window), I am going to Sydney on a whirlwind trip with my eldest son AND I am returning to my home town to visit my adorable but demanding children for the first time in eighteen months.



I bloody love school holidays!

Bantam of the Opera

Bantam of the Opera

For the last few weeks my cherished rooster, Hodor, has been a bit off.

His appetite is as robust as ever but he keeps stumbling around in an unco-ordinated fashion, like a fluffy, rotund, drunken sailor. He’s still as belligerent as ever, picking fights with the hens and taking feathery chunks out of the magpies’ arses when they try to swoop him, though.

“Do you think he’s been overdoing the ‘making love’ thing with the eight hens?” I asked Scotto (although I didn’t use the actual words ‘making love’ I used a much crasser expression like ‘rooting’). "Eight women would be a lot to maintain."

“What? You think he can’t walk because he has blue balls?” Scotto sniffed in a way that suggested he was slightly envious of the eight women thing.

I shrugged. I don’t even know if roosters have balls.

Luckily for you, I just Googled it and they do have balls which are surprisingly large, look like sausages and taste like Tofu with overtones of chicken liver. If you want to see a picture of rooster balls click here…  Chickens do have balls!


But I can’t locate any balls on Hodor under all the feathery fat.


I suspected he might be too fat so I put him on a diet. He seemed to be tumbling forward as if he was top heavy or something and he definitely looked as if he’d been grazing in the good paddock of late.

A friend of ours who owns chickens recently commented he’d never seen such a fat and oddly shaped rooster.

After a couple of weeks on the diet, there was no improvement so I diagnosed his illness must be a return of the scaly leg mite infection he suffered six months ago when he was paralysed from the waist down and we thought he was about to sadly go the big, meal worm factory in the sky.

Scotto was enlisted as my male nurse and he gently held Hodor as I sprayed his legs with canola oil. 

The rooster’s legs not Scotto’s. 

Then we put him on the grass and doused him with Pesticene. 

Again, the rooster not Scotto.

You should have seen the bloody histrionics. Not only did Hodor play dead but once roused, he bunged on the biggest act I’ve ever seen.

Here’s the video…

You’ll be happy to know he was back strutting around and viciously taking fluffy hunks out of the hen’s necks again this morning.


But I’m going to enrol him in an Academy of Dramatic Arts.

A Short History of Mostly Nothing

Homosapien Frustratusis

Every time I open a new Word document I automatically click on Page Layout, then Margins, then select Narrow Margins, to save paper. Imagine how much time I’d have saved over the last fifteen years if I’d had this set to default. Imagine how much time I will save over the next (hopefully) thirty years, if I set it to default now. An entire year probably.

Speaking of saving time, I’ve discovered how, by this time next year, without using up any drinking time, I can become a veritable genius.

I’ve finally embraced audio books and for the last week I’ve been listening to Bill Bryson’s, "A Short History of Nearly Everything" on my drive to work and back.

I now possess a short bit of knowledge of nearly everything.

I’m trying to find a book called ‘A Not Inconsiderable and Substantial History of Mother Fudging Everything’, which should set me up for life and perhaps proffer me a chance of getting on The Chase and allow me to win a not inconsiderable and substantial amount of money.

My not inconsiderable and substantially lengthy commute to work was starting to give me the not inconsiderable and substantial shits, what with having to listen to jaded radio personalities talking themselves up and Ed Sheeran being played on an endlessly monotonous, whiny loop. 

I was completely over the One Direction/Elton John mix CD Scotto had downloaded for me and it was getting more and more difficult to get out of bed in the freezing cold with nothing to look forward to.

Coldus Thermometus

This is what the temperature was when I ARRIVED at school last week. It was actually 3 degrees a few minutes earlier but by the time my frozen hands managed to get my phone out, the thermometer had gone up a degree.

Don’t feel too sorry for me though because the views I witness at every twist and turn on my journey to work are breathtaking. However, spectacularly striking, verdant, bucolic views can get a bit dreary after a while and I needed some intellectual stimulation.

Enter… audio books.

Ask me about mitochondria… go on…

Or ask me about the discovery of cyanobacteria fossils in the Cambrian period. I can wax lyrical about Cambrian fossils now.

(To be truthful, I tend to tune out on the extremely technical stuff the narrator garbles on with but I had a nightmare last week that I coughed up my lung. This was because I'd heard the narrator talking about a guy who coughed up the mucous lining of his larynx when he was climbing Mt Everest and it was one thing that clearly didn't go in one ear and out the other.)

