Category Archives: The Natural World

Hoovering, holidays and tents

Even though I returned to work on 4th January, I’m still tapping into the holiday vibe as much as I can. There’s such a frenzied build up to Christmas Day and a pressure to get everything done that I’ve begun to really cherish the peace that comes afterwards when everything and everyone calms down.

Two months into a new job, this year’s yuletide season proved quite a marathon. My workload started to intensify at the end of November and, from the beginning of December, life became a seamless blur of grant-writing and deadlines, social stuff, choir rehearsals and practising new songs (I’ve joined a smaller choir and we did a couple of pre-Christmas performances), putting on a garage sale, co-hosting my first dinner party for about two years – typically, it turned out to be the night (a late night) before two morning choir gigs, one of them in an aged care facility. What joy it was to sing (even if I was a bit post party croaky) new versions of old favourites such as Away in A Manger and Silent Night to the oldies.

Deck the Halls...

Deck the Halls…

The week before Christmas I went up to Brisbane for a couple of days of work and play. After a day and half of strategizing followed by a long and lavish staff Christmas lunch, I raced off to the Powerhouse to see a show by Cocoloco, a madcap duo consisting of a university friend from Bristol and her Australian husband.

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I spent my last day wandering round GOMA – the Gallery of Modern Art – before squeezing in another show at the Powerhouse, having a quick chat with Helen and Trevor, and then travelling straight to the airport from there. It’d all been fun but exhausting and I had a sense of humour failure when I got stopped in security because the funky fish-shaped corkscrew I had bought for my nephew had a foil-cutting knife on it. What?! I’d been in too much of a whirl to notice. Amazingly, I was allowed to go back out to the Qantas desk and post it back to myself. Even more amazingly, it arrived in time to go under the tree!

I got home late the Saturday before Christmas and on route to a lovely Christmas lunch the next day, I managed to hit my head on a shelf, drop a bowl I was given for my 21st and then scrape my car along my carport wall. Not a good look, any of it! Things continued apace until Christmas Eve when I spent all day cooking two complicated desserts (and this from the woman who is 90% sugar free) to take to my brother’s. Dinner was at 7 p.m. and at 6.30 p.m. I was still hoovering and mopping the kitchen floor. I just couldn’t bear to leave it dirty; Christmas, for me, is also a time for renewal and reflection and I didn’t want to kick off with a crumb- and dog-hair-strewn floor.

Talking of hoovering – it’s not just the Brits, some Kiwis also talk of hoovering – reminds me of my trip back to the UK in August. My hoover is a Sebo (yes, I know that’s like saying my Mazda is a Toyota), a German make, which travelled the seas with me from England in 2004. It could probably do with a complete overhaul but my mission in England was to track down a spare part. Now the small market town in Nottinghamshire where my mother lives is no retail Mecca – at best, you’ll find Dorothy Perkins, Primark and Poundland, but it is exactly the place to find a store specialising in vacuum cleaners. Near the train station, in a residential street, is a shop that looks just like the one in the BBC show Open All Hours with Arkwright and Granville. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mTxaK1AHMc

The shop is delightfully cluttered, dusty (don’t think they ever hoover it) and a bit dark. Somehow it’s escaped the digital age completely and there’s not even a computer anywhere in sight. An older man in brown overalls (Arkwright without the stutter) explained that the shop started life in 1946 when his father was one of the first approved Hoover dealers in the area. He, in turn, now works alongside his son who will inherit the business. Helpful as they were, they didn’t have the spare part I needed – my Sebo is now so old as to be obsolete. However, visiting the shop was quite an experience. As we were leaving, a curious-looking man with a pot belly, lank, dyed blond hair and a generally dishevelled appearance strolled in and greeted us with a rather affected and effeminate “Helloooo!” The son explained it was his brother and quickly ushered him next door to a rather run-down house. All I can say is that if this bloke wasn’t the inspiration for Little Britain’s “Only Gay in the Village” sketch I don’t know who is.

Anyway, back to the Christmas holidays – once I had farewelled English and interstate visitors on the 28th, I sat in the garden with my feet up and got stuck into a fabulous novel about a Special Operations Executive parachuted into France as a spy in World War II. But the real hero of the holiday was a sun shelter tent lent to me by friends. I feel so blessed to live near the beach and really made the most of it. There’s something magical and healing about swimming in salt water and then lying on warm sand and sculpting it to your body shape. It’s as good as a massage. Without phone calls, emails, chatter and the normal day to day stuff, it was pure bliss and the tent meant I could stay for longer and not get burnt. Just me, the birds, the waves, the wind, the sun and the sea.

All the World is a Tent

All the World is a Tent

I even let myself off the hoovering – well almost. All that time on the beach – whether alone in my tent or walking Bertie adds up to quite a few grains of sand on the floor…

Bertie sporting sand and salt sculpted hair...

