Sunday, January 12, 2025

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.

Me, Mum, Dad, Bush Babe of Oz

(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.

Saturday, January 04, 2025

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.



Sunday, December 22, 2024

First Marriage in the good old days

(This is the story of my great-grandmother's marriage prior to her marriage to my great-grandfather)

In late 1896 19yo JW married 20yo Janet and they lived with her parents (& several teenage siblings) - and 5 months later Lexy (Jean Alexandra) was born. 


 They moved several times, the majority of which involves living in the homes of relatives, her having the next 2 - James Alexander and George Herbert - in the next 3 years. 

 There is a gap of nearly 3 years between these and the next girl - Mina (#1), during which time she had to take the children to Sydney from  Far North Queensland for medical reasons. 

(The story I got in childhood was that she had left him to get treatment for Mina and one of the brother's polio, and he sued her for desertion but the truth is far more terrible.)

He stayed in FNQ while this was going on, and when she and the 4 children return he sent her first to the home of her mother-in-law's and then to his unmarried brother's pub to help run it. 
 
He sent irregular payments (but she could go to any shop in Cairns he advised) for her to look after 4 children under 7. She eventually contacted him from a completely different town asking him to send money so she could see him.

They haven't seen each other for about 10 months and she has appeared - 7 months pregnant.  

My take? I do not think that this was a love affair but yet another bad mistake for whatever reason that this poor young woman has made - or has had made for her.

She offers to go away and look after the children and him to send enough money and he agrees and indeed does - once or twice - until his lawyers advised him not to.

In the interim she has baby 5 - Jack - whose paternity on paper is JW but in soon to follow court room evidence is revealed to likely be his uncle's son.

When brought to the court - seemingly against her own wishes - all of this is laid out for the world to see. Her desperation, her fertility, her plight - her guilt, and possibly additional guilt in the shape of her body and another son born to adoption. 

She asks for nothing. She just wants this whole nightmare to be exorcised from reality. She is a broken woman.

It is 1906. Less than 10 years have passed.

(#1) I actually met Mina when I was a young child. In 1975 or 76, my mother put her mother, me and my toddler baby brother in a station wagon and we drove for days to the top of Queensland to meet her. She walked with crutches as she had polio as a young girl. She hadn't seen my grandmother - her baby half -sister - for over 60 years.

Saturday, November 16, 2024

Powertry

 I did something unusual (for me) (of late) last night.

Well, being out at night was the first bit of unusual - we will check PASSED against the "being able to drive at night" checkbox for our post cataract operation checkbox.

And even though it WAS our anniversary - the traditional gift for sixteen years (I know, that is a BIG number) is apparently NOTHING because its no longer special - V did give me the gift of going out without him last night.

Last night I went to our beautiful little local(ish) bookshop that has some lovely community events.  One is the Book Club that I am part of and meets the last Sunday of the month - and another is the Budding Poets Society.

This image was advertising last night's poetry, not of last night's poetry.  A picture of the organiser and a few enthusiasts in the bookshop.

I used to HAUNT poetry nights.  Back in the day - the day was very, VERY long ago (last century) - I could be found at a poetry afternoon or night or two per week.  In Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane I spent many an hour listening to poets speak their (and occasionally other) words and spoke a few myself. 

Younger me even went to FESTIVALS to listen and speak.

But children - and work and life - came along and the muse took a nap.  I drive a mean spreadsheet and my macros could be called poetry, but my spare time is sparse and bereft of inspirational sparks.  And even were there sparks, the light and energy to capture them is so fleeting that I stopped seeking them out.

So last night, I ventured out.  'Salina is a regular at this event.  She does not write poetry (yet) (she does wield a mean journal though) but has read one of mine there before (The second one in this post - I had forgotten I even went to the workshop!)

The little space was fairly full - probably up to about 20 people - and some beautiful new words being trotted out.

I only have my old work to lean on.  'Salina did "My Addiction" - a poem that used to be one of my standards and a bit of a party piece (oh, my wild days of youth when I knew how to party!!)   

'Salina didn't grow up with her mother dragging her to poetry dives, and so didn't grow up with me reciting this and other things around her, so it was a clean palate that the poem landed on, and she did it justice - and hearing a poem that I know so intimately read with another's interpretation was refreshing.

Everyone got to read up to 2-3 poems, and there was a list for people to put their names down - pre- and post- intermission.  Intermission was nibblies in the room we normally use for the Book Club.

On the list was was a grizzled older poet who had a full life a tales; a (very-nearly) former English teacher; a woman retrospective about life turns; someone who asked for divine guidance in a library to guide her to a book of poems (she found an absolute beauty by a refugee); a man whose health issues have forced symbiosis with poetry; a first-time reader with a lovely snapshot of a relationship end; a lady reading some classic Australian poetry; a woman who interwove some classics with her own.

I read "Drought Breaking" and "The Spinster Song" before intermission, and "Powertry", "Ode to the Dishwasher" and "Fanta Boys" after.

It was fun.

Who knows.  I might even write again.

Thursday, October 24, 2024

Thursday in the Key of B Major

 I really think that this wind should blow off to next week.

It's been days since the wind began. It just tuned up Sunday, foxing a pleasant breeze and promises of a paradisical day.


Monday it added raspberries, a soft jazz riff and a hint of cowbell.

Tuesday it turned up the wail and added wah-wah to the mix.

But I didn't mind. I was ensconced in air-conditioned rooms at a workshop for work.



Wednesday the upper layer of the planetary husk started lifting, and a Beethovenic manoeuvre by the local big smoke's Puffing Billy (we are imagining the puff in this electronic era) (and the Billy is really a misnomer too - it is called creative licence) by the local big smoke's Puffing Billy's rail signal network deciding "nah, stuff it, Red it is. We THINK that there might be a train." Right at the crescendo of the peak hour symphony.

The last movement. Today. A westerly came in with Dad to see what all of the fuss was about. It whipped up and down the boulevards of the local big smoke, snaking shortcuts through the coffee shop we dined at. The reverberations rumbled as we manoeuvred bureaucratic bundles and toe curling action.

 Then Dad headed back, his guidance was the ever blackening sky an. 

Lightening and thunder and waves of squalls werr our dinner music and then the rain steadied for a few beats...

Whoops in the Nor-Westerly, swinging the woodwind section in and the house now thrums with piccolo.


Finale.