Christmas Day

Christmas Day I went out to my parents' place in the morning. This is the Christmas tree Dad got from next to a train track or somewhere:

Adam and Grandma and Uncle Mike came over for lunch.

After Grandma and Uncle Mike left we used the giant skateboard I found in the street last year.

In the evening we went out to Uncle Philip and Auntie Wendy's place, to have tea with dad's family. Adam was going to give me a lift back to Noble Park so I could catch the train home, but his car ran out of petrol, and stopped while we were going up a hill. I had to get out and push the car up the hill, until it would roll on it's own. We got more petrol, but I missed the last train.

The Noble Park bull

Last night we had tea at Adam's place in Noble Park. One of his friends cooked us some chicken, so we went around to her place to pick it up, and there is a bull on the vacant lot behind her house:

When we lived in Noble Park I remember there was a vacant block where some people had sheep, and when I was really little we had goats in our back yard.

Club lockout for Melbourne CBD?

Have just been reading in The Age about plans for a lockout for clubs in Melbourne's CBD ('Hoon "lockout" plan for clubs'). It would mean that after a certain time, people wouldn't be able to go into a club. That would hopefully mean that there'll be less drunk people out on the street, because they wouldn't able to go from one club to another. They tried this in Ballarat when I lived there, and it seemed to work pretty well. I'm not sure if it would work real well in Melbourne though, because like Chris Duthie (from Melbourne East Police) says in the article, if the lockout just in the CBD, the problems are likely to just move to various inner suburban areas.
It also brings to mind the five o'clock swill. There used to be a law that alcohol couldn't be served after six o'clock. (My great-grandfather John McCue, known as 'Victoria's most famous wowser', apparently supported these laws.) It was supposed to stop people from drinking too much, but it actually meant that just before six o'clock everyone would order heaps of alcohol and drink it really quickly, just before the pub closed. So you ended up with heaps of really drunk people out on the street at the same time. Could the lockout mean that everyone decides to travel between clubs just before lockout time? That would mean there'd be heaps of drunk people all out in the street at once.
What do you think?

Grandpa Chaucer

A few weeks back, this guy who comes to lunch at Credo asked me if I could help him research his family history online, because he doesn't know much about where his family came from or anything. Anyway, we found a bit about his family, including that the Queen of England is his seventh cousin twice removed, and that his 20th great grandfather was Chaucer.

Adam's new house

This morning I caught the train down to Noble Park to help Adam move into his new house. We lived in Noble Park until I was almost 15, and I think Adam was about 12. Adam's moved back there to do stuff with Urban Neighbours of Hope.
I got there fairly early, so I had a bit of a wander around.

This is where we went to Primary School:

This is where we got haircuts, bought five cents worth of lollies and got fish and chips for tea:

This is the street we lived in:

And this was our house:

(When we lived there it had heaps of trees out the front, but the new people cut them all down.)
This is the UNOH van, which Adam used to move his stuff:

(The van was painted by the kids from Springstarz, which is a kids program that they run in Springvale.)
Adam's new place is on top of a shop, just off the main street, and he works at the Salvos across the road. Here's some pictures:

Ferntree Gully community dinner

On Wednesday my brother Adam turned 21, so I went out to the community dinner that Adam and Justin and our parents are involved with at the Ferntree Gully Guides Hall.
This is Justin toasting Adam with a piece of birthday cake:

Justin's 18th, new resis and Airys Inlet

Last night I was at Justin's 18th. One of his friends said, 'Oh, it's Justin's brother! The one and only!' and shook my hand and told his girlfriend, 'He's known as Justin the First!' I had a Twisties sandwich. There was much talk of Clockface.
We have new resis moving in this weekend. Andy started moving up from Geelong yesterday, and Gemma is getting here from Sydney late tonight. Tomorrow the seven of us are going down to Aireys Inlet for resi retreat, and on Wednesday the rest of the staff will be coming down for staff retreat, so we can talk about many Big Fat Important Things.

