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Australian diary 2000 - 2002 (or before blogging) - part 2 We spent 2000-2002 living in Sydney; I was working in an expatriate job with the same financial services group for which I had been working since 1991. Colin chucked in his job in the NHS when we left the UK, did some contract work on and off in Sydney, and then stopped work altogether. We planned for me to stop work as well when we got back to the UK; as it turned out, I did, but because my cancer came back and I retired early on ill-health grounds. We had a wonderful time in Australia. We would probably have had a blog if blogs has been around then. As it was, we sent lots of emails to family back home. When we binned the ancient Gateway desktop we had in Oz, some time in early 2004, I did a quick cut-and-paste from Outlook into Word. We have just blown up the Dell that the Word doc was on, but C has managed to retrieve some stuff from the ashes. These are the edited highlights (minus deaths and divorces), mostly for us to remember rather than particularly for anyone else to read (but you're welcome). There is more of Colin's writing here than mine. This is partly because he writes better (funnier, more concise); partly because I was working very hard and had less time for sending witty emails (as opposed to ones going "just got back from office at 11pm, got a telecon at 7.30 am so must get some sleep, will ring tomorrow, missing you"); partly because I sent more from my palm-top than the desk-top pc I was excavating. C is Colin and Ch is me. Various family members make an appearance but I haven't bothered to explain them. 2000 and 2001 (back a page) We go to Antarctica (coming soon) 2002 (keep reading) 2002 12/2/02 (Ch to family) G'day. 5 mins before the ferry goes. It's all got very early in this house now that Colin has started his massage course ("the trapezius inserts at the achromium process and the lateral thrid of the thingy-bone"). And tomorrow I have a videoconference at 6am. Oh joy. Next week I shall be in Tokyo , and possibly Singapore but not, sadly, Hong Kong. Next time. It is raining again, or still. M I hope you have your waterproof hat with you. Better go and catch the ferry. 17/2/02 (Ch to family) Flash crash splosh - Is what it was doing yesterday evening and night. Today is hot sunny and humid again. I've spent it so far packing inefficiently. Have just returned from a little trip to the office to collect my Japanese business cards. [You don't want to be in Japan on business with no business cards, oooh no no.] 1/3/02 College days by CJ age 39 and a quarter Well, you were absolutely right. Not much email traffic from me because of homework. Continuous assessment never was my style...... So for those of you who do not know, I've gone back to school. Full time as well. Full time seems to mean attendance on three days a week, but then LET METELL YOU about the homework. Um, no that would be tedious. However, three days is full time enough for me to qualify for half price bus travel. Will studentship merge with pensionership? I'm now a quarter of a masseur (or massage therapist or bodyworker depending on how modern you want to sound), or at least I will be if I pass the practical exam on Monday. I passed the theory paper (I'm modestly assuming) on Thursday, and all the continouslytedioustests so far. I now really do know that your thigh bode attaches to your hip bode or however that song goes. Getting good at dog latin as well. Sort the following words into order: periosteum, endosteum, epiosteum. Repeat with -mysium, -chondium, -physis and so on. I'm actually doing a course entitled 101. After years of hearing jokes about things being such and such 101, I've just done MAN101 (which translates as manual therapies for beginners) and A&P101 (anatomy and physiology for people not yet at the status of beginner). Next we get MAN102 and, bizarrely, A&P103b, but hey who says you need to be able to count. It's not exactly intellectually demanding (so no surprises there then) except when they punt up a teacher whose chief skill is in spreading misinformation about a science subject that he doesn't understand (to be fair this has only really happened once), but it is hard work, both physically and in the sheer volume of learning needed to be able to say with absolute confidence where your tensor fascia latae (with extra cinammon) originate and what they do. Even worse to be able to point with same complete confidence to someone's posterior superior iliac spine without half a dozen exploratory prods and a lot of "its around here, no hang on over there a bit, just near, ah yes that's it". The teachers have a slightly annoying habit of trying to teach lifestyle in amongst the patter (don't use Johnson's baby care products , they are not natural), but generally it's all well meaning stuff and easily ducked. Some of it is vastly entertaining, like watching them try to be ever so subtle in telling somebody that their posture would never be any good if they insist on wearing 4 inch platforms with 6 inch heels (I kid you not. Must be the current fashion around here, although I had not previously noticed, as several