Friday 1st March

Friday 1 March

Am I too late to write for Rose’s birthday?  I don’t think so… We celebrated yesterday, on the 28^th but really – she was born a year ago today, on the auspicious date of 29^th February!

Rose is a glorious baby, much adored by her brother, two sisters, mother, father, plethora of grandparents, ditto of cousins, aunts, uncles.  She is now very active and fit, exploring the world at high speed, with lots of push-ups and sit-ups and practising of various gymnastic postures.  For the first nine months of so of her life she lulled us into a false sense of security by just sitting, cutely, blob-like, wherever we put her.  In fact, she didn’t even sit up unassisted for quite a long time, so we thought she would always be easily found, easily placed… But not now!  She could be anywhere, demolishing whatever comes into her path…

Pete has been SO busy, since I last saw him on Monday.  A whirlwind of activity, mostly boat-related.  He has had people fixing the radio, fixing the AIS (boat locator thingy), trying to get an internet connection, amongst other things.  And he has been constructing, in his garage, a weird and wonderful bookshelf to put on the only available wall - in the second forward cabin.  I think Pete loves a challenge; his own house, which he built from scratch with a few faithful helpers, has a bewildering number of angles and curves.  And this bookshelf has to conform to a slightly strange boat wall so it too has many angles.  I am mightily impressed, and how nice it will be to have books UP, out of the cupboards where, sadly, they sometimes get damp, and often get musty and mouldy.

Hoa Tuc Restaurant – Vietnam 2008

After the game, we took Ben and Rose and their Vietnamese friends Ben and Bo to a fabulous restaurant.  Hoa Tuc serves a tantalizing selection of Vietnamese dishes in an elegant setting of green and purple hues, or so Google tells me, and none of us would disagree.  Ben, Bo and Rose chose the food and it was all too delicious for words.  The restaurant had at one stage been an opium den, and it had delicate tracings of opium poppies on the walls.

Nightclub

We were all very happy after our siesta, rugby, and feast so we were more than happy to follow Ben and Rose to a nearby nightclub, where they had a great little Vietnamese band playing cover music - lots of 70s and 80s rock and roll.  Pete and I drank sangria and danced for many hours; Rina and Kerry, Ben and Rose, were more circumspect and just drank sangria…

Pete and I made lots of new friends.  The Vietnamese girls there for a night out all wanted to dance with him, but they also, surprisingly, wanted to dance with me, and to stroke my arm and tell me I was beautiful.  This happened over and again in Vietnam, to Rina and to me.  They think we are so much more beautiful because they see us as being desirably pale-skinned.  Tragic really; they are the most beautiful mellow golden colour, just what we would like for our own skin tone!!

Wednesday 27th February

Wednesday 27^th February

Claire’s fear of finding herself prone on the floor of the pharmacy, having jackjumper medication inserted rectally, was truly horrific.  But someone she knows had something on a summarily scale recently… Angie was walking on a track on the Tasman Peninsula when she slipped, fell, and found herself slightly dizzy.  Her very alert companions rang the local medical centre, and before she knew it, she was strapped to a board, a neck-brace in place, and was being whizzed, sirens blaring, to the Royal Hobart Hospital in a large ambulance.  They deposited her in Casualty, where she waited, still strapped to the very uncomfortable board, for four hours.  And…when the doctors came to shine lights in her eyes and examine her for spinal injury…there was nothing wrong at all and they sent her home…

Phatty’s Sports Bar –Saigon 2008

Pete’s friend Ben not only manages six restaurants in central Saigon, he has also recently set up a brand new sports bar, Phatty’s.  This is going to be extremely successful.  We went there on our second night in Saigon, to watch the State of Origin (rugby…) game.  Lots of people (yes mainly men,) lots of beer, lots of huge TV screens, some showing cricket, some showing motor racing, most showing The Game.  I could see it was all great but I found it quite overwhelming, and noisy… (pathetic old chick…) So I snuck outside and sat very happily on a little stool with the young bloke who parks the motorbikes, and watched the traffic and the people go by. 

26th February

Tuesday 26^th February

Claire, Stuart, Jemima and Felix went to Bicheno for the weekend, to have a lovely time and, for two of them, to get bitten by jackjumpers.  Oh OUCH!! 

The bites were very unpleasant but neither of them seemed to have an allergic reaction, which is all very good.  However Felix is very allergic to many things, so Claire dutifully took him to the Bicheno Pharmacy, where she met…Superhero Homer, who had been so very helpful to Jeff when he injured his calf in January.  I said, he is wonderful, isn’t he, and Claire said, Wonderful but…ALARMING! 

