Tribulations of Treatments.

You know winter is near when the wood-smoke greets early morning’s walking our dog, Milo. This is now done each morning before the trip to Campbelltown hospital for radiation. It falls on me while Helvi gets ready. It includes her dressing and make-up. A woman takes much  more time with those rituals. She needs patient husband. After coming home from radiation in late afternoon, we both take Milo for another walk. Milo is very fit and so are we.

Yesterday’s treatment involved as usual the same batch of patients. We sit together in the waiting rooms. A kind of conviviality has developed. We are all in the same boat. Life is precarious enough without cancer. We become even more tenacious by hanging together sharing our plights. The man with the prostate cancer confessed he had become impotent. ‘This treatment did it’, he told the room. The wife looked annoyed. ‘Is that all you ever think of’, she said?  He looked to be in his late seventies. ‘No, it is not all, but I always enjoyed it’. ‘It’s a major part of me;’ the husband said proudly.

‘There is more to life than just that’, his wife replied. ‘Just think of the nice holiday we will have when going up north to the sandy beaches of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. ‘I am not talking about a holiday’, he said. ‘I can’t crack it anymore’, he added. This time he was miffed. Perhaps the wife did not give enough credit or importance to his masculine side. I too thought the wife might have handled it a bit more diplomatically.

The husband looked around the room hoping for support. I could only mumble;  ‘they are different types of enjoyment.’ ‘A holiday and sex are different things’, I added optimistically.  Another supporting male lifted the spirit of the husband. He seemed pleased and continued, warming up to the subject. ‘For my whole life I woke up each time with a ‘morning’s glory’, he enthused, followed by a more sombre;  ‘not anymore now though.’ For the uninitiated, the morning glory refers to erection. It reminded me of another expression. A rather coarse one; ‘cracking a fat.’ This was a popular expression between trade plumbers or sewerage specialists. In the US they refer those sort of remarks to; ‘locker room talk’.

 

The waiting room’s atmosphere really warmed up now. Almost like a locker room. The husband looked somewhat triumphant having brazenly confessed his declining state of morning’s tumescence. The wife sighed, shrugged her shoulders.  I subtracted that she might well have endured her husband’s libido for peace sake more than for her own joy. Sex is often overrated. It doesn’t get you anywhere. I often prefer a good book or a herring.

A younger female patient joined in and  gave a much needed supporting sigh to the wife. ‘Those men.’ she said defiantly, ‘they are always banging on about their own things’, she said. She told the room that she has a brain tumour which had spread to her lungs and liver. She has two boys of seven and nine. After finishing her story of plight and worry, the previous issue of erections and cracking, seemed trite. ‘That’s life’, she said. She seemed happy and was accompanied by her mother. I thought, at least she will have her mother to look after the boys if she doesn’t beat her cancer. It seems such an unfair business.  The room became quiet again. One hears miraculous stories of beating the worst diseases and ailments against all odds.

Let’s hope the mother of the little boys survives.

 

Going Danish in Queensland.

When I tried to make an attempt to increase my social life by joining an indoor carpet bowling club, I never expected friendship to grow so quickly. From a mere first timer, the progress of bowling, rapidly went to competition bowling. It still is social and not at all serious. We drive around now to other venues whereby we meet new groups just as keen on the game. Most are elderly and so am I. We might well all have reached the age where social intercourse is better.

Before the idea grew of getting about between more people, I considered taking up ballroom dancing. You know how it is. You see those elderly couples keenly trying to keep their marbles about them, (and so am I.) The music’s urging gliding along the parquetry floor taking slowly tango’s rapid littles steps, turning their heads this way or that way, taking care their interlocking legs and noses don’t collide inappropriately. It was the fear of collisions that I feared most.

In a way, the game of bowling does or can appear to resemble dancing as well. The experts seem to almost force the bowl to go to its intended journey by slow body movements alone.  A keen observer might well notice a form of ballet in action. Of course, with  ageing the ballet becomes less agile. Even so, by squinting eyes, some of us could easily have been performing Swanlake if not the dance of the Valkyries.

