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.

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.

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.)
          

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.

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. 

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!

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."

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.

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.    

Christmas Photos

On Christmas day we were looking at a photo of Jod, me and Meredith when we were kids, taken more than fifty years ago. Meredith said she'd like to have one taken now in the same pose so she could put them on her wall side by side.

From left- Annie, Elvie Jod, Meredith, me, Roger.

The kids are Annie and Brett's girls Ella and Evie.

Lib was at work and our boys were in Bendigo at Lib's sister's for their bash. Rosie and Matt were coming later, Brett took the photo and is going to try to scan the 50+ year old one so I can put it up too.

A Kind of Hush

It's quiet today. Lib's gone to work and I had a walk in the garden with Rob to work out where he could put some vegie seeds he bought cheap. He's been bitten by the gardening bug, I'm happy to say. In the end we decided they could go in pots and old tyres as our current garden space is full with beetroot, beans, zuchinnis, button squash, tomatos, cucumbers, eggplant and pumpkins. His seed packets include radishes silverbeet, leeks, beetroot, pak choi and kol rabbi, all of which should do alright in containers I think.

Elvie just rang to say Shane wants 10 bunches of green holly; why, after Xmas, I know not. She asked could I pick it, they're busy at the farm working on the 'Herb and Spice' order, which Ian wants to pick up at midday. Jod was looking at the paper having morning tea and saw that Norman Hargreaves died on Boxing Day, which has made him sad and upset. When my parents moved to Dixon's Creek onto 300 acres of bush soon after they married, the Hargreaves were on the farm next door. Norm was the youngest of the three boys who were staunch friends of my parents through tough times then and remained so throughout their lives. It's like the end of an era for us. Norm was immensely strong, quiet, a real bushman from a different time. He was 82. He suffered dementia made worse by the bushfires last February which destroyed pasture, stock, and fences on his farm. Jod worked for Norm on the bulldozers for a while, in the late seventies, I think it was. I'll post about the Hargreaves one day.

I hope Jod isn't too upset to have his mind on the job. Shane also wants beech, berries and flowering artichokes and Foxy is picking up today too. I picked camellia for her yesterday and she wants whatever's going. No rest for the wicked as they say. I wonder at the origin of that saying. I weeded the herb/vegie garden at the farm yesterday, the basil seed is up and away but would be swamped by summer weeds particularly oxalis and paspalum unless the rows are finger weeded so the young plants can get away. I mowed Hughesie's grass on Saturday and did some cutting back, so with the exception of Christmas Day it's been work as normal. Lib worked Christmas day, Sunday, and today.

The town was quiet when I walked through this morning. There's been some changes I haven't mentioned over the last month. The sweet shop closed down, and on the door of the vacant shop a sign went up, 'TATTOO MAYHEM'. Shortly after, a sign went in 'Pandoora's Book Cafe' window next door, 'CLOSING DOWN  LAST DAY 31 DEC'. Yesterday I noticed the window front of the proposed tattoo shop had been smashed and hoardings put up over the broken window. It creates a poor town image. There's a sign in the pub window, 'CAFE OPENING SOON'.  Lordy, Lordy! The local supermarket has changed hands. Richard Mullet, the popular proprietor who went to Camberwell Grammar at the same time I was there, has ridden into the sunset after a decade or so, and a new owner 'Andrew' has taken over this business pivotal in Gembrook's commercial precinct. I hear he has another small supermarket somewhere in the hills and I wish him well. We need good businessmen in this wide brown land.

Talking of supermarkets, a fence has gone up around 'Sally's' supermarket at Emerald and I expect demolition to begin shortly in prep for the new 'Safeway'. Rumour has it a medical superclinic is to be built on the site of Dr. Mark's surgery and the Emerald Community House next door, though this hasn't hit the headlines of the local papers and may be fanciful nonsense.

I have some good things to blog about but not time now. I'll leave you with a quote to think about, a powerful sentence by Sir Thomas Browne, whose work I've not come across before, but who now excites my curiosity.

"There is surely a piece of Divinity in us; something that was before the elements and owes no homage unto the Sun."

Apocalypse?

For most of my life, in my conscious recollection, I've lived with the underlying threat of nuclear war and human obliteration. This was particularly strong in the 1960's during my adolescence at the height of the cold war, and this must have influenced my attitudes then and helped shape my views now.

Added to that, my parents were religious and served up an unhealthy portion, regularly, of apocalyptic prophesy from The Book of Revelations, which left me scared stiff and waiting for 'Kaboomba' at any moment. I claim now, more than forty years on, that this was not good for a developing mind and may have been the reason for my rebellion and somewhat unpredictable, foolhardy, and antisocial behaviour in my later youth. In common lingo, I was screwed up, without understanding why.

I'm not bitter about this. It's nobody's fault. Seven years before I was born atomic bombs destroyed entire cities in Japan in one swift hit. This historic event was witnessed by my parents in the medai of the day after six years of World War 2 during their adolescence. Then came the arms race and the cold war with the Soviet Union. The whole world was screwed up.

It's still there, the threat of nuclear destruction, but probably we've all relaxed a little thinking that if nobody has pushed the button yet then there's a good chance they won't. Who knows really?

A couple of years ago I bought a book in an op. shop, an auto biography called 'Dr. Helen Caldicott, A Passionate Life.' I came across it this morning and had a quick look. She starts of by saying how she read a book that changed her life when she was nineteen, 'On The Beach', by Neville Shute. That must have been in 1957, and led her to spend 25 years of her life in political activity campaigning for nuclear disarmament.

A little into the first chapter Helen revealed that as a baby she was suddenly abandoned by her parents for two weeks when her mother was pregnant with a second child and in the interests of her health her husband organized a holiday while Helen, 18 months old, was placed in an institution that cared for babies.

I quote, "Years later when I became a pediatrician, I discovered that when a baby is suddenly abandoned by its parents, it screams for about two days for no avail and then gives up and sits in the corner of its cot, uncommunicative and severely depressed. It often takes months for the baby to forgive its parents and it may never completely return to normality and a state of trust."

What amazed me was that I never expected to find common ground between Dr Helen Caldicott and brother Jod. When mum was pregnant with me, her and dad, at Auntie Clare's insistence, went on a holiday to West Australia with Clare, who paid, and left Jod at mum's friend Zoe's. When she came back Jod was a different child and hardly recognized her, and she felt terrible for having left him, a guilt I think she still carries. Jod is two and half years older than me so he would have been about two years old. He turned 60 last month and for much of that 60 years was at war with his parents and the world in general.