Bertie sporting sand and salt sculpted hair…

Never a dull moment

It’s been a long time between blogs but here I am again. There’s a lot happening in my world – from a potential new job to Airbnb visitors (the first since Easter), getting my shower fixed, my car serviced, my teeth filled, quite a bit of work and deadlines, deadlines, deadlines (luckily I am a big forward planner) as well as lots of family stuff and overseas phone calls. My father’s health is not so good but, on a brighter note, my 16-year-old Melbourne-based niece is somewhere – beyond the reach of phones and social media (sounds blissful to me!) – in deepest and darkest Peru doing a World Expedition Challenge, one of my London-based nieces is preparing to walk the Camino de Santiago with her boyfriend, a friend of mine has just been on a food odyssey to Hong Kong and Vietnam, another is doing the whole massage, cocktails on the beach and party thing in Bali, while my friend Simon is wandering around Europe. Everyone is on the move in one way or another!

Apart from changing jobs I’ve been aiming to keep myself moving by making enough time for exercise – it’s that whole work/life balance thing. Mind you, some of us have it relatively easy compared to the work culture in other countries. My Singaporean guest, an accountant, tells me she regularly works from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Yikes! I find it essential to make time for both exercise and free-fall soul-nourishing time where life just is without the phone beeping, the chit chat, the dashing off to cafes for catch-ups and social interaction. Time to move and time to just be, and sometimes a bit of both.

To that end Saturday mornings are now sacrosanct for a bit of cardio activity. Unlike many of my friends and colleagues I don’t go to the gym or have a personal trainer but I am a big believer in the outdoor gym. Bertie and I take off to Hampton Beach in good time on Saturdays. There are plenty of steps and slopes leading down to the beach so we intersperse jogging and walking with running up and down the slopes. Bertie loves it and scrabbles up the banks like the true working dog he is. I might not go as fast as him but I do get my heart pumping and it feels good, clearing out any stagnant energy from the week.

Then this week I bought a new bike –well, not exactly new, you know me… I found it in the Op Shop at work. I do already have a bike and I haven’t sat on it for about five years so it’s looking pretty neglected. But the difference is that this pre-loved bike is a classic ‘sit-up and beg’ model – so no back-ache-inducing forward tilt – and comes complete with a wicker basket on the front. All very Brideshead Revisited. Funnily enough, before I came to Australia I visualised myself riding along the beach path on just such a bike. I do believe that we can visualise certain things into being.

If the new job doesn't come off...

If the new job doesn’t come off…

Once I’d bought the (bargain) bike, the luck continued. I texted my dog-walking friend who has a Subaru Outback on the off-chance that he and his car might be in St. Kilda sometime soon. Nick is a glass artist and it turns out he works in a studio just around the corner every Wednesday. Bingo! So me and the new bike popped round at lunchtime and were able to watch him glass-blowing and sculpting. I was amazed at how malleable the glass becomes at high temperatures – Nick was making a giant acorn and welding on the stalk. I was in awe at the dexterity with which he worked. What a skill!

Adding the stalk to the acorn

Adding the stalk to the acorn


Apples and acorns and foil-wrapped potatoes for lunch

Apples and acorns and foil-wrapped potatoes for lunch

With the bike delivery scheduled for Friday, Bertie and I skipped off between work and a bit more work to the beach – not for cardio (hardly a goer in Wednesday work clothes and wellies) but for a gentle walk as the last rays of afternoon sun swept across the sand. As an added bonus, we met a pure bred Field Spaniel (Bertie is half field spaniel/half cocker) called Grace. We compared notes about our dogs’ behaviours and tendencies. We agreed that as working dogs, our spaniels need plenty of exercise – they need a job to do – and that they are hugely greedy and prone to pinching food off the kitchen bench. But we adore them.

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Bertie is the most delightful boy but he is quite a handful. If he gets onto the scent of something or is scared or curious he’s off like a shot and barks up a storm. We were in the country a few weekends ago and got up early to go out walking in the forest. It was rather magical – a bit misty with rain dripping off leaves, lichen and moss clinging to ancient tangled branches with no sound other than the birds and the occasional rustling in the undergrowth. Until a wallaby appeared from nowhere and Bertie took off in pursuit. It ended in a stalemate with the wallaby looking bemused on the far side of a gully as Bertie barked furiously! He’s scared of ironing boards, skateboarders, wheelie bins and now wallabies. Oh and he barks at the TV if there’s a wildlife documentary featuring birds.

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Nature programs aside, we’re both in need of a bit of down time so tonight it’ll be a case of SIT, DROP AND STAY… in front of the TV.

