Sunday 10th February

Sunday 10^th February

Tasmania is all GO this weekend.  And the mot du jour is…beautiful!!

Festivale in Launceston, in beautiful Royal Park.

The Wooden Boat Show, in Hobart, on the beautiful waterfront.

The Hobart Regatta, on the beautiful Domain

An Open Day at Oatlands, in beautiful Oatlands

A kayak-launching attempt at the Guinness Book of Records, on beautiful Bellerive Beach

And, as they say, probably much more more and a set of steak knives!

We have tried to fit in as much as possible and have been rushing from one end of the state to the other, from one BEAUTIFUL location to the other…and also fitting in as much family contact as possible.

The kayak launch was great fun.  I looked after Zoe and Rose and some random scampering puppies on the beach while Katy and Eva, Jeff and Leo, lined up in their kayaks for the launch.  Not sure how many there were (400-ish?) but they had well and truly enough to break the record.  It all looked very spectacular, with the kayaks lined up along (beautiful) Bellerive Beach and everyone ready to launch NOW NOW NOW!

Nobody stayed on the water for vey long because it was very windy and choppy.  Jeff lugged one of the big heavy kayaks off the beach, up the steps, along the path, and onto the street.  And Leo followed, lugging the other equally big heavy boat… I was gobsmacked; I wouldn’t have tried to lug it without help, and Leo is only seven!  He refused all offers of help, even when two big strong men came up behind him with their kayaks.  “Here, let us give you a hand,” said one of them.  Leo protested and started pulling faster, and I said, “He really does want to do it by himself.”  They were mightily impressed, and one of them said, “You’re not going to find too many challenges in life, young man!” which made a grandmother’s heart swell with pride.

I made my way speedily back into town and met Pete at the boat show, which was just wonderful, full of beauty, and full of happy crowds of people ambling from one beautiful display to the other.

(We are now in Launceston, in the beautiful Darcey house, with beautiful Darcey girls all around me, and I am being a Bad Houseguest, sitting at my computer, so I will leave further discussions of the beauty of it all to tomorrow.)

Saturday 9th February

Saturday 9th February

Many MANY years ago I lived in a sort of big barn.  I longed for the day when I could move into my beautiful new house, with its red carpet and black slate floors – yes you can date the house project by this; it was indeed 1979 - so I could invite my neighbours and be just a bit respectable… I had everything looking as schmick as possible and settled back with my three small girls to await the (very critical) visitors about to arrive.  “Mummy I’m THIRSTY!”  Well of course they were thirsty; children are never-endingly thirsty and hungry, aren’t they?  I smiled lovingly (I was VERY happy, in my new partly-finished house,) and went to get a brand new bottle of blackcurrant juice… And oh OOPS it slipped out of my hands and smashed, on the brand-new black slate floor… I don’t think it is possible, in words, to do justice to the sticky, horrible mess.  The thick syrup went everywhere, and there were fine slivers and large chunks of broken glass tastefully stuck in between the tiles, which weren’t properly grouted (in fact, they didn’t get properly grouted until we put the house on the market nearly 20 years later…)

I gave a startled cry of distress and galvanised into action…bucket, mop, Handy Andy, towels, three small girls whose already stickyfeet had to be purified… I mopped and MOPPED and wiped and swept up glass, and hoped against the odds that my visitors wouldn’t notice.

They did notice; how could they not?  The floor was still sticky; squelch squelch, went many pairs of feet as women walked and children scampered across the vast expanse of sticky smeary slate…

India #84

At some late hour in the evening we all went down to the Racecourse Hotel, about 500 metres from the Club where we were staying.  This was Amed’s idea.  (Vish’s nephew)  He finishes work very late and loves to stay up till all hours.  Anjuli, who is also a dentist, doesn’t work so late and she prefers to get up early so the poor woman was just about asleep with her head in her plate by the end of the evening while Amed was sparkling away on the other side of the table.  Anjuli gets up very VERY early, about 4.30, to cook a hot breakfast for her teenage girls, who get up at five to eat and then study.  They are very ambitious and both want to be dentists too – I have probably already told you this but never mind…

         

