1st October

Monday 1^st October

Roger and Marilyn have been on diving holidays in most parts of the world.  They particular love the waters of Papua New Guinea.  A few years ago, however, they had a very unpleasant experience.

It was the last day of their stay at a remote diving resort on a beautiful little island, and it turned out to be a free day, no diving.  All was well; the resort people were taking them out in their big 4WD to watch Independence Day celebrations.  All well and good.  They were joined by a very nice woman who was a freelance photographer off to get some good shots for a National Geographic feature.  At the last minute in hopped Mr and Mrs Ulverstone, pleasant-seeming people, maybe in their late 40s.  These pleasant seeming people had possibly never been away from home before…

They got to the festival area quite early in the morning and it was, says Meriloy, quite wonderful.  No other dimdims (white people) at all, just locals, ready to have a good time.  The young men were up dancing on the flat tray their trucks, the local teenage girls were giggling and eying them off.  The women were spreading out a feast of produce from their gardens.  Clickety click went the camera, and Roger and Marilyn settled in to enjoy the atmosphere and chat to whoever wanted a chat. 

But…Where were Mr and Mrs Ulverston??  Why, locked inside the 4WD vehicle of course, looking terrified and wanting to leave.  Right!  Now!!  They obviously couldn’t cope with being surrounded by black people…Poor Roger, Marilyn and Ms Photographer had to get back in the car with the poor beleaguered driver and go back to the resort, where Mr and Mrs Ulverston heaved a huge sigh of relief and tried to be BFFs with the others, who were singularly NOT impressed.

Sunday 30th September

Another night or two on board 2XS, in our new marina berth in Prince of Wales Bay.

Many seagulls wheeling and shrieking and a stunning view of the mountain shrouded in snow.  It is suddenly, and somewhat disconcertingly, very VERY cold.  We had a big family lunch in South Hobart yesterday, with lots of food, cheery company, and - snow, sleet, wind and rain outside the windows.   Perfect weather for staying INSIDE to watch the Grand Final...

It is quite warm on board, with an ancient little blow heater blowing its heart out.  We have eaten bacon and eggs and have drunk several cups of very strong coffee so we are ready for the day.  I am going to read; Petge is going to try to fix he toilet, which has been reduced to its component atoms and is now lying on the deck in a fairly useles fashion. I think my morning is going to be less challenging and more fun than Pete's!

Saturday 28th September

Wednesday night I settled myself contently across two beanbags to watch The Gruen Transfer with my darling Katy and Jeff, who were equally comfortably draped across the couches.  The program was very interesting – witty, informative, clever - and I thought we were all enjoying it very much.  

Oh deary me off to Sleepyboboland… I woke myself with a bit of the start to see the credits rolling.  Total silence all around.  Had my faithless family members slunk off to bed, leaving me all alone in the dark with the TV?  I turned, cautiously, to look at the couches and there, also in Sleepyboboland were Snoozyhead #1 and Snoozyhead #2.  

It’s all GO and Bright Lights in Old Farm Road!

Friday 28^th September

On Thursday somebody got stuck in the lift on the 10^th floor of our building in Macquarie St.

Not so funny!  The only good thing…it wasn’t me!!!  I don’t particularly have a phobia about lifts or confined spaces, and am always The Brave One when I am with my friends who might be just a touch claustrophobic.  But I would very much hate to be stuck in the lift…

Our lifts in this building are very old and clanky.  Technicians are working on them at the moment, trying to bring them into the 21^st Century.  We get regular updates and they tell us that the lifts will be all shiny and new in September….2013…

My problem would be…boredom.  And an immediate an urgent need for the toilet, whether real or imagined. 

I obviously have no inner resources.  I would have to sit on the floor of the lift and play WWF on my iPhone until the battery ran out; without my phone or a nice big thick book to read they would find me sobbing pathetically, having found myself unable to be pleased with my own company for more than a few fleeting minutes.

I was OK on 2XS.  A lot of people have asked me if I got cabin fever, being in a confined space day after day.  Well, no.  For a start, 2XS is a catamaran and is, by definition, spacious, not like a monohull boat.  And I had plenty of activities to keep me occupied.  Taking my turn doing seamanlike things, for a start… And then, in idle moments, staring out to see looking for birds, flying fish, dolphins.  That could take a whole lot of time.  As well as this I had my self-allotted task of hourly log entries – busybusy!  Audiobooks and podcasts from my trusty iPod also stopped me from having to fall back on my own admittedly limited inner resources.  No cabin fever!  Apart from daily activities and entertainments, I had – the company of Pete, and I never did get bored with him.  (He occasionally does ask me if I am bored with him, and I always answer, darkly, “Not yet.”)