Apparently he told her to Bring The Child into the pharmacy with no delay, while he painted a vivid word picture of swollen tongues, pulsating poison, festering skin for both of them if medical (or pharmaceutical) attention were not administered promptly.  Claire showed the whites of her eyes as she imagined herself, laid out on the floor of the Bicheno Pharmacy, having anti-jackjumper medication administered, heroically, by Homer… She decided the bites weren’t really all that painful and that she certainly wasn’t developing any sort of allergy.  And neither was Felix!

Saigon Day 2008

In the morning Pete and I walked quite a long way to the market.  Kerry and Rina had other things to do, nowhere near as much fun - going to the dentist, and the optometrist, for example.  It was very hot, probably in the mid-30s, but it was so interesting, walking through the unfamiliar (to me) streets, I didn’t really notice.  We spent a bit of time in the Ben Thanh market, which is huge and bustling.  Pete had been there before, and took me to meet a girl who sells T-shirts etc, Kuu.  She remembered him very well from last year, and knew exactly what he had bought, how much he had spent.  She told me that Pete was legendary in his negotiating abilities… He and Max Harmsen have a lot in common!  We forged our way through the crowd to a juice stall and had delicious tall iced mango drinks. 

Pete asked if I wanted to go to the War Museum, and I said MAYBE, but not just yet… I actually know that war is hell, and that the Vietnam War (they call it the American War there) was even more hell.  So I said, Maybe we could just stroll around a bit, before siesta time?  We went to one of the big parks, which was lovely.  All of the parks we saw in Hanoi and Saigon were full of topiary; very labour intensive, and very attractive.  As we were walking along admiring manicured bushes, an old woman came and grabbed me by the arm, “Madame, come with me!”  She had a basket full of…nail polish!!  How could I resist?  We had time to spare so I said OK, go for it!  She whipped out a little bowl, poured some water in it, and soon had my toe nails painted a particularly bright shade of pink.  Next - fingers.  Pete and I had a great time, because all of this activity attracted onlookers.  A couple of lovely young students came to practise their English; more joined them; some young men came to observe from a few metres away - or maybe they were observing the student girls…it was all very sociable and pleasant.  It only cost a dollar or two, and my manicurist was thrilled to bits.  As we were walking through the park, another old woman with a basket over her arm came up to me and hissed, “Next time see me!  Madame no good!” with a malevolent look over her shoulder towards my beautician.  Stiff competition, in the park!

Monday 25th February

Monday 25^th February

I have quite a few things to do before we leave for another epic adventure.

• I have to finish work… I have applied for, and have been granted, leave from Easter (29^th March) until April 7^th 2014, which is a great blessing.  I am very much hoping that whoever replaces me is able to come and spend a few days so I can explain the arcane practices of my nice little office…
• There are lots of things I want to gather up to take to the Louisiades – sewing needles, fishing gear, light-weight clothes, balls…ummm…and maybe desirable objects such as playing cards and marbles.
• My computer needs an iTunes upgrade and I need…a brain upgrade so I can use my beautiful MacBook Air!
• Food – I need to buy a dehydrator and then dehydrate desirable items of food such as mushrooms, potatoes and onions.  All hard if not impossible to find in the Louisiades.
• Ukulele – yes indeed; it is my aim to buy a dear little ukulele and then learn to play it, on 2XS.  Won’t Pete just love that!

Cherry Hotel 2008

Our Saigon hotel was just lovely.  Light and cheerful, very cheap, with a comfortable mattress (bliss!), a lovely hot shower, and a hairdryer.  I had pho for breakfast and thought this was a great way to start the day.  Pho is the ubiquitous Vietnamese soup, a light broth with egg noodles and greenstuff, and sometimes thinly sliced chicken fillet, or beef.  (Chicken is nicer…)  We had a siesta on our first day there - it is very hot, everything closes down.  I decided to test my powers of reconnaissance and offered to go out in search of tonic water and limes - to go with the gin, of course.  One of the reception staff from the hotel offered to go for me, but I said, no, please just show me where the shop is.  Down a little lane and around a corner and up another little lane.  Simple!  I negotiated the lime, and the tonic, not a problem.  I found that while not many people in Vietnam really spoke English, they could always indicate money - everyone has a solar-powered calculator, and can convert dong to $US quick as a flash.  And was it simple getting back to the hotel??  Of course not!  I was sure I had managed to retrace my steps, but was NOT in the main street, NOT at the Cherry Hotel.  Some men in uniform were sitting around on their motor bikes, so I asked them “Cherry Hotel?”  They were very amused and said yes; we were at the back door, where all the rubbish goes… How did I manage that??

