And a bit about him- part 2

(part 1 yesterday)

When we were kids, we knew that we were a family unlike any other we knew.

Our Mum had a super power and our Dad was the smartest bloke in the world to have pursued her.

The three of us were indeed blessed. There were many mantras we lived by.

• Always hop back on your horse.
• A cold wash cures nearly everything, and is a requirement every morning.
• Shoulders back, chin up, look your own height in front of you.
• Get your hair out of your eyes.
• Don't let them know that you're scared.
• Take a deep breath.
• Nil desperandum carborundum illegitimos.
• If you don't throw the first, make the second count. (Actually, that one might have been from a movie)
• Don't rely on others unless you're in a team.
• To be deemed "good in a team" was highest praise indeed.
• Make sure you have something to fall back on.

We knew how lucky we were to have the parents and life we had.

Dad was enthusiastic about everything, a driven polocrosse number 3 and then a campdrafter of note. Nothing was done at half-pace and 98% of the world's problems can be fixed with a bulldozer. 

The other 2% sometimes kick back. 

We always used to say Dad wasn't accident prone, he just launched himself into accident zones more regularly and with more gusto than most.

Having such a gung ho Dad had its moments of exhilaration, the occasional terror (learning to drive on paddock tracks with him telling you to "use reduction" as you imagine plummeting sideways into a gully sometimes recurs in dreams) and large dose of the sheer frustration of knowing that he wouldn't give up until he got you to do what he wanted. And then get you to agree it was the right thing to do and and to thank him.

Mum was his perfect foil. She was one of the few rare people that had a handle on Bruiser. It was a constant challenge, but while she was generally acquiescent, she shaped his force to her plans and when required, showed an obstinance that he was forced to respect.

This was the forge that we were raised in.

And people wonder why I don't actually know what to do on holidays!

(You never know, it might get continued)

The Mum Files - Part 1

I recall watching the early tides of our mother.

She was not a natural housewife when she married Dad. It was frankly like she had entered a different culture...

His line was of strong widows and strong wives and strong mothers holding together tradition and agricultural labourer bloodlines of deep maroon.

Whereas hers was of half-trained mothers trying to grasp the wind and harness music and woodwork, and of aunts who sang hymns and spun nieces and grand-nieces and great-great-nieces as legacy lace.

Mum built her own little family, holding together her facade whilst dusting off her career threads to become a wife and mother.

It was what every woman was meant to be trained to do, but she waa trained in the college of The Aunts,  where the motto was "Never Rely on a Man. Always Have a Career to fall back on."

Only now doing the family tree do I realise that those words were their mother's regards a father (known more for roaring at the family than for doting and delighting in them)'s abandonment of her and four teenage children; for her earlier abandonment through widowhood when pregnant with an older aunt; for war's abandonment of a great-granddaughter and the farewell gift from a soldier; for the parcels passed to another great-granddaughter; for the unforseen future; and for me.

Dad's Mum showed her the office system in use. There was the clip and - there was the spike.

Mum's career was as a locum Chemist. Throughout the state she would travel and relieve rural chemists and allow them not just the luxury of a holiday, but the delightful service of a job well done, a shop tidied and cleaned and organised with a completed stocktake and accounts all up to date. She was booked years in advance.

I don't really wonder at any diagnoses of new-fangled alphabets  in any related to me.  These people were my example.

Mum converted the clip and spike into triple-journals and general ledgers. She calculated interest rates and diversified investment and streamlined the payments process.

She couldn't cook a thing. Her mother-in-law was a third-generation CWA devotee steeped in full Queensland History of Hospitality. Grandma could cook a roast with the best gravy, her scones were singular and her lemon butter spoken about in show pavilions, 

Dad was one of the originating Brangus studs in Australia. He was very enthusiastic about the potential.

Mum became a studmaster, training herself on husbandry and genetics and the science of fertility and artificial fertility temp-testing techniques and traits and handling and developing systems to best keep these records.

She became adept at marketing and networking and held committee roles with industry and women's groups and early internet exchanges.

So sometimes her house wasn't perfectly tidy and the benches were never quite clear.

It was her humanity showing.

(To Be Continued...)

(Maybe)

Wednesdays Words on Friday (oops - Saturday)

 I am not sure of the rules really, so please put me to rights if I am doing this wrong.