From FOMO to JOMO and Slow Art

Having made some rather grand statements about returning to my book and possibly converting it into a full-blown memoir rather than a series of alphabetical stories, I’ve STILL not managed to write a single word. I have, however, jotted down some thoughts about possible themes on a couple of sheets of paper and I’ve done a bit of prep work for this weekend’s workshop.

Meanwhile I still grapple with the time issue, or lack of it. I heard Ruby Wax talking on radio – she’s over here performing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival – about the modern-day epidemic of busyness. We all rush around trying to cram it all in – from working, doing the daily chores and socialising to culture-vulturing, learning new skills, keeping fit and keeping up with everything and everyone. Ruby commented that many of us get stuck in fight and flight mode. Primitive man would have been flooded with adrenalin when fleeing from a wild boar, but his/her nervous system would have calmed down once the danger passed.

In today’s world many people live in overdrive without ever coasting along in neutral. So I was interested to read about how some of the big companies are buying colouring books for their staff to help them handle the stress of the modern workplace. Evidence shows that colouring can actually change the brain and induce calm. It’s a simple non-competitive activity that anyone can do, anywhere.

And that’s the good news: for all the madness and constant activity and stimulation, there are plenty of initiatives that put a bit of Zen back into our lives. From meditation to laughter yoga, singing, knitting, colouring and being in nature, there are plenty of opportunities for us to claw back some down time. When push comes to shove we have to make the leap from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to JOMO (Joy of Missing Out). In my view time is the most precious commodity of all. A crowded day that involves rushing from thing to thing is never satisfying because we’re not fully present to any one thing; it’s just a blur of seamless activity and thinking.

So for me JOMO is the key to getting back to writing. Less is definitely more even if it means missing the latest film, saying no to lunch with friends or skipping the house work. Squeezing in the writing around all the other stuff merely inhibits the creative flow and becomes a pointless and frustrating exercise. So I’ve decided to ring-fence a day every weekend for writing.

I didn’t manage to pull it off this weekend but I did take part in an afternoon of Slow Art at a local gallery on Saturday afternoon. Apparently the average time a gallery visitor spends in front of a work of art is 17 seconds. The idea behind Slow Art Day, which took place in venues right around the world (see http://www.slowartday.com/2015-venues/) is ‘to attend and look at five pieces of art slowly’ and then meet up with the other participants over refreshments to discuss the experience. The Gallery at the Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre (almost on my doorstep) was one of just two Melbourne locations hosting a Slow Art Day event.

We looked at two pictures by well-known children’s book artist Graeme Base, and three landscapes by Welsh-born artist Daniel Crawshaw. I’ve probably been a 17-seconder all my life – especially at the big blockbuster exhibitions – so sitting for ten minutes t in front of a work of art was a completely new and enriching experience.

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It was interesting comparing notes with my fellow Slow Art goers over a delicious afternoon tea where I applied a similar mindful approach to savouring the cool, silky, creamy texture of the vanilla slice. Yum! The pictures evoked different emotional states in all of us. In the absence of curators’ captions, we invented our own meanings, narratives and interpretations.

One of Daniel Crawshaw’s pictures was of trees in what looked like a rainforest. The more I looked, the more texture, colour and clarity I perceived and the more the light changed as if the painting were a living breathing object. After a while I wanted to explore – possibly take refuge in – the spaces between the trees. Maybe I need to take my pen and notebook and sit under a tree in my local park. Who knows how that might shape and influence my writing… if I give it a little time.

Holidays and Honey-Dos

I learnt a marvellous new word courtesy of my American guests over the Festive Season, namely honey-do, a chore or task performed by one’s partner, husband or significant other around the house or garden as in “Honey, could you do x, y and z?’

My Christmas holidays were much busier than I planned. In addition to the emotional tripwires that creep up on me every Yuletide (missing family and traditions in the Northern Hemisphere, end of year fatigue, a bit of the Bridget Jones Blues, and this year, midlife angst about my career and earning potential or lack thereof), I seemed to be very much on the go, which, of course, is one way of avoiding the difficult stuff swirling around in my head.

What with Airbnb guests (yes, we’ve had lift off and I’m on my third booking), parties and social gatherings, gardening, cooking (including special home-made dog biscuits for Bertie), cleaning, buying new fans, returning faulty fans and choosing new models that actually work, household honey-dos, dog walking, grooming and shampooing and a LOT of chatting, I got into a rather over-stimulated spin. Then this week, the week I had set aside to mellow out and finally relax, I started to look for jobs (a job in itself), and then yesterday got locked out of my house.

Giulia, one of my first Airbnb guests and now a temporary flat-mate, locked the screen door as she was unable to close the front door. I had left it on the latch so she was doing the right thing by securing the property. What she didn’t realise is that my screen key came off my key ring a few weeks ago and has remained on the kitchen bench ever since. All a learning curve: Note to self – be clear about screen door with guests and make sure everyone including me has a full set of keys!

