Hold that Sack...

Miss Lee gets left holding the sack...

I hope you don't mind....

Hello Dhaaarlings...

 I hope you don't mind, but I entered your name in a draw For a 7 Night cruise along the mighty MURRAY RIVER

It's on the fabulous new "Murray Belle", have you ever heard of it?

All fares, transfers, food and drinks are included.
Upper deck for 1st Class Passengers
 ALSO...
For one evening only-

Dinner at the Captain's table, as his personal guest.

Good luck, I hope you win!

'The Murray Belle' is shown below...........

Your first night's meal promises to be scrumptious,

Featuring  'Fillet of Murray Cod'...

Murray Cod...

Murray Cod Fillets..

 

Murray and Cod...

Great local produce and Wines to die for, with all you can eat...

Like 'Boiled Murray Cray'...

And Yabbys by the bucket load...

Boy, we wish we were going with you...

If you win, make sure to send pictures, especially of the

Famous.. 'Muddy Midnight Skinny Dip'

With your hostesses Tracey and Shazza

And...

Since you may well be in the first class suite, you will have

 a balcony view with the finest facilities.

Good Luck Dhaaarlings!

Personally I like the thought of Skinny Dipping....

Don't you?....

Now Showing at the Palais....

This weeks theme for Wednesday May 26th is...

Best Documentary

Another thought provoking theme...
And not being all that able to recall titles of documentaries...
Even though I have propably watched thousands of them over the years...


I found this weeks theme to be almost an insurmountable task...
Nigh on the impossible... (thanks for the challenge Boxer)

Again I tried surfing to no avail and eventually went through my DVD collection and found the one and only
documentary that exists on my shelves...


'The Buena Vista Social Club'

A wonderful history of the members of the Cuban Musical Group of the same name and Ry Cooders, personal journey to locate the living members
 of the original lineup to perform once again together.

A terrific tribute to growing old gracefully and doing what one loves most 
right up and into the twilight years of our lives.

"They are hot-shot Players, the greatest musicians on the planet today.
There is no ego, no jockeying for position.
They've evolved this perfect ensemble concept and the music speaks
in a natural voice.
This was the greatest musical experience in my life, the peak,
something I had trained all my life to do"..

Ry Cooder 

It is a marvelous tribute to the talents of these fantastic musicians and their journey of reunion and perfomance on stage at
Carnegie Hall

I have to admit that this album is also on my playlist...
Just love the music...

Bugger...

Just one of those days!

A little light music....

Something for Everyone...



I just wish you all a wonderful day Dhaaarlings... 

Now Showing at "The Palais"....

Boxer's Theme for this week Wednesday May 19th is...

Best Science Fiction

A very broad catagory for choice...
Action packed Alien filled excitement..
Trillogies and Series that go on forever...
Comedic Extra-terrestrial Escapades
Crazy machines that take over the world...
Any number of themes within the genre...

But I have gone with a Sci fi Movie that deals with real human endeavour and the potential for it's fruition is I think only just over the horizon...

My choice for this week this week is Gattaca..

A movie that put a chill down my spine,
dealing with the frailties of human ego, family relationships, sibling rivalry and the potential for the development of a designer race where imperfection results as being calssified as invalid!
Creating even bigger social divides based on your genetic makeup.

Scary stuff...  The development of designer babies becoming a new reality, that in the history of the human race is something that is almost upon us now...

A scenario that started as science fiction rapidly becoming science fact, with the mapping of the human genome and screening for imperfections and disease potentials and probabilities in utero, already a reality since this movie was made. And recent failed attempts by big business to patent individual human genes...




Starring Ethan Hawke, Jude Law, and Uma Thurman, I found it to be a moving and intreguing tale of human endeavour and willingness to go to any extreme to reach ones goal... dispite the setbacks and the odds being way against your success...
All three give very strong performances and a cameo by Ernest Borgnine as the supervisor of the
'Defective' cleaner crew is a gem.

This Movie when made I thought seemed a little far fetched at the time...

But they said that about going to the Moon too, and look what happened there!

Oh and guys... if you're planning on being someone else and wan't to get away with it...
Remember the basics!...

Princess gets Physical...

Some brief entertainment for your enjoyment





A walk down memory lane perchance?

Get em out Girls!
Head bands and leg warmers that is....

Edna's Problem Probed...

The Trouble With Valmai...

Some Early Edna Possums

for your entertainment...

