The Life and Times of Peter Green
updated 5 January 2026
 Happy New Year to you all. Love from Kalorama. |
December 22ndGood ol' Belle in France, our special box of Chrissy chocolates arrives from her, so delicious and she always remembers. A nice start for the day.I spend the morning signing some last minute Christmas cards and getting them in the post. I love getting paper cards, I don't do Ecards. Not sure why, but I don't. We photograph some more stage costumes in the afternoon, just a few every few days, I did a serious ironing job on this lot, more wrinkles than Pauline Hansons face! OK maybe not that many. December 23rdI rarely ever leave Christmas presents this late, usually all done by December 1st but the tiniest bit of shopping to do today. Plus a small list of stuff for the road trip. Like extra radiator fluid etc (just in case). So I set out in the morning and tick everything off by lunch time. Petrol, check tyres. I call into Pinchapoo and leave a charity donation for them, take a sneaky photo and send it onto Kate.My Mum calls, she tells me when she woke up she turned on the ABC radio (Illawarra) and hears my voice on air, talking about our documentary. At the end I wish her and the family a Happy Christmas so that was perfect timing. I wonder if it is strange hearing my gorgeous voice on radio (cough). I head over to our neighbours with presents. Hisako, bless her, makes the best rocky road ever and we score a bag of it for the road trip. That is perfect. I upload Markys Youtube Wednesday with the timer so it will appear tomorrow on schedule. Seeing it is Christmas Mark gives the fans THREE live videos of Crowded House at Tolosa Park, Hobart. November 29th 2008. FALL AT YOUR FEET, CARS COLLIDE and WORLD WHERE YOU LIVE. Certainly a passionate crowd and CARS COLLIDE an unreleased Crowded House song, so you do need to check this one out. In the evening I walk most of my stuff out to the car so we don't have to do it tomorrow. Midnight knows something is up, she is very clingy, snuggles up to us both as much as she can. I will miss her, even if it is only for a few days. December 24thNot much sleep last night for both of us, which always happens when we are going away. I hear Mark wandering around at 5.00 am , so I drag my christmas corpse out of the bed and have a shower, a small bit to eat and take the presents out to the Black Beauty.Our security guy Nick arrives at 6.00 am on time and he will be looking after the house, office and cat while we are away, which is fantastic. Plus our neighbours check in too. By 6.30 we are on the road. I take us to the Olinda Bakery first and the girls have 2 free Christmas coffees for us to take on the road. We head back down the tourist road and we are amazed, two of the most beautiful deer by the side of the road just staring at us. A total Christmas moment. Thankfully not many cars and the weather is nice and cool in the morning. The last 4 road trips I have been solo, so it's really nice having my best friend with me. I try to make Mark sing along with Buster but he is no fun. Mr I Don't Sing. He does, I hear MG singing all the time, I like his voice. It comforts me. He sings a lot in the shower. We cross the border into NSW and I call into Gundagai just to top up the fuel and we find a shady weeping willow and have some nice cool drinks. Buster isn't hungry. The drive is uneventful and seems to go rather quickly. Drop Mark off at his Dad's on top of the Great Dividing Range. A short stay for me as it is getting late and they are shutting the Pass down at night for work so don't want to go another 2 hrs drive. Plus some in-laws are arriving at Mums so I need to be on hand to feed them and see them. As I am carrying my bag into Mums people start arriving, so not even time for a shower, thankfully I smell sweet. I make some food for them, offer drinks and everyone is chatty. They even talk about my Uncle Des that he has gone and won't be here this Christmas. I keep an eye on Mum, she's lost her 2 brothers now. Maddie tries to convince me to give her an early Christmas present, but her charms fail on me, all present tomorrow I decree. Great to see Sis, and we have some laughs. I have the best sister. Everyone goes home so Mum stays up awhile longer and I have an early night. I am convinced I hear reindeers walking on Mums roof. I take a snap of Mum waving out her front window with a lit Christmas tree next to her. Up on social media she goes. December 25thAnother fairly sleepless night, you think I would be exhausted. So up at 6.30 and help Mum make the Christmas pudding. I sneak a bag of cherries into it, absolute taboo, but I am taking full advantage of Mums lack of vision. I like cherries in it. I left the sixpences to clean before I went to bed so they are sparkly and into the mix. Soon after it's bubbling away on the oven and I start on the fruit salad.We get a call and MIM has been throwing up all morning, thankfully nothing from Mum pantry , I wait for Mum to say her line "just a bug that's going around'. Maddie is feeling a bit better and they arrive around 10.00. Jennifer and myself create three triffles. Plus I do the