My new painting at the end of day yesterday – not yet finished but well on the way. Here are photographs showing the stages of progression.

We had a goodbye party last night and Sue and Glenn invited some of the neighbours over. Jade and Drew, two of the children who have delighted me so during my tenure here (and whom you will remember from some of my earlier blog posts) made me these beautiful cards. They brought tears to my eyes. And now I must dash over to Wynnum to spend the final weekend of my stay with my brother Henry at Wynnum…

It rained nearly all day today. Nevertheless, with so little time left for me here I had to continue working on my latest painting. I painted under the cover of Roland’s verandah and was very happy. Initially, the lorikeets, magpies and butcher-birds were less so because my arrival meant that they were ousted (in their minds) from their preferred spot for sheltering in the dry; but they soon got used to me and became animated and chirpy when my back was turned.

Wallabies are great visitors. They don’t intrude, they don’t pester, they don’t make a horrible din, and they don’t leave their business on your outdoor tables and chairs; they make an appearance from a safe distance and wait patiently, on the off chance that you have saved a little bread for them. You know they would be soft to the touch but you can’t get that close. They let you admire them and take a few photographs while they nibble at your offerings; and then they hop off before you’ve had enough of them to get bored.

Due to the poor weather Sue and Glenn (the real owners of my lovely house at Loganholme) are home a little early from their caravanning adventure. At the weekend I shall be hopping over to Wynnum and in a week I shall be hopping off back to England.

With my time here now fast running out (just a week before my return to England) I have finished one painting and I’m desperately trying to finish another before the weekend. Yesterday I began work on the second painting. The big gates were open, as is my custom these days and my easel was set up just inside the entrance to the garage so that I would have the benefits of good light and cover from the showers. The radio was playing old songs and I was facing away from the road and into the garage; therefore I was unaware of people behind me and from time to time, when the music took me, I danced around the easel.

Mid-way through the afternoon I heard a by now familiar sound:

“Wee-hee, it’s me. I’m here!”

“Hello Kevin ” I said turning around. “I’m afraid I’m rather busy today.”

Kevin had brought his bicycle (minus trainer wheels – they came off a few weeks ago) inside my drive and stood directly behind me. He is a little lad – only five years of age – and he looked cute in his big German-style helmet and on his little blue bike adorned with stickers.

“Why are you standing there painting?” Kevin asked.

“You know I’m an artist – I’ve told you before,” I answered, then I added, “Why don’t you go and find some friends to play with?”

“They don’t like me. They say I have bad language,” he replied.

“I expect it’s true,” I said, remembering my conversation with Jade one day (and the “Oh dear, it’s Kevin – he’s a bad influence” comment).

“No,” he said, wielding a big stick that he’d brought along with him. “This is to stab bad  people with.”

I didn’t reply and Kevin cycled off.

Some minutes later I heard the high-pitched sound again:

“Wee-hee, I’m here!”

“I’m trying to concentrate, Kevin,” I said without turning around.

“My father is a Ninja,” the child announced, “and he’s teaching me – that’s why I have this big stick for stabbing bad people.”

“Is your father a turtle?” I asked, smiling.

“No.”

“I’ve heard of Ninja Turtles,” I said.

“No, he’s just a normal father,” Kevin offered. “My mother is bigger than my father.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, she has a big fat stomach.”

“Maybe she is having a baby,” I suggested. “Is Jack your little brother? Oh, no he isn’t – he’s Luke’s brother – isn’t he,” I answered my own query.

“My name is Jack,” said Kevin.

“Why are you called Kevin then,” I asked.

“It’s my stage name – and they call me it at school.”

“Why don’t you run along home now?” I suggested.

I didn’t turn around but our chat had stopped so I assumed he had left, which he had because I was able to concentrate for ten minutes without the distraction of inane conversation.

“Wee-hee, it’s me. I’m back again!”

“Isn’t it your dinner time?”

“I’ve already had it,” he answered.

“Well, I’m trying to concentrate. Run along now Kevin.”

He left. (He was gone ten minutes.)

“Wee-hee, I’m back!” came the annoying high-pitched sound of Kevin attracting my attention.

“I’m busy, Kevin.”

“See what I have?”

“A skateboard,” I said tersely.

