Well I've been off deck for a week, away at Lakes, but I've been working away at the puzzle that is Life on Earth. My last few posts, miserable attempts at short poetry, were the result of coin in the slot internet cafe which keyed in neatly with Maria's request to capture the moment each day in a few lines for a week. Nobody can say I'm not prepared to have a go, something which is improving as age advances, or dare I say as I mature like good wine.
We did some good work on the house. I crawled around the roof, hanging over the edge to sand, treat and patch the fascia board which was flaking its paint badly, exposing bare timber and minor rot, then going round again twice with two coats of fresh paint. Lib and Gord painted the bathroom and put up new towel rack and shower curtain rod to replace the rusty 40 year old ones.
I then uncovered some of the steel plates at the base of the poles that support much of the house, where they are bolted into concrete, and cleaned the others. Years of corrosion from the salt air has done its damage. I sprayed these with Kill Rust Fishoilene. This may arrest or slow the process, especially if repeated annually. I felt better for having done something anyway.
Just when I was feeling good about the house I wandered over to the steel pylons that hold the treated pine logs of the retaining wall at the back, to find them rusted to paper thinness in places. This wall is about 12 to 15 feet high, (the house being on a steep hill which led to large excavation when it was built) and will no doubt begin to fall down in the not too distant future. I think it would be an engineer's job and an expensive one at that. It was too much for me to contemplate that day. I walked away trying to pretend I hadn't seen it. Lib and her sisters own the house, I'll nag them about having it looked at by a landscaper or engineer.
Life on Earth. There's always maintenance. We left the Lakes house better than we found it. Next time it'll be something else. We have to keep having a go. Perhaps that might be part of the answer to the puzzle. To try and leave everything better than when you found it, while you can. Then it's over to the next bloke.
* This I wrote Sunday and saved as a draft, as I had to rush off to be on roster at the museum. A bus load of visitors was booked and I had to give them a talk. It's been full on since we came home. Nice to be back on the walking route though. I picked a big bag of pine mushies this morning, cooked em up and had a big feed, and fridged the rest. Maybe they freeze alright cooked. We played golf at Lakes one day and Lib collected a hat full of field mushies which we had for lunch. Jod picked mushies at the farm and he and Marion ate them on Saturday night and became violently ill and rushed to hospital. Elvie had some too but didn't like the taste and threw much of them out but she was sick for several hours also. They were more domed than usual, but smelt like normal edibles and were nice and pink underneath with no yellowing when bruised. All part of the puzzle. Apparently there are thousands of unidentified species of fungi which may hold all manner of medical and pollution clean up miracles.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Cunningham Arm
Ibis, duck, crane, mudflat
Jetstream high
deluxe cabins
satellite dishes
new cyclone wire fence
Jetstream high
deluxe cabins
satellite dishes
new cyclone wire fence
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Lake Bunga
Fifty-eight swans gliding
breeze rippled lake
lone gull
dragon head tree stump
rearing overseer
breeze rippled lake
lone gull
dragon head tree stump
rearing overseer
Day 2
Galahs,lorikeets
Banksia cobs, Pitto berries
Australian flags, trimmed lawns
Criusers, Patrols, Pajeros
Boats, golf buggies
Banksia cobs, Pitto berries
Australian flags, trimmed lawns
Criusers, Patrols, Pajeros
Boats, golf buggies
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Hello Young Carey
"Hello Young Carey," came the familiar voice one morning earlier this week. I was tying the dogs up at the post office/ newsangecy.
It was my friend Harry, coming out the door. We met 'on the walk' years ago. A friendship grew. Harry, about twenty years my senior, calls me 'young' Carey. I like that.
"The papers are late," he said, as he walked out the door.
I untied dogs and picked up my bag pack and some local papers that stand outside. It must have been Wednesday morning. "Hang on Harry, I'll walk with you," I said, wrestling with my raincoat and backpack.
As we walked up Main St. I told Harry I'd had a ripper weekend, I went to Wangaratta, and a Greta Football Club 30 year reunion of their 1980 premiership. It was great to see my old footy mates I explained, some of whom I hadn't seen for 30 years. As soon as I saw them, I recognized them as if no time had passed and we talked as if time stood still.
"You'd know all about it Harry, having all those reunions with your Club 52*."
"Yes it's a great thing. Sadly many of them have passed away."
We stopped when we reached Le Soueff Rd, where Harry lives, and talked a few minutes more. We looked out over the countryside toward the Warburton ranges in the distance, still visible through the patchy mist.
"No matter how beautiful the world is Harry, and how wonderful are the trees and birds, the clouds and the rain, it's great because we share it with people. You wouldn't want to be on this earth the only human being."
"That's for sure, " said Harry.
"Have you got much on today?"
"I'm going out to the airport later to pick up my daughter coming from Cairns. She's going to a 50th birthday party next Saturday and is having a week with us. Before that I'll sit and listen to some music."
"Good on you Harry. Have a good week," I said, continuing down the hill. "I'm going on holiday for a week on Sunday, I'll see you in a couple of weeks if I don't see you again before I go."
"You too, Carey. Have a good holiday."
Harry died in his sleep on Friday night. I learned this Saturday morning when I went into the PO/newsagency to pick up my Weekend Australian. He was 78. He worked his acre garden growing vegies and fruit and walked every morning. He was fit for his age and health conscious. Goodbye Harry. I'll miss you. I don't think I'll ever walk past Le Soueff Rd without thinking of you.
* I posted about Harry's Club 52 back in..."Happy Solstice Harry' 21 June 2006.
It was my friend Harry, coming out the door. We met 'on the walk' years ago. A friendship grew. Harry, about twenty years my senior, calls me 'young' Carey. I like that.
"The papers are late," he said, as he walked out the door.
I untied dogs and picked up my bag pack and some local papers that stand outside. It must have been Wednesday morning. "Hang on Harry, I'll walk with you," I said, wrestling with my raincoat and backpack.
As we walked up Main St. I told Harry I'd had a ripper weekend, I went to Wangaratta, and a Greta Football Club 30 year reunion of their 1980 premiership. It was great to see my old footy mates I explained, some of whom I hadn't seen for 30 years. As soon as I saw them, I recognized them as if no time had passed and we talked as if time stood still.
"You'd know all about it Harry, having all those reunions with your Club 52*."
"Yes it's a great thing. Sadly many of them have passed away."
We stopped when we reached Le Soueff Rd, where Harry lives, and talked a few minutes more. We looked out over the countryside toward the Warburton ranges in the distance, still visible through the patchy mist.
"No matter how beautiful the world is Harry, and how wonderful are the trees and birds, the clouds and the rain, it's great because we share it with people. You wouldn't want to be on this earth the only human being."
"That's for sure, " said Harry.
"Have you got much on today?"
"I'm going out to the airport later to pick up my daughter coming from Cairns. She's going to a 50th birthday party next Saturday and is having a week with us. Before that I'll sit and listen to some music."
"Good on you Harry. Have a good week," I said, continuing down the hill. "I'm going on holiday for a week on Sunday, I'll see you in a couple of weeks if I don't see you again before I go."
"You too, Carey. Have a good holiday."
Harry died in his sleep on Friday night. I learned this Saturday morning when I went into the PO/newsagency to pick up my Weekend Australian. He was 78. He worked his acre garden growing vegies and fruit and walked every morning. He was fit for his age and health conscious. Goodbye Harry. I'll miss you. I don't think I'll ever walk past Le Soueff Rd without thinking of you.
* I posted about Harry's Club 52 back in..."Happy Solstice Harry' 21 June 2006.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
Lara
I met a lady today while I was walking the dogs. She lives along my walking route and I've talked to her briefly a number of times so we weren't strangers. I've talked to her husband before too. They seem a friendly couple doing their best to raise their family well. She was walking down the hill in the main street with her younger son in the pusher after walking her older son to school. I was later than usual. Lib had her eight o'clock start day so I stayed back, then waited till the washing was done with the intention of hanging it out in the strong wind. It was sunny this morning, and oddly warm, the strong wind an indicator that a change was close.
We talked about the primary school, she asked me did I have children, how old they were, and did they go to Gembrook Primary. Yes they did, I told her. They were happy times, the primary school seemed so safe and friendly. Her son laughed as Pip's wet nose touched his leg while sniffing.
She was noticably pregnant. I asked her, without considering I may have been be too forward till after I said it, "Are you expecting another?"
"Yes," she said. "Mid July." She added something like being a sucker for punishment which I didn't quite catch. I was thinking already about how happy I'd be to see her after the birth with a new baby in the pusher and I told her so. I immediately felt some excitement about it. I asked her what her name is, because until then I didn't know.
"Lara". I told her that was a great name. She's heard there was a 'Lara' in the movie 'Dr. Zhivago', but has never seen it. She said she'd get the DVD from the library one day.
I feel a bit strange getting excited about babies coming. Maybe there's a grandpa in me wanting to come out.
Blimey!
We talked about the primary school, she asked me did I have children, how old they were, and did they go to Gembrook Primary. Yes they did, I told her. They were happy times, the primary school seemed so safe and friendly. Her son laughed as Pip's wet nose touched his leg while sniffing.
She was noticably pregnant. I asked her, without considering I may have been be too forward till after I said it, "Are you expecting another?"
"Yes," she said. "Mid July." She added something like being a sucker for punishment which I didn't quite catch. I was thinking already about how happy I'd be to see her after the birth with a new baby in the pusher and I told her so. I immediately felt some excitement about it. I asked her what her name is, because until then I didn't know.
"Lara". I told her that was a great name. She's heard there was a 'Lara' in the movie 'Dr. Zhivago', but has never seen it. She said she'd get the DVD from the library one day.
I feel a bit strange getting excited about babies coming. Maybe there's a grandpa in me wanting to come out.
Blimey!
Friday, April 30, 2010
Friends
Writing homework from the first writing class of this term, which I might add I didn't make last Friday, is to write about some aspect of friendship. It can be analytical, of memoir, or a fictional story. I picked up my class notes from teacher Maria on Sunday. Within the notes there's references from the Bible, a poem by Robert Frost, a sonnet by Shakespeare, excerpts from an Emerson essay and quotes from Benjamin Franklin, Norman Douglas, Seneca, Peter Ustinov and Pascal. My Anzac Day post about my late friend Fred Sargent was also there, due to its topical nature, and any of these could be a starting point.
