Monthly Archives: May 2009

Princess Is On A Holiday

Animals, Photos

A close up shot of a white Ragdoll cat's faceAfter months of discussion, procrastination, discussion, deliberation and more procrastination – Claire and I finally decided that we needed to find our beautiful ragdoll Princess a new home.

The decision has been really difficult to make as we love Princess a lot, she is positively gorgeous and has a fantastic nature. However, since Hugo arrived – she is no longer our baby. At the start it wasn’t quite so bad as Hugo was sleeping more, which meant there was more time to give Princess the affection that she craves. Unfortunately as Hugo has grown up, we’re left with less and less time and we’re honestly not giving her the attention that she deserves.

We were very reluctant to simply give her away – as we really wanted to know she was going to an excellent home – not just an okay one. I talked to some friends at work, to see if any wanted their first cat or optionally a second or third but that didn’t pan out. However, when Claire’s younger sister Lucy suggested that they’d love to have her – Claire and I thought it perfect. Perfect because Lucy & Michael already have a fancy pants Layanese and Lucy was in fact the person that gave Princess to Claire as a birthday present back in 2006!

White ragdoll cat sitting inside a paper bag, happily restingLucy & Michael were a little unsure how their Layanese named Boost would react to another cat in the house and we were a little nervous as well. To make sure things were going to work out, we packed up Princess’s gear for a night or two away as a test. As it turns out, neither of us had anything to worry about as Boost & Princess hit it off straight away. Initially there was a lot of sitting close to one another, looking each other dead into the eyes and then the rampant playing started – which is a sure fire way to know Princess is relaxed and happy.

We’re really sad to not have Princess in our lives on a daily basis, Claire and I are constantly expecting to hear her distinctive little ‘burr’ sound around the house. Fortunately, she isn’t far away and we know that she is in a fantastic environment with people that love cats as much as Claire and I do.

Smile Plus, Gold Coast Dentists Without The Fuss

Family, Life

Toward the end of last week, Claire mentioned that she had a toothache but didn’t take too much notice of it. By the time Friday clicked round, the toothache that she wasn’t paying all that much attention to was well and truly making her pay attention.

Being generally uneasy about dentists, Claire called one of her older sisters for a dentist recommendation. While Anita could offer a suggestion, it was more than likely that the soonest Claire could see anyone was going to be early the following week. At this point, the toothache was severe enough that Claire could barely wait for 9AM to come around to get to the chemist to get some serious pain relief for it. After taking the first two Panadeine Ultra tablets, it provided relief for about two hours – instead of the normal four and then the ice packs came out.

At this point, it seemed quite clear to me that there was no way that Claire was going to be able to make it through to next week (if she was lucky) – so I started calling around some local Gold Coast dentists just before lunch time on Saturday morning in a vein hope that one would be open and be able to see Claire.

The local Pacific Pines Dentist was open, however unable to get Claire in until Monday but referred us to Smile + or Smileplus in Southport. Giving them a quick call, the receptionist was helpful and I got to talk to the dentist within about a minute of calling. They were just about to close up but stayed open for us, which was absolutely fantastic. We left straight away to get into Southport Central and they were both very reassuring for Claire and really set her mind at ease about the whole dental experience.

About an hour and a half later, Claire had her initial consultation, x-rays and a the problematic tooth extracted. To Claire’s surprise, she was feeling considerably better before we’d even left the dental surgery, as the pressure being placed on the nerve was gone.

I think I thanked the dentist & his nurse about half a dozen times while we were there. It was such a refreshing experience to be able to call, when you’re really in need of a specialist service and to be able to get in touch with the specialists. Claire was so impressed with their service, that she voluntarily scheduled another appointment for this Saturday for a general check up, which I think speaks volumes about their service.

Fremantle Down Carlton At Gold Coast Stadium

Sport

I had corporate tickets to the Fremantle versus Carlton AFL match this evening at the Gold Coast Carrara Stadium via work.

The evening was fully catered and included waiters in each of the boxes, which was a nice touch. The other great aspect of the corporate tickets was VIP parking, situated right behind the Gold Coast football stadium. Getting into the parking was straight forward but getting away from the stadium was even better, straight into the car, onto the road and completely missed the typical traffic chaos.

The first quarter of the match was quite scrappy, with a lot of stray kicks and handling errors. I thought that was going to set the tune for the entire match, which would have been disappointing but I was pleased to see the quality lift by half way through the first quarter.

My one paragraph breakdown of the match is as follows. Fremantle won the match through great defence within their 50m circle and cleared the ball well. While Carlton were able to get the ball into the Fremantle half quite easily, their approach to getting the ball into the 50m circle was very ordinary. I think their approach strategy tonight (if you can call it that) ultimately lost the match for them – which compounded by poor ball control and ball movement choice made disposal a simple task for Fremantle.

I’m not a massive AFL fan, however I do enjoy watching the matches on the TV – however I couldn’t tell you the names of all the teams or who plays for what team and in what position. After seeing a match in person now, I can completely understand why it is such a massively popular sport in the southern states – the aerial acrobatics and sheer fitness of the players is quite astounding.

I could definitely see myself going along to another game at some point – the crowd are vocal and passionate about their teams, which makes the experience that much more memorable I think.

Naked

Family, Photos, Travel

Maori tribal necklace pendant made of jadeIn the mid 1990’s, a group of the Lattimore and Morrison family whom live in Australia made our way back to New Zealand to relax and catch up with our extended family. While in the South Island of New Zealand, the weather was perfect for snow skiing and we made our way to one of the most well known New Zealand skiing holiday destinations of Queenstown.

During that trip, my older brother Cameron and I were exploring the Queenstown shops and found our way into a tourist style gift shop – full of the obligatory items such as stuffed Kiwi plush toys. One of the things that caught my attention while looking around were necklace pendants made from jade in the shapes of traditional Maori tribal markings. I was quite taken by them and on a subsequent visit to the shop, picked one up to bring home to Australia.

Once putting on the necklace, I didn’t take it off for months and it turns out, for good reason. As summer approached that year, I was around at a friends place to cool off in the pool. No wanting to damage the leather necklace strap, I took it off and sat it on a near by seat. You can imagine how horrified I was when some friends were fooling around beside the pool, knocked the chair and the jade pendant hit the bricks and broke in half! I couldn’t bring myself to throw it out, so I thought I’d see if I could repair it and thanks for some an unknown super-esque glue available at the time – it worked a treat.

Since fixing it that afternoon, I have literally taken it off a handful of times in over 10 years. When I say handful, I mean literally, I could count the times on my fingers – so few in fact that Claire hasn’t seen me without it in over 10 years. It has survived football, soccer, karate, tennis, swimming, water skiing, wake boarding, motorbikes, BMX, rollerblading and every other thing I can imagine and it made it through completely unscathed.

Triangular jade locking clasp for a Maori tribal necklaceEnter our beautiful son Hugo in September 2008, positively gorgeous and has little fiddle fingers. He takes great delight in touching, grabbing, fiddling, smooshing, yanking or banging on anything he can get his hands or feet on to. For the last month or so, he has loved fiddling with my necklace and it has stood up to the test – until last week when, after years of wear and tear – is finally undone by an eight month old baby boy!

The question on my mind now is – after it being with me for such a long time – should I replace the worn leather strap and return it to its rightful place around my neck or simply move on?