people on the course have been, and in one case still is, wearing them). Also amusingly, when they kick said shoes off they get docked one mark for massaging barefoot and then another for having an untidy workplace. Gets the message home (mostly) I suppose. School never was this much fun surely? Anyway, subject to the aforementioned monday test, I can now do an hour long light (i.e. relaxing or won't do much good but won't do any harm) massage, covering 39 major muscle groups (which if anybody really wants me to I can recite together with origins, insertions and actions. Backwards). The rule to date has been on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is excrutiatingly painful, never go past 5. But, next comes remedial and deep tissue which is where the pain begins.....no sorry, shouldn't say things like that. Brings the profession into disrepute and all that. 2/3/02 (M visiting again arriving from Hong Kong after birth of granddaughter) I'm not lost, just gone before. I thought of you, waving as you heard my plane pass overhead at 9.10, or so, har, har. After being told takeoff was estimated at 10, we were then told the time was 11, and were sent a million miles off to the restaurant to have a " refreshment " at their expense. Not knowing whether or not this meant supper on the plane too, I chose, from a rather unexciting selection, chicken in black bean sauce with rice. At 12.30 I was offered a choice on the plane of chicken (with potatoes ) or salmon (with rice ). We actually finally left the tarmac at 11.30. The plane was rather hot, but my seat neighbour was a pleasant, quiet, THIN girl, who slept like a baby - ie, leaned gently but very warmly up against me. I had about 3 hours sleep, and the window seat being over the wing, was unable to see much when I peered out, esp as the sun was blazing brilliantly in my eyes. Which it has continued to do. C&C had wisely checked the arrival time, so were not pacing the arrivals hall in a rage since 9am. We made up about one hour of our two and a half adrift. It is great being here, out on the balcony watching the bats come in to the figs down in the park, and Mardi Gras fireworks going off beyond the towers. I watched C give Ch a full body massage, (impressive), and had a neck and top of back one myself before we supped. It is hot again this morning, and C has just placed a cup of cappuccino next to me. I have done a first admiring run-through of the Antarctic log, which is most impressive, indeed, quite beautiful. I am already missing my baby, but at least I have loads of photos to gaze upon. and a whole film yet to develop. Tell H that the trick with E is to change the nappy from the side, out of pooing range. 8/3/02 (M to family) Colin has just brought me a plateful of raisin- bread toast, apparently a specifically Ozzie breakfast, yum, yum, my self indulgence knows no bounds. Ch came back very cheerful y/day from her Silly Executive Games, which involved Tribal Dancing and Grape Treading, bearing gifts, including a very smart folding chair, suitable for balconies, and a bull-roarer which we haven't tried out yet as the flat might not be big enough for the swing. I didn't go anywhere y/day as it was cool and damp and windy, and the day before was too hot, 26C in the shade and 42C in the sun, which is what I was in to and from the shops, gasp, gasp. Today, after said toast, we may go to a wildlife park and stroke a koala. A very long-legged spider has just gone to ground under Ch's basket of books and papers ; we hope it isn't a Sydney special biting sort. 9/3/02 (C to family; a spider on the 11th floor, killed by C to girly screams from Ch and M) The suspect was (note: was) probably a Huntsman although as there are 3 families and 60 subspecies we could not be sure. Poisonous, but not deadly. Anyhow it failed the fingernail test (if it is bigger than your fingernail then ........) by a considerable margin (hey, some of the legs were bigger than my fingers) so met a rapidly moving espadrille (sp) much to the relief of the audience. BUT how did it get here? 1/4/02 (C to M, planning ANOTHER trip) No no you don't undestand about business class. It doesn't have posh people in. It has people who are making the trip because their companies, or their spouses' or daddies' or mummies' companies, say so. Usually they are quite quiet and well-behaved - but not posh. Posh people go in first, although they don't fill it up - the rest are more senior people making the trip etc, sometimes upgraded from business rather than having paid any more. On this route in business you should get a lie-down flat reclining seat, which is worth having. We have had a pleasant little trip down to the Alps (hah hah think Massif Central somewhere) - walked about 16k on each of Sat and Sun. Brilliant sunshine and not TOO hot, and a surprising number of flowers given it's autumn. various rosellas and kookaburras on wires and some elegant black & grey cockatoos with red heads which I haven't looked up yet. 12/4/02 (Ch, on business trip to HK, enjoying weekend family life) OK, here is some exciting news from Hong Kong (note that this time I am masquerading as D). E has had her jabs today and is consequently