Canada - flavour of the month

Not to be outdone by the Damian Roff cliches of Australia on Australia Day (vegemite and fairy bread!), Julia has just participated in a workplace event to farewell one of her workmates who is shortly leaving for Canada. Canadian costumes were required and the only thing missing from the Canadian cliche list was a Mountie! That's Jules second from the right in the lumberjack outfit complete with wild mountain bear. Oh, and it was 34 degrees when this pic was taken....

Now we can post to the Roff Report by email.

Hi all, this post was just an email I sent with a picture attached. The address is below. Let me know if you have any trouble.  -Ad

J, S, X, E & E update

Happy Christmas, new year, Australia day etc etc
All is well here - the law of the jungle and natural justice continue within our house. This is reflected in the following descriptors and recent shots of the family.

Xav placates the house (but is an oldest child and so I expect him to become gradually more dysfunctional from here on in as per all Roff eldest male children)

Elijah terrorises the house (you would be surprised at the seemingly harmless things that can actually be used as weapons - I can't recall but in the photo below he probably put a small bird, Edie and a koala into this hole before he launched himself into it)

Edie runs the house (which I was ok with when she was confined to a seated position but as she is now walking she enjoys full house coverage in her management of all affairs of the house)

Sar organises the house (and continues to be the house referee. She has recently stopped giving yellow cards when the boys nude up and run around the house at 100 miles an hour - there are some battles that simply can't be won)

I remain a guest in the house (mostly catering, as shown below when we had a pig on a spit recently).

Love from us here.

Cheers,

Joe

Alaines Birthday

Happy Birthday Alaine!

In Canada it is the 23rd of February, Alaines birthday! Canada Roffs celebrated with fried chicken and vegetables. Go Alaine!

Melbourne

This is a photo that I took (from google) of the city I just visited.

Highlights of the trip:
1) A VIP chauffeur-driven car being there to pick me up and drop me at the airport! Unfortunately the driver kept claiming to be my cousin. I nodded approvingly.
2) 4 nights in 4 different beds in 4 different suburbs.
3) Dom absolutely nailing a reverse-parallel park first time!
4) Nick taking me to see a band "The Oh Sees". We arrived 5 days early to get good spots.
5) Drinking Melbourne Bitter in Melbourne and still getting heckled for it.
6) Lleyton.
7) Hewitt.
8) Advising Daniel Roff on a very profitable Lleyton Hewitt related bet.
9) Julia making a salad so good that it demoted the sandwich I was eating to "side dish".
10) Watching the x-files with Annika and Megan and then being suspicious that they were shape-shifters.
11) Sinking some brews and talking about sports with Nick while we ironed out our shirts all masculine-like.
12) Showing Chapell Street some moves they've never seen.
13) Being a rebel and jumping the turn-style at the Box Hill train station when I bought a ticket for the wrong "zone".
14) Grant telling me that the downstairs shower was way better than the upstairs shower. I spent 5 minutes searching downstairs for a shower but couldn't find one. Resigned to the fact that Grant was screwing with me and making a joke about the pool I took a shower upstairs. Apparently there actually is a downstairs shower - either that or Dom is screwing with me too.


Lowlights:
1) Being woken up by Grant from a nap to be questioned what the hell I was doing sleeping when I should be out courting Anna Marnock.
2) The Strikers getting crushed.
3) Aussie Dog getting robbed of a victory by Tomic and his mid-point non-challenge. What a cheat.
4) Having to get up from the couch to get myself a beer from Annika's place because Anna and Annika wouldn't get up to get one for me. Is this a Melbourne thing?
5) Some stranger flipped me the bird as he sat in an express train zooming through the station I was sitting at. Apparently this is called "getting owned Melbourne-style".
6) Setting off Melbourne airport security for having a butter knife in my luggage. It was planted there! Everyone in Melbourne is a suspect. Especially Dom... but especially Dom. The security guy let me go once I promised not to apply any dairy-based spreadable products to my pilot.


Thanks Melbourne Roffs for all the unbelievable hospitality! It's no Adelaide but Melbourne is definitely in my top 10 Australian cities.