The friendship was further enhanced today by a lunch invitation held at the Scottish Arms Hotel. We arrived spot on at 12. I ordered my favourite salt and pepper calamari. Helvi had the flat-head fish. The price included a schooner of beer or a glass of wine. We both had a schooner of beer. The group consisted of about twenty five all seated around a long table. I think the women outnumbered the males.  Half the males were bald, but most of the women generously bouffant.

I am still battling to remember names. I suspect that I have reached a stage whereby names seem to get stuck into a colander without going through. A Kevin becomes an Eric and Jill became Joan. I am going to suggest people should wear name tags. It is funny but at clubs one needs proof of identity but not in pubs. Both serve drinks and food,  people play games, especially poker-machines. Yet, the clubs insist on proof of identity. It is something to do with liquor- license laws. I suspect there is a lot of money involved in all that.

It all came to a head when the Danish Crown-Prince Frederik tried to enter a club in Brisbane and was stopped because he could not produce proof of identity even though the  accompanying security police vouched for his identity.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-government/queensland-id-scanning-laws-turn-away-danish-crown-prince-frederik/news-story/a400fe9870b014896b6e37b6bcd5bee8

You can just imagine how this piece of news went viral around the world. It is true though. There are some things that seem impossible to change and that includes outdated and archaic license laws.

The prince was let through, but…there were ramification. It appeared the club had made an erroneous exception for the Prince. The police ended up apologizing for not insisting that Prince showed proof of identity. He just did not have it on him.

Australia at times can appear very quaint. The High Court at some distant date will have to decide if Australia is being governed by rogue foreigners. Row after row of parliamentarians are queuing up having discovered they have another nationality, which according to the present constitution is strictly outlawed.

What with bowling and all this, how could life not be fascinating? I can’t wait to get up early and welcome the day.

A Finger’s journey and our garden.

Can it get any better?

We are going to the Eco village in Queensland for a week or so. There is an air of High Excitement. Milo will be taken to the ‘ Doggy-Hotel’ of which he is as yet unaware. There are no pets allowed where we are going.

I do hope to be able to use my lap-top but no guarantee, especially not since a finger packed it in.

The finger

The doctor reckoned it would just ‘go away’ after a couple of days. It would ‘drain itself’, but it did not. I took myself to emergency at the local hospital. Here is my finger at the hospital.

Finger at hospital

Within minutes I was taken in and after a few medical inquiries was whipped onto a bed. I asked if I could take my shoes off but that wasn’t necessary. Here I am on the stretcher and you can see my RM William boots at the end of the bed. I was given local anaesthetics  on both sides of the crook finger. I am fine now with the finger having been drained.

Finger seconds before being cut open. Notice my RM Williams!

I just felt like balancing this piece by giving you a look at what Helvi has achieved in the garden. It has never been more beautiful.

The garden from inside.

Notice Milo tucking into his food.

Just glorious.

A way of doing things better.

River flowing through Currumbin Eco-village

A break from blogging and delving into the past was welcomed with open arms.  So, if responses to some of you dear friends went missing, a mea culpa. We are now back again. We decided to drive to Queensland and escape the tail end of winter. Apparently, no sooner after we left the Highlands, the heavens opened up. Over 400 millimetres of rain fell within a couple of hours. There were trees blocking roads and weirs overflowed. Evacuations of people into church halls were organized. Volunteers made sandwiches and gave comforts to those whose houses became flooded. Cars were seen being washed down causeways, yet children were cheerfully defying the rain, splashing about, no care in the world. Why should they? Life is yet to arrive for them.

My sister and husband after many moves here and there, told us they had found their ideal nesting ground at a place called Currumbin. Currumbin is just over the border in a state called Queensland which is even closer to the Northern sun than where we live in New South Wales. Queensland has a warm and sunny disposition. People wear sandals if not  going around barefooted. Most also wear shorts all year around. The closer to the beach the more you are likely to see bikinis for girls and board shorts for boys. Shark attacks have put a dent into surfing but not into casual living.  What more could one wish for?