very sad. A took her, impress. We don't think we'll go to Macau tomorrow because D would like a lie-in (me too in fact), but we have cancelled the lady who was coming to talk about wills, probably, her husband rang back and said that D's husband had arranged for the lady to come next weekend instead, but A denies speaking to her, and was it L? We might go to Stanley instead, and was it a green shirt you wanted M? and A might go to work, or not. James has fallen off the rails, silly James, a cow is looking at him. Thomas is charging the snowdrifts in the bath and his wheels are spunning and he has a white beard, just like Father Christmas. It's now 7.30pm and A is probably (or not) leaving his work drink to come home by public transport so we can go out to dinner, only it might be a bit late so we might order pizza, anyhow E is still bawling and needs to be persuaded to go to sleep so as not to leave J with two babies to soothe at once. The bad bus went onto the roundabout and squashed all the flowers and Gordon took the poor flat people and the poor flat flowers to hospital. And did the kind doctor make them better? No! I have spent 7 hours sending emails today and doing my back in because of the chair height and screen size and talking to people in several different countries. For lunch I had a can of Weightwatchers rice pudding and a slice of cold pizza. We don't have Donald and Douglas. Dat's EDWARD not Thomas, he has a 2. You were in the Narita Cathay lounge because you were waiting to board a Cathay Pacific flight from Narita to Chek Lap Kok, silly [Ch hacked M's Hotmail as the easiest way at the time of sending an email from Narita].. You could set fire to the dusty chattels and claim on the insurance. I bought Colin a yukata with a dragon on it and M a T-shirt with a golden samurai horse on it. Christian come from Japan - we ought to go dere. E has shut up so I might go and see if it looks set to last. I will mend the tracks with bricks. Bricks? (Nod) And cotton-wool. E is now known as " de sister". (As in, Christian, put de sister to Daddy and you can drive de bus). 19/4/02 (Ch's sister, D, to family) Last night's bedtime conversation: Me: Are you going to dress up as a pirate to go to Erin's party? MRT (brightly): Umm...sort of... Me (intrigued): Sort of? MRT: um - can you buy me a fairy dress, mummy? Me: a fairy dress... MRT: Fairies have wings, don't they? Me: er, yes. MRT (doubtfully): like aeroplanes... So there you have it. One fixed-wing jet fairy coming up At ten to eight this morning, I was getting onto MRT's rocket, along with Daddy, Christian, Grandma H, Grandma M and Grandma C-and-M, to go to the North Pole to look for MRT's lost umbrella. (I had already dealt with two nappies, one small and one large and pooey), Later on the rocket went to Mars. J said it would be very hot (showing a less than perfect knowledge of planetary climates, I must say), to which MRT's reply was "I shall simply wear my hat". ?date, (C to family) I would have thought that the europeans would be full of the joys of spring and talking about blooming daffodils or something. I was voluntarily wearing long trousers yesterday (although not yet socks) which tells you what a dismal state our weather has reached. Only 22 deg C or so. Disgusting. Somebody ought to do something about it. Thinking back, that makes it a 7 month shorts season if you ignore the fact that we went to antarctica which is by way of being an extreme reaction to the southern summer. I actually have very few pairs of trousers which fit any longer (had to get this in somehow) as weight loss continues. I am now the same weight as a certain somebody. Which pleased one of us anyhow. I have the last of the physiology tests today (I'm revising - can't you tell) and the sports medicine module starts tomorrow. The first 6 paying punters went through my hands last week. Wot a larf. Surprise surprise,the clinic started its induction by saying "forget everything you've been told - this is the way we do things here". I do believe that I could have guessed that if I had given it any thought. Rather I was more concentrating on trivia like obtaining a pair of white trousers (or strides in the local verno) which is difficult if you start looking just after the end of the cricket season. Kung Fu to the rescue. Have you ever been in a martial arts shop? They are very odd........ International News Breaking...........I've just found out that the new eastern suburbs bus timetable due to start to today has been postponed (by dint of looking at the wonderful web). I'm not sure if that means that my bus to the exam is likely to be more or less reliable. Will continue as normal confusion be better or worse than new timetable confusion? Hmm, think I'll plan to go early. All our flags here have gone back to being full mast, which presumably means that the queen mum is alive again. Or maybe the tv has just started running old footage. As she seems to have looked the same for the last 30 years it would be possible to keep something like that going for a while don't you think. Provided that not too many other people were featured in shot. Mind you all those factory visits would be a bit of a giveaway. 