Tag: daddyblog

Day 4 – Carpeted walls and functioning brakes

Day 4 – Carpeted walls and functioning brakes

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

The remnants of our enormous bonfire were still smoldering when we awoke in Hungerford, to a pleasant temperature and a dry swag. We were in outback Queensland, where the dew point is high and the chance of obliterating your vehicle on a wandering cow is yet higher.

There were quiet whispers in the breakfast line that one or more vehicles had not made it through the night. This rumour seemed supported by the battered Commodores and Corollas still sitting on the flat bed trucks here and there. We dropped our heads solemnly as we ate our packet weetbix. We also heard, indirectly, that somebody had left the rally and maybe they weren’t coming back and that their partner was driving alone, and liked it better that way, or maybe didn’t like it at all. Also, that a certain buddy group wasn’t getting along, or somebody wanted a new group. It occurred to us for the first time that maybe we were on a school camp, with all the personal turmoil, rumour and strain that entails, but a school camp for people in their 50s who are also drinking a lot. This hadn’t occurred to us at all; our group was reasonable, harmonious and relaxed, and also we were so distracted by our obvious capability gaps and out-of-sync costuming that we hadn’t had time to consider the relationship aspect of what was going on around us.

Also, most of the men today are wearing wedding dresses, so that tends to offset any genuine discussion on the human condition.

The theme was ‘white wedding’, which had been enthusiastically, and rather gloriously adhered to by most rally participants. This was another theme for which Fauce and I had planned to shop in Melbourne, but ran out of time. Also, we had misread it as simply ‘white’ and Fauce had procured a white body suit for the purpose and we had thought maybe I could just wear white undies all day because I am quite pale. But, knowing what we now know about the driving and the weather and the public interaction and so forth, we thought that might not be tenable.

Fauce put on his Fem-Bot outfit, which we had loosely thought we would use to match my Dr Evil costume later in the week, and I put on the wig from my German weight-lifting ensemble, plus a Teen Wolf singlet, for which we had no real other plan, and some shorts. We went with ‘white-trash wedding’, which most people to whom we explained it found amusing. Everybody else just seemed confused, which was quite reasonable.

This morning at the briefing two or more groups were subject to public derision and hoola-hoop humiliation because their vehicles are not, well, shit enough. We feel that hoola of shame is coming for us too. Our replacement CRV is really quite comfortable. It even has an electric sunroof and carpet on the inside of the doors. We are trying to keep those luxurious facts secret but simultaneously trying to circulate the contextual story about the demise of our Kia Carnival. It doesn’t seem to be working. People are noticing our comfortable car with its functional wing mirrors and reliable ignition. We didn’t bring any logs for the fire last night so our credibility is already hanging by a thread. Also, Fauce is dressed like a Fem-Bot.

You might be surprised to read that we had quite a long drive today.

About 550km through Quilpie, which doesn’t seem to have any Give Way or Stop signs, to Windorah. At some point during the drive we were required to pour in our first every Jerry Can of petrol, which was quite the moment. It was made even more special because Fauce did it whilst wearing a pink negligee and matching bright pink gloves.

I took the last driving shift today, which once again concluded in the dark. We had the opportunity to test the brakes very late in the day, when a very large black cow, which was inconveniently the same colour as the night, sauntered out onto the road. It was a narrow miss. Perhaps we were self-conscious about our car’s lack of shitness at the beginning of the day, but we were certainly grateful for its functioning breaks by the end (and the carpeted doors, which are a delight).

Tomorrow our journey takes us through the classic outback pubs of Betoota and Birdsville.

Red Dirt

Day 3 – The pagan sacrifice

Day 3 – The pagan sacrifice

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I woke up with ice on my forehead and white face paint on my sleeping bag. Despite my best efforts in the camp shower last evening, there was no soap and no mirror, and so actually I hadn’t washed off much of the white paint at all. Yesterday I looked ghoulish, today I just looked confusing.

Like aged, disinterested, quite soft crocodiles, we wrestled our mattresses into the car, then ate breakfast and ultimately we were ready to depart about 10% faster than yesterday. As Fauce and I say to each other every morning; soon we’ll be ready to start this rally. Our key learning from this morning was; yes, tuck your tomorrow trousers into the swag with you, but go one step further and pop them into your sleeping bag. That way you don’t have to pull on wet, semi-frozen trousers to start the day. That’s pro-camping.

It came as a great surprise to us at the morning briefing that today we would be driving a lot, and lots of it would not be on very good roads. We mouthed things to each other like “did you know we would be driving this much?” and then shrugged our shoulders theatrically while looking around at our fellow rally-ers who seem wholly aware and supportive of it.

So today we journeyed from Silverton through Broken Hill and Wilcannia to Hungerford. We are still on our 1500km, 48 hour detour to avoid the wet road, so Hungerford, and perhaps also the route there, felt hastily arranged. I can confirm, however, that you can buy paw-paw lip balm at the Ampol in Wilcannia, which feels like real progress to me.

This was our first real stretch of relentless dirt road for the rally and at first it was a great thrill, not particularly stressful, and afforded wonderful photos of red dirt and opportunities to spray vast waves of muddy water everywhere through the dips and culverts. Wonderful stuff.

As the sun slipped lower, slowly melted away and then completely gave up on us for the day, we realised however, that the sticky cloud of dust in which we had been driving all day might prove to be something of an obstacle at night.

The cloud enveloped us. Our tepid headlights threw out just enough light to rattle around between the dust particles, this way and that, but not enough to cut through. And so the whole convoy slowed to a walk, each of us floating in our own ethereal dust bubble, guided only by the blurry pricks of red tail-light bobbing about in front, which were in turn guided by their own red tail-light, and so on and so on. Each of us under the flimsy presumption that at the end of this long chain of tail-light reliance there was a car that knew where it was going.

For an hour or more Fauce and I lost our tail-light safety blanket and so drifted through the outback alone, in a dream-state, listening to Simply Red, not always sure we were on the road; occasionally running through a small patch of spinifex and so then turning away from that spinifex and back onto the bumpy, gravelly bit which may have been the road, but may also have just been ‘the outback’. We never hit tree nor shrub, which we thought was a good thing, but then again when the sun had set it didn’t seem as it there was much to speak of in the way of tree or shrub.

Just as we had submitted ourselves to the fact we were 300km off track in the middle of a thankless desert, a tiny pin-prick of red light sprang for a moment above the horizon. We yelped with joy and accelerated ever so slightly towards it, and ultimately rejoined the snail-paced convoy as it lurched and jolted through the desert.

And so, in this way we all finally reached camp at the Hungerford showground, or rodeo ring, or marketplace, and quickly set up in the dark. After a very tasty dinner put on by the very fine residents of Hungerford, we set up near the fire to watch the triage tent crank into action; the road today had claimed many a victim.

The fire began as a very pleasant affair; warming, invigorating, but not imperiling. Then the logs began to arrive. At the morning briefing ‘those with utes’ were instructed to ‘pick up some firewood’ during the drive. Now, if you want an instruction to be enthusiastically carried out, tell a group of ute-driving men to out-firewood each other.

Wow. Some of the logs looked like whole trees, hewn from the earth with bare hands. Ute after ute pulled up and triumphantly disgorged their bounty, building enormous piles of timber all around us, as if we were preparing to build a new community centre. And once the wood has been collected the wood must be burned!

And so on it went, trunk after trunk. None for later. All for now! And so what started as pleasant campfire quickly became pagan sacrifice and we were forced to retreat a good 50 meters, lest our polyester trousers catch fire.

Before bed we added one more item to the list of things Fauce and Jupiter cannot do, but I can’t even really describe it, it was a partial conversation we overhead during the pagan sacrifice and it was something about cutting up a star picket and welding it into some or other part of the engine, or engine-adjacent area. Wild stuff.

