It’s Been A Busy Weekend

Guess it all started on Friday night. I did all of the washing whilst watching the semi-final match between Sydney and Geelong as I watched the 5th Ashes Test on another station. It was a nice start to the weekend.

Up early Saturday morning, which wasn’t such a great idea considering how late I had gone to bed the night before. I was hanging the washing out at 7am and my hands were pretty cold by the time I had finished. Went to pick my mate Bill up and he told me that it was a cold morning and had been 2 degrees at 7 o’clock. Yeah, I can vouch for that.

We were back at my place just before 8 and about 10 minutes later our new couch arrived. Only just had time to unwrap it before I needed to duck out to get two new tyres for my car and a wheel alignment. Bill had some shopping to do so that worked out fine.

Following the shopping we decided to do some work. First of all we put a park bench together to sit out the back and we followed that up by laying another 60x60 pavers. It makes the space near the BBQ look much better. I even put a few more out to the washing line so that there is no need to get wet and they do the just well.

By this time I had had enough of work and it was time to prepare some lunch. I barbequed some salmon and garlic chilli prawns along with onions, sweet potato and zucchini. Inside on the stove I cooked spuds and silverbeet. So it was a lovely luncheon. Perhaps I will be inspired to cook that well for my wife when she returns. Beautiful day for a BBQ too.

After lunch Bill and I looked through heaps of videos that I have downloaded from the Internet. You know, funny vids, motorbike and car accidents, that sort of thing. The time came to take Bill home and we had a cup of tea at his place with his very excited kelpie, Cindy.

I had to go so that I could get a parking space before the Perth Glory vs Brisbane Roar Hyundai A-League match. Glory had only a home loss and an away draw to show for their campaign so far. I stood next to the same bloke in the crowd as I did two weeks ago and he wouldn’t say a word for the whole match. The bloke on the other side of me was from the Solomon Islands (Henry Fa’arodo plays for Glory and he comes from the same village) and he was very chatty and knowledgeable.

It was a great match and the atmosphere was electric. Bobby Despotovski scored a brace of goals and missed a penalty. If there had been a set of behind posts, as in Aussie Rules footy, he may well have missed them also. Nah, I’m being unkind here.

A great new, catchy song was struck last night by someone in The Shed. All together now, to the tune of “Yellow Submarine” – Queensland Roar is a f***ing stupid name, a f***ing stupid name, a f***ing stupid name. It was sung with much gusto and once the chant had died down the creator was given a rousing round of applause. It was most appreciated by anybody near The Shed.

We won 2-1 and that is the main thing. Got home after 10pm. Jumped on the computer so that I could watch the Adelaide Crows vs Port Power semi-final match that I had taped whilst at the soccer, er football. They call it football now in this country. That is going to take some getting used to. Another late night.

Managed to sleep in to try to catch up a bit. Rang the missus after getting out of bed. She had a big day planned where she had to visit the grave of her father. It is Chuseok in Korea at the moment. That’s Korean Thanksgiving, celebrated at the Harvest Moon, and the whole country returns to the place of their ancestors and pays homage to them. I think that it is very important that Yu-Jin experiences this and I recall the memory myself quite fondly. She didn’t have much time to talk as she had to get prepared.

I popped along to Whaleback Golf Course to play 18 holes. Had to wait nearly 40 minutes to team up with a couple of guys, Brad and Daniel. The front nine saw fairly steady play with Daniel shooting 40 (par of 35), me 51 and Brad a 53.

Daniel didn't spend a lot of time off the fairway

I hit stuff all greens in regulation, or even fairways

We all played the ninth well and close together

Brad pulled his finger out for the first two holes of the back nine and played some nice golf whereas I was hitting my first tee shot into the pumphouse region, which was out of bounds, which kindly rebounded into play.

Brad had a bit of trouble with this hole and it wasn't surprising after scoring an 11 on the previous par 4 when only having a small chip to play to be putting for birdie and then screwing up the hole completely

On the 12th I duffed three sand wedge shots and still scored a bogey 5. Go figure. Compare that with Brad's 11 after he had far and away the best drive.

Daniel birdied this hole

Daniel was playing beautifully and scored a birdie 3 on the 305m par 4 15th. On the 17th it all happened. I played down the wrong fairway, having played the right fairway when on the opposite hole (know what I mean?) and put it on the edge of the green. Daniel chipped in for a par and then Brad chipped in for a bogey. I just missed my chip and only required one putt. The excitement level rose and “back to the championship”, a call that Daniel had used to shut everyone up for most of the match, was heard once more. The 18th was tight and competitive so the boys went around for another nine holes. Daniel shot a 38 on the back nine for total of 78 off the stick – only seven over par. He played quite brilliantly. The score of 106 from myself was a little worse than average but six shots better than Brad. I enjoyed the game with those two immensely.