Whatever happened to used tyres...

...as stand-alone garden features? Why don't we see them around much any more, especially in these difficult economic times when we all should be getting back to basics and being extra mindful of the benefits of re-using and recycling?
We walk past this particular tyre every morning, my husband, the dog and I. It's one of three, all in a row, but it's by far the most picturesque because it's the only one that's actually got a plant in it.
Just up the road from this tyre, on the seafront, is something else we walk past every morning: Albany's bete noir, the huge, empty Esplanade Hotel site. It's empty because the Esplanade was demolished in 2007 to make way for a new multi-million-dollar luxury hotel, which has since been put on hold indefinitely.
So, what we've got on the beachfront at the moment is an enormous, multi-million-dollar sandpit surrounded by a high, wire fence and known among local cats as the best en-suite dunny in town, you can see their little paw prints all over the joint ("Hey, Fluffy, let's pee in the north-east corner today! Cooool.")
Apparently the town council doesn't have the power to force the hotel developers to get on with construction, something I'd always put down to the councillors' average age being 97 and three-quarters and all of them maybe too knackered to raise the necessary very big fuss. But I was wrong.
And it's a worry, because it's estimated the town is losing about $10 million in tourism spending for every year that the site stands empty.
My husband has an interesting solution to this. Being a Desert Storm kinda guy, he thinks councillors should storm the chicken wire, exert squatters' rights and build a casino. As in, they could get the tourist dollars flowing again simply by becoming the Apaches of the Great Southern.
Failing that, maybe they could do something creative with used tyres, something I should imagine certain other persons of power, albeit in a faraway land, are mulling over as I write.
I say this because I heard on the news that Barack and Michelle Obama are getting back to basics and planting a vegetable garden at the White House.
Which means that Americans will not only have their First Lady, First Children and First Dog, they'll also soon be blessed with their First Carrot.
And presumably, if the Obamas are ridgy-didge about setting a recycling, recession-busting, grow-your-own example, they'll also see the First of many Used Tyres.
As edging, maybe. Or encircling the spinach and collard greens.
It could change the face of garden design as we know it. And I, for one, will be watching developments with bated breath.

A mother's heartfelt plea

I read The Passenger by Chris Petit over Easter. The book was loaned to me by my son who said, "If you understand the ending, make sure you explain it to me too."
I thought, "Ha! Leave it to me sonny" in that thought-only, gloating way mothers have when they suspect their kids are getting cleverer than they are and they smell a rare win coming up.
So, in a nutshell, The Passenger is a fabulous book. Fast-paced, clever, dark, complicated, harrowing, unputdownable.
Then you read the final chapter and you want to scream, "WHAT THE...?!" and throw it out the window.
So this is basically a begging letter to anyone reading this blog entry who has also read The Passenger and understands the bloody thing.
Has Collard dreamt everything? Is he working it out in those awful 46.5 seconds. IS HE TALKING TO US FROM THE BEYOND FOR GOD'S SAKE??
I've already googled the book and all I can find is a bunch of really pissed-off people who don't understand the ending.
As I don't. And it's driving me nuts. Please help if you can.

Channeling Elvis 2

I decided to forgo the french toast cut into bunny rabbit shapes and do this magnificent creation for Easter instead.
Granted, it looked better in the magazine, but even then they had to use blurry soft-focus photography to get away from that "I lost control of my bowels while skiing" look.
It's called Choc Coconut Ice Cream Cake and I got the recipe from a New Idea mag, as in I was allowed to rip the recipe out of the magazine when I was at the hairdresser last week (thank you, Shelley).
This cake is a mixture of vanilla ice cream, crushed Choc Ripple biscuits, toasted coconut, mini marshmallows, strawberry-flavoured dessert topping, Ice Magic and M&Ms Speckled Eggs.
So delicious. So Elvis.

35 years and what do you get?

