1st November - catch-ups - twins - thieves

Friday 1^st November

We are still somewhat frantically trying to fit in as many catch-ups with family and friends as possible…

And yes, I think when we leave, after a month at home, we will feel disappointed that we didn’t see everyone, or that we didn’t see anyone for as long as we would have liked.  I feel as if I need to bend the space/time continuum!!  And…as Cedric, one of Claire’s fellow students in the Welfare Studies course she did many years ago always said, in lugubrious tones…I just can’t… (Cedric went on to do yet another course, this time at Art School.  He was in his fifties, a perpetual student, and I happen to know that his luckless teachers also heard to the doleful refrain of I just can’t whenever Cedric was called upon to do…well to do anything at all, really.  Paint, draw, carve wood into attractive shapes!  I just can’t…)

Lots of good news stories.  Two lots of twins due!  One set due on New Years Eve, to Dara and Danny.  Another lot due some time in April to Gabi and Jonno.  The next generation is coming on strong!  Not quite the same population explosion as in Indonesia…I think I have said that on Sumba the average number of children per family is…TEN!!

A local story which amused me… One of our friends had a new dishwasher installed, and carefully put the old one outside on the front lawn, with a sign kindly offering it to whoever might want to cart it away.  It was still operational; they had only replaced it because they wanted a trendy stainless steel look instead of that old thing - white.  As you do.  It sat there, forlorn and unwanted, until… Brilliant idea.  They took away the GIVE AWAY TO A GOOD HOME sign and put one up saying FOR SALE.  $50.  And…the dishwasher was stolen from their lawn that very night.

31st October - lost Oakleys - ABC quiz

Thursday 31^st October

I am not sure if I have written about my Oakley sunglasses…

When we were in Townsville, my resourceful son Michael noticed I was squinting just a bit in my ordinary chemist shop sunglasses.  He let me try his Oakleys and I was hooked.  I asked to be taken to the nearest shopping mecca so that I too could enjoy the beautiful polarisation and the wrap-around comfort of these very expensive glasses.  And I have so loved them!  Pete…not so much.  He thinks they make me look like a gangsters moll, just a bit sinister and dangerous.  I don’t mind; I don’t usually manage to project any aura of menace…

But alas and alack…my Oakleys are gone.  I had them on my head when I went to the North Hobart Post Office on Monday.  I filled in my passport renewal form, went to the counter and dithered around finalising the details, wearing my reading glasses, then left the premises.  I didn’t even get down the steps when I realized my beloved Oakleys were on my head, or in my bag.  In fact they were nowhere  not on the floor, the counter, the bench where I had filled in the form.  Oh so sad…

I have spent the last few days squinting miserably and complaining to anyone who cares to listen.  My Post Office lady hasn’t rung to tell me she has found my glasses, so today I have to replace them…

I have checked out the Oakley possibilities in Hobart, and in fact asked a slightly startled shop assistant in Cat & Fiddle to take a photo of same-but-different ones. I showed Katy the photo and she said, Well they would probably look all right if you didn’t look so terrified…

NO it’s not a good photo; my hair is all skew-whiff for a start…but I do think it is funny.  And I am very deeply attracted to these startlingly purple lenses!  WEE HEE!  No more gangsters moll!

I did take lots of photos of tropical flowers, didn’t I?  All so glorious…

But…

Just look at these…

Cold climate flowers...

(Thank you Lorraine.)

While Pete was enduring his three long days of posturing on his left side, he was able to watch TV…in the dressing table mirror, like the Lady of Shallot.  He wasn’t allowed to read; life was just a bit hellish for him.  He was, however, able to listen to the radio, which he did all day and most of the night.  ABC radio is such a good companion.  And every night they have quizzes…

At 9pm on, I think, Tuesday, Pete found himself able to answer every single question.  When they were coming up to question 17, he thought, Bugger it, I think I will try to win this!

And he did just that. With only a tiny bit of help from his friend…

We are now the very proud owners of Series 4 of The Inspector Lynley Mysteries!!

The funniest part of this story is that Pete’s fiend Damien heard the quiz at his shack in Orford.  He immediately texted Peter in wales and Roberto in Italy to say, That bloody Headlam has just won the ABC quiz, with Marguerite helping him!  He is supposed to be lying on his bed of pain!

So this very small victory went global in seconds…

30th October - Flores ferrytale

Wednesday 30^th October

No not a ferry but a water taxi...but the approximate region is correct

Pete and I had a lovely visit with our friend Heather while he was laid up on his side, being postured for his eye.  Heather and Tony are great travellers, very intrepid, and I have been saving this email, which she sent me when we were near Flores:

We have very happy memories of sailing from island to island in Indonesia some years ago now (we got as far as Flores/Komodo going east) – albeit not in a lovely boat like 2xs but in a decrepit fishing boat on a cheapo backpackers trip.

I am sure I told you at the time the tale of the young woman who was leaning on the upper deck rail one late afternoon when the railing gave way and she fell metres into the water – and then her young boyfriend made matters ten times worse when he heroically jumped in after her!  Though the boat turned around immediately it took ages to turn and they were little dots swimming towards us by then, and it was getting dark... thank goodness for the wonderful warm (and fortunately shark-free!) waters.  We did pick them up and they were none the worse for wear though very tired and shaken. 

She later said to Tony and me that she thought we were “amazing old people” to be roughing it alongside them in that way and that her parents would never do a thing like that – it made us feel so ancient and we were still in our forties/very early fifties then I think!

Heather and Tony

(Yesterday in the car Rose (1½) called me Opa.  That’s not very kind, Rose, said Zoe (3½). 

I turned and said, Well I’m not a man, am I Zoe? 

No, she said, smiling lovingly.  You are a kind of old woman.)