Bugger

Well, we lost and - worse - St Christopher has been suspended for the first three games of next season for playing dirty.
My husband, who's really on a roll this week, has suggested we spend the next few days deciding on the AFL's Dimmest and Toughest Awards.
It sounds a lot more fun than picking Best and Fairest, so I'd like to start the ball rolling by nominating Barry Hall, Jonathon Brown and Stephen Milne.

Word of the Week: Strappado

I haven't done one of these for ages so I thought I'd share "strappado", which I came across in the Oxford English Reference Dictionary when I was doing the Jumble Word puzzle in the paper this morning.
(Not cheating, just looking. Honest.)
I thought strappado might be the name of a Greek stew or some sort of fancy flamenco move but it turns out it's "a form of torture in which the victim is secured to a rope and made to fall from a height almost to the ground, then stopped with a jerk" (the dictionary doesn't say if the jerk should be someone you know but I'd be happy to share Mr Nasty Garden-Path Man if you can't find anyone).
The interesting thing is that strappado must be the forerunner of this:

As in, one day, torture; the next day...well, still torture if you ask me. Let's hope waterboarding doesn't catch on with the extreme sports set.
My word of the week was actually going to be "balls" in honour of my husband, who not only has them but used them to great advantage at Bunnings yesterday.
We both went to Bunnings a couple of weekends ago to buy one of those big patio heaters for our deck because the temperature out there hovers between "brass monkey" and "nithered" (now there's a good Yorkshire word) for all but four months of the year.
It was a bargain, this heater - reduced from $269 to $169.
Then my husband went back to Bunnings on Saturday to buy some phone cable and found that in the space of a week this patio heater had been marked down again, to $99.
He was spitting chips when he got home but seeing as the patio heater was still in its box, convinced me to help him Hunt for the Receipt.
I've used capital letters there because such is the chaos of our in-house filing system, it took three days to find the docket (it was on top of a stack of bricks in the shed - obvious really).
Anyway, long story short, my husband returned the patio heater to Bunnings and got a $169 refund from the lady at checkout number 1. Then he went and picked up another heater - exactly the same - took it through checkout number 2 and paid $99 for it.
I would never have had the guts to try this on and am still positively breathless with admiration. What a guy.

Go Blue Boys

It might be an idea to skip over this post if you're not into AFL or if you're an overly sensitive Dockers supporter.
But first, apologies for the absence - I didn't realise how long it had been until I looked at the date of my last post just then.
There's been lots keeping me busy on the house front, mainly painting, but we've also found a new garden-path bloke (a landscaper) who is smart and friendly and thorough, as in he's spent ages measuring things and chasing up tradesmen. He also bears more than a passing resemblance to this bloke.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd be more than happy to mortgage the dog to have a smart and friendly Eric Close look-alike wandering around the place for a few days. Hopefully we won't have to - we'll find out when we get his quote today.
But back to footy. The pic at the top of this post is of the thoughful home-made trophy given to me by my nephew, a West Coast supporter, when Carlton first won the wooden spoon back in 2002.
It took him ages to colour it in with blue texta, which tells you all you need to know about West Coast supporters if you ask me.
Since then, despite another wooden spoon, the Blues have clawed their way back and
on Saturday night, for the first time in 8 years, will be playing finals footy.
A sad but true fact: I'm nearly wetting myself with excitement. It's one of the highlights of my year.
My friend, Dennis, on the other hand, is spewing. This is because Dennis is a Dockers supporter and, let's face it, has a lot to spew about.
Which brings me to another highlight of this year.
Considering I've been abused, ridiculed and generally dumped on for years for following Carlton, you'd think I'd empathise with the plight of Freo fans.
Unfortunately, life's not like that.
It all started innocently enough when the Dockers got a hiding at the hands of the Bombers back in Round 2. I thought it might be fun for Dennis to find in his mailbox an application for Bombers membership sent by Mr Matthew Lloyd himself.
The accompanying note read, "Mate, You know you want to do it, love from Mattie."
As it turned out, it was more than fun, it was addictive.
Every week since then, barring when he was overseas on holiday, Dennis has found a letter in his mailbox from people as diverse as Mr B. Fevola, Mr C. Cornes (who sent a lovely birthday card), Mr L.Jurrah, Mr S. Freud and Mr J.H. Christ ("Mate, Would you like me to ask Dad to smite Nick Riewoldt for you?").
The final letter, last weekend, was from Mr F. Sinatra on behalf of Mr M. Pavlich and the boys.
It went like this:

OUR WAY
And now, the end is here,
We stuffed it up, we blew the season.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
We came 14th, and with good reason.

We dropped so many kicks,
So many games, we played the Power way.
We're just a bunch of hicks,
Who did it our way.

Regrets, we've had a lot,
We wish we'd never started playing.
Each time we hit the road,
We knew we'd usually get a flaying.

We know we played like girls,
We'd like to say, not in a sour way,
We wish we'd never tried,
To do it our way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew,
When we bit off more than we could chew.
The Saints, the Magpies and the Crows,
The Dogs, the Cats, yes, heaven knows,
We lost them all, we hit the wall,
WE DID IT OUR WAY.

PS: Thanks for being such a good sport Dennis. Up the mighty Blues.