Also, Andrew is the Wild Horse guest artist this week, giving a very Japanese flavour to his comic. Check it out! www.wildhorsecomic.com

Canada pics

This is Amy, Luke and Lil at school in -30. You can last about 5 min outside fully wrapped up before you start to hurt. Thankfully it has warmed up to -10 today. The cars can be plugged in to a power point (provided at carparks) so that they will start again. The water park is in West Edmonton Mall. It is really big. It has a billion shops, a water park, a hotel, indoor theme park, pirate ship, ice skating rink, seal show, climbing wall bungy jump and more. It is an absolute cathedral to consumerism but the kids loved it and its warm inside. It was snowing outside when these pictures were taken.

Better than Bob

Just another quiet week in Box Hill. The new Roff band has been rehersing but Rowan has spent most of his time at the tennis and Megan has been reading for a new short film. Nick is wondering if he's in the ANZ list of 700 retrenchments and Dom is, once again, objecting to being in a joke photo purely for the purposes of everyone else's amusement. Precious...

JJJ top 100 time

While the kids are posturing their favourite 'Indi songs' from the JJJ youth radio network , I thought I'd pander to the uncles on this one.
My top 5 Bob Dylan songs..
1. Hurricane
2. Masters of war
3. Don't think twice, it's alright
4. Like a rolling stone
5. It aint me babe

Royal visit

You know I'm not one to gossip, BUT...
Glenn and Sue have just spent a few days in Melbourne. Among other adventures, we went to the movies to see the new "Girl with Dragon Tatoo" version of the original Larson book by the same name. It was really good but a bit confronting.
Glenn and Julia rode bicycles home afterwards (20 kilometres) while Sue and I enjoyed the comfort and convenience of our 1996 Ford Courier twin-cab ute. It was great to see them and I know other brothers are enjoying the same company as they're on the way to Adelaide having passed through Newcastle.
In other breaking news, Stu and Marianne have sold their house in New Lambton and will shortly be moving to Redhead on the beach. They're currently on Norfolk Island hiding out from their kids and creditors. We had another inspection on our house today but I suspect the Grant Roffs will be living in Box Hill for some time to come.
Jenny Roff has accepted me as facebook friend but she's promised to regularly update the Roff Report with her and her family's adventures in Canada. Latest update is that it's cold there and she goes to work in the dark.
Amanda comes home from the US on January 16 so watch this space for further details.

TLR Rules

Happy Birthday TLR!
Have you found that lost shaker of salt? Its only the 7th here but Ill have a Molson in your honour tomorrow.

Canada

We have made it safely to Canada. The kids were model travellers, even Lily. Four days in Hawaii was good, perfect weather. I can recommend it as a stopover if you visit us. We tried to have dinner at Jimmy Buffet's Beachcomber bar on New Years Eve but it was chockers. Arrived in Canada yesterday to the warmest January day in 100 years. Kids have already had a toboggan. House we are staying in is pretty up market compared to ours. Today our car arrives (Dodge Caravan) but we have to loads of paperwork before we can drive it. There are pictures but Ill send them on a different post.

Once upon a time in Sydney

Once upon a time there was a little boy called Lachlan and a little girl called Maisie. Their parents tried to protect them from all the dangers in the world. Then one night they met up with Alaine and Daniel at Darling Harbour.

Princess Alaine, known throughout the land for her generosity, shouted the kids nachos and chips. Respect for authority was one thing was was not known for, so when an evil 'Darling Harbour Ranger' told her that the group was not allowed to drink beer with their nachos on the waterfront, she pretended to walk toward the bin, but continued to a secret location.

Later in this magical evening Prince Daniel said to the kids "I know that it is after your bedtime, and there is a chill in the air, but what the heck, go and jump into the Castle's fountain!"

Luckily Queen Kelly was in good humour when Jester Jake brought the kids back to the Motel dripping wet and hopped up on ice-cream.

'twas great to see Alaine and Daniel - such a good night. By the way, I got Moustache cookie cutters and a Harmony (Amanda's band) CD from Annika for christmas. Can anyone beat that?