It’s been a new thing for me having not just one but two people in my house (the spare room is twin-bedded). Most of the time it’s fun having congenial company and ready-made dinner, movie and dog-walking companions, but there are times when I need to slink off to a quiet corner and read or simply NOT talk.

Dan and Vickie hail from Colorado and are cycling across Australia on their beautiful custom-made tandem. Amazingly, the whole bike (see picture) can be disassembled and fitted into a couple of cases. They started their Australian journey in Sydney before riding down to Melbourne and around Tassie. They came to me in preparation for the next leg of their journey to Adelaide via the Mornington Peninsula and Great Ocean Road. From Adelaide they are following the coast and crossing the Nullarbor to Perth. Not a trip for the faint-hearted!
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They were with me for a couple of weeks and we started out by having dinner together at an excellent Turkish restaurant on Christmas Eve and finished up with an evening spent building self-assembly fans. As you do. Dan is a star honey-doer and helped me prune tall shrubs, take the bins out, hammer down rough nails on a couple of carpet dividers, rig up a way of keeping the laundry (Bertie’s bedroom) ventilated on hot nights, search under the washing machine for a missing pearl earring and much more. He even helped me word a difficult text. How nice it was to have a house husband!

Breakfast at the Sandy Beach Kiosk with Dan and Vickie

Breakfast at the Sandy Beach Kiosk with Dan and Vickie

Had Dan been here yesterday I wonder if he’d have found of way of opening the screen door without the key! As it was I had to drive to the Monash Campus (not my favourite place owing to a job from hell last year) where Giulia is studying. I do have a local honey-doer though – my brother. Like Dan, he’s practical, solutions-driven and likes a challenge. On Wednesday just as the mercury hit 35, my air-conditioner failed to work. As luck would have it my brother was passing by and came in to investigate. I was ready for the worst – last time it went wrong and I called out a service guy, it cost in the region of $800. Just what I don’t need on top of the midlife career crisis! After tinkering with the inside controls, Tim went outside and turned the unit on and off in an effort to ‘re-boot’ it. And it worked and is still working. What a star!

Then, last night, I decided to have one last look for the missing pearl earring. I lost it about a week ago when I had come in from walking Bertie. I heard it drop – a soft drop – while I was in the laundry but there was no sign of it anywhere despite Dan’s inventive use of a coat-hanger to sweep under the washing machine. I bought the earrings back in 2009 when I was on Thursday Island. They are high quality pearls and I love them. So you can imagine my delight when I re-checked the pocket of the jacket I had been wearing. There was the missing pearl in the inside pocket. I didn’t even know there was an inside pocket.

It’s been a funny few weeks and I’ve been rather topsy-turvy but I’m now Girl with Two Pearl Earrings and a Functioning Air-Conditioner and am counting my blessings! What’s more, last night I chanced upon one of the most stunning sunsets ever. Enough to lift anyone’s spirits!

Sunset on St Kilda Beach - 8th January

Sunset on St Kilda Beach – 8th January

Two in a bed and a lampshade on the head

It’s been a while since I shared a bed but here we were… If only he would stop tossing and turning and go to sleep. I kept ending up with my left side exposed as he (unintentionally I’m sure) hogged the bed covers, which, incidentally, are white and so were covered with his chest hairs by the morning. I think I got about four hours’ sleep. I guess it would’ve been easier if he hadn’t been wearing a lampshade on his head.

You see, I was sharing a bed with Bertie, my dog, a novelty for us both. His normal bedroom is in the laundry, and he is quite happy there. But on this occasion he was agitated, restless and a bit out of sorts. You can hardly blame him; he’d had the snip that morning and was clearly feeling the after-effects of the anaesthetic and the drugs, not to mention losing part of his anatomy.

How long do I have to wear this ridiculous Jane Austen bonnet on my head, Mum?

How long do I have to wear this ridiculous Jane Austen bonnet on my head, Mum?

I’d had him scheduled for castration last Christmas when he was nine months old. But, on doing my research, I learnt that testosterone is very beneficial for the bones, joints and muscles when a dog is developing and growing. So I cancelled at the last minute. The big drive to de-sex a male dog at six months is all about population control. But that’s not such an issue where I live: my courtyard is escape-proof but he’s anyway unlikely to pick up the scent of a female on heat as 99.9% of them have been spayed.

This Christmas – he’s now 20-months-old – I decided it was time to make my mind up for once and for all. And I decided to take the plunge. However small the risk, there’s now definitely no chance of Bertie hooking up with a girl and making babies, no chance of him getting testicular cancer later in life, less likelihood of him developing prostrate problems and some chance of him calming down a bit. Plus – and this was a bonus, not the deciding factor – the annual council registration fee reduces dramatically. A win-win, you could say.