Thursday 27^th September

Just a bit of kidstuff…

Last year Eva, who was then three, played all day with her friends Miley and Isabelle.  Katy told me that they had spent the whole day in a bush getting married.  So when I saw Eva at the end of the day I said, “Oh Eva, did you and Miley and Isabelle get married today?”  She looked at me without a smile and said, in stern but kind tones, “Oh Bardy, we were just pretending!”

Ah yes…

In first term Leo had a very creative relief teacher in his prep class (5-6 year olds) for a few weeks.  She had them doing all sorts of imaginative writing and art work and the walls were full of very interesting displays.  I took a photo of one which indicated that maybe Leo is the most practical of all the children in his class…I think maybe he is destined to be an engineer…

The theme was clocks – they had to draw a clock and write a descriptive sentence.  Here is a sample:

Sometimes clocks don’t have numbers

Sometimes big clocks go tick tick

When clocks ring it is time to get up

Some grandpa clocks have a thing that swings

Some clocks have pictures on them

Clocks have hands on them

My dad’s watch had tiny tiny tinchy little dots

Some clocks go dong dong dong

And what did my Leo write??

The hands point to the number that is the time

That’s my boy!  No muckin’ around with tickety tocks or tinchy dots! 

They also had to write about reading.  Some of the children were very imaginative and describe how they lie on their comfy bed and look at the sky and read their book and eat an apple.  Django, who has very artistic parents, said that he can feel the soul of the writer.  And Leo?  Well… “I look at the letters and read the words.”  And indeed he does!!

Wednesday 26^th September

Claire sent me a text recently saying she had seen some earrings advertised on eBay:

“each have been maliciously hand crafted”

Oooh yes bring on that malicious jewellery!

While I am being a picky pedant I might alert you to the fact that some of our dearly loved words are disappearing.  Thrice is long gone, but apparently twice is also going going about to be gone.  I heard this in a PickyPedant radio program recently and didn’t think much of it.  But I have been listening carefully…and at the bus stop the other day, for example, I heard a woman say to her son, “I have missed the bus two times.”  And maybe even once is under threat… People say “I read a book one time and didn’t like it,” or words to that effect.  Too strange – what is wrong with these perfectly inoffensive little words that they should be extinguished??

Tuesday 25^th September

Recently at the Republic we talked about our need for privacy, personal space, time alone.  Some of us have a greater need than others, of course, but basically, in our society, we accept that we all need space and privacy.  It is more or less a given.

But…in most societies privacy is virtually unknown.  People in the islands where we went on 2XS live in small thatched huts, all jumbled in together, generations sharing living and sleeping space as a matter of course.  Nobody is ever alone!  The odd person goes out fishing in a little canoe and is maybe alone for many hours, but that is the limit of solitariness.  The women all go off together, children in tow, to work in the steep vegetable gardens; they wash communally; they often cook outside in the laneways between the huts.

A few years ago, when all of the offspring were small, I met Jill at a lunch in Sandy Bay.  She had just been to Club Med in Malaysia with her husband and three small children.  It was all very nice and very family oriented.  But her favourite and most anticipated moment came when her husband went off in one direction to play golf and her children all chose to go to a children’s activity around the pool.  Aha!  Jill took her towel, umbrella and book off to the beach.  The beautiful quiet deserted beach.  Bliss!  Privacy, space, time alone!  After a few minutes of pure happiness she heard voices.  Three Japanese women were coming down to the beach from the resort.  Oh well, plenty of space for everyone.  Plenty of space???  The three women saw Jill and cheerily made their way towards her.  They stretched out their towels as close to hers as possible, turned on their radio and proceeded to chat, giggle, scatter sand around, and generally annoy her very much.  She was outraged and wanted to get up and storm off to the other end of the beach.  But…she knew that they were just being polite and following Japanese custom, so she just lay there outwardly smiling but inwardly fuming.

Monday 24^th September

Speaking of seagulls, as I was, just yesterday…

Last week Pete and I were watching a football game, on his glorious big TV.  I wouldn’t say either of us is passionate about The Footie.  But there’s something about being on the couch, with the heater blasting away very nicely, and a glorious big screen, and not having to get up early the next day, which makes just about anything very pleasant watching.

Pete was quite enthralled by the game.  A close score!  Men leaping in the air, most athletically, as they do in Aussie Rules.  The crowd going wild!  And just about all I could focus on was…the seagulls!  They were whirling madly just above the players, in a frenzy of flight.  They looked just wonderful with the bright lights shining on them.  I think if an alien had come to join us on the couch, they too would have thought it was all about the birds… Men jumping and kicking a ball, dimly, in the background??  But what about those BIRDS!!! 

Sunday 23^rd September

 And at last, after many landlubber months, today we did sail 2XS!  I am very pleased to report that we were both thrilled to bits to be back on board, even though our trip was less than an hour.

