#our mum can hoover the house without it waking us up so like we have a decent ability to sleep through noise

[thethingything]

got woken up after 3 hours of sleep because we keep having really weird vivid dreams and now the neighbours are being loud and I keep hearing banging noises that are loud enough to startle us so something tells me actually getting a decent amount of sleep is gonna be a challenge

[sultanasuth]

Unloveable them

They help our mum cook. They cut her onions and chop the coriander and veggies that are important to the cooking and dice the fish or chicken if needed. they cook curries themselves and fast at the same time. No water no food and no fags. They don’t wish to cook but they must or else we are not eating at fotha. They also get shouted at that the house smells when making our food. They should make the food less smelly or they should hurry up and cook. We need the food that they cook but we can complain about the smell and walk out of the house. They don’t know how we talk to our mum. We talk to her the way we want. If they’re shocked and feel like we don’t talk to our mum the way we’re supposed to they’re wrong. They have never shouted at their mum or heard the kind of swearing we do. We demand the kind of food we want and will shout until we get it. No matter who we’re shouting at. We shout at them because someone else has eaten our food or touched our stuff. But they just spent all that time. 3 hours cooking in the kitchen and making us food but we still shout at them because even though it’s not time to eat yet. They’re looking at their phone screen. Because we can. It’s like we don’t realise that they also have been fasting all day but something annoyed us so we have the power to speak out and stop whatever they’re doing when it’s they’re time to relax. The bin for example. I find that it’s a mans job to take out the bins. I see it fit as all we do is go to work and come back after 7 hours and do nothing at all except sit and stare at our own phone. It’s like if they see you doing nothing then there is always something else that they SHOULD be doing like finally when we had to take the bins down we had to tell our dad about it. Or had to shout at our mum that They don’t do anything. We also feel the need to call them an elephant and that was an “ACCIDENT” that’s okay for someone to do that. To be shouted at after the whole day. Well let me tell you THEIR story. In the morning they would wake up at 7:45 to take our little sister to school. For Ramadan They would come home and go to sleep but not for too long like we do. I mean why shouldn’t They it’s not like They’re going to be able to sleep afterwards. However during normal times They come home start cutting onions then make a curry for themselves then help our mum with the rest of the cooking. Then not only do they finish at 1 after cooking for 4 hours. They clean. They do laundry not only their own but ours too along with our towels and socks and bedsheets. After we wake up we make the bed or when we’re upset we leave it and They clean around the bed. Like clothes and hoover the whole house. Clean the kitchen. Mopping and wiping brushing and sorting. In Ramadan that leaves just enough time for them to make ifthar. That drags out throughout the whole day. No time to watch a movie or just chill by themselves. There’s no time because they have to feed people who are mean to them always getting judged for how a curry turns out but what we don’t know is that it’s not an exact science it can’t be perfect all the time. We also demand that their cookings not enough. That they need to make certain things but then we won’t eat any of it. We will pick at it or not eat it at all. We think we can order people around till we get what we want then make them feel shitty about what they have done for us. We think it’s acceptable to shout and scream when the laundry isn’t done. We feel it’s fit that we can strangle people and step on their makeup boxes just because we think we can buy them another one. While we were angry because we were fasting. We know that they won’t tell anyone but we know it’s called abuse. We shut them up buy hugging and kissing them taking them out for a drive. That’s acceptable. What’s also acceptable is when we don’t take them out because they’re fat and they need to loose weight. “what are other people going to think”. Why would you care we got married in front of everyone “when they loose weight that’s when I’ll take her out but not before that” why keep someone house bound and working when we just want to go out and chill with our friends. Because as we go out and we don’t look back at who we left at home. At the end of the day we just don’t care enough. I understand that they want to go out to. I mean being stuck at home all day and working a 12 hour shift with one break is something that would tire anyone out. We didn’t