After describing how desperately ill she became while her parents were absent, DrHC continues, "These events changed my life. From being a trusting happy child I put a wall around myself and never reall trusted anybody again, and to this day I let very few past this barrier."

My childhood best friend, Graeme 'Bubs' Forster, whom I haven't seen for probably more than 20 years, said to me the last time I saw him, when we were discussing our childhood, "We're all victims of victims." It's not a bad way of looking for understanding of people.

In Dr HC's second last paragraph she says, "However the work of global preventative pediatrics is not over.
The lives of my grandchildren are now threatened with on going ozone depletion, the perils of global warming, pollution of the air, water and soil with a multiplicity of chemicals and radioisotapes, deforestation, and species extinction combined with the rampant overpopulation of human beings.
I paid a personal price for the intense political work that I conducted over a twenty five year time span, through the pain I inflicted on myself and those dear to me. That said, I must continue."

DrHC's book was published in 1996 but the message still packs a punch. The ozone one has diminished but the others are bigger than ever. As far as I can gather HC is still writng and campaigning on environmental issues. She must be a remarkable lady whom I'd love to have to dinner.

Let's hope this Copenhagen thing can help save our children's children.

How Good Is This?

It's raining steadily outside. The phone rang a little while ago. Foxy, the customer for whom I would normally pick today, has said she doesn't want any beech foliage tomorrow, so I can enjoy the rain and a rest today without having to get wet through. It has been a fairly solid six weeks of work since our little Alice Springs holiday.

I drove up the street this morning. I'd say it's the first walk I've missed since the holiday, although I did let the dogs out at the station for a walk for ten minutes in the rain to let them have a good stretch out. 'Pip' flushed a rabbit out of the blackberries behind the little replica of the original station site and ran about 3 k's in ten minutes I'd say. 'Snowie', not really relishing the wet, stayed pretty close to me.

On my way back I dropped off a tub of honey at Chas's front door. Chas is one of my walking mates. He's a retired carpenter. He takes off every winter and camps at Evan's Head in NSW. The last couple of years I've picked some camellia foliage in his garden. I hadn't seen Chas for a couple of months till last Saturday morning, and had wondered if he was away.

"You've lost weight Chas," I said.

"My oath I have. I've  lost more since I got home. "

"Have you been crook?"

"Have I ever? I lost my oesophaegus and the top part of my stomach. The operation was 28th October. I'm just glad to be able able to start walking again, although icould barely make it up the hill."

"Cancer?"

"Yes. I just had a bit of a tickle in the throat to start with. I tell you what. I was so glad to get out of intensive care and I never want to go there again. It was four days of hell. There were wires hooked up to me everywhere and I couldn't sleep. There was so much noise all the time with poor buggers nearly dying around you and all the alarms and emergency procedures. It was hell."

"I didn't even know at all that you were crook, Chas. I'm sure walking again will be a great help, and your strength will gradually return. How's your appetite?"

"I have to try to eat six or seven very small meals a day. The trouble is I'm just not hungry and it's so hard to force yourself to eat."

I thought this morning maybe a bit of nice honey would help. I dropped off a bottle of red wine at Harry's place in the same street. Harry likes a drop of red wine but finds the sulphur presevatives knock him around in the way of 'hangover' if he has more than a couple of glasses. The preservative free wine is OK he finds, and I came across line of unfiltered, preservative free wine while I was shopping at Dan Murphy last week.

While I was in DM I looked for a bottle of Penfold's Kalimna Bin 28 for my friend 'Blossom', which I give her each year at Xmas. They were out of stock in the normal display but I found a 2004 bottle in the special section. 'Bloss is in hospital recovering from a second bowel cancer op. so I'm sure she'll appreciate it, come Xmas she should be well enough. She was in intensive care for some days afterwards as she was having difficulty breathing but I have just enquired and found she's back in the normal ward now.

The wet weather lets me catch up on a few things. I'm off now to pick up the beehive at Keith Smith's. They'll all be inside because of the rain so I can do it in daylight. And I have to pickup the key to the Lakes House. Keith rang me earlier to remind me he still has it, after spending 4 nights down there in late November.

Spring 09

Showers seem appropriate, on this Monday, the last day of November, following the rain on the weekend. As far as rainfall goes it's been a good spring, the best for years. The harvest for the grain croppers looked to be huge but sadly this last rain came at the wrong time before many crops could be taken off, and there's likelihood of damage and downgrading of a fair part of the wheat harvest.

Our spring harvest was mixed. The dogwood blossom was poor, no doubt suffering from low rainfall last spring and last summer's punishing heat. Dogwood sets its flower buds in the autumn, so this spring's rain couldn't help. I'd expect a bumper crop next year on the back of this spring's good rain and as a response to the 'off' year. Lilac was good quality, thanks to the September rain, but quantity poor, again probably due to the previous spring's dry and the extreme summer. Philadelphus, a native I think of Mexico and drought hardy, was excellent, but it all came in a hurry due to the warm settled weather at flowering so we didn't get to some of it in time. The beech foliage is good this year, no doubt the rain has helped growth and the lack of hot north winds during the growth spurt makes for good quality.

All things considered we've come through the year quite well given the terrible spring we had last year and the horrific heat of last summer. We bought another water tank at the farm and put a few around the house here at Gembrook. The cost of water in future is a serious threat to our viability but we can hope for some respite and a good harvest next year as a result of the wonderful rain lately. Next spring should be a beauty, harvest wise, fingers crossed. Another spring and summer like the previous season may well have just about been a KO for us.

I've enjoyed watching the birds raising their young. A pair of mudlarks had a nest on a limb of a peppermint tree over Agnes St. A blackbird pair were successful with their brood in a nest in a purple rhodie growing into the footpath near St Silas church. Another in our carport wasn't so lucky. When I came home from work one day I wasn't quick enough to stop 'Pip' grabbing a fledgling that fell from the nest. I rescued it from the dog but with blood coming from its mouth it died in my hand after a minute or two, saving me from my indecision as to whether to put it down as humanely as possible. Mr and Mrs Whippy have been calling in the garden but I haven't seen the young yet.

I can't recall a year when the pawlonias have flowered so profusely and long. There are two near the corner of La Souef Rd. that knocked my socks off for weeks when I walked past. The one in neighbours Steve and Anne's garden was great too. The blossom on the silky oaks has been more brilliant in its fiery orange than I've can ever recall, and the native frangipanni tree or hymenosporum was exceptional.

