Woody Allen and the Zydecats

Helen, my daughter, spent Saturday booking accommodation and airfares to Bali in early April. I am included in the passenger list and I guess that is testimony that I haven't worn out my welcome with her and James. Helen did the flight and hotel deals on the net and we are booked to fly out of Perth on the 8^th of April and spend 8 days in a very nice resort with our own swimming pool. It cost us a bit extra to get a unit with two bedrooms but it looks very nice and it is not near the 'younguns' and their noisy partying.

Also, yesterday, I had a phone call from our son in Melbourne who had had a call from a friend who is renting the unit below mine in Orelia. It seems that the young couple renting my unit went out leaving a cutting board on the stove top. The agent tells me that the new stove needs replacing, but there is little other damage. I have landlords insurance and hope that will cover the new stove and a sparky to wire it in. I will find out more of Monday.

My brain is playing with my body. A couple of days ago I was slicing up some nice hot red chillies for a fried rice when brain told me my nose was itchy...result; extreme nose burn for a couple of hours. This is not the only time brain has set me up. Every time I attend an auction I get a bad case of the itches and end up attracting the attention of the auctioneer just as the bids rocket skywards. Everyone then looks at me as I wave the bid off....'Idiot!'

My brother Graham has had a small problem with his recently purchased new VW Passat. He is unhappy with the ride and VW has made a few attempts to rectify the problem He has had new tyres fitted, a rear suspension strut replaced and alignment of front and rear wheels, but he feels that at the price he paid for the VW it should be a smoother ride. It reached a point where VW simply told him that it was as good as it is going to be....sort of like a bad human prognosis. Graham traded the VW in on a more expensive BMW to be picked up tomorrow. Hope that runs along nice and smoothly. Let you know later.

Sunday evening: brother Graham collected me in his VW, soon to be replaced by a BMW and we taxied from his place to Fremantle to a cinema to view Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. The introductory scenes were wonderful and I wanted to share them with my Joan as we had been to all the places in our last trip to Europe. The movie was a Woody Allen classic.....some obnoxious characters and some wonderful characters. You must see it.

After the movie we went to Clancy's Fish Bar which hosts the local band The Zydecats. Wonderful! Young and old people getting with it and enjoying old Rock. I could see a great photo opportunity and during a break asked the band leader if it would be OK to do some photos....he was happy about that and next Sunday I will front with my Nikon and try and capture the ambiance.

I am at last feeling like there is a life out there.

Taxiing home via Grahams place, I struck up a conversation with the Somalian taxi driver. His situation wasn't too bad and in fact he had two wives, one in New Zealand and one in India. He is a Muslim Somalian and I hope that our conversation went some some way to show that there are moderate non-Muslims in this country.