Tomorrow we are back on schedule and on our way to Windorah.

Frosty swags and frosty heads

Day 2 – Modern Day Vampires

Day 2 – Modern Day Vampires

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 1 Comment

We awoke on the morning of day 2 in a freezing swamp and wondered if sleeping in a swag in the middle of a racetrack in central NSW during winter is really for us.

Each day we are adding something to our list of basic things not to do. This morning it was don’t leave your shoes outside when you’re sleeping in a freezing swamp during winter.

We pulled on wet, crispy boots and went, shivering, to breakfast and the morning briefing. It turns out the whispers about the Astra are true; not only did it tragically pass away yesterday, the owners seemed to have locked the doors and disappeared, taking the keys with them. How this was achieved without a car in the middle of the NSW desert I am not sure. What I am sure of is that such behaviour is frowned upon by shitbox organisers. The drivers of the Astra, whose identities remain unknown to us, were the subject of quite some derision. It seemed that somebody was going to salvage their wheels however, which was a silver lining.

We also learned during this briefing that recent rains in central Australia meant that one of our key unsealed roads was unsafe to drive upon, which meant a two day diversion from our original itinerary; because, in central Australia, a washed-out road takes two days to drive around.

So we returned to our makeshift camp and tried to forcefully squeeze our enormous, not-at-all-shrink-wrapped mattresses into the back seat of our car. We eventually managed this, although the situation as it stands is untenable.

We then turned our attention to the dress-up theme of the day; ‘punk’, for which we were very unprepared. We have been about 22 hours behind schedule ever since our Carnival incident, and so our window to procure punk outfits in Melbourne had evaporated. We had some costume elements of Voldemort, white face paint, flamboyant renaissance painter, medieval peasant belts and a lavish, faux-velvet Dracula jacket. We did our best but ended up far closer to ‘modern vampire’ than ‘punk’; very, what we do in the shadows – Fauce like one of the well dressed ones, and me more like the emaciated 1000 year old ghoul in the basement. These outfits did, however, provide nice juxtaposition to the red dirt and country pubs we toured throughout the day.

We covered about 550km today; Hay via Ivanhoe, Menindee and Broken Hill to the gorgeous remote town of Silverton; famous for camels and Mad Max. We saw wild roaming cattle, goats of all shapes and sizes, birds of all colours, a huge golden sunset, kangaroos and wild emus. My wild emu count at the start of today was zero, now it is 37. This was a real treat.

We spent most of today again on sealed roads, due to the aforementioned diversion, so the fabled ‘triage tent’ remained without many patrons. But one feels this might change tomorrow, with about a million kilometres to cover on the dirt.

Oh, also the shitbox rally attracts a rather handy, practical genre of human. I am not saying Fauce and I are not without our skills and talents, but we have been keeping a list of the many things we have seen going on around us that we don’t know how to do. I’ll start that list now:

  • Open a beer without access to an implement specifically designed for this purpose;
  • Roll up a swag into any reasonably sized package; and
  • Get a ‘carby’ started with a small plastic cup of petrol that still had some red wine in the bottom.
Milo’s (very) brief foray into cricket

Milo’s (very) brief foray into cricket

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

For most Australian kids, even bookish chess-oriented ones, backyard cricket in the summer is a wonderful experience. And so it was for Milo this past summer. For weeks we played every evening with the cousins. Lots of bowling, lots of swashbuckling, care-free batting, lenient umpire-uncles, a little bit of fielding, usually a zooper-dooper appears or a sausage on a piece of bread. Heaven.

The warm cricket experience carried through to our return home, and the start of a new school year. We played in the driveway until late in the evening, and when the days got shorter we installed a flood light which made it wonderful to bat, but impossible to bowl. I could even see Milo starting to modify his game to suit the conditions, as all backyard (or driveway) cricketers do; gallant over the offside to the short boundary on the other side of the cul-de-sac, but cautious off his pads to the shorter boundary with the tall pointy fence and the dog on the other side.

One evening, as I walked in my crocs once more across the road to fetch one of my dispatched pies, Milo asked me “could I play for a team in Darwin?”. I was surprised, pleased at his interest in trying something new, but simultaneously apprehensive because actual cricket is pretty shit to play, not very sun-smart and really very shit to be administratively associated with in any way. But I answered as any semi-decent parent would; “I’ll google it”.

And so before long Milo had received some long nylon trousers and matching long-sleeved shirt, perfect for the tropics, a floppy hat, and in a mystery that I am sure will remain unsolved, I found myself on a team whatsapp group stocked with parents and administrative types.

After early introductions the club manager got right to the point, requesting volunteers for a coach and a team manager. Well, there her message sat, unashamed, unyielding, but also unanswered, for at least 36 hours, until I couldn’t take it anymore. I sent a private message to just the club manager saying I don’t know much about cricket and couldn’t commit to being a coach, but I would be happy to take on the noble burden of team manager, whatever that is. Within moments she had responded to the full group congratulating me on my appointment as co-coach.

Well played, I thought, and immediately ordered ‘Cricket Coaching for Dummies’ on Amazon.

So Milo and I arrived at his first training session, a balmy Monday evening, feeling bewildered and unsure about our recent choices. As we walked over to a group of adults who looked like they knew slightly more than me, I whispered to Milo that I was feeling as nervous as he was. He seemed to like that.

We followed their semi-instructions and soon found ourselves at one end of the nets, surrounded by small cricket enthusiasts, with balls pinging this way and that. A smiling other-parent introduced himself as the coach and said he was glad to have me with him this season. I think he believed me when I offered similar salutations and words of enthusiasm for what lay ahead.

Now, a ‘net session’, as it is known in cricketing circles, essentially entails one person putting cricket-armour on and the other 6 or 7 people (or whatever it is) taking it in turns to hurl cricket balls at you. When the batter is bored, or bruised or belittled sufficiently, they waddle back out of the net, take off their armour and commence hurling cricket balls at the next person. Milo had never seen a ‘net session’ before, and he didn’t much like the look of it.

He looked at me with those half-closed, suspicious eyes that he is fond of deploying and said; “do I have to put that stuff on?” Now, I know my child. Most kids facing this situation for the first time might be concerned about the isolation of it, or the potential to be hit in the many soft areas of the body that the armour neglects, or simply the daunting challenge of facing so many new ball hurlers he had never met before. I knew immediately what was on his mind. Sweat. And more specifically, other people’s sweat.

“Yup. But what you need to do is put your hand up to bat next and the gear will still be fresh and sweat free.”

His withering look remained; “but that girl is already wearing it.”

“Yes, true. But there is usually 2 or 3 sets in the kit and most of these kids will have their own. Go and tell the proper coach you want to bat next.”

So he did, and he did! And he batted pretty well. Although some of the older kids were quite brisk, nothing like Uncle David’s loopy left armers that are supposed to turn out of the rough but never do. Most importantly he avoided soft tissue damage… and sweaty gloves.

This luke-warm training session did, I must admit, make me somewhat nervous about our first match, which took place three days later. I was right to be nervous.

The 0730 arrival time did not please him, nor did the heavy, flammable uniform. The floppy hat was ruled out immediately. But it wasn’t until he learned that the game would take three hours, and that for most of that time he would be doing nothing but stand around in the hot sun with insects buzzing around him that he really started warming up his scowl.

Fielding first also didn’t help. In Milo’s age group the field basically cycles like a merry-go-round. After each over the fielders move around one position, clockwise, until they arrive at the bowling end, have a bowl and then keep rotating. So, for the first over Milo sat down at point, where everybody yelled at him to stand up. During the second over he sat down at gully, at which time everybody yelled at him to stand up. Then backstop where he sort of lay down and nobody said anything to him, and then around to square leg where he squatted and then kind of rolled down onto his forehead. He was quite excited to discover that his team had too many players so after square leg he rotated off the field for an over.