It's easier for me to start with Fred, whom I first met in 1975. I was working for beekeeper/ honey merchant/equipment supplier Norm Redpath. One day he sent me from Melbourne to Boorhaman to pick up a load of honey. I jumped at the chance as it seemed a nice change and an easy days work. I reached Boorahman around lunchtime (actually Fred lived north of Boorahman about 15 minutes but I can't remember the name of the location, there being no town). We loaded the honey, from memory 70 tins, the square kerosene type tins that held 27kg, then Fred invited me in for lunch. It was no frills cold meat and salad. Fred's wife Beryl had already eaten but sat away little, smoked, and drank tea. She wore the thickest glasses I'd ever seen. Conversation flowed easily and I was as hungry for Fred's knowledge as I was for the lunch.
I left shortly after the post lunch cuppa. I already I had two new friends, who'd welcomed me into their lives telling me to come back and visit any time. Later that year Fred lent me a bee site on the Paterson's Curse over the border in NSW. I stayed the night at Fred and Beryl's a couple of times while up there working the bees. I recall at that site, surrounded by paddocks still purple with curse flower, going to the truck for a break and hearing on the radio that Gough Whitlam had been sacked. I laughed. Fred, a staunch Labour man, wasn't happy when I reached his place.
The next year when I moved to Wangaratta to take up the north east Vic. apiary inspector job, Fred was the only beekeeper I knew. He was a comfort and ally in my first couple of years there. He retired soon after and, to my disappointment as it seemed a radical step to leave his home where he loved the quiet isolation, moved to a house on aquarter acre in Wangaratta on a busy road. He said he always planned to retire as soon as he reached 65, they told him at Repat after the war that the malnutrion he suffered as a POW would likely reduce his lifespan by ten years. He could get a TPI pension and Beryl pressured him to move into Wang. I guess it was a little lonely for Beryl since their daughter moved away after living in a house that Fred built for her and her hubby adjacent to Fred and Beryl's, the idea being the son in law was to take over the bees. He'd decided beekeeping wasn't for him.
Lib and I were married in January1981 and Fred and Beryl attended our wedding. We left Wang some months later but often visited Fred and Beryl when we were in Wang to see Lib's mum. One time, perhaps a year since our previous visit, when I knocked on the door strangers answered, saying they'd recently bought the house, and they didn't know where Fred and Beryl had gone.
Some time passed till I found out Fred had walked out on Beryl. His old place had come up for sale and he wasn't happy in Wang so he bought it. Beryl wouldn't go with him, she moved into flat in the heart of town. They'd had a running battle over Beryl's chain smoking all the time I'd known them. It got worse in town. Fred was a reformed smoker and he hated it. He spent the next ten years growing trees before his death in 1996. Beryl had died earlier, of lung cancer. On Fred's epitaph there's reference to his partner Flossie, whom I never met, but I'm glad he found a companion in his last years.
That all might sound a bit boring, but thinking about Fred, and Beryl, expands my thinking, understanding and compassion. That's what friends do for you. They are the most wonderful thing about life. I'm reaching an age that means I have many friends who have passed away. I have new friends, old friends, friends that live on other continents, friends on holiday in other countries, friends interstate, men, women, even some children. I have neighbours who are friends, also cousins, siblings, mother, wife, kids. It's a privilege to have them as friends. They are in my mind and heart, close to me always. Regardless of distance, infrequent contact, or death, they belong with me and are with me. They give meaning to life.
Our childhood friends and those of our youth, I would say, give us strong bonds and open our hearts. Then, as the pressure and stresses of making money, career building, raising kids, the burdens of responsibility grow, we lose some of it. Friends help us rediscover our hearts. Friends help us understand.*
Hopefully there are many new friends in my future I'm yet to meet.
*"Only if we understand... can we concieve of the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that people who are afraid of living are especially frightened of death." (Medard Boss)
It's easier for me to start with Fred, whom I first met in 1975. I was working for beekeeper/ honey merchant/equipment supplier Norm Redpath. One day he sent me from Melbourne to Boorhaman to pick up a load of honey. I jumped at the chance as it seemed a nice change and an easy days work. I reached Boorahman around lunchtime (actually Fred lived north of Boorahman about 15 minutes but I can't remember the name of the location, there being no town). We loaded the honey, from memory 70 tins, the square kerosene type tins that held 27kg, then Fred invited me in for lunch. It was no frills cold meat and salad. Fred's wife Beryl had already eaten but sat away little, smoked, and drank tea. She wore the thickest glasses I'd ever seen. Conversation flowed easily and I was as hungry for Fred's knowledge as I was for the lunch.
I left shortly after the post lunch cuppa. I already I had two new friends, who'd welcomed me into their lives telling me to come back and visit any time. Later that year Fred lent me a bee site on the Paterson's Curse over the border in NSW. I stayed the night at Fred and Beryl's a couple of times while up there working the bees. I recall at that site, surrounded by paddocks still purple with curse flower, going to the truck for a break and hearing on the radio that Gough Whitlam had been sacked. I laughed. Fred, a staunch Labour man, wasn't happy when I reached his place.
The next year when I moved to Wangaratta to take up the north east Vic. apiary inspector job, Fred was the only beekeeper I knew. He was a comfort and ally in my first couple of years there. He retired soon after and, to my disappointment as it seemed a radical step to leave his home where he loved the quiet isolation, moved to a house on aquarter acre in Wangaratta on a busy road. He said he always planned to retire as soon as he reached 65, they told him at Repat after the war that the malnutrion he suffered as a POW would likely reduce his lifespan by ten years. He could get a TPI pension and Beryl pressured him to move into Wang. I guess it was a little lonely for Beryl since their daughter moved away after living in a house that Fred built for her and her hubby adjacent to Fred and Beryl's, the idea being the son in law was to take over the bees. He'd decided beekeeping wasn't for him.
Lib and I were married in January1981 and Fred and Beryl attended our wedding. We left Wang some months later but often visited Fred and Beryl when we were in Wang to see Lib's mum. One time, perhaps a year since our previous visit, when I knocked on the door strangers answered, saying they'd recently bought the house, and they didn't know where Fred and Beryl had gone.
Some time passed till I found out Fred had walked out on Beryl. His old place had come up for sale and he wasn't happy in Wang so he bought it. Beryl wouldn't go with him, she moved into flat in the heart of town. They'd had a running battle over Beryl's chain smoking all the time I'd known them. It got worse in town. Fred was a reformed smoker and he hated it. He spent the next ten years growing trees before his death in 1996. Beryl had died earlier, of lung cancer. On Fred's epitaph there's reference to his partner Flossie, whom I never met, but I'm glad he found a companion in his last years.
That all might sound a bit boring, but thinking about Fred, and Beryl, expands my thinking, understanding and compassion. That's what friends do for you. They are the most wonderful thing about life. I'm reaching an age that means I have many friends who have passed away. I have new friends, old friends, friends that live on other continents, friends on holiday in other countries, friends interstate, men, women, even some children. I have neighbours who are friends, also cousins, siblings, mother, wife, kids. It's a privilege to have them as friends. They are in my mind and heart, close to me always. Regardless of distance, infrequent contact, or death, they belong with me and are with me. They give meaning to life.
Our childhood friends and those of our youth, I would say, give us strong bonds and open our hearts. Then, as the pressure and stresses of making money, career building, raising kids, the burdens of responsibility grow, we lose some of it. Friends help us rediscover our hearts. Friends help us understand.*
Hopefully there are many new friends in my future I'm yet to meet.
*"Only if we understand... can we concieve of the seemingly paradoxical phenomenon that people who are afraid of living are especially frightened of death." (Medard Boss)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Anzac Day
I always think about my old friend Fred Sargent come Anzac Day. He was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore and spent 3+ years as a POW in Shangi and on the Burma railway. His brother, a patient in Singapore hospital, was killed in the fire that destroyed the hospital following the bombing raid. Another of his brothers, Albert, a commando on a mission to blow up Japanese ships in Singapore harbour, was captured, sentenced to death, and beheaded about a month before the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan early in August 1945.
Some years ago, in a newspaper article dated 7 Nov 1945, replicated in The Weekly Times book 'The Bible of the Bush', released in 1994 in celebration of 125 years of publication, I came across the story of 8 Australians who were beheaded by the Japanese earlier that year. I was moved by this story. Firstly because the Australian soldiers were reportedly "gallant to the end", dying with great bravery in a ceremonial execution respectful of their courage. Secondly, I was aware that one of the men executed was Fred's brother, the newly married Lieutenant Albert 'Blondie' Sargent.
A few years ago I came across a book titled 'Kill the Tiger', subtitled 'The Truth about Operation Rimau', first published in 2002. This book reveals that the 8 Australians and two Britons did not go cheerily to their deaths after sharing cigarettes. They were brutally hacked to death with bungling ineptitude by five guards from Outrim prison and thrown on top of each other into three graves, four in one and three in each of the other two, after five months of cruelty and degradation.
The book states that no one in the Allied forces wanted the full story of Operation Rimau, which went horribly wrong, to be publicly revealed. They all had something to hide. This includes the British Establishment, the Americans, the British Navy and the Australian High Command. It concludes the chapter 'The Final Betrayal' saying the Rimau cover-up, in place for nearly sixty years, can be traced right to the top of the Australian High Command.
It dismays me that history, war time or otherwise, can be distorted, and that for years I had been under an illusion. Fred, who died in 1996 when aged in his mid eighties, probably never knew the truth which is the least he deserved, given his and his family's sacrifice.
Fred spent most of his working life after the war as a commercial beekeeper. He had a great love of trees and birds. In his retirement he planted and tended ten acres of red gums, spotted gums and sheoaks at Boorhamen. I'm pleased that shortly before he died I visited him with Lib and the boys and he proudly showed us around his young mini forest. He was a gentle man and a wonderful friend.