There was a very big round table for all of the Sharmas plus hangers on (ie Pete and me).  Amed’s sister Seeta, who lives in London, her husband Amit, their daughterRani, plus us four Tasmanians.  Rani works in London in some very high-powered bank job and is engaged to Nigel, who was about to be posted to Kabul.  She and her parents were in India to organise a huge Indian wedding for the two of them in February this year.  This was an enormous task, as you can imagine.  People were flying to Mumbai from all over the world, and food, clothes, venues had to be found and organised.  I talked to Seeta about this for a while and it made my head spin, because she is mostly organising it from London, this was only a fleeting visit.  I was profoundly grateful for Claire’s and Stuart’s lovely, simple wedding which was all being planned and organised in my absence… Rani was a lovely girl, in her late twenties, and she spoke so lovingly of her Nigel and of their future together in – gulp – Kabul and beyond.  So we were all very sad to hear, after we got back to Tasmania, that it is all off.  No wedding this year at least.  Some problems with visas, her job transfer, whatever.

         

When we had finished our delicious meals it was time to stroll on back to the Club.  But no it wasn’t!  The big high steel gate had been locked.  The only way back was to walk around the streets, maybe a kilometre or so.  We were OK with this idea although it was extremely hot.  Amed thought this was a terrible idea; anything might happen to us!  He said he would drive us back, which meant making about three trips in his small car.  “No need for this!” we shouted, as one.  “We are Tasmanians, we can climb over the gate!”  Amed didn’t think we could, not at all.  Three of us, after all, were LADIES.  He rushed ahead to negotiate with the racecourse security guard – surely he could unlock the gate for us, just for a few seconds?  But no, the guard was haVing none of it.  In the meantime we marched up to the gate, looking purposeful.  I went first, up and OVER.  Not it wasn’t all that easy, it was high with spikes on the top, and I was wearing a fairly flimsy dress.  I think I achieved my climb with great speed but not much dignity.  I dropped to the other side to find some young blokes on motorbikes, who had pulled over for a smoke and a chat, staring at me totally gobsmacked.  A few seconds later Hana dropped beside me, closely followed by Mary, Vish and Pete.  We were home and hosed, and had saved Amed several trips round and round the block.  As well as this, we had entertained what was by now a reasonably large group of fascinated young men.

Friday 8th February

Friday 8^th February

I had a nice chat with Pete’s friend Dirk Meure on 2XS, on our Apostles trip to Maryanne Bay.  He came out from Holland with his family in 1950, when he was six; the same year I came to Australia from Holland with the smallest family possible – Mum, Dad, BabyMe.  We talked about the challenges our parents faced, living in 1950s Tasmania – HUGE culture shock…especially, I think, for the women.  Not many years down the track and everyone , in both families, was very happy with the move.  His father died recently, at 96, saying, firmly, “I made the right decision bringing you all to Tasmania, didn’t I?”  My father, still very much with us, says the same.  And yes indeed they did make the right decision!

In her blog this week Mia Freedman wrote about her father becoming an Australian citizen.  He came out with his family from South Africa when he was 22, although they lived a prosperous and happy life there.  They found the social injustices too much to bear and made a new life in a very different part of the world.  I was very taken with what she wrote, especially this:

…they arrived in the late 60s, in Sydney, and went straight from the airport to Bondi beach.  My father had $100 in his pocket.  One of my father’s happiest days was seeing a newspaper headline.  In South Africa, they were accustomed to seeing daily headlines like “TRAGEDY: 100 killed in new race riots”.  In Australia one day, he saw a newspaper that said: “TRAGEDY: Australia loses to Britain in the 2nd test”.

And not for one minute of his life since the day he arrived has my father regretted or even paused to reconsider his choice to become an Australian.

This was part of a Citizenship Ceremony speech she made in Sydney, in which she quoted Harry Potter… It’s well worth reading on www.mamamia.com.au!

India #83

It was quite a shock for Pete and me to be back in Mumbai.  There is a big thermal inversion over the city which makes it hot, humid, oppressive.  We felt dirty all the time.  By the end of the day, my hair, newly washed in my little bottles of Indian Herbal Essences and/or Fructis, felt like steel wool, and my nose, ears and eyes were delicately coated in a film of grunge.  Udaipor had been hot but the air was comparatively clean and fresh.