For weeks on end I smelled it at the bottom of Agnes St on my walk but couldn't see a tree. Then one day I saw neighbour Rick hanging out the washing so I called him over to the fence and asked him did he have one somewhere in the garden. Sure enough, there was, where I couldn't see it from the road. Pat and Lois, two Gembrook ladies who had a big garden on Launching Place Rd gave it to him and Allison in a pot many years ago when they used to walk their daughter that way in the pusher. It stayed in the pot a while and nearly died, then was planted and nearly mowed over many times as it sat and did nothing. Then one year it took off and now has teased me two springs in a row with its glorious scent till I found its location. Pat and Lois both died some years ago. It was good to hear the story and find the tree, now thriving, a living example of Pat and Lois's love of gardens and generosity. We have a young one in our garden, about five feet high. It had a single cluster of flowers this year so I'm looking forward to the joy of its blossom in our backyard next spring.

Thank God for the promise of Spring 2010.

I Have Been To The Mountaintop

I have a dream. I dream day and night.

I day dream on my morning walk. I dream that people abandon their motor cars and walk and ride bikes, or catch solar electric shuttle buses. I see a time when humans revere peace and quite and silence. I see a 'Silence Day' once a week. No chainsaws, mowers, cars. Shops shut, no business. No noise at all, except in emergency. A day for walking, watching, listening, whispering, reading, dreaming.

In my dream, men and women of all creeds, colours and nationalities show others courtesy and respect. Goodness rules over evil. Decency, love and nurture is given freely, in a world of equality, devoid of greed and self interest, a world where people put out their hand to help the less fortunate. I see a clean green Earth where everyone has ample fresh water and food. A world without armies, weapons and viciousness. An Earth where Protties, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddists, Jehovah's and athiests walk arm in arm with love of humanity and free spirit.

In my night dreams I am an exquisite and passionate lover, much sought after.

I like dreaming. In my dreams, everything is possible.

I try my best to live my dream.

It's free, and it beats reality.

Freedom

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

That's a line from a song titled 'Me and Bobby McGee', written by Kris Kristofferson, and made famous, I think, by Janis Joplin. I'm recalling from nearly forty years ago so pardon me if I'm wrong.

It goes on, "Nothin' ain't worth nothin', but it's free."

For us here in our 'free' country, Australia, or those in the 'land of the free', the USA, freedom bears thinking about.

Especially if, as I did tonight, you watched a show on SBS called 'Law and Disorder' (I think) about whistle blower Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie, an analyst in the intelligence area of the government, spoke out in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq by the Axis of Deceit, claiming the Bush, Howard and Blair administrations were misleading the public by grossly exaggerating and deliberately distorting evidence to legitimize the invasion politically. He was ostracized.

The coalition of the willing never found the WMD's, as we all know. Wilkie may have put himself in the bad books, but to me he's a hero. His bravery in speaking out shows he's a free man. His life changed dramatically, but he was prepared to do what he thought was right, in the interests of the integrity of his country, and suffer whatever the consequences might be.

Freedom was sought by the Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus. He and his mates removed themselves from commercial employment in Athens ("We must free ourselves from the prison of everyday affairs and politics"), and began what could be best described as a commune, accepting a simpler way of life in exchange for independence. They would have less money, but, similar to Wilkie, would never again have to follow the commands of odious superiors. Simplicity did not affect their sense of status, but by distancing themselves from Athens, they had ceased to judge themselves on a material basis.

Andrew Wilkie differs from Epicurus in that he has not shunned politics. He stood at the last federal election as the Green's candidate for the seat of Benelong. He directed his preferences to Labour candidate Maxine McKew. You know the rest. What a hoot. He is now hoping to stand as an independent for the lower house in Tasmania.

While George, John and Tony, no longer in office, live like kings in tax payer funded retired opulence, the subservient majority toil long and hard. Most Australians, Americans and Great Britons, are far from free. They are prisoners of fear and anxiety; unemployement, interest rate rises, Muslims, refugees, terrorists, illness, climate change, loss of freedom. We are fighting for freedom, in Afghanistan. The body bag count rises. The brass says they died fighting for freedom.

It's often said, at funerals, "He/she (the cadaver) is now at peace, free of pain, suffering, and anxiety."

Like the song said, "Freedom is just another word for nothing less to lose. Nothin' aint worth nothin', but it's free."

Swarming Up

Harry called out, "Hello Carey", on Wednesday, as I walked through JAC Russell Park. He was on the footpath heading up the main road in the direction of the post office.

We exchanged news. I hadn't seen Harry since before I went to Alice Springs. His German visitor, Anya, has gone back home. Her partner, who was supposed to join her in Australia for a trip to Uluru etc and Nth Qld, never came. He found a new lady and stayed home. Anya had everything booked and was upset terribly.

"One of my beehives swarmed yesterday, it's hanging in a ti-tree just over the fence."

"It looks like rain today Harry, they'll probably stay where they are till it fines up. I'll try to get there tomorrow, about lunchtime it'll be."

"OK. They might fly off in the morning, but we'll hope for the best."

I had to put some foundation wax in some frames after doing some pressing bookwork and working at Pat's for a couple of hours in the morning. Pat wasn't home but Mal was. I tidied up with the whipper snipper a bit and shifted some earth where Mal wanted the vegie garden extendedand an edge wall moved. Mal's usually away on an engineering job somewhere at a mine in Qld. We talked about the war in Afghanistan. He reckons they'll never beat them. No one ever has. He had two Afghanistan body guards for two years while he built a petro chemical plant at Gatta in the Middle East. He got to know them well. They carried the biggest swords you'd ever see and he felt very safe. His labour force was 450 Indians and various other labourers hired daily as needed. He said his bodyguards talked and thought in the long term. They think for their children's children.

It was 2.00pm by the time I arrived at Harry's with the bee box and frames to box the swarm. They were still there. It was an awkward one, the ground under the ti-tree fell away steeply. I had to jack up the entrance end of the box with a brick so it was like an obstacle course for the bees to go in after I dropped them at the entrance. They were slow, I hung around for a long time thinking they might go back up the tree. I went to the farm and burnt off till 7.00pm, then returned to Harry's and picked up the bees as dusk closed in. It was surprisingly cold and the bees stopped flying well before dark. I couldn't leave them there. There are two horses in the paddock and I didn't want a horse accidentally knocking over the hive. Bees and horses don't mix, bees don't like the smell of them. I didn't want to take them home just over the hill, somemight fly back confused in the morning, it being only a few hundred metres as the crow flies. I took them to Keith Smith's at Boyd Rd, a few kms away, and will bring them home after a few days.