“Nope, a penny board,” he replied.

“A small skateboard,” I said.

“I’m a Ninja,” he responded.

“Go home, Kevin.”

“Okay.”

Kevin, the baby Ninja turtle, (real name Jack) amused himself for a further fifteen minutes by hiding behind the pillars and pressing the doorbell.

“Come off it Kevin,” I implored.

“Where’s that big stick of your’s?” I joshed.

“Buzz off!” I said shaking my fist at him. But I was smiling… just.

This afternoon Kevin called as I was going out in my car. As I passed by him I could see the disappointment in his face. I stopped the car, wound down the window and opened the door…

“Kevin,” I called.

He cycled over to me.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him.

He nodded and smiled.

And here is a photograph of the beginnings of my new painting…

“Na, na, Electric Avenue…Electric Avenue,” I sang.

I was in the shower at the time (again). These days I always seem to sing in the shower. Maybe it’s because I’m on my own and know that nobody can hear me. “Electric Avenue” just happened to be on the radio yesterday as I was driving down from the Sunshine Coast; I wondered what the words meant and, during my shower, I was reminded to look it up on Google. Apparently, the lyrics (pasted below) refer to the Brixton Riots in 1981.

During my drive up the coast I lost the local Logan radio station (from down here) and found it was usurped, temporarily, by the Moreton Bay radio station; and driving back, the same thing happened in reverse; however, at some point neither station took precedence totally so I was getting songs and conversations from one station first, and then the other, intermittently. It was quite irritating. Still worse was to come when both stations came through at exactly the same time. Funnily enough, both stations were broadcasting country music, that much was obvious but the overall effect was that of a caterwauling cacophony; I was in the process of trying to turn the radio off (not easy in modern cars) when one song finished and a female voice said:

“Wasn’t that just the most beautiful song?”

I laughed and gave up trying to turn off the radio because I couldn’t find the right knob (if indeed there is one!) and I could not pull in as I was on the motorway. I made do with reducing the volume to almost nothing but I could still hear it, like distant snake charming music. All of a sudden there was an even more peculiar sound. I turned up the radio (that button is very obvious) in order to work out what it was. Would you believe that each of the stations was playing a yodelling song? It was like listening to bad synchronised singing; one highly skilled yodeller from the fifties yodelled for the entire duration of his song whilst the other singer sang of “an echo in the hillside” and yodelled the echo part. Yo-dear!

Do you remember one of my posts from a few days ago about the song, “Sylvia’s Mother”? Well, by strange coincidence, when I was on the phone at my friend Lorelle’s place on Sunday night, my eyes were drawn to the large television screen in the adjacent room; I couldn’t hear the television from such a distance but I could see a photograph of Dr. Hook with the words, “Sylvia’s Mother” in red beside him; and underneath the photograph, in big white capital letters, it read “DR. HOOK IN CALOUNDRA  4TH MAY – BOOK NOW!” If only… and for only $60. Never mind, by then I shall be home in Devon; the sea wall will be as good as new and the trains will have been running for a month; I will be enjoying the spring weather and looking forward to another summer.

Electric Avenue  –  Eddy Grant (released1982)

Down in the street there is violence
And a lots of work to be done
No place to hang out our washing
And I can’t blame all on the sun, oh no
CHORUS:
We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we’ll take it higher
Oh we gonna rock down to Electric Avenue
And then we’ll take it higher

Workin’ so hard like a soldier
Can’t afford a thing on TV
Deep in my heart I’m a warrior
Can’t get food for them kid, good God

CHORUS

Oh no…
Oh no…
Oh no…
Oh no…

CHORUS

Who is to blame in one country
Never can get to the one
Dealin’ in multiplication
And they still can’t feed everyone, oh no

CHORUS

Out in the street…
Out in the street…
Out in the playground…
In the dark side of town…

CHORUS

Rock it in the daytime
Rock it in the night …
Writer: Grant, Eddy
Copyright: Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/

Was it Bella, Zeus or Buffo (I think that was his name) who got into the flower beds and broke off many of the young leaves. Up in Maroochy River on the Sunshine Coast (where I house-and-dog-and-cat-sat last year) my friend Janine was not too pleased last Sunday when she discovered the damage. Unfortunately for the culprit, he left some vital evidence – a bone! – but whose bone was it?

