A Fine View

A few tin strips of fleecy cloud lies long

And motionless above the eastern steeps,

Like shreds of silver lace: till suddenly,

Out from the flushing centre to the ends

On either hand, their lustrous layers become

Dipt in all crimson streaked with pink and gold;

And then, at last, are edged as with a band

Of crystal fire.

 ~ Charles Harpur, Dawn and Sunrise in the Snowy Mountains ~

***

My latest hobby is collecting library fines.  We seem to live among a pile of borrowed books and audio books with no idea when they fall due.  Yesterday in a mad dash to mall while Little Wanna's ballet lesson was in progress, we bought a few new books including yet more Lego collector series and The BFG by Roald Dahl. So now we have our noses in brand spanking new books while time is ticking on the borrowed ones. 

I love putting on the squish-diddly voice of the BFG.  But I was beginning to think he wasn't suitable fare for a bedtime story with his imposing height, scary old face and big ears. He comes across as a formidable figure in the first two chapters. Thankfully, as it transpires, he doesn't eat people.  Not like library officials (nah, kidding). 

On our regular trip cross suburbs, we rise and descend over Hindmarsh Drive with astounding views of the Brindabella Mountains in the distance.  It really makes me gasp sometimes and forget all the outstanding fines and hundred-and-one other tasks awaiting me at home and in the office.  It's one of Canberra's redeeming features ... in the absence of a beach.   Mr Harpur has captured the magic accurately in his ode to a sunset over the Snowies.

Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens

"The young leaves is shootin' on the trees,

The air is like a long, cool swig o' beer,

The bonzer smell of flow'rs is on the breeze,

An' 'ere's me, 'ere

Jist moochin' round like some pore, barmy coot,

Of 'ope and joy, an' forchin destichoot."

{C.J. DENNIS, A Spring Song}

***

One week of school holidays to go.  Charly is still at a sleep-over across the road with gorgeous neighbour C. 

{Sleep-overs across the road have to be the best thing ever! So convenient. Just in-and-out as they please from one house to the other. No driving.}

I think the food and bedding arrangements are far more salubrious over there than at our house. 

Meantime, Ro Ro is totally immersed in sets of Beastly Books variously titled Boy Versus Beast or Beast Quest or Beastly Business. He literally scooped his arm along the shelves at the Kingston Library and dumped an entire set into the canvas library tote.  He is now methodically working through them.  Wanna is busy dressing up dolls and manoeuvring Little Ponies in formation across the carpetted floor of her bedroom.  Sweet home-spun entertainment and not an electrical cord or device charger in sight.

Today is windy and wet in the national capital, so best we can do is reminisce about our sojourn on the south coast and our walk through the serene Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens, another of our unexpected finds.   We discovered this beautiful spot thanks to my obsessive brochure collecting and the services of the Bateman's Bay Tourist Bureau.  

The Eurobodalla Botanic Gardens are impeccably maintained (the uniformed gardeners and ride-on mowers were out in full force while we were there) with lots of new works in progress, including on a childrens' playground with musical equipment and a divine BBQ area. 

There's a great selection of bushwalks and ample open spaces to throw a frisbee (or a dart - "the new frisbee"). If we were local and it wasn't raining, this is where we would have outdoor birthday parties and end-of-year get-togethers. Don't tell anyone, but I like it more than the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
 

Motoring to Tuross Head and Bodalla

A Midsummer Noon In The Australian Forest

~ Charles Harpur

"Not a sound disturbs the air,

There is quiet everywhere;

Over plains and over woods

What a mighty stillness broods!

Only there's drowsy humming

From the yon warm lagoon slow coming:

Tis the dragon-hornet - see!

All bedaubed resplendently.

O 'tis easeful here to lie

Hidden from noon's scorching eye,

In the grassy cool recess

Musing thus of quietness."

***

As our holiday and adventures on the Eurobodalla coast of New South Wales continued, we took a day trip from Malua Bay to Tuross Head and the much acclaimed Fish and Chip Shop.  (You can see the focus of our culinary endeavours: drive to the nearest greasy cafe.)

