Where Have 45 Years Gone?

I drove back from Lakes Entrance today, by myself, listening to CDs, and sucking on a new Life Saver every thirty km. That's my tactic to stay awake when driving a distance. It gives me some focus on the odometer as I make the Life Saver last as long as I can, so that there's less k's to wait till I can have a new one.

I went down to Lakes on Thursday evening after a busy day working. I was by myself because Lib and Gord went down on Tuesday. I listened to a 'Gordon Lightfoot Live' CD on my way down for starters, followed by Anne Murray, singers who go back to the late sixties and my adolescence, and whose songs evoke such powerful memories when I have some solitude and the time to listen, two blessings that I rarely have in recent memory.

It was 'If You Could Read My Mind' that kicked me off into a weekend of nostalgia and overview of my life. A self indulgence? Yes. But it was like an uncontrollable force that took hold of me and held me captive right till this very moment, and will stay during the coming night I'm sure, alone again as I am. It will take the urgency of Monday work and responsibility to snap me out of it I think.

My mate Rickyralph and I broke the chains of our conservative middle class family and educational institution and sought adventure, driven by adolescent romantic love we did not understand, having fallen in love with the sisters Morton, and rebellion against the nutty constraints, rituals and prejudices of the society of the time. We could not conform to the expectations of us. We sought excitement and experiment, and found trouble without meaning to. It was a turbulent time we were both lucky to survive. Popular music was big at the time and our generation tapped into it as an expression of awakening and freedom. There would be dozens of songs from the time that could spark such feelings in me, but 'If You Could Read My Mind' would be right up there.

Anne Murray had a hit song around the same time, 'Snowbird', which was not a favourite then, but after buying a number of her LP's in the late 1970's and becoming a big fan around the time I met and married Lib, when I hear 'Snowbird' now it takes me right back. And the fact that we lost our little 'Snowie', whom I often referred to as 'Snowbird', recently, no doubt added to the emotions that flooded me. Anne Murray's 'Highly Prized Possession' gives me goosebumps still.

I left home at 4.30pm, and after 3 and a quarter hours driving/think time remembering girls I loved, now ladies I still love, despite not having seen them for decades and probably never again, arrived at Lakes for dinner of lamb and salad wraps. I thought of friends whom I rarely see but will remain friends forever, and several who have passed on, some well into old age, others far too young. My father, Lib's parents, my friends' parents, most of whom have gone. I thought of football teams, teammates, the great fun I had at Ormond Cof C with a special bunch of people, and again at Greta after a break of five years while I pursued beekeeping.

I first went to the Lakes house on Feb 1 1981, the first day of our honeymoon after the wedding the previous day. We went there with our babies, our children, our friends, we have been going there every year since. All of these memories flooded me for three days. We went for a walk to Lake Bunga on Saturday morning. I have never seen the trees and shrubs and birds looking so beautiful... multiple shades of green and flowers of yellow white and pink on wattle, clematis and aristides?, and pea flower and craggy old banksia stumps with amazing bark and shape. We cut the grass and did house maintenance, all joy and pleasure not work. I could hear the sea in the background, a profound sound that did nothing but enhance my mood.

On the drive home I listened Simon and Garfunkel who continued the spell over me. The herds of cattle looked fantastic on the back road. The grass has never seemed so lush. The red gum trees and yellow box warmed my heart and along with the flowering red box and roadside capeweed made me think of my fortunate involvement with beekeeping and the many wonderful people from that part of my life. I cannot recall enjoying driving so much. It's great to be moving through the countryside seeing so much beauty and forgetting all the nutter stuff of politics and war and propaganda and elections.

Forty five years have passed so quickly. When I was 17, I wondered what it'd be like to be old, there's a line in S+G's Bookends.."How strange is to be seventy". I'm not all that far off finding out first hand. I always thought it'd be great to have a whole lifetime to look back over. Let's hope I keep my mental faculties so that I can.

Good Luck

Lib was helping me pick bunches of forget me not flowers in Gembrook Bushland Park the other day as she is on holidays.There was a crimson rosella chatting away and feeding happily on the flowers of a pittosporum bicolor as I worked underneath. Then the unmistakable splat on my head came and Lib said "What's up," in answer to my muffled expletive.

"A rosella dropped a big one on my head."

"Oh," Lib replied, That means good luck."

A little while later I heard a cry of anguish from Lib, and an expletive."What happened," I courteously inquired.

"I walked into a branch while bending over picking, it went straight into the sore on my head."

