The Bijou Theatre

The Bijou Theatre

Clink on the link above and see how you can enter The Bijou Monologues competition and be in the running to win $1000! You've got until the 15th April to get your entries in, so if you reside in the Esperance districts get writing!

The Old School Tie

The Old School Tie....only this one isn't, in order to protect the protagonist in my blog. I felt that if I posted a photograph of his real school tie, it would be recognised by someone and all hell would break loose in his scholastic institution. Or worse.....we might be called in for another one of those unpleasant 'interviews'.

Parents have so many reasons to be proud of their children, and for us our son is no exception. Perhaps yours was Head Boy or Head of House or Captain of Cricket. Perhaps yours was the winner of The Beazley Medal or Dux of School or Fairest and Best for the footy season. Maybe he plays three different instruments or is the youngest boy to have sailed single handed around the world in a yacht.

Ours did none of the above, but boy are we proud of him. And why, I hear you ask?

Because our son, as he moves through his final year of school, has single handedly manged to get through five gruelling years of secondary education seemingly with the original set of school uniform we bought for him at the start of Year 8. That's right, one set of uniform.

Does he have some sort of growth disorder? No, he does not. He was 152cm when we sent him away four years ago and he is now 186cm.

Is he abjectly shuffling around his school in shorts that constrict his nether regions, long pants that finish mid calf, and shirts whose sleeves finish at his elbows, whose tails are too far from his pants to tuck into anything, and whose button holes have elastic attached to them so that they can connect with their buttons on the other side of his rapidly growing, well muscled, manly chest?

No, he is not. Our boy is quite simply entrepreneurial. Our boy is going to go far. Our boy may be no Rhodes Scholar, but by God he was quick off the mark with his visionary powers when he first came across........... The Boarding House Lost Property Box.

He has quite simply dressed himself out of this receptacale by recycling his school uniforms. He simply takes out his name tapes from his school clothes, drops in a size 10 and pulls out an un-named size 12. Then the follwoing year he drops in his size 12 and takes out a size 14. I was horrified initially.

"Darling! Isn't that theft?"

"No. It's recycling, Mum. None of the stuff I take out has a name on it and it's been in there for ages. It's not as if I'm not putting anything back in either. It's sort of swapping stuff, that's all"

Perfectly harmless, isn't it? So I relent, and realise that is one trip to the school uniform shop I won't have to make at the start of the new school year, and one more trip for me to the frock shop. The boy has saved us hundreds of dollars.

And Madam, before you get irate with me because my son is possibly wearing your son's rugby shirt, might I politely remind you that you should have put a bloody name tape in it or marked it with an indelible pen! I'm starting to sound slightly school marmish now.

Oh, and if any one is after 'an old school tie', my boy might be able to help you out.....though with his entrepreneurial skills, it might cost you!

Mr Dodger and Mr Toad

Here are Mr Dodger and Mr Toad, looking guilty as they have just been brought back to the shack at the beach having done a spot of vacational 'running away'.

As a result they must wear their 'dunces ears' for a small period of time to remind them of how naughty they have been.

It takes a while for the dogs to work out that they need to give themselves a quick head flick to get their ears back in the right spot. In the meantime the family gets a good giggle.

Dingo Rocks Fire

Farmland to the NE of Esperance has been under threat from a bush fire raging in an area east of Salmon Gums known as Dingo Rocks. We saw smoke from this fire last week, and the red glow to the NE of us at night was an amazing sight.

FESA and local volunteers have been busy fighting the fire this week, with temperatures in the district reaching 38 degrees plus for the last couple of days.

Whilst the fire is nowhere near our farm, the smoke has drifted far and wide giving eerie afternoon light to the farm. This picture of Hill Plains homestead was taken at about two in the afternoon.

Chiefy has disappeared up to the FESA operations van to help with controlling and any back burning that might be required. This leaves me home alone. Yay! Food and Lifestyle channels here I come! UK sitcoms here I come! Though obviously when his Lordship returns from a hot day at the fire front I shall say I have been busy washing, cooking and cleaning.....

Captive Wives

Well know Perth actor, director and writer, Jenny Davis was in town recently to start work on a project that Agelink Theatre Inc(that Jenny founded in 1993 and writes and directs for) has been invited to work on in association with Esperance Community Arts and The Esperance Theatre Guild.

Jenny was in town with fellow thespian Jenny McNae, to interview farming women in the Esperance distict about the challenges of clearing new land country, running a farm, raising a family and the tyranny of distance. Whilst the title of the project is yet to be confirmed, the interest was sparked from the story of a group of women in the Grass Patch area in the 1970's who met monthly and called themselves the Captive Wives. Stories have been gathered from a few of the original Captive Wives as well as a few others farming in the Esperance district from the late 1950's to the present day. There was plenty of material to be found in the local publication "Faith, Hope and Reality" which 'The Jenny's' found fascinating.

Whilst in its earliest stages, the project aims to collate as many stories as possible into a theatrical production of some sort that will end up on the stage of The Bijou Theatre. 'The Jennys' spent a week interviewing and delving into historical archives to get a feel for the piece they are going to create. The Esperance Theatre Guild has asked local director Lyndel Taylor and myself to direct this project, and Tracey Schlink is the producer. Flora Yetman is doing the costumes and auditions will be called for later as the project takes form.

I'll keep you updated as it progresses.

Australia Day Poets in the Park, Perth

The WA Bush Poets held their 15th annual Poets in the Park showcase at Wireless Hill Park, Ardross this Australia Day. Fifteen poets from all over the State performed a mixture of their own and traditional pieces from Australian poets such as Lawson and Paterson.

Here I am with poets Irene Connor and Corin Lynch from Jurien. Regular ABC listeners will know Corin from his contributions to The Dawn Patrol on Perth's ABC 720.

It was a warm day but an enthusiastic crowd and once again I met some lovely people and a lot of poets I had heard of but never seen, including Peg Vickers from Albany. I have asked Peg and Corin to contemplate joining us in Esperance in October for the Bush Poets' Breakfast at the Esperance Districts Agricultural Show. They do some great stuff that is very entertaining.

One of the best parts of the day was meeting Meg, and old friend I haven't seen for years who had heard me on Eoin Cameron's breakfast show that morning (reciting Banjo Paterson's The Geebung Polo Club) and had come up to Wireless Hill Park to see me. The power of radio!

ABC 720 Breakfast with Eoin Cameron

I had a great morning with ABC 720 Breakfast Host Eoin Cameron and his producer Brad McCahon at the North Cott Surf Club when they had an outside broadcast from the foreshore a few weeks ago.

Here we are, Brad, Eoin, me and Mr Toad, (Tiff's Staffy Kelpie cross). It was the morning of the Liberal Party leadership spill so the phone lines were jammed with regular ABC listeners saying "Get this political stuff off the radio and get back to the normal program. The results of the spill can wait til the news!"