So I was all ready to do the deed and to take this manhood-stripping decision on behalf of my beloved boy when I bumped into three dog owners sitting firmly in the non-castration camp the day before. Did I really need to get Bertie done, they asked? He didn’t seem to be displaying any of the troublesome testosterone-driven behaviours. They’d all been so glad they had left their dogs intact…. Just what I didn’t need! I wavered right up until the moment we walked into the vet’s at 8am the next morning.

Wavered and wept in fact! It’s scary handing your dog over to the surgeon’s knife. What if he didn’t pull through? What if he changed character and lost his mojo? What if? What if?! As it was he nearly pulled me over when I went to collect him that afternoon and walked him to the car. Even though he was agitated that first night, he was still up for chasing possums and rushing around whacking the walls (and my legs) with his Elizabethan collar. I’m still sporting some impressive bruises!

He was possibly a bit quieter those first few post-surgery days and we had to content ourselves with geriatric on-leash walks around the block, but I knew he was his old self when, even when encumbered by the plastic lampshade, he managed to pick up and steal my socks and run around the house until I chased him. Eight days later we had our first off-leash walk and Bertie ran around like a mad thing. Then at the weekend we went for a celebratory romp and swim on the beach.

But yesterday was our biggest adventure of all. I had arranged to have coffee with a lovely Italian friend (we met just recently when she stayed at my house with her sister as Airbnb guests) at one of the cafes in Fed Square. Now Cinzia knows I am devoted to my dog; she gave me a delightful blue mug “My Dog is my Best Friend” with pictures of paw prints and bones. So she thought it was a great idea to take Bertie for his first trip into the city and include him in on our catch-up.
He did bark at a wheelie suitcase on the train (perhaps it seemed like some kind of UFO to him) and then at the sparrows in Fed Square, but otherwise he behaved impeccably. Long may you live Bertie, my Bestie.

My first train trip

My first train trip

Watching for sparrows in Fed Square

Watching for sparrows in Fed Square

HAPPY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL!
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17890 kms from Sydney

On Sunday I was standing at the top of hill inside a modern spiral-shaped sculpture made of huge rocks called The Coldstone Cut in the heart of the Yorkshire dales. Buffeted about by the wind, we looked out from the viewing platform over the only remaining working aggregate quarry in Nidderdale. The information boards cited distances to various locations in the UK and around the world. When I read we were 17890 kmss from Sydney, that well-known song I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by the Proclaimers came to mind! And then it stuck in my head for the rest of the day. ..

The Coldstone Cut

At the top of the Coldstone Cut

I was with my elder brother Charlie, his wife Pam, my niece Anna and her boyfriend Joe plus the two dogs Poppy and Rio on a day out in North Yorkshire. We drove from Knaresborough through Nidderdale and Pateley Bridge to the Moors. On the way we passed through Scotton where Guy Fawkes was born (I’m hoping to see some bonfire and firework action – if only through the window at Mum’s on 5th November) and followed the Tour de France route with painted bikes and bunting still adorning many a facade, garage forecourt and shop window.

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We parked at Hebdon and walked past ancient stone walls clad in thick layers of lush green moss and then followed the ghyll ( or beck) as it carved its way through the valley. It’s an ancient landscape that feels untouched by time, the water in the beck/stream peaty brown, the grass soft and spongy and carpeted in autumnal rust-coloured bracken. While much of the UK is dense and over-crowded, here there’s space, wilderness, birds and plenty of pure air. But this area wasn’t always a walk in the park – derelict buildings and workings date back to the mid 1800s when lead was mined here. Further along there’s a lime kiln that used to produce mortar and fertiliser. In those days conditions were harsh, health and safety minimal and child labour common.

Hebdon Gill

Walking up the ghyll with Poppy

Family Group

Charlie, Pam, Me and Anna – Joe took the piture

We were too pumped up on fresh air to dwell too much on the past and, tapping into our inner child, Joe, Anna and I ran, slid and slipped our way to the top of a hill from where we got magnificent views.

Anna and I

Anna and I at the top of the hail

All that exercise gave us good appetites and we went to the Red Lion at nearby Burnsall for lunch. Coincidentally, I had a mini break with Mum at the Red Lion in summer 2011. It’s an old building with lead-mullioned windows and well-worn, narrow, creaking steps up to the bedrooms. I recall being rather spooked by the information folder in the bedroom which advised that the pub had a resident ghost. Obligingly they supply guests with a sign to hang on the door saying – ‘ghost don’t stop here’. Whether this was a leg pull or not I will never know, but I hung up the sign and left the light on all night almost daring the spectre to appear. This time, I am happy to report, we had a spirit-free lunch apart from my vodka and tonic. What’s more I went the whole hog and had haggis served with pureed parsnip and carrot. Rather delicious and definitely not something I would get at my local cafe in Melbourne.

