Introducing Jameson Heggen

Hi everyone I am delighted to introduce you to Jamieson Heggen (I don't know the middle name yet)
Born 25.11.08 at 3:30pm (A month before Jesus)
Over 8 pounds
Mother had a tough time but all are well!

EDIT
The spelling is actually Jameson with no i
Also Jamie is doing a lot better and is in the maternity ward with Jameson

Busy

Sorry pets but I’m busy with my memoirs this week. Here are some snaps that all too obviously do not include any newborn babes. Perhaps by Christmas we’ll have something to report. At least Alice Jack and Kevin have made it through the year. Looking forward to seeing you all soon

Love xox

aunty

Least you forget your favorite aunt and fabulous photographer

Some of your other relatives

The Jacks



Its hard to be paparazzi Ade would cooperate but not that minx Gab


Only mat would pose

Anxious Wait

Wow! Will someone remind me to die before I get old? Just as Roger Daltery espoused in ‘My Generation’, that is my wish. Of course in the terms in which he was speaking (um singing) I’m already more than double old though I guess by now he, just like I, has compromised his early convictions. You don’t have to be old to be boring but it certainly helps. I just wasted $25 on Jan Preston at the Harp in Tempe. She did an impressive version of Black and White rag with dedications to Winerfred Atwell who in every respect other than being dead she wishes to emulate. It was almost as good as yours in your prime Hugh. Jan’s not bad but as we all know entertainment is all in the context. Here in Tempe playing to this apparently temperate concert style (ahem) crowd of thirty six citizens who I’m tempted to think were recruited from amongst parishioners at this mornings Methodist Tabernacle meeting. Tempered by the managerial / name on the door crowd, I would be surprised if twenty are, as I am, cash committed to having a good time and bless their bleeding hearts in these dire economic conditions $25 was probably their budget and they cannot afford a glass of happiness.

No matter how hard she tried to woo this ‘crowd’ it was never going to be the ripping hoot that I had experienced along with hundreds of other bawdy inebriates at Thredbo a few years ago. Thus it is that despite the promoters personal introduction at interval you find me here instead boring you with irrelevancies.

Continuing in this theme of irrelevancies I’m noticing an increasing trend for people to impersonate me in my rokstump blog photo, or maybe it’s Johnny Depp the pirate who knows? Fact is there are a lot of people wandering around with birds on their shoulders. Mostly parrot variations though there’s a guy in Glebe with a disastrous pigeon. I suppose if you can put up with the stench of guano it would inhibit flies and other annoying insects, but not bird lice I suppose - Mmmm major disadvantage.

Yes of course all this irrelevance is, as you perceptively saw, just my way of hiding nerves regarding the arrival of my (Great nephew whatever) next relative. Here I sit waiting on the seventeenth for a flight that I’m sure was booked some nine months ago for the sixteenth, and still there are no certain signs of take off. Man has, by this twenty first century, invented computers with clocks that know when daylight saving begins, not to mention a great deal more that I have no time for now. Women though, ah they still run in their own frustrating time frames (if frames is not too strong a word) paying no regard to mans strict schedules and frustrating all our attempts to – well - not get frustrated.

I could call Dot but she’ll be waiting by the phone for news and will think that this is it and I will only disappoint. Gott’a keep the lines clear in times like these dontch’a. My phones never been so charged and the land line is only there for telemarketers and survey services it seems. I know I won’t sleep tonight. Better have another wine.

For you my fair existing relatives living in far off barren and barbaric lands beyond the seas I have pickt a posy of flowers on my morning walk through Marrickville

Oh yes and I've nominated for membership of this club






And from my own garden this magnificent compromise to an otherwise 24/7 Buffalow

Dear lovely Kel and luscious Cat

Woke very early today with a much clearer image of what Frank Zappa must have meant when he asked “did you ever wake up in the morning with the zombie wolf behind your eyes?” Only now after pain killers, coffees, a number of naps, food, time and the essential hair of the dog can I begin to contemplate the mistakes of, and make resolutions based on the past twenty four hours. The problem as I see it seems to have its root in my great popularity. This time last week Kara had invited me as her date to this ‘truly mad party at Saratoga, dahling’ on Saturday night. Mercifully she either forgot or found a better prospect as I heard no more of it and did not have to invent a simpering lame excuse.

