The Neighbour’s cat.

Neighbour’s cat

This is a picture of the cat that keeps the mice and rats on their qui vive at Harley’s property next door. Harley and his wife keep three chickens which he calls ‘his girls.’ I feed the chickens when they go away. In exchange, Harley, or his chickens really, allow us to keep the eggs.  We like a nice Pinot Grigio so a bottle from that grape variety gets thrown in with eggs. They are our best neighbours and gives a good break from the cyclamen thievery within our compound. It still riles us! Remember how for exchange in saving our Body-Corporate $10.000,- in obtaining a far more competitive quote for the exterior painting, we were hit by abuse and threats for us to move and sell-up, and the twice theft of our potted in beautiful ceramic containers, the oft mentioned and loved cyclamen!

But the cat is what I want to write about. Just forgive my regression on the cyclamen era. The neighbours next to us are not in the same group as the dusty frumpy relics of the past. She, a single mother, moved in a year ago or so. She has two teen-age sons, and two cats. One of the cats is the one in the above picture. It taught Milo, our Jack Russell a bitter lesson. When he saw the cat for the first time he went furious and tried to teach him a lesson amidst the summer daisies. The cat with one swipe did the job. Milo retreated with a yelp and one closed eye. He badly underestimated the stance of this mighty cat. The cat was not to be mangled with. From that moment Milo gave it due respect and no further issues arose. Milo often spends the nights outside and so do the cats. I suppose they met up again and made a truce, if not a good friendship as well. Our Milo was the best of friends with our cat on our farm before 2010.

It turned out that Milo almost lost an eyes with this single swipe from the cat. He still bears a mark on his bottom eye lid. It was that close. What astonished us is when the cat now takes naps on Milo’s outdoor sleeping blanket as shown in the picture. Milo knows and approves. All has been forgiven.

Isn’t that an example how nice it would be if people could behave like cats and dogs?

A normal day.

Jan. 1956. Our arrival In Fremantle with dad (with bald head) and mum (white hand-bag) in the foreground.

 

Normal day are getting rarer. That’s why I am glad it is Monday. I have never taken to Sundays in Australia. They are boring. I know it was mother’s day last Sunday but that doesn’t mean an uplift  in the general mood of all Sundays. It is hard to put one’s finger on the reason for feeling this way. It might date back to our first arrival here. Has anyone ever been to WA Fremantle on a Sunday? We did. Back in 1956. It was our first contact with the mainland of Australia. It was empty. Well not really empty. It just felt like it. No people about except other passengers from the migrant ship. We were all prancing about in our Sunday’s best. We wanted to make a good impression as newly arrived migrants tend to do. It was difficult to make any impression as the locals were nowhere to be seen. We might as well have well walked around stark naked. Some desultory looking dogs were scratching their fleas. It was better than nothing.

Mother’s days of course are different. Our mother used to emotionally blackmail us in saying; ‘Mother doesn’t want any present this year’. ‘Just make your beds, lay the table, do the washing-up and… above all , behave yourself.’ It must have been a murderous job with six kids running around a third story apartment back in rainy Holland. Do kids make their beds now? Some say they are getting away with murder. It’s no wonder when I see those huge black SUV’s dropping off the spoiled kids at school. Make them walk, I would say! My mum had the right attitude!

Our mother’s day was good. We had my brother staying over and on Sunday the grandchildren and our daughter visited us. I tried to book a lunch but the pub was booked out and an upmarket place called ‘The Mills’ was full of mothers, nervous looking partners, prams full with babies and their primordial screams. I recoiled and got out quickly.

We ended up eating very nicely at home. Helvi said; ‘just get big steaks.’ I bought 5 huge Porterhouse steaks. We heated up some left over pasta and an even earlier dated, but still in perfect condition, potato-bake. Both dishes I had used generous quantities of anchovies. I now tend to use anchovies in almost every dish. It might well work as a preservative as well as giving a nice taste. As we sat down to eat, the boys hoed into the porterhouse steaks with great enthusiasm. It was exactly as Helvi had predicted. Our grandson, Max, gave the Bolt salute. We could not have been given a greater compliment.

It was a nice Sunday.

 

 

The deep fried squid was a bit fishy

We had promised to try again a restaurant in Mittagong. Mittagong is next door to Bowral and has that Australian old town feeling. A couple of pubs with original fronts together with few mansions still indicating a former glory. Apart from that, our dog JRTerrier Milo has a bitter enemy but behind the safety of a solid glass shop front, inside which electrical globes and lights are sold. The dog behind the glass is menacingly black and huge. A large and formidable Labrador-German Shepherd mix. Milo is pulling maniacally in order to get as quickly as possible to the shop, ready for a blood curdling killing. Each time we visit Mittagong with Milo it follows the same ferocious procedure.

As he pulls us on his lead towards the shop with the monster dog you can sense the tension in Milo. He crawls flat tack hugging the street’s shop fronts till we arrive at the front-line of Milo’s enemy. He wants the attack to be a total surprise. Milo’s feet are scratching the footpath. He is so keen. The huge dog is peacefully unaware of what is to come and asleep behind the entrance when Milo arrives. Instantly all hell breaks loose. Pedestrians scatter into the kerbs. There follows about five seconds of a terrifying ferocious snarling. Teeth are bared and clatter against the glass. Hairs are upright. I am afraid the glass door will shatter. I drag Milo past the door and all is back to normal. The frightened pedestrians might say; ‘my goodness,’ resume their walk. Milo had his fun.