 We moved, a bit sadly, from our beautiful marina at Lindisfarne.  We have been very happy there, and it has been a safe and cosy place for 2XS over quite a few years.  But…it is very expensive and there is a new marina in Prince of Wales Bay which offered Pete a deal he just couldn’t refuse.  Less than half price…and this is thousands of dollars I am talking about.  I didn’t try to argue Pete out of his decision…but I was sad to leave the MYCT… I hope we will still be welcome back there to eat in the beautiful restaurant…

 Our trip from here to there was, as I said, very short.  Just past the Zinc Works and around the corner.  You wouldn’t expect many Attenborough Moments, would you?  Aha!  Splishy SPLASH!!  Right up against the Zinc Works walls were not one, no two but THREE large and cheery seals doing slightly energetic leapings and boundings.  (I say SLIGHTLY energetic…seals are very sleepy, not like dolphins.  It is rare to see them leaping and plunging.)  And around the corner, as we were pulling into the very spacious new marina berth, I heard much shrieking and squawking – seagulls massigng an attack against a majestic but weary looking sea eagle right overhead.  I tried to alert Pete to this wonder of nature but he, strangely, was more interested in concentrating on getting into the berth and getting me to stop looking into the sky so I could do my thing with the ropes.

Saturday 22^nd September

I have been spending a lovely bit of time with my sister Monique, who lives in Launceston but who has a small business in Vanuatu.

All small (and large…) businesses in Vanuatu, run by locals or by expats are finding  it very hard going.  (The little second hand bookshop which was set up with such high hopes when we were there, by a very keen Australian couple, has folded up after only a few months.  Other shops are closing daily...)  All expats except…the Chinese.  They work methodically and relentlessly and very successfully.  Leah, Monique’s daughter, who runs their little shop with her boyfriend Mark, who is a Nivan, went to a seminar in Port Vila recently where they were told to work like the Chinese.  Go to China!  Set up family co-operatives!  Bring back business knowledge and trade deals!  Go to the local Chinese shops and ask for advice!

Well what a total lot of rubbish!  The people in Vanuatu do NOT work this way, in co-operative large inter-generational family groups.  They don’t have the relentless work ethic or business knowledge which has been built up over hundreds of generations in China.  And as for the Port Vila Chinese shops being willing to impart knowledge and advice…not bloody likely; why would they???

Friday 21^st September

 

Today is a Happy Birthday Day.

 

So…happy birthday to:

 

Tim Abey, our illustrious President at the Commission

 

Kevin Rudd, our former PM

 

The Cartela, our beautiful old ferry, a hundred years old

 

Nicole Richie, American socialite (I needed to inject a bit of meaningless glamour into our list)

 

Curtly Ambrose, Antiguan West Indies cricketer (ditto a bit of sport)

 

Bill Murray (ditto a bit of Hollywood)

 

Stephen King (strangely, I love Stephen King. Hate horror, gore, nastiness but…Stephen King is The King and I quite happily read everything he has written – something about his tone, wit and humanity make it possible for me to overlook the horror and the gore.)

 

Leonard Cohen – well how lucky are Tim and I to share our birthday with Our Leonard!

 

Oh yes I almost forgot – happy birthday as well to me…

Thursday 20^th September

On Tuesday at lunchtime (at the God Café* with Katy, Eva and Eva’s friend Miley,) I ran into Anna, a former colleague, out in the park with daughter and grandbabies.  She told me she had been for a walk that morning with a friend who had just had her first child, with a bit of medical intervention, at…fifty!  She, and her baby, are doing just fine.  This reminded me of the story an old friend, Peter, told me a few years ago, about his maiden aunt in England.  She had been part of a large, happy family, with her role clearly defined as…elderly maiden aunt.  And then at the age of 52 she suddenly, and inexplicably, produced a baby!  (Inexplicably as in – she very sensibly never explained this pregnancy.)  I asked about the outcome of this sudden change of lifestyle and Peter said his aunt took it all in her stride and had a wonderful relationship with her daughter.  She lived well into her nineties and thoroughly enjoyed being a mother and…in the fullness of time, a grandmother!

Pete and I were talking last weekend about generation gaps.  I have friends who have become grandmothers in their late thirties, and others in their seventies who are still waiting hopefully for the first inkling of a grandchild.  The youngest grandmother I ever knew was just thirty…she had had her daughter at fourteen, and this daughter had produced her own first child just before her sixteenth birthday.

In the Pacific islands women have their babies very young, and…very old!!  Sanity, mother of Moses, in the Louisiades, seemed like a very ancient person to us.  Thin, hunched, lacking any teeth.  However she must have been quite a lot younger than me because her youngest son, Keith, is only twelve… (Oh wait…maybe if I had been like Peter’s aunt, or Anna’s friend, I might be the mother of a twelve year old… In fact I far prefer being the grandmother of my very own lovely twelve year old Hamish…)

* The God Café is what we call the lovely big new spacious café with safely fenced playground along the Rivulet in South Hobart.  Not sure which church it is one of the more evangelical happyclapping denominations.  We love it!  There are spacious toilets and baby change rooms, with thoughtfully provided wipes and spare nappies if necessary.  The café sells mini milkshakes for $2, perfect for small children, and the staff are unfailingly bright, cheerful, HAPPY.  They have craft group, playgroups, mothers groups, youth groups, which are all, I am sure, full of happyclapping and godly things.  But…nobody pushes any of this onto us ungodly ones, and we always feel very welcome and pleased to be in such salubrious surroundings with our little ones safely contained and full of pink milksahke and butterfly biscuit.