This particular chippie enjoys a fabulous location literally on Lake Tuross with the water flapping underneath the timber boards of the jetty.  I think, however, since the establishment is for sale, it may be on the decline. The outside awnings were broken and patrons had to swelter in the midday heat, the service slow and unreliable and the fish and chips not quite up to the standard we expect of seaside cafes.  Probably flake instead of fresh flathead or the Catch of the Day, and all a bit too greasy. Still what it lacked in gourmet appeal, it made up for in atmosphere.

 ...with a knight in shining armour guarding the fishing tackle and wet suits. Plus the most amazing views across the lake.  Really quirky, and what I expect the cafes on Pittwater which feature in Susan Duncan's books to look like.

Appetites replete, we sped off to the sleepy town of Bodalla, home of cheese-making.

...and patted the poddy calves.  Eeck!  Long tongues and the smell of cow poo!

Lots of views of the Aussie bush.

There's a modest static display with information and memorabilia from the early days of the Australian dairy industry and the efforts of local pioneer, Thomas Sutcliffe Mort.   It looked like the museum and working cheese-making factory for visitors were still under construction.  It should be great when its finished.  There is also accommodation to had on site and a fine-looking cafe for milkshakes and afternoon teas.

The pub across the road.

 

The magificent All Saints church high on a hill overlooking the surrounding area and keeping a watch on the townsfolk.

A lovely rest spot on the Princes Highway.  Highly recommended.

The Ant Explorer

~ C J Dennis

Once a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam-

To fare away far away, far away from home.

He had eaten all his breakfast, and he had his ma's consent

To see what he should chance to see and here's the way he went

Up and down a fern frond, round and round a stone,

Down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone,

Up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high,

Through the fearful forest grass that nearly hid the sky,

Out along a bracken bridge, bending in the moss,

Till he reached a dreadful desert that was feet and feet across.

'Twas a dry, deserted desert, and a trackless land to tread,

He wished that he was home again and tucked-up tight in bed.

His little legs were wobbly, his strength was nearly spent,

And so he turned around again and here's the way he went-

Back away from desert lands feet and feet across,

Back along the bracken bridge bending in the moss,

Through the fearful forest grass shutting out the sky,

Up a mighty mountain range seven inches high,

Down a gloomy gully, where he loathed to be alone,

Up and down a fern frond and round and round a stone.

A dreary ant, a weary ant, resolved no more to roam,

He staggered up the garden path and popped back home.

 ***

Slow start to Sunday.  I feel rather like the ant facing insurmountable obstacles.  I'm already prepping for the week ahead - well, thinking about it and making lists.  It was a late night for Charly who had a friend stay overnight.  The program featured games of Earthopoly, charades and back episodes of Glee.  The menu included home-made rocky road (evilly addictive), spag. bol. and strawberries and ice cream. I've been trying to deflect the youngest from playing Moshi Monsters on the computer.  Ro-Ro is the only sprightly, and productive, being alive this morning.  He's emptied and loaded the dishwasher, tinkered with his Meccano set and is now reading a book on Mythology. 

Morning Glory

Morning Glories

~ Mary Oliver

Blue and dark-blue

rose and deepest rose

white and pink they

are everywhere in the diligent

cornfield rising and swaying

in their reliable

finery in the little

fling of their bodies their

gear and tackle

all caught up in the cornstalks.

The reaper's story is the story

of endless work of

work careful and heavy but the

reaper cannot

separate them out there they

are in the story of his life

bright random useless

year after year

taken with the serious tons

weeds without value

humorous beautiful weeds.

Last week of Term 1.  Crawling towards the school holidays.  Lots of unfinished projects, rather like weeds in a garden at the moment, which need completing, including a modest re-vamp of a hall table involving Dulux Magnolia.  Heavens, we might even get into some Easter craft and bake from the latest Junior MasterChef cook book, which I recommend for its useful recipes and intriguing layout.

