Five go driving around Tasmania

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December 1983 if memory serves me right.

We were in boarding school by then. I think that it was the last big holiday before BushBabe's last year of school - or maybe it was a year either way?

Anyway, I was at that rather gangly age where society and I weren't gelling all that well, and my beautiful mother decided she would try to make my awkwardness better by getting a local dressmaker to make me some clothing that would make me feel that much more uncomfortable out and about all over the nation.

It took a full day of driving for us to get to Brissy, where we stayed with the wonderful Grandma Mart.

She met us at the door, cigarette holder in one hand, hat and gardening gloves in the other.

Several times she stressed the importance of booking two taxis to get us to the airport at 5. There were two very good reasons for her not to offer her services.

The first was she had only obtained her licence the decade prior, in her sixties and newly widowed, and coming back from the airport into Brisbane peak hour traffic required a level of insanity it took years of practice to even attempt.

And the second was she didn't do Five AM.

However the taxi telephonist and Dad knew better, so it was at the ungodly hour of five am that we learned what Grandma was trying to save us from.

Whilst the taxi did indeed have five passenger seats, it also had newly converted to LPG per new taxi legislation, which meant that approximately half of his bootspace had been given to the tanks.

For a moment the taxi driver and Dad both believed that they could convince Mum to leave half of the luggage behind rather than look for a better solution.

When we got to Launceston, however, it turned out that the hire car was a sedan. Mum had not had a sedan for years for good reason. She was an awesome packer of cars but preferred to err on the side of more than enough room rather than anything resembling minimalism.

The thing about Launceston is there is so much history involving sinking buildings - PLUS it rained so much that the buildings that we were in felt like they were sinking.

The drive South involved a lot of historic sights, and then Port Arthur (pre-massacre but still gruesome enough) and the arguments regarding the Casino.

Nowhere else had a Casino in the country at the time, so Dad was petitioning Mum for them both to attend, as he didn't want to attend alone. Mum was pulling the "but I am a mother of children and I never could leave them alone" card. BushBabe threw in her offer to accompany Dad and pretend a 3-15 month older.

Again, nobody won.

Rounding the bottom of Tasmania, we drove through amazing forests with strange little timber towns that travellers dare not stop for fear of the locals.

One experience that I will never forget is rounding one corner of those woody hills to the stark nudity of the hills around Queenstown, Tasmania. Due to some fallout from mining - or the industry surrounding it - vegetation had all fled. It was cold and windy and miserable and the car was silent for the Queenstown to Strahan leg of the journey.

The Gordon below Franklin argument had just been had, and even hardened country voters had paid attention to the plight.

All I remember of the cruise that we went on is seeing some more historical sites, relics of man's inhumanity to man.

All I remember of the last leg of our journey was there were poppies - and big signs saying not to stop. I got apple perfume from somewhere.  Oh, and Mum nearly got blown down by the draft of a big truck and someone had snails or spatchcock or something French and fiddly at an overly dark restaurant.

I would say Happy National Chocolate with Almonds day, but

 that was yesterday.

Today is actually State Revolution Day, which I thought must be something to do with Argentina as it's Argentina Independence Day, but apparently something to do with 1932 and the Paulistas and Brazil. I must admit that I am very uneducated about South American history, but I can blurrily trace the lineage of the  monarchy back to Stephen, which has been useful.

It is also NAIDOC week. NAIDOC Week will celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

I find it sad that so many people fear looking frankly at such a situation and instead of thinking "what can we all do together to make it better" the way that they used to, command "Hush. Eyes in front".

I miss having an inquisitive voice. I never realised - or forgot - that I used to be reticent to take anything at face value, but my mother showed me through example the power of seeking understanding without bludgeoning - or being bludgeoned - with doggerel and sneer - or smear.

I digress. I am sorry.

I had a lovely long weekend getaway to the house of a very old friend.  

I got to listen to a curated soundtrack of my - well, in the good old days her seat would have held the navigator, but in this day and age she merely had to choose the right settings on Google maps - so offsider would have to be the term, so my offsider that was interesting.

 I was reminded a little of who I used to be many, many moons ago.

We got to fall in love with a little dog and old cat and ate and drank and shopped (within our very specific limits).

We chose recipes for a dish for a shared feast.

For old times sake, I developed a migraine (hours after boasting of their dearth) and thus thrust the responsibility of dessert on the offsider and old friend.

I got better enough to enjoy a gathering of friends, including six women aged 14 to over 5 times that (although most of us were shy of sixty) (goodness that came quick).

We discovered just how delicious grapefruit can be in this: A Zest For Life - glorious-grapefruit-sherbert-with-three-ingredients-vegan/

I got to have a talk on the phone with my Mum. I am so thankful for modern technology. Dad was preparing for a day afield, and she was manning the fort.

I miss my Mum. Too often she is only the other person in the room when having my morning phone call with Dad, as her mind is easily cloudy these days and he is craving human contact - but this one morning over the weekend she picked up the phone and she was sharp and wisps of the witty woman that she was fluttered in.

Bookending such a lovely weekend was EOFY workloads that can only be understood if you have ever worked in a finance team in the trenches at this time of year.