Wednesday 19^th September

Every year the Australian publishes a list of the best made-up words.  They are always very clever and I, of course, can’t remember any of them.  Except for weathernesia because I seem to be afflicted with this every single day…

Weathernesia is a curse.  It happens when you listen to the weather forecast very intently but… just at the moment when they tell you the weather for the exact place you happen to need to know about…your mind clicks off and you go lalala in your head and miss the vital bit of info.  This morning I really did want to know about the weather in Hobart and when they started the forecast for Hobart I put my brain into gear and…nothing!  Lalalalala!!!

(And yes as it turned out I really DID need to know.  It was very cold in the morning them very warm at lunchtime when I stepped outside then sleety and windy when I walked back to the office then sunny but cold when I walked up to South Hobart…I needed all sorts of anti-weather items: sunglasses, warm coat, umbrella, lighter clothes in layers.)

Weather forecasts are of vital importance on the boat and whenever we managed to get our (very fallible) radio system to work Pete would station me at the table with The Notebook and a pen with instructions to write it all down… Oh the battle with weathernesia!  This combined with cracklecrackle and mumblemumble…some of my most stressful moments at sea occurred at the table with The Notebook and a pen…Even worse when we were in bilingual territory and the only audible bits were in French with a strong South Pacific twist to the language…

Tuesday 18^th September

On my desk calendar this week:

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer

So very true!  Whenever anyone is starting a new job I give them two bits of advice. 

(1)            Send and keep memos re EVERYTHING.  (And by keep I mean keep in a place where you can easily find the info again…)

and…

(2)        be very careful what you write in an email

And that’s it!  I write memos and then print them out and put them on whichever file I am working on, mainly because I absolutely can’t remember anything people say to me on the phone.  So I document each phone call and then, when the time comes to justify my actions, I can whip out the memo and say Aha!  I remember it well!

Pete and I were very careful to log everything on 2XS as well.  We had lots of visitors on the boat, many of them with yachts of their own, and people were always astonished to see that we kept an (almost) unfailing hourly log.  We were more astonished that nobody else does this…

Apart from anything else it gave us a real sense of achievement to see how many nautical miles we had done, which degrees of latitude and longitude we had crossed, how fast we had gone, wind speed, wave height etc etc.  So nice to have it all mapped out in (slightly wobbly) ruled columns! 

On a more sober note…remembering that the rule with logs and memos is to protect the writer…if ever anything goes wrong on a boat it is vital to have info at your fingertips so you can say, At the time my very annoying friend disappeared overboard… well… the waves were huge!  The sun was blotted out by a huge stormcloud/flock of vultures!  The wind changed direction and blew out the mainsail!  And there, in black and white and blue, is the contemporaneous written evidence to bear witness!

Monday 17^th September

A bit more than a year ago we arrived in Vanuatu on 2XS and spent some time in Port Resolution on the island of Tana.  We had a great time and loved our first experience of Vanuatu.  People in Tana were friendly, lively, helpful.  It was strange when we were on other islands to hear that any trouble in the country was because of those people from Tana.  They are NO GOOD.  Any riots, muggery, thuggery – blame it on islanders from Tana!

I think every country has an area which is looked upon with deep suspicion by the others.  In John Faine’s book about driving from Melbourne to London with his son, he often writes about meeting people in remote little villages.  They would be greeted warmly and hospitably, and, invariably, they would be told, Thank goodness you came to us and that you didn’t try to stop in the village over the hill!  The people over there are NO GOOD.  They would attack and rob you.  Lucky you came to us!

Fear of strangers and yes the Greeks had a word for it…xenophobia…

I often think of Tana because we had one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of our lives there when we walked up to the very edge of the volcano.  If you approach the island from the sea at night you can see it glowing red in the dark sky, and as you get closer, you can hear it rumbling.  The locals proudly call it their “sleeping lion.”

I wrote about our walk to the top of the volcano in this blog last year so I won’t repeat the whole story.  But on Sunday Claire visited with her children and said that Jemima, who is 4½, had been asking questions about lava all the way to town.  “If a bit of lava touched a leaf, would the leaf die?  And if it came near people…would they run for their lifes??”  (Claire herself at 4½ was full of questions.  Is all the water in the world joined together?  And many complex questions about classification of the animal kingdom…usually she would ask when we were in the car, early in the morning, before my brain was anywhere near fully engaged…Now it is her turn to be The Knower!)

