G'Day Mates!

G'day cobbers!

And the reason for the above? Rob's family will be visiting from Cairns in Australia, so I thought that I would help them to feel at home by slipping a few phrases into the conversation so they don't feel too confused by our South African slang!! I googled (what else?) and found a few very helpful sites and lists, so I decided to share a few with you all. Interestingly, there are a lot of words and phrases that we share with them, so that will make life a lot easier!! (Although, some, on the other hand, are vastly different i.e 'root')

This may be a tad small to read actually!

And here begins the lesson....      

        Arvo: afternoon
Barbie: barbeque  
        Bogan: redneck, an uncultured person. According to the Australian show Bogan Hunters, a real bogan sports a flanno (flannel shirt), a mullet, missing teeth, homemade tattoos (preferably of the Australian Flag or the Southern Cross), and has an excess of Australia paraphernalia. This "species of local wildlife" can be found by following their easily distinguishable tracks from burnouts or the smell of marijuana. (Hmmm, I know where we can see plenty of these people!)
  Bottle-O: bottle shop, liquor store
  Chockers: very full
  Esky: cooler, insulated food and drink container
  Fair Dinkum: true, real, genuine
  Grommet: young surfer
  Mozzie: mosquito
  Pash: a long passionate kiss. A pash rash is red irritated skin as the result of a heavy make-out session with someone with a beard.

No worries mate!

  Ripper: really great
  Roo: kangaroo. A baby roo, still in the pouch, is known as a Joey
  Root: sexual intercourse. This one can get really get foreigners in trouble. There are numerous stories about Americans coming to Australia telling people how they love to "root for their team." If you come to Australia, you would want to use the word "barrack" instead. On the same note, a "wombat" is someone who eats roots and leaves.
Servo: gas station. In Australia, a gas station is called a petrol station. If you ask for gas, don’t be surprised if someone farts. (That happens here all the time, the fart bit!)
  She’ll be right: everything will be all right
  Sickie: sick day. If you take a day off work when you are not actually sick it’s called chucking a sickie.
  Slab: 24-pack of beer
  Sook: to sulk. If someone calls you a sook, it is because they think you are whinging
  Stubbie holder: koozie or cooler. A stubbie holder is a polystyrene insulated holder for a stubbie, which is a 375ml bottle of beer.
  Sweet as: sweet, awesome. Aussies will often put ‘as’ at the end of adjectives to give it emphasis. Other examples include lazy as, lovely as, fast as and common as.
  Ta: thank you
  Togs: swim suit
  Tradie: a tradesman. Most of the tradies have nicknames too, including brickie (bricklayer), truckie (truckdriver), sparky (electrician), garbo (garbage collector) and chippie (carpenter).
  Ute: Utility vehicle, pickup truck
  Whinge: whine

So, its going to be ripper to have Rob's rellies from Oz for a bit. They had the bonzer idea to visit for his birthday, so let's hope they don't come a gutser when they are here. If the weather is fair dinkum, we shall have a barbie one arvo, which makes me think, strewth I hope we have enough tucker and stubbies to go round! And while we are waiting for the grub, we'll have a good yabber! I must remember to buy some chockies for afters.

And we shall celebrate Rob's 70th in style.

After all, his blood is worth bottling!

Hooroo for now mates.

Happy Limerick Day!

I was 'surfing the net' earlier today, wondering what snippets of interest to share with you all this week, when I came across the fact that the 12 May is Limerick Day.

I am sure that everyone reading this knows what a Limerick is and that Edward Lear was the 'creator' of them, but as I dug deeper into my research (ahem, good word that), I discovered so many interesting facts about him that I decided to share some with you!

Edward Lear (All Pics thanks to Google)

Edward Lear was born on either the 12 or 13 May 1812 in Holloway, London. He was the penultimate child of the twenty one (gulp) that his mother produced, and was the youngest to survive. When he was only four years old, he and his oldest sister Ann, who was twenty one years older than him, moved out of the family home because of financial strain, and Ann carried on looking after him. He suffered from a number of ailments when he was young, including bronchitis and seizures, and he had bouts of depression throughout his life. He called these times 'the Morbids'.

His Book of Nonsense.

Rainy Days and Mondays.....!

Picture this.......

Last Monday morning, just home after a wonderful week of camping. The wash basket is full. There are two sets of sheets from the house, a weeks clothing from camping, plus bedding, towels and washing-up cloths from the caravan......and it is raining!

Don't get me wrong, the rain was not a problem. This was, read on....

I looked down the bed to see who was still lying with us feline or canine wise, and saw, near my toes, a pile of something. Something suspicious. A lorry act!*

Now, let me explain *.

When I was teaching last century (scary thought that), we used, among other schemes, a wonderful reading scheme called 'Gay Way'. These were first published in the '50's and updated with new covers and pictures as time went by. The Red Books were the starter readers, then came the Green books and so on until the Violet books. They were lovely, and the children enjoyed the easy wording and the funny stories. They met Fat Pig, Sam the Fox, Meg the Hen, Deb the Rat, Ben the Dog, Jip the Cat and Tod the Giant and the stories were simple and the updated illustrations were just lovely. (I always felt sad for Fat Pig because he had no name, so my classes used to choose a name for him to make him feel better!)

Sam, Fat Pig, Meg and Deb!