Some years ago, in a newspaper article dated 7 Nov 1945, replicated in The Weekly Times book 'The Bible of the Bush', released in 1994 in celebration of 125 years of publication, I came across the story of 8 Australians who were beheaded by the Japanese earlier that year. I was moved by this story. Firstly because the Australian soldiers were reportedly "gallant to the end", dying with great bravery in a ceremonial execution respectful of their courage. Secondly, I was aware that one of the men executed was Fred's brother, the newly married Lieutenant Albert 'Blondie' Sargent.
A few years ago I came across a book titled 'Kill the Tiger', subtitled 'The Truth about Operation Rimau', first published in 2002. This book reveals that the 8 Australians and two Britons did not go cheerily to their deaths after sharing cigarettes. They were brutally hacked to death with bungling ineptitude by five guards from Outrim prison and thrown on top of each other into three graves, four in one and three in each of the other two, after five months of cruelty and degradation.
The book states that no one in the Allied forces wanted the full story of Operation Rimau, which went horribly wrong, to be publicly revealed. They all had something to hide. This includes the British Establishment, the Americans, the British Navy and the Australian High Command. It concludes the chapter 'The Final Betrayal' saying the Rimau cover-up, in place for nearly sixty years, can be traced right to the top of the Australian High Command.
It dismays me that history, war time or otherwise, can be distorted, and that for years I had been under an illusion. Fred, who died in 1996 when aged in his mid eighties, probably never knew the truth which is the least he deserved, given his and his family's sacrifice.
Fred spent most of his working life after the war as a commercial beekeeper. He had a great love of trees and birds. In his retirement he planted and tended ten acres of red gums, spotted gums and sheoaks at Boorhamen. I'm pleased that shortly before he died I visited him with Lib and the boys and he proudly showed us around his young mini forest. He was a gentle man and a wonderful friend.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Autumn
I reached for a jacket half an hour ago, the first time for what seems like many months. It's drizzling outside, yellow pokers are flowering in the garden and the dogwood trees that are away from the septic drain have their rich red, orange and yellow colours. They have had enough this season and are happy to disrobe for winter rest. Those close to the drain, with access to plenty of moisture through summer and March are still lush and green and will hold for a while, till colder temperatures convince them to let go. They are heavy in flower bud, programmed for their October show.
Robbie caught four mice in a trap the other day, there's clothes on the horse in front of the gas heater; it was used on Saturday to help defrost the meat taken from the freezer for the barby; we haven't had that problem for a while. I resist yet, carting wood in and lighting the fire. Once I start it's a daily chore, for up to 150 days, with only the odd warm day's break.
I need a fine warm day to bed the bees down, then forget them, till spring rushes them to new life. Many eucs have a good budset for next season, it could be a biggie, honey wise. It may have been this season, but the good rains sent the trees into prodigious growth and budset for next year, robbing the flowers of the trees' energy.
I'll be busy pruning, renovating, planting into the moist ground, mulching, preparing for the promise of spring and the fresh start. Prospects are good and we are all in reasonable health. What more could I want? A little more time to read, to write, to watch a good movie*, to talk to friends. All that is possible over the next months.
*I've enjoyed movies lately, moreso than I have for years. It's an artform I never really embraced. I watched one the other night called 'Swingblade' starring Billy Bob Thornton, whom I'd never heard of. He wrote it and directed it too. Gee it was good. I'm reading 'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris and am enjoying that too. Maybe it's because I'm 58 now (as of last week) that everything seems better and life sweeter. I don't mind ageing at all if this continues. Maybe I speak to soon, I remember the words of a Simon and Garfunkel song, "How terribly strange to be seventy." But several of my septuagenarian friends seem to be amongst the happiest people I know, so I hope I get there to experience it. Could it be that inevitability is easier to accept than uncertainty, and the older you get there's more of the first and less of the latter, and perhaps that allows less anxiety on a daily basis?
I didn't start out to be searching like this, but that's the beauty of writing, thinking and blogging. You wind up looking for a perspective that can help you handle things. It's said, and I don't doubt it, that people often read many different interpretations of the same painting or poem. The longer I live the more wonder I see and feel, in everything.
Robbie caught four mice in a trap the other day, there's clothes on the horse in front of the gas heater; it was used on Saturday to help defrost the meat taken from the freezer for the barby; we haven't had that problem for a while. I resist yet, carting wood in and lighting the fire. Once I start it's a daily chore, for up to 150 days, with only the odd warm day's break.
I need a fine warm day to bed the bees down, then forget them, till spring rushes them to new life. Many eucs have a good budset for next season, it could be a biggie, honey wise. It may have been this season, but the good rains sent the trees into prodigious growth and budset for next year, robbing the flowers of the trees' energy.
I'll be busy pruning, renovating, planting into the moist ground, mulching, preparing for the promise of spring and the fresh start. Prospects are good and we are all in reasonable health. What more could I want? A little more time to read, to write, to watch a good movie*, to talk to friends. All that is possible over the next months.
*I've enjoyed movies lately, moreso than I have for years. It's an artform I never really embraced. I watched one the other night called 'Swingblade' starring Billy Bob Thornton, whom I'd never heard of. He wrote it and directed it too. Gee it was good. I'm reading 'Chocolat' by Joanne Harris and am enjoying that too. Maybe it's because I'm 58 now (as of last week) that everything seems better and life sweeter. I don't mind ageing at all if this continues. Maybe I speak to soon, I remember the words of a Simon and Garfunkel song, "How terribly strange to be seventy." But several of my septuagenarian friends seem to be amongst the happiest people I know, so I hope I get there to experience it. Could it be that inevitability is easier to accept than uncertainty, and the older you get there's more of the first and less of the latter, and perhaps that allows less anxiety on a daily basis?
I didn't start out to be searching like this, but that's the beauty of writing, thinking and blogging. You wind up looking for a perspective that can help you handle things. It's said, and I don't doubt it, that people often read many different interpretations of the same painting or poem. The longer I live the more wonder I see and feel, in everything.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Restoration
I've been flat lately. Too much to do. I almost sapped myself of energy.
I've been trying to get up a capital works grant application to the the Cardinia Shire on behalf of the Emerald Museam and Nobelius Heritage Park committee, to have replaced a delapidated concrete mishmash retaining wall in the park behind and to the sides of The Green Shed. I started out planning a stone wall replacement, gathering quotes and going through the paperwork. I was nearly there when a heritage consultant's report came in saying the wall could not be replaced with a stone wall, it had to be conrete/brick render as is the existing wall. Start again Carey, with 2 weeks before the April 5 cut off, Easter Monday, which makes it effectively April 1 it has to bein by. I'm still at it. I'm hoping two quotes come by email tomorrow, or my efforts will have been in vain.
The application may well fail, due to council's judgement on what are the most deserving and valid applications for council expenditure. That's OK, but if I fail to get the bid in, after so many hours of work and meetings with contractors, because I haven't met the criteria, well, that would be demoralizing.
As I've ploughed through, some good things lately are starting to give me a feeling of restoration, beginning to grow. Firstly, 22ml of rain on the weekend, perfect timing, Then, yesterday, because of the rain I worked late to get some seeds in at the farm. Violas, cornflowers, calendulas, brocolli, in some ground I forked over a week or so ago. The seeds I put in a few weeks ago, just before the big rain, are up and away and this is encouraging. And some salvia cutting I hastily stuck in some newly dug ground seem to be taking.There's something rejuvenating about putting in seeds and cuttings and seeing them grow. It's renewal.
Then this morning, walking down Quinn Rd. on my way home, I was feeling good that I was fit and well and able to walk and soak up the superb autumn atmosphere. Big John McCann came up the the other way.
We stopped and talked briefly, sharing our feelings of good fortune to live in such a place and walk in the morning fresh air. John's about 80 years old, a tall thin man with lifetime of rich experience and a bent for philosophy. He was once a minister of religion, has spent a lot of time in the bush as a pilot, and in New Guinea. Right up until recently he was travelling to Monash doing honours in a theology degree, I think, part time.
He said that last year he was in Shanghai on a holiday with his daughter. The air was that thick with pollution you could hardly breathe. We looked across to the Warburton ranges, breathing deep the fresh cold air, across green paddocks and forested valleys.
We are lucky indeed to live where we live!
I've been trying to get up a capital works grant application to the the Cardinia Shire on behalf of the Emerald Museam and Nobelius Heritage Park committee, to have replaced a delapidated concrete mishmash retaining wall in the park behind and to the sides of The Green Shed. I started out planning a stone wall replacement, gathering quotes and going through the paperwork. I was nearly there when a heritage consultant's report came in saying the wall could not be replaced with a stone wall, it had to be conrete/brick render as is the existing wall. Start again Carey, with 2 weeks before the April 5 cut off, Easter Monday, which makes it effectively April 1 it has to bein by. I'm still at it. I'm hoping two quotes come by email tomorrow, or my efforts will have been in vain.
The application may well fail, due to council's judgement on what are the most deserving and valid applications for council expenditure. That's OK, but if I fail to get the bid in, after so many hours of work and meetings with contractors, because I haven't met the criteria, well, that would be demoralizing.
As I've ploughed through, some good things lately are starting to give me a feeling of restoration, beginning to grow. Firstly, 22ml of rain on the weekend, perfect timing, Then, yesterday, because of the rain I worked late to get some seeds in at the farm. Violas, cornflowers, calendulas, brocolli, in some ground I forked over a week or so ago. The seeds I put in a few weeks ago, just before the big rain, are up and away and this is encouraging. And some salvia cutting I hastily stuck in some newly dug ground seem to be taking.There's something rejuvenating about putting in seeds and cuttings and seeing them grow. It's renewal.
Then this morning, walking down Quinn Rd. on my way home, I was feeling good that I was fit and well and able to walk and soak up the superb autumn atmosphere. Big John McCann came up the the other way.
We stopped and talked briefly, sharing our feelings of good fortune to live in such a place and walk in the morning fresh air. John's about 80 years old, a tall thin man with lifetime of rich experience and a bent for philosophy. He was once a minister of religion, has spent a lot of time in the bush as a pilot, and in New Guinea. Right up until recently he was travelling to Monash doing honours in a theology degree, I think, part time.
He said that last year he was in Shanghai on a holiday with his daughter. The air was that thick with pollution you could hardly breathe. We looked across to the Warburton ranges, breathing deep the fresh cold air, across green paddocks and forested valleys.