platters of meats etc. Everything is ready. Presents are next. I am spoilt again. I think everyone loves what they have. I spotted a Taylor Swift fishing hat in a shop so that was one of MIMs gifts, as she has to get at least one TS item from us. After presents we pose for the messed up family christmas photo. Bad Santa hats and tacky Chrissy glasses, not a big effort this year but we all look reasonably freaky. Cousin David arrives and we all settle in for lunch, bad Christmas jokes, gossip and nice food. It's good, we leave an empty spot for Des. Late afternoon and a few of us are in need of a nana nap-ok I AM! The family wave goodbye, Sis stays and we all chat and start to nod off. An early night for us, lots of ZZZZZs by 11.00 . I hear those reindeer again. December 26thI wake up at 5.00, stretch, yawn, scratch my bum. I have a shower and quietly take everything to the car. I head in to say goodbye to Mum and she is sound asleep, such a peaceful breathing. I feel guilty walking her up to say goodbye. But I do. I thank her for what was a lovely Christmas.My MAPS takes me on some secondary route to Macquarie pass. I decide to top up the fuel. It is raining outside and fog is gathering. I want to get to the pass in case they shut it for fog. I make it just in time. I am the lone car and I am about one third of the way up the windy windy turns and a rather large boulder the size of an arm chair comes crashing out in front of my car. I dodge it and can get past. That was close, I am now awake and alert! Another ten minutes and lyrebird walks across the road in front of the car, no cares in the world. As I get closer to Bundanoon, a Big Kangaroo jumps out of the bushes and I avoid it. What the hell. It's going to be one of those days isn't it. I pick up the boy, wave to Peter and Kerry and we are off. Soon we are back on the Hume freeway. Marky opening christmas presents from Mum, Sis and MIM. I tell Mark that I worked out that we did 820 kms heading up and the petrol we used was $95.60. Isn't that an incredible, the cost of a packet of cigarettes. To fly with hire car it was going to cost us $2200+. So if it's around the same going back, we save $2000. We have a problem finding food. We call into the Kentucky Fried, at one of the hubs, eager to try the Stranger Things burger , in honour of the show finishing soon. Finally we get to try one (both aware it is probably hyped and will taste average but what the hell). The bloody Kentucky is closed! That sucks. Desperate we call into Holbrook, which has the HMAS Otway submarine on display. Holbrook was named after British hero LT Norman Holbrook (a submariner) . I even buy some petrol just so I can ask about food but nothing is open. Very frustrating. We are surviving on christmas chocolates. Finally hours later we spot a Hungry Jacks off the road and quickly turn off and stuff our faces. It will do, bad fast food but it tastes so good. As we re-enter the freeway this absolute bitch abuses us, despite us having the right of way , I am so not in the mood… I will give her the gift of road rage if she isn't careful. Instead we tell her to go fuck herself and I drive extra slow to annoy the shit out of her. Happy Fucking Christmas. Grrr. There is always one. We see her up ahead and she almost causes a major car crash. Everyone is now abusing her. I just smile and wave….with one finger. We turn down the B300. The last 2 hours of driving are killing us both. I spot the Mt Dandenong radio towers in the distance but it seems to take forever to get home. Eventually we do, such a good car. Miss Midnight is so excited to see us, she jumps into our arms and does that endless cat chatter that tends to say "where the hell have you guys been". We cuddle her for an eternity. I finally sleep , the super deep sleep. Christmas is almost over isn't it. I hope yours was fantastic. December 27thI am up refreshed and go for a coffee. I chat to Rob at the Olinda bakery. A new local.The article on our Skyhooks documentary continues to climb to #1. Writer Jeff Jenkins can not believe how well it is doing. The #1 trending article multiple times. The documentary ticks over 4000 views already, so we are happy. The suns out and I pick some flowers form our yard for the house. December 28thI check the tattslotto ticket I bought for the bakery girls and no prize not even a tiny one.Some friends phone which is nice, and some presents and more christmas cards at the PO Box 50. Can you believe it's almost a new year. I am hoping 2026 will be a good one. December 29thOh Bridgette Bardot dies aged 91. I love the work she did around animal welfare.My mobile is being a nightmare, my Sister renewed it for another year but it looks like something has gone wrong. I log onto the bakery internet service and that works. Thanks girls. I drive over to Monbulk and see that the Food Bank is open. Usually I don't do Mondays but I thought what the hell and call in and give them a helping hand for 2 hours. After that it's onto Monbulk to get Midnight her cat food. I see Hisako and she says there is extra Rocky Road left for us-how great is that. Mark will be stoked. Such a lovely neighbour. I