This is for Wednesday's word - I did write it yesterday but held off on posting.

 Here is River's post

 Without further ado:

I junked my first stab - oh my, nobody needs that.  The second attempt is not much more joyous, I am afraid.  Must work on that - perhaps better at night than a morning after lack of sleep.

Let me instead poeticise this prompt:

I was invited to wonder, wander in

And delight myself with words.

I instead plodded, my pessimistic soul not encouraging the curious

The delights of gallivanting.

Instead, it enfolded me in greens dulled by forest shadow 

Phrases shrouded to disappoint.

My unburdened self lies beyond some old gate

I am sure it hides there with the reminders of bacon

Yes, bad for you in so many ways, 

But the delight and crisp wafting through my could have beens.

Alfred is so vain

He probably thinks this post is about him. He'd be right.

If he were a person you would say "Alfred, eff off" and even your mother would have to agree that Alfred deserves such language.

22-2 was the beginning of his time as a cyclone. The other reason that that date is stuck in my mind is that exactly one third of that day was spent in a local establishment akin to a freezer.

Early Alfred shook himself up to huffability, but every day they predicted something different he would test his developing skills and do the opposite.

"Stay a 1 for 24 hours and disappear beyond the horizon"  the boffins said. 

Frankly, Alfred was not the loudest concern in the room here, as we have had an avalanche of appointments and tests - the upshot of which has actually been mostly positive answers, just a winding path getting there. A bit like Alfred.

That has combined with an explosion of fresh requirements at work, part of which was a result of annoying Alfred making more rumble.

He did not do what he was told and had not gone away a week ago - when the winds blew stronger and waves arose - and so the boffins said "Alfred's coming in but he's only a little one, he'll sneak on through and you'll hardly notice him, hope he'll bring the farmers rain."

Well, he's not the sort of scallywag that gets told to do something mature. Something helpful. Something quiet and unnoticeable.

"Eff that" he thought, as he started kicking cans and wandered away further South.

The boffins said "very rarely do they spin back this way once they do that, but if that happens it will be the first time in fifty years. How special. But he's not going to" said the boffins.

On Monday I realised that i was due to have my annual check at HB.

After the unblogged palaver of last year, an organised former version of me had sorted accommodation, booked the cattery and even told my family they were to come with me and we were going to have a holiday in HB and enjoy ourselves, dang it!

That version of me didn't have an Alfred, did she?

On Tuesday the deposit left my bank.

Now, before I go on, let me reiterate that I am not saying that I am some deity that has some secret superpower that I can control natural disasters - but I think that Alfred may have heard this as a taunt and turned around to hear who had thrown this gauntlet. 

Was it Brisbane, egged on by the Broncos and Lions wavering on season opening spectaculars? Or perhaps the Sunny Coast with Surf club meets, or the Goldie just being fabulous? Was it the sight of poor Lismore trying to cower down away from Alfred's gaze? Or was it me?

Perhaps it a combination of all of the above and the disaffected dithering of an adolescent cyclone, dancing and darting and promising Thursday landings.

 "He'll be gone by tomorrow" the boffins said, "but it's a cyclone, you never can tell."

Wednesday.

Dear Jeanie, we regret to inform you that your amazing specialist (who holds clinics at weekends as she covers a whole heap of communities along the east coast of Queensland) cannot attend your appointment this weekend at HB as she is going up against Alfred first hand this weekend.

And I thought "watch out Alfred."

But the money was out of the bank and we were going to have a holiday in HB and enjoy ourselves, dang it!

The Dr will block him.

However the accommodation office closed at 6 and I wouldn't be able to travel down to HB in less than an hour so I messaged the property. No answer. 

I emailed the property. No answer.

Thursday, I rang the property.

When I told the gentleman of my issue, he asked what property as he had several. When I told him, he said "well, you won't be staying there as there is currently no bathroom and no kitchen." and told me his tale of a labyrinth of agencies and platforms and that I was the sixth he had had to give this spiel to and this is their number.

Well,I thought, 6 people have rung this number and nothing has changed. I didn't ring that number. I rang the platform that I had made the booking through. "English speakers" it promised.