13/5/02 (Ch to family) I am so busy I might just disintegrate into my component parts. It would be cheering up and distracting to think about Lake district walks. We went on a very small walk round the Hermitage foreshore on Sunday, plus down to Double Bay on Sat and back with 6 books, a bottle of single malt, a piece of swordfish and some bread. Does that count as exercise? This bloody deal is supposed to be signing tomorrow. I had two cold sausages and a piece of chocolate cake for supper, left over from some jolly social occasion in Shared Services or somewhere the nature of which I wot not, and then later a small amount of left-over chicken and lemon pilau, between phone calls. 27/5/02 (Ch to M, arranging another visit) Upstairs is definitely good, and if you can't get a window seat, you will get some small recompense by getting little glimpses into the cockpit every time the pilots want another cup of coffee. (Window is better both for the view and because you can put your feet up on the locker at the side. And because then you get to wake your neighbour when you need a pee in the middle of the night rather than vice versa). All that seems a long way away anyhow. Before that we get a short break inthe Warrumbungles, I get a quick trip to London (probably not seeing any of you owing to quick, unless you fancy coming into the City for lunch) and then we have a nice gite and van trip. I expect something's happening in September too. I'm quite looking forward to all of this starting, as we've now had about 5 weeks in a row which consist of a 60+ hour working week followed by a weekend in which I just about start thinking I might do something about 3pm on Sunday. Something apart from read, that it. As Colin says, it isn't actually particularly rational to consider going out to the theatre or a concert or a film or even for a meal as doing something, but reading several books, listening to several cantatas and cooking supper, as not doing something. Some exercise would be good - haven't managed that apart from a couple of little (very little) rambles on the harbour foreshore. The problem is that the view from the flat (aka unit) is so good that there's no incentive to go out to Make the Most of the weather. Even if the weather is such that it deserves Ming the M of, which it wasn't this weekend. A sailing dinghy school has just come to live in Rushcutters, and it was most entertaining to watch them gong round and round buoys very fast in the pouring rain. The only bird anecdote I can introduce is a pelo a couple of weekends ago which made like a bat by soaring very close to us at our level, for some time owing to trying to fly into a strong southerly. 7/6/02 (C to family) A very posh and fast car is driving around here with the registration 000 007. So that's triple oh double oh seven. Unfortunately when the data was retyped he became Bondo, Jamo Bondo. Still that will at least make the application for citizenship easier. You may need to live here to appreciate this, but I'm assuming that COCKA2 has a particularly raucous car alarm installed. More prosaically, ICHILL is a frozen food delivery van..... All of which announces that I've got time on my hands again, even to the point of getting around to insuring the car after a lapse of a few days (not as dodgy as it sounds as compulsory third party insurance - bodies not property - runs to a different cycle and was still current. The only part of the car regime around here more strict than the UK is the fact that if you don't have ctp insurance you have to send back your registration plates). I had a very good example of the sort of reason why Sydney found it difficult to take security seriously during the Olympics yesterday. Walking out of the Double Bay Woolworths (think Sainsbury's before they moved out of town) I noticed a medium sized backpack stuffed under the corner of an advert/info stand just by the entrance way. Looked like the sort of bag that school kids carry around here. Thought one was: bomb. Thought two was: why hasn't anybody nicked it, bomb or no? Thought three was: how quaint. And this in the midst of the wickedness of Sydney, which other Australians appear to think of as the butt end of the universe in terms of crime and general unpleasantness. It's no wonder that Aussies come back from grand tours of the world sadly shaking their heads and without their wallets. We're off tomorrow morning for 5 days in the W'Bungles for some refreshing countryside and bad motel food. 12/6/02 (C to family) well, we walked and walked and walked but did we see any koalas? And that was despite taking one track where the park service records them as "commonly sighted". Hah! Wewuzrobbed. We saw lots of Leafalas (c.f. Logodiles on earlier trip)...... So, just another 'Roo and Suncream aussie walking holiday then. The eagles put on another fine display but the only snake seen was in the beak of a low flying Kookaburra (why did the Kookaburra cross the road?). Pizza three nights running because the motel food really was a bit ordinary, however the pizza joint did introduce us to the great australian pizza (topping: bacon, eggs and onion), which was surprisingly good. The park was quite busy on the Sunday but we more or less had the place to ourselves on the Monday and Tuesday (despite Monday being a public holiday). The weather was perfect, but then as the town advertises 350 days per year clear skies that was hardly an achievement. All in all a good time was had. Now fifty percent of us are back to the daily grind. 