Saturday 22 August 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sat 22nd August

For us here in the Antipodes Spring, and all its renewables is just around the corner. August,for me, is always a profound month,details of which I shall not bore you with except to add that it concerns the 28th and 1972. As a result some Augusts become watersheds of agendas,the setting of , at times completions of. I'm talking about leap forwards, change, moving on and all that entails. That I do so at this time is not through some mystical force of habit but is in part due to how everything else is changing around me. This year I feel is going to be special,there is such an energy about, not just in my garden but in the park opposite and in Nature per se. I noted earlier this year that the parrots and lorikeets had outstanding colour in their coats . The year forward has borne that out , we have had good rains with the prospect of a nice folllow up lot to come. Looking out of the window at breakfast this morning,I saw a group of Adelaide Eastern Rosellas fly past to land in the large gums across the road,there to feed.Their coats were so brightly coloured in an almost luminescent green the morning sun glinted off them. My fruit trees out in back have got blossom on, the buzzy bees are even at this early hour are working hard.So, what do you think,let's go get 'em , aye....move on ,change, up and at life big time....just do it ! IT"S TIME The picture I post is from the front seat of my car as it barrells along the Calder Highway (Victoria) ,note the ice in the ditch to picture left,it was early morning and damn cold. Driving towards something new is always for me a metaphor for change, as this trip was, so shall it be done.

Done it has been.You might have guessed that the above was written some days ago, or perhaps it really doesn't matter as this write is for the here and now, this instant,forthwith etc etc. I once participated in a judgement where the presiding Judge made an order forthwith,lovely word that, resonates with not only a natural sound of deliberation but one of finality coupled with great purpose. Back to the object in hand, it is so that I as an individual have done some nice things,some good things,one or three really great things and some not so very nice things. Of the not so very nice that I speak about at this moment. Refer to November 1972, after the events of August of that year, I resolved that the not so very nice things should be expunged from the slate of the robbi life.That is all the folk that had been wronged at my hand would be contacted by all and any means, and properly apologised to, asked forgiveness for and/or if possible absolution. Over much time ,lots of effort, all the addresses,phone numbers etc etc were laid before me so I bent to the task. We aren't talking about hundreds here, there were to my memory about 15, no more than that. Really though 15 is enough isn't it?
Did my thing over about a week, two rang me as they had been rung by another ,saying not to worry I can't remember you anyway. But have a guess just how many did care or want to get me to say 'Mea Culpa' ? Right, you have it in one, not one person actually cared less. This of course had me in a quandry, did I matter so little that even my boorish ways went unnoticed, was I so insignificant that even peeing into Jane's tuba in a drunken stupor mattered naught? Was the night I spent locked in Christine's loo because I couldn't find my way out causing the rest of the guests to use the bushes outside whilst I slept in the bath oblivious, was that not a hanging offence? Perhaps not, it may be if course that these good folk saw the mirth in the situations described , chuckle mightily over the years , then turn them into amusing dinner anectdotes to amaze their collective A list friends. All that did leave me a trifle deflated, not dispirited mind, just a wee bit flat.( no pun intended). That this exercise is not repeated each August is down to the fact my long suffering Hortense keeps me from uttering a word about November 1972, a good thing as well. But in reality, I do miss the hair shirt a little.

The movie today was spot on wasn't it Horty old girl. You concur, well that is a turn- up for the books, normally you disgaree immediately. District9,odd title that but that really was the whole point wasn't it so Hortense, just referring obliquely to Apartheid actually. We grew up with that you see Horty, most of our younger readers would have no idea just how bad that time was. Nelson Mandela incarcerated in that dreadful prison, the man must be a saint the way he came out of there with so much dignity. Talking about saints Hortense, at Cocolat the lass who made our gelato today was a little humdinger wasn't she. Such large and generous scoops she gave, sublime wasn't it, of course I'm talking about the gelato Hortense, what else?

Sunday 2 August 2009

ink marks on a blank page Sun 2nd Aug

I have been away visiting family in another state,no, I don't take a laptop with me to keep up with anything. Neither do I Twitter,sms, except in emergency, hate calling folk whenever and where-ever, so if I should go places then I go silently. Not that I decry anyone the use of those ,or in fact any, forms of communication, just prefer not to use them myself. We have an unwritten law in my house, no-one rings here after 9-30 ,unless of course www3 has erupted and I am to be called up to go back in the navy.Do they take white haired old curmudgeons?

Possibly wouldn't go anyway, I never did get on with Navy life, far to straight backed for my liking,more fond of chaos me. Some funny ,or rather odd things have befallen I lately.Went in for an eye check up, a regular thing for me, my consultant said that I needed some immediate laser surgery.So that threw me al ittle but like the trooper that I am did as he asked ,the rub was though it took another 6weeks to find out if the laser had done its trick . Mother and the priests always told me that it would send me blind, well not yet . Y'all know me well enough by now to remember that I don't hold much truck with holy orders, prefer to take a more realist view on life. Should some of you, even all of you out there in blogsphere, take the more fundementalist tack then good for you, a belief system is fine it is just that I know why a jumbo can fly. The good folk at Boeing made it so, that's why.

My physical presence at the time of this epiphany was in a Catholic private school and at the time of the 'bolt from the blue' I was possibly about 10. We used to have a mass on friday morning and the bishop used to make a special effort to give us a rousing harange or three.
My normal thing was then,still is, to sit at the very front of any lecture, this day was no different. I think that I had worked out at a very early age that when sitting right in the front row you only ever got noticed once,answer corectly and sit quietly then for the rest of the time ,nobody bothers with you.
There I was,sort of awake but not, father was in full flight,when all of a sudden he straightened, raised both arms high in the air, the Lord will save the sinners he shouted.With this I woke with a start and there in front of me was fathers un-polished dirty street shoes and two missmatched socks. Shocked, I stood bolt upright and in full reedy ten year old voice cried out"Jesus wears dirty shoes and wrong socks" Naturally at this point the whole church, shocked by fathers stentorian voice fell deathly quiet so my piping little tinkle was heard all over,possibly into the street beyond. You might wonder at why I said that this was my epiphany, my fall from grace if you will. Think on this,for as a student in a Catholic school the priests and nuns were the living embodiment of Him, to us mere little pip-squeaky students anyway.To see father wearing dirty shoes and wrong socks was a revelation, he WAS human, just like Mr.Easterly the old drunky man who always wore wrong socks and whose shoes were never clean,God was only human y'see. Oh what a downward spiral from there folks, but yes it was, fun too I might add.
What did Billy Joel say,"Id rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints"

Please Hortense don't be like that,of course the good folk wont think I have horns or anything like that. Blog persons are well read intelligent people who have a balanced view on life. You don't think our leaders are like that Horty? you think that they are clutzes of the first order who should know better because we pay them heaps and give them lots of time at home.COuld be true old girl, this lot federally are not much good are they?Can you list one actual thing that they have done right since coming into power,all falls over doesn't it. The schools fiasco,broadband/building houses for the remote aborigines/ all students to have a pc/the health system , darn the list is not only endless, it's hopeless. You read the each house they are to build in remote areas for aborigines will cost $750k, that might be the reason they haven't built one yet. Not bad for a promise that no aboriginal family would be homeless by the end of 2009, there are about 3000 families need housing immediately too, work that out at $750k a house. Got an apology too Hortense, no Cocolat this week m'dear, got to take the car in for the 15k service and housework needs doing, next week then okay.