Sheds

Solid rain for the last 2 days, it is amazing how it can be an unbearable 36 degrees one day then torrential rain and 11 degrees the next. Warm duvets back out of storage, sweat shirts on.
I did another locum stint this week. Fortunately Ralph the pet carpet python was brought in for a health check on a day I was not on duty. Clinical notes read 'Looks Ok to me'.

Working 2 days a week for a while, so I have made a major purchase so that I can get to work without Ness having to pack up the van and give me a lift. A $20 mountain bike from a garage sale. Ok, so it cost another $50 to fix it up with thorn proof inner tubes and get it all going, but I will be cycling 8 km to work from now on. Ness collected it from the mender man and did the maiden trip on Friday while I was at work. She has bought a pastel blue cycle helmet with flowers on which I am looking forward to wearing enormously.

Enjoying the opportunity to watch the Australian Open tennis this week, despite the dreadful sexist commentator who patronisingly calls the women players 'girls' and constantly comments on their breasts, backsides and thigh length. It makes me retrospectively miss the BBC, and ad breaks every 3 minutes do not enhance the experience.

Also extremely tiring being a couch sports fan- it is hot in Melbourne, so the key matches are played at night under floodlights. We managed to stay up until 2 am watching the Roddick 5 setter, but I confess that we fell asleep last night and missed Hewitt's marathon which ended at 4.30am.

Meanwhile, back to the tv ads. I assume the costs involved are not high over here because they are all of the very provincial type with the bloke who works in the local DIY store badly stumbling through an autocue script urging us to buy power tools at bonzer prices. The wobbly low budget Acorn Antiques style sets on many ads are priceless.

My favourite currently is fairdinkum sheds ( I kid you not ). Apparently you can visit their website where there is an exciting competition- you view photos of sheds and vote for the ‘daggiest’ shed. The winner of this thrilling experience will win......a shed!

They love their sheds here, with real estate agents giving more details of the abundant shedding than they do the property. M & N even viewed a property which had a house and an enormous shed which had another house in it. The shed had been described in detail but the presence of a 2 bedroom house was not deemed worthy of comment.

Subtlety is missing in most ads, with the tag line for buying Australian lamb is because it is ‘bloody nice’, and Medibank the health insurers sponsoring the tennis plug their preventative men’s health screens with the voice-over ‘new balls please’.

The shed competiton does however not beat the photography competiton in ‘Outback’ magazine where viewers submitted humorous pictures of their boots, and the lucky winner received....a pair of boots.