He ran off the field and straight over to me where I was sitting in the shade trying to figure out how to score the game with a very confusing iPad app. He arrived, looked wordlessly at me for a moment, shook his head as if to say WTF is this? then asked me for his book. I handed it over and he walked off to sit in the grass next to the boundary and commenced reading.

Milo’s one over respite was over quickly but when the next player came to take his place he waved them off and kept reading. They were very pleased to rotate around to mid-wicket and so did not argue.

This was not going well.

After one more over the real-coach realised what was happening and beckoned Milo back onto the field. He complied, but took his book with him. The real-coach advised him that wasn’t a great idea because he might be hit with a ball if he read at mid-wicket. Milo thought about this for a moment, placed his book on the ground and walked slowly, very slowly, to mid-on. Later on he had a bit of a bowl which was okay, and then recommenced cycling around the field, sometimes sitting, often distracted and always displeased.

The great thing about cricket is, once you are done standing around (or sitting) inside the field not doing much for an hour or two, you then get to stand around (or sit) outside the field not doing much for an hour or two. Milo wasn’t sure whether to be confused, disgruntled or enraged. He settled on disgruntled and loudly advised the real-coach he wasn’t going to bat. The real-coach did a very nice job of coaxing and encouraging Milo who remained unmoved on the issue for the best part of 15 overs until his cousin convinced him to ‘pad up’, as they say, and waddle out to the middle; no mean feat, and a fine demonstration of the true power that cousins possess over each other.

So he batted, was non-plussed by the whole thing, ate some grapes, received a Happy Meal voucher for ‘player of the game’ (again the real-coach did absolutely everything he could to enamour Milo) said goodbye and we drove home.

Of course on the drive Milo said he never wanted to play again, and he seemed more baffled than anything by the whole experience. I chose not to play my hand while Milo still had other people’s helmet sweat on his brow, but later in the week I picked my moment to tell him that he would need to ‘give cricket a proper go’ before he could quit ‘to make sure he was making the right decision’. Two games and two trainings was the arbitrary number I came up with. Why? Why is two the right number?

I must have caught him off guard because he agreed, and the following Monday we found ourselves back at the nets. Once again he didn’t bat and patted dogs for most of the session, and on the way home he said he didn’t want to play two more games or in fact any more games of cricket. Ever.

Trying my best to parent, I explained calmly that he had made a commitment and that he ‘owed it to himself and his teammates’ to give it a proper try. Unsurprisingly this approach was not well received but I shut the conversation down, not wanting to have the final showdown so early in the week.

Before I get to the last part of this story, I think it important to reflect on the fact that he doesn’t want to play cricket and nor do we want him to play cricket. Cricket is an odd, slow, boring sport that, if allowed to develop unchecked, will consume our weekends and then our lives, and then give our child basal-cell carcinomas in his 30s.

And yet…

I chose Friday evening to remind him that the following morning he and I would be going to cricket. He was playing Nintendo and, although he did not look up and arguably thought I asked him if he wanted a slice of toast, replied ‘ok’. I took this as a small win. It was not.

Saturday morning I woke Milo just after 0700 and reminded him of his solemn commitment to the cricket Gods, and finally it all unraveled. Once in full flight Milo is something to behold and he and I were flying high together.

There were pink faces and clenched fists and squinty eyes and lofty statements from me and tears and mucous… and finally, I slammed the door and drove by myself, to umpire a game of junior cricket in which my child was not playing, for three hours, without enough water.

I arrived home around lunchtime and we were both feeling far more relaxed about the whole thing. He asked me, with a slight grin, “what are you going to do now dad?” I explained that I had made a commitment to the team so I would continue pseudo-coaching for the rest of the season which is about 10 weeks, I guess to demonstrate good behaviours to my children?

So now, each Saturday morning I fill my giant Yeti water bottle, apply sunscreen, wave goodbye to my family at around 0720, and head off to some patch of grass somewhere or other to stand around not being all that useful to anybody. My family, comfortable in their pyjamas, look up from their breakfast, wave back and wish me luck. And just to demonstrate how ludicrous this situation has become, this week Kuepps was interstate so we paid a babysitter $125 to look after the boys for the morning, which is more than the cost of the entire season’s registration.

So here’s the thing; when I look back at all the individual decisions that led us up to this point, they all seem quite reasonable. And yet, the sum of those many reasonable decisions is well, quite unreasonable, and I haven’t even been on orange and grape duty yet.

Sometimes it does get tiring to be so constantly reminded how much we still have to learn about parenting.

When cricket could be played in 20 minutes, and in pyjamas
NBA2K – A dangerous gateway to exercise, friendships and new skills.

NBA2K – A dangerous gateway to exercise, friendships and new skills.

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 1 Comment

I’m confused.

Clearly parenting is baffling. We are making it up as we go along for the most part; building the plane as we fly it, as they say. But I always thought there were a few fundamental planks upon which we could rely. For example:

  • Broccoli is always good;
  • Screen time is always bad;
  • Dogs licking your children in the face is good or bad, depending on tongue length and intent, and whether you prioritise a strong immune system or an absence of bum worms.

Recently, for us, this second plank has been thrown into disarray.

Milo had a brief foray into basketball a few years back; enjoying a memorable season with the Hellratz (you can read about it here). Monty has steadily chipped away at Aussie Hoops; perfecting his dribble handoffs, bounce passes, and absent-minded dancing during layup drills, but with minimal ambition to actually play a game, or bump into anybody, or be involved in any aspect of an ‘alley-oop’. Milo (who is an all-in or all-out kind of human) has also exhibited zero basketball ambition in recent years; seemingly leaving basketball in his rear-vision mirror in order to turn his attentions towards other worthwhile pursuits.

However, this year, things have changed.

Summer means cousins; and cousins mean new games, new rules, new horizons, and new zooper dooper flavours – like blue raspberry, which for me seems a dangerous manifestation of consumerism and a waste of chemical lab research funding. This past summer our boys enjoyed a lot of cousin time, and their cousins are basketball fanatics. Of course, the outcome of this was numerous games of 3 on 3, and 4 on 5 and 7 on 6 and other permutations; but the most impactful outcome was an introduction for our boys to the classic console game NBA2K – in this instance, 2K24.

For the uninitiated, NBA2K is a popular basketball series that let’s you play as any NBA or WNBA player from history, or even invent your own improbably proportioned player and lead them through a ‘career’ that spans carrying the team kits bags as a rookie, All Star fame and fortune, and finally the twilight years spent in the Taiwanese professional league playing for a beer company (like a real life Boogie Cousins).

It took no time at all for Monty and Milo to start quoting the stats and relative merits of Bob Cousy, Hakeem Olajuwan, John Starks and Kevin McHale. For some reason Monty has a real affinity for the Minneapolis Lakers legend George Mikan, who plied his big-man trade between 1947 and 1956. And of course, we have now prosecuted the Lebron vs MJ GOAT conversation from every angle, a topic that was simply not on the agenda before the summer.

So that’s fine, and quite predictable. But what happened next surprised me. Of course, once we returned home from the summer spent with cousins, we purchased NBA2K in the post-Christmas sales. Monty and Milo built their own players, Abdul Cicaman and Nikheil Gronko respectively (falling into the age-old trap of making their guys waaaay too tall with improbable wing-spans and then becoming disgruntled that they can’t run or dribble) and then began to play together during most weekend Nintendo sessions.

But, once Nintendo time was over they would not mooch around wondering what to do with their lives, they would instead almost always drift outside to the driveway hoop and shoot free-throws like Steph, or dunk on the trampoline hoop like Vince Carter, or snatch blocked shots out of the air like Shaq, or set precise screens like Nikola Jokic (it is odd to watch them practice this skill).