The good news is, when I went to my bees to take a frame of young brood to put in my swarm box, to make the swarm stay, I checked quickly the queenless half of the hive I divided a while ago. It's no longer queenless. A beautiful fat young freshly mated queen was examining cells in new comb the bees were building on the top bars.

Always good to see nature at its best.

Frustration

Returning one day on my morning walk in Alice Springs, a group of aboriginal men were standing under a red gum tree drinking cans of VB at 8.30am, next to the entrance of our caravan park on the banks of the Todd River. There was nothing threatening or aggressive in their manner, some empty cans were on the ground at their feet, and the men, aged I'd guess between 20 and 30, gave every impression of relaxed contentment.

The day was already warm. I wondered what the rest of the day would hold for them. Probably a few more cans, then sleep in the shade through the heat of the day. It saddenned to me think of their future. But it was not just sadness. There was a strong feeling of frustration that I was powerless to do anything about it. Why would those men choose to stand around drinking warm beer at the beginning of the day? How could they be so aimless?

I feel the same frustration when I hear about 'boat people'. What is the right thing? Let 'em in? Or send 'em away? If we let 'em in, will we be inundated? Again, there's nothing I can do about it, and the cause of the problem is outside anything I can affect.

Global warming or climate change is equally frustrating. I've installed solar hot water and water tanks, but it doesn't go away. We're a wealthy nation hooked on automobiles. The cities are clogged with traffic jams. As soon as a new freeway is built the increase in vehicles chokes it down. So what are the projections? More freeways, roads, more cars, emissions, noise. More climate change. Desal plants. More of the same decline into misery. And I'm powerless, except that I get to vote every few years. Does my vote change anything? Not that I can see. Man, that's frustrating.

It frustrates me to see my neighbours feeding birds. Don't they get the message? Do they miss all the information that explains they shouldn't?

The litter on the roadsides frustrates me. I pick it up on my walk. What is it that makes a person open his/her window of their personal version of a mobile lounge room and entertainment centre and throw their litter out, so that their space is not untidy with take away food and drink containers? They shove the garbage they can eat down their throats and throw the garbage they can't out the window. I see pooey plastic lined disposable nappies on the roadside. What are we becoming? A nation of pigs? I shouldn't say that. Pigs are a clean animal.

All the pollies seem to do is yap and argue and point score. And all the while the human race, like an out of control locomotive, is carreering toward the precipice where there's no bridge. Is it any wonder the dentist said I grind my teeth at night in my sleep?

Writing about it doesn't ease my frustration. It's worse than when I started.

A Hurried Picnic

Every day on our recent holiday Lib and I had picnic lunch. It's what we love to do. The Alice Pink Desert Botanical Gardens, Ormiston Gorge, Trephina Gorge, Uluru, and King's Canyon were some of the venues, but it is the one we had last Friday in the dry bed of the Todd river in Alice Springs that is the subject of this post.

We'd got to know our way around by then. It was a hot day, about 36C. We pulled in to the shade of a red gum tree in 'Rotary Park' near Heavitree Gap looking for a table and chair.

"There doesn't seem to be a table," Lib said.

"There has to be. That's what the Rotary Club does in parks. Yes, there's one further on. See it? But the shade's better here. Let's eat from the back of the car."

An olive green Range Rover had followed our Hyundai Getz hire car into the park and was stopped about thirty metres away adjacent to us. An aboriginal woman got out and walked off by herself in the direction of the table and chair which was about 70 or 80 metres along.

"I wonder why she's walking off alone and leaving her car windows open," Lib commented. We went to the boot and made up a sandwich of salami, cheese, tomato and cucumber in sliced wholemeal bread after quaffing on bottled water. The aboriginal lady was standing by herself about 100 metres away. We sat in the front of the car with our doors open enjoying the sandwich.

Lib said, "She must be waiting for.... Geez, he just punched her."

I looked in the direction of the aboriginal woman just in time to see an aboriginal man throw a second punch, not a king hit but a cuffing round arm to her head. It looked like his fist was clenched. She didn't cry out or scream, fall, or run, and hardly flinched as she kept walking back towards her car. The man ran ahead of her and when he got about thirty metres away from the car he picked up a jagged rock the size of an orange and hurled it at the Range Rover. Bang. It landed flush on the bonnet. The man keep running to the car and opened the door, grabbing clothing and chucking it onto the ground.

By this time I'd moved to the back of the Hyundai, quickly eating my sandwich and packing up the picnic. I jumped back in the car and said to Lib, "We're out of here."

"Geez, you ate that quick," said Lib, laughing, and still only halfway through her sandwich.

"Yeah well, we've come this far without a scratch on the car and there's a $330 excess if we get one. And believe me, a punch up in the heat at my age with an angry aborigine on the bank of the Todd River is the last thing I'm after."

A quarter of an hour later I was in a newsagency buying a tattslotto ticket when there was a lot of aggro shouting outside. As I came out the same angry man was stomping away about 20 metres ahead of me. He walked straight through the car park, turning right angles at our car and walking the length of it. I was expecting him to lash out with a boot and inflict damage, which I'd fled the park to avoid, in a bizarre twist of bad luck. Relieved I was.

Home Sweet Home

It's always nice coming home, no matter how enjoyable a trip away has been. We arrived back at Gembrook after 1.00am this morning, our flight delayed two hours. Robbie kindly picked us up at Tullamarine. I didn't go to bed till 3, after going through the mail and unwinding with a cup of tea. My walk this morning was a joy with two obedient dogs glad to have me back walking them after the 11 day hiatus. And, being curry pie day (last Sunday of the month), they were rewarded with half a sausage roll each.

After walking in the desert and gorges of the 'red centre', the Gembrook gardens and hillsides look lush and green. I came down the Launching Place road hill feeling philosophical, as if our trip away had blown dust and cobwebs from my mind like a spring clean. While away I read a book titled 'The New Nature' by Tim Low, which discusses changes to the environment in general, and particularly flora and fauna over the Australian continent, as human impact has changed and increased. There's always change in nature, we speed it up, and there are always winners and losers. Man's interference, often with perfectly good intent, can be catastrophic. Many species have become extinct or endangered, while others thrive. Tim Low's book is chock full of startling examples and surprises.

I made two resolutions. Firstly, to stay calm no matter the circumstances in future, and secondly, to try to keep an open mind and have broad vision. It is too easy to jump to wrong conclusions based on flawed information and opinion.