We are lucky indeed to live where we live!
Letter from Barry
The letter I wrote to Barry Heard about his book 'Well Done Those Men' in my 24 Feb post was sent a few days later addressed c/- the publisher. I was chuffed last week when a reply came from Barry thanking me. He said he gets quite a few and answers them all. Most people respect his honesty. He does a lot of work helping vets. There are many problems, especially alcohol.
Amazingly, when I looked at the return address on the envelope, Barry lives in the same street in the same town as Lib's sister Margaret. Marg and Phil are at no.26 and Barry's is 27. He's not straight across the road but Marg knows him and waves when she sees him. They worked at the same TAFE for a while.
He's written three books. As well as 'Well Done Those Men' there's one about his chidhood growing up in the Tambo Valley, 'The View from Connor's Hill', and a novel TAG set in WW1. The publisher is Scribe, http://www.scribepublications.com.au/
I'll get 'Well Done Those Men' to send to my mate Ian in Canada and the others for my own interest.
Amazingly, when I looked at the return address on the envelope, Barry lives in the same street in the same town as Lib's sister Margaret. Marg and Phil are at no.26 and Barry's is 27. He's not straight across the road but Marg knows him and waves when she sees him. They worked at the same TAFE for a while.
He's written three books. As well as 'Well Done Those Men' there's one about his chidhood growing up in the Tambo Valley, 'The View from Connor's Hill', and a novel TAG set in WW1. The publisher is Scribe, http://www.scribepublications.com.au/
I'll get 'Well Done Those Men' to send to my mate Ian in Canada and the others for my own interest.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
St. Peter's Dome
I met Heinz on my walk this morning. He's leaving on Easter Monday on a trip back to Germany with his new partner. They go via Singapore, then the 13hour leg to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt airport, he told me they go underground to catch the train, a bullet train that trvels at 320kph. At Cologne station they get off. The cathedral is about 100 metres from the station.
He'll go there first. It was the tallest building in the world for 1000 years. It's construction started in about 900AD and continued for 800 years. 96% of the buildings in Cologne were destroyed by bombs and fire in WW2 but the cathedral survived. The city authorities took out all the stain glass windows before the raids and stored them somewhere safe. Four bombs went into the cathedral but it was of such strong stone and steel construction, and without windows to compress explosion, the damage was restricted internal. The structure remained standing. After the war the windows were replaced and repairs made inside.
Heinz isn't religious. I think he said he was an atheist. But he likes visiting churches. He said today," If there is a God then it is a God common to all of us. Churches and religion are man's work. When I go to Melbourne I go to St Paul's opposite Flinder's street station. I go inside and sit down. It's a respect I feel for fellow humans."
I asked him was the Cologne cathedral Catholic. He replied, "Yes it is, but I don't care about what type of church it is, it doesn't matter to me at all. It's called St. Peter's Dome."
I don't know if I'll ever visit Europe, but if I do the St. Peter's Dome at Cologne will be on my list of must sees.
He'll go there first. It was the tallest building in the world for 1000 years. It's construction started in about 900AD and continued for 800 years. 96% of the buildings in Cologne were destroyed by bombs and fire in WW2 but the cathedral survived. The city authorities took out all the stain glass windows before the raids and stored them somewhere safe. Four bombs went into the cathedral but it was of such strong stone and steel construction, and without windows to compress explosion, the damage was restricted internal. The structure remained standing. After the war the windows were replaced and repairs made inside.
Heinz isn't religious. I think he said he was an atheist. But he likes visiting churches. He said today," If there is a God then it is a God common to all of us. Churches and religion are man's work. When I go to Melbourne I go to St Paul's opposite Flinder's street station. I go inside and sit down. It's a respect I feel for fellow humans."
I asked him was the Cologne cathedral Catholic. He replied, "Yes it is, but I don't care about what type of church it is, it doesn't matter to me at all. It's called St. Peter's Dome."
I don't know if I'll ever visit Europe, but if I do the St. Peter's Dome at Cologne will be on my list of must sees.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Quite a Storm
The downpour yesterday started about 4.00pm. About an hour later when it eased there was 40ml in the raingauge. I hadn't even thought about clearing leaves from the spouts near the downpipes. That was a big mistake. About two minutes after the torrential rain started water was overflowing all the way along the spout onto the deck saturating everything.
I was a bit stunned at the sheer volume of water cascading everywhere when Robbie suggested I check the carport and driveway. Water was running down the hill depositing screenings and silt in the carport. I got wet through shovelling this aside so the water didn't build up. With the rain easing I stripped off shirt and trousers and climbed onto the roof in gumboots and underpants to clear the leaves from the downpipes. It was as slippery as all hell and I realised how easy it is for silly buggers like me to fall off and break their neck or leg or back. It should have been done before the rain started.
Why hadn't I done it before it rained? There'd been plenty of storm warnings and the sky had looked threatening on and off or some 30 hours previous. It was because my mind was focused on something else and I take the valuable lesson to be more flexible and respond more to the obvious and immediate. It'd been on my mind to work the bees and get a bit of honey off at first chance, after not being unable to do it for the past three weekends. When the expected rain didn't come on Friday and I woke to clear blue skies and warm weather on Saturday, I got into my head to do the bees.
It was after lunch when I got to them. I united two weaker hives. They weren't as weak as I thought, but again, I'd had it in my head to do it. It was messy, bees and combs were everywhere and robbers were quick to action. It's better to stay away from bees when a storm's brewing but I ignored this, thinking it was still warm and I'd be quick. It wasn't one of my better beekeeping efforts. Half way through I knew my mistake but determinedly kept going.
The rain kept up overnight bringing another 22ml for a total of 62 till now. I'm about to go outside to the shed and extract honey. There's possibility of more storms. At least the downpipes are clear now, but the tanks are already full so any more rain will overflow down the hill. I haven't seen rain as heavy as that for a long time. I'm grateful we missed the hail they had in other places. Hail can be a killer to the foliage business.
I was a bit stunned at the sheer volume of water cascading everywhere when Robbie suggested I check the carport and driveway. Water was running down the hill depositing screenings and silt in the carport. I got wet through shovelling this aside so the water didn't build up. With the rain easing I stripped off shirt and trousers and climbed onto the roof in gumboots and underpants to clear the leaves from the downpipes. It was as slippery as all hell and I realised how easy it is for silly buggers like me to fall off and break their neck or leg or back. It should have been done before the rain started.
Why hadn't I done it before it rained? There'd been plenty of storm warnings and the sky had looked threatening on and off or some 30 hours previous. It was because my mind was focused on something else and I take the valuable lesson to be more flexible and respond more to the obvious and immediate. It'd been on my mind to work the bees and get a bit of honey off at first chance, after not being unable to do it for the past three weekends. When the expected rain didn't come on Friday and I woke to clear blue skies and warm weather on Saturday, I got into my head to do the bees.
It was after lunch when I got to them. I united two weaker hives. They weren't as weak as I thought, but again, I'd had it in my head to do it. It was messy, bees and combs were everywhere and robbers were quick to action. It's better to stay away from bees when a storm's brewing but I ignored this, thinking it was still warm and I'd be quick. It wasn't one of my better beekeeping efforts. Half way through I knew my mistake but determinedly kept going.
The rain kept up overnight bringing another 22ml for a total of 62 till now. I'm about to go outside to the shed and extract honey. There's possibility of more storms. At least the downpipes are clear now, but the tanks are already full so any more rain will overflow down the hill. I haven't seen rain as heavy as that for a long time. I'm grateful we missed the hail they had in other places. Hail can be a killer to the foliage business.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Well Done Barry
Lib and I, and G and R, tripped to Wangaratta on the weekend (13/14Feb-- I'm behind in my blogging, this sat as a draft for a week or more) to visit Molly. At 91 Molly is well but frail, and has various health issues that make her life awkward. Reduced mobility means it takes her so long to do things and of course there are many things she can't do. She relies on home help which comes twice a day, morning and afternoon. We took up an oxtail stew that Lib cooked during last week.
It was a nice little rest. I finished the book I'd been reading, 'Well Done Those Men' by Barry Heard. It's the memoirs of a Vietnam veteran who suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It details his experiences before his conscription, during training, in Vietnam, and then on his return to Australia, continuing through his studies and career as a teacher and his breakdown and recovery. I found his story riveting and I feel compelled to write to him, as follows.
Dear Barry,
I have just completed your book 'Well Done Those Men', and I congratulate you for your courage. It's an amazing and alarming story, well told. I too was conscripted, fortunately not till September 1972. I didn't go to to Vietnam; Australia had withdrawn most of the troops by then and I have never suffered PTSD, but your graphic detail roused me, as does your honesty.
Despite having about five years to get used to the possibility, and many months to the reality, I was shit scared when I fronted up to Swan St for the bus trip to Puckapunyal. I resolved to meet every challenge as best I could, but it was a strange feeling, one of losing control of my destiny from that point. I had been a student at Caulfield Tech doing business studies when the ballot took place, I could've had it deferred, but frankly the army at that point looked more exciting than accountancy.
The anti war protests and moratorium marches had been building to a massive scale. I sided with the establishment. Early in 1971, the 'love of my life' up to that point, gave me the flick for a long haired, bearded, caftan clad older bloke at Melbourne Uni, where she went after completing school. It was gut wrenching. I had no time for the protests and the hippy movement in general and spent much of my spare time away in the bush with a mate or two camping and fishing. A friend, Ian, had been to Vietnam, finishing his national service in 1971. Three years older than me, he went through school with my brother, as I did with his. He was a keen hunter and fisherman, we often camped and fished in the Victorian highlands. On his return, that's all he wanted to do. He left the railways, where he'd worked as a fireman on the trains pre army, also with my brother. If I couldn't go bush with him he'd go by himself for days at a time.