get the rocky road and bribe Mark to take some more costume/band t-shirt photos , this lot for Split Enz social media areas. December 30thHappy Birthday Greg Macainsh of Skyhooks. He turned 75. Nice to chat to him.Back at the charity today. I use a christmas voucher for our groceries, a woollies staffer gives me a $10 voucher present as I am their favourite customer (apparently) so our food shopping works out to be $5.65! Brilliant. I spend the day at the Charity, getting the Book Cave happening and up to date. It heats up outside, but slightly cooler with the new air con in the store. Each time I put one of my special display items someone buys it, so funny. A solid days work. Good to see everyone. With Stranger Things coming to an end, Mark suggest we binge watch all the previous episodes before we watch the final few new ones. So thats what we do. What a great show. December 31stAn exciting end of year list. Clean the cat loo, vacuum the house, empty the veggie recycle bin, wash clothes. Super domesticated.We do put up Markys YouTube Wednesday. A really nice version of BETTER BE HOME SOON. I filmed it at one of our two Paradiso shows in Holland in 1991. It seems a fitting song to wave goodbye to 2025. I drive off mountain and get us a Pizza from JJ's for dinner and some ice cream. We watch Stranger Things. Take a small break and watch a bluray Mark has created of the Stones in Paris in 1976. It's great, love it. Back to Stranger Things and I decide we need to wear our squirrel heads for a NYE photo for Facebook. So snap, snap and do the 10,9,8,7 countdown to the new year. I keep wondering if people think we have some strange squirrel sex? So thats it, kiss and cuddle Mark and Midnight. Another year over and certainly not wiser. January 1stWelcome to 2026. I am waiting on my delivery for my flying car. OK nothing has changed.I know my bakery is closed so I look at the Storehouse Roastery and it says OPEN. Yay. I'm out the door , my one coffee a day is what I need. I arrive and it is closed, they lied-bastards! So I head to the local park and just catch up on some social media work. Home and it is a beautiful day so some yard work. Hang out with Mark and Midnight on the decking, reading. So about now Stranger Things the final episode has just finished. It was also shown in the cinemas and a million people went to the movies to see the last episode. I check out the Famous For 16 Minutes counter and at midnight it had its 751,000th reader. It was 1 short and exactly at midnight someone read it. I am convinced they just waited. So thats about 33,000 readers this year. Big shout out to Deb for continually putting this up, really great and appreciated. January 2ndI'm sure the Garden Cafe at Kilsyth will be open , so at long last I can score a coffee. I need a few things from the supermarket too, so that's my mission this morning. I run into my friend Ian from the charity. So I decide to head in with him and do a few hours charity work. It goes by quickly.By lunch time I am back at our office and can't decide on what to play. So I do a blind pick, let fate decide. Good choice music gods. The Donna's debut from 1997. It has that Ramones , Runaways sound with some Girlschool thrown in for good measure. Really like their "Teenage Runaway" song. I don't think Mark has heard The Donnas before so a little music lesson. I saw them live at The Big Day Out & they were great. In the afternoon it's time to photograph a few more items for the Archives. It's Greg Skyhooks patched Bluejeans from the Bluejeans video clip. Plus he gave me his Suzi Quatro fanclub tshirt so I'm hoping to snap that too. I realise that our Skyhooks lead singer Shirley would have turned 74 today. Gone way too soon. January 3rdSad to hear that aussie actress Candy Raymond has passed away. We loved her in Don's Party, absolutely gorgeous. So classy!The weather is brilliant, one of those stunner Aussie summer days. We work in the yard a bit, I start on the circular drive. It's going to be my main yard project for a few months. I see all the roses are out at Ailsa Craig, I open the windows and the vibrant perfume floats in, the house smells rather amazing. The yard looks so colourful. We are both waiting for all there blackberries to ripen. We end up stuffing our faces with them every day. January 4thI'm still not getting the best sleep, the temperature seems to change every night . So sheets on, off, covers, clothing. Midnight is down the end staring at me, probably thinking "it's ok for you, you are not wearing big furry coat".Nice to be at the bakery this morning, I it with one of the other Marks and just gossip and laugh. The coffee was good today. I'm still finding it hard to believe it's 2026. We work in the office the entire day. I out up some archive images on the Skyhooks Facebook page. Mark photographs Greg Macainsh's jeans from the bands "Blue Jeans" video. The song went to #12 in Australia, a big hit in New Zealand, #3 and a gold NZ single for sales. So goodbye 2025, and welcome 2026. It IS going to be a good year. I am convinced of that. All the best Peter |
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