Sunday 24th February

Sunday 24^th February

Yesterday we had a family lunch to celebrate Pamela’s 94^th birthday; today we have a motley group of Pete’s old friends coming to enjoy the…heat!  I have given in and have turned on the aircon – it must be very hot, even at 9.30am; I hate aircon!  Tasmania is quite tropical, this weekend, it all feels very strange. 

I think conditions all over Australia re strange right now – floods, storms, fires!

Yesterday we were taking about Lynne’s lovely 70^th birthday party, and I idly asked why certain friends of hers weren’t there – I had been expecting to see them and, to protect their reputation, I will call them Gavin and Deirdre… Well, said Lynne, they were invited, and they said they would come at 5pm, which is just a teensy bit late for a lunch party bit never mind!  Lynne made sure that her beautiful beach house was as tidy as possible at 5, which was a bit hard because there were so very many small children scampering inside and out.  She also made sure she had attractive leftovers for the later-arriving guests – he in particular is a renowned bonvivant.

5pm came and went, then 6, then 7, so Lynne relaxed and the following day she enjoyed herself, relaxing in her house which gradually filled up with sand and crumbs again – there were, of course, leftover small children scampering inside and out.  Then at 5pm…when she was sitting happily with her friend Chris and a glass of wine…footsteps outside…and there were Gavin and Deirdre, all glammed up, with a large bunch of flowers.  Gavin looked around critically, and said, something about the mess.  Lynne said, But we weren’t expecting you; you are a day late!  Gavin denied this most vigorously, and said, We have timed our visit here perfectly!  We are staying for an hour and a half and then we have a wedding at seven!  Lynne sent him out to the car to check the invitations and – alas and alack, they were 24 hours late for the wedding as well…

Saturday 23^rd February

 

Today’s birthday – Pam Headlam, 94 years old. Pam, known as Mater to her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, lives very much in the moment. She drifts in and out of a vaguely sleepy state but is very much capable of rising to the occasion. Her eyes light up when visitors come…especially when that visitor is My Boy Peter…I really enjoy my times with her, although we don’t usually stay more than ten minutes – more than that is really too exhausting for her. It is obvious from our snippets of conversation that she is still the wonderful woman she always was. Her concern is often, re some mysterious meeting about to happen somewhere in Queenborough Rise, that everybody knows what they need to be doing so nobody feels uncomfortable, and that there is a nice atmosphere. These things are very important; friendship and conviviality obviously were and still are great priorities for her. She is very much loved.

 

Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) 2008

 

Kerry and Pete had been travelling around Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, so they were acclimatised, both to the weather and to the time zone. We were very happy to find them waiting for us in the airport - so easy, with cabin luggage only, just to step off the plane and into a taxi. We went straight to Jaspa’s restaurant, which is one of the places Pete’s young friend Ben Winspear runs. Kerry and Rina were staying with Ben and Rose; Pete and I were staying at the Cherry Hotel in the city centre, not far - well not far from anything, really! We ate some delicious little entrees, had a glass of wine, and staggered off to our respective domiciles - it was only 9pm in Saigon, but midnight for Rina and me. I had had a slightly emotional time thinking I had missed the plane for two minutes; poor Rina had ACTUALLY missed the plane from Brisbane. When she went to check in, one of the Jetstar staff directed her to use one of the electronic machines. She did this, and then the woman told her to go up the stairs into the boarding lounge. When it came time to get on the plane, they asked her for her boarding pass. She didn’t have one, and they said, “Too late, plane full; no pass, no seat.” Rina never uses computers; she only did as she was instructed, had no idea what the procedure should have been. They did get her on a plane, and she obviously did get to Vietnam, but it was all much more stressful than it needed to have been.

Friday 22nd February

Friday 22^nd February

Our Prince of Wales Bay marina neighbours, Harry and Suzie, were nestled amongst a whole range of boats in Victoria Dock at the Wooden Boat Show.  Their boat, Salamander, is a nifty trimaran, which looks very delicate but which is capable of flying across the water at – well, at a great rate of knots…

They are very sociable and had a lovely time camping on their boat right in the middle of the festivities.  In fact they slept extremely well in their little rocking cradle because on the second morning they awoke to find a great looming shadow – Voyager of the Seas, or Vollendam, – a huge great cruise liner which had come in, with much tooting of horns at 6am and which was tied up to the wharf not many metres from Salamander.

The many boats in the show were lined up with great precision, with ropes going here and there, planks, ladders, embarking arrangements all delicately contrived and coordinated.  We saw Harry and Suzie around lunchtime on the last day, and they said they had to be at the ready to leave their position very soon because if they missed their turn the whole system would collapse – the intricate network of ropes and attachments only worked if boats came in and left in the same order.  I am so impressed with the organisation of this show…by 3pm Salamander was flying up the river, back to its home in the marina, with no entanglements or difficulties at all.