Later in the week Cynthia invited me for a BBQ in return for a tap washer replacement lesson on Sunday. This would be much easier accommodated, though I would probably need a few tools which no longer seem to be at hand and to this end I would drop in on Walter on the way. Here I was surprised to find to whole family at home and Micky insisting that when I returned with the tools I should stay for dinner. Around about this time Hugh called wondering whether I would be going to the Newtown fair and as I recall I made plans to meet him there.

So the stage was set. Lesson completed and comfortably ensconced under Cynthia’s Jacaranda in full bloom with little more care than to avoid busy bees and pluck mauve blossoms from bubbles that had to be quickly dispatched whilst still cool. Cynthia seemed in no particular hurry to commence the BBQ and I feeling more guest than teacher by now did not hurry her. A couple of bottles and an excellent meal including Cynthia’s wonderful potato au gratin later, I was making excuses to leave when a couple of her friends happened by and I succumbed to her entreaty to stay another bottle longer.

Early evening at Walter’s I watched Micky screw the top from a bottle of red as she placed vegetables and a rack of lamb into the oven and my resolve to join Hugh at the Newtown fair began to wane. Oddly obesity, which had been a topic of conversation in this household from that morning, was still afloat till late that night without anyone noticing any irony. Other topics included workplace and political integrity, child care centres and incompetent government, all irony noted.

Back home I did display great forethought in drinking copious quantities of water and resisting the urge for more wine, bravo.

Luckily enough there has been little that is newsworthy to report this week. A horse won the Melbourne Cup and a bloke won the US Presidential race. Had it been the other way around, just as that fabled editor once pointed out using the story of the dog the man and the bite to illustrate, it would certainly have been newsworthy. Of course I’m an Obama man just as I was a Rudd man and would be happy to be a Reece man but I become disillusioned when seemingly principled people begin to behave as politicians. Of course I well know that politics is corrupting but I am always lured in by hope, just as those taken by the Nigerian fax scam must be, that this one will be different. I should probably send Mr. Obama a letter and a copy to Misters Rudd and Reece explaining my views thus giving them the benefit of knowledge of my expectations. Yes that sounds fair, otherwise their just groping in the dark. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

Glad to hear from your emails that you two young lassies are behaving as your dear auntie would wish and am looking forward to Christmas.

Lots of love

Aunty



Caption if you can.



Rabbits bring out the hunter in Walter

Is it any wonder that people queue to wash up here

In some of Glebes dress circle streets it seems wasteful only to have magnificent trees both sides

There are some magnificent houses

Though some are haunted

Those among you who have doubts should note this just a few doors away

It's got me wondering, maybe I could get married, again.

Proximity of transport is a major advantage here

I

Melbourne Cup

Every year it’s the same, Melbourne cup day comes and I suffer from a sense of detachment. Like a Frenchman who doesn’t drink wine I feel alien. I want to belong but can’t seem to get my foot in the stirrup. My first love was Red Wings the plump bay filly, still part wild animal, who loved to run and compete. Why then do I find it so hard to connect on this iconic Australia day?

Each year I resolve to let it pass like Anzac and Australia day, Easter whatever, accepting the mercenary value of the statutory holiday without an emotional hangover, but this day, not even a holiday unless you’re a southerner always seems to get under my skin. Maybe it’s its larrikin appeal as apposed to the war torn or religious that gets me. Whatever it is I always find myself thinking that I need to punt but having no interest in or knowledge of how this is done I’m left outside. I count the bird calls on the morning walk, listen carefully to the guy with blazing eyes who assures me he’s not insane but feels he is turning into Jesus, consider the coincidence of meeting Leith from Bunnings doing the gardening at my next door neighbour bar one and try to see the pattern that will lead to winnings exactly equalling a new clutch. Of course I fail as I have no frame of reference in which to distil this information.

Its not just my inability to profit from this exciting event, as all others surely do, it’s the inability to relate to my fellow man. When the barmaid asks “who are you backing?” or the waiter asks “how did you go?” “Um” is the most coherent they get from me. I go to the TAB and stare as everyone else does at paper lists and screens that are incomprehensible but unlike my fellow starers am petrified least someone ask me, well anything that might reveal my bewildered lack of panache in these matters.

Is there a website at which I can learn, escape, find solace in distain, or at least like minded company and if not is there a need out there for such a service? I mean, does anyone else feel as I do?