It was our 35th wedding anniversary on the weekend. The big question in the weeks leading up to it was how to mark 35 years that have encompassed just about everything you can think of, including good times and bad times, happy and sad times, two great kids, two dogs, seven cats, 14 different houses and lots of love.
For the last two big-ticket anniversaries, which were Silver and Pearl (sounds like two hippie sisters, doesn't it?), we went to Melbourne and stayed at the Hilton.
This time we had to be a bit more circumspect because our house still needs some work.
I say "some" but what I mean is "lots of". The 1965 kitchen still has to be replaced, the floors need to be sanded and sealed, the outside walls need to be rendered because the mortar is falling out, we need plastic blinds for the deck we had built (the prevailing winds up here on the hill are westerly, easterly, southerly AND northerly), and the 1960s decorative concrete-block boundary wall (does this get better and better or what?) needs to be knocked down and replaced with a fence.
A word on kitchens: if you need to be cured of the retro decorating bug, come and visit me. I have a kitchen overflowing with original 60s laminex - white with curly, silvery fibres all the way through it. It looks like a busload of senior cits decided to stop off at the laminex factory and trim their pubes.
Back to the wedding anniversary: we discovered on the internet that your 35th is Coral (Silver and Pearl's mum, presumably).
I was stunned, I can tell you. 35 YEARS AND ALL YOU GET IS DEAD REEF?? What were we supposed to buy each other? An aquarium?
My husband offered to buy me a DVD of The Battle of the Coral Sea. I declined, which was good, because it forced us to sit down and work out what we'd really like.
Which turned out to be decent ugg boots. Seriously.
Having never paid more than 20 bucks for a pair (good ol' Kmart), we decided we'd lash out on the super-duper versions they sell at Wombat Lodge down here.
Romantic? Maybe not. But we'll know in our hearts that when the renovations are finished and all our money is gone and we're freezing our tits off because we can't afford to turn on the heater, at least our feet will be nice and warm.

Word of the Week: Ovenable

How good is this? It was sent to me last year by Diana Lea, who found it in some Coles junk mail that had been stuffed in her letter box.
The possibilities this word opens up are endless - we could start a whole new language of "ables".
I'd like to get the ball rolling with girlable, adapted from the everyday scenario where a male says, "I can't find my keys/sunnies/specs/wallet" and the female says, "Go back and have a girl's look."
Girlable would describe any task that had to be done properly from the get-go.
As in, "Mate, we've got another girlable job coming up this afternoon, I'd better give you a hand."
Whaddaya reckon?

Hi ho, Crispin, awaaay

We got nabbed down at the park, the dog and I.
The dog was doing this.

And this.

As you can see, she wasn't attached to my person by a lead. This was because we were the only living things in the park apart from the ducks.
And, as it happened, Crispin.
Crispin is a ranger. He has a stud in his left ear and drives a white van with the words "Eyes on the street" painted on the side.
Some people would think that if you drove around in a van with "Eyes on the street" painted on the side, you'd be a bit of a dickhead. But not me.
What I thought was: Why are you harrassing a golden retriever who wants to lick you to death? Why have I never seen you keeping an eye on MY street aka Hoon Hill?
Let me tell you something about our house on the hill: If the Lady of Shalott had enjoyed watching hoons in hotted-up Holdens and bogans in black utes instead of Sir Lancelot in his feathered helmet on his way to Camelot, our house is where she would've lived.
It has very big windows which afford excellent views of knights and hoons alike.
Sadly, unlike Sir Lancelot, the local love gods don't sing "Tirra lirra" down by the river. They play really loud doof-doof music instead and shout "Faaaaark" out of the windows when they become airborne at 100kmh.
I was going to tell Crispin all this but in the end I was too busy giving him my name and address.
And listening to his Lone Ranger-style lecture on the dangers of unrestrained family pets in deserted parks.
And wondering where Tonto was when you really needed him (with my luck, probably shouting, "Faaaark, Kemo Sabe" out of the window of a black ute somewhere down my street).

You thrill me when you drill me. Not.

This post is just a quick thank you to millionaire playboy Tim Roberts and dumped dentist girlfriend Laurel Cetinic-Dorol for the solid-gold, grade-A entertainment they've provided in the media this past week.
In the laugh-myself-sick stakes, I thought nothing could top the text message: "You weanie peanie f...... wanker. If you didn't have money I would not have given you the time of day, you loser."
But then I saw TV footage of Mr Roberts trying to run from courtroom to car while hiding his face with a see-through, polka-dotted, plastic umbrella that was determined to turn itself inside out.
I should imagine that as I type, the producers of Funniest Home Videos will be changing the rules so that this footage can win - quite rightly - the grand prize in the next series.
Finally, there are two questions we should be asking ourselves now that this sorry saga has been played out in the courts.
1. Would a millionaire playboy actually own a see-through, polka-dotted, plastic umbrella?
2. How long do you reckon it will take for the person who loaned it to him to list it on eBay?