Darwin (Rina) 2008

I was travelling Light-Saver, ie with just my daypack.  Tricky but possible, and so much easier - no waiting around carousels, just on and off planes.  I had been very careful with packing my toiletries - yes thank you Mum and Pappie for the useful little bottles, invaluable! - but when it came time to go through the security check, they made me empty out all of my toiletries into a big clear plastic bag.  Well some of my toiletries were embarrassing (no I won’t go into details.)  So I was just a teeny bit embarrassed.  A very nice attractive blonde woman was just ahead of me, also emptying out her toiletries and muttering faintly to herself.  I said, “I won’t look at yours if you don’t look at mine,” and we went through in sisterly solidarity.  There was an hour or more until the plane left for Vietnam, so I wandered around vaguely poking at things in Duty Free.  I was just going through the check-out buying a large bottle of gin for Pete (Well for Pete, Kerry, Rina and me…) when an announcement came over the PA, saying that the boarding gate had closed and it was now too late.  Or so I thought… What they actually said was that check-in had closed.  I flew into a panic and ran around like a bee in a bottle, trying not to cry.  I rushed up to the security man and clutched his arm, saying, “I’ve missed the plane!  What can I do?”  He was SO kind to me, he deserves a medal.  He patted my hand gently and said, in benign tones, “No, no we won’t let you miss the plane!  Go and buy a drink and sit down over there!” 

So I did just that, and never was a VB more happily received and imbibed.  I sat where I could watch the people coming in, because I was waiting to meet Rina.  I had a description of her from Kerry, and from Pete, but nobody was there answering that description.  Wait…what about my friend from the security check-in??  That must have been Rina!  She too had been buying gin… for Kerry, Pete, Marguerite and herself!!  We were very happy to meet up just as the plane was boarding.  It was a great flight because we had three seats each - unheard of - and could stretch out and nap after we had spent a few cosy hours chatting over a glass of champagne.  (Life is good!!)  Did I say nap?  Well we were able to stretch out, as were most of the passengers, but there was a party of about twelve young blokes who were off on holiday and who were SO excited to see one another.  They wandered up and down the aisle, shouting and banging each other on the back, oblivious to the people sleeping all around them.  Rina and I both found this very amusing but maybe not everyone was as tolerant… But maybe not everyone had had a lovely glass of champagne, and had met a lovely new friend!

21st February

Thursday 21^st February

Recently it has been brought to my attention that there is a wonderful service called…Jewellery Rescue! (www.jewelleryrescue.com.au)  (It would be of no use to me at all; my missing items of jewellery have all gone overboard into the deep blue and unforgiving ocean and are beyond rescue, but for land-based jeweller-losers, this is a great thing.)

It is based in Sydney but has a network of eccentric and desperately keen people with metal detectors at the ready.  Our new DP, Nicole, lost her beautiful new topaz Phil Mason ring within hours of buying it a few Saturdays ago.  She had been wearing it while feeding her horses, flinging hay around in the paddocks.  It was only later that evening that she discovered her loss.  She phoned a friend, as you do, and was given a ray of hope.

The next morning, bright and early, an extremely cheerful woman from the Huon area arrived, armed with her metal detector.  She was thrilled to bits with the prospect of finding the needle in a haystack.  Nicole is very well-organised and efficient and she knew exactly where she had been flinging the hay, and after an hour or so, ping PING went the detector, and there was her ring, in a clump of long grass along the fenceline.  Shrieks of delight all round!

Sydney-Darwin 2008

Karen and Max dropped me off at the airport.  I was just a bit nervous about my e-ticket because I had been receiving many emails and texts from Jetstar, saying, Your flight from Brisbane leaves at 11.30am.  I asked Karen if she thought she could whiz me up to Brisbane to catch the plane if necessary and we laughed happily at the concept.  But I was just a bit anxious - my ticket definitely said the plane left from Sydney, but why the texts and emails re Brisbane??  I was at the airport very early, just in case… I checked in and didn’t say anything at all about the emails re Brisbane, also just in case… Whenever I am going overseas, I always have a lurking suspicion that I won’t get there, so I was very relieved to have a boarding pass firmly in my clutches.  Just ahead of me in the check-in queue was an extremely angry woman, who was obviously at the wrong airport, or late for check-in.  I watched wide-eyed as she was led away by security guards, shrieking, “What’s your name?  I am going to report you!” to the extremely courteous young bloke on the counter.  Hours to fill in Sydney airport… Cup of coffee.  Bookshops.  Last-minute purchases from pharmacy.  (Did you know you can get darling little pads soaked with nail polish remover?)  There is lots of food in Sydney airport.  I knew a man a few years ago who talked a lot, more than you could imagine, about Krispy Kreme Donuts.  How delicious they are, what good marketing campaigns they run, where you can buy them.  And so on… No it wasn’t interesting at all, he was a particularly boring man, but there I was in the airport with time to kill and a big Krispy Kreme Donut stall just across from where I was doing my crossword… Hmmm… And was it yummy, my chocolate-covered Krispy Kreme?  No it was absolutely awful, I am pleased to report.  So glad I didn’t develop an addiction to these transfatty globules.