As 1972 came and my number came up, I quit the business studies and had some months spare. Ian and I did a trip to the Flinder's Ranges in January 1972. It wet our appetite so we took off next to Alice Springs and Darwin. Before my whereabouts became the business of the army that September, I spent a lot of time with Ian which was somehow a comfort to my anxiety, as he'd already done it. Not that he talked about it much, and he said little about Vietnam. He didn't really show 'readjustment blues', other than lengthy morose, silent periods, and the odd angry outburst. One I recall when a country cop in Sth. Australia pulled up his car and wanted to look in the boot. When he found Ian's two rifles, what should have been a routine roadside check became a heated incident back at the police station while the cop asked questions and did his checking. Ian seethed with indignity, his anger obvious, and he worried me with the lack of respect he showed. The policeman to his credit seemed to read the situation and we ultimately left without further incident or impediment. Weeks later a fine from the SA Police arrived at Ian's house for driving a car with "excessive exhaust noise and emitting sparks." He flared and seethed.
Another time I foolishly shot at a rabbit quite close to the camp after I'd been off on a walk, and he didn't know I'd come back. He was totally enraged. Looking back I realize that both these incidents concerned firearms and he was ultra sensitive. Fortunately he wasn't a heavy drinker. Before Vietnam he was a light drinker, afterward he hardly touched it, saying he drank that much beer in Vietnam that he now had no interest.
The NCO instructors when I was at 2RTB were regulars and had all been to Vietnam, some perhaps more than one tour. To a man they seemed to have an alcohol problem, you never knew when one or more would turn up in the evening, drunk and nasty. The 'Parade 8' call would come and we'd line up in front of the hut and cop abuse. 'Shellshock' Murphy was the worst. We loathed and dreaded the sight of him. The others were bad but Murphy worked himself almost to a frenzy, spraying saliva from his purple face, his blood vessels and eyes bulging, telling us we weren't fit to sleep in the same beds as those that came before us, some of whom bled and died in some stinking muddy ditch in the stinking bloody jungle. They loathed us, we felt, and the society that had shunned, protested, marched, yelled abuse, and thrown paint. In retrospect I think they were all close to 'the edge' and it was only their 'togetherness' that prevented them going over. Perhaps some did later.
Our march out parade at 2RTB was the same day as the 1972 Federal Election. I couldn't vote, the voting age was 21 then. It was an uncertain time. We didn't know whether we'd all be discharged or what if Labour got in. After a couple of weeks of sitting around or being taken out to the bush in trucks and having to find our way back, we learned we could leave if we liked or at any time before term by now reduced to eighteen months was up. If we left early we'd get the benefits the previous nashos got after they completed their term, eg training schemes, and if we stayed on the incentive was that we'd be eligible for the same perks as nashos that had served OS, eg cheap home loan. This annoyed the regular soldiers. I decided to stay on and finish my term. I went to Corps training, the Service (Transport) Corps for a short time, till some incident upset me, and with no compulsion to stay it all seemed a bit pointless. Morale in the army seemed to deteriorate badly after the election. My platoon sergeant called me an effing weak prick when I told him I was off. I felt like a jib, but I had a life to get on with.
Ian had done a bricklaying course which ran for a few months with the intention of working with his uncle in Canberra. He finished the course and built a path and a wall at our new 'farm' but didn't set up as a bricklayer. He had a suspect back from falling off a truck in Vietnam. He came up to our farm everyday for months on end and helped planting trees and starting the garden. I'd signed up to do a beekeeping course at Qld Ag College in 1974, but he had no plans or ambition, and just hung around every day. In the end we got stuck into him a bit, his aimlessness was starting to irritate. One day, he said he was going to WA. His brother who went through school with me, was working for a plumber mate at Kunanurra. I felt guilty after he left.
He wrote the odd letter, but we didn't see him for a number of years. Then he started appearing out of nowhere without any notice, every couple of years or so, when he came to see his mum in Melbourne. He'd want to see the garden he'd helped plant at our farm. That had given him a love of trees and planting them. He travelled constantly through Australia and Asia with long hair and a beard like a hippy. He went where the fancy took him if he could afford to get there. One time he turned up in a beat up old Toyota jeep with WA plates, a lot of rust, but no current rego. I told him he was foolish, he'd get picked up by the cops for sure. He said, "I don't care, what can they do?" I said they'd put a canary on his car and fine him and it'd cost him heaps. He said that didn't worry him. He'd just leave the car there and piss off back to WA, which is exactly what happened. Another time I questioned the wisdom of his lifestyle, suggesting he buy a house, with thought for the long term. We'd discuss things like that. He said to own a house was the last thing he'd want because, "Then they can find me".
So your story rang a lot of bells for me. Like you, I married a nurse. Her family had, and still has, a holiday house at Lakes Entrance. I'm not much of a golfer but I've played a few rounds at Swift's Creek and was comfortable there while I'm not at other courses. I distrust authority and bureaucracy. Over time I've changed my view of the Vietnam conflict. We never should have been there, is my opinion now. It appalls me to think of the 500 plus Australians who died and the thousands wounded bodily and psychologically. Also the huge numbers of Americans and Vietnamese. I hate violence, racism, and injustice.
Ian lives in Canada now, after marrying a Canadian lady he met on his travels. They have two sons, one about twenty and the other ten. He's on Vancouver Island for twelve months where his wife is doing a naturopathy course, but they have a house in Whitehorse in the Yukon where they live usually, and where the winters are about 6 months long. He still loves hunting and fishing, but now it's moose and salmon. He rings every Christmas and other odd times. The last time I saw him was March 2008. He came to Australia so his younger son could meet his mother who was turning 90. It was minus 40C when he left Whitehorse and 40 above here when he arrived and took his son camping up around the Big River arm of Eildon, where we used to go.
Thanks again for the book. It's the best account and explanation I have read about something I have pondered about over time. There has been too much silence over the decades and I'm sure your book has helped soothe many who served in Vietnam. I wish you and your old army mates the very best of everything for the future. I'd send your book to my friend Ian but I have to return it, as I borrowed it. I'll keep my eyes peeled for one.
Carey Williams
I'll try to transfer the above letter to 'Word' and print it out and send it to Barry via the publisher. I'd recommend Barry's book. I hope Ian doesn't mind me writing about him in my blog, should he read it. Too bad if you do mate! As I said I'll send you the book if I can find one.
( Since I started the draft saying Molly is well, she has had bleeding from the bowel and has been in hospital and has had a couple of transfusions. She's being discharged tomorrow and Lib is going to Wang in the morning for a few days.)
It was a nice little rest. I finished the book I'd been reading, 'Well Done Those Men' by Barry Heard. It's the memoirs of a Vietnam veteran who suffered Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It details his experiences before his conscription, during training, in Vietnam, and then on his return to Australia, continuing through his studies and career as a teacher and his breakdown and recovery. I found his story riveting and I feel compelled to write to him, as follows.
Dear Barry,
I have just completed your book 'Well Done Those Men', and I congratulate you for your courage. It's an amazing and alarming story, well told. I too was conscripted, fortunately not till September 1972. I didn't go to to Vietnam; Australia had withdrawn most of the troops by then and I have never suffered PTSD, but your graphic detail roused me, as does your honesty.
Despite having about five years to get used to the possibility, and many months to the reality, I was shit scared when I fronted up to Swan St for the bus trip to Puckapunyal. I resolved to meet every challenge as best I could, but it was a strange feeling, one of losing control of my destiny from that point. I had been a student at Caulfield Tech doing business studies when the ballot took place, I could've had it deferred, but frankly the army at that point looked more exciting than accountancy.
The anti war protests and moratorium marches had been building to a massive scale. I sided with the establishment. Early in 1971, the 'love of my life' up to that point, gave me the flick for a long haired, bearded, caftan clad older bloke at Melbourne Uni, where she went after completing school. It was gut wrenching. I had no time for the protests and the hippy movement in general and spent much of my spare time away in the bush with a mate or two camping and fishing. A friend, Ian, had been to Vietnam, finishing his national service in 1971. Three years older than me, he went through school with my brother, as I did with his. He was a keen hunter and fisherman, we often camped and fished in the Victorian highlands. On his return, that's all he wanted to do. He left the railways, where he'd worked as a fireman on the trains pre army, also with my brother. If I couldn't go bush with him he'd go by himself for days at a time.
As 1972 came and my number came up, I quit the business studies and had some months spare. Ian and I did a trip to the Flinder's Ranges in January 1972. It wet our appetite so we took off next to Alice Springs and Darwin. Before my whereabouts became the business of the army that September, I spent a lot of time with Ian which was somehow a comfort to my anxiety, as he'd already done it. Not that he talked about it much, and he said little about Vietnam. He didn't really show 'readjustment blues', other than lengthy morose, silent periods, and the odd angry outburst. One I recall when a country cop in Sth. Australia pulled up his car and wanted to look in the boot. When he found Ian's two rifles, what should have been a routine roadside check became a heated incident back at the police station while the cop asked questions and did his checking. Ian seethed with indignity, his anger obvious, and he worried me with the lack of respect he showed. The policeman to his credit seemed to read the situation and we ultimately left without further incident or impediment. Weeks later a fine from the SA Police arrived at Ian's house for driving a car with "excessive exhaust noise and emitting sparks." He flared and seethed.
Another time I foolishly shot at a rabbit quite close to the camp after I'd been off on a walk, and he didn't know I'd come back. He was totally enraged. Looking back I realize that both these incidents concerned firearms and he was ultra sensitive. Fortunately he wasn't a heavy drinker. Before Vietnam he was a light drinker, afterward he hardly touched it, saying he drank that much beer in Vietnam that he now had no interest.
The NCO instructors when I was at 2RTB were regulars and had all been to Vietnam, some perhaps more than one tour. To a man they seemed to have an alcohol problem, you never knew when one or more would turn up in the evening, drunk and nasty. The 'Parade 8' call would come and we'd line up in front of the hut and cop abuse. 'Shellshock' Murphy was the worst. We loathed and dreaded the sight of him. The others were bad but Murphy worked himself almost to a frenzy, spraying saliva from his purple face, his blood vessels and eyes bulging, telling us we weren't fit to sleep in the same beds as those that came before us, some of whom bled and died in some stinking muddy ditch in the stinking bloody jungle. They loathed us, we felt, and the society that had shunned, protested, marched, yelled abuse, and thrown paint. In retrospect I think they were all close to 'the edge' and it was only their 'togetherness' that prevented them going over. Perhaps some did later.
