A farm in Australia?

A continuing memoir.

Son Nicholas and a painting.

The first few weeks from our latest return from French farm-house mania, our friends’ patience would be severely tested and without letting up. Talk about an obsession. I just kept saying; ‘the stone walls in France were that thick’. And I would then demonstrate by spreading my arms as wide as I could. This would be followed by some remark denigrating the flimsy Australian domestic architecture. You know, paper thin walls made of gypsum plasterboard and fibros sheeting. ‘They are mere wind breaks’ I would continue, adding insult to injury or reverse. Helvi, would poke me in the side.

After a few more weeks of insults and self absorption, things would calm down. The photos of French farm houses would be stored away, not to be seen again till recently when the majority of photos that were stultifying and boring got thrown out. We are not photo lookers, and I can’t think Helvi ever took more than a handful of photos, even though she did have a camera. She would leave that to me.  I enjoy taking photos, especially now that you can see the result immediately.

I remember the excitement waiting for photos to get developed by the photo and camera shop. It would take a week to get hem back, and as for coloured ones; they were send off to Melbourne. The black and white photos were small and had serrated edges. How time and science has now all changed that. Instant gratification in photography is normal, and now the world keeps taking selfies, nauseating really, but I am guilty as well. Go to any public event and one sees a forest of sticks in the air with excitable tourists busy taking selfies. In the next second the picture is forwarded and looked at in Taipei or Amsterdam, immediately. Tourism is really people paying to go somewhere taking selfies and looking at their own  images with the country they are visiting of least importance or at best an extra. Amsterdam and Venice are now desperate to try and get tourism to scale back with the locals feeling they are being trampled upon.

The Australia farm

I am not sure when I suggested to Helvi we perhaps ought to think of making a move and buy a farm or country place locally, in Australia. It was during the latter half of the 1990’s. There was a kind of feverish ‘break away from the large cities’ movement when the term, city dwellers or townies were starting to be coined for those seeking an alternative life-style. A week-end farmer was another one. Of course the more serious of large scale farmers were called Pitt Street farmers, suggestive of landlords leasing out huge tracts of land for the cattle industries, often managed by real farmers running hundreds of thousands of acreages. The owners themselves were well heeled lawyers doing their utmost to lower their tax obligation while whooping it up in Sydney’s Pitt Street cavorting with crooks, souteneurs (сутенер) with their shady ladies of pleasure…

The yearly friends party.

As I wrote earlier, last Sunday Helvi and I went to a party in Balmain, Sydney. We have been going there for a few decades now. It’s almost an institute except it is not a formal gettogether at all. Most of us have known each other through all sorts of possible combinations. Either through work, or living in same area, through our children or by sheer chance. You could say we are closely knitted. We generally know our life’s travails including the ups and downs. Lately, or perhaps over the last five years or more we now are steeped in each other’s medical journeys as well. A kind of bonus aiding intimacy. A common question last Sunday might well have been; how is your knee or is your hip holding up well? One inescapable fact is that of the 26 people at this party, there were just 6 men including myself.

We all bring own drinks and food. There was a delicious potato bake, which is always baked by the same person. The red cabbage salad was there as well, my favourite. Then salmon, different cheeses, and all sorts of olives, some hand stuffed with anchovies mixed with chili. It was a very enjoyable day.

Of course parties are held in all parts of the world. I thought I might share with you how in a certain part of Indonesian Sulawesi parties are held when someone passes away. The culture is totally different and one has to allow for that difference. Not just allow, but stand in awe of that difference. I am writing this because one of our grandsons as part of doing his HSC this year was treated to a schoolie trip with a group of other students to Sulawesi. We were glad he went there instead of Bali which is on the verge of becoming a kind of tropical Venice with millions crawling around looking for Star-bucks or KFC’s.

One of our grandson’s friends is from Indonesia so that helps a lot. They flew to Sulawesi’s Capital Makassar, and after an 8 hr bus-trip arrived at Taroja. You might know that in that area many mummified bodies of relatives long gone, are kept preserved and put up a mountain cliff. The Indonesian student told my son, that his grandfather was also treated with that respect, and that 50 buffaloes were sacrificed during the process of his funeral.

National Geographic put out a video on these cultural  rites and here it is;

 

I am so glad our grandson experienced this on his schoolie holiday. I find the video fascinating.

From Wiki; “For the Toraja people, life very much revolves around death, but not in a morbid sense. For them, a funeral is a great celebration of life.”

How about us, will our funerals be celebrations of lives well lived?

Communion with a Frog.

Milo at peace with the world

 

The event of my friendship with a stingray following me in the water along a stretch of beach at Bendalong was perplexing enough, but yesterday we had a frog visiting us inside our home. How often would a frog end up inside our homes? It would have to be a deliberate choice; surely?

It happened during last evening’s TV hour of Rick Stein’s ‘Venice and Food.’ He seems to be joining several TV cooks combining culture and food, or at least linking food having its origins in making do with whatever was available at earlier less affluent times . Good food is the result of poverty more than wealth. Herbs were added to basic ingredients to make tasty and often nutritious food by peasants. Of course, at least in Venice, the peasants have disappeared or are rich. The real peasants have morphed into hordes of belching tourists.

Last night’s Rick Stein’s tour along Venice’s Grand canals were interspersed with sea-food risottos or pastas dished on mouth-watering steaming plates, all so colourful, with just the right amount of a verdant green sprinkle of parsley, with Venetian sienna accented intonations by a smiling waitress.

When everything was steaming along on TV, I noticed Milo, our much revered Jack-Russell Terrier, carrying something around in his mouth. As it was dark outside I did not think it would be a lizard. During daytime hours, one of the less social acceptable amusements is Milo chasing lizards and performing amputations of their tails. He is totally flabbergasted that there are now two wriggling beings instead of just the previous single one. We don’t encourage him.

I told Milo to drop his pray. He did instantly. On close inspection I thought it might be a young bird. It kept moving about. I lost sight of it in the semi-darkness of our lounge room. We usually spent evenings in subdued lighting. Milo though, all excited, wasn’t about to loose his pray and directed me to this missing little animal hopping about. It had now jumped into our bedroom. I looked and discovered it was a fairly large frog. I tried putting a dish-washer cloth over it. It jumped away before the cloth hit the floor. It had jumped into the bathroom. Perhaps it needed water?

I managed to find it again underneath a rack of towels. This time I covered the frog with a wet towel. I told Helvi about the frog, but she did not seem interested, and kept looking at Venice and listening to Rick Stein’s cooking commentary on the telly. I duly and with some magnanimity carried (proudly) the frog to the other side of the house and to the safety of a tangled Jasmin bush. During the last few years  this jasmin managed to scramble over the paling fence shared by our neighbour. It was also near an outside light which had a crowd of insects buzzing about. I hoped this frog would find a nice morsel as well. It should not just be the domain of Rick Stein. I then took it a small saucer of water.

After the show was over, I urged Helvi to take a look outside at the frog. It was still there and looked happy. As far as it is possible to detect happiness in a frog.

Good boy, Milo. Good boy, for not pulling the tail off a friendly frog.

A normal day.

When the forecast was for rain, it was decided to quickly put in some more plants. Two star Jasmines and a couple of Hebes had been bought the day before. Retirees often have time on their hands and planting things and gardening helps time pass. Helvi suggested a few times I go and visit a men’s club and pass time talking to men. I am not sure if she is not a bit fed up with me hanging around. I remind her I am retired and free to pass time as I see fit. ‘Yes, but you often take naps,’ she tells me. But I told her straight out that I always thought napping was a very proper and well known past-time for elderly, especially men.’

Anyway, I did try and join a Men’s shed. It was last year. I walked into a local Men’s shed and noticed a lot of carpenter and building equipment. Lots of different electric tools, bench- saws, drills, planers, even a welder with eye goggles. A few men were busy making things. My idea of a men’s club was a bit more Singapore-Raffles like. A kind of establishment with easy chairs and a raconteur holding forth on the benefits of retirement in Venice or Thailand. Anyway, this Men’s shed wasn’t talk friendly, with all the machinery whirring around. I noticed a large nervous rabbit in a small birdcage. His master was making a hutch.

I would not really know what to make. I remembered a good friend of mine who spent a fortune on all sorts of tools. He proudly showed me a small wooden box with a hinged lid for putting in and allowing sheets of Kleenex tissues to protrude. I advised that the obvious next home made thing could be a wooden toilet roll holder? Perhaps one could varnish it or even make it look a bit antique? Some years ago making things look antique was popular. The art of making antique has since been surpassed by ripping into brand-new furniture. The side-board or dining table with chairs is now deliberately hoed into, roughed-up, and smeared and wiped white. For good measure sometimes copper nails are banged into the furniture as well. It is to get this much desired French-colonial-farm-country-side look. Some combine this with huge hanging clocks also given the same genuine faux French treatment.

I did not end up joining a men’s club. Just now I dug some holes for the plants. They will be growing against the paling fence. I gave them some extra chicken manure. Today was just a normal day. It is raining now. But that’s alright too.

Peace and quiet for overwrought Seniors.

Our Pizza oven at Rivendell.

With all the shenanigans on the political and abusive side of life in Australia last week, I am really ready for garlic prawns or a good solid potato bake, perhaps even both. The prawns as an entrée and the potato bake with just some tuna in between the thinly sliced potato layers with leeks, and some sun-dried tomatoes might just do the trick. Well, not strictly sun-dried. This our last jar of home bottled ‘pizza oven’ dried, not strictly ‘sun-dried’ tomatoes. It just sounds better. Let me explain.

While finally now on our last jar of those sun-dried tomatoes, it brought back memories. We left our farm in 2010. I should now heave, perhaps with a sigh, and question where all the years have gone? That’s what many people over seventy do. Don’t they? Agile readers might well remember the large pizza oven I built while living on the farm. It was huge, and one could at a pinch, even have slept in it, as well as making pizzas, although not at the same time. I would not be the first one to sleep in a pizza oven. In Russia, many a husband after coming home drunk would be refused the share of the matrimonial bed by his stout and possibly very formidable wife, and told to sleep off his stupor on top of the stove instead.

The first attempt at building the pizza oven was disastrous. I underpinned the arched brickwork with plastic tubing while laying the bricks. The mud-mortar was nice, with the cement, lime and bush-sand mixture of the right sloppy consistency. It sat nicely on the trowel. A joy to work with. As the arched brickwork reached towards the middle from both sides I noticed a slight but ominous wobble. I should have stopped then. Helvi and our daughter were sipping tea watching me at work. I felt justified in being proud. It could well have been the reason why I continued on, despite the structure with its wobble clearly telling me to stop and let it dry out till the next day.

We all know that arches are very strong. Look at Venice, nothing but arches where-ever one looks, from bridges to buildings. Even some people when ageing, form an arched back, allowing them to go on, despite life’s tragedies or because of it. It might have been my foolish pride in front of Helvi and our daughter (sipping tea in the Northern sun) that made me go on. It might also have been the challenge that, if I could reach the middle and close the gap between both arches coming together, there would not have been a chance in the world it could ever collapse. An arch in brickwork is almost indestructible

Alas, hundreds of bricks went a flying. The plastic tubes buckled. My immediate reaction was that of total dismay. I worked for days, cleaning the old bricks I had scavenged elsewhere. I had poured the concrete floor base on which were built the walls that would carry another concrete base that had to carry the actual pizza arched oven totally enclosed on four sides but allowing a small door for fire-wood to enter and the pizzas to be cooked. The secret of a good oven is the total insulation of all the walls including the floor. My pizza oven had two layers with generous insulation between each layer. Even the chimney consisted of inner and outer stainless steel pipes. Helvi thought it was a work of art. And it was.

After the collapse, the initial moments of dismay turned into unstoppable laughter. I knew Helvi was genuinely and lovingly concerned, but our combined love for the ridiculous always takes over. What was one to do? Call an ambulance or the cops? Just ride with it, was the only answer. I got stuck in building proper formwork the next day, and re-built the arches again.

It was a great pizza oven. It would be used for pizzas, roasts,  sour-dough breads and drying those delicious small tomatoes that just about grew anywhere.

A lovely memory.

The Venice adventure looming.

We thought it wise to continue our travelling. The seventies are marching on and one just never knows. We still have all our limbs and can walk unaided. But for how long? Our intestinal organs are floridly in good health and have kept us away from any precarious situations so far. Lately though, I have found myself scanning available public toilets. Just in case! I would hate to be running through Venice and over a steep bridge, in search of one. I remember vividly and was desperate for one in Paris. No paper, no water and just my cheque book slips for use while squatting above a very odoriferous and gloomy hole. I had trouble contemplating over the beauty of gay Paris. It took a train trip to the Château de Versailles and gazing at chandeliers to get over that one. I even had a full plate of ‘Raw Steak Tartare avec un raw egg’ after that.

