Quite a Month

In the month plus a couple of days since we returned from New Zealand I have endured considerable irritation firstly by 4 days of Thomas the Tank Engine events over two weekends, and four rounds of AFL football some of which I have enjoyed but has frustrated me greatly, twice by my teams inability to press home an advantage when they have worked hard to get into a winning position, and of course the umpiring, which seems to have deteriorated even further, not helped by two strange variations to the rules or interpretation to rucking contests and deliberate out of bounds, which at times seems farcical.

The Thomas Tank thing has caused me to attend three further meetings in the last month, to add to the five I attended since last September before our holiday, relating to Gembrook now being the 'Event Hub' of Puffing Billy. At all of these I have been outspoken in opposition, alas no fruit has come from my efforts, the latest situation being that the newly formed Gembrook Community Voice group is to conduct a survey as to whether residents want all these events, or what changes they would like to the program and management of traffic etc. I wait with bated breath the results of this survey in the hope there will be some data as a result that supports my opposition to this fiasco inflicted on us by the PBRailway Board and the Cardinia Shire Council, without any courtesy or consideration to residents in a disgraceful act of belligerance.

But putting all that aside, and the state of world affairs, which includes the real threat apparently of thermo nuclear war at any moment, cruise missile attacks in Syria following the use of chemical weapons and the mother of all non nuclear bombs dropped in Afghanistan, I have enjoyed some joyful moments.

Firstly, outside our bedroom window is a shallow bird bath on a metal stand under a tree fern. It was designed and made by a friend of mine some twenty years ago, Peter Van Ketchwick, affectionately known in Gembrook as Peter Potter before he moved away more than a decade ago. Peter sold pottery at the Gembrook market and worked from his home 'Sunset' where he was kind enough to let me pick cherry laurel and other foliage from his old garden which was seriously overgrown and weed infested. In return I slashed his grass with my heavycut mower now and again and did some weed removal.

One day Peter showed me one of his innovations, a bird bath stand made by three steel rods of about 5/8 inch twisted together to form a strong upright, and the ends of the rods bent out at the bottom to form a stand. The ends at the top were similarly splayed out to form a platform, with a rim welded to it, for a shallow pottery dish to sit in and serve as a bird bath, elevated from the ground by about 4 feet. I bought one as a Christmas present.for my mother in law Molly who lived in Wangaratta.

Molly loved it, and for many years she watched small birds in her front garden sustaining themselves in her bird bath, through her loungeroom window, or sitting on her front porch. When Molly died some five years ago the family tripped to Wangaratta to move all the stuff from her recently sold house and the birdbath that brought Molly so much pleasure found its way back to Gembrook.

I was taking Lib breakfast in bed a week or so ago and I noticed the thornbills, which we see often, flitting about outside the window and taking it in turns to have a plunge and splash. Others commonly seen are the grey fantail and eastern spinebill, the dish being probably too shallow for the larger birds.This day I noticed other birds, similar in size and colour to the thornbills, but with noticably red feathers about the face. There was a colony of them, maybe a dozen or more, and I can only conclude from reference to bird books, that they were red browed finches. Some years ago I was picking in the garden and a large number of them came by quite close to me and that time I concluded they were red browed finches so I'm thinking that was what these were the other day, although the red on their faces seemed to be more on their chins than their foreheads. Mind you I didn't have my glasses on.

Another joy was having my 65th birthday. It was always a target I hoped I'd reach. Not that I'm retiring, but throughout my life I always wondered if I'd make that milestone and it's nice that I have. My niece Annie had her 40th birthday the day before and her daughters Ella and Evie turned 12 and 10 shortly after.

The other thing that brings me joy every day is being surrounded by trees. I stand on our deck in the morning and look out at a vista of shades of green and autumn colour in all manner of subtle shapes. Trees are a tonic to my mind and spirit, and memories of their beauty on our recent holiday in New Zealand flood back to me in my quiet meditation, leaving me in an almost hypnotized trance of peace.