perth end july

Perth from Mia's parents' house

I am in Perth it is the 31 July and my feet are very cold but just at the point before it being painful. Also I know that I will soon have a shower and put on some favourite socks so I'm handling it.

Pregnant Taffy


Taffy, who was very pregnant, is now slightly less pregnant (remember that lie about a little bit pregnant?) as she had one of her puppies last night and the rest refused to come out, or some part of Taffy refused to push them out, I suppose is a better way of putting it. So I gather she is presently having a caesarian. This is putting a damper on prospects of getting to the... god I haven't slept enough or something I can't remember... tiffin, tapstac, trilobite... it'll come to me. Where we were planning to go today.



Much less pregnant Taffy. You might not be able to see but this is her with all her pups out.

Yesterday we went around the place and a few op shops I was very pleased to pick up a copy of Whatever Works (which I'm showing to students on Monday as an example of urbanity, or rather, as a film which deals somewhat with the concept of urbanity) and also a copy of Jim Crace's Being Dead, a book which I had long wanted to read and now almost have. I recommend it, or at least up to page 170 or thereabouts.

Perth has changed so much since I first came here in 96. Now it seems like a huge unending strip mall - that's unfair - but some of it is like that, seriously, those crazy highways, if they can line them with strip malls of all the same kinds of businesses as everywhere else, they will. ('They' - shudder).

Truffle festival. That's what I was trying to remember. I've never had a truffle.

LATER

OK, here are a few trufflefest pics. Here is Issy, the Truffle-finding beagle (she abides here). She did a demonstration of finding which of the pots on the stage had truffles in them:



This is the audience loving every minute:



You probably thought, knowing my penchant for the mot juste sarcasme, that was going to be a picture of bored people. But they were loving every minute.

I overheard this man, who was there with two others of his age, say two things in an accent which might have been his or might have been affected. One was, loudly, 'I HATE de truffle!' (to much laughter from his pals) and the other, to a little less laughter, 'RidOCULOUS!' I wonder who he was.



These insect girls were giving high fives to scared infants.



Just to end: here is a picture of Mia and Taffy's firstborn, Tymmy.



And here's one of Tymmy, a very noble, fop beagle in the superior class:



Just to clarify, Tymmy is from Taffy's first litter. He wasn't born yesterday.