take them on vacation because at the time we didn’t have any money. Or we just didn’t want to or we couldn’t afford it after all that money spent on a flashy wedding. They understood but they wanted to spend more time with us. They wanted to go out and get fresh air. They wanted to be free. More free than how they were at home all those years. But they realised that it was just like it was at home but worse because here people don’t know how to talk to them like they’re a person. People look at them like they should be doing what they’re doing now but more. Why should they be treated like an equal because then who is going to do what needs to be done because we won’t. We’re more important. They need to stay at home where no one can see them. Because they’re fat and they need to cook clean and do laundry and that will be the rest of their life. Because they’re fat and we’re not. We also have a lot of opinions things that come into our heads don’t get left inside or hidden because we’re going to hurt their feelings. They shouldn’t have any feelings. Today. We told outsiders about them. That means that if they wanted they can tell outsiders about what we did. They don’t have to but they feel like it’s a loop hole. They feel trapped like they can’t can’t speak to anyone about anything except our mum. But our mum is bias she may thing she’s protecting them but no one can protect them. Only they can escape. No one should feel the way we make them feel but that’s how we are. We enjoy this. Because even after being explained to by outsiders we still make them feel like shit. For their cooking cleaning skills and their driving. They’re cooking looks dead. They won’t do the laundry till it’s full and they can’t drive. But we don’t see our own driving. We have crashed the car more times than them but got away with it. Now we think that it’s fine when we sit next to them pretending like nothing has happened. And ask them not to tell their mums but why one set of rules for us and one set of rules for them because WE CAN That’s why. THEY TOLD THEIR MUM. Why would they tell their mum. Why would they cry all night. Why would they cook the next day and carry life on? Why didn’t they pretend like nothing’s happened. Like they haven’t been hit punched. kicked. pushed. Stepped on and verbally abused with language they only hear from dirty school boys. Why didn’t they pretend like none of that happened. Why don’t they listen to our side without talking and then we won’t let them talk after wards after they said one word because what they’re saying is not what we agreed on. Why can’t they see that what we say is right and everything is always their fault. If we nearly crash the car it’s because they are making us talk. If we wake up late it’s because they didn’t call us because they were helping our mum make samosas. Now we’re late. They’re stupid. If we make a mistake it’s their fault somehow. And when they make a mistake they will get shouted at. They will be told they can’t do anything right and They with get called an elephant because they made the mistake. We didn’t mean to call them an elephant. It was an accident. We accidentally called them an elephant and shouted at them to our parents that they can’t do anything right but we also say that they don’t do anything at all. But they do everything. From the beginning they have treated our mum like their own and shown nothing but respect however when we talked about their mum she is “that woman”. That woman gave us advise today about how to treat the people she gave us. The people that she raised and we may act like we don’t care and we can hurt their feelings. But their mum cares about them enough to give them to us so they can help our mum and take care of our family. We want them to start a job so they can make money as well as come home and look after the family. It’s a 24 hour job already but they need to make money too. That woman that told us how to treat someone that they care about. That woman was wrong and now we want to get rid of them. We all got ready on eid. We looked at them vey angrily when we’re trying to be happy because it was their first eid without their family. We got angry and told them their makeup looks like shit and they should wear less makeup. We point to any random pretty girl with makeup and tell them to do makeup like their. We want to change them. Make them look like someone we want. Not someone they want. They’re not allowed to wear too much makeup so we told them before we went to work. That made them feel like shit all day. Even after their cousins went out on eid without them because they’re not allowed they don’t have enough time. Their eid was shit. Their first Eid after they’re married. They should also join the gym. We told them again after they picked us up after work. They couldn’t understand why we were telling them to look different from what they’re