How the Locals Like It [Part 3]

Continued from Parts One and Two...


Every locality needs an oval.

The oval is where people meet on the weekends to watch barbaric forms of Australian Rules Football.  Or twelve year old boys playing cricket (all dressed in white, you can see them from miles away).

While I recognise that an oval is an important part of a community, I've never personally set a toe on this one. The only thing I would do on an oval is lie in the grass and stare at the clouds.  But I can imagine that this sort of behaviour tends to infuriate the sports people, especially when they are trying to use the oval for its intended purpose.

I've come here to drop off my brother at cricket training, or attend a 'function' at the cricket club.  Outsiders might see a squat, ugly brick building, all concrete and wooden benches.  Well, a bare building gives a sporting club a place to meet, and when a sports team meets, so do local families.  Trivia nights, barbecues, awards ceremonies, planning meetings.

The cricket club by the oval has established itself as a permanent part of the community.  I think this is why the bare clubhouse was even used for a memorial service, in memory of two teenage boys who died in the Black Saturday bush fires.  One of the boys had used that very clubhouse when he was on the cricket team.  Little things like that force you to stop and appreciate your own home town - a place where people actually stick together.

Speaking of appreciation...one of the most important parts of our little neighbourhood is the CFA.   Country Fire Authority.

In which I post about not posting...

I think I need to start a series of blog posts along the lines of 'The Mouse's Various Excuses for not Blogging Regularly, and Instead Letting Drafts Pile Up, Memory Cards Max Out, and Ideas Form and then Dissipate.'

These blog posts would appear every couple of weeks, usually after a long silence on The Mouse Files.  In them I would probably begin by complaining that I am very tired, and that I've had assignments due, and then I would appease my conscience by posting some random pictures and then frantically begin eight new posts for the future (I have a lot of posts sitting in Drafts, let me tell you).

But there are always two reasons behind an absence of blog posts on the Files:

1.  I've been writing so much for assignments and personal enjoyment, that I just didn't need to vent on Blogger.

2.  I've been busy living a life away from the screen. {whoohoo}

This post would not be complete without a random picture to appease my conscience.

Lily's Old Book

Whenever I find myself in a second-hand shop I always make a bee-line for the book section.

In the book section, treasures can be found.

I define 'treasures' as antique books.
I also define 'antique' as anything made before my parents were born (I'm not sure if this is technically correct).

The last time I was in the book section of a second-hand shop, I found this little treasure in amongst the redundant dictionaries and parenting guides from the '80s.

Adventures in Omelette: Stir Fry

It's been a while since my last omelette adventure. 

For an omelette to work you need to be a) at home, and b) not too hungry.  These requirements are important, because it's best not to trash someone else's kitchen while experimenting with eggs, and if you are too hungry to begin with, you end up eating all the ingredients before they make it into the omelette.  Trust me, I know.

So when it's suddenly 1:30pm (been studying all morning), and your stomach feels like it's poking you maliciously from the inside, it's really too late to try get fancy in the kitchen.  Instead, you go rummaging in the fridge for leftovers.

I'm not sure if I can really call this omelette an adventure.  It's a quasi-adventure, using leftovers.

(Does 'quasi' do what I think it does when you add it to the beginning of a word?  Doesn't it sound really funny on its own?  Quasi, quasi, quasi)

Leftovers!  Stir fried veggies from the night before.  Very limp and soggy and in need of some disguising.

Disguise = soya sauce and eggs.

And why not some sesame seeds for good measure?  Sesame seeds are so tiny and cute and virtually tasteless, making them a wonderfully ineffective ingredient (my personal opinion - plus they get stuck in your teeth).

How the Locals Like It [Part 2]

Our local post office is currently in a barn. I'll bet it's one of the only Australia Post outlets in a barn within a 45 minute radius of the CBD. {Oh yeah}

Before the barn, it was in a shack tacked onto the side of an old weatherboard house which was the home of three or four bachelor brothers.
When we moved into the area, Bob ran the post office (he was the most outgoing of all bachelor brothers).  Everyone knew Bob, and Bob knew everyone.  When you had to pick up a parcel, you didn't pick it up from the post office, you picked it up from Bob.  At the time I was about 11 years old so I took this for granted (what? you don't pick up your parcels from a man named Bob?)