29/6/02 (C to family, during the World Cup) My conclusion is that the australians are genuinely baffled that there can be a sport so obviously popular as soccer that they are no good at. How can it be? Why didn't somebody warn them? Talk here is of Australia hosting the world cup in 2018. TV has been full of sportsmen from other sports saying that they would have been soccer (it has to be called soccer as there are three other sports known as football - AFL <aussie rules>, NRF <rugby> and NRL <rugby league>, known respectively as footie, football and FOOTBALL YA BLOODY WIMP) players if only, or that they were soccer players until enticed away and so on and so on. The tournament has also shown quite how multicultural Australia is (excepting of course afghan refugees and the poor blackfellas who were here first). Simultaneous radio broadcasts to the live tv in the language of the playing nations and tv adverts in the language of the playing nations (Hyundai ads in Spanish for example when Mexico played the USA). Also announcements as to where to meet in Sydney (as in Senegalese supporters plan to meet at the Coogee Working Men's Club, whilst the suburb of Strathfield is having a Turkish evening). All quite endearing. Also quite funny. For example half the matches (all the ones in Korea) are being broadcast by a minority tv channel called SBS which specialises in foreign language films and the news broadcast in Greek. They had 6 million viewers (that is one in three Australians) the other night despite the fact that there was cricket on one of the network channels. I think that they normally count viewing figures in thousands not millions. 30/6/02 (C to family) It's not that Australians (well, at least most Australians) think that they should be best at all sports all the time, but that they should be able to win at any sport they pick at any given moment. Recently it has been Olympic sports.......but now they have found soccer. The point being that the world cup has never been held in an aussie friendly time zone before. The few thousand people who watched France '98 at three in the morning were probably considered cranks (or slightly worse, poms). Now they have realised that you don't have to live in Manchester to like soccer I fully expect them to mount a serious asault. When complete strangers walk up to you and ask what you thought of last night's game and whether Australia should have a team (not knowing that they had a team and that they were knocked out by Western Samoa or somesuch), you know something is up. Especially when said person was more granny league than football league. So - hot prediction - watch out for the Socceroos (their name - no kidding) sometime soon. Tennis might have to wait until it stops being a minority sport. 1/7/02 Back in Syddley (Ch to family) And it's cold. Ish. But sunny. I arrived early Sunday morning having slept 7 hours out of 12+ on the LHR-Singapore leg and 4 out of 7 hours on the Sing-Syd leg (hurray for BA flat beds) and spent 2 hours wandering around Changi looking at the shops and trying to make my brain believe I was having Saturday. I managed to stay up nearly all Sunday apart from a little kip in the arvo and see the match. Still jet-lagged this morning though. Back to wiggly-woggly. Nothing's changed except fewer bugs. I hope you noticed that you have a book in every room in your house. Shall we dance? shall we dance? Shall we dance? shall we dance? Shall we dance? shall we dance? [Re Gunther von Haagens' Bodyworks, then on in London]........ I think you're right about not taking children (or at least children who might have nightmares) but I'd be surprised if in fact you found it too strong. As well as the pregnant lady there are quite a lot of foetuses of various ages and some still-births with conditions like anencephaly. It was sad, but in a compassion-inducing rather than a shocking way. It was pretty full when I was there. I thought there would be at least some people going er yuck isn't that disgusting, but there weren't. Everyone was quiet and fascinated and almost reverential, walking round and round and pointing out especially interesting bits to each other in hushed tones. I've just discovered I've got to go to Chicago next week (to set up a Japanese product, don't ask) so I'll be arriving in France by a circuitous route. I arrive at LAX before I leave Sydney. Oh no, re-packing. I'll bring MRT a Cubs T-shirt, not. 4/9/02 (C to family) overheard on a sydney bus........Person 1: blah blah house prices house prices blah blah and we've put in a new bathroom. Decided on a double shower head because that means you can (....and crucially I didn't hear the next bit......). Person 2: that's right, THAT'S RIGHT, now you can do ANYthing. It's exciting by bus 9/9/02 (D to family) "Last night, in Jangan where the Aristocats are, I slept for a