We arrived at my sister’s place late in the afternoon after getting hopelessly lost on top of a mountain top. The GPS system must have had murderous intent and deliberately put us into great danger. We were close to a final embrace and quite prepared to be  found in a state of an advanced decomposition some weeks later.

Some of you might know my stance on endless suburbia were people succumb to such a state of spiritual if not physical inertia and dehydration, that even the fear of Border Control Force Protection Patrol with guns drawn, can’t get a single twinge of  life out of the millions of hapless inhabitants.

Well, Currumbin Eco Village is where the good ones finally find life back again. It offers salvation to the true believers of a form of communal living like nowhere else. It is a place of good design and harmony with interaction between people encouraged instead of the discouragement of being fenced off, privacy till the end, (in the grave while still alive), colour-bonded separated Zinc Alumina side seduced by smarmy Estate Agents sold as the Australian dream of ‘Own Home.’

Instead of rows of separated fenced off cottages it offers clusters of free standing homes around  central hubs. Fencing is not allowed. Instead of having numerous small pools it has one large communal pool suitable for real swimming. A community hall for residents to meet and mingle. Communal wood-fire places to sit around for those who feel like getting back to the days of campfire and talking with Adam and Eve. Post boxes together in an encouragement to meet each other. In fact, this Eco-village was designed for  living together instead of the much accepted dreadful separated and obsessively private till the grave, way of life which so many seem to end up with.

The Ecovillage at Currumbin achieves:

Self-sufficiency in energy usage and complete autonomy in water and waste water recycling:

• 80% of site as open-space, 50% environmental reserve, and the same yield as standard development
• Food and material self-sufficiency through edible landscaping and streetscaping, household farming and other productive strategies
• Preservation of natural landforms and rehabilitation of the degraded site’s environmental integrity
• Extensive wildlife corridors, negligible vegetation loss and extensive native plant regeneration
• Cutting edge integrated water quality measures to exemplify Water Sensitive Urban Design
• Cultural Heritage honoured and integrated
• Mix of socially-oriented innovative ecological, energy efficient housing catering for diverse needs
• On-site work strategies and facilities for village and local community
• Waste recycling strategies including an innovative RRR recycling centre
• Comprehensive traffic saving strategies to reduce vehicle impacts on and off site
• Well researched administrative framework providing social equity & enduring community integrity
• Initial and ongoing social planning to foster cohesion and promote sustainable community
• Continuing education of sustainable living and development practices via the Interpretive Centre
• Sustainable economic performance both with the development and the ongoing community.

Have a look for yourself. ( Obligatory solar panels, thermal mass, recycling of all waste including all water,

communal vegetable growing. etc. One drawback, because of the abundant wildlife, no pets)

http://theecovillage.com.au/

The learning of Fox Trot and my V8 Ford.

Ford V8 Single spinner

Of course with the powder-blue Ford V8 sedan and the family being treated to a few tours around Sydney, thoughts went to try and get to know more about the opposite sex. These were lean times spent with females.  Harking back to the Scheyville migrant camp with the very limited and lonely Polish-pubic- bush peek through the shower partition, the experience had exhausted itself. I decided to take the bull by the horn and take some dancing lessons. I had noticed that in some magazines of  the ‘boy wants to meet girl’ kind (or the reverse), photos of the boys were often taken while nonchalantly leaning with one foot elevated into the door- way of a car.  A photo leaning one footed in the side-car of my motor bike wasn’t all that exciting a prospect for a girl to be taken out in. I mean, on A Roman Holiday the girls rode around on a Vespa but that was a bit different from driving around mute Sydney suburbia and its nodding petunias in an ex-police motor bike, even with a side-car.

The nous for someone with a guttural accent to get to know a girl in a strange country might now have  to include a photo of myself leaning casually in my FordV8.  Even then, I feared it might just not melt the tigers enough to make the butter.  I needed some flair, more oomph, chutzpah even. Before placing an ad in a lonely heart’s magazine I decided to take dancing lessons from Phyllis Bates dancing academy. I had already learnt that the word ‘academy’ was used in Australia with careless abandon.  I mean, that word in Holland meant professors and  Leiden University or an eight year ballet course in Moscow with the Bolshoi. Here an ‘academy’ could be doing Jiu jitsu , car repairs, or jigging about above a Greek milk bar. In any case, this dancing academy offered a booklet of twenty tickets on ‘special’. In the late fifties and sixties, everything was ‘special’. Even a local built car was Holden ‘special’. You did not have much that was sold being ‘not-special.’ The one thing that remained static and fixed, even till now is, that some cheese survived today, is still sold as ‘tasty.’

The flooding of the love-market was heavily tilted towards single bull necked males with strong gnarled horned hands. They were the ones to build the Snowy Mountain’s  Electricity supply scheme, now  redundant; the digging of mines at Mnt Isa, now redundant;  the cutting of sugar cane in hot Queensland, now by giant machines. I thought that by learning to do a nifty fox-trot or even a quick-step I would have an edge over the Queensland cane-cutters and bulky Bulgarians when it came to getting to know a girl with a lovely smile. I duly took the train to Sydney after donning a clean Pelaco shirt, finely ironed by my mother and a smart Reuben- Scarf suit (two for the price of one). I walked to Pitt Street and clambered the stairs up to Phyllis Bates Academy. (above the milk bar) and presented my booklet of twenty tickets After a ticket was ripped out of my booklet I entered a room from which before I could hear a lively tune being emitted. A very nice cone bra encased woman came to me and after introduction told me she would start teach me a fox trot.

‘ Just follow the painted footsteps on the floor’ and ‘I’ll guide you’. Just start one two…one two….I hopped along but could hardly believe a woman was holding me, I mean a real woman!  To think I still had nineteen tickets left. I could hardly contain my pleasure but did notice that most of the dance students were all bulky cane cutter males. The teacher in the meantime said; ‘ you have to hold me in such a way that a book must be firmly held between us and not fall on the floor’. The last thing I wanted for future memories was the misery of unable to even hold the book between me and a female body and suffer the ignominy of a failed book holder while learning the fox trot.

But, where were the girls? So much to come yet.

The Aspidistra and a Bed.

Aspidistra

If one could compare an aspidistra with some marriages, it would not be far off the mark. The same conclusion might be drawn from home-made timber beds.  I am always in awe of those death notices in the back pages of newspapers reading how Mr or Mrs  Robinson passed away at over eighty or more, leaving a sad and bewildered partner , countless children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren. All to continue on and pick up the pieces, in that strange unpredictable fickle game which we call life.  I am of course talking about the aspidistra- like- endurance to keep going, making the best of all life’s problems. Actually, I should write ‘challenges’. There are no problems anymore, just challenges. We are all  ‘challenged’ throughout our lives, so we are told…but I remain suspicious. Be wary of the wisdom espoused from learned couches.

One reason might by that not long ago, life was supposed to be not really difficult or challenging. It was just a matter  of grabbing ‘solutions’. Remember the age of solutions? Huge trucks would thunder past with tarpaulins covering ‘banana solution to you from sunny Queensland.’  Our butcher,  when we were still living on the farm had ‘meat solutions’ written on his display window. “I’ll have two kilo of your best sausage solutions, please butcher!” And before that some of us might have a life somehow unnecessarily tangled up by not practising enough of ‘logistics’. We needed to get our logistics sorted out! There are some  of the brightest ad men in town thinking all this up. The psychiatrist couch is worn threadbare by endless queues lining up to sort out all that confusion. And it is no wonder. It used to be simple.

All this latest insight while sipping my first coffee at 5.30 am and staring at an aspidistra, sitting on the kitchen bench keeping an eye out for any eventuality. If aspidistra’s could talk! Helvi told me that it is the same one we had in Balmain in 1976 when we moved in after returning from three years in Holland. Helvi’s memory is phenomenal. She remembers having bought it at a market stall that is still being held every Saturday. The same market stall where I tried setting up a business selling chicken sates. It lasted just a couple of Saturdays. The smell of  raw chicken pieces on bamboo stick with peanut sauce was overwhelming. I don’t mind eating them. But amazingly, around 2002, and buying my sausage solutions I got talking to the butcher at Marulan (170 KMs from Balmain’s Sydney) who remembered my chicken sate all those years ago. He said; “they were the best chicken sates I ever had and the spicy peanut sauce was fantastic.” No small praise from a butcher! It is a small world indeed.

On par with the longevity of our aspidistra we also had a bed  that lived even longer. I made that bed soon after our arrival in Holland when we left Australia in 1976. We had taken our camping airbeds with us in the aeroplane together with clothes. All was packed tightly in four suitcases. We had no address to go to but had arranged to meet a mayor of a small town to whom I had written from Australia. He had published an article about art and community. We stayed one night in a hotel near the airport from where I arranged to hire a car. Next day we met the Mayor and he knew a farmer who had an old farm house for us to use while we found our feet. It was quite an undertaking with our three children, but we were young and adventurous, but perhaps on hindsight a bit foolish as well.

Family living in Holland

In any case, after we settled in the farm-house in North-West Holland on the second day after arrival, I bought a Skill electric saw and some dressed pine to try and make a bed. I had already made a bed in that rickety old Balmain cottage because the narrow curving stairs would never allow a double bed through.  I had refined the design to the simplest form. The matrass would rest on slats that were being held within a frame of four planks dowelled together with timber dowels. The whole bed would be flush with floor, so nothing could ever get lost underneath this bed, ever; not even a single sock. It was Queen size and totally demountable. It had no nails.

After three years in Holland we returned to Australia and straight back to Balmain. This time we had two large crates shipped over with all of our present furniture  including the home made bed that I had disassembled in a small bundle of slats and the four planks. This bed survived many, many years, with lots of sleeping and tossing and turning, sadness’s, crying and laughter,  actions. Even some unbelievable geriatric  gymnastics of latter years.

Life back in Australia

I don’t know wether we can draw any conclusions from all this, but I would suggest that making own timber bed goes a long way in the ‘logistics’ of long lasting relationships.  As for the Aspidistra, you can’t go wrong and is the least of life’s challenges.

They are sometimes called ‘cast iron’ plant. What does that tell you?

A new angle on life!

Milo in deep contemplation

Of course when porn/ erotica was still banned in the US and Australia, there was the famous Justice Felix Frankfurter test. After reading the offending material the Judge decided that the angle of excitement and arousal would be the ultimate test and determinant of the material being found obscene or not.
There was endless discussion between different judges on different angles but after much toeing and froein, a degree of more than ninety percent from the floor up to the body was deemed obscene and therefore banned. Anyway the judge, after due and diligent deliberations, would retire to chambers and come back (somewhat dishevelled and flushed looking) to give the verdict. “Ninety six percent” he would announce kindly but firmly. The publisher turned pale. A doomed man and his business.

DHL’s Lady Chatterley was banned for years in Australia and there were dangerous angles everywhere, especially on those diesel buses that used to vibrate violently backwards and forwards. For lonely bachelor single migrants it was the best on offer, especially considering there was a shortage of women. I read on an overhead rail bridge a very sad message; “Australia, a country with no women”. What could you do?’ I remember here were protests of allowing so many single men to migrate to Australia without also encouraging females to come. But in those days, there were huge mining and hydro electric projects to be build, women were shop girls or domestics, hardly seen as productive to put Australia on the world’s economic map. Now of course a different matter. We now have history in the making again with a brilliant female,Annastacia Palaszczuk trouncing the male Premier Campbell Newman, in Queensland, with a massive seismic shift from conservatives (liberal) to labor. A land-slide. A man loosing his own seat and a Premier! How sweet it is.