Image: Peta Reilly

Rockets

The Aurora Australis

~ Mary Hannay Foott


A radiance in the midnight sky

No white moon gave, nor yellow star;

We thought its red glow mounted high

Where fire and forest fought afar,

 

 

Half questioning if the township blazed,

Perchance, beyond the boundary hill;

Then, finding what it was, we gazed

And wondered till we shivered chill.

And Fancy showed the sister-glow

Of our Aurora, sending lines

Of lustre forth to tint the snow

That lodges in Norwegian pines.

And South and North alternate swept

In vision past us, to and fro;

While stealthy winds of midnight crept

About us, whispering fast and low.

The North, whose star burns steadily,

High set in heaven long ago:

The South, new-risen on the sea,

A tremulous horizon-glow.

We mused, “Shall there be gallant guests

Within our polar hermitage,

As on the shore where Franklin rests,

And others, named in Glory's page?

And, “Shall the light we look on blaze

Above such battles as have been,

In other countries, other days,

The giants and the gods between?”

Till one declared, “We live to-night

In what shall be the poet's world:

The lands 'neath our Aurora's light

Are as the rocks the Titans hurled.

“From southern waters, ice-enthralled,

Year after year the rays that glance

Shall see the Desert shrink appalled

Before the City's swift advance.

“Shall see the precipice a stair,

The river as a road. And then

There shall be voices to declare

This work was wrought by manly men.”

 And so our South all stately swept

In vision past us, to and fro;

While stealthy winds of midnight crept

About us, whispering fast and low.

What a week people.  Flu, mad frenzy in the big open plan office (I mean really mad, frenetic, crazy, led by jet-propelled, 'intuitive decision-making' - to borrow from Kerry) and three sprogs to feed.   Just when I have a half hour to spare, the computer won't upload photos so I have to use more images from our mega road trip this summer.  Hence the ute on a stick above taken in none other than Deniliquin in New South Wales -- home of the Ute Muster.  Hopefully when the IT HelpDesk gets home from playing hockey tonight, I can get a quick solution in time for {this moment}.  We're off to swimming lessons as usual.  Cate take note! ;-)  It's all 'rocket' arms and tumble turns and butterfly kicks.   We're even models in an AUSTSWIM conference shortly.  That's dedication.

Peak hour sameness

AUSTRALIA

~ A. D. Hope

A nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey

In the field uniform of modern wars,

Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws

If Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.

They call her a young country, but they lie:

She is the last of lands, the emptiest,

A woman beyond her change of life, a breast

Still tender but within the womb is dry.

Without songs, architecture, history:

The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,

Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,

The river of her immense stupidity

Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.

In them at last the ultimate men arrive

Whose boast is not: "we live" but "we survive",

A type who will inhabit the dying earth.

And her five cities, like five teeming sores,

Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state

Where second hand Europeans pullulate

Timidly on the edge of alien shores.

Yet there are some like me turn gladly home

From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find

The Arabian desert of the human mind,

Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,

Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare

Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes

The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes

Which is called civilization over there.

Same old routine today.  Except for Charly, who goes on a school camp for three days and two nights.  Up late packing and doing a final check of the bags this morning.  Made lemonade scones and boiled eggs for school lunches, as well as breakfast for five.  It's like peak hour in a city youth hostel around here.  But still the same routine.

Image: Jerrilderee, New South Wales

Slow days

The Sleepout

~ Les Murray, 1987

Childhood sleeps in a verandah room

in an iron bed close to the wall

where the winter over the railing

swelled the blind on its timber boom

and splinters picked lint off warm linen

and the stars were out over the hill;

then one wall of the room was forest

and all things in there were to come.

Breathings climbed up on the verandah

when dark cattle rubbed at the corner

and sometimes dim towering rain stood

for forest, and the dry cave hunched woollen.

Inside the forest was lamplit

along tracks to a starry creek bed

and beyond lay the never-fenced country,

its full billabongs all surrounded

by animals and birds, in loud crustings,

and sometimes kept leaping up amongst them.

And out there, to kindle whenever

dark found it, hung the daylight moon.