Milo contemplating biting a bit.

 

But, as we had a nice meal in that restaurant before we thought to give it another go. It is an unlicensed place and perhaps café might be a better description. It is unpretentious and no one greets you effusively or shows you a place to sit. There is a mishmash of different seating arrangements, including soft chairs but also hard benches with long tables. You can fill your glasses with water from a large bubbler on a table with selections of all sorts mustards and sauces. It serves food on ceramic plates. I think serving food on wooden boards might be on the way out. I am not sure about the Himalayan salt shakers. This world and its fashions is now so fast and becoming more and more incomprehensible. It is not surprising so many elderly people withdraw and retire on park benches having a private little sob before bravely continuing on.

I ordered the same dish. Deep fried squid on an Asian salad. Helvi had trouble choosing. The café prides itself on serving alpaca-meat dishes. The friendly waitress suggested to Helvi to try it. Helvi told her as an anecdote that we used to breed alpacas. ‘It would be like eating our own babies’ Helvi answered with her glorious smile. The waitress laughed and understood. I suggested to try a beef steak dish with chips and salad. But, as so often happens. New people were running it and the food wasn’t as good as expected. My squid smelled a bit fishy on arrival. The deep frying did not deter the squid from telling me it was well past its prime, and much to its credit gave me a fair warning. My hunger, as usual, wasn’t brave enough to leave the squid well alone.

Helvi’s steak was also not the best. A little sinewy and a bit teeth defying. The chips were fair and she shared them with me. That was nice. The salad was a bit mushy. The lingering on its own behind the counter for a couple of days did not enhance or make it any more Asian.
Anyway, we all had a good time. Milo greeted us with his usual welcoming wagging tail. I reckon his fight with the black dog always cheers him up.

He loves going to Mittagong.

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Our Garden is an Opera

The way out for discontented souls, is to settle in a beautiful garden. The sustenance that greenery gives, is at times preferable to other contacts. Respite from turmoil and Executive Committee Meeting trauma, needs again to be sought. Emanuel Kant knew that. “We have to be the active originator of experience rather than just a passive recipient of perception.”

Temporary relief might be given by a good discourse with dogs and in some cases even cats. But a good garden is for most cases the only way to regain composure and the soul becalmed. Some peace has returned in our living compound and Body Corporate front. No more thefts but we did notice the instigator of all the turmoil, the Chairperson, talking to the gardener. She was waving her arms about, perhaps in support of more residential parking embargos. Who knows and is it important compared with the beauty of our flowering Clivias?

A lovely silence since. The little sparrows are twittering about in anticipation of some breadcrumbs. The local Council has put posters up on telegraph poles warning people of diving magpie birds. Some children are wearing helmets with large angry faces painted on the back of them. Some adults look angry enough and don’t need helmets. Many also swing branches about or umbrellas. Life is not dull if you know and are perceptive to the things that might go around you.

This is why an outing to shops can just be as exciting as going to the opera. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve shopping or buying things. Nor does going to the opera needs music to be heard in exclusion to other sensational things. In my case, it is my hearing impairment, whereby I have to improvise and make sense of whatever else is going on. This sense at times might have to move away from the auditory factor. In fact, with imagination and some deft improvisation one could say, all around us is opera. Opera is a dramatic work in which music plays some role but not all. Thinking of some of Gustave Mahler’s music I am right now hearing his famous Adagietto from Symphony no.5 and it sounds as beautiful as when I had my full hearing.

That is not to say, hearing the music played live would not be even better, especially with a nicely dressed audience within the splendour of the Wiener Staatsoper.

Of course, if we accept that opera is al around us, including even, or perhaps especially at Aldi, one really needs to ramp up a willingness to let wonderful experiences be absorbed, wash over us, and take on board that even the little things can grow into big things. Last week, I think it was Friday, we were patiently waiting for the conveyer belt to bring our goods to the cashier who was seated on the special ergonomically designed seat. All cashiers at Aldi are seated on those chairs. (Please note that the personal at Woollies and Coles stand up all day behind the cash register.)

When it came to my turn, the previous shopper presented me with a mauve coloured walking stick. ‘Is this yours’, he asked? ‘No, not mine,’ I replied. It was one of those walking aids that had a four pronged foot at the end of it. I suppose it gives greater balance and security to those not so confidently fleet footed!

Now, what the drama or opera of this story is that it begs understanding and a great deal of musings, on how someone in need of this special walking aid could leave the shop, continue his/her normal live ( the mauve colour might indicate a female, but ….?) and be unaware he/she lost a vital piece of medical equipment. Did his disability miraculously got cured after paying the cashier? Did he /she walk out risen from the near lame? A more cynical person might well surmise it could be a case of someone claiming an invalid parking license, giving it convenient parking spot permits near shops.

Now, this story goes a full turn. The Chairperson, responsible for the mayhem about non problem parking issues is pretty good footed, but…I did notice she has now a disability sticker on her car.

Who knows?

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