Jod's Friend Hector

On this Labour Day holiday today Jod's old friend Eric Neil from Syndal tech days of the early-mid 1960's visited him at the farm. I spent a half hour or so talking to them both about days gone by and about Eric's family. Eric has a twin brother Don who lives in Perth and some years ago Jod went over and stayed with him for a week or so.

I had only vague recollection of Don and Eric who are identical in appearance, but I remembered them being at our house in Mt. Waverley. They had an older sister Nanette whom I never met but Jod reminded me last week when talking about Eric's visit that he had a crush on her way back then and carved her name into his forearm with a knife. Jod, Don and Eric were a couple of years older than me. Don was the quieter of the two apparently and a brilliant wood carver and makes walking sticks and knives and many other things. There was a younger brother, Les, but I don't think I ever met him, and another sister, and an older brother Perry whom I met a few years ago when he visited Jod. Eric still works as a chippy as he has all his working life and for a long time has worked at the Hazlewood power station. All the Neils were creative and talented, and could do anything with their hands, according to Jod.

Jod and Eric today

I was glad I took the time to talk to Eric, he had many good stories and it occurs to me that last 50 plus years of the Neil family would make very interesting reading as a social history record of recent Australian history . Not that I will get far into it here but just a snippet will explain somewhat my point.

So there were six kids in the family. They lived at Notting Hill and their house was surrounded by paddocks. Their father was of Scottish origin and a commercial painter by trade. He was a heavy drinker Jod says. He would take two big full size cans of Fosters with him to work wrapped in newspaper and have one at morning tea time and the other at lunch. Around afternoon smoko he'd say he was going to look at a job, but go to the pub. Don and Eric were with him one time and before morning smoko, Eric, who was the prankster of the twins, took his beer cans out of the bag and sat them in in the hot sun for a while then shook them vigourously before wrapping them again in newspaper and put them back. You can imagine what happened when he opened the first can, then the second, and he went nuts.

 Older brother Perry went to Vietnam, as a conscripted soldier in one of the early intakes. He was seriously wounded when his company was ambushed. They thought they were setting up an ambush on the basis of intelligence, but in fact it was a trap. Eric said that Perry remembered seeing a Vietnamese hurrying across a field with a rocket launcher on his shoulder. He took a shot at him and thought he got him but at almost the same time an explosion sent him flying as a rocket went off close by. A piece of shrapnel passed through his midriff and came out his back and also left his penis dangling by threads. He remembered being loaded onto a helicopter on a stretcher and seeing one of his mates also come on board but with two hands holding his guts from falling out completely, and with a lot of dirt and sticks adhering to the whole mess. Perry was patched up and his penis sowed back on properly in hospital where he was for a long time and amazingly survived. He was told he'd never walk again and would probably not survive more than five years. He was in a wheelchair and constantly dosed up on painkillers, for years I think.

I don't know how it came to be but Perry somehow got off the drugs and out of the wheelchair and fathered two children and is alive and quite well today. The ambush killed 16 Australians and wounded 32 and Eric said it was reported in the Melbourne press on Labour Day in a tiny article on page 3, while the front page had pictures of the King and Queen of Moomba. It was Australia's second largest Australian engagement in Vietnam he said, Lon Tan the largest. He said it was the Coral battle or something I didn't quite catch, but I have not checked it to be accurate with the name.

Don joined the army after leaving school and spent 9 years as an army cook and also went to Vietnam. Eric said he was also in hospital there, with blokes in beds around him who had their hand/s blown off of or arm/s or leg/s, or other horrific injuries, and when they asked how he was injured he felt a bit bad saying "cutting onion rings", but in the tropical conditions a cut would blow up quickly if not treated properly and infection could lead to the loss of limb or partial. In later years Don worked as a cook for mining companies. He married and raised a family but his wife died recently from cancer. Eric married and still is and has grand kids.

Jod and Eric 50 plus years ago 

Nanette married twice and spent years working in the Mt Argyle mines in WA. She didn't have children and lives with her sister who never married, in Oakleigh I think. Not long after the Syndal tech days the family moved to Korumburra.  Brother Les was a mechanic and now lives in SA, at Hawker Jod thinks.

While I was in Jod's little house at the farm I couldn't help taking a shot of this pic on his wall of him and Chad Morgan of many years ago, probably early 1970's.

We are very lucky to have survived so many decades and have so much to look back over, good and bad, mad and sad. Old friends are a great thing to have.

The Waning Summer

It was a cool day today, almost too cool, with a misty light drizzle for most of the morning. This follows several mild days and a decent shower of rain the other night, hardly enough to register in the gauge but cooling yes, and envigourating to the garden. Last week we had mild overcast mornings, as still as can be, followed by warm and sunny balmy afternoons that had me looking for shade.

For all money, it looks and feels like autumn has come early, although there's some hot weather forecast for early next week. For sure March can be stinking hot, but it does seem unlikely now.

I had a rheumatologist appointment on Monday. It went as I expected. My blood tests showed inflammation levels were still up. It appears the combination of methotrexate and sulphasalazine is not working so he wants me to go on another drug soon, Abatacept, a biological DMARD. I am to get more blood tests next week, (for an extra raft of screening that must be done before I can go on it) and then see him again on March 7 with the anticipation of then taking the Abatacept, with the methotrexate still, and dropping the sulphur one. The Abatacept can be taken a variety of ways but he said probably best for me is to self inject once a week.

I have not taken prednisolone since October. I know if I take this I can function freely without much pain but the side effects of long term use are a serious risk and I was on it for nearly two years, long enough for me to rest my mind and get off it unless I'm desperate. I was taking therapeutic doses of Panadol Osteo daily for some weeks which helped but I have backed right off that too to give my system a break. I pop a couple of Paracetomol+Codeine at night and a couple of Panadol Rapid in the morning, trying to limit to 4 tabs a day in total which does take the edge off it, with some days when I take nothing at all. I'm OK, still able to do most things but more slowly and carefully. My blood test readings of last week showing the inflammation was no surprise because my pain barometer told me it was so.

This medical stuff weighs down the mind, but I have to say my enjoyment of life is high. With the detraction of less than perfect physical health comes a greater appreciation of all I'm grateful for, and it seems, enhanced receptors for the beauty around me. On Monday on my way back from the specialist I happened to look to my right into the houses on the hill east of Stud Rd as I went down the hill towards the creek, on Heatherton Road, to see a magnificent Atlantic Cedar boldly dominating the scene. I had never noticed this tree before, not surprisingly, as one is usually focused on driving in traffic. It was majestic in shape and size and admirable for its soft blue colouring. It literally made my day and I will watch for it every time I go to Dandenong.

On Tuesday I had a meeting to attend in the museum late in the day and went for a stroll afterwards to let Pip have a walk as she had been in the car while I was in meeting. In a row of golden maples that we planted some years ago, I was happy to see that one that had struggled for three or four years (when planting it the dirt fell off the root ball when we cut the bag off, on an unusually hot September day, and the tree was shooting), had come good, and was catching up the trees either side of it in the row. This was enormously heartwarming to me.