From our last trip to Bali and the lack of food and water, we will be sorely tempted to fly a plane whereby the passengers will be kept alive as much as possible. The worst aspects are the miles and miles of walking through the acreages of getting through customs,, the ignominy of taking belts and shoes off, the padding up, down, and across, then, to the gates and again be padded down before traipsing inside to the plane. The hoisting of bags over-head and selfish knees protruding in such limited spaces. Duty free emporiums, and the hopping about in socks and dropping trousers before even getting on the plane. Why can’t the duty free be separate from the airports for those keen on buying yet another watch or pearl earring? Do people travel now in order to do the same as at home, ‘shopping’?

Soon there will be airports where people can mow a lawn or put out the garbage, pay the rates and go to Aldi.

Venice is beckoning as never before and am already speaking per favore et grazie to our postman who comes from Messina. We are prepared.
We can’t wait!

Moved to tears ‘Simon met a Pieman’ and piano Concerto by Lang Lang.

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You sometimes wonder which of the arts the primary one is. Is it literature, the visual arts of painting, sculpture etc, architecture, dance with ballet, or is it music?

Which of our senses is most aroused by beauty? That is if we claim ‘beauty’ to be the sole arbiter of becoming emotionally or spiritually aroused. Some people might well claim that tragedy and sadness is the one that moves us most. Do people get tears in their eyes when viewing a beautiful painting? I know I have never been moved to tears by visual arts but have (been moved to tears) listening to a beautiful piece of music.

A few nights ago I viewed on television the Rachmaninoff second piano concerto with Lang Lang on the piano. Now, that did move me to tears. It was held in the Sydney Opera House in 2011. Not that viewing the beauty of design in Sydney’s opera house would ever move me to tears. The visual versus the auditory are different and evoke different responses. If tears are the arbiter of emotional responses music would have to be the clear winner in reaching deeper into our souls than anything else.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klhcVCdTmDY

When Lang Lang performed at the opening of the Beijing Olympic Games it is claimed 40.000.000 Chinese children took up the piano afterwards. That’s twice the entire population of Australia. Now, that’s what I would call a rousing response to music. Music would have to be an art form that seems essential to us humans reaching our potential in nurturing emotional intelligence, sensitivity and awareness… It is known now that babies, while still safe inside their mothers, already react to musical sounds. Take any group of toddlers and start up music and in no time they will dance, move about and clap hands.

With books and stories we might get closer to tears. Films are also very capable of evoking tearful emotions, but… a good filmmaker knows that the music is essential during beautiful, harrowing and emotional scenes and it plays an important role. I can’t imagine a scene of great sorrow and loss but accompanied by the music of ‘three blind mice, or Humpty Dumpty’ could easily induce tears in an audience. I vividly remember in the Visconti movie of ‘Death in Venice’ Gustav Mahler’s piece the adagietto of his 5^th symphony moved many to tears. Would it have been the same with the music score of ‘Simple Simon met a Pieman?’ I doubt it.

http://www.myspace.com/video/gustav-mahler/death-in-venice-final-scene/12213624

In the ‘best movie’, the ‘best director’, nominated for ‘ten awards’ movie ‘The Artist’ there was no dialogue but this was compensated more than adequately by its glorious music, (and the spitting image of our Jack Russell ‘Milo’). Yet, a non-documentary movie with only dialogue but without any music would be difficult to not become boring, perhaps even unwatchable. The era of silent movies always had live music being played. This was sometimes achieved by a tinny phonograph, a solitary man or woman playing the piano, or an entire orchestra. The music score was essential in bringing an audience to appreciate the movie and its story during the era of ‘silent movies’.

I feel that music might well be the foundation corner stone of the ‘arts’, but of course many will claim this to be owned by Shakespearean written words or  Picasso’s Guernica or Rembrandts Night watch. It’s what moves us is what is important. Who knows, for some it might be just looking at the stars and the moon?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7zXk7-T0CQ

It just never stops.