Same old days with dozey starts. Getting into the swing of things but consistently rising and retiring too late.  Must do better!  Parent-teacher night revealed that the teacher, who caused so much inner angst in the first week, is in fact a warm and bright soul (probably the pick of the bunch).  Just goes to show that shouldn't necessarily jump to hasty conclusions based on a child's initial assessment of the situation.  Must trust your instincts of course, and I sensed this was a matter of schoolyard comparisons rather than anything more troubling.  We can't have 'Mr Chips'- style teachers every year sadly.

As much as I have high regard for teachers, in terms of their administration, I did think, as I sat in the classrooms listening intently to their explanations of the term ahead, that some could do with a stint in the bureaucracy to learn how to organise their presentations and timetables.  Some were persuasive and authoritative, others seemed to have no idea what sort of reassuring information we needed.  They clearly work with children and not government ministers.  I guess if you are a public school you have neither the wherewithal nor the inclination to look too polished or cultivate a customer service mentality.   It's very odd.

Photos: Canberra street scenes by me.

Limited Overs

Casey at the Bat

~ Ernest L. Thayer (1888)

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:

The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play,

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,

A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest

Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast;

They thought, “If only Casey could but get a whack at that—

We’d put up even money now, with Casey at the bat.”

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,

And the former was a hoodoo, while the latter was a cake;

So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,

For there seemed but little chance of Casey getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Blake, the much despisèd, tore the cover off the ball;

And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,

There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from five thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;

It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;

It pounded on the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,

For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

***

To be fair, I need to acknowledge the cricketers in the family, as well as the ballerinas and divers.  The fact that I only have a two year old photograph of Milo cricket sessions on Deakin oval (and a bad one at that - three boys in a badly composed line) is testament to my negligible interest in this sport.

We have now moved up a notch from Milo mini-training sessions to two-hour modified games.  'Limited overs' I think is what they are called. Heaven help us when it comes to these all day marathons in the higher grades.  There goes the weekend.  The girls and I shall do matinees and swim all day.

The Strong Silent One has volunteered to coach the Under 9 boys at our local club. Last week, he wrote the following message to the team, which is pure poetry itself.  No idea what half of it means, but isn't it lyrical?

This week's results for the Canberra Times are below and updated statistics are enclosed.

Best bowling figures today was Luke with 0/14 from 4 overs and Adam topped the batting (12).

For me, the shot of the day was Callum's four behind square leg.  

Josh also did well, coming in with second best figures with both bat and ball.

Josh also scored the most runs off the bat (8), followed by Callum (6).

Just goes to show how punishing (or favourable) the scoring system can be - with no wickets conceded, Josh would have scored 32 and Callum 24.

Maybe at training this week, we need to practice running between wickets and defensive batting.

ps.  The main poem above is an American baseball poem first published in The San Francisco Examiner.  Shows how much I know.

The aftermath of the storm

In the Storm that is to come

~ Henry Lawson (1904)

By our place in the midst of the furthest seas we were fated to stand alone -

When the nations fly at each other's throats let Australia look to her own;

Let her spend her gold on the barren west, let her keep her men at home;

For the South must look to the South for strength in the storm that is to come.

Now who shall gallop from cape to cape, and who shall defend our shores -

The crowd that stand on the kerb agape and glares at the cricket scores?

And who will hold the invader back when the shells tear up the ground -

The weeds that yelp by the cycling track while a nigger scorches round?

There may be many to man the forts in the big towns beside the sea -

But the East will call to the West for scouts in the storm that is to be:

The West cries out to the East in drought, but the coastal towns are dumb;

And the East must look to the West for food in the war that is to come.

The rain comes down on the Western land and the rivers run to waste,

When the city folk rush for the special tram in their childless, senseless haste,

And never a pile of a lock we drive - but a few mean tanks we scratch -

For the fate of a nation is nought compared with the turn of a cricket match!

There's a gutter of mud where there spread a flood from the land-long western creeks,

There is dust and drought on the plains far out where the water lay for weeks,

There's a pitiful dam where a dyke should stretch and a tank where a lake should be,

And the rain goes down through the silt and sand and the floods waste into the seas.