The big tree in the row was there already when we planted the others to make a row. Adjacent is a row, right of photo, is a row of red maples, planted above Gus Ryberg's memorial tree at the same time as the golden maples, also to make a row. Imagine the magnificent autumn colour when these trees reach maturity in the years ahead.

Well It Was a Good Day

Yes. A good day.

I took Lib some breakfast in bed- juice and peppermint tea with vitamins before toast and black tea- before I had to dash at 9.30am to open the museum for a bus group of seniors that was coming at 9.45am.

I was 2 minutes late. And there were three other people there to open the museum so I was a little pissed about that. They came at 10am, the 9.45 was a ruse to make sure we were there. There was no reason for me to be there at all, when I was under the understanding that there was no one to do it but me.

The bus group were good. They could not get the bus past the arch, as the go around was restricted by two limbs on the red oak. The bus was a very big high bastard. The patrons had morning tea where they could go no further and then walked down to the museum.

They left at about 12 midday. I dashed to Shirley's to cut some grass. Shirley died just before Christmas, pancreatic cancer. I'm still looking after the place for her daughters as they are preparing to sell the property, just starting now.

I was back at the museum at 1.30pm as I was on roster duty. Beryl and her grandson James were also there. Beryl is an English lady by descent, in her eighties, who goes to the museum every Sunday and shares duty with whoever is on roster. I could write a lot about Beryl. I did a Signpost article on her once, if I can find it I will copy it here.

                                                           TAKE OPPORTUNITIES

“I’ve used one of them,” Beryl Bartacek said to me once in the Emerald museum.  She was talking about a farm implement I can best describe as a scoop, pulled behind a horse for moving soil. She explained her first job on leaving school was on a farm.

Beryl was born in March 1929 in London. Her family moved to Hornchurch Essex where Beryl spent her childhood and attended the junior girl’s school.

She remembers bomb shelters being built in the school grounds during the war. Until they were finished the kids came to school for half a day then were sent home for the other half with homework to do. Hornchurch was between London and the coast and a large aerodrome right next door was often a bomb target.

Beryl and her friends watched dogfights above during the Battle of Britain. With the airfield so close most of the boys, including her two older brothers and the boys across the road, wanted to be fliers. They survived the war, but the other end of the street did not fare as well and many sons were lost. Everybody hoped the telegram man didn’t stop at their house, knowing what it would mean.

Beryl wanted to attend agricultural college and needed do a year’s full time work on a farm first. Her father, who worked for a wholesale fruit and veg firm at Covent Garden, had farmer contacts and in 1946 Beryl moved to Suffolk to a large mixed farm which grew many grain and vegetable crops including potatoes, sugar beet and kale. There were 1000 black faced Suffolk sheep, pigs, and milking cows. There were three tractors that did the heaviest ploughing; other work was done by draught horses of which there were fourteen in work and three stallions. Beryl worked in all areas of the farm progressing to working a team of three horses harrowing.

The manager of the farm was an Englishman who’d moved to Australia and married an Australian girl. Just before WW2 he’d gone home to England for a holiday with his bride but was caught out by the war and couldn’t return. His stories gave Beryl a desire to one day travel to Australia.

Much to her disappointment Beryl could not gain a place at agricultural college, preference being given to returned servicemen. At her mother’s insistence she left the farm and started work as a bookkeeper for a Swedish import firm. She enjoyed this and often lunched by the Tower Bridge. London still had plenty of vacant land after the WW2 bombing.

One day on a bus going past a school she looked into a classroom at the kids and was moved to say to herself, “That’s what I’d like to do.”

She enrolled at teacher’s college and after two years of hard work, most days being from 9.00am to 7.30pm., she qualified as a teacher and worked in new estates where the schools were crowded and class sizes large.

At the end of 1954 she boarded a ship and alighted in West Australia. She went to the Education Department in Perth telling them she was a qualified teacher looking for work. She was posted for six months to Pengilly in the south west wheat belt, then to Roebourne near Karratha in the north, teaching indigenous children of all ages who’d had little schooling.

Roebourne had three shops and a pub, where Beryl stayed as there was no alternative. Texas oil men with their rigs parked in the street were fellow guests. ‘’They were rowdy and hard to like.” She received an allowance for her accommodation and saved all her wages as there was nothing to spend it on.

At the end of the year, cashed up and keen to see more of Australia, she caught the Trans Australia train from Perth to Adelaide, then Pioneer bus to Melbourne and Sydney. She met future husband Karel on a visit to the Tooronga zoo. He had been working in Tasmania for 8 years after coming to Australia from Czechoslovakia as a displaced person.

On to Brisbane, then Mackay, where she walked into the hospital and said she was looking for work. They gave her a uniform and she became a nurse for some months. It was then another bus to Mt Isa, Tennant Creek, and Darwin, then Alice Springs, back to Adelaide, and to Tasmania to visit Karel.

Now out of money but still with a return ticket she left for England before returning to Tasmania in1958 when she and Karel married. Karel worked at a newsprint mill and Beryl worked as a teacher. They moved to Melbourne in 1965 with their three daughters, living in South Oakleigh before coming to Emerald in 1993 where they enjoyed retirement and made valuable contribution to the Emerald Museum.

After a recent interval which saw the passing of Karel and Beryl undergoing hip replacement, she has rejoined the museum committee with typical enthusiasm.

“I’m fortunate that my Christian faith has held me in good stead.” Her advice to young people, including her seven grandchildren, is “to take opportunities as they come, and follow through. Things work out.”

So i have a long standing relationship with Beryl. After an hour or so of chat wit Beryl and James I went out and pruned a couple of of fruit trees. I have been going through the little orchard there pruning in my spare time as the council failed to do it in the winter.

We had a lovely roast beef for dinner and I'm now well and truly ready for the sack.

 Good night.

Sensational Rain

There was talk of rain. It started with thunderstorms Thursday afternoon, a few splashes but really nothing to speak of at first. Then during the night a calm descended and light rain came with it and persisted. By Friday morning it was continuous. I looked out the bedroom window at my cuttings of daphnes, viburnums, lemon myrtles, stephanadra, rosemary and lavender in boxes and pots with great joy in my love of mother nature. How great thou art.

I just went outside in the gummies with a torch and checked the rain guage. 64 ml. Sensational.

On Wednesday i picked 40 bunches of variegated pittosporum and came across a little birds nest. An old one now disused. Jod picked up my bunches on the quad bike and I showed him the nest asking him what bird made it. Silvereye he said quick as a flash. It was made of horsehair.

Gord holding the nest

Jod with the bike

Lunch with Cousin Bruce

I had lunch with cousin Bruce Wilson today at the Wheeler's hill pub. Just the two of us. It was originally suggested by Bruce that Meredith and Roger and Lib and I and Bruce's wife Jill should get together for lunch soon, as we did last year. As it turned out I said I would be in Melbourne today to pick up Gordon in the afternoon after his week in the Gold Coast so lunch would be convenient. The others couldn't make it but Bruce took me up on it.

I'm glad that it was only Bruce and myself. We could focus on our own conversation and we talked of many things. Besides having common grandparents on mum's side we had a number of connections obviously- we have known each other most of our lives despite minimal contact and we have shared the same part of history, being born in 1948 and me in 1952. Bruce was called up for National Service and served in Vietnam, and I was called up for NS also but this after Australia's decision to withdraw and I did not complete my service due to the change in politics well known by most.

