It's only a house

Well let me tell you about the story of a strange little house. Remember, that this happened to be a conversation on a Friday night…

Ring Ring... Ring Ring...
Me (B): Hello!
Michelle (M): Hi B, I was wondering what you are doing tomorrow, as we want your opinion of a house we are looking at?
B: Ummm... nothing much, but the other 'B' has asked me to look through a house too...
M: Oh, he has gotten to you first has he? Well we really like it, and would like to get your opinion...
Yeah that’s fine... where and what time and do you want to meet, here or at the house?
M: Well it’s at ... (address inserted here) ... It has 4 bedrooms, study, L shaped lounge/dining, a rear deck, and kitchen overlooking a deck on the side of the house...
B: Oh umm… does it happen to have an entrance from the side of the house rather than from a 'Front Door'?
M: Yeah..
B: And is this entrance from under a single carport by chance??
M: (Now very suspicious of my questioning...) Yeah why??
B: Can I call you back in a little bit, and upon the ok of this I hung up and called my friend 'A'

B: Hi A, what are you up to?
A: Nothing much, I am at work you know...
B: Yeah I know, but I’ve got a quick question to ask?? What is your old home address in ... (insert suburb here...)?
A: (address inserted here)... why??
B: Oh umm... I will tell you later... Ok?? Of which she said yeah and I hung up...

B: Hi Michelle... How much is this house, and I will tell you who the seller is!!!
M: Oh, ok... it’s $$$$ Why? You know who owns it don’t you???
B: Of course I do... It happens to be 'A's' MUMS!
M: “Oh S*#T” she says... And an ongoing conversation ensues...

About an hour later when 'A' finished work, and had looked it up on the net to confirm the family home she had grown up in was for sale even though she had been told it would not be ready for sale until the end of NOVEMBER!!!

A sounded quite upset about the sale, a feeling I am only too aware of, as I felt the same when after dad died mum sold up. Not for any reason other than it was a bit too big for her to maintain...

Saturday...
After arriving at the house, we parked out the front and waited for M, but after about 5-10 mins, decided to just go on in and get a look at it...
Not bad really for the money, but it was looking a little 'tired' nothing a lick of paint and either replacing the carpets or polishing the floor boards wouldn’t hurt. Whilst we were looking through the house, a familiar looking face was walking up the driveway with a grin from ear to ear, having parked her car out the front, and noticing/recognising the new Prius parked opposite. At the same time, L was smiling at her colleague walking up the driveway. After about 15-20 mins of looking at the house, 'kicking the tyres' sort of thing if you were looking at a car, we all agreed that the house had a value at the lower end of the bracket it was being offered at. One good thing came out of all of this, A has not been lucky enough to see her nephew, and there sitting on the shelving was a photo of him. And what’s more, we were tricky enough to be able to distract the agent, so I got a snap of him with my camera phone (Nokia 3660) and sent her an email, or was it an SMS? Either way, A was grateful of finally getting to see him.

We stayed there for almost the entire open house (45 mins) and after several phone calls to M, they had made a wrong turn and were lost. We waited for the agent to leave, upon which M arrived with family in tow.

So, all in all, forget about 6 degrees of separation… I as a much younger boy, had the odd party or two in this house, looked through it for friends who want to buy the house, and we had friends who were looking through the house as well. AND, whats more, the aunty of the colleague of L, looks as though I went to school with in primary school… All too freaky for me!

the last one to leave the nest

well she actually left the 'nest' a long time ago, in fact she was the first to leave the nest, being the most independent of us 4 siblings. Anyway, congratulations to the Next-Sister-Down who has announced her engagement to partner Paddy - and no he isn't Irish.

3 weeks old or thereabouts

thanx to S, R and M for joining us this evening, we hoped you enjoyed B's Sticky Chicky for dinner. And a big thanx for the additional guests you sprung on us.......

kittens
Met unnamed, unnamed, smudge and willow.

afg57g

man driving white ford, registration AFG 57G, with a 'baby on board' sign, east bound on the M4 this afternoon. Does your wife/partner know you drive like an absolute lunatic? Travelling at least 20kms over the speedlimit is dangerous and it really ticks me off that you were almost in my boot before rudely overtaking. Maybe you should stick the 'baby on board' sign on the dash to remind yourself to drive more carefully. Why should the rest of us have any care and consideration for you, you arrogant, self-centred road hog, if you don't drive more responsibly.