I can listen to all sorts of stuff and fill my mind with all kinds of clever things over the next six months; the world’s my oyster (or member of genera Saccostrea and Crassostrea, to be precise).

“Would you like to know about how plants and trees evolved out of the primordial swamp?” I asked Scotto as we strolled around the botanical gardens this afternoon.

“No,” he grunted, pressing his thumbs into his temples and grimacing.

You don’t want to know either, do you?

Oh well, here are some nice photographs I took which you can look at instead.

P.S. Sorry I called Ed Sheeran whiny, but I personally feel he is.

P.P.S. This entire post was just a ruse to show off photos of our beautiful mountain so if you want to start saving time in your own life, don’t read my posts, just look at the pictures.

P.P.P.S I don't mean that.

Attractivus Treesus

Peacefulus Pondite

Wankerius Photograperite attempting Creativus Shotite

Anotherus Treeus

Eucalyptus Barkius

Treeus what has lost its Leavius known as Deciduitis

Orangeus Treeus

Kooaburrus Singolarusising in Non-Gum Treeus

Photographaris Tripping Overi and Snappingus Accidental Photogravis

Who the Hell was it?

I’m breathless with excitement.

Literally twenty minutes ago, I was here...

at Mel Gibson’s pub up on the mountain, having lunch with Scotto… and now I’m back home and feeling very distracted. 

I saw an actual celebrity at lunch!

When I say ‘Mel Gibson’s Pub’, I don’t mean it’s actually Mel Gibson’s pub. 

My mother told me that Mel Gibson used to live there with his large family and sold it and whoever bought it turned it into a pub. We’ve since asked the staff there and they say my mother was talking rubbish. 

Apparently Mel Gibson came and looked at the property about twenty years ago but never bought it. I don’t even know if that’s bullshit or not to tell the truth. Anyway, we still call it Mel Gibson’s pub which is a much better name than the Eagle Heights Hotel (which is what it’s called).

So we were just sitting waiting for our bruschetta at Mel Gibson’s pub, when a helicopter started circling the sky above us and began its descent to the helipad at the back of the beer garden.

“It might be a celebrity,” I commented as I sipped my piccolo of champagne. “Maybe it’s Mel Gibson. Wouldn't that be ironic?”

“Maybe it’s Schapelle Corby!” quipped Scotto dryly.

I shrugged. Who cares about that flibbertigibbet?

Our meals arrived and we tucked in.

As I was chewing through my bread, a particularly tall and handsome, bronzed man strutted past us, accompanied by a short man in a uniform, a woman and two children. 

They’d clearly just alighted from the helicopter.

“God, he’s a bit handsome,” I said as I ruminated on a piece of lettuce.. “I think he’s so damn handsome he must be famous.”

“I think he’s the helicopter pilot,” munched Scotto.

“Hell of a handsome helicopter pilot then,” I masticated loudly. 

“I wouldn't mind flying his helicopter,” I added surreptitiously into my glass.

The Nordic God-like creature walked into the bar area and out of sight.

“If you go and ask that handsome man who he is I’ll give you five dollars,” I challenged Scotto whilst chomping on my tomato and fetta. “He was so handsome he has to be a celebrity from America or something.”

“I think you can stop saying handsome so much,” Scotto gnawed on a chip.

“Who can it be?” I shrilled. “He had two kids... and a rather plain wife, don't you think? I wonder who it could be?”
The handsome man suddenly emerged from the bar with the man in uniform, who was the actual (rather unattractive) helicopter pilot.

“It’s bloody Jon Snow!” I blurted out in a not so quiet voice.

I saw the handsome man falter in his step and glance over at our table.

It definitely wasn’t Jon Snow because this guy was tall and light-haired and bloody handsome as.

I just couldn’t think of any other actors at the time. I hope he didn’t hear me because I might have hurt his feelings saying he was Jon Snow.

He sort of looked like a tall, long-haired Christopher Pine/Chris Hemsworth and he looked like he had a bit of money what with the helicopter and all.

God, we arrived in Scotto’s Veloster and I thought THAT was flash.

Who arrives to lunch in a helicopter except really, really famous people?

Does anyone on the Gold Coast have any idea who it could have been? I'm quite desperate to know. 

It's not fair seeing a celebrity when you don't know who it is.

Happy Birthday Scotto Poinker!

It’s Scotto’s birthday tomorrow. We bought his presents together, last weekend.

“Do you want me to wrap your presents?” I asked today, hoping he’d note the distinct lack of enthusiasm in my voice.

