nobody home

Perry and I went to Avondale Heights again this morning, same as the other day but no loss of car key, mainly because I wanted to see if that dog was there again, but no. 

Perry certainly remembered the place and was hopeful once we got there but as I said - no.

I let Perry off the lead briefly and was interested to note that, when he's on the lead he wants to charge ahead of me, or at least, lead the way but when he's not, he wants to walk a considerable distance behind. I wonder if this is his herding instinct. 

When I lost the car key last week and had to walk to Tottenham Station, I had checked with mapsonmyphone how to get across the river and it did not tell me there was a crossing actually very close to where we were - it just told me about two reasonably distant footbridges. Well, I don't blame mapsonmyphone, there's probably a lawsuit just waiting to happen when dodderers try to get across the river by these means, though I would have done it. 

This was a good place for Perry to get a drink from the refreshing waters of the Maribyrnong and then we went back. It will be hot day today and it was already warming up at 8ish. 

helmi reborn

I wish I understood what had changed about Helmi's life that she went one day from being the kind of cat who hides in small spaces for 24 hours at a time, to the kind of cat who lives her life entirely in public, as far as I'm aware never hiding from anyone or anything and being completely visible. I am reminded of an elderly man (well he seemed elderly thirty years ago, perhaps he was the age I am now) who seemed entirely delightful to all and sundry but I had it on good authority from a few sources that before his stroke he was an aggressive, hostile jerk. Helmi is still that to Nancy and Perry, but even then, she is perfectly happy to be in their presence and only lashes out (not literally) when one of them gets in her face or sniffs her back,* something by the way she is always doing to them. What does it mean? What if one day she just gets sick of fame and goes back under the bed forever more? 

She also will quite often sit next to me and purr for no reason (aside from what I assume is the reason, that she is sitting next to me). 

*I mean, sniffs her back. I mean, sniffs the back of her. 

tree bag

north coburg sojourn

Perry and I went to the record player fixing place and the rug wash place yesterday. The rug wash place is in North Coburg and a few minutes' drive further north is where Back Creek hits Merri Creek. But there are factories all around, almost completely backing up to the creek valley edge, but with a little bit of open space where people have put in unofficial tables and benches, like this:

and this:

Also these two nicely placed chairs:

Walking along the creek:

I think this is under construction not destruction or delapidation but not sure:

More unofficial benches - this is out the back of someone's house. 

This too:

Then we hung out at the creek, which was really nice. 

korkeissa kinoksissa suunnat harhautuvat

 

Not sure about the crow echo bit. Must mean something that's not immediately obvious. 

lumpipatsaat pihassa

 

I'm not confident I really understood what the text means here although it's pretty obvious what happened except for the reason why Piggy wanted to be alongside the snow roosters (the original text says something about him wanting to be photographed but I don't see anyone doing that). 

I don't understand the title either. 

k'foops, kafoops, kerfoops

Alright so I am less excited about K'foops now that I dug a little more and found that it's just a minor esoteric variation on Kerfoops (my first thought, you'll remember) and a lot of people have thought about it over time. I found this in the Age few years ago:

though I think it is inaccurate to say that Green 'offers Kafoops... as [a variant]' or at least he doesn't mention K'foops at all. No reason why he should be inspired to dive any deeper than he already did, of course. 

So, Kerfoops: 

This is not precisely that, but it is from a (n actually not unamusing in parts) parody of rheumatism cures from of all places the Gympie Times and Mary River Mining Gazette from 29 March 1876 p. 3:

Next mention I can find (by the very easy means of searching newspapers.com) is in an Adelaide paper called The Sport, which seems to be mainly about sport but has some humorous items that might never have made any sense and certainly don't now. This is from 21 December 1923 p. 7:

'Those are all words', yes, and one of the words is 'Kerfoops'. By the way, I have to say hats off to whoever drew this banner, I love it:

Anyway back to Kerfoops. Another mock wedding, this time in Wagga (Daily Advertiser 23 September 1926 p. 5)

And on it goes, actually sporadically up to the present day though as mentioned above more recently just as an observation, like my original one, on how it's a name people once used to mean something and now no-one remembers precisely what (perhaps because it never had a precise meaning). I am not going to go into Kuffoops. Sorry I'm not.