The driveway has also now led to Milo rejoining a basketball team, training and playing weekly (I am considering re-introducing a Hellratz style match-report for his new team ‘Thunderdome’, stay tuned for that in coming weeks) and Monty graduating from Aussie Hoops to the local half-court league (which he calls ‘Crazy Apes’).

They are running, and sweating, and playing together, and meeting new people, and trying new things, and grazing their knees, and jarring their fingers, and losing balls over the neighbours’ fence and making me turn on the car headlights after dark so they can keep shooting.

And what do I make of it all? I really have no idea, and to be honest I am a little lost. Clearly NBA2K is a dangerous gateway to exercise, and new skills, and wholesome activities. Maybe we should ban broccoli? Or open the flood gates on Kandy Krush and see if they become confectionary moguls? Or remove all restrictions on Cookie Clicker and, I don’t know, see if they invent some cool new cookie.

Or maybe we should just hand in our parenting badges and motivational sticker charts and just accept we have no idea what we are doing, that parenting is really hard, and be grateful for the small wins when they materialise, even if we have the Nintendo corporation to thank for them.

Monty’s favourite, George Mikan

“Knight to meet you” – Chess and other delightfully weird pursuits

“Knight to meet you” – Chess and other delightfully weird pursuits

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A big chess tournament is a glorious homage to nerdy excellence and drab fashion. The tournament Milo and I attended in January, although largely overshadowed by our adventure with Lucky the Lorikeet (read here), delivered magnificently on both counts.

A tournament of this size requires a big venue; a school hall, basketball stadium, something of that nature. The folding trellis tables are laid out in rows and rows, each with its own chess timer and board. Adjacent each of these tables can be found a pair of children, each with a neat haircut, oversized dark coloured or grey t-shirt (Adidas or ‘chess themed’), plain shorts or long trousers in quick-dry material, white socks at medium ankle length (not high or low) and white sneakers (Adidas or New Balance). There is an occasional baseball cap in navy, white or bottle green.

Given the tournament includes 100 or more players, each participant will only play a small proportion of the possible opponents. To keep things fair, and to confidently identify a true winner, the pairings are constantly evaluated based on their last result. So, if a player wins they will move ‘up’ a table and if they lose they will move ‘down’. The top 3 or 4 players are usually pretty stagnant and consistent. These players will set up their residency on tables 1, 2 and 3 – personalising their spaces with framed pictures of their mothers, Magnus Carlsen bobble-head dolls and packets of supermarket-bought jam-filled sponge cakes. For everybody else there is quite some variability; a win rocketing you up 10 tables or so, and a loss doing the same in reverse. There are lots of intricate, tournament-specific, rules which I won’t trouble you with (mostly because I don’t understand them all), but players need to keep track of each move via a baffling, coded shorthand, written in hard copy on a score sheet. This becomes the permanent record of the game, and the outcome.

Parents and other spectators cannot be within earshot of the games and are therefore generally separated by a pane of glass, or an invisible barrier of societal judgement, or both. The parental behaviour is generally highly cordial and supportive, but also quite odd. The weirdest among that cohort stand and watch every move, sometimes pressing their faces up against the glass and then leaving little steamy halos of chess expectation behind when they step back. Despite my pre-tournament predictions and hopes to the contrary, I found myself in this cohort.

Match 1

The preamble to Milo’s first game is already well documented. With lorikeets on his mind instead of gambits named for obscure Eastern European villages, he was no match for a pint-sized, baseball capped ball of chess fury. Even from 30 metres away I could feel the intensity. Milo would think awhile about his move, make it, stop his timer, and before he had even written down his aforementioned baffling, coded shorthand, the counter-move was already made. The moves were made forcefully; there was no placing, only ploughing, and whenever one of Milo’s pieces fell, I felt genuine remorse for it. It looked painful.

Milo was unfussed about the loss and his only non-lorikeet related comment post-match was that the other chap refused to talk to him. What a pro.

Match 2

Milo slipped down a table or two and thus came face-to-face with an entirely different profile of opponent. This fellow did have a chess-pun themed t-shirt (‘Knight to meet you’ with a picture of a Knight taking a pawn, or similar) but he bucked the fashion trend with a yellow bucket hat. I liked it. Even from my distant, elevated vantage point I could tell he was chatty, and fidgety. He stood up, he sat down, he tried to engage the table to his right, he tried to engage the table to his left, and at one point he had clearly lost his scoring sheet. How he managed this on an empty one square metre table I cannot tell you.

The game ended reasonably quickly and I could tell by the smile on the face of my returning son that he had enjoyed a victory. Unlike round one, Milo had a full report for me; he had told his opponent about Lucky the Lorikeet. His opponent had then tried to tell the amazing story to the adjacent tables, and had been shooshed. He had also employed an interesting mind-game on multiple occasions during the match, saying to Milo “I bet you don’t know what I am thinking.” Milo had ignored him two or three times but then had eventually said “No, I don’t know what you are thinking!” to which his opponent had quizzically responded “Wait, I don’t know what you are thinking either!”

It all seemed like a curious, but not unpleasant interaction.

Match 3

Milo was emotionally and physically drained by the time round three arrived on the afternoon of day one. We had walked the streets looking for a vet, scoured the internet for information on Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome and carefully drafted our email to the University of Sydney Professor. And he had already played more than two and half hours of chess.

Milo’s final opponent for the day was tiny, even among a cohort of nine-year-old chess players who are not renowned for their bulk. He sat at the edge of his chair and still his feet dangled. His chess-themed tshirt swam on him, and he looked like his little head might become irretrievably lost in his baseball cap at any moment. But in junior chess, perhaps above all other pursuits with the possible exception of professional hide-and-seek, a slight frame is no impediment to glory.

This was Milo’s longest game of the tournament. His tiny opponent seemed completely still throughout, or perhaps his clothing was so loose that the movement of his limbs had no bearing on the fabric. Milo became distracted and occasionally smiled and waved up at me. Although very sweet and heartwarming, this is rarely a recipe for victory in a game as concentration-dependent as chess. It seems unlikely that Garry Kasparov ever waved to his mum… although a quick google of ‘Kasparov’s mum’ yields a number of articles suggesting they were quite close. So, perhaps he did.

Anyway, because the game was so protracted, I started to study the parents around me, the vast majority clearly chess enthusiasts themselves (t-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Rook You!” alongside a Rook dramatically knocking over a Bishop tipped me off). Several of them were in fact zooming their camera phones so tight that they could photograph the boards of their playing children, allowing them to analyse the moves. This analysis then precipitated mutters of satisfaction or sighs of despair, or both, but also light-hearted conversation between these parents, many of whom seemed to know each other already.

I stood quietly by myself, and once the match had come to an end, walked down the stairs to give Milo a little cuddle. It was clear he had lost and so I didn’t even ask him about it. We did a quick circle of the surrounding bushland to spot any other distressed birds and then walked together back to our hotel after an extremely eventful day.

Match 4

Readers of this blog will know that Milo doesn’t really fit the oversized grey tshirt, athletic trousers and New Balance sneakers mould. On day one of the tournament Milo had been rather demure in his attire; chess tournament tshirt and black tights (although he did wear bright red crocs with rainbow coloured fluffy jibbitz exploding out all over the place). On day two he felt a little more comfortable with the environment and so leaned in a little more to his instincts. We have an expression in our house which we use often… ‘weird is interesting’, and everybody is encouraged to be weird in whatever way brings them joy. It is a philosophy very much open to individual interpretation and on that day Milo interpreted it as leopard tights, Tournament of the Minds tshirt, red crocs and his signature giant pink floppy hat. I expected him to remove the hat once play began, but he did not, which made him very easy to spot, and probably somewhat distracting to play.

The match was short and sharp and I could tell from his bouncy exit from the gym that he had won. A great start to the day.