I was very happy to re-enact the fantastic volcanic display for Jemima, with much waving of arms and loud, thundery noises.  We don’t, for various tragic technological reasons, have any film or photos, but we are well jump around and tell anyone who wants to hear about it how very memorable it was to be so close to a fearsome, active volcano. 

Sunday 16th September

When the Wakefields were in the Northern Territory last school holidays, they met a man travelling with his dog.  Nicky told me about him because I had asked her if she knew of any nice available men in the 60-70 age range – I have a particular need of one, to provide company and fun for a very nice friend of ours, who herself is in the 60-70 age range…Please keep your eye out!

 

Why yes, said Nicky, we met a lovely single man called John!  But…he is in the Northern Territory!  John was apparently heartbroken after his wife did a runner.  (I am just a bit suspicious of this; in my experience wives don’t usually just do a runner for frivolous reasons…but I will give him the benefit of the doubt that she was a flighty piece and a bit of a bolter and that he wasn’t annoying or horrid in any way…)  He sank into a deep depression and went on medication for a while.  Fortunately he came across a different sort of GP who briskly told him to go off his medication slowly and carefully.  Then he said, “I am prescribing a dog for you!  And a campervan so you can go travelling!” 

 

What a great doctor!  John got his dog, a lovely golden retriever therapy dog.  Because he is a prescription dog, John is allowed to take him everywhere, in caravan parks, restaurants, hotels.  He makes lots of friends because everyone is attracted to the dog if not to him, in the first instance.  I shouldn’t think John and his dog will be all alone and palely loitering for very long…

Saturday 15^th September

A few weeks ago Nicky went out to dinner with her lovely group of friends, from her longstanding Mothers Group.  They have been meeting up for about twelve years, sometimes yearly, sometimes monthly, and they always dress up and go out to enjoy themselves with food, wine, chat, company.  They are very supportive of one another and have, collectively gone through some good times, some bad, as one would expect.

One of them, Jane, has been through more than most.  Marriage break up, custody battles, new husband, blended family blah blah, weight loss, weight gain, a bit of everything.  She was really looking forward to debriefing with her friends and, I think, she particularly didn’t want to acknowledge her latest defeat in the weight loss-weight gain battle…

So what happened, to make her leave the restaurant in floods of tears??  Nicky, always courageous and willing to face up to anyone in the pursuit of justice, wrote an email to the restaurant owner – I will reproduce bits of it here…

I am writing to let you know how disappointed I was with the service at your restaurant last night.  I love this place because the food is fantastic and when not overcrowded the ambience is great.  Unfortunately, however, last night I was unable to enjoy a meal there because of the way one of my friends was treated by your waiter, Josh.

What I am most disappointed with is the lack of concern or apology from Joe when we informed him what had happened.  To start from the beginning; I booked a table a month ago and requested a particular table (near the window with the ferns). I was told that this was no problem. When we arrived we did not in fact get the table I requested and were seated around the far back corner amongst two very large tables.  I wasn't thrilled but I wasn't going to complain either.  Squashed in next to us was a table for two.  Josh, the waiter was unable to get to this table without asking my friend to get up and move her chair every single time.  His solution to this awkward problem was to ask her whether she would consider swapping places with one of her "slimmer" friends.

My friend was understandably humiliated and upset and did not want to stay.  We reported the incident to Joe who listened but did not offer any apology and in fact only asked ask whether we had paid for our drinks.  I am utterly stunned that you would:

(a)    overfill your restaurant to the point that your staff can't get to the tables

(b)    let us leave your restaurant without any apology and

(c)    show more concern for your drinks money than the welfare of a local  customer.

I think this was a good email, and it certainly needed to be written.  And what response has she had, I hear you cry?  Well…none at all… I haven’t put real names here, nor have I named the restaurant, but…they do deserve to be outed, don’t they??  No matter what, surely they know that the customer is always right, and that if Jane was mortified and sobbing, as she was, well there should have been an apology, big time!!

Friday 14^th September

Last weekend we had absolutely horrendous wind.  Fearsome!  We were very glad not to be on 2XS, out on the sea…

Pete and I went to lunch in Old Farm Road and it was like being right next to a revving jumbo jet (jumbo jets always remind me of my kindly Dutch Uncle Carel who called them, happily, yumbo yets…) as the wind howled down the valley through the trees.

Pete, in West Hobart, lost his large, cumbersome BBQ cover.  It must have filled with wind over a long slow period of time and then taken off, like a large and majestic kite.  It is nowhere to be seen so it probably flapped its way up onto the mountain, somewhere over the rainbow. 