Back in Alice

My walk this morning was along the dry Todd River on the edge of Alice Springs where we stayed last night at the Heavytree Gap Caravan Park. The birds I saw were crested pigeons, yellow throated miners, pied honey eaters, ringnecked parrots, peewees, crows, a pair of what I think were black falcons, and another type of bird grey and black a bit like a tree creeper but yet to be identified from our bird book. There were a nomber of black footed fock wallabies in the caravan park at the base of a rocky rise forming part of the gap.

We're heading off now for a picnic lunch at Ross River in the East Macdonnell ranges and more gorge sightseeing.

Ayer's Rock

Well I'm no position to give an update on Gembrook weather. Today Lib and I walked around Uluru. It was fine, hot, we loved every step of the 10k or so.

A place of peace. Tomorrow we head to King's Canyon.

We've met a lot of travellers from all over the world. This place seems to bring out warmth from all things human.

Cold and Wet

More rain today after a little last night. This spring rain is fantastic. Melbourne's reservoirs are now at 35.3% of capacity after being at 26.0% in July when the line on the graph turned from down to up. They've been rising at 2,000 megalitres a day for about the past week after the peak of 8,000mg/l a day soon after that 100 ml weekend a couple of weeks ago. The rain is especially welcome by me as I've planted so much in recent weeks, but in the bigger picture farmers in the Wimmera in particular, but almost everywhere in Victoria, are benefitting hugely. The Wimmera river is flowing strongly and dozens of towns are having water restrictions eased.

If this keeps up the new code red catasrophic fire danger warnings may not be needed much this summer. Not that I need someone to tell me when there's a day of extreme fire danger. High temperatures and strong winds put me immediately on alert.

Wouldn't it be nice, a wet summer. I live in hope.

Humming Along

I looked into the beehives on the weekend, making use of what has been a rarity lately, a couple of warm sunny days. They were in good nick, quite strong hives building up well, with a good shake of of nectar in the combs and copious amounts of pollen coming in on forager's legs, which is no wonder given the paddocks about are yellow with cape weed flowers.

I divided one hive which had a poor brood pattern and some queen cells containing eggs, my hope is to avoid it swarming.(Artificial swarming is the term, the idea is to satisfy the swarming instinct without losing most of the bees, the two halves can be united later if it's desired, or more easily requeened with a bought queen of quiet stock, not that I've bought a queen for many years, which is probably why my hives can be a little testy). I left the small queenless half on the site of the old hive to draw in the returning foragers, with the bulk of the house bees with the queen in the new position. The hive at 'Sunset' was the strongest of all and had quite a few swarm cells. I took a comb containing a couple of well started queen cells with larvae swimming in royal jelly, putting it in the new hive at home, hoping they'll have a hatching queen quicker that way.

It was fun I have to say. The smell of the smoke as I lit the smoker with dried eucalypt leaves excited memories of working in the bush and times long past. It is exciting, the first foray of the season, and you feel the bees are old faithful friends, unswerving, diligent, yet aloof and mysterious.

More Seasonal Notes

I haven't looked in the beehives this spring yet, the weather not being conducive. The silvertop, I noticed last week when I went to my friend Pat's place for a couple of hours work, is flowering heavily in the bush east of Gembrook. I doubt it would be yielding honey in this cold, wet weather and bee flight would have been reduced reduced by the cold and rain. It's a far cry from the conditions of three years ago when the silvertop last flowered and the weather was warm, sunny and still, right through October, resulting in an early crop of honey the likes of which I'd never seen in this district.

The rainfall figures for September are up in the post office window. We had 200ml, far above the 30 year average of 126ml. It came a bit late to make this spring a good harvest from the garden point of view. Lilac is offering a reduced crop of blossom, same with pieris in most situations, and the dogwood is not promising. Rhodos have less flower than usual along with much burnt foliage and generally speaking our spring harvest of blossom is down considerably, no doubt a consequence of the extreme heat and dry of last summer. I'm wondering if the beech foliage will be similarly affected, or if this big September rain will save the day. They are just shooting now, and won't be firm enough to pick till well into November.

Maybe this rain will help set up a good spring next year. In the meantime the grass and weeds are about to explode into growth which will keep us busy. I'm hoping the cool continues through October with more rain to come. We had 6ml last night and it's cold enough again to be winter.

With our new tanks full Lib's talking vegie garden. Hopefully we can start a summer veg garden next weekend when Lib's holidays start. And if the weather's fine I'll fire up the bee smoker with some dry pine needles or messmate bark for fuel and check 'em out.

Stillness

This morning and yesterday were still. Not silent, for the air was full of birdsong, of great variety. Singing birds seem to heighten quietude. Chirping, squeaking, squwarking, twittering, pipping, pinging, whistling, cawing, cooing, ooming, choffing, ringing, honking. The screeching cockatoos have been absent fortunately.

The crow's nest a hundered feet above the ground in the pine tree at the lower end of Quinn Rd. seems to have been abandoned. Last week the pair of crows were mercilessly harassed by wattle birds in what looked like a territorial battle. Then no crows in that group of trees for a couple of days, but always wattle birds. Yesterday I saw a crow carrying a stick towards trees a couple of hundred metres away on Launching place Rd. It looks like the crows are starting again in another location. Another large pine tree behind messmates and peppermints seemed to be the crow's destination. They maybe prefer pine trees.

Last week I saw a quail in the yard of a house in Quinn Rd. The week before young Pip lept back in fright from the fence of the house at the top of Launching Place Rd., in turn giving me a start. A wild duck flapped as she rose, disturbed as we came past the other side of the picket fence. She hurried away along the side fence with her seven chicks in tow.

The bellbirds were back in the messmate opposite our lower drive this morning after a few days of no sign or sound of them. Their recent return has not yet become a full scale invasion and occupation like we had for several years, let's hope it doesn't. The wattle birds, who have built up in numbers, may be deterring them, also the currawongs who've not yet seasonally disappeared as they often do.

It seems to a constantly changing struggle for ascendency amongst the aggressive and territorial birds. It a shame that the aggressive types seem to adjust to man's intrusion into the environment better and we therefore have so many of them and less of the shyer types. Birds are all beautiful in their own way but birdworld is ruthless; chooks kill off sick comrades, so many species feed on the young of others, crows pick the eyes out of newborn lambs.

The strong survive.

History in the Making

Geelong will now be in the record books as Premiers 2009 for as long as there's AFL football or interest in it. Grand Final weekend, traditionally the last of September, will go down in my memory for another reason more important to me. At the weekend we had 100ml of rain. The water tanks we had installed last Friday are now full. Ian, Andrew and Dean from Vic Water Plumbing worked through Friday's showers and left before the rain became heavy late in the day.