Our march out parade at 2RTB was the same day as the 1972 Federal Election. I couldn't vote, the voting age was 21 then. It was an uncertain time. We didn't know whether we'd all be discharged or what if Labour got in. After a couple of weeks of sitting around or being taken out to the bush in trucks and having to find our way back, we learned we could leave if we liked or at any time before term by now reduced to eighteen months was up. If we left early we'd get the benefits the previous nashos got after they completed their term, eg training schemes, and if we stayed on the incentive was that we'd be eligible for the same perks as nashos that had served OS, eg cheap home loan. This annoyed the regular soldiers. I decided to stay on and finish my term. I went to Corps training, the Service (Transport) Corps for a short time, till some incident upset me, and with no compulsion to stay it all seemed a bit pointless. Morale in the army seemed to deteriorate badly after the election. My platoon sergeant called me an effing weak prick when I told him I was off. I felt like a jib, but I had a life to get on with.
Ian had done a bricklaying course which ran for a few months with the intention of working with his uncle in Canberra. He finished the course and built a path and a wall at our new 'farm' but didn't set up as a bricklayer. He had a suspect back from falling off a truck in Vietnam. He came up to our farm everyday for months on end and helped planting trees and starting the garden. I'd signed up to do a beekeeping course at Qld Ag College in 1974, but he had no plans or ambition, and just hung around every day. In the end we got stuck into him a bit, his aimlessness was starting to irritate. One day, he said he was going to WA. His brother who went through school with me, was working for a plumber mate at Kunanurra. I felt guilty after he left.
He wrote the odd letter, but we didn't see him for a number of years. Then he started appearing out of nowhere without any notice, every couple of years or so, when he came to see his mum in Melbourne. He'd want to see the garden he'd helped plant at our farm. That had given him a love of trees and planting them. He travelled constantly through Australia and Asia with long hair and a beard like a hippy. He went where the fancy took him if he could afford to get there. One time he turned up in a beat up old Toyota jeep with WA plates, a lot of rust, but no current rego. I told him he was foolish, he'd get picked up by the cops for sure. He said, "I don't care, what can they do?" I said they'd put a canary on his car and fine him and it'd cost him heaps. He said that didn't worry him. He'd just leave the car there and piss off back to WA, which is exactly what happened. Another time I questioned the wisdom of his lifestyle, suggesting he buy a house, with thought for the long term. We'd discuss things like that. He said to own a house was the last thing he'd want because, "Then they can find me".
So your story rang a lot of bells for me. Like you, I married a nurse. Her family had, and still has, a holiday house at Lakes Entrance. I'm not much of a golfer but I've played a few rounds at Swift's Creek and was comfortable there while I'm not at other courses. I distrust authority and bureaucracy. Over time I've changed my view of the Vietnam conflict. We never should have been there, is my opinion now. It appalls me to think of the 500 plus Australians who died and the thousands wounded bodily and psychologically. Also the huge numbers of Americans and Vietnamese. I hate violence, racism, and injustice.
Ian lives in Canada now, after marrying a Canadian lady he met on his travels. They have two sons, one about twenty and the other ten. He's on Vancouver Island for twelve months where his wife is doing a naturopathy course, but they have a house in Whitehorse in the Yukon where they live usually, and where the winters are about 6 months long. He still loves hunting and fishing, but now it's moose and salmon. He rings every Christmas and other odd times. The last time I saw him was March 2008. He came to Australia so his younger son could meet his mother who was turning 90. It was minus 40C when he left Whitehorse and 40 above here when he arrived and took his son camping up around the Big River arm of Eildon, where we used to go.
Thanks again for the book. It's the best account and explanation I have read about something I have pondered about over time. There has been too much silence over the decades and I'm sure your book has helped soothe many who served in Vietnam. I wish you and your old army mates the very best of everything for the future. I'd send your book to my friend Ian but I have to return it, as I borrowed it. I'll keep my eyes peeled for one.
Carey Williams
I'll try to transfer the above letter to 'Word' and print it out and send it to Barry via the publisher. I'd recommend Barry's book. I hope Ian doesn't mind me writing about him in my blog, should he read it. Too bad if you do mate! As I said I'll send you the book if I can find one.
( Since I started the draft saying Molly is well, she has had bleeding from the bowel and has been in hospital and has had a couple of transfusions. She's being discharged tomorrow and Lib is going to Wang in the morning for a few days.)
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
A Walk Back in Time
An email from a childhood friend, Graeme Forster, came three days before Christmas, in response to one I sent the same day. I hadn't seen or heard from Graeme for more than twenty years and had lost all contact details after he moved from his home in northern NSW. Years ago I rang his old number and learned he'd moved. I tried the phone directory for the area and also Canberra and Perth where I knew his older brothers Keith and Bill lived at some stage, to no avail. Every number I called was a dead end. Mr.Forster died in 1976 and Mrs. in1981.
While shopping in Emerald about three years ago I had a conversation with a lady, Bronwyn, who mentioned casually her husband's aunt, who, before advancing years and the loss of her husband largely confined her to home, was a regular visitor to Chamomile Farm. I recalled my parents telling me Graeme's brother Keith, on his way up to visit friends way back in the 1970's, had called in at the farm. His friends were Bronwyn's husband's aunt and uncle. I asked Bronwyn did she see the aunt much and she said that coincidentally they were going to see her the next day. Bronwyn said she'd ask the aunt if she still had contact with Keith Forster.
I saw Bronwyn in the street a couple of weeks later and she told me that the aunt did have Keith's phone number but she didn't get it from her when she was there, as the old lady was not well and she didn't like to push, but she would get it next time or when circumstances were right. Well I didn't see Bronwyn again for three years, till about last August. She explained she'd been living in Dubai for the last two years and when I jogged her about the phone number she told me the aunt was still alive and she'd ask again. Days later I met Bronwyn again and she obligingly gave me a piece of paper with Keith's mobile phone number on it.
I rang Keith twice about a month apart and left a message on the answering service. Keith had not responded by November. I was beginning to feel like that bloke in the TV ad who rang his mate eating a pie across the road on his mobile and watched his mate ("Come on Johnny me old mate" as the phone rang) check who the call was from before ignoring it and putting the phone away. On November 14, Jod's 60th birthday, I rang Keith again, realizing it was also Bill Forster's birthday and hoping to get Bill's phone number so I could ring him and surprise him with a birthday greeting.
This time Keith answered. He apologized for not calling earlier, he'd been busy. He's a single parent looking after his 17 year old daughter from his second marriage. He works as an analyst for the defence Department in Canberra. He told me Bill had died of dementia a couple of years back, aged 58. He gave me Graeme's address, phone and email details and on Dec 22 I emailed Graeme, prompted by Christmas.
Graeme lives on the Gold Coast. He's a carer for his wife who has suffered a series of strokes. They have three grown up kids aged 29, 26 and 20. The girls are at Uni and live at home and his son Darcy works as a bush regenerator, mostly on Stradbroke Is. The eldest, Ella, is completing a philosophy degree and has a spiritual and inward inclination which Graeme says is something she has in common with him.
There's a picture in our family album of Graeme and I in the Mt.Waverley Primary School football team photo. We're sitting centre in the front row, each with both our hands on the footy between us. We were in Grade 5. Most of the kids in the photo were grade sixers, in that year in which our school won the area footy comp. The captain is holding the shield in the photo. I remember little of the actual footy but I think we played the very strong Chadstone in the deciding match and against the odds and showing great persistence we triumphed narrowly. There's also a class photo of our grade 5, 1962, in which again Graeme and I have the then fashionable crew cut hair.
We were inseparable mates for four or five years. Sport orientated and athltetic, fit young fellows, we rode pushbikes everywhere, kicked the footy in the park for hours on end, played cricket and shuttlecock in the back yard, pool and billiards, all with a friendly competetiveness. I could never bridge the foot or so edge Graeme had over me in a sprint race. Each summer I'd go away on holiday with the Forster family to Lorne or Torquay. Mr and Mrs Forster treated me like one of the family and I soaked up the holiday atmosphere and the beach environment and casual picnic type lunches of fresh rolls and salad. And lemon squashes at the pub when Mr. Forster (also Bill) nipped in for a beer on the way down. Greame and I did a paper round to give the regulars a break over Christmas to earn spending money for our holiday, on which we budgeted carefully to pay for icecreams, mini golf, trampoline sessions and soft drink. It was wonderful childhood stuff.
When primary school finished I was grateful my parents sent me to Malvern Grammar where Graeme was enrolled, and where Keith and Bill had already passed through forms 1 and 2 and progressed to the senior school, Caulfield Grammar. We in turn moved on to Caulfield Grammar in 1966 where I think the pressures of senior school and different classes and subjects separated us a bit. Probably with adolescence came interest in the opposite sex which further compounded life and we lost our simple boyhood alliance that was our bond. It was all a bit much for me. I became wayward and rebellious and found similar companions and was ultimately expelled from school in 1968, and our two families each had their own dramas. My family moved from Mt.Waverley in 1971, Graeme was at university, and I saw him rarely by then.
In his email Graeme said he had so many fond memories of our childhood and of my family, some of which I've mentioned above and others like fireworks and water bombs recall to me how we were often quite mischievous and downright naughty. One hot summer's day we found we could make effective water bombs which could be lobbed through the open window of the train into the driver's head or lap from our strategic ambush position as the train left the station. After watching the driver duck in evasive action as he wondered what the devil was coming at him we'd ride away laughing till our bellies ached.
Another of Graeme's memories was the 1964 Grand Final which we attended in standing room as 12 twelve year olds. My team Melbourne won by four points after 'Weideman' had put Collingwood ahead in the dying moments. I have to correct Graeme on that, it was Gabelich that kicked that goal. It was Melbourne's last premiership, and he's correct that his team Essendon has had a lot more success since, to the tune of 5 flags- 65, 84, 85, 93, and 2000 (when they beat Melbourne). I hope the pendulum swings back now, but I have to say over the years I've been glad for Graeme when Essendon had success, even though I couldn't stand that thug Sheedy. I'm pleased that Graeme still has an interest in the footy and goes to the odd pre-season game when it's on at Carrara.