Match 5

Match 5 was also reasonably short, but with a less victorious outcome. The pink hat came bobbing out of the gym once again, but this time in a more languid, dragging manner suggesting disappointment or calf injury.

When we arrived together at the meeting point Milo had a wry smile on his face, which seemed a little paler than usual. “That guy was like the Terminator” he said “I knew I was going to lose as soon as I saw him. It was a scary game.” (for those movie censors at home Milo knows of The Terminator but has not seen The Terminator – at least none of the good ones). According to Milo the Chess Terminator had only spoken twice; once to tell Milo to be quiet, and a second time to tell Milo to be quiet and also to confirm it is a tournament rule to be quiet.

Match 6

The final opponent for day two wore a COVID mask and a flannie, so he too was breaking with the general norms of attire. There was no point me zooming my camera in tight to analyse the game; I would have learned nothing. However, even from my distance I could tell it was an animated game. The two of them were chatting and pointing and thrusting their hands up to ask the adjudicators questions from time to time. Both boys looked focused and alert and the game stretched beyond the hour mark again. Really quite remarkable for nine year old boys who had already played 5 intense games of chess in two days.

Eventually the match ended and Milo bounded out victorious, a stream of words and phrases and energy bubbling out of him “so my rook broke free, but then I was stuck on the back rank, but then we did an exchange to my advantage, then I spotted a winning solution, I checked with my Bishop, he blocked with two Bishops… daddy? daddy? are you listening? Then I saw I could pin him and then I did a back rank check mate.” Awesome.

We went out for burgers and ice cream spiders.

Day 3

George Flopsy joined us for the final day of play. George is a pretty awesome little dude, a stuffed monkey with long arms that hold together with velcro; so he can cling onto the handrail on a bus, or the back of a schoolbag, or around your neck.

Milo wore George around his neck all day, positioned such that he was staring directly, unblinking, at each of his last three opponents. Milo also wore his giant pink hat, so by day three had completely leaned into his weird. We checked the rule book but found nothing precluding the wearing of inanimate, long-armed monkeys around one’s neck, and the adjudicators let it slide.

As I reported in the Lucky story, Milo lost his first game of day three but then, buoyed by the wonderful news of Lucky’s survival, managed to win his last two to finish 5-4 for the tournament, and about 25th out of 100 pretty intense little chess people.

Shortly before being check-mated, Milo’s last opponent for the tournament asked him;

“Why do you have a monkey around your neck?”

“Because he’s cute and I like him.” Milo replied.

The boy nodded and agreed “Yeah, he is pretty cute.”

Check mate.

Spot the pink hat

Bob the Prawn debuts amidst chaos

Bob the Prawn debuts amidst chaos

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Avid readers of this blog, or even those with a tangential interest via a partner who forwards it to you sometimes even though you don’t care at all, may recall that in late 2023 Kevin the Flamingo was tired, rung-out and suffering from at least one slow leak.

Mercifully, Kevin was placed in the ‘shrink wrap for the wet season’ pile over the summer holiday and an internet search was begun in earnest to find a replacement. It was remarkable to me how much comes back in one’s search engine when one types ‘inflatable ride-on costume’. Try it. It yields a pleasingly large selection. So large in fact that we needed to short list and then vote on Kevin’s replacement, via an anonymous preferential ballot.

The short list was:

  • rainbow unicorn
  • avocado guy
  • super pizza man
  • ride on chicken
  • ride on snail
  • ride on prawn
  • Shiba Inu

It was a tight ballot actually, with avocado guy exceeding early pre-polling expectations, but ultimately ride on prawn won the day. So we paid our $49.99 and way sooner than you might expect it would take to receive a ride-on inflatable prawn from China, he had arrived on our doorstep. We named him Bob.

Our first impression of Bob was that he was waaay bigger than we expected. He is at least 2 metres end to end, and has a giant protruding fluorescent booty that juts out and then droops grotesquely under its own weight, dragging on the ground. He has creepy little feelers that dangle out all over the place but also cute little blow-up eyes that do somewhat redeem the whole thing. Same as Kevin, Bob has tiny little blow up child-sized legs that are supposed to provide the illusion that I am riding him. But my torso is way too big so it all looks rather confusing and odd. Still, the boys’ objective remains memorable stupidity, and Bob delivers.

This week marked a return to school after a very long summer break. Morning one (Tuesday) brought with it a ferocious monsoonal downpour. This is not an inconvenient drizzle that causes you to hold a magazine over your head while you accelerate slightly from your car to the front door of the cafe, hopping once or twice awkwardly like a gazelle over developing puddles. No, this is like there are families of mischievous possums on your roof dumping buckets of water on you as soon as you exit your front door while others from the same family, who are hiding in the bushes, whip you viciously in the face with palm fronds.

Hmmm.. we thought, as I pulled Bob awkwardly up over my legs, and we peered out through our foggy windows at the aquatic carnage beyond.

“I still want to walk” exclaimed Milo, “we’ll take umbrellas”. Fair enough.

Monty did not express an opinion because Monty was still asleep. This was, as it turns out, not good.

Monty awoke eight minutes before our scheduled departure, took one look at the squall, and declared he was not going to school. Perhaps not ever again. Parents can generally tell when a child is trying it on, reasonably serious or absolutely committed. Monty was absolutely, positively, definitively committed to his course of action, which surprised us because he is not ordinarily that committed to anything… except terrariums.

It was rather quickly apparent that there was to be no negotiation. Not even the desperate and reckless offer of a Crunchie Bar before breakfast made any impact. Nope, this was to be a forced relocation.

So, dressed in aforementioned enormous prawn suit, I scooped Monty out of bed and hoisted him, kicking, screaming and clawing into the air while Kuepps dressed him. I then carried him out into the wild weather and plopped him into the car. The hastily, and not particularly well conceived plan was for Monty and Kuepps to drive really slowly next to Milo and I while we walked the 10 or so minutes to school.

Milo could not have been happier. Torrents of water tumbled down the overflowing gutters, he was using his umbrella to collect water, not shield himself from it, and he was splashing from deep puddle to deeper puddle. My feeble attempts to dissuade this behaviour were fruitless. I had the agility, speed and influence of, well, a giant inflatable prawn. I was helpless.

So by the time we arrived at school Milo was beaming with joy but absolutely, absolutely drenched. Kuepps opened Monty’s door and he was still bellowing at the same volume as if no time had passed at all. It reminded me of that scene from Ace Ventura where he stands on the balcony yelling in a very Jim Carrey way as he opens and closes the ‘double-paned sound proof’ sliding door. Noisy, not noisy, noisy.

So, I scooped him up again, pinching and grappling, and we waddled with as much haste as possible across the street to their school, Milo trying his best to keep Bob’s tail out of puddles.

Ultimately we managed to deposit both children into their respective classrooms (with spare clothes in their bags and smiles of relief on our faces) and escape the school grounds relatively unscathed.

Welcome Bob. Memorable stupidity… check.

Bob on a brighter day

Lucky the Lorikeet falls from the sky

Lucky the Lorikeet falls from the sky

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 3 Comments

Milo and I recently visited Adelaide together for a big chess tournament. The last time we visited the City of Churches, just the two of us, Milo was only ten months old and he filled a Qantas cabin with couscous… if you like, you can read about it here.

In a tournament like this the kids play nine matches over the space of three days in a cavernous school gym, demonstrating more patience, resilience and sportsmanship than any assembled group of adults of a similar size could ever hope to muster.

But this is not the story of that chess tournament, we’ll get to that soon. This is the story of a Rainbow Lorikeet called Lucky, who literally fell out of the sky and landed on Milo’s shoulder.

Surprising ourselves, we arrived early on the first morning of the tournament, a Saturday, so had a few minutes to walk around before we had to register Milo to play. All of a sudden I heard a dull slapping noise behind me followed shortly thereafter by a yelp from Milo. “What is going on!!?” he yelled, genuine fear in his eyes as he ran towards me. Whilst hugging my leg he quickly explained he had been looking at a dead parrot on the ground when a second bird had literally thudded onto his shoulder before tumbling down onto the concrete.