R

Um

Dear Sweet Nieces

In her well balanced attempt to make memorable the beginning of my sixty fourth year in this life, Alice treated my yesterday to lunch at Doyle’s Restaurant at Watson’s Bay. Yes for quite a few hours we left our mortal lives in Stanmore and McMahons Point and joined up with the rich tourists, brokers and money launderers to live the high life we were born for. Cajun style barramundi that would have brought tears to the eyes of Ben at The Duke, washed down with a couple of bottles of Jansz convinced us we were the peers of Paris (not seen around much anymore) and the Tozzi twins.

Set to a Magical Mystery Tour theme I met Alice as appointed at Circular Quay and received my first clue by text’d inquiry whether my senior’s ticket covered ferries. As you all know there is no better appetite stimulant than the salt breeze of an ocean voyage so on arrival after stopovers in exotic Double and Rose Bays we were more than ready. Our table indoors on this cloudy though rain free day presented through open doors a perfect and unimpeded aspect of our dynamic CBD across sail studded waters framed by the rolling green cleavage of Middle Head and Vaucluse.

Daughter like father has no concept of enough so we wolfed down more sparkles at the Watson’s Bay Hotel as the ferry came in for the return trip after the obligatory ‘juror’s tour’ inspection of the Gap to inform ourselves as to the alleged guilt of Gordon ‘Gordy’ Woods. Back in town we could not resist the serendipity of our arrival with the departure of the ferry to McMahons Point and after a dry climb up that headland is it any wonder that we needed further bubbles from the conveniently located liquor store next to Alice’s place. Jack had spent the day writing songs and recording them with his brother’s new housemate Gordy, or something like that, who is well past six and a half feet tall and we all played Alice’s new edition of trivial pursuit. I recollect far too many references to Gordy as spear chucker, most of them by myself unfortunately.

We thought it likely that a Doors cover band with me as lizard like Jim Morrison, not reincarnated, more raised zombie like from the dead, could make a killing on the ever growing seniors Nursing Home Circuit. To this end Jack would today buy for me a super duper hand held recording gadget on which I could record the brilliant compositions I dream up on my morning walks. In the cold (no quite hot really) light of day it turns out that with the collapse of the Aussie $ this machine has doubled in price and the new clutch in my five gear, four wheel, three cylinder, one clutch Daihatsu Charade will cost over nine hundred dollars. Though they have fallen in value by some forty percent dollars still must be earned one by one it seems. Last night when I was a master of the universe I clearly remember, as I had rehearsed it many times in my mind, that if it were more than five hundred to put a miserable clutch (isn’t it time technology buried these things) in my seven hundred dollar car, I would buy another. Today I have folded like the bad poker player I am and am going to spend 1.3%+ of the cost price on one component and my Tozzi peerage is in taters. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll win back this money on the Melbourne Cup but as I’m not horse , jockey or punter that too seems unlikley

I wonder do the Tozzis, Murdocks, Packers and their like ever have nights on the piss when they think they are poor waifs condemned to crouch and haul coal carts in thirty degree inclining tunnels to support their families and pay off their debt only to wake to the reality that they are masters of the universe and married to insects.

Yep your right, even I don’t know what I’m on about now. I’ll let these pictures speak instead as I have heard their worth a thousand words.

PS. I suspect Kell that by now you have heard of the Great ‘Gack’ Coogee Bay Hotel Poo scandal but least this has not yet burst the bubble of your life please consult me before you take Mart to your once favourite watering hole.

Aunty


That's us, just out of view behind this shot.


Ah! So it is.

Happy birthday to me

Mmmm! If I were a Bee

Isn't that that, what's his name, Rolf Harris?

Love, laugh and drink wine!

Hey y'all, 

As the London countdown to Oz continues, I thought I better remind you all of what Kelly and I looked like (with our Kiwi friend Erin). 

We went to a Wine Festival last Saturday with wines and spirits to taste from all over the world. You paid your entry, they gave you a glass and we all thanked god that England has very relaxed alcohol service laws.

I'm sure Auntie would have been proud of his nieces and the amount of alcohol they were able to consume (particularly his younger one, as she started the day with a martini hang over from the James Bond Party the night before).

Love you all and can't wait to see you!!!

xoxo

Cat