It's been the wettest September for many years. I haven't kept a tally but I look forward to reading the rainfall figures for the completed month after they are put in the post office window. In excess of 200ml for sure.

Lib and I watched the footy with Ricky Ralph and wife Monica, who invited us for lunch. Monica, a native of Sweden, prepared a super meal with a Swedish theme. We kicked off with a shot of Shnapps followed by beer before entree of pickled herrings in three types of sauces, prawns, potatoes, dill eggs, salad and Jarlsberg cheese and Swedish dry biscuit. After two helpings of entree, and more Shnapps and beer, the main course of meatballs with red wine was equally satisfying, as was the desert of berries, the name of which escapes me just now but they're a common wild berry in Sweden. Monica has fond childhood memories of her family going out to the countryside to pick this berry, and blueberries, which both grow wild in the deciduous forests.

The day ended happily for Rick who is Geelong barracker. Interesting word that, barracker. I heard or read recently that it began in Melbourne, specifically at the MCG or Yarra Park, way back when there was an army or police barracks adjacent. A crowd of soldiers/police would come out to watch the game and congregate, loudly, on that side of the ground, becoming known as the barrackers. The story, attributed to no less than Geoffrey Blainey, said that the term barracker caught on and spread through Australia, then the world, and is now almost a universal term for team supporters at a football match.

With the rain came cold winds from the south and we've lit the fire the last three evenings after a break of a few weeks. Lib's cousin Margaret from California has been touring Vic and NSW visiting rellies and is due here Friday night. Before she left the states she emailed asking what sort of weather could she expect. I replied most likely mild temperatures but with quite a range, suggesting she brings something warm to wear. I'll be interested to hear what she's experienced. I think she was in Sydney for the dust storms.

Wombats

A wombat carcass appeared on the side of Launching Place Rd one day about the second week of August, obviously the victim of a car during the night. Young Pip's nostrils worked frantically as she pulled on the lead towards it wanting to investigate. I let her go up close and have sniff for a few mornings, saying, "That's how you end up if a car hits you."

Snowy showed no interest in the dead marsupial whatsoever, not venturing close, in fact staying at the extremity of her lead in the other direction. After a few days I didn't stop to let Pip look but kept walking briskly on the other side of the road. Approaching each day I was expecting it to have been removed. I know the council pays someone to pick up animal carcasses on the roadside and usually after a day or so they're gone.

This one stayed in the gutter, in fact what's left of it is still there and high on the nose. A few days on, I noticed it's belly torn open, something had been eating its guts, probably a fox or dog which go for the easiest part first. This interested me, as I buy from the vet a bag of seed and grain which I soak in water overnight to ferment before adding to meat for our dogs' dinner. Apparently in nature dogs eat such by means of offal. My hope is that the dogs will have less trouble with diseases like arthritis later in their life. I've observed when mine catch a rabbit the first thing they do is eat it's guts.

Over the following weeks the meat of the wombat carcass was slowly consumed. The weather was cool/cold and decomposition slow. Jan, who walks her dog most mornings told me she'd seen two of the dogs that live nearby having a feed. I thought we lived sufficiently far away, and given that Snow and Pip don't wander far, there was little chance of ours going back there.

Wrong! The day I had the vomiting fit and went the doctor, the boys told me when I got back that our neighbour Rick had called in saying he'd seen Snowy up at the skate park. His daughter Alisha, who had been doing work experience at the kindergarten, alerted him after seeing her as she walked home. Rick, who knows Snowy well, went up to investigate. Snowy seemed disorientated and took off, so he came to tell us. He couldn't be 100% sure it was Snowy, he said. Snowy has siblings around the town that look just like her. The boys drove up in Gord's car and here was Snowy running down the middle of Launching Place Rd., so they grabbed her with some difficulty and brought her home.

I was at a loss to understand why Snow was at the skate park. A few more days on I met another neighbour, Janice, who walks her dogs or rides her bike most mornings. She told me she saw Snowy there a few days ago having a feed of wombat hindquarter, a bit after midday, which was just after I left for the doctor's appt. The sneaky old Snowy. Maybe she was disturbed knowing I wasn't well and followed me. The strange thing was, the day after Snowy was found up the street, when I fed her in the morning, she wouldn't eat her dinner till I turned and left. Normally the dogs sit and wait till I say "OK" before eating. This time Pip woofed in but Snow just kept sitting and watching me. I said OK several times to no avail, but when I began walking away she wolfed in. She must have had the guilts I reckon, or at least I can find no other explanation.

Last week when I arrived at my friend Pat's to do a couple of hours work it was raining. Pat invited me in for a cuppa. As I sat enjoying the chrysanthemum flower tea, Pat was telling about a sick wombat that had been coming around for weeks. Pat's dog Cameron, a young deerhound, harrassed the wombat and it was a difficult situation. Pat rang the sanctuary, wildlife refuge people, the vet, all she could conjure, but as often is the case, nobody can come right then, and later, wombat has gone.

The rain eased and as I picked some bay foliage in the garden before leaving Cameron began barking excitedly and I could hear Pat doing her best to admonish the gigantic young dog, who thinks everything is a game. I twiigged Womby had turned up so I got down from my ladder and went over to see. Poor little wombat was suffering mange badly and seemed blind and deaf. A number of big blow flies were in court around the poxy skin sorers despite the light rain. I felt the poor animal should be destroyed for humane reason.

"Pat can I ring my friend Huit? He has the odd sick wombat at his place and he shoots them to put them out of misery. He may come over."

"Yes, you know where the phone is, I'll keep Cammie away."

Huit came shortly after. He couldn't shoot Womby, he forgot his magazine and therefore had no bullets. We managed to get Womby in a bag and Huit took him home, saying he'd bury him after he shot him.

I left soon after and called at the Post Office to collect the mail. Fellow flower/foliage grower Ron was leaving as I arrived. I hadn't seen him for a while.

"You still doin' the foiage? How's it goin?" he asked.

"It's been pretty tough Ron, demand's fickle and I had a lot of stuff damaged by the heat wave. It's been a tough year really. Are you still trapping the dogs?"

"Yeah, it pays a lot better than growing. My contract with DSE is for about 25-30 weeks. After that the growing's a bit of fun. I do alright at the markets, selling mixed bunches of whatever we can find. The wholesalers don't want to know, but people at markets love 'em. I put out some pokers at the the market, tall as I can get, people say, Gee I'll take them, I've never seen them tall like taht." If I take tall ones to the wholesaler he'll nash his teeth and say he wants them all 80cm stalks or nothing.