Bruce is proud of his service in the Australian Army which I can well understand. We exchanged stories of our experience at recruit training at Puckapunyal and of the general intrusion into our lives of being conscripted, right down to our fears and trauma in the lead up and induction into the strange world of the military. I can understand why Bruce is proud and retains many friendships with those he served with and is active with his unit's reunions. I have none of that, not being in long enough, although I do have good memories of the people in my hut. I'm glad it happened.

Bruce is a great traveler. He and Jill have been just about everywhere. He was most interested in our recent trip to Europe and I very much enjoyed talking about it. In fact I talked and talked about so many things and it was so good to have someone interested in all that I said. And I loved his stories too. Army recollections, how he met Jill, thoughts about his parents, our grandparents, and most of all probably talk about plants and gardening.

A very nice day it was for me. Life is good.




 

Trust

Trust. A strong word.

Who do I trust? My wife yes, or we would not have been married for 35 years. My friends yes, or they would not be my friends. My family yes, with knowledge and understanding of their frailty.

It stops about there. I have lost trust in my nation, government ( federal state and local), and bureaucracy, including the police.

Where did this start, this loss of trust? Probably with my call up for National Service in 1972, although I didn't know it then. I was 20 years old, proud and passionate to serve my country as a soldier, in the aftermath of huge public disenchantment with Australia's involvement in Vietnam. In my blind ignorance I followed the path laid out for me in folklore by the ANZAC myth with pride and exuberance.

I have lived my life within the norms of society. I did all the things ingrained into me in my childhood and education. I finished school and found employment, married, took a mortgage and bought property, raised a family. All this I did without really thinking, in the trust and good faith that all I was doing was righteous and worthy in a civilized society.

So why is that now I'm lacking in trust? Well it took me a decade or so to realize that I had been totally duped about Vietnam and that crap. What a joke on me? The naysayers  were right. I was wrong. Vietnam was a total farce and my nation should be ashamed by its involvement. But we have not learned. We have been involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which really have nothing to do with us and I am shamed and angered.

I pay a small fortune in private health insurance. It is set up so that it comes out of my bank account in a monthly payment direct debit, thousands of dollars in a year. Somehow or other another company got onto me and offered me more benefit at a lower price. Of course I took the bait. Within days the original company was in contact, offering a better deal so I switched back. This is not a new thing, it has happened with electricity supply and telephone service and it makes me the consumer aware that if you are not on the ball you are getting ripped off. The cost of these things goes up above the CPI every year and if you don't shop a around and threaten to leave your existing company you are gouged. And my council rates go up well above the CPI every year for the last decade and there's no shopping around with this, you just have to cop it sweet.

I am constantly harassed by the media about terrorism, the ice epidemic, pedophilia in the church, wife bashing and murder, yet all I see is police with speed cameras and radar guns trying to catch me a few k's over the limit. I see bush fires yet nobody does anything about reducing the risk, I mean by that the removal of fire hazardous vegetation or the prevention of building 'in the bush'.

I could go on and on. I'm pissed right off. I have no trust in government. It is a self serving con job acting in self interest, with no regard for the good of community and people, beyond a facade of bullshit.

Yes, sadly, I have lost trust.

A Week on Crete (7)

I need to finish this for my own peace of mind, although it is well and truly old news by now.Our last full day on Crete was Saturday. We planned not to travel far so as to rest up so we decided to go shopping in the tourist strip at Amoudra beach near Ghazi in the morning, as Lib wanted to buy a few clothes and souvenirs to take home, and lunch again at Liguria Beach where we had enjoyed ourselves so much previously.

It was an overcast day, warm with the odd brief light rain shower. It was quite a tourist area where we parked the car with resort buildings and apartment blocks and all manner of shops restaurants and bars. Lib shopped while I walked up and down the street with one eye on the car to ensure we didn't get booked. There were 'No Parking' signs along the side where I parked but these seemed to be ignored by one and all. A shopkeeper told me we would be OK there, the parking rules were not enforced, but if we had been in Heraklion proper they would have been all over us quickly.

It was a pleasant couple of hours we spent there. You do get the feel of a place by shopping and talking to the shop owners. Those we talked to spoke reasonable English and more than one had relatives in Australia and knew that smoking in public places was not permitted there, which they said would be very hard for them. So many Greek people smoked cigarettes it was alarming. One said she knew the standard of living was higher in Australia and people were wealthier. I guess that has been the attraction for so many Greek people to have migrated.

We walked down to Amoudra beach which was almost deserted. The vacant block we walked through was strewn with litter. When looking out to sea and back to the shore and hills I pictured in my mind the scene in 1941 at the Battle Crete with the sky thick with German paratroopers and gliders, and the dug in Brits shooting them from defensive posts. This was a mental image I carried for the whole week in Crete - German fighter bombers strafing with their air superiority and the allies defending grimly and bravely, taking huge toll on the paratroop divisions but facing inevitable defeat without support from aircraft.

We spent a couple of hours at a restaurant at Liguria beach for a good lunch. It was my intention to listen to the footy Nth Melbourne West Coast Prelim final on my smart phone but I couldn't get it to work. We had picked up to 3AW before through an app Rob put on my phone, but it wouldn't work for the match, I think I would have had to buy something from the AFL so that it was available. While we were there there was a big gathering of Greek people at nearby tables I think preparing for a function that night at the restaurant. The men were large with big bellies and chain smoked and drank beer after beer. The women also smoked. They were a garrulous and happy group.

We returned to our villa about 20 minutes away and went for a walk down many steps to the 'river' which was a small creek really. We met a young pommie bloke who asked us for directions to Estate Kares. We learned later at dinner that he was a dentist on holiday. He had walked from Gazi. This trip to Crete was supposed to be with his girlfriend but they had had a blue and she refused to go. Having paid for it he came by himself. He was well traveled having been to Peru  and the US and worked in New Zealand for a year which is why he didn't have a hire car, he had bingled one there and the financial result was terrible so he no longer hired cars and caught buses trains and walked wherever he went. He was only 26.

We rang Gord to learn West Coast had beaten North and he also told us Hawthorn had beaten Fremantle the night before.

Georgie our new friend who worked at the villa cooked up a mousaka from her mothers recipe for dinner. We didn't cook for ourselves that last night as we were leaving at 6am to get to the airport early as we had a flight to Athens at 7.30am. We washed down the mousaka and icecream with a bottle of the good wine we had bought at Gazi and some house red to boot. We settled our account with Emmanuel (two dinners two breakfasts and some cold beer here and there) and packed up before going to bed. All we had to do in the morning was get dressed and load the car.

It was a relief to get the car back to the airport with no damage and make our way into the terminal. The good thing about an early get away on a Sunday was very light traffic with little chance of being held up, only by a puncture or something, which did happen to us once returning a hire car to Perth airport. It was hugely crowded even at that hour but we made our flight no problem despite being slugged 45 Euros each as our ticket did not include check in luggage. I didn't get upset about it as I think our travel agent Mary had warned me this might happen. A New Zealand couple we met at Dubai airport were upset about it saying they had copped 75 Euros each leaving Santorini.