“Why didn’t you stop whichever one of them who did it?” asked Janine.

Neither her husband, nor I, said anything.

“Oh, it’s not funny,” Janine added, mistaking a bit of sheepishness for nonchalance.

I don’t know if Brad saw the crime being committed, at the time I was too busy taking photographs. To be honest, I didn’t even notice the plants being crushed – I wasn’t looking at them either.

Now I have a little dilemma – do I hand over the photographic evidence or do we keep it to ourselves? (Sorry to involve you but I had to tell someone.) I have a soft spot for the offender so I shall leave the decision up to you…

First of all I must ask, that should you bump into any of the very nice policemen married into my family, would you please not let on about anything I’m about to impart to you in confidence (or I shall deny everything). I’ll admit (privately, of course) that I’ve always been a bit nervous of policemen and police cars, especially when they are following me. Yes, it does happen now and then, mostly when I’m driving in Australia; perhaps it is due the cars I am given to drive here each year. Three years back the thirty year old red Datsun, with a duck tape sticking plaster covering a rust hole on the roof, drove like a dream and was cool, cool, cool, but the police often mistook me for a boy-racer (nothing to do with the fact that the car always urged to be the first off at traffic lights). During my last two visits I was lent rather more sedate cars – hence, no police incidents – in the form of a cute red Toyota Corolla and a grown-up blue-grey Commodore. This year I have a sporty Impreza (or impresser, as I like to call it), if that means anything to you, and I might look like a boy-racer once again, but a rich one because it’s a good car apparently, according to car aficionados.

Already I’ve had a police escort half-way back to Bill’s from Gumdale Creek when I had a little mishap with a jutting piece of wood in the car park and the bumper (made of plastic) became dislodged on one side and hung down alarmingly. The police car just had to come along at the wrong time!

On another occasion I was on my way to visit a friend when I was hailed over at random, with two other cars, to have a breathalyser test. Admittedly, it could have been worse – the police officer was a handsome young New Zealander with a beaming smile… once I had wound down the black glass window and he realised I wasn’t a boy-racer, and that it was my first time.

So now I’m returning from my weekend with my friend Lorelle who lives up on the Sunshine Coast, and I am on the way back to Loganholme, having called in to see another friend, Margaret (reunited from primary school days), who lives in one of Brisbane’s north-side suburbs. Everyone from the south-side will understand and agree with me when I say that the north-side is somewhat alien; all the roads look the same and they’re all packed, plastic bumper to plastic bumper (sometimes hanging off), with cars, many of which are driven by south-side passers-through who aren’t sure where they are going because it’s all so very alien. I’m relying on my Sat Nav to get me on to the M1 motorway but recent experience tells me that Sat Nav is not to be trusted or relied on – “Karen”, my Aussie Sat Navigator, often fails to inform me of the turn ahead in time to allow me to get into lane, and it is even worse when you’re in thick traffic on the north-side.

I am coming up to traffic lights and I’m in the middle lane, which has a arrow pointing to the right; there is a sign pointing in the same direction – it says “Brisbane Arterial Road” – Karen hasn’t said anything. Once at the lights, and committed to the wrong lane, I see in the distance another sign for “Brisbane M1” and I reckon that is the road I want. I open my window on the passenger side and I gesticulate to the driver next to me – it is a lady and I hope that she will be as generous as her male counterparts usually are, and let me in ahead of her. Hooray! She is a good egg and I am on my way in the correct lane.

Oh no? Is that a police car behind me? Did he see my little illegal lane change a few moments ago? I am driving ultra carefully now – better keep slightly below sixty to let him see that I can be good, even in a sporty car like the Impreza (I hope he will be impressed!). Karen tells me there is a school zone ahead – better go below forty. Crikey that police car is getting close. Is he going to pull me over? He’s almost tail-gating me – he seems to want me to go faster. I’m not falling for that – he’ll book me. Hold on, what does it say on the bonnet? Do police cars even have printing on their bonnets? Good Lord! He has overtaken me from the left using the bus lane.Oh… it’s just an irate taxi driver… Phew!

Thanks yet again to my funny brother, Robert, for another new joke (if there is such a thing!).