In 2002 there was an equally big wind storm; trees fell, tiles blew off rooftops, power lines crashed to the ground.  It was all very scary.  And the day after the biggest storm, the Mercury had a dramatic front page story, featured a pale aggrieved suburbanite, pointing, slightly accusingly, at…a soft and fluffy pillow which had blown over the fence.  “Oh no!” cried Mark, who was living with Claire and me at the time, “Not a PILLOW!  How terrifying!”

I saw Mark this week and reminded him of this.  Strangely, he didn’t remember this conversation of ten years ago…but he was amused.  He told me that people had been coming into his book shop very cranky and complaining that spring was not as it should be, much too unpredictable and changeable.  We shook our heads at this and exclaimed in unison, ah, but it was ever thus… (Spring, surely has always been violently changeable, sunny, windy, cold, hot, rainy??)

Dave and Rachel, in Commercial Rd, lost a very big heavy outdoor table.  When I heard about it going missing, I said maybe it had blown away.  Nicky looked at me with raised eyebrows and said, “It takes about eight strong men to lift it!”  So no it didn’t blow; it was taken from the courtyard right outside the house where Dave and Rachel were peacefully going about their business.  Nicky and Gavin used to live in the conjoining house, and I have often regretted not having bought it when the time came for them to sell and move to their beach house.  It is a lovely house, very modern, bright, light, architect designed, close to town.  But it is also on a thoroughfare for robbers!  They had their car broken into so often that they left it unlocked – it was getting too expensive to replace smashed windows and broken locks.  Not only robbers…one morning they got up and found a chalk outline on the footpath outside; a murdered taxi driver…

Some people close to my heart live in an Enchanted Circle.  They have been known to leave their (beautiful, desirable, sporty,) car unlocked, at times even with the keys helpfully in the ignition.  And, even more tempting, sometimes a wallet and mobile phone are in there, proudly displayed on the front console.  And…not a nibble from a thief!!!  It’s not as if Sandy Bay is a robber-free area… There is, as I have said, an Enchanted Circle just surrounding this particular house.

Thursday 13^th September

Pete’s son James is a famer, with a degree in Applied Science.  He is also an enterprising, energetic person full of bright ideas, some more attractive to the older generation of cautious old farts than others…

In the past few months he has been getting things together to start up a new business – Assemble Anything.  (The oldfarts like this much more than the wine bar in Richmond…)

If you go to the website be prepared to be BLINDED – it is all very bright green and purple, to make sure you don’t miss the message that James can, well he can Assemble Anything!

James, like his father, is very handy and dependable.  He is, in fact, Junior Macgyver…

And not only can he lift, carry, assemble, install whatever you need lift, carry, assemble, installed, he will also do it with a very pleasant manner, worth every penny!

In james’s own words: What sets his business ahead of the rest is that he has cleverly combined a delivery, assembly and electrical installation service so that we (the customer) don’t have to organise numerous different tradesmen.  And, in some stores they will refer and then organise him to do the work without you lifting a finger.

I have copied this off his website, in case you can’t face the green & purpleness which awaits you.

You can ring 6228 0808 to get James to come and pick up, deliver and assemble pick up, deliver and assemble anything at all!   

And I quote:

We pick up, deliver and assemble in your home or business from any store big or small in Southern Tasmania.

We are fully insured and offer a customer satisfaction guarantee.

We remove all packaging leaving the area clean and ready for your enjoyment without the hassle.

http://www.assembleanything.com.au/

Wednesday 12^th September

Last week Nicole sent me a link to her friend Meg’s blog, megoracle (http://megoracle.com/).  She thought I would particularly enjoy Meg’s Angry Song.  And indeed I did!  I have played it for everyone who has come my way over the weekend, and it has caused great amusement, especially to parents of young children.  Have a look! 

I tried to post a comment asking for permission to put this link here but I got totally bamboozled by my need for a password…. I do have a password but it all got too complicated and I ended up singing my own Angry Song at the computer and abandoning the attempt.  But I don’t think Meg will mind me posting this link…People who write blogs…well they want people to READ their blogs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFZtyPgFT7I&feature=youtu.be

I think Meg’s song was very clever.  She achieved just the right mix of love, irritation, anger and humour…

* Cyberspace is weird…I looked again and my message to Meg had gone through and she has given permission for this to be posted so...all is well!  I sometimes leave comments on Enid’s blog (Enid Bite ‘Em) and sometimes, yet again, there is a STRUGGLE.  Her blogsite won’t let you post a comment until you have proved you’re “not a robot.”  I think maybe I am a robot because I have enormous difficulty most days in deciphering the hieroglyphics and printing them out in the nifty little anti-spam box.  Maybe I could compose my own Angry Song re this as well!  Charming, that would be, a whole series of me, being all shouty at the computer screen…

Tuesday 11^th September

Last week at a dinner party where we had very delicious food the conversation turned to…not so delicious meals…

I’m not sure who won.  I was laughing too much to put forward my own not-so-yummy meal but I will give a brief description right now.