So our week in Crete came to and end as we watched the Island from the plane. There were big concrete bunkers visible as we left the coast and I thought these were probably relics from the German occupation 1941-1945, and my Battle of Crete images flashed back. The sky was clear as a bell when we landed at Athens 30 minutes later. We had a seven hour wait at Athens for our connecting flight to Dubai but this was not difficult, it gave us some relaxation time and there's a museum there and lots of historical information about Greece which we found most interesting.

We got to Dubai at about 10.30pm. We were picked up by our transfer the Arabian Court Hotel in Old Dubai opposite the Old Museum, where we were to stay three nights in total. We did a fascinating Dubai city tour first day and walked around old Dubai, and a trip to the Dubai Outlet Mall the second morning followed by a desert sands safari dinner in the afternoon and evening. Dubai is mind blowing, incredible and almost unreal. Not my cup of tea, but worth seeing.

The next day saw us at the airport again for the gruelling trip home- 7 hours to Singapore, an hour there, back on the plane and another 7 hours to Melbourne. Lib took sleeping pills which didn't make her sleep just made her almost incoherent and uncomfortable and fidgety and she almost drove me crazy. I didn't know about the sleeping tablets till she was talking to sister Margaret at Christmas, I just thought she was over fatigued, but she was zombied out.

Was it ever good to see Rob when he picked us up at Tullamarine? Lib crashed asleep in the car on the way home and then went straight to bed when we got home.

And so ended our amazing trip to Europe. It was Thursday morning before the Grand Final. I wish I had missed that crap too.

Pat's 70th

My apologies to friends on Facebook who also read this blog, as I'm about to copy and paste from F to here, because I have friends who read this blog but who don't participate in Facebook. So this is doubling up for some but updating others which I do because i'm short of time. I'm taking dog Pip to  a vet appointment at 9.30 am and I have some picking to do before it gets too hot as the forecast is for 41C.

Lib and I drove to Warrnambool yesterday (Sunday) to attend Pat McKenzie's 70th birthday. It was great to share the occasion with Pat and Carmel and their children and grandchildren. Others there from our Greta football days were Brent and Lynne Everall, Biil and Jackie O'Brien and Kay Pink. After a gathering at the Warrnambool Golf Club in the afternoon we went round to Pat + Carmel's and kicked on with a barbie and much good cheer and reminiscing. When Pat and Carmel came to Wangaratta in 1978 I had lived there two years but did not feel in any way at home there. Pat joined the Dep't of Ag as a dairy inspector and we had offices next door to each other. Pat talked me into playing footy at Greta when he took up the assistant coach job there. He was a superb full back with a great country footy history. I was single in those days and had dinner at Pat and Carmel's house one night a week most weeks. Their friendship greatly changed my life and the next few years were highly social thanks to playing footy again and mixing with many good friends of my age group. They had three young kids and baby Peter no 4 arrived while they were in Wang. Pat later quit the Dep't of Ag and joined the ambulance service where he worked till his recent retirement. Many thanks to Pat and Carmel for what you did for me all those years ago and for the great day we had yesterday. It was wonderful to see the kids grown up with families, and all such decent good people.

On the way home we visited the Terang cemetery where my great great grandparents are buried. Charles Henry Brown died in 1906. He had changed his name- he was really Karl Bruhn, a German sailor from Hamburg who went to sea when he was 14 and on his seventh voyage round the oceans of the world, often to Melbourne, jumped ship and disappeared into the Victorian countryside. He married Emma Parker who came out from England with her family as a young girl in the 1850's. Meredith has copy of a newspaper cutting in which three men including Karl Bruhn were "wanted" for absconding. He must have got this sorted out with official permit as the marriage certificate in 1860 names Charles Brown. He developed a successful maize threshing business and moved around the Western District and was respected in business. Emma Parker's family farmed somewhere out from Geelong and she died in 1929 aged 87. They had six kids that reached adulthood and two that did not. Their daughter Anne Elizabeth Francis, known as Francis, married Robert Williams my grandfather's father. He was a baker in Terang, (as was his father I think and his son my grandfather). They had 8 boys. There's a sad story there that Meredith told me, perhaps I'll write about that next time.

Meredith and her husband Roger had Charles and Emma's grave restored in the last few years.

A Bit Dry

31mm of rain for December is a miserable figure, less than half  that of the lowest of other years since 2008. My friend Glen keeps these records and he sent me them with his New Year best wishes on Jan 1.

Total rainfall for 2015 was 783 mm, also the lowest since 2008 which is as far as my figures from Glen go back, and well down on our annual average for the last 100 years which is I think about 1150mm.

All that rain in December must have come the night after Christmas Day, as there was about 34mm in our gauge in the morning and some of our guests were up early packing up their tents as water was just starting to come through as dawn broke. Glen recorded just the 31.33mm for December - my gauge which is not good for precise reading showed 32-34mm.

Since then, for January, while Sydney and much of NSW was being dumped on, and indeed many parts of Victoria, we had the princely sum of 5mm of drizzle one day, just enough to wet my shirt through while I was picking beech for a customer one day and make me cranky.

I helped my friend Leanne with her bees last week. We chose Thursday as it was the best day for both of us. It was mild and intermittently overcast with a crisp breeze tending south. They were as savage as hell. There was some messmate flowering and with the changeable weather, and wildly varying temperatures from one day to the next, it was the perfect recipe for savage. I had a veil with holes in it at the top and the bees got in and belted my face as well as the hands and up my sleeves.

But we got the honey off not that there was much, way too dry for any honey to speak of from blackberries or clover and cold miserable weather in late October scotched any chance of a flow on the silvertop which did flower well but did not yield. In the burst of hot weather in October I put some foundation frames in the hives to stop them swarming and they drew them out and and put brood in them. Leanne was happy to get some honey anyway and it is a task behind me now. I doubt there'll be honey later so dry it is and the weather so erratic.

I guess the next thing could well be a deluge and flooding, which is what happened after the last El Ninio cycle, but that has occurred elsewhere already.

 

A Week on Crete (6)

On the Friday of our week on Crete we drove to Retimo and continued to Vrises  and took the turn off to Sfakia. I was now more comfortable driving and we half knew our way around. You could certainly easily spend longer on Crete than we had and there are many areas we did not go and famous gorges and walks that we did not have the time for.

The road up into the mountains was good sealed bitumen and a comfortable width, not a narrow dangerous track I'd been half expecting.

No shortage of goats

It was a hot day, our hottest on Crete, and it gave a feeling for how hard it would have been for the evacuating soldiers marching through these rugged mountains on what was in 1941 a narrow unsealed road not much more than a track in places, at the beginning of June which was summer. Doug Twaits' 2/7th battalion fought some rear guard action at strategic points like tight hairpin bends and narrow passes to delay the pursuing German forces. It had been a command decision to march across Crete and evacuate from the South of the Island as it was further from the German held Piraeus and Athens from where attacking aircraft came. There were evacuations from North Crete with disastrous result and loss of life.