Ex-cru-ci-ating hold music was my penance for the perseverance required to get to the English-speaking human. I told him my tale. He needed clarification and asked if they could try to find me an alternative.

"No." I said. "The holiday is ruined already. This is just the last straw. I want a refund." I said. 

I must admit, there was a tiny part of me doing a jig at the prospect of not packing bags, packing the car, logistics of school, work, cattery, travel, expense not to mention the have a holiday and enjoy ourselves concept - but I wasn't going to tell him that. And also, there was an Alfred.

Twelve more minutes of hold and I was free. I shall expect to see my refund in 7-12 days.

Hooray, I thought.

Alfred didn't land Thursday, he just mesmerised the audience with idly contemplating the pretty pictures he was making in memes.

Friday Alfred had stopped thinking and was just zoning out to some sort of wavelength of his own, being a real teenage boy and not doing what he was told.

Pushed out to the Saturday and still he seemed unable to either commit or follow instructions.

It's not that bad, we told ourselves. Bit of wind. Poor northern NSW have copped it yet again, but those poor beggars can't win a trick. We're good. Pity about the grocery situation. Still, it's better to be over prepared. Ready for next time.

We later found Alfred hunkered down near Bribie and we all wondered - what there was to do there for that long, especially with the bowlsie shut?

But who cares, he's an ex-TC.

Now, for those who haven't played here for long, the above was sarcasm. 

Because my history has very  much had some shaping from such beasts as ex-TCs

Alfred did indeed hear someone whisper "either $#!+ or get off the can" because he most certainly did get off the can and moon the spectators.

That was yesterday.

Today, Brisbane is flooded and houses are wrecked.

Parts of the Gold Coast are flooded. Parts of the Sunshine Coast are wrecked.

Northern NSW is flooding. Poor beggars.

This morning, Alfred reached around and smacked HB on the outside ears. Out of the blue, at 3am the heavens opened and delivered a deluge of the equivalent of a foot of water and tree-snapping winds.

To the North of us also there have been storms. To the West - rain.

A heatwave, hot winds whirling, 80% humidity and a skitchy cat here tonight.

My Mum used to have a plaque in the office that said "tact is the art of telling someone to go to hell in such a manner that they anticipate the trip."

Someone needs to apply a little tact and convince Alfred that it's his own idea to just eff off.

My second cousin once removed wouldn't mind seeing you when you are ready to do what you are told, Alfred.

In the meantime. - -

(update - here is the official news version of Alfred's life)

 

March Tides

See what I did there?

I love words with different meanings.

I also love it when nature is entertaining, although I must admit that I err on the side of gentle and kind rather than horror or suspense.

I love it when old friends or relatives gather and there is good food and warm conversation on offer and the hospitality genuine.

I love it when conundrums and road blocks make way for pathways and solutions in my workplace.

I love it when you find the right words coming out of the right mouths when you are looking for answers.

I love it when you find proof of lives lived long ago with characters and imagined decades of life between.

I love finding people to whom I can say (or rather, write) "I did look at that entry - widower on the 1957 voyage aged 29 with teenage children all able to work? Yes, the Cornwall Roman Catholic bits made me think again.

Then again, my carpenter from Enniskillen or Tyrone other vague references came on a voyage from Liverpool, so anything is possible."

(Edit - it was Devonshire and C of E - apologies to my correspondent)

 

 

Today would be the 106th birthday of my numerically challenging relative who is 100% shrouded in mystery from any living person's viewpoint.

Thanks to BDM Qld we discovered that she existed - and then she vanished. Her birth was the last piece of paper ever on her mother - and her father was unknown.

Until the magic of DNA provided not only clues to what happened next but who it happened with.

And then a chance detail in an email made an amateur detective have an aha moment and suddenly a hidden history of 20 years of a whole family, and hopefully the happier last third of my great-grandmother's and great-great-uncle's life.

I love we got a reasonably good drying day today - earlier in the week it had promised foul.

Of course, the flipside still remains. Alfred may indeed keep to forn with some "I'm not going to do what I am told" defiance and dump a load of wind and water where it is not wanted. 

I do wish that I had the power to point weather. Even if you had to use reverse psychology on it.

Anyhow, here's the cat. How's your March going?

Book Club Reading

I always wanted to be in a book club.