Graeme said also his main interest over the past twenty years has been remembering God. He's not a member of any church group but I took from his comments that he has a belief and meditates and has an inward peace which removes him from the troubles of society and the stresses of life. He said he was agnostic till the late 1980's when personal experience started him on his inward search, but it probably had its origin back when he was present at first his father's death in 1976, then his mother's in 1981. On both occasions he felt they left to go somewhere else, so that to him, they never really died. It was comforting for me to read. I was so very fond of Bill and Ethel Forster who were like another set of parents to me. I think I always felt I let them down with the waywardness of my adolescence, and of course with their passing from this life so long ago, I never had the chance to put it right later, or at least give them back some of the human kindness they showed me when I was young, the kindness that has been so important in helping me be as compassionate a person as I can.
Graeme saying it felt like his parents left to go somewhere else reminded me of something Meredith once said. She was present when our nanna Wilson died, and she said it was like an unstoppable force leaving, which was not unlike the feeling she had when her daughters were born, except in that case the unstoppable force was coming not going.
Graeme said my email would bring him many smiles at Christmas. I'm so glad for that.
While shopping in Emerald about three years ago I had a conversation with a lady, Bronwyn, who mentioned casually her husband's aunt, who, before advancing years and the loss of her husband largely confined her to home, was a regular visitor to Chamomile Farm. I recalled my parents telling me Graeme's brother Keith, on his way up to visit friends way back in the 1970's, had called in at the farm. His friends were Bronwyn's husband's aunt and uncle. I asked Bronwyn did she see the aunt much and she said that coincidentally they were going to see her the next day. Bronwyn said she'd ask the aunt if she still had contact with Keith Forster.
I saw Bronwyn in the street a couple of weeks later and she told me that the aunt did have Keith's phone number but she didn't get it from her when she was there, as the old lady was not well and she didn't like to push, but she would get it next time or when circumstances were right. Well I didn't see Bronwyn again for three years, till about last August. She explained she'd been living in Dubai for the last two years and when I jogged her about the phone number she told me the aunt was still alive and she'd ask again. Days later I met Bronwyn again and she obligingly gave me a piece of paper with Keith's mobile phone number on it.
I rang Keith twice about a month apart and left a message on the answering service. Keith had not responded by November. I was beginning to feel like that bloke in the TV ad who rang his mate eating a pie across the road on his mobile and watched his mate ("Come on Johnny me old mate" as the phone rang) check who the call was from before ignoring it and putting the phone away. On November 14, Jod's 60th birthday, I rang Keith again, realizing it was also Bill Forster's birthday and hoping to get Bill's phone number so I could ring him and surprise him with a birthday greeting.
This time Keith answered. He apologized for not calling earlier, he'd been busy. He's a single parent looking after his 17 year old daughter from his second marriage. He works as an analyst for the defence Department in Canberra. He told me Bill had died of dementia a couple of years back, aged 58. He gave me Graeme's address, phone and email details and on Dec 22 I emailed Graeme, prompted by Christmas.
Graeme lives on the Gold Coast. He's a carer for his wife who has suffered a series of strokes. They have three grown up kids aged 29, 26 and 20. The girls are at Uni and live at home and his son Darcy works as a bush regenerator, mostly on Stradbroke Is. The eldest, Ella, is completing a philosophy degree and has a spiritual and inward inclination which Graeme says is something she has in common with him.
There's a picture in our family album of Graeme and I in the Mt.Waverley Primary School football team photo. We're sitting centre in the front row, each with both our hands on the footy between us. We were in Grade 5. Most of the kids in the photo were grade sixers, in that year in which our school won the area footy comp. The captain is holding the shield in the photo. I remember little of the actual footy but I think we played the very strong Chadstone in the deciding match and against the odds and showing great persistence we triumphed narrowly. There's also a class photo of our grade 5, 1962, in which again Graeme and I have the then fashionable crew cut hair.
We were inseparable mates for four or five years. Sport orientated and athltetic, fit young fellows, we rode pushbikes everywhere, kicked the footy in the park for hours on end, played cricket and shuttlecock in the back yard, pool and billiards, all with a friendly competetiveness. I could never bridge the foot or so edge Graeme had over me in a sprint race. Each summer I'd go away on holiday with the Forster family to Lorne or Torquay. Mr and Mrs Forster treated me like one of the family and I soaked up the holiday atmosphere and the beach environment and casual picnic type lunches of fresh rolls and salad. And lemon squashes at the pub when Mr. Forster (also Bill) nipped in for a beer on the way down. Greame and I did a paper round to give the regulars a break over Christmas to earn spending money for our holiday, on which we budgeted carefully to pay for icecreams, mini golf, trampoline sessions and soft drink. It was wonderful childhood stuff.
When primary school finished I was grateful my parents sent me to Malvern Grammar where Graeme was enrolled, and where Keith and Bill had already passed through forms 1 and 2 and progressed to the senior school, Caulfield Grammar. We in turn moved on to Caulfield Grammar in 1966 where I think the pressures of senior school and different classes and subjects separated us a bit. Probably with adolescence came interest in the opposite sex which further compounded life and we lost our simple boyhood alliance that was our bond. It was all a bit much for me. I became wayward and rebellious and found similar companions and was ultimately expelled from school in 1968, and our two families each had their own dramas. My family moved from Mt.Waverley in 1971, Graeme was at university, and I saw him rarely by then.
In his email Graeme said he had so many fond memories of our childhood and of my family, some of which I've mentioned above and others like fireworks and water bombs recall to me how we were often quite mischievous and downright naughty. One hot summer's day we found we could make effective water bombs which could be lobbed through the open window of the train into the driver's head or lap from our strategic ambush position as the train left the station. After watching the driver duck in evasive action as he wondered what the devil was coming at him we'd ride away laughing till our bellies ached.
Another of Graeme's memories was the 1964 Grand Final which we attended in standing room as 12 twelve year olds. My team Melbourne won by four points after 'Weideman' had put Collingwood ahead in the dying moments. I have to correct Graeme on that, it was Gabelich that kicked that goal. It was Melbourne's last premiership, and he's correct that his team Essendon has had a lot more success since, to the tune of 5 flags- 65, 84, 85, 93, and 2000 (when they beat Melbourne). I hope the pendulum swings back now, but I have to say over the years I've been glad for Graeme when Essendon had success, even though I couldn't stand that thug Sheedy. I'm pleased that Graeme still has an interest in the footy and goes to the odd pre-season game when it's on at Carrara.
Graeme said also his main interest over the past twenty years has been remembering God. He's not a member of any church group but I took from his comments that he has a belief and meditates and has an inward peace which removes him from the troubles of society and the stresses of life. He said he was agnostic till the late 1980's when personal experience started him on his inward search, but it probably had its origin back when he was present at first his father's death in 1976, then his mother's in 1981. On both occasions he felt they left to go somewhere else, so that to him, they never really died. It was comforting for me to read. I was so very fond of Bill and Ethel Forster who were like another set of parents to me. I think I always felt I let them down with the waywardness of my adolescence, and of course with their passing from this life so long ago, I never had the chance to put it right later, or at least give them back some of the human kindness they showed me when I was young, the kindness that has been so important in helping me be as compassionate a person as I can.
Graeme saying it felt like his parents left to go somewhere else reminded me of something Meredith once said. She was present when our nanna Wilson died, and she said it was like an unstoppable force leaving, which was not unlike the feeling she had when her daughters were born, except in that case the unstoppable force was coming not going.
Graeme said my email would bring him many smiles at Christmas. I'm so glad for that.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Still Walking
Despite the demands of business and summer I'm still walking almost every morning. And still loving it. At the New Year I'd been walking for four years. At say 350 walks per year of say 4.5km, that's 1575km per year multiplied by 4 is 6,300km. Australia has19,650km of coastline (which includes Tasmania of course, and all the bays and gulfs etc) so I hope to do another 8 years of morning walks and be able to say I've walked the distance equivalent to the entire Australian coast since I started. Should happen about my 66th birthday should I be so lucky. You are invited to the party, 8 April 2018. RSVP 1 April 2018. Venue? Who knows? To be advised.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Australia Day
Determined as I am tonight to post my thoughts I just can't do it. I'm falling asleep at the desk. In brief, I'm grateful to have been born here and live in this affluent country of more than 7.5 million square kilometres.
The low point of the day was the General Peter Cosgrove's Australia Day speech. What a load of eulogistic, politically correct, sycophantic bulldust. Talk about wallpapering over cracks and sweeping under the carpet.
Platitudinous nonsense! Fair dinkum, I winced throughout. I think the rest of the world must be getting a bit sick of Australians saying how good we are.
Cosgrove likened himself to a test cricket batsman having a good innings, in good nick despite the odd slips chance. I think it's time he copped a good bouncer and pulled his head in. I'm tiring of Australian self aggrandisement. Let's roll up our sleeves, get our arses into gear, and repair the damage we've done to this amazing continent over two hundred years. Stop taking 'sickies' for starters, and stop wanting more and more for less input. And stuff the flag. Why start arguing over the flag? What the hell difference does a flag make, or a change to it? What pomping bloody nonsense!
The low point of the day was the General Peter Cosgrove's Australia Day speech. What a load of eulogistic, politically correct, sycophantic bulldust. Talk about wallpapering over cracks and sweeping under the carpet.
Platitudinous nonsense! Fair dinkum, I winced throughout. I think the rest of the world must be getting a bit sick of Australians saying how good we are.
Cosgrove likened himself to a test cricket batsman having a good innings, in good nick despite the odd slips chance. I think it's time he copped a good bouncer and pulled his head in. I'm tiring of Australian self aggrandisement. Let's roll up our sleeves, get our arses into gear, and repair the damage we've done to this amazing continent over two hundred years. Stop taking 'sickies' for starters, and stop wanting more and more for less input. And stuff the flag. Why start arguing over the flag? What the hell difference does a flag make, or a change to it? What pomping bloody nonsense!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Needs Must as The Devil Drives
It's raining heavily now. On the morning of the 18th of January! The gas heater is pumping out warm air at a big tub of honey in front of it, honey I extracted yesterday after taking a few boxes of combs from the bees on Saturday. I tipped a bucket of honey through the fine strainer last night. It was difficult to get it through so I'm keeping this one warm while my rinsed out straining cloth dries off.