Yuckerella soup.  It was served up to me buy an over-enthusiastic Polish woman at a multicultural work lunch.  There were many delicious things on the table, and I found myself near Polska, who told me, very crossly, that Australians had no appreciation of the finer foods in life, and that nobody was trying her soup.  I am an obliging sort of chick so I said, Oh yes please, give me a BIG helping.  Or words to that effect.  It looked like onion rings in broth. Nothing too scary; I could eat all of that and make her very happy.  But… it didn’t make me happy.  It tasted horrid and the onion rings were strangely nasty in texture and flavour.  As I chewed away valiantly Polska said, “I don’t know why people here don’t eat tripe!”  Well I can tell you why; it is because it is NOT NICE!!!”  *

Chris told us about the food she ate in Central Asia when she was doing a tour of the -stans (Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Blahblahistan.)  It was a fabulous trip but…not for gourmet travellers.  The staple food, served up every day, sometimes three times, was called plov.  No not pilaff, which is light, fluffy and delicious.  Plov.  Rice with a few disheartened vegetables boiled through it and generously soaked in large amounts of thick mutton fat.  Yummo!

Pete, who loves all food and is the least fussy eater I have ever encountered, met his match in Uruguay.  His host invited him to a SPECIAL dinner.  A big BBQ feast.  And there on the grill were large steaming piles of…offal.  He said it was virtually inedible.  Grilled entrails, which were mostly chewy and full of thick yellow fat.  Ghastly!

Chris said that actually her worst meal ever (worse than plov??) was in Brighton.  She and Bob thought they would really enjoy some good old British fish and chips, and they lined up cheerily to get some in a Brighton fish & chippery.  When they opened their paper bags they found what seemed to be…deep fried vaseline coated in…deep fried vaseline batter!! 

But I think Donough won the prize, maybe for the best description… He and Margaret had dinner in a beautiful restaurant in France, where they were invited by a former Tasmanian chef, renowned for her delicious food.  Everything was delightful except for the main course, which was a virtually unadorned fried large intestine.  When it was cut open it smelled peculiarly horrid, like a freshly disembowelled sheep.  And it tasted, he said, in his inimitable way, like fried farts.

* One tripe story is never enough!  My friend Sally’s father was a large and cheerful farmer, brought up on tripe.  He could never understand why his wife Mary and his ungrateful children weren’t as keen on this delicacy.  One night he persuaded Mary to cook up a whole tripe in white sauce.  When he saw that nobody was going to share in this culinary treat he said, “Right, I’ll eat it all myself!”  And he did, defiantly, down to the last mouthful.  A whole tripe in thick white sauce.  Just as he set down his knife and fork, looking a bit, said Sally, over-full and maybe not quite as keen on the whole experience as when he had started, the phone rang.  “Where are you, mate?”  He had forgotten…it was the Annual General Dinner of some VIP club he belonged to, at Wrest Point. A huge and hearty dinner awaited him….

Monday 10^th September

At dinner recently we were discussing generational differences, responses to jokes etc.  Cam’s mother, for example, who is 95 and a very sweet, nicely spoken old lady, tells him very bawdy jokes.  “Does she understand what these jokes really mean?” he asked us, all baffled.  Well yes we think she probably does…

Liz told us that her mother was wonderful, and very popular with the younger generations.  Her fourteen year old great-granddaughter once said, “Grandma, can I ask you a personal question?  Were you a virgin when you got married?”  This very respectable matriarch looked at her kindly and said, “Nearly, darling.”

Sunday 9^th September

Friday morning I got a ride to work with Chris and Angela, who had had a sleepover at Pete’s.  I had been planning to walk down the hill in gorgeous spring weather but…it wasn’t glorious at all, it was windy and sleety and just a bit ghastly.  The footpaths were very slippery and my feet went out from under me as I went past Service Tas.  Oh ooops…the usual reaction of (a) pain (b) embarrassment… No real damage, just a bit of a shock to the system.  I dearly hoped nobody had seen , but a young girl wearing trackies, with lots of make-up, tightly pulled-back hair, came up and said, “Youse all right?”  Well yes…I thanked her for her kindness and she trotted off saying, “Just checkin’!”  She really didn’t look like the sort of girl who would care if someone like me slipped and fell flat on her face… As we all know we should NOT judge people by appearance. 

A few years ago I was catching a bus bound for the northern suburbs.  I had my backpack full of gym gear and was about to get on the bus when a very unprepossessing girl came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder.  Sigh sigh… she’s going to ask me for money and I really only have my bus fare…But no; she just wanted to tell me my zip was undone and my gym gear was about to spill out.

