This gallery contains 6 photos.
Confession before benediction: I have been procrastinating. A month ago today Alyson at The Thought Palette nominated me for an award. Every day since, I have said to myself, “work on your acceptance post”. And then something offers itself as … Continue reading
Couldn’t resist a supplementary “Door” post for Jake’s challenge.
Hope you like my see-through doors!
Fitting the new screen doors …
Closing the door … talking
Jake’s challenge this week is ‘Door’.
From my earliest recollections doors were there to bar my way. Handle hardware was always way above my head, and although there wasn’t a lock in the place until we drove to Adelaide for Christmas in 1956, I was effectively imprisoned once the door was closed on me – which for some reason Ma, and even Papa, did every night. Was I a prisoner? Or was I a treasure to be protected? Either way, I hate closed doors to this day, and take it as being personal excluded when I can’t see inside other’s doors to the lives that are being lived there, just beyond my reach …
This collection of Venetian doors – all closed to me – invites populating, and storytelling. Until I make the time to write them, make up your own stories – I don’t mind!
Check out other doors here:
Summer is the beach. We lived 500 miles southwest of Sydney. And after the disaster of 1956, beach holidays weren’t a given, but always, in my mind, summer means the beach. And it’s no wonder.
Despite the notorious poverty of the headmasters of Anglican Prep schools at the time, (Dorothy said Grandpa often balanced the books by not paying himself, and Granny was never paid for the work she did), summer holidays at the beach were a cherished tradition in Ma’s family.
They would take the train down to the coast – and thence by some type of horse-drawn vehicle to the rented lodgings Grandpa will have organised. Curumbin Beach, on what is now the Gold Coast, was a favourite, as was Tewantin, the forerunner of Noosa. Dorothy fondly remembered her father renting rowing boats to take them down the river to the fishing village of Noosa, so the whole family could play in the surf.
Ma with Granny and Grandpa, Curumbin, Circa 1925
Grandpa taught Ma to surf and she was a keen body surfer all her life – only transferring her allegiance to a (body) board in her mid-70s.
Ma surfs Alexandra Headland, 1990
And so, with sunshine in our veins, off we went to the beach.
4.51 am Friday – It’s arrived! The monsoon has broken and the first storm of the season is overhead as I type. I don’t know when it began, but already the temperature has dropped and the sweet sound of rain falling, straight from the clouds, is like a balm to our parched and shrivelled senses. In the background thunder sounds a dull, almost continuous roar. But nothing can drown out the sound of that rain falling.
The days of those Olympian inter-monsoon storms are far behind us now. As March turned to April, and now May, the heat has risen, unabated: no rain, no cooling breezes, or fresh dewy nights. No more delightful cool mornings on the terrace, listening to the birds and monkeys competing with the temple down the hill to provide our joyful morning chorus.
It’s ten days now since the Met Department sent out its’ warning: the Southwest Monsoon is becoming active. Be prepared for ‘heavy showers’, it said, a euphemism for flooding rains and landslips in the mountains. Down here on the plains, nobody thinks of disasters. We’re avid for the rain.
Ten days of intensifying heat, and that imperceptible rise in pressure that nonetheless contributes to national grumbling and crankiness. Every day now we watch, ever more hopeful, as the clouds gather in the late afternoons, bruised black masses accumulating toward the west. Or in the mornings, lethargic and leaden as we rise from our sticky sleep, we look longingly at those encouraging, lowering skies, speculating – will it be today? Like an old tart, the monsoon taunts us with a couple of hammering strikes of thunder, a minute’s precipitation leaks from the sky, barely reaching the parched earth below, then again it turns away, insolently, like a practiced coquette. Oh the cruelty of waiting.
Farmers attended to their final ploughing weeks ago – Pied Pipers to flocks of canny white ibis, and fat little brown sparrows – as they turned the soil one last time, in preparation for the monsoon’s life-bringing rains. Parched, that land will be now: cracking and baking under the unrelenting sun. Each day that passes the humus is being burned out of the dark rich soil, changing its character, increasing the chances of hydrophobia, putting at risk the planting season to come.