The bane of Edna's lifetime seems to have been

Her darling daughter 'Valmai'

Whom, it would seem developed into a very troubled soul...

Though Edna would possibly claim that Valmai was just attention seeking in response to her mothers metioric rise to gigastardom...

Edna with Daughter Valmai and dear Friend Gwennyth...

Valmai began to appear on stage with her mother following "madge's" deprture to the other side....

It would seem that she had a very unusual relationship with with her mother in particular along with other members of the clan..

Here is Valmai in her own words...

Taken from a manuscript that she threatened to publish herself as an Expose` of her mothers' "sorded" and rather 'unseemly' past

Poor Valmai... she is so well adjusted...

Tiling Moments...

Of Brickwork and Butterflies...

One day while laying a new tile floor at my "Bush Palais"

I looked up to see that I had the most beautiful house guest...

A bird wing Butterfly...

 Can you see him hanging under the bottom sail on the 'boat kite'  hung from the ceiling...

I coudn't resist whipping out the camera and snapping him.

This is what he looks like with his wings open

And I knew he was a male from his flashy iridescent green..

The Female Birdwing Butterfly looks like this...

Drab and Booring...I know...

I just don't know how she ever gets her man?

She must wear an exotic perfume..

 

But enough of visiting house guests...

I was in the middle of Tiling my foor wasn't I...

And having recently been quite taken by Boxers Tiling Artistry

And her amazing Chair...

 

I mentioned to her that I would post some pics of my flooring effort.

After much rummaging through boxes of stuff I finally found them..

This was my house in Alligator Creek near Townsville in Queensland

They are not that great but are all I could find

The incomplete floor without grouting,

The tiles were outdoor terracotta in mixed tones originally 10"x10"

But... after being taken to with my trusty hammer

 ended up as crazy paving.

Interdispersed with taratzzo sun and moon designs

 various random sized coloured and patterned tiles

 and tiny "precious' little Cobalt Blue 1" square tiles...

I say precious as they came from an old tiled coffee table

 that my Gandmother had made and given to me as a moving house gift...

But due to the humidity in my new abode... the tiles had fallen off the table... And thinking that I would be stying put in this beautiful place...

 incorporated them into the new floor..

It was like working on a huge Jigsaw Puzzle but without a Blueprint as the design just evolved as I went...

And so.... I Created my Amazing Floor.

Not bad for a first attempt!

Princess don't do anything by halves!

I lost track of the number buckets of rubberised glue I mixed,

 and the number or the hours spent crawling around on all fours or sliding around on my bum when the knees had given out!

And piles of tiles lugged from one point to another around the 20'x20' foot space...

I do remember that I went through 5 pair of leather gardening gloves over the course of the project...

which took me about three months to complete...

And here is the finished product...

Ta Da!

People said I was mad...
They said "You're Mad Princess...Get a man in to do it for you!"

'No' I said...

'I have been given a vision which I am driven to see made real'

"But you're Mad Princess' they said....

'Why buy perfectly good tiles then spend all day smashing them?'...
'Surley you have lost your sense of reason?'

'No'... I said...gleefully smashing tiles and making them cringe...
'This is one of my must do life moments'

I'll admit that yes...
 Halfway through the project I amost started to sway to their side of the argument, with muscles and bones aching and fingers rubbed raw from grouting....
But I gathered my resources and saw it through to the end...
And I was very gald that I did!

'Oh' they said...'We really thought you had lost the plot Princess when you started on this vision quest'...
'But now we can see what you were on about'...

'And it is Spectacular!'

A year or so later.... When I very reluctantly had to sell up and move...

I was so pleased that I had invested so much love and creativity in the new floor ... it became the clincher for the sale of the house...

The young couple that bought the palce loved the floor so much that they were already planning to take their vows standing
right in the middle of the room!
They came back with both sets of parents just to show them "Their" floor!

I was extremely proud of my effort and that the house was going to couple that loved it as much as I had done.

I don't think they realised just what a bargain they had...or perhaps they did.

Oh...
 And Grandmother's tiles?...
I kept a few of them in reserve... just in case... 

They now live on a shelf in my new abode in a special little trinket box
that belonged to her...

Just for safe keeping

Am I Blue?....

I'm having a bit of a blue day...

There is snow on the hills

The wind is cold and the first morning frost is coating the garden

with its icy tendrils.

So I figured that ...

Some Houseboys

In blue...

Might just help...

to chase ...

The Blues....

Away...

or not...