used to. They should do what we tell them. We tell our mum after we get home even though they told us not to because out mum has got high blood pressure. We told her anyway. We shouted and screamed and said “they looked so ugly” to our mum and brother. Then we went upstairs happy and trying to talk to them. They didn’t want to talk. We got into bed and tried to get them to suck our dick. We said that we were horny. But they didn’t. They didn’t talk to us the next day. They were cooking and we went downstairs found breakfast was already made and we didn’t like that they weren’t talking to us. They kept cooking and ignoring us so we forced them to eat the egg muffin we made them. They tried to make us understand why they weren’t talking to us. We felt a little bad but not bad enough. We went to work and came home to find them asleep on the sofa after cleaning. We woke them up to tell them about our work day and why we were late. We were hungry and we wanted them to eat with us but they already ate because it was late but they waited for us. They wanted us to go to sleep early because we told them we would take them to Blackpool. We went to sleep at 8 o clock in the morning. And didn’t wake up till 3 o’clock in the afternoon. They didn’t wake us up because they were sleeping too because they have depression so they sleep more than usual. They wake up and took our little sister to school then their own little sister and brother but their brothers school is next to our mum doctors so they took our mum too. Then they came home ate alittle bit and then came upstairs to sleep with us. They keep sleeping through their alarms and woke up at 2. They cooked fish and made a nice salad. And ate rice with our family. We came down and they made tea and gave us sweet things to have with it. They’re not used to this kind of thing because it’s with a new family and a new environment. They don’t know our schedules they’re still getting used to everything and when to give what and leaving how to cook the curries like our mum makes them because we told them no ones cooking compares to our mums. So they must learn it. They made the curry’s and then they did our little sisters hair while we went to wash the car and get a haircut. It was 5 o’clock by the time we were finished. We came home and we asked if she wants to go to my relatives house instead of to Blackpool because they asked but they said my relative came last time and the time before that and this time we want to go there and it’s always about them and we told them to do makeup like them. So we got angry and left. we went to see our friends and met them in a car park then we went to our relatives house after that we bought their little girl home. We were going to drop her off later. It was half 7 now. We came home and started watching football. For an hour while we watched England win and then cheered and had fun while they were upstairs waiting for me to come home. They told me they did their makeup and watched two movies and then still waited as we watched football. We saw everyone before we even thought about taking them out. It’s now half 8 and We want to take them out. But they’re crying why won’t they come out. They keep saying no and we want to take them out now after the whole day is gone. They tell us we’re not good partners. We don’t treat them like wives. They said they won’t ask us to take them anywhere anymore. Because they’re not moving or getting up to go out that’s why we’re going to choke them lightly and swing them around and lift them and pull on their legs because they wasted our day off. They told us it was their day off too because they wait the whole week to go out. They can’t go out any other day unless it’s our day off. They still wasted our day off but kept telling us that we wasted theirs. They keep crying. We don’t care. It’s annoying. They said “ I waited all day till half 8 for you to even notice me. I got ready ages ago and now I’m the last person on your mind. You wasted my day off cause I can’t go out without you. I waited all day for you to give a shit about me now. I’m not going to ask you to take me out anymore and I will never go out with you because I’m done begging for my own husband to take me out”. They think we care. We’re going to take their phone off them because they’re not listening and always on their phone. They been working and they think they can do whatever they want in their spare time. We pinned them down and told them they wasted our day off. They told us we were hurting them but we pinned them down again. Then we got angry and said we’re going out. But before we left we had to give their phones back. So we dropped it on their heads while they were lying down ignoring us.they want us to take them out but we want to go out by ourselves. We leave them crying they, cry all the time. It’s annoying. WE go out. Are they being selfish ?

