ink marks on a blank page tues 15th Sept.

Is it that time/date I mumble? of course it is you numpty.For one thing I'm not Rip Van Winkle , yes I do love my bed . But of course the reference here is to the passage of time vis a vis how swiftly your (mine) children grow up and age before your very eyes, whilst of course you don't. This past weekend I have spent ferrying my daughter around to various venues as she flew home for a class re-union (20 year) from her school , daughter is 36, married and has 1 & 7/8ths children.
Saturday the 26th; Oh there I am, no I didn't sleep a whole week and a bit in. I got really really busy and just lost all enthusiasm for anything much other than trying to stay sane. We have had the grandaughters for two weeks and also the next two as well. as their mid term hols start monday.Their mother had to fill in for someone at her office so they got dropped off in the morning, I drove them to school then picked them up and brought them home here after school.These are two delightful little girls,mostly, not really much trouble, sometimes, but it is rather wearing . One is so conscious of the fact that YOU are responsible, heck I am never resposible, but looking after some one elses brood is daunting. which is why I haven't felt like attacking the keyboard for anything other than few mails.
Getting back to the opening bit about daughter flying in for her class re-union. Her friends had , as she has, physically changed.They are all about 36+ and have varying jobs from running a school in New York/Chartered Accountant/International Banker/Engineer/Senior Political Journalist/Prosecutor et al including motherhood, so they are a well rounded lot. As personalities and individuals they have not changed a jot.We lived on the farm in those days and her friends loved coming up to there on weekends and holidays, apart from lots of school trips and assorted functions I ferried them around the city for years and got to know who they were really well.For the latter few years of her school life I also had the luxury of being retired, I had decided at 42 that I had enough to live well and my g(o)od lady person was well ensconced at her country Hospital so I finished my daily toil and took on being daughters taxi. In reality it wasn't that simple, as I came home from work one evening my wife looked at me and said "you look 62 not coming up 42, this job is killing you, we have enough, finish up", so I did.
But seeing those super kids grown up,some with families, some starting family, then to know that they were the same people in their hearts and minds after 20yrs, was something wonderful.
We bless the day that the decision was made to send her to that partyicular school, it wasn't always a bed of roses ( for us) but the end result was well worth the effort. The physical effort just getting to school was bad enough as it meant for her three hours on a bus each day, the money was easy come stuff, but the logistics of transport and then when she eventually went into senior school with odd lesson times ,trips into art galleries etc, shock horror . When she eventually came of age to get her driving license I actually breathed a sigh of relief, tempered with a hefty dose of anxiety when she failed her first test. She passed the next test easily,just nerves the initial one, afterward we were both on life support whenever she took her car out.

Yes Horty I do know you do most of the looking after the grandkids, and yes I am an irascible old bugger at times and get short with the youngest one.But fings is fings old girl and if she wants me to teach her to play the piano then she has to be taught the right way, which is my way, not hers.They are little sweethearts and yes I will take them to Cocolat in the holidays. Yes Hortense you will get an invite too , can't have the chief cook missing out now can we.Pity that lovely little film we saw on the weekend was so far from Cocolat, I fancied a spot of gelato, you did too? well I never, you should have said, lets go Tuesday eh?

ink marks on a blank page wednesday 2nd Sept

We have a commercial here in OZ that uses ,and don't hang any labels on one please, dozens of very attractive young Australians singing as a lovely choir a song that is at the very worst a lovely patriotic tearjerker and at best a great plug for multi-cultural Australia. They sing this ditty in some of the most breathtakingly beautiful spots we have and are all just the sweetest bunch of kids you could wish for. The thing starts with what looks to be about 75 of these kids in some absolutely remote wild location on a drop dead gorgeous day singing ,and the first words are" we are one , we are many, we are..we are Australian etc etc" This is actually an add for Qantas our national airline, you know the one Dustin Hoffman refers to in the movie 'rain man',damn fine movie that was too. I digress but really there are two points I would like to make, one is of course about multicultural OZ and the other is movies, of which I am a fan of (both actually). I do like film that ties itself to a particular genre, deep film noir is not my thing but films that I prefer have to have a solid base,one that is recognisable so that the viewer can immediately identify with the script.As in ,hello I'm watching a college sports jock(comedy) flick here so shall exit by the first door ,and quickly. In saying that I thought 'planes ,trains and automobiles' was one of the funniest(sad & predictable) films I have seen. As a young child growing up in a far country town I was much influenced by film.We ,our little gang of scruffy summer kids, would go to the saturday matinee and then on the way back would re-live the feature,scene by scene. There was always a fight as to who would be either the Phantom/Superman or Hopalong Cassidy, but the animosity only ever lasted minutes.

Can I then be forgiven in the way I go to a film then get into it so deep actually want that to be the way I live life, normally lasts 5 minutes only then reality sets in. Surely just a hangover from my years of matinees .That I never saw Forest Gump is possibly a good thing,dontcha know,'cos I really don't think life is a box of chocolates. Some of the movies that really did make an impression on me were,lost weekend/ rebel without a cause/the wild one/blackboard jungle/on the waterfront/streetcar named desire/to kill a mocking bird/ catch 22 (the book was better)/the road warrior/from here to eternity/pulp fiction/the thing/all star wars/lord of the rings/star trek(all)/blade runner/all the harry potter(they equal the books)giant/east of eden/drive he said/lantana/10 canoes/the tracker/ japanese story/priscilla/muriel's wedding/pride and prejudice/bridget jones/4 weddings/planes trains and automobilesnanny mcphee and possibly a 100 more.

The two movies I was in,the bit part on TV you can wipe off the face of the earth, that I have a copy of the 1st movie is only down to my wonderful wife who purloined one from 20th century fox (may she be forgiven), hired a cinema and invited family /friends in for my 60th, yes it was a complete surprise, for all I think. I do not resile from the fact that I loved it,was watching the movie again an earth shattering moment for me ,no it wasn't, re-l(o)iving the memory was though. The memory is what this about isn't it? we see a film that hits a chord that provokes a memory that brings an emotion that creates a link, so the chain goes on. We give that movie a mental tick for changing our lives for just an instant. Does that mean we want to change ourselves to fit the premise of the screen-play, no. If that were the case the first film I flagged, lost weekend (ray milland), might have stopped me becoming an alcoholic, it didn't ,and I did. That I thought about scenes from the movie at times , yes I did, so there must be a residual effect somewhere . I rode in a motorcycle gang like Brando, but I was riding with them before the movie, played in a rock and roll band too and I know that the reason I did that was because of movies, heck, band members got ALL the chicks. Did I want to be JAMES DEAN , oh surely so.

Yes Hortense I know that in being James Dean I failed miserably, try that I did though. We all danced to the tune at some time or other did we not Horty? One of the great rock and roll songs of ALL time came from the pen of Matt Taylor, he of the band Chain. it goes summat like this...1,2,3,...4 "I remember when I was young, the world had just begun..and I was Happy, I think about it ALL the time, h...e..y" Just Google that up on youtube Horty,that will take you back to the place we met, you surely do remember that smokey club, the Sunday night the handsome young james dean look alike fell off the stage into your life? I see a small blush there Hortense, I must be on the right path. Must say though you do take me to some odd films these days. Quentin Tarantino must have seen some very different film on his saturday matinees if Inglorious Basterds is a yardstick, we did enjoy it though, mostly. I myself pass on the gore.