Things I had forgotten about Adelaide

[several_bees]

• Fences made, for some reason, from dry twigs.
• Despite this, a heightened awareness of fire hazards.
• So many front yards thick with oleanders. Hard matte leaves, pink and white flowers, and fretful warnings from parents. There was a boy who touched an oleander and didn't wash his hands before lunch, and he DIED. Oleanders are bright and hardy, which

Comments

[freyaw]

AND bullets are now available at my local supermarket and various places in the central markets, in combinations of traditional licorice or raspberry and white, milk, or dark chocolate.

Although at the moment, I think I like the white chocolate strawberry "It's not a fruchoc!" from Charlesworth best :D

[several_bees]

Oh! Fruchocs! I'd forgotten about those as well! Ohhh.

(Hmm, 28 degrees tomorrow. That's cool enough to buy and consume huge amounts of chocolate, right?)

[reverancepavane]

I assume that this is a welcome back (at least for a short time).
Welcome back. Please don't melt.
PS: New building codes means no new brush fences, at least in suburbia. Too many homes caught fire from deranged arsonists setting fire to the brush fences.
As for your bullet deprived state, no worries. Care packages of licorice bullets can always be arranged. After all, I already supply Minties and Chicos to ex-pat friends in Canada.

[several_bees]

Oh, gosh, to building codes, I didn't realise - definitely makes sense, though.

And yes, back for a few weeks (until 8 December or so), so do let me know if you stumble across anything interesting going on during that time! Waiting for it to be cool enough to go into town and check the usual places for flyers and calendars and things, but after three years I'm not even sure that the usual places will still exist...

[reverancepavane]

A friend and workmate had their house burnt down by such a brushfire arsonist, so I think that it is probably a good idea. I think the building codes now mandates a minimum distance between the fence and any other structure which precludes their inclusion on most suburban blocks. Existing fences are grandfathered, but I don't believe they can be replaced. A number of people whose former occupation was "brush fence maker" were understandably a bit upset about this.
As for anything interesting happening I have no idea. There are a couple of gigs that I'm interested in, but I'm not sure are to your taste (Spiral Dance, Kate Miller-Heidke, Tinpan Orange), having no real idea of your musical tastes.
There are people who meet at the two game stores (one in Railway Arcade and the other on Currie Street) to play boardgames, but I am entirely unsure how that would react to playing with a "gurrllll." [I'd try the first store before the second. The second manages to retain much of the ... distinctive ... wargamer olfactory ambience.

[benhimself]

Ooooh, chocolate and licorice does sound lovely.

[several_bees]

IT IS. Dark chocolate is the best, but milk chocolate is fine too. The combination comes in various forms (chocolate-dipped licorice twists, little chocolate-coated licorice blobs), but bullets are the best by far - just the right ratio of constituent parts, I suppose.

[mooism]

There was some sort of bush with white berries by the entrance to my primary school (nowhere near Adelaide). Persistent rumours claimed the berries were poisonous and that anyone who ate one would die. Despite this, the bushes remained, untroubled by any interference from officialdom, and without even looking pretty.

[several_bees]

The other big story about oleanders, along with Lunch of Death boy, told of a group who used twigs from an oleander as skewers for a barbecue (they too, legend had it, died for their foolishness). It does add a touch of peril and excitement to a walk around the Adelaide suburbs, I suppose.

Hmm, maybe your primary-school berries were actually harmless, or only slightly poisonous, and rumours were spread deliberately so that stupidly perilous dares would lead to things like "child licks innocent berry" rather than "child teeters along rooftop". It'd be great if this was the case with oleanders, a society-wide myth carefully designed to channel voluntary peril and half-hearted suicide attempts.

[triskellian]

The sea, you can go in it and it's comfortable, warm patches and cool ones, take your pick. It's not "fine once you get used to it"; it's just wonderful, straight away.
Colour me predictably envious ;-)