* I just read about Palau Constitution Day and I am starting to think that the world is being rewritten by AI and/or it is time for me to sleep.

Night All.

June!

 I know that I am stating a known fact when I say "June! What the?"

Because yesterday was February, right? 1992?

Where has the time gone? Blink of an eye, this year - and yet a year ago seems at times a lifetime.

The 36 hours of my weekend were 1/6 driving, 1/9 sleeping, 2/11 on the sidelines in hospital, 1/13 having cups of tea, 1/50 waiting for take away, 1/18 watching the Broncos lose (I lie - they only lost the 2nd half), 1/29 cooking in a hurry, 1/40 on the phone, 1/100 waking up with the sun streaming in as the vestiges of Rage Against The Machine's "killing in the name of" played out (it must have been in my dream as I cannot imagine Macka playing it on Australia All Over which is mandatory Sunday fare at Mum and Dad's).

I also spent about 2/79 sorting through a third of a box of paperwork - letters home from boarding school and later from my siblings and I - and those from their parents to them. Dad has been threatening to dump the box as he is sick of sorting through all the stuff. Mum is no longer in a position to help and we are all so busy.

I am so blessed that I can recognise at a glance whose handwriting is whose. Grandma Jean's curlicues and flourishes, Grandma Mart's "chicken scratch" (she called it) from her years of education in a left-unfriendly system, my sister's precision lines and my brother's bold round writing - and mine.

Mine is where we can be glad that computers were invented.

I also invested five minutes in walking down to the Dr station with the patient and another maybe 3 in him pronouncing her fine to be busted out with no more clues as to what took her there in the first place.

We had waited 20x that length of time waiting for them to do so of their own accord.

Apologies, future medical interaction recipients, but the annoying advocate wanting attention that you may meet was made no longer meek from this.

But I also got at least 50 hugs across the weekend, so that's good.

One of whom sat next to the spouse of someone who has been diagnosed covid.

Then again, the Dr who assessed at both A&E and who we got the release from had a terrible hack from "the dry air" so who knows.

Good thing that it's now endemic, hey?

Detritus

 I, too, fell foul of exactly the same issue as this gent when younger. (Link is to an article titled "I just realized I’ve been misspelling and mispronouncing “detritus” all my life." by Dennis G. Jerz)

Like until about last year.

But I have a far firmer hold onto the detritus of life these days.

Or it on me.

About seven years ago, when working at a small community organisation, I had cause to attempt to document and archive a few rooms for the organisation.

One of the issues facing such small community organisations is that even smaller community organisations have need to dissolve and find a willing resting place in the original small community organisation.

An when they do they leave donations. Some welcome, like currency, and some endured, like histories and files.

Finding the balance between being ruthless and being nostalgic is sometimes difficult in small community organisations.

But sometimes you have to let it drift off with the tide.

It's a bit like being a middle-aged people-pleasing person who receives overtures of friendship from another and, not wanting to appear to be elitist or standoffish, does not firmly say no to overtures of friendship.

One hopes, statistically, that such a response would be the winning option.

But (as I experienced only last weekend) it really only takes one experience of the overturee demanding as price for receipt of this "overture of friendship" that you be available at all times to be the recipient of "overtures of friendship" and if you fail to respond in as alacritius a time as they see fit they react in ways that make you think "hmm, there is something in that  elitist or standoffish option after all."

Finding the balance between being elitist and being friendly is sometimes difficult for  a middle-aged people-pleasing person.

Sometimes the tide is assisted by a deluge. Sometimes white ants.

And sometimes you need to hose.

Once upon a time in Vegas

 One thing that I love about reminiscing about places that I have lived is that I have had many to choose from.

Although I have been in Paradise for the entirety of this blog's life, prior to that I lived in many parts of the Eastern Seaboard of this continent. Mainland only.

The first quarter of my life I lived only two places, but between the post-school era and the pre-Paradise phase, I had over twenty addresses in a decade and a half.

Not long after I returned to Vegas (the fond nickname for the State Capital, as opposed to the Nevada destination)(during the latter stages of that time), I met 'Salina's Dad and not long after that I moved in with him. And during that while I had the most beautiful landlord and landlady couple.

George and Georgina lived down the road and around the corner from the duplex that was their retirement plan.  They lived underneath that house, and their adult son or daughter's family lived upstairs.

Georgina always wanted to feed you something when you arrived. Their flat was a large kitchen/dining/rumpus room. I remember nothing else of it - I suppose it had a bathroom and bedroom, but this huge low room had her command centre in the kitchen corner. 

This was where she could see who was coming and things on the stove (like a rich stew)or in the oven (perhaps kourabiedes) and the grandkids playing or watching television or doing homework. Or the tenants bringing by their rent.

George going down to his patch and then coming back with offerings.

George had a steep backyard, unsuitable for playspace or lawn. But with post-war Greek economic refugee ethic, he carved a staircase and his garden from this slope.  Every piece of exposed earth had purpose, with compost and mulch and a scraggly orchard (a mango in the corner) and at the bottom, a cement blocking rectangle housed hip height beds around three sides and a seat along the middle and a shaded end with a frame and chain link enclosing the whole structure of absolute bounty.