On the plane at last, four and a half hours; it felt like an eternity.  I have a policy, as I think many people do, of not talking AT ALL to the people next to me.  Pretending they don’t exist, other than to say, Excuse me, when you need to be let out to go to the toilet, and Not a problem, when they have squirted a packet of tomato sauce all over your arm.  Until the pilot has announced the plane is about to land.  Then it is possible to get into happy and animated conversation.  I found that the people sitting next to me were delightful.  The man was from Pakistan, a lecturer in Chemistry at uni in Darwin.  His wife was Italian and a high school teacher.  Loved them!  But so glad I didn’t have to talk to them for four and a half hours…

20th February

Wednesday 20^th february

Katy and Jeff had a most amazing birthday party for their children on Sunday.  They weren’t going to go to as much trouble with the birthday cakes now they have four to make in one go but… Jeff started off making a Yoda-head cake (Gavin said it was a very good self-portrait…) and that set the standard for another extravaganza of wonderment in the cake department.

Leo turned seven and just adored his Yoda/father cake

Eva turned five.  Her cake was a large bowl of aquamarine jelly with floating mermaids and coral, just beautiful.  It was a very hot day and the jelly soon melted but…never mind!  Many small girls swarmed around it, happily drinking the mermaid-infested melted jelly.

Zoe, just turned three, had a jumble of colourful blocks, as a tribute to her own love of blocks, puzzles, anything which involves spatial awareness.  She had a tiny bit of trouble with her candles – her technique seemed to involve sniffing rather than blowing but never mind, she had many helpers.

Rose will be one on Feb 29^th or thereabouts.  She doesn’t have any strong opinions yet on what her cake should be – her main hobbies at the moment seem to be along the lines of DestructorBaby, dismantling anything in her path, so Katy and Jeff pleased themselves and made her a very pretty pink cake topped, appropriately, with pink roses.

The cakes were displayed on the table for each of the sixty guests to admire.. Yes SIXTY!!!  Thirty adults, thirty children… Four generations of family, many friends.  It was a glorious day, hot and sunny, thank God, so everyone could spread themselves under shady trees and umbrellas.  It would NOT have been quite so glorious with so many inside I can assure you… As people came in, they gasped at the Wonderment of the Cakes, as well they might.  I could see some of the mothers in particular looking a bit dismayed.  One of them whispered, Best Parents Ever!  in tragic tones.  Fortunately Katy heard and said, “Bec, what you are seeing on the table is not a result of Best Parents Ever.  You are seeing three days of total child neglect!”

One of the other fathers heard this and laughed very happily.  He said he had imagined a very cheerful Thomas Family, sitting at an oval table together, lovingly sharing the cake decorating task, and maybe singing in harmony as they did it.  But no!  Normally Katy and Jeff are very good about letting the children share with cooking, decorating, everything, really, but this time Katy said they both stood in the kitchen snarling, “Don’t touch!”  “Get away!”  “Go and watch the TV!”

There was a treasure hunt for the small girls.  Julian (uncle) and Pete (friend) rushed around in the hot sun hiding chocolates, and the swarm of girls followed, finding them and eating them very quickly before they melted away.

The older children had a more thrilling activity – a long water slide down the hill in the paddock just outside the garden.  Much shrieking, much fun.  The older boys – mainly Hamish and Angus – whizzed down at very high speed and propelled themselves far beyond the plastic into a large clump of bracken and blackberry roots.  It looked supremely painful and uncomfortable  but they did it over and again, with great gusto and élan, so maybe the endorphins masked the pain.