Back in Blighty

Well, I made it over here in one piece. The flight was LONG as it always is but I stuck to my plan of seeing it as a mini holiday. The food was pretty mediocre but I watched three films, a light Spanish comedy, Ocho Apellidos Vascos, Words and Pictures, a rather hard work film with Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I loved. I also continued to read Slipstream, Elizabeth Jane Howards’s autobiography. Howard, who died recently, was an author married to the naturalist Peter Scott and then, latterly, after multiple affairs with married men, to Kingsley Amis. The book is full of encounters with literary figures, artists, playwrights and the like – from Charlie Chaplin, Laurie Lee, John Betjeman, Laurens Van der Post, members of the royal family and other glitterati. The rest of the time I slept and dozed and longed to lie down. I’m normally very organised but had run around all day like a mad thing only taking Bertie to the dog sitter a few hours before I was due to leave so I was still watering my lemon tree and washing up when the taxi came. No wonder I felt a bit tense and stiff by the time I got on the plane!

I’m now back in Nottinghamshire, the county we’ve all heard of thanks to the forest-dwelling tax evader, Robin, he of the Hoodie, with my parents. I did spend some of my childhood years in Nottinghamshire, but I don’t feel any particular allegiance to it or that it’s what the Spanish call ‘mi tierra’, which, literally translated, means my homeland or my country, but on a deeper level conveys a sense of soul connection with a place.

I flew into Manchester airport, where Eddie from Mum’s village met me, along with his dear little dog Scruffy who was rescued from a Spanish village. We travelled over the Pennines (following at one point the Tour de France route) passing through wild expanses of moorland cloaked in bracken and heather, now turning brown and gold as autumn moves into winter. It was unseasonably mild and sunny and the trees look magnificent in shades of russet, copper and gold. We passed through tiny villages with names such as Tintwhistle and Stone and past fields bordered by hedgerows and dry stone walls. I’d forgotten about hedges but now I’ve seen and remembered them, I realise how much I’ve missed them! Hedges are havens for wildlife – according to the Royal Society of the Protection of Birds, Hedges may support up to 80% of British woodland birds, 50% of British mammals and 30% of butterflies.

A good native hedgerow is made up of a mix of plants such as Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Crab apple, Guelder rose, Dog rose, Wild privet, Honey suckle, Hazel, Field maple and Holly. As a child I used to look for birds’ nests in the hedges and watch the parents flying in and out until the babies flew. Even in my mother’s garden we get a great selection of birds; this morning we saw goldfinches, blue tits, robins and green finches all darting around on her bird feeders. Although Australia has a rich diversity of birds, I only seem to get mynas, an introduced species, wattle birds (they can be very noisy too) and pigeons in my Melbourne suburban garden.

Much as I love Australia, the life I have created there and all my wonderful friends, I really miss the British countryside. It’s definitely mi tierra, my spiritual home. There’s something about the soft, green, gently rolling landscape that gets under my skin; it reminds me of family walks on Sunday afternoons, picnics by rivers, bike rides along country lanes, village fetes with tombolas and teas and long summer evenings when it’s light till ten o’clock.

I read an article a few years back about Sidney Nolan who moved to England in 1955 and then to the borders of Wales where he settled in 1983. He painted Australian landscapes from afar, but also travelled widely outside Europe to Africa, China and Antarctica, returning regularly to Australia to connect with the quality of light and the shape of the trees. When people talk of homesickness, perhaps what they are really getting at is a yearning for the topography of their native country. Every time I return to English I feel like doing a Pope John Paul II and kissing the ground.

I have very intermittent internet access and so am writing this from the library in Retford near where my mother lives. It’s a small market town, worlds apart from Melbourne in every way, but I’m rather fond of it. There are no shops to speak of – not even a Marks and Spencers – but there is a great little market on Thursdays and Saturdays. On Saturday I bought a wonderful 1950s style cloche hat with a flower on the front ready for Krakow and Zurich, and a red leather collar for Bertie. The hat cost just £10 and the collar £3.50; everything seems much cheaper here. My brother tells me that the cost of living is indeed higher in Australia but so are wages. Not mine, I fear! Next time I come over I’m going to bring an empty suitcase and load up with goodies.

Giving My House an Airing

One of the reasons I renovated was to make my house more guest-friendly; that’s why I made a second bathroom out of a laundry cupboard and a ‘powder room,’ and created an ensuite bathroom to my room. Having two bathrooms avoids awkward nocturnal meetings in the corridor or having to queue up in your own house to brush your teeth. It’s nice to have left all that behind along with exams, backpacking and dormitories.

