My sister looks a little more ethnic than me, and sometimes gets asked “Where are you from?” to which she replies “Melbourne”. This often doesn’t satisfy the interrogator, who will often be reluctant to say it, but really wants to know what the ethnic mix is.

Maybe you blue-eyed blonds reading don’t realise this, but it can lead to a very irritating conversation for the suspect subject. Thankfully I’ve only had this happen to me once or twice.

A relative got in touch with some family history information recently, and now we have a better answer, which is this:

Well, our family emigrated to Australia in 1871. What about yours then?

I can’t wait to use that.

On Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago I was digging through the old video tapes and found the Bargearse compilation. (For non-gen-Xers and those outside Australia, Bargearse was a version of the 70s cop show “Bluey”, starring Leo “Lucky” Grills, dubbed-over in the early 90s by the D-Generation Late Show).

I thought I’d give the tape a spin. The kids got a laugh out of it — the bodily-sound-effects in particular, but also the many references to Bargearse’s diet and appetite, and that killer gag where Detective Sgt Glen Twenty gets stuck at a level crossing waiting for an endless train.

Alas, Lucky Grills passed away on the weekend.

Vale, Bargearse.

Update: Plenty of Bargearse on Youtube, including the train gag:

Promotions at Parliament Station: 3. Monday: Free fortune cookie advertising Mt Franklin water’s “Well of Positivity“; Tuesday: free sample of Ocean Spray Cranberries; Wednesday: Amnesty International

Beggars who have asked for money: 1 in Swanston Street who sounded very scripted “Excuse me sir, we are homeless for a few days”, and as soon as being told “sorry”, lost interest completely and went and watched a giant chess game in progress on the corner of Little Collins St.

Trains from home to work: Cancelled: 0 (plus one before mine cancelled, causing overcrowding). Late: 1. More-or-less on-time: 4. Got a seat: 2.

Trains from work to home: Cancelled: 1. Late: 0. More-or-less on-time: 4. Got a seat: 2.

Footy coaches ousted: 2: Sheedy and Pagan

Senior state politicians resigned: 2: Bracks and Thwaites. I don’t mind saying, I was surprised.

The trains have problems, but at least most people can figure out where they go. (Uhh, well, apart from the whole City Loop reversal thing.)

But try the buses. I reckon the 627 bus has Melbourne’s most confusing route.

It goes from Elsternwick to East Brighton, but via Chadstone. (And if you don’t know your Melbourne geography, it’s a detour of about 10km.)

On the way, it passes through Carnegie twice, and that includes along the same bit of Koornang Road.

The buses have a Chadstone sign for the first part of the route, before changing to their end destination. Unfortunately that means that in that bit of Koornang Road, you get buses with the same number and the same destination sign (”Chadstone 627″), that take different routes.

And just in case you thought you’d figured it out, although the route theoretically goes to East Brighton, in fact all but half-a-dozen services each day terminate short of there, 2 minutes back down the road in McKinnon.

I wonder what idiot designed this? Were they deliberately trying to put people off using the buses?

As it happens there are reviews of bus routes happening at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see if this little mess gets fixed up.

Trying to navigate school holidays and come up with affordable holidays in the wake of the monthly mortgage payments isn’t particularly easy. Last year was Hobart (piggybacking on Marita being there for a conference) and Sydney over the Cup Day weekend with the kids. The latter worked really well, so I’ve decided to do it again at that time of year.

So yesterday I snagged some flights to Adelaide. Why Adelaide? Because I’ve never been there, and of the options offered to the kids, that was there first choice.

Fares were $95 per person per sector on Virgin, which was cheaper and fitted the schedule better than Qantas. This year Isaac is an adult in airline terms, being over 11. (Memo to self: take food for flight, or be prepared to cough up cash.)

They also have a carbon offset option, an extra $4.08, which sounds suspiciously low. Nevertheless, it’s a nice touch: the next step should be for the airlines to not make it optional. (Hmm, the email invoice decided it should be addressed to Jeremy, not me.)

At some stage I’ll find a hotel, probably aiming for somewhere in central Adelaide somewhere near to where the Adelaide Jetbus drops off. And preferably serving breakfast.

Possible Adelaide things to do (noting the stuff we did in Sydney): Glenelg beach and the Rodney Fox Shark Experience by tram; St Kilda tram museum and adventure playground; maybe the zoo and the South Australian Museum. What else? I don’t think the kids would fancy the wineries.

Getting a haircut in the middle of winter is never a good idea (especially just before a snow trip), but it had to be done.

The cold weather leaves me tempted to stay in bed all day, to not get up at all. But it had to be done.

Oh well, it may not be enjoyable, but the cold and rain at least wake you up in the morning once you’re out in it.

Living in the western world in the 21st century, many of us are protected from the elements, cocooned from anything above or below 20 degrees C by our houses with thermostats and our cars. But being out in the weather makes you feel so alive.

One of my fondest memories is from my early twenties, one Sunday summer afternoon we caught outside without transport in the depths of suburbia, when it started pissing down rain. Warm rain.

Rather than run for shelter, we just kept walking and talking, our clothes getting steadily more drenched. It helped spark the conversation, heightened the senses.

Not that I’d advocate never carrying an umbrella or a raincoat, or leaving the heating turned off permanently. But you don’t need to go bungee jumping to feel alive — sometimes the simple little things in life can help get the senses tingling.

The Mobile Blood Bank is back in my neck of the woods this week, and because it’s so inconvenient to get to their Southbank outlet (inlet?) I try to make a point of going as often as I can.

So I planned to go along on this afternoon after picking up the kids from school (Tuesday is my short work day). It pays to book, as one time I merrily went along and found they were completely booked-out.

They generally send a letter advising of their imminent arrival, then ring later in the week to ask if you want to book. So I thought I’d await their call. Sure enough they rang on Friday.

The problem? They were already fully booked on Monday and Tuesday, and most spots taken on Wednesday and Thursday. Really, it was hardly worth them ringing.

Now, I think giving blood is a good thing to do. The Blood Service frequently advertise for more donors. But they don’t make it easy, with mobile branches booked-out, and permanent branches in inconvenient locations with inconvenient hours. I think they’re under-resourced.

Hey, wait a minute. They now have a branch in Bourke Street. When did that happen? Maybe things are improving.

Anyway, a happy ending. They rang back yesterday to say they’d found a slot at precisely the right time: 3:45pm today. Excellent.

PS 5:20pm: Apparently my blood-pressure is 115 over 70, and my blood count is 162. Or is it 16.2?

We went up to the snow on the weekend. Myself, the kids, cousin Leo, and cousin Leo’s dad Adrian. Five blokes on a snow trip.

The great thing about going to Mt Donna Buang yesterday was there was plenty of snow.

The bad thing about going to Mt Donna Buang yesterday was that lots of other people had the same idea.

This became apparent when we got through Warburton and saw one of those highway signs saying there’d be long delays. They weren’t lying; we probably queued for at least 45 minutes on the mountain road, while the rangers waited for people to come down. They said Lake Mountain was even more packed. We used the time to eat lunch, stretch our legs and throw around a bit of the roadside snow, and to use the handily-placed toilets.

After the delays, we finally got to the mountain itself, put on the cold weather gear, hired some toboggans, and off we went. The last report I saw on Friday said 30cm of snow, and it was probably still a similar amount. The sun came out and we frolicked with half the rest of Melbourne on the summit. Even Leo was eventually convinced to take a toboggan ride, and funnily enough we unexpectedly met a bunch of his little friends and their parents up there.

Then we tried the toboggan runs. It was perilous; the snow in that area had been compacted by the feet of a weekend of visitors, and it was really slippery. I kept falling over and barrelling into complete strangers; then they into me.

Jeremy’s toboggan went off on its own at one point, but was found by a friendly passer-by. After he had a (rather too fast) slide down, while climbing back up he found his hands frozen (he’d taken his gloves off) and was almost unable to move without falling over. Not happy.

Isaac at one point found himself on the ground next to his toboggan, but it was so slippery at that spot he was unable to climb onto it without a struggle. Eventually he slid down on it, then climbed back.

We gave up on the run at that point and climbed back to the summit, which in the circumstances was altogether a more enjoyable spot. Eventually we’d had enough, and climbed back down to the carpark, with (I think) almost everybody falling over at one time or another. A little bit painful, that.

We returned the toboggans (you know, I’m not absolutely positively certain that I paid, but the guy assured me I didn’t owe anything) and got some hot food for the walk back to the car and the drive back.

Halfway back I realised I had something of a damp bum.

All in all, a great day out. Well, apart from the tumbles.