Typical scenery with olive trees plentiful

I had read Barry Cassidy's book 'Private Bill' which recounted his father's experiences on Crete and his subsequent capture and internment. Bill Cassidy was wounded and in hospital at the capitulation but his best mate was evacuated on a ship from North Crete which was sunk and he was lost, which could easily have been bill Cassidy's fate. On a trip to Crete as research for his book Barry drove the route of the evacuation march, as we were doing, and he told of a war museum between Kares and Asifkou run by a bloke called George. George's father, also George, was I think about 14 years old when the occupying Germans left in 1945 and he immediately began collecting war memorabilia which was scattered all over the countryside. He ultimately displayed this in a private museum which young George continues after his father died. He is passionate about his collection and receives no government support, and relies on donations from visitors. We easily found the museum following George's own signs from the main road down into his village. When we pulled up he appeared out of nowhere and was a wonderful enthusiastic host who showed us his huge collection of weapons and gear and historical information. We concluded with a slash of oozo and warm hugs and handshakes. It was a memorable highlight of our day and week.

Museum host George

Nearing Sfakia the road became a steep winding decline with views out to sea

There was quite a lot of cars at Sfakia as people caught ferries from there to other places but we managed to find a park and had a nice lunch at a restaurant right on the water after viewing the memorial near the little beach.

9000 in total were left behind

Doug Twaits was one of those left behind. He didn't escape capture like some, he was not well enough, having drunk water from a polluted well. Those marooned at Sfakia were marched 30 km by the Germans back across the mountains. Doug achieved this with great difficulty and was admitted to hospital in Georgepolus where he spent some months suffering Amoebic Dysentery and was expected to die at one point. This was a British hospital manned by staff who had chosen to stay with their patients rather than be evacuated, but there was a lack of medical supplies as these had been confiscated by the Germans and sent to Germany. Doug was eventually transported to Germany with other patients despite the doctor in charge maintaining they were not well enough.

General Freyberg evacuated but before doing so he oversaw the evacuation from his command cave on the hill above the beach. He was appalled at the lack of discipline and order as troops clamoured to get on the boats taking soldiers to the ships.

Freyberg's cave above Sfakia

When I talked to George at the Asifkou war museum, I said to him I had trouble comprehending why these armies would come Crete and proceed to annihilate each other. I was fully aware that Crete was regarded as strategically important, for the Brits to protect their Mediterranean shipping and North African bases, and for Hitler to protect German oil supplies from Rumania, but it still seemed like madness to me, the huge logistic cost, and that of human life. George said, "It's politics, it was all politics." I wonder how Doug felt at the time and after 4 years of incarceration. He said he was happy to join the army when war was declared as he had grown up in a "God, King and Country household". All I can say is, to repeat, madness.

I think the date is May31- a clipping in George's museum

 

  

A Week on Crete (5)

After our restful day at the beach I suggested to Lib that we drive east as we had not seen that side of Crete yet.I was wanting to yet go west again before we left, to take the road south from Retimo to Sfakia which was the evacuation route marched by the allied troops in 1941. This would entail going over the same road to Retimo that we had travelled the first two days and I knew Lib would prefer a change. There were still two days after this day, and I thought after we did the run east I'd propose that we went to Sfakia the next.

Before picking up the national Highway we drove into Tylissos to see the archaeological site which was most interesting - ruins slowly being excavated after being found quite recently, they are 3500 years old from Minoan times and are thought to be residences of wealthy people at that time. It's amazing to think this civilization predates the Roman Empire by a long way. The reason for the disintegration of the Minoan culture is not known definitively.

That is a bathtub fed by an aqueduct from a circular water tank at the rear

Care was needed not to trip or turn an ankle

We left and followed the signs to the Tylissos Snail Farm where a young lady Vassiliki (?) gave us an educational tour. The snails were not long out of the hibernation of summer and were now breeding. The snail house needed shade and the right humidity and conditions suitable for their particular location so there was a lot of trial and error- what was right in one location wouldn't necessarily be right in another. The snails were taken before marketing to a special house where they are fed a special diet (white flour I think) for three days to clean them out.Most of their snails went to market on the mainland.

We then picked up the highway and drove east, turning off taking a road into the mountains to the Lasithi Plateau. We stopped at a lovely village called Mohos for coffee

 Then on to Tzermando where we had lunch. It was very steep and mountainous on the way up to the plateau but the road was all sealed and good.

 On the trip back down from the plateau the views were again spectacular and we passed through several villages one which had an amazing cafe adorned with ripe tomatoes. It was a real work of art.

More rugged scenery enthralled us on the way down to Agios Nikolae which is a large town on the east side of Crete

A Week on Crete (4)

After 2 days with a lot of driving we decided to stay close to home this day, and do the Liguria beach thing. Emmanuel had told us that Liguria beach was about 20 minutes away and very beautiful so that was our plan. Winding road down from the National highway took us to the little town. We parked our Focus and walked along the pavement past the restaurants and appartments on the shoreline with the beach and the Mediterranean Sea to the north.We found a nice restaurant, Micheals, where we had a delightful lunch. It was a family affair, Michael senior and his son waiting on us in turn with exquisite manners while I think Mrs was doing the cooking. Lib had the fish and I had the lamb kebab.The beer was good and the mood relaxed. A few tourists were there, Germans i think, including a beautiful mother and daughter it seemed.

After lunch we sat on the beach in the shade of an umbrella and took a swim. It was hot and muggy and even for a pretty much non swimmer like myself the water was alluring. The Germans were stretched out in the sun. I walked into the water a little surprised at how slippery the rock base was that I had to cross in the shallows. Not only that but there was considerable debris in the water that caught on my feet, like plastic bags and litter. It distracted from the exercise although the water was most refreshing. I had suffered a severe head cold and nasal congestion for two weeks and believe me it was good to get in the salt water and blow it all out.

With all the litter in the water i was reminded of something my brother in law Phil told me when he went to the Greek Islands a couple of years ago. He was on a boat and it anchored so the passengers could take swim. after diving in he was horrified to see a human turd floating by, destroying the illusion of the pristine blue water. I think the turd came from the boat toilet if I recall the story correctly. This reminded me of what our guide at had said at Kusadasi on our tour to Ephesus. As we drove past a beach not far from the port he said it was a popular swimming spot for tourists who didn't realise that raw sewerage was discharged into the bay. not until at least a floating surprise went past their eyes, or worse. Such is life. We are quite spoilt in Australia with our magnificent coastline and clean beaches and coastline by comparison to Europe.

We returned to our villa via the supermarket in Gazi and bought wine and supplies. The Greek wine we found to be excellent, and inexpensive at about $5-6 Aus a bottle, no kidding, really excellent.

The Missing Boot

A huge week it was. I lost my glasses last Tuesday, a distressing thing.

I was doing a whipper snipping job. I put on my safety glasses and put my seeing glasses in my left chest pocket. It crossed my mind if that was the best thing, perhaps I should put them in the bucket with the tools where the safety glasses live, but I thought no they'll be safe in the pocket and can't get scratched.

Two hours later i took off the safety glasses and reached into my pocket only to find my seeing glasses were absent.... lost somewhere along the way. I quickly looked for them but no luck and left thinking well that was an expensive morning.