I’m now getting my house ship-shape for the Airbnb photo shoot, a free service offered by the hugely successful online accommodation business, which connects travellers with people in over 190 countries who have a spare room or entire property to rent out. Airbnb launched in 2008 and by 2012 had reached five million bookings. In 2014 Airbnb was valued at $10 billion, making it worth more than the worldwide portfolio of Hyatt Hotels. Impressive stuff! According to the webinar I tuned into, it’s all about building ‘virality’ (not to be confused with virility) into the DNA of your product. But that’s another story.

My Airbnb symbol - spot the beach huts!

My Airbnb symbol – spot the beach huts!

What I love about Airbnb is that you can escape the stuffy sameness of hotel accommodation and find a place that has character, is homely and enables you to meet and share stories with local residents. In December 2012 I stayed in a spacious and stylish flat in a trendy district of Copenhagen. Although I didn’t see her much (she had just met a new man), I got on really well with my host, a freelance photographer. She was great fun, helped me with my onward travel arrangements, offered me home-made marinated herring (you can’t go to Denmark and NOT try herring) on my last night and let me cuddle her pet rabbit. Although I fancy myself as something of an animal whisperer, (not counting the belligerent donkey in Greece who deliberately nudged a boulder in my direction), the rabbit took fright and shot into its burrow-like enclosure. Never mind.

That’s why I’ve decided to ask the Airbnb photographers to include a picture of Bertie in one of the shots, so prospective visitors know that this house has a resident hound, one who loves to be part of the action. I was initially worried that Bertie’s excitable nature was going to make it difficult with guests coming and going. But, thanks to a recent one on one training session, the boy is beginning to understand that jumping up is not cool but that sitting down definitely is, and earns him a few edible treats. He does still bark in tandem with the neighbours’ dogs (they don’t seem to understand that dogs, especially those designed to herd sheep need regular exercise, ARGH!) but if I catch him and shake the jar of coins before he flies out the laundry door flap and barks up a storm, he stays by my side ever hopeful that a biscuit will magically drop out of my pocket. I never go anywhere nowadays without dog poo bags and treats…

He does still bark furiously at the possums and gets so worked up that he tries to climb the fence, so I only let him out a couple of times before bed. I’m hoping that my guests will be so enchanted by Australia’s nocturnal native animals that they will overlook the occasionally canine cacophony. I can always offer earplugs as part of the package.

Barking at possums - who me?!

Barking at possums – who me?!

The tryanny of lists

I’m really no good at DIY but I am good at lists and ticking them off. Although there’s always a list forming in my head, I have been a bit less ‘listy’ of late, so it was with renewed fervour that I raced through a to-do list this week, so much so that I couldn’t stop.

Life always gets a bit intense before I go overseas – I’ve got about 12 sleeps to go – and the devil is definitely in the detail. Today I tried to print off my train ticket from Vienna to Zurich (a bargain 49 Euros for a seven and a half hour scenic journey – if you can work out how to print off the ticket…). So drawing on my (rusty) university German, I called the OBB, the Austrian railway, and got through to a most charming woman. I managed to explain the problem and found out that I had chosen the pick up at the counter option rather than online printing. Everything was going swimmingly until I realised I didn’t know how to end the conversation. Luckily the woman got in before me and I remembered it’s Auf Wiederhoeren – meaning until we hear each other again – rather than Auf Wiedersehen (as in pet, anyone remember the British comedy?) – until we meet again. Another thing for the list: brush up my Deutsch!

Back to the DIY: one of my jobs has been to re-paint a couple of shelves in the bathroom as the paint had peeled off in two sections where a bottle of essential oil had spilt. I duly went into the shed for the vile oil-based enamel paint that the rip-off painters (see https://thisquirkylife.com/2014/06/24/renovations-stopped-play/) had used back in July. Then I put on some really old clothes, set up the dust sheets, did a bit of light sanding, pulled on a pair of special gloves (last time I got paint all over my hands and even my nose!) and did a reasonable job only spilling a bit of paint on the glass shower screen. Once completed, I felt proud to have done the job and celebrated by taking Bertie to the park. I met a fellow dog walker and apologised for smelling of turps. She said she couldn’t smell anything but noticed I had quite a bit of paint in my hair… It never ceases to amaze me that I am perfectly competent in many areas of my life but develop Mr Bean-like tendencies when it comes to home maintenance.