Pete and I settled into our new room in the club.  It was the first time we had had a kettle in our room since leaving Australia and I felt quite giddy with the pleasure of being able to boil up cups of weak black tea.  There was a small supermarket-type shop on the premises so nothing was impossible!  More little bottles of shampoo, tea-bags, bananas!  It wasn’t actually a luxurious place to stay, nowhere near as beautiful and splendid as our places in Jaipur, but – a kettle!  Bliss!

We had arranged to meet Vish and Mary down in the bar, so once we were clean we made our way to the bar, which was heaving with smartly dressed waiters.  One of them led me importantly to a seat – “This way, Sir!” he shouted.  Well they’re not used to having woman in the hallowed inner sanctum of the club, are they?  We had several waiters at our bidding.  The main one was a very large man who confided in us that he just loved animals and had many in his home village.  I went through a list – tigers, polecats, wolverines, bears?  Yes he loved them!  He asked us where we were from, and instead of crying out, “Ricky Ponting!” or “David Boon!” as 95% of Indian men did, he was thoughtful for a few minutes, then said, “You have a very rare animal called the thylacine!”  We were mightily impressed.

Thursday 7^th February

Today’s birthday person is: Leo, seven years old today!  And a very splendid seven year old he is.  Kind and helpful and…a perfectionist.  This can make life difficult for him; he likes to excel at all times, and…sometimes we have to struggle a bit as we learn new stuff… He is much loved by his three younger sisters, his parents, his plethora of grandparents, his friends and his extended family.

Leo doesn’t always greet the morning with a spring in his step… But today he was a ray of sunshine as he bounded around, opening his birthday cards, receiving phone calls, marching up and down the room to the tune of Happy Birthday.  A delight to see him so happy.

Bad news however, on a different note…a tsunami in the Solomon Islands.  It hit the little outpost of Lata, in the Santa Cruz Islands.  We spent a few very happy days in Graciosa Bay, with its friendly people, glorious banyan trees right down on the waters edge, long thin villages snaking along the shoreline.  Lots of people injured, at least five killed, many missing… This is such a remote part of the world it is hard to say exactly what has happened but I am very sad for them.

India #82

When we got back to Mumbai we were in a bit of a quandary.  We couldn’t remember what Amed’s club was called, the one where we would be reunited with Vish, Mary and Hana, the one where we were booked in… The taxi driver, ofcourse had no idea.  Mumbai is a very big city and most of the drivers don’t know anything much; added to this we found that most Indian taxi drivers can’t read maps at all.  They look at maps politely, scratch their heads and say, “yes, certainly, indeed,” but they might as well be looking at recipes for tuna mornay for all the help maps are to them.  So what were we to do??  Well we knew how to get to Colabar, and how to find the Mondegar Café.  That would be a good place to sit, sip a few Kingfishers, and take stock of our situation.  They might have a phone and we might be able to find a phone number and we MIGHT just find our way to our accommodation.  The driver dropped us off in more or less the right place and we lugged our packs in to our sanctuary.  And there, sitting cheerily in the window seat, were Vish, Mary and Hana!  Serendipity and synchronicity at work!

Wednesday 6th February

Wednesday 6^th February

A beautiful hot summery day… And all of the kiddiewinks back at school, with the temperature about to top 30… I am sure this won’t hurt them at all; they will all come home exhausted, looking like tomatoes, with happy memories of sweltering school days.

One small school boy, closely related to me, went off to Grade One quite happily, all kitted out and ready for the year.  He is an obliging, law-abiding sort of person, and thus he was The Chosen One.  Chosen to introduce to the school a new boy, Jayden… I asked him after school how he had found this task.  “Impossible!” he said, sadly.  “Jayden is VERY rough.  And he didn’t pay any attention.”  I do hope he is not in charge of Jayden for the rest of the school year…he would much rather associate with his equally law-abiding and studious friends…

India #81

Cartoon in Bombay Times:   We loved this one: two women sadly chatting, one saying to the other, “The trouble with men is – when they’re not drunk, they’re sober.”