I rang the optometrist and ordered a new pair with inexpensive frames and moved on mentally.

It was a hell of a week. Culminating yesterday, when I was picking beech by climbing a tree at the farm, thankful for cool conditions. Out of no where a rain squall came while I was still up the tree and soaked me. I came down and went up again later and the rain came again. I was wet through, and cold with it. we persevered and bunched all the beech but i was cold and suffering. I went shopping later and was wet for hours till I got home and hit the hot bath.

That same morning, when I went out to put on my boots, one of them was missing. Where did it go? I don't know. A dog or fox must have taken it. Sadly, these were the best boots I had ever owned and I had had them for a couple of years. They were made by Oliver's of Ballarat and I was quite attached to them.

Today i had a day of rest. the ground dried out and I did some weed spraying here and there around my haunts. Then I went to the place where i lost my glasses and spent a half hour looking for them. Much to my great joy I found them after walking up and down in a grid search.

The boot remains missing.

I Went to Church Today Oh Boy

Yes I did. I was invited to attend to say a few words on the occasion of Jean Hayne's farewell. I was happy to do so. Jean has been editor of Signpost magazine for 15 years and has built it from a four page newsletter to a 32 page magazine produced in colour and highly regarded in the district. It has been an honour and privilege for me to contribute for these last 6 years of course made possible by the wonderful Jean whom I love very much.

There was a big crowd in when I arrived on the the dot of 10am. I was ushered to a seat in the front row by the lady who had invited me, she was waiting at the main entrance for me, to sit with two other presenters and the minister. I was hung over. We had a party at our house the previous evening to celebrate Gord's 30th birthday, his idea, which of course Lib and I supported and endorsed and did our best to facilitate. It was a late night but the people Gord invited were very special people, loving and gentle and moderate and I don't think anyone over indulged  alcohol except perhaps myself and Lib over a long night during which we did our best to be good hosts. I had no breakfast. My stomach churned and growled, I had taken my morning medication of some sulphur drug the rheumatologist put me on last Wednesday.

The venue was St Mark's Anglican in Emerald, a progressive church which is hugely popular and does great work for youth. My sister Meredith and her husband Roger are parishioners as is my niece Annie and her children. A band started proceedings with a Christmas song, then 2 or 3 three more songs. We had to stand and sing along. I stood but did not sing. There's no way I'm going to sing like a trained parrot reading the the words on a big screen. I grew up with a religious greater family. My grandparents forced me as a child to sing Jesus songs at Christmas, my secondary schooling included the forced singing of hymns, on a regular basis. I hated it. It put me off church and organised religion for life and consequently attending church was not on for me once I attained freedom of choice as an adult. Not that I have anything against it for them that wants to behave so but it is not for me.

If I thought about it more, I probably wouldn't have stood up either. We were up and down like a lavvy lid. Stand up to sing, sit down, stand up to pray, sit down, there's a subserviance in it all. Now do as I say. But look I don't want to offend anyone, it's better that I just stay away. The minister's sermon was all about being a servant of the Lord. This is fine, I have asked God to use me to good purpose at important times in my life, but this is a personal thing for me, I don't desire to exhibit my servitude to others or at the demand of other people.

The reverend said prayers following the songs then a 'rapper' girl came up and we had another singalong to rap music. She wore a very tight skirt and had a cap on sideways, and told us all to come to morning tea afterwards and perhaps buy a goat for someone impoverished overseas. This I did do, but I did not join in the rap singing.

The two speakers before me were excellent. Strangely I was not nervous, I had prepared a short script for a 3 minute talk a couple of weeks earlier and I read it but knew it well enough to pause here and there and look around the audience and speak directly to Jean when I needed to, particularly at the end. As far as I could tell it went over alright.

Just the same I was relieved greatly that it was over. It is not the sort of thing I would choose to do on a Sunday morning but I was happy to do it for Jean. I went home and took a pillow and an air mattress out onto the deck and slept for a couple of hours after putting some horse bets on. I woke and started cleaning up after the party. Gord and his sleep over mate and Lib were in slumber mode. I went up and did some whippering at Hanna's and came back and did the vegies for our roast lamb, then had a bath. We watched West Side Story, a great musical made in 1961 still relevant today for its anti racism message. It has some beautiful timeless songs.

Now for a big week ahead.

  

Great Place to Work

Valley north of Gembrook town

This is part my workplace, a picture taken on Friday. There's a row of green beech trees, left of pic, which I have picked foliage from for many years, A nurseryman grew them, he used to own the property, and didn't sell them as young trees so they were left in a row, much to my good luck. The nurseryman sold the property some years ago but the current owners have kindly let me continue to harvest each year. I share my return with them. The creek running along the valley is the Shepherds Creek West branch. It rises a little to the right of pic from springs on the west side of the main road Gembrook to Launching Place. Springs on the east side of that main rd form the Shepherds creek east branch and they run round the other side of the hill you can see. The two branches join some kilometres down stream to form Shepherds Creek which runs into Woori Yallock Creek which eventually runs into the Yarra river.

Our house is in the belt of trees along the hill you can see, our road running just the other side of the spur.

It has been a great blessing to live and work in such a beautiful place for 35 years. This vista is unspoilt by development and I love it.

Looking a little more eastward

Interlude

I would love to continue with the Crete thing but I'm so tired tonight. I couldn't possibly face getting out the memory card and looking for photos. I am so busy at work, picking all the beech I can every day, I'm exhausted. There's the truth.

Let me just ramble before retiring so that I can feel better. I like to write this blog, as poor as it may be at times. I had three meetings to do with Nobelius Park and Emerald Museum last Tuesday. Then on Thursday there was another; a meeting with Puffing Billy reps, Jason Wood Federal member for our seat of LaTrobe, and Eastern Dandenong Ranges Ass.

We heard how PB is applying for Federal funding for megabucks to build an Information/heritage centre in Emerald Lake Park. We were told to decide if we want to be part of this or not. To me it was a 'their way or the highway' sort of thing.

Our committee has not yet had the opportunity to discuss this. I write just to get it off my chest. The CEO of Puffing Billy talked how they were growing their business on the back of huge international tourism increase from China.

For the record, it is my view that tourism is not sustainable, unless it is eco tourism utilizing natural environment that is preserved by doing so. PB does not cut it, is my opinion. It is a drain on the public purse, always looking for government hand out. It is a ridiculous, noisy, dirty, polluting fire hazard, a non profitable total frost.

I have recently returned from a trip to Europe. In countries I visited tourism is the biggest industry. They are broke or close to it.

There's an easy political motive to promote tourism. Just before each election the party behind in the polls announces big grants to PB if elected. Reality (there's the word pollies love) is, that instead of waiting for money to come in from tourists, we should be out there producing something that people and the world needs and wants.

Like I do every working day.

A Week on Crete (3)

We had breakfast again in the dining area, the same sumptuous spread as the day before. This time I asked Georgina (2) how much it was costing us and she didn't know so she asked Emanuelle. He replied 8 Euros each, about $12 Australian so we decided as lovely as it was we would do our own breakfast for the rest of our stay. After all, that was our purpose in seeking self contained accom, so we could do our own meals which we like to do.