[jakebraque-blog]

Drenched with enthusiasm.

​Well we've been up around darwin for oh, I dunno, a couple of months now? Time seems to do funny things in the wet. It sort of oozes on by in a gurgling, mildewey stream, seemingly without end; just a never ending, damp, mosquito infested slice of futile eternity. Once every while the sun comes out for a few days and it's like the electric company turned the water and power back on to your soul. Then the drizzle starts over and you get to watch the colour slowly fade out of the world again. It's like being stuck in that bloody torture device from The Princess Bride. Each successive storm cell grumbles on by all like: "I've just taken a year off your life. Tell me, how did it feel?"

Am being depressing? Sorry, I just had to chuck a batch of home-brewed ale out this morning. That sort of thing'll get to a bloke. 23 litres of delicious, cloudy pale ale and somehow it got colonised by the Demonic Mouldiforms from Dimension X. Ever wonder why Krang was such a miserable butthole? Try being positive when your groin's teeming with these horrible feckers. 

So yeah, the wet season can go hoover down a fresh, hot tubesteak, but aside from that, things aren't so bad here. Well, alright, Declan's been doing battle with his first set of molars, so sleep's not really a thing that's happening at the moment. And Shan's back seeking employment again, which sucks, because finding a job you can do while parenting is a right bastard. Being a daytime Nanny for 2 kids was handy, because she could take ours along with. And exhausting though it was, we did manage to work it so that the domestic load got shared between us. Plus when you put the man of the house in charge of cooking, he gets to figure out how many things can be cooked on a weberQ (The answer is everything, I could make a pho in that motherfucker, just you try me).

So yeah, that's bullshit and also, unsurprisingly, all down to some tedious fuckery with a local mining company that the woman who was employing her works for. None of which will be discussed further because, frankly, it's boring. If anybody does have the hot leads on employment for returning mums up here please, by all means, drop us a line.

My work carries on as usual and the one thing it aint is boring. I drive in each morning, having no bloody idea what it is I'll be doing that day. You can start out tinkering with a tractor or a forklift in the workshop and then one phone call will have you catapulted into the bush to hunt down strange and exotic mango farming machinery and right its wrongs, or lob into Darwin town to pull apart some eldritch, pneumatic doohickey on a sheet mill that you've never laid eyes on before. Days go by fast there.

Our campsite continues to develop in nuance and complexity. The shitty old tarps (one actually had duck poo on it, it happened in Katherine, ask Tom Curtain about it) have been disappeared and replaced with shiny new ones. Makes it feel a bit less favelahrey in here. When the wet packs its bindle and fucks off again, we'll be able to lift them all up a bit higher (you want a steep fall angle on your roof when 300mm of rain can come down in a day) and that'll give the place a light and airy feel. Not to mention let the bloody tropical mould dry out and die. The caravan exterior's got a date with a bucket of vinegar just as soon as the run off hits. I'll knock all the walls down as well, hang some shade cloth and we'll set up an outdoor lounge. The best thing about living in a van (aside from getting to change your backyard whenever you want) is that you basically live outside.

The weather certainly doesn't seem to faze the wildlife. The whole park is teeming with birds; geese, ducks and cockatoos, Declan loves toddling around after them on walks. There are also, of course, many fun puddles to splash in and lots of super-awesome mud to smear yourself with. We average about 3 changes of clothes a day. At night the Bandicoots come creeping in around the yard, seeking the bountiful harvest of fruit bits that he drops constantly in his wake. Each morning there isn't a speck to be found, the slab clean as a whistle once more.

Anyhow, that's enough bloody sentiment. It's getting all Macca-in-the-morningish up in here.

Fart, Boobies, etcetera.

That's better.

[rufusdawes]

Grape Expectations

I’ve never really been much of a wine drinker. Growing up I would eschew my parents’ offerings of a Sunday glass with our weekly roast dinners in favour of a sparkling grape juice. Only recently have I been able to tell the difference between red and white, and that’s with my eyes open. Wine was always something other people did. In fact, by the time I was living on the Sunshine Coast, alcohol was something other people did. But then I moved to the Northern Territory. Here, in the spiritual home of VB, where their green cans litter every roadside stop and every bit of roadside in between, I reacquainted myself with the amber nectar. On the Barkly cattle stations, XXXX was my beer of choice. On trips south to the Alice, something more boutique, like a Coopers Pale. Upon returns to the coast, I’d partake in beers made by men that spend too long grooming their beards and call their creations names like ‘Sad Dog IPA’ or ‘Duke of Gloucester’ or some other such nonsense.