While we were waiting at the airport I found some very young Australians huddling over bottles of coke in the cafeteria.  They said they came from a place I wouldn’t have heard of called Hobart.  They were finding India very confronting and overwhelming; they were only 20 and hadn’t seen much of the world beyond Blackmans Bay and Lenah Valley.  They both work for the Flight Centre and had come to India for ten days, but I think they were ten very long hard days.  They spent most of their time looking out of taxis in horror, winding down the windows just a bit and thrusting 100-rupee notes at the beggars.  Their very happiest moment was finding in Agra not only the Taj Mahal but also a fully functioning McDonalds…

Tuesday 5^th February

 

A very Tasmanian story…or maybe an apocryphal politician/anywhere story…

 

Michael Polley has been a parliamentarian in Tasmania for generations.  He is a genial man, and goes to EVERYTHING, to chat to the locals.  (This is why he is voted back in time and time again, of course…)  He tells the following story about a visit to the Longford Show:

 

This show is very popular, in the region.  Michael Polley is always there, meeting and greeting.  He walked past the woodchop, and there was Mrs Smith.

 

“Hello, Mrs Smith!  And how are you?  Oh good, and how are all the little Smiths?  Wonderful!  And Mr. Smith?”

 

“He died last month, Mr Polley.”

 

“Oh so sorry to hear that!” 

 

So off he trotted, past the hot American doughnuts, making baking, cooking all the while, past the merry-go-round, meeting and greeting merrily along his way until he came upon…Mrs. Smith.

 

“Hello, Mrs Smith!  And how are you?  Oh good, and how are all the little Smiths?  Wonderful!  And Mr. Smith?”

 

“Still dead,., Mr Polley….”

 

More India 2006

         

The vegetable market bordered on the spice area.  Lots of dear little hole-in-the-wall shops in the narrow winding streets on the edge of one of the lakes.  Pete was very taken with these shops and he decided to go and buy some spices.  They were very tempting, I must say, and very cheap.  And very potent, we have since discovered, much stronger than any we can buy here!  Pete has made some very tasty but fiery curries in his beautiful new kitchen.  I stayed out in the street and was immediately invited to come and sit on the wall with some oldchicks who lived above the shops.  They were very friendly and soon surrounded me, very confidently.  We had a lovely cosy time, just hanging out, and communicating by mime – they didn’t speak English at all.  I actually found that the women in Udaipor were much more friendly and forthcoming than in other places.  Usually in India the men were friendly and the women shy and retiring.  So what did these women want, other than my fair company?  Well, they wanted me to take photos of them, in different permutations and combinations.  The odd decrepit old husband came out of the shadows to join in the photographic frenzy.  One of them asked me where I came from – “Your country?”  When I said Australia, he beamed and said, in faultless English, “Ah!  Australian has very fine wool and very fine merino sheep.”  Well yes!  I was thrilled to bits with this, but my old codger marched off very briskly.  I tried to show him Pete in the nearby spice shop, to tell him that Pete was a sheep farmer and had in fact produced many fine merino sheep and much fine wool, but he had used up his entire English repertoire and wasn’t up for any more conversation. 

         

Pete came back with his lovely bags of spices and another elderly husband emerged from the throng.  He wanted to swap glasses with Pete.  I took a photo of them beaming out at the world, Pete in thick black frames, the Indian man in Pete’s high-tech almost invisible glasses; they had discovered, to their delight, that they had exactly the same prescription, bifocals and all.

         

I went back to my girly photo session.  They didn’t seem to want me to be in the photos and I was wondering what on earth I was going to do with 25 photos of elderly ladies in saris sitting on a wall.  Then I had a brainwave; I asked Shambu to take me to the nearest photoshop so I could get them developed.  He was more than willing to do this.  He hovered at the counter, and I suddenly looked at him and said, “Shambu, would you like a photo of you as well?”  “Yes please!” he shouted.  And one with you and Mr. Peter.”  The photoshop man took some shots of the three of us.  I gave Shambu his copies and asked him what he was going to do with them.  He whipped out a notebook and said, “I will put the photo here.  And here next to it you will write a testimonial for me to show other tourists.”  What an enterprising boy!  I did indeed write him a glowing testimonial, saying that Shambu is reliable, punctual and delightful company.  His English is limited but he will take you to some beautiful places that tourists don’t usually get to see.  I printed this as neatly as possible and he looked very pleased with my efforts although, as he can’t read or write, he had no idea what I had written… Later we picked up the photos and he undertook to take them to my spice street friends.