A quick examination of the scene confirmed his story; a Rainbow Lorikeet quivered on the ground, looking most distressed indeed. And in fact there were not one but two other Lorikeets lying dead in the near vicinity. It was a curious and confronting scene.

Milo burst into tears and dashed to the injured bird, crying for me to help her. I immediately sprung into adult mode… which is to presume nothing can be done, briefly comfort the child, distract, and move forward.

“Oh buddy”, I said “she is really injured. It is so sad but I think there is nothing we can do for her.”

Milo was having none of it.

“But we have to try! She already has ants on her!” he wailed, tears streaming down his little cheeks. It was true, the ants had found her quickly and she was doing her best to keep them out of her eyes. She seemed somewhat paralysed and was not being particularly successful at defending herself.

I scooped her up in a smooth, curved piece of bark and lifted her off the ground, placing her on some soft clover in a garden bed.

“Well, that will at least get her away from the ants”, I said “and give her some peace.”

Good job, I thought. Great parenting. What else can we do?

“Alright”, I said “we’d better get you registered to play.”

It is amazing to me that even after nine years I am still capable of so thoroughly underestimating my child’s determination.

“I don’t care at all about chess,” he said firmly, tears drying a little on his cheeks “we are saving her.”

I sighed. Then looked at my watch.

“Alright.” I said “Let’s see what we can do.”

We had about 40 minutes until his first game and it was quite clear to me that he had no intention of playing if our new Lorikeet friend was not, by then, somewhere safer than a garden bed. I called WIRES (the NSW native wildlife rescue volunteers) and while on hold I took his hand and walked through the school to find the registration counter.

There was a long queue which gave me enough time to get to the end of the hold sequence and learn that WIRES only operates in NSW. It also gave me enough time to call the South Australian number that WIRES gave me and learn that due to ‘resource constraints’ their hotline is no longer monitored. Grab a cardboard box and find a vet that will take injured wildlife… if you can, was the only advice we received before the line disconnected.

I began to explain all of this to Milo but his eyes told me that we were getting a box and finding a vet, so my story trailed off. By now we were at the front of the queue. I registered Milo to play and then asked for a cardboard box because my son had been hit by a Lorikeet which had fallen from the sky.

The registration lady looked at me blankly and responded with only single word questions “Lorikeet? sky? box?”

“Yes please.” I said, and she shuffled off looking a little bemused. She returned moments later with a huge, flat box. The type you might transport a hundred mangoes in. Not ideal I thought, but it is definitely a box.

By now we were down to about 30 minutes so we quickly returned to where we had hidden the Lorikeet, dragging our huge box behind us.

The poor bird was still there and the ants had found her again. She flicked this way and that, trying to dissuade them, but she could barely move and it looked as if she had trouble moving her eyelids. I carefully scooped her up into the box and we both tried to brush off as many ants as we could. I searched for the nearest vet, which was mercifully only a kilometre or two away, and off we went on foot, with our tiny bird quivering in the corner of our giant cardboard box.

But after only 3 or 4 minutes the Lorikeet mustered whatever energy she had left and took to the air, soaring… and then very quickly landing again on a low branch across the street, perhaps 3 metres from ground level.

I adulted again.

“Fantastic, she can fly!” I said with contrived joy “she’s ok!”

Milo can muster an award winning, world-class scowl when he wants to. And he gave it all to me.

“Dad, she is definitely not ok. Look at her!”

He was right. Although her little talons were holding grimly to the branch, she was askew and appeared very precarious, wobbling back and forth. Her little eyes were mostly closed and she was shivering slightly.

“If we leave her now she will fall out onto the road and die.”

He was right, of course. He mostly is.

“Alright,” I responded meekly “what should we do?”

“Get her down. We have to get her to vet.” He looked up at the tree. “Climb up and get her.”

I too looked up at the tree and gulped. Ummm. It was potentially possible, but more likely would result in a broken ankle for me, and a whole lot of general life hassle. She was perched way out at the end of an increasingly skinny branch, which looked suitable for a tiny, hollow-boned Lorikeet, but definitely not suitable for a dense-boned, not-as-spritely-as-he-once-was, middle aged man.

“What else?” I asked.

“How about a long stick?” suggested Milo. A fine idea. “We could pile soft things in the box, place it under her and poke her out. She won’t like it but it will be worth it.” This kid is full of good ideas.

Milo quickly found a suitable stick while I positioned the box and lined it with my flannie and Milo’s hoodie. I stood on my tip-toes and started gently prodding the bird. Milo was right, she wasn’t pleased, but she couldn’t do much about it. She closed her eyes and just continued to cling onto that branch.

We tried different angles. We tried gently shaking the branch. We tried calling out to her. Nothing worked. She clung on and shivered and generally looked miserable.

As I poked, I looked up at the tree and once again started considering the very VERY poor idea of clambering up there. And then, just as I was about to give up, our little Lorikeet seemed to finally figure out we were trying to help her and hopped onto the end of our long stick, and clung on tight.

“She’s on!” we both yelped and I carefully lowered her down to the box. Once on she was not getting off, so I snapped off the end of the stick, gently covered her with my flannie, and we were off again in the direction of the vet. I didn’t want to look at my watch but I knew we were cutting things very fine.

We arrived at the vet flustered and a little out of breath.

“How can I help you?” asked the lady at the front desk “what have you got there?”

“Hi” I responded sweetly, holding the giant box out in front of me. “It’s a Rainbow Lorikeet. It fell out of the sky and landed on my son” I turned and pointed at my tear-streaked son as if to prove the story was true, at least the aspect related to the existence of a son.

Now, we had not looked under the flannie during our walk, and our Lorikeet friend had not looked well when we covered her up. So we were all, I think, preparing for a tiny, unmoving little bird when I removed my shirt. But to our great delight she popped her little head up and shook her feathers a little.

The receptionist did not take the box from me right away and, I think, briefly considered not taking this on as her problem. However, she quickly read the you have to take this bird from me in my eyes, smiled and took the box.

“I’ll transfer her into a cage” she said kindly, “and I’ll get the vet to take a look when she is free.”

I thanked her and then asked if we might be able to drop by or call later to get an update. She explained that their practice would close in 30 minutes and would not open again until Monday. But she took my number and smiled reassuringly at Milo. He smiled too, paused for a moment, and than seemed to accept there was nothing else we could do for now.

We declined the offer of taking the giant box away with us, and started walking back to the chess tournament, arriving with 2 or 3 minutes to spare.

Now, of course as soon as Milo had sat down at his board I called Kuepps (my wife and Milo’s mum) to tell her the whole story. She listened intently and then immediately said she had read an article about Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome (LPS) which is affecting thousands of Rainbow Lorikeets in Queensland and Northern NSW (but not South Australia as far as anything we could find would indicate). She sent me a couple of articles and then we set about researching what we could.

Before Milo finished his first game I had found a professor at the University of Sydney who is leading a research project to better understand the cause of this syndrome, and to hopefully find a cure or remedy. The best working theory at present suggests the paralysis is caused by Lorikeets eating the fruit or seed of an introduced plant species. It is seasonal and only seems to occur in the summer months.

Milo bounded out of the hall.

“How did you go?” I asked.

“I lost,” he said quickly “how do you think our Lorikeet is?

“Well, I’ve got a lot to tell you,” I said “let’s get some lunch.”

We found a sandwich place and I filled him in on everything Kuepps had told me, and everything I had found in my googling, including the professor’s work at the University of Sydney. I explained that it seems most birds die from dehydration, starvation or predation from ants, birds or mammals. But, if they are found quickly enough, and cared for, they can survive.