"How many dogs do you catch a week Ron?"

"About one a half. You might go three weeks and not get one, then catch four or five the next week. I get a lot of foxes. They send me to and area where there's a problem. I'm in the Acheron valley at the moment. I set 8 or 10 traps each day for a while then do the rounds, always looking for sign."

"So they send you out to where farmers are losing stock?"

"Yeah, that, and wildlife. The dogs eat a lot of wombats, they're easy for 'em, and wallabies. They run down samba deer with teamwork, working in shifts. The deer can outrun 'em but the dogs take turns, till the deer's exhausted.

You'd think with losses to cars, feral and native dogs and disease, wombats would be feeling the pinch, but there seems to be plenty about. The Vicroads warning sign in Launching Place Rd. has a picture of a wombat on yellow background, and underneath the words 'Next 10 km'. Maybe drivers pick up a subliminal message, but I walk and drive past that sign every day and can't remember seeing it, till lately, when wombats have been so obvious to me.

Pym David Mathew Cook

I met vet Tom in the main street this morming. I shook his hand and congratulated him on the birth of his first child. Tom was ecstatic telling me about his son who was born on the 7th. I'd noticed an 'It's a Boy' sign in the clinic's window a couple of days ago.

He and wife Kath are both vets and, and as Tom said, are not much good at anything except being vets, at which, he said humbly, they're reasonably good. It was so strange for them to come home with the new baby and look at each other and say, "What do we do now?" It reminded me so much of being a new parent all those years ago and the wonderment and excitement of a new person in your house.

We've had three days of georgeous gentle spring weather and I took my blood pressure this morning and it's fine. When I tested it recently it was more than a little high which worried me as I hate the thought of going to doctors for prescriptions and chemists for pills and all the time reaching for the wallet. I went off my cholesterol and BP pills a year ago and don't want to go back. I'm sure the answer is to keep walking and don't stress about anything. And go easy on the grog.

P.S. GemFred did a lovely job of Christian's drive. It was a large excavation really as it's quite a drop from the block to the road, about 1.5m, but the new drive has a gentle sweeping camber and a lot of the spare earth was spread evenly along the front to make it look like it's going to be well cared for as time passes.

A New Driveway

'Gemfred's' tipper went past me and was pulled up in Quinn Rd. on my way back down the hill this morning, unloading an excavator. Two men were talking before one I recognised hopped into his Hiace van and moved it forward some thirty feet. I noticed a wheel barrow with a spade in it by the side of the road where the van had been. As I came next to the van, the man I recognized as a local who owned the vacant block of land I'd just walked past, was alighting.

"Gidday mate. I've forgotten your name." I thrust out my hand.

"Christian." We shook hands warmly. He had pliers and a spanner of some sort in his other hand.

"We're putting in a driveway. It's great to have something happen at last. It's a start."

"You've got a good day for it. Good luck with it all."

"Thanks, it is a lovely day."

I'll enjoy watching Christian's house go up over the coming months. He told me a while ago when we met in the main street they'd decided to build. He used to live in Launching Place Rd and I'd say hello and have a quick chat sometimes if I saw him when I walked past. They sold their house a year or so ago, maybe two, and moved into a rented house on the Pakenham Rd. He'd told me they owned the block in Quinn Rd but initially they were undecided whether to build or not. A big step, he said, not to be taken lightly.

I've made a number of friends by walking in the morning. I don't know Christian well. I do know he's a motor mechanic, is Chilean by birth, and he seems a good bloke. I'll dropin with a bottle of celebratory wine for them when they move into their new house.

They're Back

It was too good to be true. On Friday morning I saw a number of bell birds attacking a wattlebird in the messmate tree opposite our lower drive. Then yesterday, as I passed under the same tree, came the dreaded pinging sound I've grown to loathe. They're obviously re-establishing their lost territory.

Woe is me. Sad am I. Bugger!

I believe I could see an improvement in the condition of the messmates and peppermints lately. And I'd certainly enjoyed seeing more small birds about including a family of thornbills(?) feeding in that same messmate not long ago.

I read in Tim Low's book 'The New Nature' that at Yellingbow the bell birds are culled to allow the helmeted honeyeater to survive. It's a pity the cull isn't extended to protect our stressed trees over a wider area. I don't like killing anything but I'd gladly volunteer to help. Bell birds really are little bastards.

Vale Joanee

In 1956 my father Lyle's rich aunt, Auntie Clare, bought him a new car, a powder blue FC(?) Holden. To 'run it in', a requirement with a new car in those days, a trip was taken to Queensland. Into Holden crammed Lyle, Elvie, Lyle's brother Geoff and fiancee Joan, Auntie Clare, and Jod (6 or 7) and me (4). I'm told Meredith, who was two years old, stayed with Nanna Wilson, Elvie's mother. It became part of family folklore in the years since how at toilet stops, A. Clare would buy an icy pole for Jod, the apple of her eye. Joan, annoyed that I was excluded, would go into the shop and buy me one.

In the early sixties, when Elvie had the florist shop, she'd sometimes leave Meredith and me at Auntie Joan's in Ashwood on Saturdays. Anne and Stephen were toddlers. I recall a glass of milk being put in front of Stephen in his high chair. He picked it up and promptly upended it onto the floor. Geoff was off playing cricket and Joan had her hands full looking after her kids but she always good to Meredith and I. We loved her, and were sad when she and Geoff split and she was lost to us.

The split, in 1966, was acrimonious. Joan went to Thailand with a man named Frank, who worked for Ford. Elvie tells me she didn't marry him, but changed her name by deedpoll to match his, and presumably the kids' too. They returned in 1973, living in Brisbane in the then new suburb, Mt. Ommaney. Frank was by now state manager of Austral Motors, the Chrysler dealer in Qld. That summer of 74, I went to study at QAC at Gatton and called at Joan's. While I was there it started to rain, and rain; more than 20 inches from memory was dumped in 24 hours and even more in the mountains to the west, causing the Brisbane river to flood, inundating many suburbs. I was stuck at Mt.Ommaney for some days. Provisions were dropped by helicopter. When the water subsided all the flooded houses and cars were covered by a couple of inches of slimy mud.

I visited Joan again 1977, on a trip to Nth Qld. By this time Frank had progressed to his own business, a second hand car yard, and was handing out match boxes with pictures of topless women on them, advertising 'Frank Tomlin Motors'. Not long after this Joan came home from work one day to find her house empty of the leased furniture. No note, no Frank. It took her weeks to find out that he'd run off to some place in the South Pacific with his secretary, leaving a mountain of debt. Joan was left to raise her now teenage children alone and had to vacate her house.