This was possibly Best Birthday Party Ever but we will see what Katy and Jeff manage to surprise us with next year…

Sydney (before Vietnam)

It was so nice to be able to spend a few days with the Sydney Harmsens, who were, as usual, extremely hospitable, and fun to be with.  I spent a lot of time with Kate, on a dog website.  She is in Grade 7 now, and has been saving her money for years, and working on her parents for an equal amount of time, so that she could get her very own little dog.  Her friend next door, Acacia, has two, or maybe three, but this is NOT the same as having her own.  The website (Monika’s Dog Rescue) was amazing; just like the RSVP dating site.  You could put in your specifications - age, size, shedding-ness - and up would pop a long list of potential suitors, I mean dogs, all cutely smiling into the camera, and named Woody, Woolly, Loveheart and - this is true - Love Bear Hug-a-Lot.  Kate said sternly that she had MUCH nicer names chosen.  Chris had to go to work in Melbourne, so Karen and I had excursions with the children.  We went to Taronga Park Zoo to see the new baby elephant.  Kate and Acacia were extremely lively on the cablecar, and Max, who is a year and a half younger, sat patiently until we were about to alight.  “You might want to stop screaming now,” he said, calmly.  Totally cool.  I was very impressed with his negotiating ability in the canteen.  He went off to buy a package meal of chips, chicken nuggets, the works, and very firmly said he didn’t want the coke so could they please deduct the correct amount.  We also drove to North Head to look at whales on the horizon; it was a very nice interlude before setting off for South East Asia.

19th February

Tuesday 19^th February

We recently had some Sydney friends to dinner – Simon and Suzie – along with Pete’s sister Lynne.  Many tales, loud and mostly true, crossed the table…

My favourite was from Suzie, I think, who told us about someone she knew who had sailed through the South Pacific islands, in indeed all around the world, several times, happily trading for this and that.  Fruit, vegetables, crayfish, carvings, much as we did.  But where we traded (literally) the clothes off our backs and the food from our stores, he traded his skills, which were very much in demand because he was a dentist!  I can imagine how happily he would have been received, with his trusty tools of trade! 

We had many people paddle up to 2XS in their sturdy wooden canoes (or rather sometimes not so sturdy…many of the canoes were totally leaky and falling apart…) with wounds or aches and pains which they expected us to be able to fix.  I used to be so very squeamish; now, not so much.  I got used to disinfecting tropical ulcers and bush-knife wounds, much to my surprise.  But neither Pete nor I even tried to do anything useful about toothache… Sanity, Moses’s ancient mother on Bagaman Island in the Louisiades had a huge throbbing ulcer in her gums; it was obviously it was making her very ill.  We gave her a few panadeine forte, which made her sleep like a baby and – miracle! – the swelling disappeared completely.  But, sadly, that is as far as our dentistry skills went.

I have finished with India and have now moved on to my notes from Vietnam, from, I think, 2008…but time rushes past and…maybe it was another year.  Bear with me…

Eve of Departure

What would be a good way to prepare for an overseas trip, I hear you wonder.  Have a relaxing day, maybe have a beauty treatment, a spa, a sleep-in and a bit of naptime with a boxed set?  Well for some reason I did none of the above.  My lovely niece Jo and I decided that Saturday morning would be an excellent time for her to move in.  I hired a small Budget truck with a hydraulic lift, which gave us no end of innocent amusement - up and down, up and down, with or without large items of furniture and boxes of magazines.  Jo had lived in my house before, and she had very few possessions at that time - a few reflex boxes of study notes, some clothes, random small portable furniture.  In the two or so years since she has been out in the world, no longer a student, she has accumulated STUFF.  Heavy stuff.  We heaved and ho-ed two truckloads to and from South Hobart.  It was bitterly cold and very hard work but by twelve thirty I had the truck back at Budget, Jo’s room was chockers, and the downstairs garage was bulging with STUFF.

From about 1pm it was At Home Day at our little house.  Twelve people of varying ages came and went.  Two of Pete’s tenants came, with a large bunch of flowers, so sweet.  I didn’t have the heart to say this was a very strange present for someone who was leaving on a jetplane the following morning at 8am…  I was v pleased to see everyone, and they all amused themselves with knitting, chat, cups of tea, glasses of champagne, while Jo and I cooked a large dinner because I had - of course - invited yet another lot of people that night.  It was a very nice Saturday, but very action-packed.  Ann-Marie arrived faithfully to take me to the airport the following morning, earlier than necessary, with a warm croissant for me.  I was too - well what is the word - maybe agitated?  Animated? - to do it justice, but I carried it around the airport and had little chews while waiting for the plane.

Monday 18^th February 2013

There were several gorgeous tall ships surrounding us when we sailed off to look at the Regatta fireworks last weekend.  The James Craig, the Enterprize, the Windeward Bound, the Lady Nelson.  All so pretty and evocative of times long past.  I am quite sure it was not all that pretty and adorable, mind you, in times long past, aboard these beautiful tall ships…

Helen made me laugh a lot when she told me about one of her first jobs, working in a photo lab, in 1988.  That was the year when a huge fleet of tall ships came to Hobart.  It was just stunning, but I also remember it was also very misty, on the river.  Helen said that the lab workers all because expert in developing blurry, misty photos of things floating hazily on water, things which just might or might not have been tall ships, just faintly discernible on the horizon.   

