The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

..It is an actual book title, I loved it, the title that is. If ever a title has ever prompted me to read a book this one has. I think I will have to buy a copy!

Whew, it's late November already! Can you believe it. Seems only a couple of months ago that we came to Bali, and now our first year is coming to an end. There is nothing like that first year somewhere, I remember my first year in Sydney that was eye opening, then there was my first summer in Greece, and I did my first ski season in Lech, they were the ones that were special for the simple reason that they were so new. The newness of it all. This can't be felt again, we will become more and more comfortable here until familiarity takes over. Good and bad me thinks. I like the exotic, precisely because it is. We will begin to plumb the depths of the culture though and that will take us to different heights. Deep for a Monday morning. Must be the caffeine.


Well the big news this weekend would have to be that it definitely was Kevin 07. Kevin Rudd the Labor leader will be the new Prime Minister of Australia.

I designed several sets for the Labor party over the last couple of months, here is Kevin at one of my lecterns/sets, though you can not see much of that. Though we spent literally hours positioning those little New Leadership. stickers so they would appear exactly as you see it here. The things one does eh?

The other huge piece of news that has crossed our shores that I need to share with you is that Jacqui Gower is now 40. I know, I know, you should never mention a ladies age but she came up here with long time partner (Ain't that the truth) Simon Watts as well as Sydney friends Merrilee Pearce and her partner Grant Markert, taking residence in an exclusive villa in the quiet fishing village of Seseh. The trip wasn't without any hitches. Simon found out very last minute that he had less than 6 months to go on his passport and that the Indonesians were not happy about such things. That was a Saturday. He made time stand still extricating a new one out of the English consulate on the Monday and joined us here on the Tuesday afternoon heading directly from the airport to Jac's party. I thought it might be nice to meet him so together with their villa driver I went to the airport. He made customs very quickly and after the normal greetings I handed him an ice cold Bintang. Bali style and welcomed him to Bali. The villa was a good 50 minute drive at 4pm in the afternoon so we sat in the back of the car, supped our beers and caught up.


The night was amazing, it started off down on the beach watching the sunset from in between fishing boats on the sand. There was a very special bottle of champagne to be drunk, though the time and temperature weren't quite right. Back in the villa and after immersion in ice the time was right and we had a bottle of 1990 Bolly. Mango Daqueries followed and the Binnies were always within arms reach. We had our own private Gamelan playing beside the pool who were joined soon after by ladies from the local village who were our private dancers. Kitted our in full traditional garb. Even some of the local kids came in to watch and through some gentle coaxing by us had a dance. I think we all got up at one stage or another and waddled around, some more. Actually we all had a dance.


We ate like kings at this feast of seafood, curries, sates and even a roast duck. To say it was bliss would be an understatement. The night seemed to stand still from then on. Later the men adjourned to the beach to let off fireworks while the ladies lounged around the ample soft furniture of the villa. Gabi and I had to drive home at 11ish which was a small mission just there. Though we made it, obviously!


Merrilee and Grant left the following day, though we had time for one more sunset at Kudeta. This photo was slightly contentious. Grant was busily snapping away and Merrilee wasn't having a bar of it. I commented that it would be a great shot. And low and behold, it is. Well done that man, isn't that a great shot? Speaking of which, all the Bali images in todays post are from Grants personal website, I thank him for letting me use them to add some colour to these otherwise drab pages. It is so much easier for me to link than upload my own. Blogger has a bad tendency to 'timeout' when i try to upload images. Sometimes I can spend literally hours trying to get them from my desktop to your screen. I am trying to upload a photo of Rudd, see above, as I type this. I am on my 5th try. Really I have enough to do and don't need the frustration of... oops that one timed out as well. Lets have another go!

ED. I got to eight trys and got it up there! Yippee!!!!!!


Oh here is one more shot i wanted to nab. A great one with me and the two boys snapped at, would you believe it, a Moroccan restaurant up on Jalan Kunti in Oberoi. We have everything here don't we?

Take care.

Peace.