Joan and I kept in touch by letter and occasional phonecalls through the decades. Lib, myself, and the boys did a road trip to Qld in 1997 staying with Joan, who proudly worked as a sales rep selling plumbing products, the only female in Qld at James Hardie to do so. Her daughter Anne, now a single mum with a toddler and twin babies a few months old, lived with her. Stephen was married and lived in Tasmania.

I last saw her a few years ago. Stephen arranged a stopover in Melbourne to go to the footy while he was taking Joan to his place in Tassy for a holiday. He teed it up with me to knock on the door of the hotel room at a given time to surprise Joan while he'd stepped out 'for some air'. I was invited to Joan's surprise 70th birthday last year in Brisbane but didn't go, much to my regret now.

Joan, a fun loving lady with a great sense of humour and an engaging personality, was fiercely devoted to her children and grandchilren. She had Parkinson's, and learned last April she had lung cancer. The chemo didn't work, and she was told a few weeks ago she had months, not years, to live, after a growth came up on her neck. She had a heart attack a couple of weeks ago. After getting the twins off to school she felt her heart behaving strangely. She drove herself to hospital but it was downhill from there.

At the funeral service it seemed appropriate to me that I sat next to Uncle Geoff who travelled from a holiday at Caloundra, and who had married Joan fifty years earlier. He and Joan were estranged but in recent years Geoff had restored relations with Anne and Stephen without Joan's knowledge. Anne and Stephen were glad Geoff came.

I booked a Jetstar 'light travel' ticket to Brisbane at short notice, with no check in luggage. Into the carry on shoulder bag I hastily packed at 4.30 am on the day of the funeral, I threw a small note book I found in an old toilet bag. At Avalon airport, with a little time before boarding, I opened the notebook to jot down some thoughts. There was a quote on the first page I'd written years ago from a Jimmy Buffet book titled, 'A Salty Piece of Land'. It too seemed to suit the occasion.

"Everything leaves eventually in the physical form, but the memories of good people and good work are timeless."

I Am a Part of All That I Have Met

I sit in the departure lounge at Brisbane airport waiting for the sleek machine bird to take me south. I write at a public computer terminal into which I put some coins, giving me web access. I arrange letters and words, in the best manner I know so that my thoughts are conveyed to you. You know I live, where I am, and what I think by the sequence of the words.

It amazes me, modernity.

"A Fool's Paradise? Well, why not? There is a place for Folly."

Yesterday, north bound, I sat in the girth of the flying beast as it suspended above the clouds, carrying me to the funeral of my much loved Auntie Joan. I wanted to share the grief of my cousins, Ann and Stephen, whom I have known all their lives.

I wondered at the magnificence of design of the A320 airbus. The jet engine. An historic milestone in Man's conquest of nature. Come fly with me. Where did it start? Way back. In the cave. God's first words recorded at the start of the Bible, were, "Let there be light." Perhaps man's first conquest of nature was the torch or lamp, overcoming darkness.

I look out over tarmac and watch QF651 take flight, skywards majestically, Perth bound, taking Joan's relatives over mountains, deserts, plains. Home. After two days traversing two great cities; of concrete, steel, glass, freeways, snarling traffic, touchscreens, crematoriums, we are homeward bound.

"I am part of all that I have met."

I know what Ulysses meant.

The Infected Eppiglottis

On Friday morning I set off for my walk. Not far from my house a neighbour, whom I could hear but not see, called out to me asking me to put my dogs on a lead. I didn't hear what she said the first time.

"What?"

"Would you put your dogs on the lead please?"

"What for?"

"Because it's the law."

I disgraced myself with the rudeness of my response. "I don't give a stuff about the law."

"Obviously."

I said no more and walked on. A few metres further on I felt something in my throat, as if there was something stuck. I tried to clear it with a gentle cough which seemed to make the irritation worsen. I continued coughing to no avail until I couldn't stop, and after a while, about half way to town, it turned to retching then vomiting, back to retching. It was like an auto response to something stuck in the throat and was uncontrollable. I hacked and spewed up all manner internal garbage including plenty of saliva and blood after all the solids had gone and was in quite a state. I felt gripped by some kind of fit and thought for a brief time I was in the act of actually dying. I sat on the park bench in JAC Russell Park for a while as I recovered some composure, and wondered what the devil was going on. I was exhausted. At 7.30 in the morning.

I'd had a bad time in the preceding couple of days. I was involved in a meeting with the council on the Thursday over the tribulations of the Emerald Museum and Nobelius Heritage Park committee. There was much toing and froing of emails between various members and myself in the lead up to this meeting and come meeting time the acrimony of the last few months created tension and unpleasantness. Following the meeting there were more emails Thursday evening and in the end I couldn't sleep and sat up drinking red wine morosely until about 2.30 am. "How did I ever get involved in this?" was the question I kept asking myself, as I took another slash.

Resuming my walk when I felt up to it, I bumped into my wonderful neighbour Allison outside the post office. She told me I'd given her husband Rick a good laugh earlier as he heard my altercation with the other neighbour. Her motherly instincts immediately sensed I wasn't well and she offered to drive me home but I declined her offer, feeling that I would be OK. When you've had a vomiting fit you don't really want to be close to anyone.

I went to the Doctor about midday. He said my throat was badly infected and my epi glottis was enlarged and hanging down giving rise to the feeling that something was stuck in the throat. I'm on antibiotics and other tablets to reduce the swelling. The throat is still giving me curry but otherwise I feel fine. It's the stangest thing.

Here I am two days later about to go to the museum to do my duty on the roster. On my walk today I put my dogs on the the lead when I walked past that neighbour's place. Sometimes you have to eat humble pie to prevent bad blood in the street where you live, and it doesn't hurt me to put them on the lead there. There are dogs in her place that bark aggressively at mine going past and that could be what concerns her, but I wouldn't know.

On the bright side I can't help but feel so pleased that yesterday saw the end of Essendon and Carlton for 2009 as they were bundled out of the finals. And that on top of Hawthorn going out last week and disgracing themselves with poor sportsmanship. I doesn't get much better that. Now today while on duty I can listen to StKilda v Collingwood, hoping for a Saints victory relegating Collingwood to an elimination final next week. How sweet would that be?

I'm glad they found Tim Holding alive. He was very lucky his slide off the mountain wasn't fatal.