Back from India for Mother's Day

Last night I made two chocolate ripple cakes. One was for Stella, because I ate her chocolate ripple cake about two weeks ago, and the other one was for Mum, becuase it's was Mother's Day today.
So I caught the first train out this morning, so I could go to church with Mum, and one of the elders who was at the door welcoming eveyone as they came in said, 'Chris! You're back from India!' (Except I've never been out of Australia, let alone to India.)

What's been going on

Haven't blogged for a while (but have been updating on how Dad is) because I've been very busy and pretty exhausted.
Dad's been recovering really quickly, so he's going to be discharged tomorrow morning, only four days after his operation.
We've been doing orientation stuff with the new residents (Dave and Stella), which is mostly training and workshops and stuff to help prepare them for the year. On Thursday we did training for responding to heroin overdoses, and the next day (Australia Day) we responded to the first overdose of the year, and people started turning up for a barbeque I'd organised, while the paramedics were trying to get this guy to take narcan!
We had my 'travelling Nana' (last year she went to Borneo, this year she's going to Vietnam and Cambodia) over for dinner.
Last night I went with Bevan to see this band Maverick play at The Stork, in Elizabeth Street. Then this afternoon I was walking through Chinatown to The Den, with Nomes and Stella, and someone yelled out something like, 'Hey, man in the orange t-shirt!' and I expected that I probably had imagined it, but then someone grabbed my arm and said, 'Hey you came and saw us last night!' I had no idea who she was for a sec (I think she had sunglasses on) and had to try and remember what I'd been doing the night before, then realised she was from the band.
Just been skating on the roof of the carpark down the street, and someone was leaning out the window of one of the buildings across the street, yelling out, 'Hi! Hi!' and waving, so I waved back.

My dad's in hospital

Some oof yous will already know this, but my dad had a heart attack on Sunday so he's been in hospital since then, having tests and stuff. Me and my mum have been in to visit him a bit and he seems fairly well, but pretty annoyed that he's not going to be able to go home for a while. This morning we found out that he's going to have to have open heart surgery so that they can do a triple bypass (so his blood can get around a big clot in his heart). We don't know yet when that'll be, but he'll be moved to another hospital near where I live (close for me, but a long way for Mum), and he'll have to stay there for about a week, and then have another six weeks off work.

Birthday tea

After work today Dad came over and had a look at our garden. Then Mum and Adam and Justin came in on the train, and Nomes got back from the beach and we had Chinese food for tea. Adam gave me a bootleg of the U2 show we went to. Justin gave me some spray paint. Mum and Dad gave me some money to get some shoes. Nomes gave me two more souvienir teaspoons, one of which is from Avocado Land, which I actually went to as a toddler. (It's called Tropical Fruit World now though.) So now my teaspoon rack is full. (Paul and Amber brought me back one when they went to Canberra last year.)

Christmas

On Thursday we had the Credo Christmas party, down by the Yarra.

Marcus ranted at us for a bit ...

... and poured water all over the table ...

... and gave little cricket bats to some guys from the cricket team.

Ali and Luke and Kate handed out presents ...

... and then we had lunch together.
We packed up at about three o'clock or something, and then headed to the Vic for our last staff drinks of the year.



Yesterday morning I cleaned the laneway, and then caught the train out east to visit my family.
I gave Adam a watermelon for Christmas:

Justin gave me a t-shirt, which I think is meant to make me look scary:

As you can see, I also ended up with some weird 'Christmassy' things that Mum had been given by people. (They should make good Crap Cringle presents.)
Grandma (Mum's mum) and Uncle Mike (Mum's brother) came over for lunch.
For tea we went to Uncle Ian (Dad's brother) and Aintie Jenny's house.
This is me and my brothers and our cousins and our cousins' partners (some people are missing though):

(Note that Adam is doing the Thai movie star pose, and that there are souvienir teaspoons on the wall.)
This is my dad and his brothers:

Goodbye Adam

We've just been to see my brother Adam off at the airport. He's going to be spending a week an a half in Bangkok with Urban Neighbours of Hope, teaching English to kids who live in a slum.

Dad pretended to cry: