Delbridge Broadcast for 2018

Alison, Henry, Claire & Paul: 2018

                                                                          

                                                            
   Greetings, you are reading another instalment of the Delbridge broadcast that will hopefully keep you entertained long enough to garner the feeling that you have received something worthwhile from us this year, because chances are we won’t be receiving a solitary thing from you ! In any case I’d much rather give you something to think about rather than you break it and throw it away after 5 minutes! A gift that was remiss in 2017 due to deprivation of appreciation is now back due to minority demand – and we all know how influential that is !

   This year I turned old in the eyes of the population and therefore retorts have less traction than proclivities provided in kit form by the Post Office to excavate a chunk of fine dining for the perusal of the pathologist. However in our unedifying yet generous offering of pics and prose, I’ll be lifting the lid on the truth that has disappeared from our lives, amid a barrage of Marxist dogma raining down on us challenging our conservative, family oriented traditional values. Trump – unique man ! Wish Australia had at least one. Climate change – hoax ! Brexit – just do it ! UN and Paris accord – get rid of them. Immigration – stop it ! Coal – burn it to keep the lights on ! Feminists – ignore them. Don’t get me started on the Dream Catcher ! Gender orientation…? Just the two kinds folks, stop confusing our kids !! Anything I’ve missed to declare myself an Alt Right Nationalist – please advise and I’ll give it my support. But what would I know as an ultracrepidarian. As the woollen curtain unravels over our brethren’s eyes, be sure to know emphatically who the wolves in sheep’s clothing truly are. Hint: Banks; the Unwashed; Governments; the Short-Sighted; Media and Earther’s known here first exclusively as the ‘BUGSME’ movement. Lurking protected in the background is the constant threat of the other wolves – who are represented often by a “Lone Wolf” running around doing misdeeds in the name of their imaginary friend to which our government attributes to a mental health issue !! It is difficult to decide which lobe or hemisphere has been washed with soap or sandpaper ! Whilst not yet personally traumatised by political blindness, the serpent sits on our horizon waiting like a tsunami to surf in and percolate our lives.

   So what of the Delbridge Quartet espousing to higher acclaim nestled amongst a forest of trees, that in April, a fool ridden neighbour did his best to burn down our home earlier in the year. If a madman of delusional brain won’t get you - be sure another madman of absentia will. Bravo to the local fire brigades who saved our house.

   Where shall we start this year – Claire ! At fifteen, what a great young lady, full of pep and vibe and other such clues in the crossword to describe vigour and vim. Did a clean out of her room recently and the girly stuff of yesteryear is gone. The age of panic begins as suiters will soon be staring down the barrel of my pool cue. Claire equipped herself so well this year at Yr 10 school and sport; she is a quiet achieving ace on many levels. Most Valuable Player - MVP in her chosen sports Netball and Basketball plus taking out top honours and Academic Award for Yr 10 in Health & Physical Education Studies. She is also MVD - Most Valued Daughter by her Mom and Dad for being such a wonderful mademoiselle who brings laughter and song to our home. Claire’s vocals can be heard chirping away whilst multi-tasking with headphones in and Netflix on ! Claire will be changing schools next year – her choice to attend the University style self-directed learning centre of Manea College. Good choice Clairebance !!!

                      

   Our Henro completed his first year (11) at Manea College in typical Henro-Boy style topping everything he touched except bait and fish. As a result of sheer hard work and determination he did exceptionally well on the scorecard however, if he were alone on a desert island and relied on angling skills - he’d starve. Henry’s nous will not encroach on his ability to shun that which is beneath him – however the bananas in the tree to he will suffice. A big year ahead with Driving Test, Grade 7 Piano exam and Year 12 ATAR all are looming large. Henry also seems to have earnt a regular casual position at the local Supermarket, slowly building those dollar credits that will one day afford him a motor saloon. We’ll have Claire behind the wheel very soon too, so please excuse the wobbly writing. Both Henry and Alison belong to the Donnybrook Tennis Club and play ‘Sets’ on a Saturday. News to me…. who just spent 4 months at the beginning of the year building our very own Tennis Court with adjacent sports Pavilion. Well there’s gratitude for you !! To be sure they do get used and are a fabulous edition to the Piata Estate.

   Alison maintains her charmed lifestyle with a modicum of midwifery shifts at the Bunbury Hospital often birthing future ingrates mostly into welfare, most of the rest of her time is spent on the great hobby/business of Donnybrook Dance Academy. There is a passion in this realm that knows no bounds and transcends all things with febrile attention. Another successful dancing concert this year, with the local hall filled with family and friends proud of the youngsters performing their sweet hearts out. Miss Alisons’ troop won a thousand dollars for their colourful street float and dancing parade at the annual Donnybrooks Apple Festival event in April. As if she needed more encouragement, Claire will be stepping up to take on a teaching role within the dancing school. So I guess that’s another Dancing Dad year for me too :{

   The Delbridge’s didn’t travel far this year, with construction denying us of splash away finances, but as I’ll always argue the spending in this way simply re-postures the assets, whereas holiday money simply shrivels into an assortment of pixilated images. Alison disagrees. Besides those activities are largely synonymous in later life with grey hair whilst donating to big Pharma and Cruise Liners and uncontrollably spending your children’s inheritance.

   The writer managed to secure a position working for the service of humanity at an Ambulance depot 25 minutes’ drive from garage to gate, meaning I’m finally home after nearly 7 years working away living in back rooms, humpies and fleapits. For that I am eternally grateful as I was ready to pull the pin on the Paramedicine caper and try for a job at Bunnings hardware selling Four Candles – See the Two Ronnies on Utube !

   So that’s it folks, adequate musings have been told for your judgement of us to embrace or demonise. Whilst tepid pleasantries and hollow regards are unintended for yours in the name of whom which dieth not, your humble and obedient servant of prose wishes you mirth and merriment for this Christmas and may the New Year not punish you for failing in resolution.



With Love Actually,

Paul, Alison, Henrover and Claire 0x0x

Merry New Happy from Donnybrook

                                   

Alison, Henry, Claire & Paul, 2016

To

To the family and friends we consider you to be – a cohort of which comes without choice, take a moment to be deluded by a shamble of vernacular and judgements as we reflect on the year past, from a Delbridge’s of Donnybrook perspective.  Tis a time to wish you a jolly terror free Christmas, festooned with heavenly halal free foods and potent fumy grappa-vinums, and may your brightly coloured wrappy things under the front rooms pine sapling – not tick.  We shall celebrate the birth of baby Jesus in typical crusade style, draped in tinsel, wearing paper hats, exchanging gift cards of the same value and waiting for the Boxing Day Test cricket match to begin.  This year’s special gift to Kiddy 1 and 2 is too big for their Santa sacks -it goes Ping and Pong not Tick or Tock.  As per usual I will leave a pillow case on the end on my bed –only to once again find it flat as a pancake in the morning, I am trying so hard to still believe – maybe if I was at all ‘good’ things might change.  To be fair my friend Aldi has been very generous to me throughout the year.  Did I mention my love of the Left?  Sadly it’s like having a right lobe aneurism and the left is completely useless.  Fortunately the political landscape is on the turn, Trump and soon Hanson may provide that blanket of warm change from the Establishment regimes blinding us with propaganda.  Not least to assert to a ‘ShortOn’ brains nincompoop this side of the pacific that he is not in fact the Prime Minister.  Unfortunately Australia has got the cancer from poor policies of the past, wonder how Merkel is going washing the haemoglobin of her wretched paws.   Like Trump, Hanson may well build a wall of her own – a wall of reason! Time will tell.

Twas a stable year for us just stopping in; whereby no overseas trips, no fancy buys and no frills or spills supervened.  But we did kick off the year with an extended family holiday to Gold Coast for a Theme Park trilogy fest – 426 rides and 2 hotdogs.  Then it was back to school for Henry and Claire, year 9 and 8 respectively.  With two young teenagers of adult size, Henry over 6 foot from flipper to frons, we have certainly noticed food drain away from the pantry and fridge in apocalyptic amounts.

In October we gambled on some fine weather coming to Jurien Bay for a boating / fishing and biking holiday, it was a fantastic week shared with cousins and grandparents.  Such a beautiful place with a well laid out Marina.  We ate lots of yummy fresh fish, alas all of it from the Fish’n’ Chip shop.  I like local holidays, such serenity in an Aussie jaunt, away from airports, crowds and banks.

Henro Boy has had a good year in academia circles winning numerous awards including top of Science for year 9.  He likes to hit balls in both tennis and hockey; I shan’t advise which ones go into the net!!  Henry’s teeth are on the move, having been fitted with irons earlier this year making his lips all lumpy thus preventing a good seal on his trumpet.  Henry has swapped the horn for a hammer and slots into the school bands percussion section on the glockenspiel.  Fortunately he has kept up Piano and we are often serenaded with timeless Mozart and Beethoven classics.  Henry has secured an exchange student placement for next year, and in January we will receive Isaac for Windermere, North West of England for 6 weeks.  Henry will complete the prisoner exchange by venturing that way in September 2017.

Claire is doing really well at school; she has improved her grades dramatically through sheer hard work.  An ‘A’ this year in English was a really fine result.  We are pleased she is enjoying school so much.  Claire has a classy core group of friends with whom she networks tirelessly to arrange playdates and sleepovers, ensuring her Mom and Dad get plenty of Taxi work.  Claire’s purest talent identified thus far appears to be on the netball court.  Her shining abilities have been rewarded with not only the Most Valuable Player for her team but also runner-up MVP for her division within the Bunbury Netball Competition.  Claire has given up her long blowy whistle instrument aka Flute for the 6 string Guitar.  We don’t hear much of it around the house, but hopefully that will change as she grows in confidence plucking that cockamamie thing.

Alison celebrated a 10th year anniversary concert for her Dancing School this year in September.  It was showcasing the best of the best performances over the decade.  This year’s concert was stunning with polished performances throughout.  Alison received warm recognition for the dedicated work she puts into the development of young girls and boys of Donnybrook and beyond who benefit from the discipline, confidence, poise and skill being taught to them.

Alison loves her work as a Midwife and sometimes yanks a new baby into the world, though most often she visits Mums and Bubs in their own abodes of hugely varying suitability for human habitation.  As for me Paramedicine is a much loved calling, despite the region I cover being 200 kms away.  Hopefully in the very near future I will get a position close enough to home that I can sleep in my own bed after every shift.  What a treat that would be !

In April 2017 Ali-Cat and I will celebrate 20 years of matrimonial splendour; we shall mark the occasion re-enacting the epic proposal that took Alison on a small journey throughout the day culminating at a place in Kings Park where we planted a tree and buried a time capsule on our very first date.  We plan to share this day experience with Henry and Claire and then exhume the time capsule.  Beyond that - 30 more years are promised before I’m off to get a younger model.

May these very words written be our gift to you this Christmas, your choice to frame, print or delete.  At any rate, it goes without saying, one thing at a time, that only time will tell, with all due respect, it is what it is at this moment in time just saying… and to be honest, at the end of the day and even as we speak, when all is said and done, more is said than done.  Merry Christmas.

The P8A Estate

Annual Tidings from The Delbridges of Donnybrook 2014/15

Annual Tidings from The Delbridges 2014

Upon reflection of the year past compared to others years of achievement, misadventure and merriment, this years wrap sheet reveals a dull veneer presiding over copious layers of mediocrity and therefore the foretelling of such abominate tidings should be cancelled – but I will endeavor to embellish the passé to bring anything noteworthy to a mock-heroic inflated read.
To be considerate, much less offend any individuals whose peaceful acceptance and tolerance to the Delbridges’: then Christian, Western, and 1st world infidellion values serves to hanker – a hope of this – that your CHRISTmas hams were a pork belly success; that your bottomless drinking cup of alcoholic fluids flowed with gayety whilst munching back those bacon jerky gobstoppers. And may the cessation of evil seemingly leached throughout the world and sadly also in our great land be confronted with a fit in or fly away approach.
Was nice to see the reemergence of Christmas decorations in the village streets; Griswald like illuminations on many a home and the word ‘Christmas’ replacing ‘Festive’ and ‘Season Greetings’ and ‘Happy Holidays’ on Christmas cards back in our stores. For us at least the crIsis is being rebuked. We’ll keep the chattels thanks.

Our son Henry, is now 13 and has completed his first year of High School at Bunbury Grammar.  Sadly Henry failed to obtain respectable grades of B and C throughout the year.  Henry won a couple of end-of-year academic awards including the over-the-glasses stare from the head master for hoarding prizes at the ceremony.  He is under close watch.  He continues to tap dance at an extraordinary level, so much so that Henry has requested additional shelving in his room for silverware.  He continues to pepper the piano keys and test the elasticity of his cheeks on the trumpet.  Whilst music and dance remain a strong area of focus; sportsman wise (among his new cohort) is not elite, but is certainly no slouch.  A true all-rounder is Henry who is starting to gain the odd gaze of attention from the young lassies.  Our Henry is turning into a teenager who couldn’t be less interested in going to Garage Sales, or fossicking at the tip and seems repulsed by these and other such fun activities that his parents may endorse.

Claire on the other hand remains unaffected by hormones and gives hugs freely, and jives with girlish innocence. She has had a pretty remarkable year in her own right. Clairbus ran rings around the entire primary school in a 2.5 km cross-country run which included two highly decorated year six boys. She took the honors for a 3rd year as overall sportsgirl champion, then backed that up at interschool level with runner-up cross-country champion against 23 schools. On stage Claire shone gaining accolades for performances with dance, piano and flute. Claire is also under academic watch for failing to acquire respectable grades of C and D. The strap with nails is on hold pending results from a remedial quiz conducted by her parents on Boxing Day. Despite the shortcomings Claire has graduated from Primary school and will be inducted into Elementary school alongside her brother and under prison guard tower watch this year.
Miss Alison – dance choreographer and mother of two, will join husband in useful contributions to the school fees by upping her paid work of nursing, not saying the dance teaching doesn’t pay, cos it doesn’t – just sayin’. On a social standing she has joined the tennis club in lieu of feeding Donnybrook potentials for the remotest chance of reciprocal fare, as she not only found this to be futile, but her tennis has emancipated into an admirable force and the offset of newfound racqueteers has served a volley of social activities off campus. In March this year Alison turned 40. Whilst she looks every bit of it on paper, the gal still seamlessly slinks into all the clothes she’s worn since a teenager. Well they do say the new 50 is now a 40 yr old, and that puts us closer in age than ever – have I got that right ?
In early 2014 the Delbridge double duo traveled to Donnelly River, a quiet water hub sanctuary of WA’s South West. We tried fishing for trout, but could only catch nothing; we tried archery but could only hit nothing; and we tried skinny dipping in the luxurious outdoor spa and only wore nothing. Later, Ali-Cat, Henro and Clairby attended Coralie Websters 70th Birthday in Bali. They kiddy had a great time catching up with their cousins. Just recently we all took flight to Adelaide and visited the City of Stadiums (aka the City of Churches) before tackling the Great Ocean Road and onto Melbourne for and early Christmas with the Delbridge clan. Catching up with chums from an era past was very special, making all those corny massages on FB regarding lost time and friends all so true. The family from the ‘Far Side’ whom we do not see enough of, bloomed with cameo appearances and resplendence to quell the thirst for consanguinity in warm and fuzzy amounts.
As for the anti disingenuous writer, the work of the Paramed enters its 5th year, sincerely rewarding and engaging work. Thanks to the urchinous few of maleficent shirt fronters skewing me on this pathway, I feel blessed to be where I am and in the circle of a loving homogeneous family.
This scribe may not be a latent addition of papercard on your Chrissy mantle as it has passed the appropriate time, nor indeed a printed scrap destined for the latrine; whoever you are laying eyeball to this mirthless shamble understand the Piata Estate doors will however be flung ajar for your eminence and we shall go cock-a-hoop with those dear souls that can bare the colossal ride in the motor car to visit us on the heath.

Best Wishes to all for 2015 from Alison, Paul, Henrover and Claire

November 2008

July 2008

29 June 2008