Also, you probably did not notice, but I was travelling at the speedlimit (ok just over it in some places) and you didn't get that far ahead. Hardly worth putting yourself (and I'm only thinking of the 'baby') and the rest of us at risk.

molly dye dinner success

success, success, success. No burnt offering this evening. We had the most delicious dinner care of my erratic culinary skills, and an almost foolproof* recipe care of the Molly Dye section in The Sunday Telegraph from a couple of weeks back, submitted by Lesleigh McLeod, of Camp Hill.

Thank you Lesleigh, for your recipe for Honey Lamb, it was delicious, and since you were kind enough to share it with NSW, I'm sure you won't mind me sharing it on our website. It will also guarantee that I won't lose it, like all the other recipes torn out from the newspaper.


*foolproof if you read past the ingredients and through the instructions and note that the recipe requires 1.5 hours cooking time covered and an additional 20 minutes uncovered. Something I didn't do and resulted in us sitting down to dinner not before 9.30pm.

the day the greyhounds have their picnic

although a bit overcast and cold, we wouldn't miss the GAP annual picnic for anything.

Macc and co....
Macc just loves being with other greyhounds, having an Aussie Pooch Mobile bath, and taking second prize in the raffle, which will see him sporting a flash new collar with his name embroidered on it.

Dog Wash AGM 2005
B and I on the other hand just love catching up with other greyhound owners. One of the people there had a great t-shirt from an American online store Fast Jack Sportswear. You just gotta love those designs.

Best Buns Comp 2005
The sausage sizzle wasn't bad either. Our contribution of the Sare Lee chocolate slab cake was a bit of a disaster though - it helps to read the instructions - remove paper and plastic whilst cake is still frozen - as we didn't do this, the chocolate cake lost its icing.

update... although be warned!!

Just to bring you all up to whats been happening here in the world of burntofferings....

L has been for a barage of tests. These tests have been for everyknown form of Hepatitis; HIV and Hormone levels just to name a few. The results show she has no Hep, she is HIV negative and all in all, she has a problem with her insulin levels!!! Why I hear you ask? Wait and we will see if you can guess after I tell you of the test I went for!

My test, what a joke! I had to pay $90 bucks just to have a bit of pleasure! Thats right, $90 bucks to have a wank and supply some sperm for analysis. Do you get the picture yet? And whats more, I got $50 something bucks back!

Yes we have started down the path of IVF. I wont bore you with ALL of the details over the coming months, but it will involve daily blood tests, could involve daily ultrasounds to determine amount of eggs being released, and best of all (not according to L), the daily injections with an epipen!

So hopefully soon, we will have some sort of news for you... Stay tuned!

Flyby Melbourne

I have just returned from a flying visit to Melbourne for a workshop. Not very well thought out on my part, although my excuse is the last minute nature of the bookings. I went down the day before the workshop although arrived too late to do any shopping, and the workshop took up all of Tuesday, finishing as the shops shut, and I was booked to fly home that day. I should have stayed over, but I was there on business. Although, I did manage a look through the windows of Douglas and Hope, a quick look through Alice Euphemia, and discovered Hello Georgous where I purchased a really cheap pair of slip-ons. The highlight of the visit though was being able to catch up with the (not so) little brother, who was in Melbourne for Uni. We had dinner together at my favourite little Cafe Andiamo in Degraves St. It was really great to catch up and the Penne Marinara and sticky toffee pudding was heaven after almost a week of rice.

from the sick bed

I only managed one day at work last week. After a fairly productive long weekend around the house and garden, which saw two trips to the tip, and a trip to the riding school to pick up horse poo for the garden, tuesday night saw me come down with some sort of 'bug'. It has not been pretty around here at all, and even though I have done nothing but sleep and make trips to the bathroom, I am completely exhausted. I am going to have to get some energy fast though, as tomorrow I fly to Melbourne for a workshop on Tuesday, returning to Sydney that night. Oh woe is me!

But enough of the self pity - if I hadn't been sick I might not have had a visit from A, or got to see 'Three Dollars', which A kindly brought with her. Great movie even if the ending was a bit sudden. Also, I got to have lots of snuggles with our latest houseguest 'Winston' the Littlest Sister's Tonkinese kitty kat. He is very affectionate and although we were a little bit anxious as to how he would go with his four legged cousins and vice versa, we had no problems. Although Jasmine was a little outsparkled by the fancy collar little Winn sported (made by the littlest sister).

Winston

Winston's collar

DA has now been lodged...

As you (may) have noticed, the website is down...

This is not a permanent thing, and it will be back!!!

So stay tuned!