I am still jubilant but not too excited. No angle at all.

The Poinciana week away.

You can’t get past the Poinciana tree for magnificence of size and the colour. The Australian suburbs of Brisbane are full of them, which is just as well, because the uniformity otherwise of its streetscape and housing architecture is similar to many other cities and towns in Australia. Make no mistake though. The Poinciana is owned by Brisbane in glorious sun-kissed Queensland.

There is almost a sense of irresponsibility about it, a giving of wanton carelessness in being so ostentatious in it’s presence. It seems to say that nothing else really matters if trees of such outstanding and majestic grandeur are growing right in front of the gate. I mean, does it then really still count if you are driving a Porsche, or own a Bose sound system, and run a mining conglomerate?

And yet, despite the beauty or because of it, the streets are empty. Not a soul around. It is always like that. The sun parches anything daring to go outside. Even so, one would wish to see someone out there, even if just to clap in unison with those flowering trees. Give them a small ovation. Surely, they deserve some acknowledgment or do they flower just for themselves? Nature is so unselfish.

The trees are daring for people to come outside and do some close-knitting. Remember whenever someone is found in far-flung suburbs to have been murdered there is almost an automatic response of incredulity of how something as diabolical as a murder could have happened in their ‘close-knitted’ suburbs. Surely not here, not in my street! We are close knitted community!

Seeing those empty streets one does wonder when that close knitting takes place. Is it during the still of the night under a full moon when the elves take over or witches brooms fly over zinc-alumed roofs? Perhaps it is done over the back fence. We know that back fences often played mystical roles in Australian bush folklore. The remote controlled garage door has a lot to answer for too. In the past, at least the driver would get out of the car giving the neighbour a chance to quickly hop out to see him and perhaps exchange a few kind words.

Now that little pleasure is also been denied. There are just too many gadgets with buttons. It is impeding on the art of close-knitting.

I am sure of it!

Wagyu is the latest.

It is amazing how fast words and phrases travel and become part of a fleeting but popular vernacular. Years ago, in Australia, we had blokes and sheilas. Now it is guys for all sexes, including the indeterminate (third sex), who are now so indicated on their birth certificates and passports.

I remember the rage of everything having ‘logistics’. Every advertising sign had ‘logistics’ tucked in somewhere. Trucks used to race past me on the M2 with Logistics written with large lettering on their canvas hoods. It did not take long and it was followed hot on the heels with ‘solutions’. ‘Logistical solutions’ was so popular it took the world by storm. There were no problems anymore; only solutions. Our local butcher in Marulan started selling meat solutions. Divorce lawyers were keenly sought offering ‘solutions’ and fruit laden semi-trailer were hurtling past offering Queensland Pineapple Logistical Solutions.

Of course amongst the young, including some being almost comatose by their addiction to IT mobility, had ‘stuff like that’ and ‘I like that shit’ with ‘awesome’ well ingrained as well.

Lately, many politicians,especially amongst those keen on dehumanising boat people or the oppressed minorities, are now deeply immersed in learning a new catch phrase of being on a ‘humanitarian mission’ often indicating their support for the dead but not so much for the living. They fly off almost daily to somewhere but always on ‘humanitarian missions’ their faces flushed with a righteous fervour, hoping voters will be taken in with their faux intent of spreading sweetness and goodness, instead of the reality of fanning world’s discords and hatreds. ( not heard much of dropping food parcels over Gaza)

But getting to the latest Wagyu. It used to be good old Angus Beef used in ham burgers. Not anymore. Out of nowhere it has morphed into Wagya beef. Restaurants are quick to print off new menues. The much revered Angus beef has now staled.
It is now Wagya beef. It has taken us by storm.