In between the freelance writing, I’ve also done some cooking (got my former (elderly) neighbours for morning tea this weekend), cleaned my high maintenance black and white bathroom floors, went to ALDI, op shops, second-hand furniture shops, prepared my spare room for next week’s Airbnb photo shoot, cleaned up my garden and leaf-strewn carport and took photos of my house to show folks back home. I also put up three small pictures in my guest bathroom (a few holes short of precise but my bodged attempts were easily covered) and then zipped off to JB HI-FI for new back-up drive (the old one died) and an HDMI cable so I can watch films playing on my computer on the TV screen. All very satisfying stuff but rather helter skelter, achievement-driven and rushed. So I’ve been delighted by the series of beautifully written and well observed blog posts from a friend who is a WWOOFER (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) in Japan. She’s living with a very eco-minded family who have a deep connection to the land, observe rituals and live with precision, total attention and mindfulness, qualities that are uncommon in today’s ego-driven materialist world. Her blog is called A Man, A Woman and Four Languages, and I thoroughly recommend it.

“Yesterday evening I was given a lethal hatchet knife to slice up spring onions. But my 3mm slices weren’t good enough; 1mm was what was required. Not for the first time I felt very uncivilised. So, this morning, when Rie asked me to arrange some umeboshi plums from the bin where they’d been soaking in brine, to a flat basket, to dry, I made sure that they were arranged exactly as briefed. Which meant really slowing down, and concentrating. It’s the same with the gardening, because of the approach to weed control”

How do they get anything done when it all takes so long? I asked her over email. She replied “most of their life centres on the basics of growing, cooking, cleaning, washing, heating, maintaining. And these tasks aren’t chores to be completed as fast as possible; they are the stuff of life, i.e. the end as much as the means. ….doing jobs as quickly as possible isn’t the point.

I really must hurry up and look at self-publishing my book titled, SLOWING Down in the Fast Lane: From Adventure to Zen and Everything in Between.

Talk to the animals

Further to my last blog about bees, I’m staying with the theme of the natural world. Incidentally, Felicity and Marc, my Surf Coast bee-keeping friends, returned home from holiday at the weekend to find their bees had swarmed. Although they only got in at two in the morning due to a delayed flight, they were up at five thirty to catch the bees and get them safely into a new hive. Interestingly, bees are at their most tame when they swarm. Basically, they are too drunk on honey to bother with us homo sapiens; they swarm either because all is well, the hive is overflowing and they need more room, or the queen is old or in poor health and needs replacing. In this case it was the former reason and a normal spring occurrence.

I find the interaction between humans and the natural world endlessly fascinating. How can we understand animals better and avoid the ‘them’ and ‘us’ dynamic where we impose our will on them and deny them their wisdom and role in maintaining a healthy planet? I sometimes get emails advertising animal communication courses and have been tempted to sign up and find out how to talk to the animals. Imagine how much it would help when training Bertie if I could reason with him without resorting to liver treats, a training leash, the occasional spray of a water pistol, hand signals and verbal commands. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could get into a still and meditative space and communicate energetically?

wiwe_185

If you think that sounds a bit airy fairy, then take a look at this wonderful documentary featuring the work of South African animal communicator Anna Breytenbach.

http://vimeo.com/94709579

Here is a synopsis of what it’s all about:

“Anna Breytenbach has dedicated her life to what she calls interspecies communication. She sends detailed messages to animals through pictures and thoughts. She then receives messages of remarkable clarity back from the animals.Anna can feel the scars hidden under a monkeys fur, she can understand the detailed story that is causing a bird’s trauma, she transforms a deadly snarling leopard into a relaxed content cat – the whole animal kingdom comes alive in a way never seen before – wild birds land on her shoulders, fish gather around her when she swims, and wild unfamiliar baboons lie on her body as if she is one of their own.
This is the first full length documentary film on the art of animal communication.”

At just under an hour long, this is not something to watch at your desk. But I urge you to grab your tablet or laptop and watch it at home one evening. It’s not only incredibly moving – I was in tears (of wonder) by the end but also really interesting. It looks at the origins of animal communication in animal tracking and how indigenous communities still retain a special connection to, and respect for, the animal kingdom. Anna’s work is grounded in truth and integrity. There’s no hocus pocus, hyperbole, mystique or magic. She simply puts herself into a calm and grounded space, edits out the white noise and connects with nature.

It’s inspired me to interact with Bertie in a different way. If I still my mind and body and tune in, perhaps I’ll learn to talk canine with him. Then I can explain that he doesn’t have to copy the neighbours’ dog and bark at the fence or get all feisty when people come to the door… But, even if I could chat to him about the possum problem (he likes to bark at them every night or go looking for them), I think he would say: “Mum, get over it. It’s in my nature. I’m a hunter. That’s the way I am.” And he’d be right. However much we anthropomorphize our pets (think doggie yoga, puppy chinos, clothing, birthday parties and worse), they are animals and we need to remember that. Time for us to woof off for a walk…