Once I’d made the permanent move to Alice Springs and more specifically, as I started having regular meals chez Aaron and Kate, I made the move onto wine. And not just any wine. Good wine.

Naturally, I started off knowing it was good because it cost more than Yellowtail, but in time I came to know it was good because it tasted better than Yellowtail. I think I was developing a palate but without knowing what that meant. It mirrored our steak evenings (https://rufusdawes.tumblr.com/post/157518431764/fillet-oafish) in that now, it has been impossible to match our home scotch standards in any restaurant we have since attended. And so with the wine. On ordering at our local watering hole I can taste the relative inferior aspects of their offerings. Though to be fair, during our winter months, I’m not downing pub bought vino for its quality.

A year into weekly steak nights and my meat and wine standards have risen. Aaron has slowly been pulling a ‘My Fair Lady’ on me. I think he stands to win a wager if he can pass me off as an oenophile during our trip to the Barossa. Which brings me on to our trip to the Barossa.

In early December, the Alice Springs Steak Lovers of Aaron, Jurgen and myself along with Kate and Jo, though sadly missing Dave and Maddy, had two nights at Tanunda in the heart of the Barossa Valley an hour or so north of Adelaide. From here we would have the opportunity to tour a smattering of the myriad wineries on offer. Prior to Jurgen and Jo’s arrival the rest of us snuck in a few early tastings at Rockford, Turkey Flat and at Artisan where I was first introduced to the word ‘tannins’ in a wine context and encouraged to use descriptors such as smoky. Also, on how to swirl a glass so that it looks like you know what you’re doing before sniffing, swirling some more, supping, sniffing, swirling, supping, and then discarding the remains nonchalantly, rather than openly weeping as the most expensive wine you’ve ever tasted gets tipped into a spittoon. I even started holding the wine up to the light to confirm that it was indeed red or looking at the legs as they glided down the inside of the glass and confirming to myself that, yep, this wine has legs. My education had begun.

However, this was only the entrée to what was to follow for our one full day in the valley. On Wednesday morning, at 10am on the dot, a black 1962 Daimler Majestic Major Limousine pulled into the gravel driveway of our accommodation. An hirsute and impressively moustachioed gentleman, in his early 50s stepped out to introduce himself as John, our guide and educator for the day. He acquainted himself with the five of us and discussed each of our wine tastes. I could confirm that I did indeed like wine and would like to taste some. Essentially, Jurgen, Jo and I tried to defer to Aaron and Kate for whom this was not their first trip in John’s Daimler.

To start us off was a trip to Tscharke and things were already looking up. Set in a German timbered style cottage amongst some of their productive vines, they were selling one particularly quaffable Shiraz (a three vineyard Shiraz called ‘Shiraz, Shiraz, Shiraz’) at just $10 a bottle, which even fell within my budget.

On to Greenock Creek where we were introduced to our first ‘Mum and Dad’ winery. A phrase that John used regularly to describe the small, family owned and operated establishments that are numerous throughout the region. Unlike the large winemakers such as Jacob’s Creek, which are running industrial scale productions and cater accordingly, the family run ones offer a more intimate setting and connection to their products.

Langmeil was our final stop of the morning, home to what are thought to be the oldest Shiraz vines in the world. Planted in 1843 by Langmeil’s German migrant founder Christian Auricht, they have earned the reputation as the oldest following the Great French Wine Blight of the mid 1800s which laid waste to the French wine industry. As such many Australian vines, especially of the Shiraz variety, are now among the oldest producing vines in the World.

A morning of three cellar door visits meant the lunchtime feast was eagerly anticipated and hoovered down. Naturally, the four meat eaters at the table chose the steak but of course, it could not fulfil the lofty standards of the Alice Springs Steak Lovers. As we dined however, John was making a couple of phone calls to set up our afternoon. We were to be in for an absolute treat.