 

Final India #88

I have no notes at all to record how this trip was.  We sadly left Hana in Mumbai – she was going back to the UK for a few weeks before coming home to Real Life.  I think we sat in a row in the middle of the plane, the four of us, giggling helplessly at this and that until some of us fell asleep.

Vish and Mary were flying on to Hobart and had a few hours to wait, so we stayed at the airport in Sydney with them.  We had hardly got through Customs – miraculously hassle-free and speedy – when Pete, a look of grim determination on his face, shouted, “This way!”  He had found a beer garden!  And a very welcome sight it was, tucked away at the side of the airport, surrounded by leafy bushes.  We sat there for quite few hours happily reunited with Australian brands of beer, watching big jets come and go above around us.  In our five weeks away Pete had become legendary amongst the four of us for his ability to sniff out purveyors of beer; I was said to be able to sniff out an Internet café with almost equal speed and skill.

We hadn’t booked anywhere and decided to try our luck at the Airport Ibis, where Vish and Mary had stayed on their way from Hobart.  Very basic, they said, but OK, and cheap.  We stepped outside the airport, and there, serendipity, was a little hotel bus marked IBIS.  No problems at all; within minutes we were being shown up to a room.  And what a room!  Basic – I don’t think so!  CLEAN and fluffy and spacious and white, with FLUFFY towels and blindingly white soft sheets.  We made little inarticulate sounds of pleasure – a kettle, an iron, a toilet which flushed cool clear water, soap, shampoo in little bottles, an enormous and COMFORTABLE bed!  It all felt like the height of luxury to us, after five week in India…

Pete had ideas of going into the city to have a slap-up meal somewhere ritzy.  I eyed him a bit doubtfully and said, in noncommittal tones, hmm yes lovely idea… It was about 6pm and I couldn’t imagine how much effort would be needed to climb into a taxi and then stay awake in some ritzy restaurant… When we got downstairs, Pete looked around, eyes wide “Well this all looks very nice, doesn’t it?  Look at the menu!  T-bone steak!  Let’s stay and eat here!”  So we did, and very good it was.  What was especially good was being able to pop into the lift straight after the meal and be transported back to our CLEAN and fluffy room…

We climbed into bed and propped ourselves up to watch TV.  There was a program consisting of old British comedies.  We watched, with some horror, an episode of Man About the House.  There was Yootha Joyce as Mildred.  We both remembered her as being quite a raddled old hag, a figure of fun, especially for her unhappy and unsuccessful attempts to get her ancient husband George to have romantic moments with her.  Oh yucko!  But there we were, now aged 60 and 57, looking at her in dismay.  Oh yucko indeed, I don’t think so, – she was so young and pretty with smooth cheeks and a lovely smile – not a hint of raddled old hag!  The perspective of time… Next came Are You being Served, where Mrs Slocum also took on a new and rosy sheen of youth.  About halfway through this highly dubious program we both fell into deep and dreamless sleep, still propped up on pillows.  Somewhere around midnight we both woke up – what WAS that noise??  A jetplane in our room??  No, it was the television, blasting hideously.  I don’t know why the hotel management didn’t come and bash down the door to remove the remote control from under Pete’s chin, where he had been snoring rhythmically onto it and increasing the volume to about 60…

Well yes home did look wonderful.  It is always wonderful to go away and to have adventures, but really Tasmania is so VERY beautiful.  So sparkly and bright, with clean air and blue blue skies.  And our darling family and friends.

Sunday 17th February

Sunday 17^th February

• ·      My beautiful friend Heather’s birthday

• ·      Michael’s long-term friend Nic’s birthday – both born in 1981, one day apart, and both now men in uniform

• ·     Pete's oldest friend Cam (from the womb)’s 70th birthday (from the womb = their mothers were friends from their teens – their mothers are now in their nineties…)

Saturday was very busy.  We had two children overnight – Harry and Lizzie, very polite and well-behaved while their parents had a wonderful tenth wedding anniversary celebration all by themselves in Woodbridge.  As soon as the children, older and younger, and gone – having very cleverly retrieved the stuck Barbie/Thumbelina movie from the upstairs DVD player (oh what fun Harry and Lizzie and I had, tucked up in Pete’s bed watching this oeuvre, while Pete,  missing out on the glory of it all, downstairs, watched ABC NewsTV!!) – Pete and I whizzed over to Prince of Wales Bay to clean out the boat.

