The month of February always reminds me of the family holidays we used to go on down to Bunbury.
Way way back in the dim past we had some family friends living down there – the Fields. The parents were both librarians and they had two kids – Katherine, around the same age as my brother and I, and Toby, a few years younger. Their sprawling house on the outskirts of town was absolutely packed to the gills with books, and had a huge overgrown yard, complete with a pond full of ducks and geese. We’d eat fresh duck eggs for breakfast, go to the beach, sit around and read, and listen to possums crawl around in the roof at night. It was great. The only thing that wasn’t great was the journey down.
To get to Bunbury from Perth you need (or at least used to need) to go through Kwinana – the industrial strip along the shores of Cockburn Sound. This wasn’t too much of a hassel – it was ugly sure, but it only took an hour or so to get through – apart from one brief stretch where the road went past a fertiliser plant.
Fertiliser plants stink. They stink like you could not possibly believe. All the nitrates create an unholy, nauseating stench that threatens to bring up your lunch. Even with all the windows wound up and the vents closed the foul odour would fight its way into the car and hang around for a good half hour before finally vanishing. It was a part of the journey we dreaded, but was necessary to get down to Bunbury and see our friends.
So why does this remind me of February? Because in order to get to the pleasantness of my birthday at the end of the month, I first have to get past Valentines Day, which while it may not actually stink is certainly just as unpleasant and unavoidable.
Of course this year it’s not too bad. The dreaded 14th is a Saturday meaning that I can stay indoors and listen to MP3s all day and not have to put up with every single shop window and radio station reminding me of the fact that while the rest of the world has a fantastic time I personally have absolutely nothing to celebrate. As always. Bah!
I think I’ll spend tomorrow emptying the bins and updating my details on the electoral roll. I might even defrag my hard drive again. That’ll teach that little bastard cupid! 🙂
Anyway, with that dealt with onto other stuff. Like Charmed for instance which returned to our screens last week.
Well, I suppose firstly I should admit that I was wrong. They didn’t kill Leo. They just banished him to Valhalla, which against all pre-existing evidence appears to be an uncharted tropic isle somewhere in the Indian Ocean (surprisingly close to the British Indian Ocean territory actually, which may explain why the Yanks don’t like anyone visiting Diego Garcia). There the Valkyries stuck him in a flimsy bamboo cage and made him dress up like Russell Crowe in Gladiator and fight people, which is kind of weird for a suposed pacifist (he kept saying things like ‘I’ve changed’ as if it explained anything). Apparently there’s some kind of conspiracy going on between the girls’ new white lighter (…some white lighter the guy can’t even heal sounds like a warlock if you ask me…) and a valkyrie, which led to all this. I’m as baffled as anyone.
In any case the girls eventually managed to track him down, and get him out of said flimsy bamboo cage, although that supposed white lighter had to kill three Valkyries to get them there (not that they realise this, he’s keeping all the evil stuff under wraps). They also had to temporarily kill Darryl, without his permission I might add which is frankly a bit towards the dark side if you ask me. Anyway all this killing let them grab Leo and escape – although Piper went all weird (or at least weirder than normal) and got left behind. Some warriors also escaped from Valhalla and started killing people at random for no good reason at all – this lead to a whole lot of confusion and running around and Piper becoming not just a Valkyrie but a biker Valkyrie (this was pretty stupid, but at least the soundtrack guys had some fun with it by scoring them roaring down the street like Hell’s Angels to Ride of the Valkyries :). In the end of course everything turned out OK, although it’s hard to say exactly why. Piper kicked Leo out of the house, Phoebe’s now an empath and Paige is dating a dog – you know, normal Charmed type stuff.
Um…. what else? CSI is back! Hooray! Grissom (not ‘Grisham’ as I was spelling his name previously – my bad) apparently grows a beard this season. No sign of it yet, but it’s early days. Personally I think William Peterson did it so people would stop mistaking him for … um one of the guys running for the Democrat endorsement – Howard Dean maybe? There’s a banner add floating around the net for him anyway and the resemblance is just uncanny. Grissom for President I say! 🙂
(A CSI Administration, now that would be cool. Catherine could be VP, Sara could be Secretary of State, Warwick and Nick could be Presidential Advisors or Press Secretaries and Greg… well I dunno he could head up the CIA or Pentagon or something. Couldn’t do a worse job than they’re doing already)
OK, going to shut up now 🙂