"That means good luck," I said.

I thought of this today while I was picking there, on my own this time as Lib has gone to Lakes for a few days. On the way back I called at the PO to collect our mail and there was a lovely card from a friend in Melbourne for whom Gord and I did a gardening favour a few weeks ago. As well as some kind words of gratitude there was a couple of Tattslotto tickets for next Saturday's superdraw so I hope there is some good luck in the wind.

Vale Snowie

Our little Snowie was killed on Sat 6 Sep by one of a neighbour's great danes/cross? She was thirteen and a half years old and had a wonderful life. She's the third dog we have buried in our garden over the 33 years we have lived here, and another, Pip Mk2, a blue heeler German pointer cross, simply disappeared one night at 14 years old and was never seen again. She must have gone off to die, knowing her time was up. She was arthritic and incontinent and I was almost to the point of taking her to the vet for our final goodbye, instead waiting as she was still enjoying her food and basking in the unseasonable sunny August days. But the nights were cold with heavy frosts and it was on the third of these in a row that she took off.

That would have been 2003 which I know because we got Snow in October in 2001, on Robbie's 14th birthday. We did this because Pip was twelve tears old and looking like she was nearing the end of her life and we were concerned that losing her would be a body blow to the boys who had grown up with her as a rock solid reliable companion. I saw an ad for JR /Japanese Spitz cross pups in the supermarket window and she was six months old when we picked chose Snow, the runt of the litter, and brought her home.

Snow settled in instantly and got on great guns with old Pip, who became rejuvenated. It added some valuable time to Pip's life I'm sure. After Pip disappeared we were a one dog family until Lib brought Pip Mk3 home as an eight week old pup on the 2nd August 2007 ( That's a good thing about blogging, you can go back and check things like I just did).

The two little dogs have been very much a part of our lives since. Snowie was never any trouble other than going AWOL a couple of times during severe thunderstorms when we weren't home, both times she was taken in by kind hearted people who cared for her till they could locate us. She was an outside dog, she didn't ever really want to be inside (except during thunder storms or on fire cracker nights or when shooters were discharging shotguns fairly close to our house).

She was a free spirit who stayed close to the house but did take a little walk in the street most days, harmlessly. In later years she took to visiting our friends Steve and Ann across the road regularly, a habit which contributed to her demise. Steve and Ann moved out last January and the new owners have two massive dogs which are usually confined in their back yard. On the fateful day last Saturday week these dogs were with their owner in the front yard when Snowie wandered in. The large dog grabbed her before the owner had realized what was happening. I was out. When I came home there was a note on my front door to ring my neighbour's mobile. They had had to go out but he told me the bad news and I went and collected Snow who was in a cardboard box at the top of their drive. We gave her a ceremonial burial in a beautiful place in our garden and I'm forever grateful that we were blessed with Snow as a family member for 13 years.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

My GP, not happy with my blood test results after many months of treatment with prednisilone for the polymyalgia, referred me to a specialist some weeks ago. I fronted a few weeks ago and he increased my medication which gave me some relief and new energy and I returned for a second appt yesterday afternoon, after having more blood tests on Monday in preparation.

He had no hesitation telling me yesterday that the tests show I have rheumatoid arthritis. He prescribed another drug, methotrexate, which takes 6 weeks to kick in so he left me on the prednisilone also for the time being. Apparently the methotrexate has less side effects long term than the prednisilone, and may not have any if I'm lucky. It can damage the liver and I'm advised to have only light alcohol intake.

I have not yet had time to research all this properly yet and so I don't know how I will be affected into the future. RA can be aggressive with rapid degeneration of joints and muscle tissue causing severe cripplecreek, or it can be mild and go into remission and flare up here and there. I don't think I have much choice but to follow the medical advise and hope that early intervention will prevent serious deterioration, as I'm told can be so. Nobody can be sure where we end up from here, especially in the longer term. I'm on the way down it seems but aren't we all really, it's just a case of when.

I'm not complaining, there are people given terminal diagnosis every day for all manner of cancers, I'm fit and well except for some pain and some lack of agility which is manageable.

My next appt with specialist is in six weeks - I promise not to talk of this till then, it bores me witless so it must you too and I would like to write about other things. I have been very busy as usual but have managed to gather enough firewood for next winter already as well as catch up on some pruning and tidy up. So much more yet to do and no doubt I'll always be very busy until I have a radical change of circumstances which could happen within months or may not for a few years. We just have to see how we go, there are many considerations.