Cocktails Anyone?...

You're welcome to join me....

Probing Edna's Past...

Hello... Possums!

Is Edna's Famous Catch Cry...

Princess is planning and presenting a series of historic,

 but gentle and very tasteful probes into the background stories associated with some of the lesser and more well known characters that adorn Edna's Gladiolus Strewn Banter...

Below is a picture of a very early Edna...

Well before her meteoric rise to Gigastardom...

Not her best angle I know...

But did I say that she did start out as your average garden variety housewife?..

Edna always seemed the social climber, coming from very humble beginnings and marrying

Lord Norman Everage. Of Moonee Ponds.

But more about his Lordship later...

After her marriage and bearing of three children... yes three...

to Norman...

Eldest son Bruce, daughter Valmai and youngest son Kenneth

(Whom I shall be discussing in future posts)

She began insinuating herself about town as...

"Dame Edna Everage... Housewife Superstar".

But First

I would like to introduce you to someone who 'lived large'

In Edna's Life... 

Edna's Beloved Bridesmaid...

'Mrs Madge Allsop'

Edna's long suffering and ever present Bridesmaid

'Madge' was played by British Actress 

'Emily Perry'

*"Perry began playing the sour-faced Madge,

 a New Zealander from Palmerston North,

 when she was 80.

Madge, Edna's elderly "bridesmaid",

began appearing alongside Barry Humphries' famous housewife and "gigastar" in 1987.

She never spoke and was often the butt of Edna's witty putdowns.

She played Madge in, Dame Edna's Hollywood

Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch

The Dame Edna Experience and

The Dame Edna Satellite Experience."*

*Via* 

Edna took 'Madge' into her humble abode on the suggestion of Husband Norm, whom later succumbed to the ravages of time following the worlds first successful prostate transplant... 

And after 'Madges' husband 'Douglas' had suddenly and unfortunately left her without a penny.

Edna generously offered Madge her mothers old room at Everage Hall... 

The room was vacant due to the fact that

Enda's Mother had been bundled off placed at the

 'Maximun Security Twilight Home'

At this time what with Norman undergoing rampant prostate renewal therapy...

Madge became Edna's Confidante and 'Dead Pan' Side kick from then on...

A Shopping Spree

Edna often referred to 'Madge' as that "dreadfully ungrateful woman" and alluded to her having "unusual preoccupations" in the boudior....

Particularly in regard to Madge's taste in 'lewd' videos...

Edna would know of such things as...  'Madge' became her long time sleeping partner...

 sharing a bed together and becoming a Nocturnal

 Boudior Somnambulist, much to Ednas horror and disgust.

"In offering Madge Allsop my mother's old room at Everage Hall, Moonee Ponds, Melbourne, 

I had not bargained on a fully-paid-up card-carrying

somnambulist...

I don't know how many times I'd had to coax my disoriented and out-to-it old bridesmaid off the garage roof and back to her bed.

I was never quite sure how genuine her little nocturnal strolls really were, and to what extent she wasn't on another of her ego trips...

 A cry for help isn't always a cry for help.

 Think that one over for a minute, Possums!

Anyway it was a short hop, step and a jump...

 off the garage roof to my own bed where Madge has now taken up her permanent residence."

In later years,

 Madge developed an 'unhealthy' and often "unseemly' preoccupation with her 'Landscaper'

as Edna referred to him, otherwise known as her Plastic Surgeon.... 

She also claims...

Madge being incredibly adept with a jar of "Nivea" Creme

"The little Minx secretes it everywhere"

Edna has been heard to say...

Hence... 'Madge' continually appearing "Bound in Bandages"

Here is a little snippet I have discovered that I think describes Edna's deeply sincere feelings for he beloved bridesmaid. 

THE MADGNIFICAT

Before I take my fourty winks

Pray forgive this wicked minx

Of her conceit I've had a plateful

Just help her to be finally grateful.

Perhaps I've given her to much

And now she treats me like a crutch

Sometimes I feel I'll bend and snap

As selfish Madge tugs on my pap

Of niceness, warmth and generosity

Pray help me to love this old monstrosity

She came to me without a cent

And all she owns I gladly lent

I've pumped, let's face it, telephone numbers

Into her bank. And now she slumbers.

She who was so lithe and young

Spare the rough edge of my tongue.

I should be comforted perhaps

That dear old Madge is under wraps

Here's to Madge

"Darling Madge"

May God Rest Her Somnambulistic Soul...