You must remember: this is paradise. Where it’s hot, but not too hot, where the monsoons bring invigorating rain in the afternoons, perhaps a thrilling, cooling storm at night, where a twig plunged into moist loamy soil bears crops within the span of months. This is paradise; except in the build up to the Southwest Monsoon.
We’re all gasping for the rain. Waiting to be re-hydrated, to be cooled by the heavens.
Christine’s post in response to Jake’s challenge this week started me thinking about pets, and my relationship with them. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I would be unable to live anywhere that would force me to forego the pleasure, and companionship, of a pet. Throughout my life – wanderlust notwithstanding – they have been the constant. Further, while I may enjoy my own company and love to be alone, there’s a predicate to that assertion of independence: with my animal beside me, or waiting for me when I come home. Let me introduce you to the animals in my life, and perhaps then you’ll understand how it is that I have come to these conclusions.
Ruggles was only six weeks to my toddler status when we first met. For a while I was bigger than him, a fact, which I’m sure, I exploited mercilessly, in the manner of older siblings. You will understand his satisfaction then when the unfortunate Rosemary arrived one Christmas to take his place at dress-ups, and in the pram. Good naturally (or was it because he was permanently on duty?) he would escort us as I sallied forth from our Willow Tree House by the dam to take the air, wheeling that battered perambulator up and down the dusty driveway, as far as the cattle ramp, down by the road. He was my playmate, my first friend. He was the first being on whom I consciously lavished love. (Of course I loved my parents, and showered them with hugs and kisses whenever cheeks were proffered for that purpose, but parents lavish love on their children, not the other way around, during those years of self-absorption.)
Almost 20 years later, returning to Canada to set up house after a year in a van in Europe, a little grey striped tabby singled me out at the ‘pound’ to be followed, miraculously, by her matching number in solid colours, an unwanted bundle of joy from a neighbour’s litter. Why was it that, even in Toronto the Clean, it wasn’t mandatory to have cats (and dogs) de-sexed in those days? Thea, the tabby, was an aerialist, routinely climbing up and down shingled or brick walls, leaping from roof to roof, from our third floor attic flat. Gaia, as you can imagine, was more rooted to the hearth. It was R’s first experience of pet-fatherhood, and those two girls were shameless; they quickly turned him into their slave. Luckily they did the same to his sister, whose house they invaded when we returned to Australia in 1983.
Amber and her friend (and eventual adoptive brother) Red ruled our lives in Sydney, going to live with their father after the divorce. Like many childless couples, we had the romantic notion of ‘letting her have a litter’, which she did, insisting on the tent under the sheets as her birthing room. A little lilac girl was driven all the way up to Queensland to brighten the lives of her grandparents, but that didn’t turn out well. Never fear, several years later my little sister Nangi and I came home to look after them. Ma was a terrible snob, and was heard telling that understanding animal that she wasn’t nearly beautiful enough to win her over. But Ma hadn’t counted on the fortitude of that very Buddhist cat – the more the old lady turned away in disdain, the more comfort that little moggie gave in return.
And you know the Misses Kotte: Maggie, Mischief and Podi the cat.
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Interesting. For someone with a bit of a hand fetish (it was George Harrison’s beautiful, tapered hands that first alerted me to this particular peccadillo of mine) I seem to have very few human hands among my photographs. But I … Continue reading
Ailsa at Where’s my Backpack? has challenged us to post a taste of summer - where we come from.
My first thought was of the heat: the interminable, unremitting, dreary, life sapping heat that only water could assuage. Of days spent trapped inside, curtains drawn against the heat. Of enduring daytime hours reading on a makeshift day bed I assembled, directly in front of the Breeze Air water cooler, on the drawing-room floor, waiting for the relative cool of the evening before all three of us – Papa, Ma and me – would troop down to the dam for a delicious – though totally terrifying – swim in its muddy, yabbie-infested waters. Or of the defiant days, clothes torn off as too restricting, when I would take my book to the front lawn, the hose playing its cooling stream across the inadequate shelter of an umbrella.