Milo beamed and then his mechanical brain clicked into action.

…oh my goodness… this could be an important scientific discovery… if this is the first case discovered in South Australia that is really significant… we could save thousands of birds… okay, when was the first article written… 2021? …okay we need to figure out what species have been introduced since 2021… oh, what is the likely radius the birds would fly before they fall out of the sky… okay… figure out that radius… then write down all the introduced species in that radius… then I guess we have to remove all those plants from the whole country…

You could see the power and possibility of scientific research surging and pulsing through his brain. It was palpable.

“We have to email the professor and tell him what we found!”

So we did. We found his Sydney University email address and drafted a long email over lunch, telling him everything. We also decided our Lorikeet’s name would now be ‘Lucky’.

Milo won his second match (at least in part because he distracted his opponent by regaling him with the tale of Lucky), lost his third and we headed out for burgers and a movie. Lucky was never far from Milo’s thoughts however; a new idea or question popping up periodically throughout the evening.

To our delight and surprise, the following morning brought a reply from the professor, on a Sunday! Milo was most chuffed indeed. Thank you Milo for the information, it is interesting, I have forwarded to my colleague at Adelaide University, I will email the vet, I have copied in my research assistant and good luck for the chess today! Well, for Milo’s scientifically curious mind this was about the most exciting development possible. We called Kuepps and Monty and told them everything, and Milo then proceeded to win two of his three games that day.

On our way home we noticed one of the dead birds was not a Rainbow Lorikeet, but some other kind of parrot. All the articles we had read only mentioned Rainbow Lorikeets so we thought the prospect of the paralysis impacting other types of parrots might be significant. So we took a photo and then carefully moved the dead parrot onto some bark and under a bush to keep it somewhat protected, in case the Adelaide University colleague might want to collect it. We sent our discovery to the professor.

The next morning brought another reply! Yes, this was interesting, the bird is a Musk Lorikeet, common in South Australia, thanks again and I have forwarded the information to Adelaide University.

It was Monday, the last day of the tournament, and our last opportunity to learn what we could of Lucky’s fate. We were flying home later that evening.

Milo lost his first game of the day and afterwards I asked him whether he wanted to go to the vet now, or after his third game. I said I would let him choose but noted if Lucky had died it would very likely impact his ability to play the last two games.

Milo thought about it for a moment and said he would like to go now. Yes, he agreed it would make it hard to play his last two games, and he would probably lose, but he would prefer to find out what had happened to Lucky.

So we walked to the vet, hoping for good news but also trying (probably in vain) to manage our expectations. When we arrived the receptionist was different to the lady from Saturday. He was a smiley young man who asked how we could help.

Milo and I gave him the full story, babbling over each other, including the paralysis syndrome and the professor, and the email he may have received, and the Musk Lorikeet, everything. He looked blankly at us, advised he had not worked on Saturday and that the practice was closed on Sunday.

He stood up and did that thing where you push papers around, open and close browsers on your computer and say things like “I’m not seeing any notes here. Hmm. No, nothing. Nope, no notes…” open a drawer, close the drawer, look around a bit… hoping the other person will say something like “oh that’s okay, no worries, thanks for trying”. We said none of those things and just kept silently staring at him. I was smiling. Milo’s face was morphing slowly from smile to scowl.

“Would you like me to call the receptionist from Saturday?” he offered, somewhat hopelessly.

“Yes, thank you that would be great!” I replied.

He smiled grimly, picked up his phone and walked into another room, presumably in case the response was “Oh the Lorikeet? It died and I hoiked it in the bio-hazard bin.”

To our delight (and his), the receptionist returned with a smile on his face and proudly announced that on Saturday the Lorikeet had been transferred to another vet nearby, because their practice would be closed.

Believing our matter was now concluded the receptionist smiled again and turned his attention to the slowly growing queue behind us. But we remained.

“Would you mind calling the other vet to find out if she is okay?” I asked.

“The other vet? Call them? Me? Now?” we nodded.

“Of course, one second” he said very graciously and then once again retreated to his private room reserved for private conversations about unfortunately dead Lorikeets and their disposal.

But once again he returned triumphant, a broad grin on his face, and announced that the Lorikeet had grown stronger over the weekend and had yesterday been handed to a wildlife carer before (hopefully) being released back into the wild when she is strong enough.

Well, this was most excellent news indeed. Milo and I squeezed hands and grinned at each other.

The receptionist, now very sure our business was concluded, turned his attention to the next customer. But we were still there.

“Could we please have the address for the other vet?” I asked.

“The other vet?” he repeated.

“Yes please,” I said “we’d like to go and see if we can find out anything more.”

“Of course” he said kindly, handed us the address, and off we went, still on the trail of Lucky but now very much buoyed by the news that possibly, in fact probably, she had been saved.

It was another 1 or 2 kilometres to the second vet and we arrived even hotter and even more out of breath than before. Essentially copy and paste the above interaction with the receptionist at the next clinic, but also add four interruptions from dogs being dropped off (and patted by Milo), so the story became rather elongated and disjointed. The receptionist consulted with the vet who had cared for Lucky on Sunday and confirmed the story we had heard – she was much better by Sunday evening and had been transferred to a wildlife volunteer for specialist care before she can (hopefully) be released into the wild.

Ultimately I asked whether we could know where the carer lived so perhaps we could see Lucky before we departed Adelaide that evening. Quite reasonably the receptionist said she could not do this for privacy reasons but she agreed to take my number and pass it to the carer in case she was happy for us to visit.

We never received a call from the carer, so we will never see Lucky again. But we updated the professor and both felt so pleased with the outcome, and the effort we had gone to. Milo, despite obvious exhaustion, managed to win his last two games of the tournament and we left Adelaide tired but energized; Milo with a renewed zeal for science, research and wildlife preservation.

It is common as a parent to say proudly to one’s self (or others who will listen) “having children has made me a better person”. This is usually very nebulous – like, since I’ve had children I am far less likely to eat a kebab while sitting in the gutter at 2am, or I am now aware of pin worms and how to deal with them.

But on this occasion it was very specific and very tangible. Without Milo I would have done none of those things. I would have convinced myself there was nothing I could do, justified it to myself, walked away and in pretty short time forgotten all about it. Lucky would have been eaten by ants, or a cat, or a larger bird. We never would have emailed the professor and Milo’s potential ‘scientific discovery’ would not be recorded.

Children are beguiling and challenging and regularly beseech us to follow them down paths we don’t want to take. Often it is simply not possible to take those paths, for all sorts of very valid reasons. We explain those reasons all the time to Milo and Monty, then pull them in behind us onto our path, and we all walk on together. But more often than we would like to admit, it is possible to take a moment, follow them a little way, and maybe a little further, and see where it takes us…

A Rainbow Lorikeet unafflicted by Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome

Farewell Kevin – the swinging icon.

Farewell Kevin – the swinging icon.

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 4 Comments

With some significant support from Kevin, we have made it to the end of school year 2023. Our first in Darwin, and a highly successful affair.

The ever-shifting sands that make up the ‘flamingo school pact’ meant that Kevin was worn every day for the first week of terms 1, 2, 3, 4 AND the final week of the year. By the end he was droopy and hagged. A slow leak or two, and a significant reduction in the power of his air intake fan, meant that his proud tail-feathers sagged and his elegant neck drooped. But he forged on right up until the final school bell, with his weird little crown still sitting atop that drooping head, and his pink tulle skirt still catching on my bicycle chain.

The boys have decided that Kevin will be retired for 2024, to be replaced by a giant, rideable prawn called Bob. Stay tuned in early 2024 for more news on Bob.

