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.