I’m not certain, but I think this was the summer after the flood, when we knew for sure most of the farm was dead, and my beloved Ruggie too. When our spirits were momentarily bent … I’m not sure, but something made it indelible … So I present to you, Hanwood Summer, circa 1956/57:
The three bears take a swim
Running on the spot, most of this week, but since it’s only Thursday night, I’m inspired to enter Jake’s Sunday Post. My nominees (two are scans, sorry about the quality) are a little along the lines of the sublime to the ridiculous – though I leave it to you to decide which is which!
From the glamour of Spanish Haute Couture circa 1976, come two swanky shots from the Alhambra:
Fur, can you remember? Fox, I think it was.
And, the photographer – how simple his SLR looks by today’s models.
And lastly, I couldn’t resist this shot taken a couple of years ago when I capitulated and bought an air conditioner. I like to call it “How many Abans-men does it take to install an air-conditioner?”.
In all fairness, much of the chaos around them was because we were doing the paving around the pool, at the same time! But again, can you imagine – barefooted!
Lapis lazuli versus the sky (with a bit of bling thrown in for good measure).
Hope you enjoy one of the lions of the Piazza San Marco.
Reflections from where, Venice of course!
I’m following the unofficial challenge set by Ailsa at Where’s my backpack?
See other challengers here ::http://wheresmybackpack.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/reflections/
Excuse me if I’m stepping on anyone’s toes ripping off Six Word Saturdays, with Six Sixes on a Friday, but you can see the week’s gone from bad to worse:
And the last straw:
What I’d really like to do is close off the bedroom, turn the air conditioning to chill, and install myself on the bed with a good book – that is, if my Kindle copy of Diplomatic Incidents has downloaded in readable form. But there’s no food in the house, and while that wouldn’t bother me too much, my canine girls are ravenous greedy-guts Beagles, and we all know what an empty Beagle can be like. And that washing won’t do itself … I always said this house was way too big – way, way, way too big – for one woman and her Girls – now I’m about to experience first hand what that flippant assessment means in reality.
I don’t know whether I will be able to post regularly for a while – I hope you understand and don’t desert me – couldn’t cope with that too, right now. To reassure you I’m down but not (completely) out, some sunshiny yellow flowers from the creeper over the back wall …
… or as we say in Sinhala, Nelum, which is so close to the Latin Nelumbo, that it makes me wonder what the Sanskrit word is? Anyone?
Today’s post is simply a small gallery of my favourite flower in all its glory, From temples to stately gardens, a tin can in the sun beside the front door, or any of the myriad lakes, large and small, lotus grow in abundant profusion.
The pot I have at my front door is a Thai miniature,
And here she was this morning …
… and this must stop.
I’ve joined Robin Coyle’s dissident group, and disabled the email alert buttons for comments on my blogs (I hope!). Someone very kindly supplied me with an address which I am assured will reach a human behind a computer somewhere at WordPress. Under the subject “Do you know the extent of the current WordPress fiasco?” (subject lines apparently must be in the form of a question), I advised there were several components to my support request:
Five hours ago the WordPress computer chirped “Your message is flying through cyberspace to us as you read this. We will get back to you as soon as we can.” I am now about to break faith with my followers and delete the 316 unopened emails remaining in my inbox, an act of wilful destruction I will continue to perform daily until I hear the current fiasco has been rectified.
I love the camaraderie of our blogosphere, but I don’t need excuses to procrastinate. Imagine. Other than to keep myself and The Girls fed, myself and the house clean (well, the house slightly less so), all I’ve done since I came back from my little trip upcountry is try to empty my inbox. Now, normally I would just leave it, but at the rate of some hundreds of mails arriving daily, I began to freak out about when I eventually opened it. How much space on my hard drive will Google demand then? Do I have enough space for this, albeit temporary, annexation of my hard drive by an alien third party?
I’m sorry if all this means I’ll miss out on reading those marvellous, serendipitous posts that arrive, unheralded and unanticipated - with luck I’ll catch up with most of you through my Blogroll, or the chatter I hear there. And with luck, WordPress will revert to half a million happy bloggers in the shake of a lamb’s tail.
There is good news though. The Bougainvillea is in full flower. What doe you think of that?
A Jar of Bougainvillea