I wasn’t feeling on top form, just a bit dopey around the edges, I was, but I rose to the occasion and soon was having a wonderful time heaving big bags of this and that into the skip – one of my favourite features, in this marina.  I LOVE throwing things away…especially when they are festy/mouldy/rusty.  My favourite found-rubbish item was…a large bottle of insect repellent, circa God-knows-when, with nothing inside, just a lot of peeling paper and rust on the outside.  Pete found a festy bottle of skin treatment for mangy dogs…WTF???   And I found many treasures – my wedding ring and the Ruth Waterhouse ring my darling children gave me (I took them off when we started sailing2xXS – rings are DANGEROUS!!)  Also my hardy aluminum spring-loaded walking stick, which would have been very handy on very many occasions on our last trip, had it not been buried beneath two wetsuits, two harnesses, a pair of long johns and a ragbag.  (In this aforementioned ragbag, incidentally, was my very favourite long-lost black t-shirt, which I bought in Maro – Salamanca Place -  in 2002 and have been quietly mourning for several years…It is now busily spinning around, being purified, in the washing machine.  As are a plethora of teatowels, sheets, towels, aprons, thermal underwear – in fact everything washable is being washed and sorted.)

Saturday 16th February

Saturday 16^th February

An especially salubrious day…

First of all, it is Michael Sasser’s birthday – my last-born child, and only son.  I am so very proud of him… He has changed so much from the timid little blossom, frightened of the screaming clouds of the fireworks display.  He has battled his way through life thus far, having large amounts of fun but also confronting large obstacles.  School was almost totally irrelevant to him – he lived for Recess and Lunch, at which he excelled… But…he is now a staunch advocate of education, and says that when he has children he will tell them that…school is important!  As far as he was concerned however, he lived, as he has since told me, in a world of strong imagination, where the teachers were dim shadowy creatures on the outskirts of his imaginings.  I won’t go into his life story but I can now reveal, I think, that he will be going to – well maybe I shouldn’t say yet; the Defence forces are very secretive - in early April… He is THRILLED at the prospect – me, not so much…but Michael is 32 and in charge of his own destiny.

And secondly – it is Eva Kate Thomas’s birthday.  You couldn’t hope for a more delightful mermaid fairy princess of a five year old.  I am so very proud of her as well; she is kind, loving, funny and clever and it is a joy to spend time with her.  She absolutely loves school – the teachers, the environment, the other children, and, especially, the possibility of wearing school uniform and following RULES five days per fortnight!  Oh the bliss!

India #87

Pete and I had a cunning plan for the rest of our last IndianDay day.  We would go back to the Club around three and spent some refreshing few hours in the swimming pool before retreating to a cool place to drink Kingfisher.  We arrived back at the correct time, both looking like Mr Tomatohead, after a very long hot trip in a taxi with a driver who was in a very bad mood and who spoke no English at all.  But…the best laid plans… The pool was CLOSED from 3-6.  Oh dear and oh no… Never mind; we discovered that the pool showers were unlocked so we slipped silently through and spent some happy minutes getting clean and relatively refreshed.  I don’t know what the men’s shower was like, but the women’s was very cramped, with the shower directly above the toilet.  I managed, with much delicate manoeuvre around the tiny space, to wash my hair and have a fairly satisfactory shower while balancing my bag as far out of reach of the water as possible.  NOT as nice as a long cool swim but never mind!

         

Once we were clean and restored to a more normal facial colour (pink instead of bright red) Pete and I were able to settle at a little bar in the middle of the club to drink a few very welcome bottles of Kingfisher.  Mary had already told us that the children at the Club were quite different to other children we had met and observed in India.  (Well except for the bratty children Pete and I saw in Jaipur at the Chokkidani Resort.)  She had been a bit shocked to find that middle class children in India are often whingey-whiney, demanding, rude. 

         

While I was waiting for Pete at the bar, I idly observed an attractive young mother with her two boys, about 6 and 8 years old.  She was saying, in long-suffering tones laced with sarcasm, “Do you two have any idea how SICK I AM OF THE BOTH OF YOU?”  They sensibly ignored this and said, in horribly whiney voices, “We want chocolate!  We want coca-cola!”  She gave in and bought them everything, rolling her eyes in defeat.  I wasn’t very impressed, and thought, well what an unpleasant young woman you are, you probably never have more than two minutes alone with your children and now you are with them at the Club without nannies it is all too much to bear.  But ofcourse I was being too judgemental.  A few minutes later she came and sat on a stool near me, and started talking to me in a very friendly, charming way.  She spoke perfect English, and had lived in Sydney and in New York.  And yes her boys were a bit painful and were giving her a hard time, but she was coping as best she could.