There were a lot of reasons "why not".  

The rare clubs I did manage to unearth

• met on Tuesday at 10am and I work full-time
• only read books starting with K and had a murder on page 25
• were already established and didn't want new participants
• involved meeting in members 5 star houses, copious amounts of expensive alcohol and designer clothing for the photo opportunities

The unicorn that I was looking for needed to meet when I was available (so business hours were out) and I could see to drive (evenings were out); didn't have a set playlist on what was acceptable to read; wanted me and would accept a person like me and wouldn't require me to pretend I had a lifestyle that for so many reasons I don't have.

Luckily for me, just as the pandemic kicked off a lady bought a little second-hand book shop in my little town and wanted to support local community by creating a book club - and as soon as things opened up, she did just that.

So since August 2020 I have been involved in the Book Club.  Anyone can be a member, and if you choose to get the book through the book shop you can do a "set and forget" monthly fee, which is what I do.  The book shop itself has moved to a bigger premises and gone through 2 ownership changes, but the book club has kept on throughout.

We meet on the last Sunday of the month (generally) at around 1, people can bring a plate, the book shop now has a cafe although its not open to the public on Sundays, so paying members get a free drink (non-paying members can still  get a drink).

For our January read, we had  this delightful Japanese book, What you are looking for is in the library" by Michiko Aoyama.

At our meeting, it was unanimously endorsed (by all who had read it) and I would recommend to young and old.

Uplifting and enjoyable - what you look for in a start of the year book.

 

I have a disclaimer to make about the February read, as it was my pick and I share great-great-grandparents with the writer - but please don't hold that against her because this, her second "big" novel, is as easy to read yet hard-hitting in the right places as her first (The Last Love Note").  

 

While it does sneak in as romance, it also covers so much more in the main story - and it has a happy ending.  

 

The first night I started reading it, my "I am very tired, I will only read one chapter as I have work in the morning" vow meant that I put the book down after 10.

 

The second night 25 (they are shortish chapters) - but oh, on the third night I had to keep going until I got to the end.  

 

"Pictures of You" by Emma Grey shows how easily romance can become anything but as well as how good it can be - and it is such a fine edge, the distinction between the two at times, isn't it ?

 

I loaned my copy to another member as she cannot get another copy ANYWHERE at the moment, although I see through updates from Emma that there is now a 4th print run.  If you are in the USA, she is currently there on a book tour.

Trough Pilates, Rain Meditation and Low Key Celebration

 I have had a few days off work as I was so good a wife as to be available to celebrate in whichever way was seen fit a 0 number on V's calendar.

Of course, I then immediately turned around and  shattered this romantic gesture by offering him the larger share of my respite, as I am a flag-waving representative of the sandwich generation. And the smaller portion was allocated to a trip over to Mum and Dad.

As I arrived, Dad met me at the car. 

"You packed your working gear?" He asked. "We have a trough to fix while the carer is here."

I dutifully put on my working gear - after all, he has been the same father for well over 50 years now, and we are well trained to anticipate- and hopped into his Land Rover (The Land Rover is genuinely robber-proof and only Dad and the chosen fools who agree to drive it are allowed).

We turned off the electricity for the fence as "last time I came down to fix this I got tangled up and took a tumble". Yes, you read that right, an 85 year old man - alone in his ancient Land Rover - took a tumble while checking out a trough surrounded by lots of thick green grass, growing pools of water - and accentuated with an electric fence wire across the top of it - as he was removing the cover to see what was wrong in the first place.

However, as said, he HAS been my Dad for (well) over 50 years now, and expect the unexpected is a motto we live by.

The alarm from his falls watch goes off as he charges gears in the Land Rover. He is sitting right beside me so I reject the phone call - so of course it immediately rang the rest of the list. 

"Did it go off on the day of the tumble" I ask.

No. And he had been wearing it.