We'll fight for Britain or for Japan, we will fling the land's wealth out;

While every penny and every man should be used to fight the drought.

God helps the nation that helps itself, and the water brings the rain,

And a deadlier foe than the world could send is loose on the western plain.

I saw a vision in days gone by and would dream that dream again

Of the days when the Darling shall not back her billabongs up in vain.

There were reservoirs and grand canals where the Dry Country had been,

And a glorious network of aqueducts, and the fields were always green.

I have seen so long in the land I love what the land I love might be,

Where the Darling rises from Queensland rains and the floods run into the sea.

And it is our fate that we'll wake too late to the truth that we were blind,

With a foreign foe at our harbour gate and a blazing drought behind!

Waiting and watching today.  There was a storm in Canberra last night and our power went off.  Unbelievable.  It was as if we were experiencing sympathy pains with Far North Queensland.  We had to scrabble for torches, candles and the battery-operated radio.  It's bucketing down now.   It will be hard to concentrate on anything else today but the news coverage about the extent of the damage. 

Concerning women's liberation

Modern Mothers

~ Phillip Rush

Concerning women's liberation

The emu is an inspiration!

For once the eggs are on the nest,

The mother emu takes a rest.

For father emu is the one

Who sees the family duty's done.

He sits on eggs for sixty days,

Then, he alone, will duly raise

For eighteen months the infant brood

Whilst mother rarely will intrude.

Though ancient birds compared with others,

The emu hens are modern mothers!

The Strong Silent One has been home most of these school holidays looking after the children, and other visiting friends, while I head off to the coal mine.   He's a superstar.  Way more fun than me.  Better organised.  Prepares bigger helpings of food.  Reads endless chapters of Biggles and Pearlie.  Has a greater tolerance for battery-operated toys. Plays computer games with the children.  Packs things away faster than I do. Is far more capable at loading children into the car and ferrying them around.   And he has a bigger lap to sit in. 

While we were travelling he and they were always five steps ahead of me.  I seemed to trail behind with the camera or mooching about.  Our holiday album is full of back views of the four of them.  I'm very good at taking up the rear.  That's my role.  I'm OK with that.  No, really.

◦Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes. ~ Jim Carrey

◦Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey

Images: Somewhere in North-West Victoria along the Murray River; Bourke Street Mall , Melbourne; Apollo Bay, Victoria; Victor Harbour, South Australia.

Chainsaw sculptures, Dartmoor

In the Beginning

~ David Malouf

The table’s there in the kitchen, where I kneel

on a high chair, tongue at air, trawling a slate

with pot-hooks; on the track of words; on the track of this word,

table. Is there instant, wobbly wooden,

four-square in it solid self, and does not need

my presence to underwrite its own or scrawl,

thick tongue, thick hand, a puddle slate and knock it

up out of blue nowhere. Where are they, table,

slate, slate-pencil, kitchen, and that solid

intent child on one knee reaching for sawn

planks back there? Breathless today, or almost,

I wrestle uphill to where, in a forest gap

of table size, it stands, four legged, dumb,

still waiting. An unbreathed word among the chirrup

and chafe, it taps a foreleg. Table, I mutter.

With tool-marks fresh as tongue-licks, already criss-crossed

with scars I feel my own where hard use makes them,

it moves as that child’s hand moves about muddy water.

From: Poems 1959-1989
Publisher: University Queensland Press, St Lucia, 1992
Image: Atlantic Cedar and Cypress Pine sculptures by chainsaw artist, Kevin Gilders, Dartmoor, South West Victoria.

The Avenue of Honour was planted on Saturday 7 September 1918. The trees, Atlantic Cedars, commemorated 60 World War One servicemen and nurses from the Dartmoor District. In 1993 arborists identified many trees that were unhealthy and unsafe. Gilders was commissioned to carve the trees into suitable images and themes in consultation with relatives and veterans.  Boards milled from the trees were to be kept for other public purposes: a carved timber memorial-mural, and picnic tables and benches.   Lest We Forget.