“No that’s okay,” he said.

“Do you care if I don’t get you a card? I hate those Hallmark shysters. Besides, cards are bad for the environment.”
“No,” he said quietly. “That’s okay.”

“I’ll send you a Facebook message,” I offered.

“Okay,” he sighed.

Scotto always wraps my presents in pink tissue paper, pink ribbon and an accompanying card with a lovely message inside. Even when I asked for a laminator for my birthday, the wrapping made it look as though he’d bought at Tiffany’s in Paris.

He’s very romantic and I’m not really.

But I love him for that. God, my ex-husband used to give me a Christmas card with “Thanks for all your help during the year” written on it.

Do you know that long before I met Scotto I used to read about him in a magazine?

His Dad was a big fish in the publishing world and wrote a funny article every week in a national magazine. It was all about his family and he used to affectionately make fun of his son, Scotto, who had the pseudonym, “Brick for Brains”.
I used to read the article every week, never knowing I would one day be married to Brick for Brains.

He’s a good sport my Scotto. Now he’s married to a blogger who makes him her straight man/foil in her ravings. 

Ironic huh?

So, happy birthday Scotto, my darling husband.

Thank you for getting me coffee in the morning on weekends, even though I get it for you five times a week so I shouldn’t have to say thanks because I actually do it more times than you.

Thank you for letting me have all my animals and especially thank you for not throttling the rooster which I know annoys you quite a lot with his crowing.

Thank you for being a softy and almost letting me buy that puppy at Cararra Markets even though we already have four ungrateful dogs.

Thank you for not judging me when I sit watching the telly with a hair curler in my fringe and no front tooth.

Thank you for always believing in me and sticking up for me even when my side of the story is a bit dodgy.

Thank you for indulging me in my conspiracy theories and agreeing that thumb print recognition on my iPhone is yet another devious form of government data collection.

Thank you for cleaning up dog vomit because you know I can’t stomach it and let me clean up the poo which you can’t stomach.

And above all, thank you for not making me fork out on a crappy birthday card.

Love you.



xxx

Dodgy Stuff

We walked into a restaurant for lunch today and I insisted (as I always do) on sitting so that I faced the entrance.

“I have to sit facing the door,” I declared to Scotto, “because, if some drug crazed, ice addict maniac comes through the door wielding a fudging knife, I want to be able to escape quickly.”

“You would give me a heads up he was coming though?” Scotto asked, glancing behind him and looking a bit nervous.

“You’d notice me jumping off the balcony,” I replied, sipping my champagne with a sense of airy nonchalance.

It’s not that we frequent restaurants in dodgy areas with rampant ice addicts much.

I said the same thing in the school staff room last week.

My colleagues just nodded in agreement and continued eating their ham salads. They get me.

“You’re an overly superstitious person, Pinky,” Scotto scoffed, and knocked the salt shaker over whilst dramatically gesturing to make his point. 

Salt went everywhere.

“Which shoulder am I supposed to throw this over again?” he queried anxiously.

“Throw it over your left shoulder,” I whispered in a sinister fashion. “The devil is hiding behind your left shoulder.”

“I don’t believe your rubbish,” he said as he tossed the salt, “But there's no harm in playing it safe.”

“What do you believe then?” I challenged.

“Well I do believe that if you’re driving and there’s a crow in the middle of the road and it doesn’t get out of your way, then you have to turn around and go the other way.”

“What if you don’t hit it because you swerve?” I asked.

His brow furrowed, “I think that would be okay.”

Personally, if I ever ran over a crow I’d pull over immediately and call a priest. I’m terrified of bloody crows.

But the point of this post, my friends, is dodgy restaurants. 

We went to lunch at a quite posh winery a few weeks ago.

I should have known it was a bit strange when the butter came out in those little foil packets and the bread rolls were enveloped in cling wrap. That's bloody weird.

As we were leaving, Scotto had to use the toilet so I walked through the foyer and stood out the front, twiddling my thumbs and scrutinising the sizeable bill.

I suddenly had the urge to turn around and who should I spy through a random window but Scotto looking very studious whilst performing his ablutions?

Not sure what he was grinning about.

Interesting concept for a water feature, I thought to myself.

“Hello sailor!” I said to his face, framed adorably in the window.

He looked up and grinned sheepishly…

What a lovely greeting for all those tourists arriving on the bus that pulls up out the front…

some random bloke taking a whizz.

Well that’s my blog for the week.

Hope you’re all well and love you all!

Pinky.