We drive down to the trough and water is pooling around but he is prepared, so we battle with historical stiltzens (I just had a Mandela effect moment when I typed that - you know what I mean don't you?) and the world's largest (& therefore most economically efficient no doubt) shifting spanner to undo the float mechanism from the pipe gushing water, because the trough is fed by the dam which is solar pumped to tanks near the house and then gravity fed back to this trough and so at least 3m drop of several thousand litres of water held only by an inadequate float mechanism. So in this instance not held 

When we removed the mechanism, we found another problem. The kit came with a reducing and an expansion nipple but nothing for through the side of the trough. The old mechanism had it attached somehow but the new one did not. So we had a dilemma (my original discovery of the Mandela effect was due to me being of the number that remembers being taught that was dilemna)

We had to hold this water back while we went into town, got something that would go through the side to join the gushing pipe with the trough mechanism - as there was no tap on the pipe anywhere. Luckily we McGuyvered the new float mechanism and the pipe with some grass and some gravity principles and hared off to town (about 5 km away).

Apparently what we needed was a tank boss. They have been around so long that they assumed that it would have been installed!

So back we went and eventually worked out how to connect the float mechanism WITH FLOAT attached (as the area too short to attach after) so that the off position on one side aligned with the unseen hose attachment requirements on the other of the tank boss - then we realised that the bend we had put in the float arm so it could fit in the area with the float attached at all meant that the cover couldn't be put back on.

When I was a kid and even a visiting adult, my Bull-at-a-Gate father would take the lead role and I would just do what I was told.

Now, I still do what I am told but have to pre-empt a little as, at 85 and with only one good eye, he doesn't bounce as well. My body, however, has had a few decades of air-conditioned office chairs and occasional yoga stretches.

O. M. G.

I was in bed that night at 8.30 because I had found muscle groups that had completely lost my address!

I had spent the afternoon doing a bit of the air-conditioned office chair in hopes of tying up some bureaucracy loose ends but alas thwarted at every turn - including one officious gent who, when being advised we needed to sort something that I had attempted to sort November, was brutal in his demands of authorisation from Dad and then discovered that they had stuffed up in June and never tried to resolve. He promises it will be sorted - next week.

This meant that we had the opportunity, however, to see my beautiful sister.

(I am telling everyone to smile)

It was determined that the short way - The Pinnacle - is far superior in distance but it's detractions are lack of bitumen and low gullies - oh and that whole hills and forest and unfenced road hazards - but it really feels like you are getting there - as opposed to the other way (until the bridge is fixed) - where you go a long way to get back to where you nearly started.

The storms didn't look that bad, we agreed, it doesn't know how to rain properly any more out here. A small discussion on what direction they would come from or go to ensued, and as we were agreeing that they came from the direction where they were and heading in the direction where I was going, it was decided that haste would be my pony and I had best chance it.

The first 20km - until you turn right at Kalpowar - was fine. Brooding sky so sunglasses off but no windscreen wiper activity.

The next 5 - winding on dirt through Lantana and scrub on gravel I heard thunder but luckily no wind.

At the top of the hill, where it opens out into the bald of cleared timber I contemplated stopping to capture the cloud and rainbursts on three sides but time was not on my side.

The rain started in earnest just past the landmark of where Jeanie and the car before the car before this one lost faith with each other- and did not abate until I stopped for fuel 120km later - 80 of those on dirt. I definitely did not speed and luckily was travelling WITH the rain so the creeks were not yet up - and any wind had gone before me.

I had to get home as yesterday was V's 0 number. We did exactly what he wanted for his celebration - a lovely meal at home and no social expectations and bowling and a nice meal tonight with 'Salina. Oh and Paris and I made his requested vanilla cake and buttercream. I found this recipe. I didn't realise that V and Paris had made a special trip for a cheap packet mix until I stumbled upon it in the pantry this morning. Oops.

Gangsterrr in the family

 I was in mind to write you a screed regards my latest rabbit hole, how I am of the opinion that you are more likely to be in some way an associate of a Burgess than to any unit of measurement thrown at you to compare, when, upon spying my intentions I was diverted by 15 year old Paris asking if I had blogged to you about Gangsterrr yet.

I asked if I were allowed and if she had a blog name in mind. "You can call her Gangsterrr and you can tell them that it is her middle name in real life". 

She thought for a bit - "you can tell them that I am the best middle name giver" - and if any of you are in the market for a middle name, she is pretty good at it.

"How is that spelled? (Spelt?) 

"E R R R"

Right.

So Gangsterrr it is.

She has a Burgess associate too - only four degrees of separation there.