         

Our only planned event of the day was a boat trip on the lake, out to Jagmandir Island.  This, my notes say and my memory tells me, was just heaven.  The water was blue and calm, the sun shone, the palaces on the edge of the lake looked like dreamy mirages, and there was nobody obnoxious on our boat.  Amongst the passengers were a few young blokes on their way to work at the island hotel.  One of them leaned back and had a few gentle moments of zzzzz.  One of his friends spent the whole trip trying, successfully, to attach a large red Christmas bauble to the sleepyboy’s hair.  Much merriment when they got to the end of the trip.  The old palace on the little island is now a restaurant.  One of the other palaces is a huge and resplendent Hilton hotel.  We were very happy with our choice; we could look across to the splendour not far away.  We had about half an hour on the island, and what better way to spend it than sitting at a waterside table drinking Kingfisher and looking out at Udaipor reflected in the water.  The island is flanked by a row of almost life-sized stone elephants, all very old and weathered.  After our peaceful but hot sightseeing time we were ready to go back to the hotel for a peaceful swim in the beautiful clean blue pool, with its attendant tortoises.

Monbday 4th February

Monday 4th February

 

First of all – accolades to Emma Riley, who was inducted into the navy this morning at 9.20 am, after several very stressful years of striving to attain this goal.  Emma has been Pete’s tenant in Unit #1 since she was 18; she is now 25.  Pete and I feel SO relived – our fledgling has flown the nest!  It was, one way or the other, a near miss so I shed tears of joy/relief at her ceremony at the barracks…  And we wish her a very happy and fulfilling life in the navy….

 

I have been so busy I haven’t even looked at my blog.  My beautiful computer didn’t even its pretty little lid lifted over the weekend. 

 

On Saturday I had an Emma-filled morning, plus some speedy cleaning and tidying of 2XS.  Pete has installed some new drawers where once were just wide, useless shelves.  All of his tools and small annoying thingies like nuts, bolts, thises and thats, are now tidied away.  These drawers are wonderful but…when a boat is at sea drawers fling open, and these would have been particularly lethal, full, as they are, or shrapnel.  So he devised a long metal bolt to go down through them, firmly securing the whole kit and caboodle.  This was, of course NOT as easy as it sounds.  And the whole process caused a lot of chaos and sawdust.

 

We left the clean-up and changed into more presentable attire, then went to a lovely garden party for my friend Annie’s 60^th celebration.  Much fun, old friends, delicious food…

 

Sunday we took 2XS out, back to Maryanne Bay, with a boatload of Apostles – one of Pete’s lunch groups from the Tasmanian Club.  Once again – everyone happy, nobody overboard, drawers stayed in place – and one groups Attenborough moment with a large, basking seal which caused everyone to say oooh and aaahh…

         

More India 2006

 

Our next stop was at a central vegetable market.  Shambu knew everyone there; I think the stallholders were all friends of his mum.  We wandered around, looking at all of the fruit and veg arranged in big flat baskets while the stallholders sat on the hard concrete patiently waiting to sell.  One of the women called me over; she wanted me to taste a strange fruit? vegetable? which looked a bit like a small green tomato.  Well it was just AWFUL.  I smiled winningly, turned away and spat it into my hand.  Around the edge of the market there were lots of animals waiting for scraps, so I chose a handsome goat and offered my half-chewed yuckything.  Well no THANK you, said the goat with a shudder.  Same with a young calf which seemed quite keen until it got a whiff.  Pete and Shambu had got ahead of me a bit so I was a ripe target for the next people who wanted to call me over to their display.  A group of handsome young men wanted me to admire their aubergines, which they had arranged in an interesting formation.  I showed them the whites of my eyes and walked past without acknowledging their efforts, thank you very much!