hundred years. There were lots of wombats. One scuttled into my bedroom. It was a friendly wombat. It kissed me and cuddled me and nibbled me." Life on the Planet MRT... 8/9/02 (Ch to family) What a lot of emails I don't seem to have replied to (tho' my social secretary has). This is because (a) I'm very busy at work (so what's new) and (b) I still have the chest infection I brought home from Yerp. It isn't a very bad cough but it won't go away. Last week it was complicated by one of those things that make you feel like a wet rag for 24 hours. I actually had the day off, a very unusual thing for me. This is about the 4th weekend I've thought, well if I spend all weekend doing nothing much, I'll be better by Monday. All the signs are that this'll be the 4th weekend I've been wrong. Never mind, I was better enough to go to a B*O*O*K*S*H*O*P yesterday and this is a nice place to be not very well in (blue sky, glittery harbour, lots of little boats busying about, assorted birds). [Hmm, of course with hindsight, I also had metastatic cancer, finally discovered about 3 months after this] 20/9/02 (C to family) One of the things that Australians who do not live in Sydney say is that they don't like Sydney because everybody is unfriendly and it is all too impersonal. I suppose everybody starts from a view point that puts London out on the extreme, but how about this: last night Ch "forgot" to get off at her ferry stop so the ferry made a special detour and took her back. Not bad for unfriendly and impersonal huh? (she was, of course, reading. What's more she was reading the third book in a series that she said she wouldn't start because it was not good enough to be bothered). 29/9/02 (C to family) The Grand Final and associated corporate jolly was a hoot. By the time we got to the stadium we even knew who was playing. The local team wore black and white stripes, were called the Magpies and weren't from Newcastle. They lost. It appears to be a game of four halves. It also apppears to be a game in which lots of different people have the right to trot across the field during the action. I think all the ones in white were referees (umpires) of various sorts, but what the exact function of the ones in bright yellow whose shirts said "runner" was I never determined. Trainers, physios and people selling coke and hotdogs also appeared on the pitch during play. The crowd was very mixed up and super well behaved. This was, after all, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Football rowdies need not apply. So Ninetyonethousandeighthundredandfifteen people watched the match and Ch and I watched the ninetyoneetc. Frequently supplied with beer and crisps by our hosts. The salesman amongst whom was frustrated by the fact that all this noise meant he couldn't keep talking. Never mind - he did a grand job running around buying ice creams. Oh, it rained and was blim cold. Back to real life. On Friday, the agent acting for the owner of 11B decided that we were not suitable tenants to have in situ whilst viewings take place and the owner is now trying to get vacant possession - quickly. Fortunately for us, the lease (when eventually found) says they can't get possession quickly. So far they haven't given formal notice because they think we might be encouraged to move much sooner. This could be quite funny. ?/02 (C) After typing last Friday's mail, and in pursuance of my intention to not do any admin, I went to Watson's Bay to take a few photos and have a bit of an explore. I stayed out of the car for 15 mins before being driven back by the great aussie fly. grr. We don't often get troubled around here by flies (well, not in comparison with anywhere else in Australia anyway) but several times this week they have got up my nose (and I really mean that folks). I don't think it is my defective memory about previous years. I really think that they are worse here this year. The theory is, I think, that Sydney centre doesn't often get fly blown because of the perpetual sea breezes and the lack of bush land. However, I think it is because the city is surrounded by 5 million people all holding cans of fly spray. For the record I still have marks on my right arm from three midge bites from August....... Our computer virus software has been updated three times during the week so something big is going on out there somewhere. Hasn't stopped me getting cold sores though. Standard Operating Procedure for Sydney Kitchens - during hours of darkness always announce your arrival in the kitchen area before switching lights on. A suitable way of doing this is to put down a cup and saucer or some cutlery onto a hard work surface or marble work top. Do this clumsily to create a good rattle. Both sound and vibration are important. This gives all roaches fair warning of the presence of a human being and allows them to hide. Count to five before putting lights on. Roaches still visible are already poisoned and can be ignored. This methodology allows human beings to ignore roach colonies and cuts down roach stress considerably. Energy saved uselessly chasing individual roaches around the kitchen can be better deployed in walking to shop to buy another can of Baygon. | ||