We headed off to Retimos again, this time on the National Highway. We wanted to get there quickly, the intention being to find the War Memorial and go on to Chania to see the ancient town which Rickyralph told us was beautiful and captivating. I was still nervous driving especially as the locals went so fast and overtook daringly going over double lines onto the other side of the highway without hesitation. The highway was divided in places and not others but 2 lanes each way for the most part. I paid close attention to the rearview mirror, I liked to see them coming and move over as far as i could to let them pass. Another thunderstorm hit with heavy rain. As we went down a long decline on a section that had no middle divide other than double lines, two lanes each way, I looked in the mirror to see the car behind me sliding sideways and slowly spin. As he did a section of his car went into the line of traffic going the other way and there was a loud thud and bits of car flew off in all directions. I had to get my eyes back forward and we kept going. There were no cars behind us then for a long time. A cop car lights flashing passed us. We pulled up for a stretch of legs, I'll look for a photo. I haven't had time to start going through the photos to put some on these posts but I will do so from here on.

Retimo is quite a city and we had no idea where the war memorial was so when we saw a turn off to Souda Bay we took it as I knew there was a memorial there. We didn't come across it but saw a sign to Chania 6km so we kept going. As we got closer to Chania we found ourselves in a massive traffic jam with the road choked with cars and buses. That 6k took us 1.5 hours and by then we were in no mood to hang around looking for a park in that horrendous traffic. We inched our way out and and took a wrong turn and found ourselves in rural setting. We were hungry and looking for lunch and found a taverna but the restaurant was closed, only the bar open, we took directions and were getting too close to the traffic again. We eventually found a nice little restaurant for a great lunch and found our way back onto the highway. I have never found it so easy to get hopelessly lost with my sense of direction deserting me. The drive back was uneventful fortunately, except for seeing a badly crushed vehicle getting winched onto truck. It looked like it must have fallen from the high winding road that we traveled the previous day. On the way back we found the supermarket in Gazi and stocked up on wine and eggs and vegies and Lib bought fish for dinner.

Young bloke from Israel took this for us- looking back toward Heraklion

A Week on Crete (2)

We woke in our villa first morning to almost perfect peace and quiet. I opened the curtains to the superb view into the valley backed by mountains and made Lib a cup of tea. There was no activity outside and besides a few bird calls and the movement of a curious cat now and again it was like everything had stopped. We had booked breakfast but Georgina had said don't come up too early so it was about 9am when we sauntered to the reception/dining area.

A view from our villa 

Emmanuel told us to sit wherever we liked so we chose outside in the shade of a sail overlooking the swimming pool. Georgina told us different lady would get our breakfast, she was named Georgina also, but this one who was red haired and round and smiling, spoke almost no English; not that it mattered, she brought us an amazing feast that included everything you could think you might like for breakfast expertly presented. We were the only patrons and there was enough food on our table for ten people to be well fed.

We asked Georgina, with some difficulty to make her understand, if there was somewhere we could do our laundry as we had a bit of a build up. She took us down to the end of the row of villas to a laundry room and put all our washing in one front loader which required coins to operate. I didn't have enough the Euro coins needed, and neither did Georgina. She found a man working in the garden, his name was George, and I exchanged money with him to make the machine work. As it turned out the machine got stuck in its cycle, I think it was overloaded, but it wet them and splashed them around. When Lib went back she said it seemed to be stuck so she finished it off and rinsed them by hand and she found a clothes line in front of another villa as ours didn't have one.

We were itching to drive out into the island and explore and did so a bit before midday. We planned to go to Retimo which was one of the four major cities along the north coast of Crete, which is about 220km long east to west and 40-60km wide north to south. The south coast is steep and mountainous with steep cliffs for the most part so the main population centres and airport are along the north coast which has spectacular scenery too but also long stretches of beaches and flat plain and tourist development. The National Highway links the four cities and carries a surprisingly heavy load of traffic.

During WW2 Retimo was defended by the Australians, Maleme and nearby Chania by the New Zealanders, Heraklion by the Brits and Agios Nikolaus by members of the Greek National army. There were about 40,000 soldiers combined in the defence force under the command of NZ General Freyberg who had won a VC in WW1.

I was keen to have a look at Retimo and Georgiopoulos where my late mate Doug Twaits would have been with the 2/7th AIF battalion. Leaving Estate Kares and heading back to the Highway we came across an intersection which we had passed through the previous evening selecting the Tyllisos road, this time the sign said Rethymnos to the left. I think Rethymnos is the Greek and Retimos is English. We took this turn not realizing it was the high road that went through the mountains. It was twisty and narrow, steep with huge cliffs here and there, and for the most part going through villages and scenery that I don't think would have changed in decades.

We had not gone far up into the mountains along the narrowing road when a storm hit. Strong wind and heavy rain did not make the driving easy. Even the goats were sheltering along the road in depressions in the rock wall. I thought these were wild goats but as the week went by and we saw many goats all over the foothills and mountains I believed them to be domestic goat herds that wandered wherever. There was often one or two in the group that had a bell around its neck, indicating that someone went looking for them now and again.On this drive there was storm damage- tree litter and refuse spread about the villages.

Goats sheltering the storm

Our two objectives for the day besides familiarizing ourselves with our topography were to find somewhere to  buy supplies for our evening meals and somewhere nice to have lunch.This was not easy on the route we had chosen as there was nothing much but a few villages where the streets were narrow and there didn't seem to be anywhere to park the car. We passed a few tavernas where a good meal would probably have been available but we were past them before we knew it with no obvious place to pull over.Later as I gained more confidence with the driving this was less a problem. We kept following the road and took the odd fork we hoped was right. We got a bit bushed but knew that if we kept going we'd eventually come back to the Highway as it had to be to the north. We reached the highway a little short of Retimo and found a supermarket, more a small tourist market, but we did buy bread wine tomatoes cucumber tinned sardines and such.

We took a turn off toward the beach and found a fairly isolated area. There were demolished buildings that had not been cleaned up and much litter, which was the case all over the place in the populated areas, and a lot of unfinished or half built houses and empty old ones in disrepair. We thought this must be the result of the GFC and the ongoing Greek economic crisis which had been so well publicized. Crete was generally not a tidy place we had discovered, probably the rugged terrain and the political turmoil and the laid back nature of the people all combined to make this so. Most people smoked cigarettes, motor bike riders didn't bother with helmets and sped past you on the highway. They parked cars anywhere, crossed double lines as if they weren't there, and rarely used indicators. They'd pass you at great speed and at close quarters to you. There was a gungho fatalistic approach that took a bit of getting used to. The first day out on the road was not that relaxed for me.

We manged to find a supermarket that sold meat, Lib was after fishthat wasn't there and bought pork chops instead. We traveled back to our Estate on the national highway and found our turn off more easily now that we half had a handle on our whereabouts. It was about 6pm when we got back. We told Georgina 1 that we didn't require dinner- she seemed disappointed- but we asked her to tell Georgina (2) that we'd like breakfast again. Georgie asked about our day and we told her we had trouble finding shops eg butcher and market place. She told us that in Gazi 15 minutes away a little out of Heraklion where she lived there was a big supermarket that has everything and was easy. We sat enjoying cold beer and playing with facebook on our phones on the patio /viewing platform that was outside our villa. I loved the quiet, and watching the hawks and eagles. I rang Gord. He told us all was well at home. My beer was non alcoholic and I skipped the wine that night (and the next). Our meal was good and we crashed early.  