After a quick stop at a cheesemakers which served as dessert to our two course luncheon, we were off to Cimicky Wines. Owned by husband and wife Charles and Jennie Cimicky, it was John’s personal connection to the family that got us in through the door. We were greeted by Jennie before Charles offered to take us on a tour of the production. This included a visit to a couple of barrels soon to have their contents bottled. Charles’ generosity knew no bounds as he poured us each a taster somewhere in the region of a couple of hundred millilitres. This was before we went back to the main tasting area where again, each glass was bordering on a regular serving. Charles was an incredibly unassuming fellow, modest, generous and open and it was to my misfortune that I declined a visit to the Cimicky cellars to try a port that has been aging for 25 years and never bottled, due to the time restraints that we were readily accruing thanks to Charles’ existing hospitality. Aaron’s incredulity at such a refusal will never be matched.

Fortunately, the day was still only to get better despite being on an upward curve ever since waking, since we left Charles and Jennie to meet with Dave Powell.

Dave and his General Manager, Paul, met us outside a pub where they’d been watching Australia polish off England in the Adelaide Test match. A few rum and cokes to the good and watching an Aussie victory had them both in good spirits. Piling into their Toyota Hiluxes we drove the couple of kilometres down a dirt track too dirty for a 1962 limousine and into the hub of Powell & Son wines. Here Dave regaled us with the story of his youth, his marriages, his success in founding Torbreck wines, his anger at being pushed out of Torbreck wines by his American billionaire partner, the money earned, the money lost, and his success at starting again in a more boutique operation with his son Callum.

As he told his stories, he would stop to introduce us to one of his wines and tell us a bit about its history. Like Charles, he would pour generously and all wines were opened for our benefit. Moving from the Riesling through the GSM and into the Shirazes, we were getting into the bigger and bolder wines. The cost of each was rising too and as a $125 bottle of 2015 Loechel Eden Valley Shiraz was opened, I hoped that my wine naivety would not be overtly evident. It was at this point that I made the decision not to be pouring away a single drop of anything that was offered, especially since I noticed that a bottle of the Powell & Son flagship Steinert Flaxman’s Valley Shiraz was sitting at the end of the table.

Sure enough, with corkscrew in hand, Dave reached over and opened up this $750 a bottle wine. Again, a large glass was poured and I was thankful that I’d spent a day and a half learning what I liked in a wine and how to appreciate a good one. I’m delighted that this was the best yet.

Asking if we’d yet made dinner plans, Dave suggested FermentAsian back in Tanunda. He made a call, secured us an 8pm booking and then offered us the opened bottles of the Steinert Flaxman and the Grenache to take with us, and we left with a third after Jurgen asked if we could also take his favourite, the Loechel Eden.

Sitting in the office, I don’t think any of us had any idea just how revered Dave Powell is in the industry. To finish with a quick tour, see the wine barrelled and ready to be shipped to Tetsuya’s in Sydney (one of the finest restaurants in the world) and then talk vine management and maintenance on the way back to the limo with one of the great winemakers of his generation was the icing on the cake of a day already with more icing than a Swedish hockey festival.

John dropped us back in Tanunda an hour and half later than scheduled, such was our overrun. We headed off to FermentAsian for our degustation where we were met by the house sommelier whose opening words were ‘so, I hear you were with Dave earlier’. It’s fair to say that they looked after us after that.

As a newbie to wine and looking back on this day, I found it wise to heed the words the American satirist P.J. O’Rourke attributes to his co-drinker, Christopher Buckley; “You know this trick about wine tasting? If you’re at a loss, describe someone who’s in the room”. https://www.forbes.com/forbes-life-magazine/1999/1030/112.html As far as the Steinert Flaxman’s goes though, if I should ever meet the person in the room who I can describe to do that justice, I might just have met the love of my life.

Enjoying the hospitality of Dave Powell; Entity, Riesling, the author, Sparkling & Tawny.