Kevin’s retirement may be for the best given I recently discovered (from a learned friend) that the flamingo is a well-known ‘secret symbol’ for swingers. That is, one should discretely display a flamingo if one is swing-curious – perhaps as a motif on a sock, or a handkerchief or even a small lower back tattoo if one is particularly committed. Other swingers in the know may then presumably recognise the subtle hint and thus find a way to discretely expose to you their own flamingo tattoo on that flabby bit of their upper arm. One can only imagine this might fast-track the small talk and expedite the swinging. In the absence of such shortcuts I am not sure how any conversation could ever be steered with any sort of efficiency to “do you and your partner ever have casual sex with other parent-aged couples in the neighbourhood?”, but perhaps I am just not a good enough conversationalist.

Now, I must say the flamingo theory is unconfirmed, and I noticed exactly zero people discretely exposing their flabby upper arm bits to me all year, but I wasn’t really looking. It is possible however, that Kevin has caused year-long confusion to the entire local swinging community and it will be a great relief to many that he has now retired to the wardrobe. I will research prawn symbology before Bob begins his career in a few weeks time.

A few notable milestones to quickly list for posterity:

  • The boys have learned many new, exciting and highly questionable words in their new school. One afternoon around mid-year they both came home energized and excitedly told us they know there is a ‘C’ word but they don’t yet know what that ‘C” word is. A friend subsequently told us she had learned from her son what the ‘C’ word is, but it is not the ‘C’ word we think it is. The mystery continues.
  • Monty learned to read and now delightfully reads out loud whenever he gets the opportunity, doing all the voices and intonations. Listening to him read a Dog Man out loud to himself is one of life’s great joys.
  • Milo won $40 in a local chess tournament, his first ‘earned’ money. It immediately opened his eyes to the power of capitalism.
  • Neither boy has had a haircut in more than 12 months. Neither has any affection for the hairbrush. This is a bad combination in the tropics.
  • The boys were showered with green slips throughout the year for various achievements; some real, some spurious. Milo received the family’s only orange slip for the year which seemingly was delivered to him by a relief teacher for writing too much on a ‘creative piece’ (his book was full and he wouldn’t stop). This seems like the orange slip equivalent of the ‘my weakness is I work too hard’ interview answer, so we have confidence his academic career remains on track.
  • The boys attended their first disco. Milo lay on the stage and read his book, Monty stood RIGHT in front of the speakers and danced alone for most of it. Later he told me in a fevered voice “I could feel the music inside my stomach!”
  • Monty joined the Eco-Warriors and thus spent one recess per week weeding the school veggie garden. We presume the roles become more glamorous as one climbs the Eco-Warriors hierarchy.
  • Milo spent the first half of the year playing chess in the library at lunch time, but unfortunately his challengers started dropping off. He recounted one particular game which sounded like the primary school chess equivalent of that scene in Troy – Achilles Vs Boagrius in which Brad Pitt Achilles is late for the battle and a small boy and crowd go to fetch him. A group of 3rd graders had gathered outside Milo’s classroom, returned from the library, just before lunch. They whispered excitedly among themselves; the 6th grade Boagrius of chess had challenged him and was waiting in the library. Milo strolled the 40 or so steps to the library, flanked by a posse of chess-curious 8 year olds. According to Milo, what followed was a very pleasant match, played in good spirits, in which Milo was the ultimate winner after a good 15 minute period in the middle where the game was, as they say, very much in the balance.
  • Both have perfected their cannonballs.

What joy, revelry and new rude words will Bob and 2024 bring us? We shall have to wait and see.

Test Match – The only board game that has NEVER been finished

Test Match – The only board game that has NEVER been finished

by Jupiter and Sons ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Although they share some of the same esoteric idiosyncrasies – monotony, inane tradition, confusing timeframes – I am not talking about real-life Test Match cricket, the pseudo-sport played by slightly out of shape men and women, walking back and forth and back again without purpose for hours and days at a time, I am talking about the boardgame of the same name; ‘Test Match’ – The Authentic All Action Cricket Game! invented by Crown & Andrews in 1977 and a summer mainstay of beach houses, caravans and rumpus rooms in Australia for over 40 years.

If you grew up in Australia it’s pretty likely you had a copy on your shelf, or your cousin did, or your dad’s mate whom you visited on Boxing Day for some reason. It holds a nostalgic association with summer time, and sandy feet, and long hot evenings, and water slides and left over ham in a pillow case.

But unfortunately, like many things that live and glow in that nostalgic little corner of our brains, like the coloured nose on a Bubble O’ Bill… it’s just a bit shit.

Essentially, you roll out this mini cricket oval made of green felt, about the size of a small coffee table then arrange little plastic fielders around it. There is a batter attached to a long plastic arm and an elbowless bowler, spring-loaded at his waist who hurls beamers or grubbers, but nothing in between.

This is a quote from the official rule book: “When you first take the playing pitch out of the box it will have some creasing from where it has been folded. If you lay the pitch on a flat table, smooth it out and leave if for a while, the pitch will flatten out. You can also give it a gentle iron.”

That is a lie.

30 years after you first unboxed this game the green felt will continue to undulate dramatically; hillocks, ravines, impenetrable chasms. If you try to pull one section flat another will bend and twist upwards. And if you ever try to iron that flammable green felt, even ‘gently’, it will catch on fire immediately. No, a lumpy, completely unpredictable playing surface is a timeless and unavoidable element of this game.

The rules boast that the game can be played by 2-24 players. By this they presumably mean that one could assemble 21 of one’s best friends or cousins and form two teams of 11. Each person would presumably then sit patiently, watching the riveting action unfold, while waiting for their turn to bat or bowl. The rules even suggest the poor suckers who arrive number 23 and 24 could fill the coveted roles of umpire and square leg umpire. Taken together, these are the worst ideas any boardgame manufacturer has ever had.

Crown & Andrews also obliquely claims that one can ‘PLAY ALL FORMS OF THE GAME’. It’s not completely clear what is meant by that half-sentence, but notably the manufacturers remain silent on the far more salient question – which is should one play any form of the game. The answer to that question is obviously no, which every person who has ever played Test Match Cricket discovers in about 8 minutes.

And so the game begins, with much misplaced excitement and hope.

This is how the field generally looks in preparation for the first over.

Sensible field, offering good support to the bowler but not overly aggressive – designed to entice stroke-making.

Now, deliveries don’t take long to bowl in Test Match Cricket so it takes a little more than an over to make a drastic fielding change, but never any more than three. It takes about 18 deliveries to realise it is extremely difficult for the batter to get the ball in front of square, and completely impossible unless they are prepared to bravely meet a full toss with their face.

In the 40 year history of this game being played, a batter has successfully struck a drive off the bat in front of square on exactly fifty-nine occasions. Of those fifty-nine, the ball has been directed into that tiny little catching pouch between the fielder’s legs seven times. On each of those seven serendipitous occasions the miniscule force of that tiny little red ball has immediately flung the fielder to the ground, and the ball has then rolled gently for two. I am quite confident in my assertion that nobody in the history of Test Match cricket has ever been caught out in front of square.

So, this is what the field looks like after three overs.

A few catches are taken by those crouching down guys over the next three overs, but most deliveries go for 4 leg byes. And boredom is setting in.

This is how the field looks after another three overs.

This setup probably only lasts another 4 or 5 deliveries, and by now the scorecard looks like this.

3/134 after 9.5 overs. Ten runs taken off the bat. 124 total sundries including a whopping 76 combined byes and leg byes.

There is only one more step here before the game is completely abandoned, and that is to see how many of the crouching down guys can be knocked over in a row by paddling their bums (5 is the most, but 1 is the most fun).

And that’s it, the entire game. Absolute proof that the Crown & Andrews boardgame Test Match Cricket has never been completed in its 40 year history. And perhaps proof that games don’t really need an objective or purpose, much like the real life ‘sport’ from which this game drew its inspiration.

An abandoned pitch is a fine place for a lucky cat to groom herself.