My mother is very good at not making this sort of judgement.  Recently she was walking her little dog around the streets of prospect vale when she was accosted by some of her neighbours, who were very cross and crabby.  Their letterboxes had been vandalise and they were in high dudgeon.  They wanted her to join in condemning Young People Nowadays, who have No Respect.  “Goodness,” she said.  “What makes you think it is young people?  I think it is more likely to be older people, drunk on their way back from the casino!  I find the young people around her to be very courteous and respectful.”  This did not go down well but good on her, she is quite right!

 Mind you people are not always as wonderful as they could be… I do not always go through Readers Digest Aw Shucks encounters.  I was picking Katy up from the Launceston bus, in her uni years, one Friday night.  She was way down the back of the bus and couldn’t get off in time to warn me that I was going to have an unpleasant experience.  A very shabby smelly young bloke got off the bus and thrust his dufflebag at me, muttering something; I think he was trying to tell me the zip was stuck, and could I fix it.  (Yes I do look like the sort of person who could fix a zip.)  I bent over helpfully to have a look and a large and MUCH smellier woman charged up to me, shouting, “Get away from him you fucking white missionary ****.”  (Insert here a Very Bad Word.  And no I don’t think I look like a missionary!)

Once again…part of life’s rich tapestry…

Saturday 8^th September

I have been so lucky with this blog.  I have a regular little number of people who read it, some of who sometimes leave witty and amusing comments.  I enjoy returning to it every day and writing my daily essay – about the only thing I ever REALLY liked about school, other than recess and lunch, - was writing essays… Nothing bad ever comes of it, other than the odd PickyPedant (Allan??  Dad??  Pete??) noticing my (many…) typos

I also enjoy reading other blogs – I often quote bits from them here.  They have brought a lot of joy, interest, entertainment, and occasional consternation into my life.  I have learned a lot about travel, technology, politics, cooking, knitting, sailing, reading, films, TV, general gossip, grammar, music, interior design, you name it.  It is astonishing the energy some people put into various passions and interests. 

Usually I read blogs which make me laugh, or reach for a new book, or think about a certain issue in a different way.  How many times, for example, have I changed my mind about Julian Assange.  Is he a devil, a hero, a total jerkerama??

I have followed people’s lives over the course of a few years through births, deaths, floods and fires, divorces, tragedy, happiness and have mostly enjoyed it very much, when I wasn’t crying over the keyboard…

I do prefer the happyhappy blogs but sometimes the happyhappy people have bad/sad things happen to them…A bit like real life, really…funny, that.

Recently I have become aware, however, of a really horrid thing happening, on blogs.  A lot of bloggers attract trolls.  Nasty, bitter, hateful comments appear, usually, of course, anonymously.  Why??  I have no idea.  If you don’t like a certain blog, don’t read it!  If you think a certain blogger is vain, or annoying, or stupid – don’t read the blog… It’s not like real life, is it, where you really do have to put up with annoying/vain/stupid people.  They might, after all, be closely related to you, or be otherwise unavoidable… Whereas in BlogWorld – well you can avoid anyone!

 

Friday 7^th September

Book Week is still all GO in primary schools.

Everyone I know has been very creative and inventive.

Rebecca had Ella all dressed up in a Japanese outfit, complete with straight black hair in an elaborate geisha-styled bun.  Amazing – Ella has naturally blonde VERY curly hair!!  And delicate blonde curly-haired Holly also had black hair and a moustache, for her Willie Wonka get-up.  Rebecca said nobody recognised her at all!

Kate managed to get Lizzie Angelina-Ballerina-ed – not such a challenge, Lizzie is already a fairy-like angelinaballerina girl… Harry wanted to go as Mario (from the computer game) and Kate went to great lengths to find a book to go with the costume – this was the requirement, and she managed to find a book of sorts, after much traipsing around the mean streets of Hobart.

Leo didn’t have to go in costume but he did have to find a book with his name in it.  Katy ended up sending him to school with the book she had made for him in his first year.  It has pictures of him with all of his different family members.  His lovely teacher, Sarah, was very impressed, but she told Katy she did find it confusing.  How many Uncle Michaels does he have?  And…I gave up counting grandfathers and how they fitted in… Our family has so many cross-over generations and so many re-partnerings of the older generations…

(When Hamish, now 12, was a little tacker of about 5, he asked Nicky why he had so many grandfathers.  She thought about it carefully and then very sensibly, said, Because you are very lucky.  Much better than going into the ins and outs of the oldcodgers’ love lives…)

It’s not just our family, of course.  The children in Leo’s prep class come from wildly differing family backgrounds.  For example:

• one family with fundamentalist Christian parents, with six children
• one family of seven children with different fathers
• one family with the father in prison
• one family with two mummies and a very kind and involved sperm donor daddy
• a few wildly unreliable if charming hippies
• several blended families
• and just a few mum & dad and one, two, three or four children eg Katy and Jeff…they are indeed very stable in spite of their multiple UncleMichaels/grandparents/in-laws…

All part, as they say, of life’s rich tapestry…