A Week on Crete (1)

We arrived on Crete on a Sunday afternoon (20 Sep) by way of an Aegean airlines flight from Athens. That same day we had flown from Milan to Athens on an Emirates flight. The previous day we traveled by train from Venezia station in Venice, about a two hour trip through picturesque countryside. It surprised me how rural it was along the train line with small farms and vineyards and villages then larger towns with some factories and industrial facilities then straight back to farms. It was an express train that sped through most towns and stopped at a few of the larger ones. I find train travel interesting

We had a two hour wait at Venezia for our train. It was warm and I had a good conversation with a young Chinese couple. They had been friends since their early school days and they were both now studying in Europe, he in Munich and she in France, and they met up on their holidays for a trip to Italy. They each spoke German and French and their English was good. They said they were assured of a good well paid job when they returned to China with their qualifications.

Their were a few beggars on the platform, in particular a small haggard middle aged man in grubby clothes with a pronounced limp made impact on me, and I gave him some coins. A young lady approached me also soon after and I did not give her anything, she looked quite fit and well fed and seemed to be working with the man, I assumed them to be father and daughter. A train came in and most of the crowd on the platform got on, Lib and I being very observant of the numbering on the carriages as to where they were along the platform so we knew where to be with our luggage when our train came as we had a first class ticket with a carriage number. Shortly after the train left I saw the beggar I gave to walking briskly down the platform and wave to his daughter on the next platform. He had no limp and was puffing away on a fag. He no longer needed the pretense of the limp as he has thought all the people he'd approached had left on the train. Live and learn hey, the bugger conned me.

The terrain in the distance became more mountainous as we came closer to Milan. At the stop before Milan a middle aged couple boarded, the man wearing a Melbourne Football Club T shirt. He said he used to live in Brighton but they lived in Sydney now and he was a Swannies supporter mainly. They'd been staying for a week at one of the lakes not far from Milan which were popular tourist resorts.

We were knocked over by the size and magnificence of the Milan railway station. It was ornate and quite a work of art and I have been intending following up to learn of it's history but have not yet done this. Our hotel was not far from the station about a 20 minute walk but it took us an hour as we we walked around looking for it and ended up asking locals directions three times before we found it.

We went out walking in the evening and had dinner at a restaurant some ten minutes from our hotel. We enjoyed Sicilian wine with the excellent meal. It was one of those where you select your meat from a display and the chef prepares it and cooks where you can watch it happen.We talked to a man on an adjacent table, Henry from San Francisco, a most polite man who worked for Roche Pharmaceutical. He's a biologist/chemist and was in Milan from I think Switzerland where he's based to meet a colleague on a business trip. She had not yet arrived. He said he one day wanted to come to Australia to see the Tennis Open. When we told him our son Rob had an honours degree in Biotechnology but had been unable to get employment in that field, he said he could probably get work in San Francisco and the pay is excellent but living costs eg rent are through the roof. He has since emailed us and I have told him if he ever comes to Melbourne for the tennis I'll pick him up at the airport and we'll put him up but he'd have to bus and train into the tennis each day.

Our transfer from the hotel to airport was 7am, it was low traffic it being Sunday morning. The van driver was doing 145kph on the freeway to the airport as we came closer closer to the snow capped mountains of the Alps. I noticed nobody used indicators and just changed lanes as if they did not exist. It was a spectacular fly out. We had a wait of a couple hours in Athens and it was exciting to be in the air again flying out over the Mediterranean and some other islands on our way to Crete. After 35 mins in the air we landed about 4pm at Heraklion.

The airport was busy and crowded and after we eventually got our luggage from the carousel we went out to the Hertz car rental booth to get our hire car. The lady at the desk was all business, hardly showing the slightest smile through her heavy make up. She had long hair and was quite a picture of glamour. She tried to sell us insurance to cover the excess on the policy we had taken, as Mary our travel agent had warned me she would. Mary said our travel insurance covered that. Declining the extra insurance and hoping for the best that we would not have an accident, I did not endear myself to the Hertz lady who had an air of "Ive seen it all but people don't listen."  She said to pick up the car you cross the road and look for the Hertz signs. We went out into the dusty and busy road outside the terminal and crossed into a mass of buses, walked further, the wrong way I add, dragging our suitcases, and eventually back tracked and crossed another road where there were yellow Hertz flags. We found the guy and he gave us the keys to the car, asking "Have you been to Crete before?"  When I said no he laughed long and hearty, then added reassuringly, "You'll be OK." I told him the town we needed to get to for our accom and he gave us rough directions. We took off in our manual Ford Focus with me trying to concentrate to stay on the right side of the road and change gears with my right hand. I have to tell you honestly I was very toey. We got on the major National road as directed but had missed the turn the man told us and went ten k's the wrong way until the turn off was obviously not there. We backtracked after some difficulty getting off the freeway and back on to go the other way. This time again measuring on the odometer and going back past the airport the other way we found the turn off and exited. It was about 6pm and I really did not want to be driving around looking for our villa in the dark.

We followed the sign that said Tyllisos and came to the village after about 10 minutes. I was mindful that it was Sunday again and AF days were to follow so I was very keen to find somewhere I could buy a bottle of wine. There was a taverna in Tyllisos village where several men were drinking out front so we stopped and one of them spoke enough English to understand that I was wanting to buy a bottle of red wine. He talked to a lady who was in charge of the bar and they reached up very high and brought down a bottle. It cost 5 Euros. The man who spoke English gave us directions how to get to Estate Kares and we found the turn off down a little gravel road. It wound its way through olive groves for about a kilometre, in places it was very rough and concentration was needed to stop the car bottoming out with dreadful noise. Are we really in the right place we kept asking each other? We arrived at the villas and walked to the reception. The place looked deserted. The views were spectacular into a deep valley of olive trees with mountains behind and Heraklion in the distance and the sea to the north east. During our week there we never ceased to be enthralled by the vista.

A man, the owner Emanuelle, was watching television and eating his evening meal. He did not speak good English but shortly a lady came who did, Georgina her name as she introduced herself. This reception area was also the bar and dining area and she responded to my request for a cold beer with two icy glasses from the freezer and two cans of Mythos beer which she said were on the house. She said she had been expecting us and asked would we like her to cook us dinner, a traditional Cretan meal she was sure we would enjoy. We accepted and she showed us to our villa which was spacious and comfortable. She left and we showered and were preparing to go back to the dining room when she knocked on the door an asked would we like her to bring the meal to our villa as we must be tired. Yes please we said. The meal was a couple of chops each, Lib thought they were goat, and generous amount of fried potato chips. No salad which we would have enjoyed, but we wolfed it down with the wine I had bought which was excellent. There were numerous cats hanging around and I made the mistake of feeding them the scraps and bones which of course led to them coming back nightly.We slept very well. We had said we would have the breakfast in the dining area the next morning.

Our Cretan adventure was underway.