Summer cold snaps are not unusual here in southern Victoria, and the rain is most welcome. Huit dropped off a trailer and ute load of plants in big pots yesterday, for me to look after while his new house behind the supermarket is built over the next six months. Canna lillies, tree ferns, maples, lilacs, a gingko, are amongst a wide range with which Huit hopes start his new garden. He and Wilma sold their 15 acres after 38 years and vacate this week, to a house they are renting from a friend in Bayswater. They plan to go away a bit in their caravan and do trip to Holland and Canada in May. I won't have to water Huit's plants, or mine, for a few days now, nd the water tanks are full and the vegie garden lush.
I would have liked to get some honey off the bees earlier, say a month or so ago. Not that there was much there, which I knew from a quick inspection, and which was probably the base reason for my lack of action, but had I done it earlier, less of it would have been candied. Candied honey wo'nt come out. It hasn't been a good honey season, the weather's been up and down and the bees have been scrappy when I've had a look. Not from a distance this year have I looked across to the beehives and seen heavy flight with honey laden workers returning heavy with good loads. Nor have I caught the sweet scent of ripening honey in my nostrils in the evenings when near the hives.
So it was a weekend of work cleaning out my shed and setting it up as a honey house, working through the bees on Saturday before the change, then extracting, now clean up, all for little result. Maybe 50kgs in total. There might be another extract in February, but I wouldn't expect much. So it goes sometimes. Maybe next year will be a 'biggee'. In hope, I resolve to get the bees in good nick in the autumn, replace crook boxes and paint spare material, buy new frames etc in readiness, but I doubt it'll happen. There's too much else to keep me busy.
I've been busy since some weeks before Christmas, driven by necessity, without a day off for personal pursuits, except for Christmas day itself. I don't mind admitting it, I'm tired. The effort to spend the weekend mucking about with bees and honey took some mental strength, knowing I'm so far behind with work at the farm and at home, and there's always things to do in Nobelius Park (in my spare?time).
For some reason the wholesalers we work with don't stop or slow down for a few weeks after Christmas like they used to. Christmas Day was a Friday and they were back as normal on the Monday, wanting their orders a day early that week because New Year's Day, also a Friday, was a holiday (for them). We say "how high" when they say "jump" as we paid the farm insurance in November, which rises every year and cleans us out, and have to get the rates together by February, as well as all the usual on going expenses.
My old friend John Barelds used to say, regularly, "It's a great life if you don't weaken." It's true. And we've been so lucky with the rain this year. Maybe next year there'll be a bumper crop of blossom and foliage at the farm and a bumper crop of honey.
I worked a bit with my friend Mal over the last two weeks in his garden. Mal, in his seventies and recovering from recent heart attacks, threw himself at the landscaping while Pat was away. He was for five years a commercial salmon fisherman off the west coast off Scotland. When I suggested he take a breather, he told me how when he went home to take up the licence, an old fisherman in his eighties, Hamish McGlynn, said to him, "If you give me a pound I'll give you my cobble, and teach you how to row it in the Ocean." A cobble is a large wooden rowing boat used to set nets. They went out week after week, sometimes in enormous swells, with Mal working the heavy oars by himself while Hamish shouted instructions. Mal said once his arms needed a breather. Hamish said, "There'll be plenty of rest when you're in your grave, laddie."
Summer cold snaps are not unusual here in southern Victoria, and the rain is most welcome. Huit dropped off a trailer and ute load of plants in big pots yesterday, for me to look after while his new house behind the supermarket is built over the next six months. Canna lillies, tree ferns, maples, lilacs, a gingko, are amongst a wide range with which Huit hopes start his new garden. He and Wilma sold their 15 acres after 38 years and vacate this week, to a house they are renting from a friend in Bayswater. They plan to go away a bit in their caravan and do trip to Holland and Canada in May. I won't have to water Huit's plants, or mine, for a few days now, nd the water tanks are full and the vegie garden lush.
I would have liked to get some honey off the bees earlier, say a month or so ago. Not that there was much there, which I knew from a quick inspection, and which was probably the base reason for my lack of action, but had I done it earlier, less of it would have been candied. Candied honey wo'nt come out. It hasn't been a good honey season, the weather's been up and down and the bees have been scrappy when I've had a look. Not from a distance this year have I looked across to the beehives and seen heavy flight with honey laden workers returning heavy with good loads. Nor have I caught the sweet scent of ripening honey in my nostrils in the evenings when near the hives.
So it was a weekend of work cleaning out my shed and setting it up as a honey house, working through the bees on Saturday before the change, then extracting, now clean up, all for little result. Maybe 50kgs in total. There might be another extract in February, but I wouldn't expect much. So it goes sometimes. Maybe next year will be a 'biggee'. In hope, I resolve to get the bees in good nick in the autumn, replace crook boxes and paint spare material, buy new frames etc in readiness, but I doubt it'll happen. There's too much else to keep me busy.
I've been busy since some weeks before Christmas, driven by necessity, without a day off for personal pursuits, except for Christmas day itself. I don't mind admitting it, I'm tired. The effort to spend the weekend mucking about with bees and honey took some mental strength, knowing I'm so far behind with work at the farm and at home, and there's always things to do in Nobelius Park (in my spare?time).
For some reason the wholesalers we work with don't stop or slow down for a few weeks after Christmas like they used to. Christmas Day was a Friday and they were back as normal on the Monday, wanting their orders a day early that week because New Year's Day, also a Friday, was a holiday (for them). We say "how high" when they say "jump" as we paid the farm insurance in November, which rises every year and cleans us out, and have to get the rates together by February, as well as all the usual on going expenses.
My old friend John Barelds used to say, regularly, "It's a great life if you don't weaken." It's true. And we've been so lucky with the rain this year. Maybe next year there'll be a bumper crop of blossom and foliage at the farm and a bumper crop of honey.
I worked a bit with my friend Mal over the last two weeks in his garden. Mal, in his seventies and recovering from recent heart attacks, threw himself at the landscaping while Pat was away. He was for five years a commercial salmon fisherman off the west coast off Scotland. When I suggested he take a breather, he told me how when he went home to take up the licence, an old fisherman in his eighties, Hamish McGlynn, said to him, "If you give me a pound I'll give you my cobble, and teach you how to row it in the Ocean." A cobble is a large wooden rowing boat used to set nets. They went out week after week, sometimes in enormous swells, with Mal working the heavy oars by himself while Hamish shouted instructions. Mal said once his arms needed a breather. Hamish said, "There'll be plenty of rest when you're in your grave, laddie."
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
A Letter at Christmas
Elvie, who has trouble reading letters these days, relies on Meredith to read her mail. I was fortunate to be in the kitchen at the farm a few days before Christmas making a cup of tea late in the day when Meredith was reading a letter from Elvie's cousin Dorothy. Dorothy is about Elvie's age but the two ladies haven't had much contact during their lives, in fact there has been none until now that I can recall.
Dorothy is the daughter of Elvie's Uncle Oz, her father's brother. She said in her letter she was sorry they'd had little contact, especially as Edgar and Oz (Austin) were close, loving brothers who had both served in WW1. Oz lost a leg after being wounded at Fromelles on 19 July 1916. Edgar was not present on the first day of the Fromelles battle when 2000 Australians were killed but spent the next three days searching for survivors and removing the dead. Dorothy said my grandmother Annie, Edgar's wife, wrote to Oz every year on the 19 July, and Oz would answer immediately.
Dorothy told Elvie in her letter that after a happy childhood she worked for the Immigration Dep't. and was sent to Corowa in NSW. There she met the man with whom she felt she could spend her life, a Polish migrant, and they married in 1951. I can't remember her husband's name, but he'd had a terrible time in the war and just wanted a quiet lifestyle growing food. They found a cottage on five acres of land, somewhere near Sydney, where they grew 3000 tomato plants each year and fruit trees and started raising their family. When the family outgrew the cottage they managed to get a bigger house on ten acres and continued growing fruit and vegies. Dorothy's husband passed away a few years ago. She now lives with a daughter in the Blue Mountains where they have plenty of room and she invited Elvie to come and stay anytime she would like.
It was a heartwarming letter that made me grateful for Christmas, if for no other reason than it inspires communication within families and between old friends. I asked Elvie why she didn't have much to do with her cousins throughout her life and she said it was because of Oz's wife, who would have nothing to do with her father Edgar or his family, even though they lived in a neighbouring suburb. Apparently in the minds of Oz's wife and her sister, Edgar was supposed to marry the sister when he returned from the war. Two returning brothers marrying sisters, the 'two little girls in blue'. This was never in Edgar's plans, as the album of photo's, postcards and memorabilia sent home to his fiancee Annie shows.
Edgar and Oz continued their brotherly mateship throughout their lives. Edgar, a grocer, delivered to Oz's house every week but the wife would never come to the door to say hello let alone invite her brother in law inside. She died before Oz and Edgar did, having gone quite mad, Elvie thinks, but by then the offspring had gone their own ways.
It was a heartwarming letter that made me grateful for Christmas, if for no other reason than it inspires communication within families and between old friends. I asked Elvie why she didn't have much to do with her cousins throughout her life and she said it was because of Oz's wife, who would have nothing to do with her father Edgar or his family, even though they lived in a neighbouring suburb. Apparently in the minds of Oz's wife and her sister, Edgar was supposed to marry the sister when he returned from the war. Two returning brothers marrying sisters, the 'two little girls in blue'. This was never in Edgar's plans, as the album of photo's, postcards and memorabilia sent home to his fiancee Annie shows.
Edgar and Oz continued their brotherly mateship throughout their lives. Edgar, a grocer, delivered to Oz's house every week but the wife would never come to the door to say hello let alone invite her brother in law inside. She died before Oz and Edgar did, having gone quite mad, Elvie thinks, but by then the offspring had gone their own ways.
Elvie then told me that when Edgar was on a ship waiting to leave Cairo for France after his battalion had been training in Egypt, a ship came into port carrying more Australian soldiers. Without any prior knowledge of it, he had an overpowering feeling that his brother was on that ship. He rushed to the side and back along the ship calling out as loud as he could, "Has anyone seen Ozzie Wilson?" A familar voice called back from the sea of faces on the other ship.
"Here I am Ted." There was his brother waving back to him.
"Here I am Ted." There was his brother waving back to him.
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