Tudor Village

Taking the Census

~ Charles R. Thatcher

When the census is taken, of course,

All the elderly females are furious,

They don't like to tell their real age,

For gov'ment they say is too curious:

I got hold of a chap that went round,

For I wanted to twig their rum capers,

So I tipped him a crown on the sly

To let me look over his papers.

There's that elderly dame, Mother Baggs,

Has marked down her age twenty-seven,

Although she's possessed of five kids,

The eldest of which is eleven;

Miss Fluffen says she's thirty-two,

But to tell such a story is naughty,

She's a regular frumpish old maid,

And if she's a year old she's forty.

There's another thing struck me as queer,

As the papers I sat overhauling,

Beneath occupation, thinks I,

I'll soon find out each person's calling;

But the first I looked at made me grin,

My wash'woman, old Mother Archer,

Beneath occupation I found

Had described herself as a clear starcher.

The chemists's assistant up here,

When his paper I happened to see, sirs,

'Pon my honour had had the vile cheek

To mark after his name M.D., sirs,

And Bolus, that wretched old quack,

Whom folks here regard with suspicion,

When his paper I looked at, I found

He'd put himself down a physician!

Here's a barbarous custom you'll say,

No less than three diff'rent hairdressers,

In the papers which they have all filled up

Have described themselves all as professors;

In Heidelberg district I find

My bounceable friend, Harry Potter,

In the paper he has sent in,

Tries to make us believe he's a squatter.

My friend said he called on two girls,

Who are noted for cutting run capers,

They live in an elegant crib,

And he knocked at the door for their papers;

They handed him what he required,

He read, but exclaimed with vexation,

'The instructions you haven't fulfilled --

'You've not put down your occupation.'

'Well, Poll, that's a good 'un,' says one,

And both of them burst out a-laughing,

But the young man exclaimed precious quick

'I can't stay all day while you're chaffing;'

'Occupation' says she with a scream,

(Her laughter was pretty near killing her),

'Poll, I'm blowed if I knows what you are,

But, young man, shove me down as a milliner.'

Groooan.  Back to work today. After a few days at home engaged in tidy-ups and cleaning, I've got the hands of a Tudor washerwoman.  I'd like to pick another occupation today.  A milliner sounds good. (The poem, incidentally, from my limited research, really does make a reference to 'Harry Potter'.  Spooky.)

Oh well, best off.  Crawling towards the weekend.

 

Image: Model Tudor Village, Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, Victoria.

Waratah and Wattle: Sun and Sand: Emblems of a Nation

Waratah and Wattle

~ Henry Lawson, 1905

Though poor and in trouble I wander alone,

With a rebel cockade in my hat;

Though friends may desert me, and kindred disown,

My country will never do that!

You may sing of the Shamrock, the Thistle, and Rose,

Or the three in a bunch if you will;

But I know of a country that gathered all those,

And I love the great land where the Waratah grows,

And the Wattle bough blooms on the hill.

Australia! Australia! so fair to behold

While the blue sky is arching above;

The stranger should never have need to be told,

That the Wattle-bloom means that her heart is of gold,

And the Waratah red blood of love.

Australia! Australia! most beautiful name,

Most kindly and bountiful land;

I would die every death that might save her from shame,

If a black cloud should rise on the strand;

But whatever the quarrel, whoever her foes,

Let them come! Let them come when they will!

Though the struggle be grim, 'tis Australia that knows,

That her children shall fight while the Waratah grows,

And the Wattle blooms out on the hill.

Australia Day 2011.   The day commemorates, somewhat controversially, the arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag there, and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of New Holland.  Happy 223rd birthday, regardless, to a great land and people.   The barbie is about to fired up for a family 'do' at lunchtime.  I'm off to soak kebab sticks this time - as opposed to the Christmas pudding fruit which was soaking a month or so ago - and shake the porch mat in anticipation of the visitors' imminent arrival. 

Image: Surf Beach, Barwon Heads, Victoria