To my sister, who will soon be receiving a parcel…

Dearest Mary,

This is not a begging letter, well, it is but I hope you will not be put off, which is why I wasn’t going to mention it. However, I have been told what a lovely, empathic person you are so I have every faith that you are the one to whom I should turn.

In truth, I began my life, many years ago (not sure how many because I can’t count beyond eight), full of Eastern promise and with every expectation that my function in life would be fulfilled; forgive my vanity, but I had hoped to attend parties and gatherings, and be admired by many. Alas, it was not to be so. Instead I was sold (for a good price no doubt) to an English tourist – I was a love gift to his young wife. “How romantic!” you may think… Sadly she was devoid of any romantic fibre (unlike me) and she wrapped me “in cotton wool” (if only – my fancy- it was really a brown paper bag) and hid me away in a dark place where my only friends, also my mentors and educators, were eight pages of “The Bombay Times” and five loose sheets from “My Heart Sings Out” (one of the hymnals from the Episcopal Church of the United States of America).

Captive that I was, I have, nevertheless, travelled… albeit in a tea-chest in the hold of a ship bound for Australia. Even then, now so long ago I can barely remember (Hallelujah – if only I could forget completely), I had some little optimism that my exclusion from society may have been a long but still temporary oversight. It was not the case. I have endured year after year of confinement with not a puff of fresh air or even a drop of fresh water and yet I have been tempted cruelly by the likes of Fry’s Turkish Delight, Leonard Singh and Sons’ “Exotic Moonlight Tours down the Ganges”, and “The Coming of the Lord”.

Also I have suffered the indignity of colour discrimination and, latterly, having believed myself to be rescued, I have had the added humiliation of being told that I stank. Heavens to Betsy! Hence I was left out airing for a day on a washing line and was caught in a strong wind that sent me twirling around the central pole; my nerves – and the bottom of me – frayed and my blue silk got caught in the grass, then later got entangled in Sally’s big feet (size 10, Australian) and now there are threads of blue scattered about the garden). Finally, having sniffed me suspiciously, Sally submerged me in soapy water – a particular aversion for me after being on a “dry” ship for so long and being accustomed to the familiar smell of an ancient section of “The Bombay Times” mixed with the aroma of old sandals (I was demoted to the lower half of a closet – the floor – after the death of the English tourist.)

So… dearest Mary, I will be arriving, perhaps a little the worse for wear, on your doorstep soon. I am clean, a bit frayed (naturally, after all I’ve been through), maybe not as bright as I was (but I still have all my marbles and some of my glitter) and pressed (not depressed – hallelujah!) on silk setting (so not very well). I hope and pray that you, or someone as beautiful as you, will appreciate me at last and enjoy wearing me to the wedding of James and Jaimy. May you be Blessed with moonlight on your horizons and your senses filled with Eastern promise…

Thanking you in advance,

Sari x

After risking life and limb on busy roads it was great to discover cycle-paths in beautiful countryside… Also some shots of the cycle-track that snakes its way to the Hyperdome part of the world.

When you’re feeling in a Huck’ Finn mood there ain’t no better way to spend a day than fishing. No need to talk if you don’t feel inclined, and mostly, when you’re fishin’ you’re not inclined to do much talkin’ – you like to nod and say “Ah” when other folk talk, to let them know that you’re in the frame of mind for fishin’ not talkin’. Sometimes you just want to feel the sand under your feet, or even stand in the water to let your feet cool down while you’re enjoyin’ standing there, not sayin’ much but “Ah” and “Not yet”, while you’re watchin’ the world around you.

‘Course, as you probably know, it’s not all about the fishin’, which is just as well because sometimes there ain’t no fish or they ain’t hungry (mostly that’s when I go fishin’). You like to see the rich folk enjoyin’ themselves on their swanky boats, speed boats and jet-skiis; and the poor folk havin’ a swim, or courtin’ and cavortin’ in the water, or fishin’.

And if you’re tired o’ standin’ in the sun (although your feet are right cool and dandy), you stand your rod in a bit of old pipe you already buried in the sand, and you find a shady spot with a fine-lookin’ rock fer swingin’ yer legs from, or alternatively, open out yer blanket roll for sittin’ or lyin’ on. Your blanket is also yer tablecloth where you set out the tucker for lunch, which you brought on the off-chance that you might decide to stay until the fish start biting, if there are any fish; but mostly, there ain’t so there’s a pretty good chance yer goin’ to decide to stay a while longer anyway and have a bite yerself.

With a bit o’ luck, or the good Lord willing, you catch a flathead fish – a good size and good fer eatin’ (so folk say) – but he ain’t that good-lookin’ and after you cut off his head and clean him out, you say to yerself, “Ah, I ain’t really hungry – not yet!”

Thank you to Barry for this joke contribution.

A Lexus mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the motor of a LS460 when he spotted a well-known cardiologist in his shop.

The cardiologist was there waiting for the service manager to come and take a look at his car when the mechanic shouted across the garage,

“Hey Doc, want to take a look at this?”

The cardiologist, a bit surprised walked over to where the mechanic was working.

The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, “So Doc, look at this engine. I opened its heart, took the valves out, repaired or replaced anything damaged, and then put everything back in, and when I finished, it worked just like new. So how is it that I make $48,000 a year and you make $1.7M when you and I are doing basically the same work?

The cardiologist paused, leaned over, and then whispered to the mechanic,
“Try doing it with the engine running.”

Last Sunday I ran out of milk, not a common occurrence because I drink so little milk, mainly because I don’t like it very much. Normally I take a drop of skimmed milk in my weak tea and the semi-skimmed variety in coffee and cereal. Upon the departure of Sue and Glenn five weeks ago, the unopened two litre bottle of whole milk left for my use  had gone straight into the freezer, where it promptly turned an odd yellow colour.

I can’t remember when last I actually enjoyed drinking milk – it probably goes back to primary school days at Manly West when the crates of ice-cold third-of-a-pint bottles of milk were brought out on parade each morning and the bottles distributed, in orderly fashion, by milk monitors… Nearly all of us (apart from Mary, my sister) liked milk back then. But no, nowadays I don’t care much for milk or even cereal, for that matter – at least, not until Monday morning when I made a discovery in the fridge…

In fact, for a moment or two I thought that a good fairy had come in whilst I had slept because, instead of seeing the bottle of yellow frozen milk I had rescued from the freezer the night before, there was a bottle of pristine white milk awaiting me – on the outside there were even several inviting droplets of water denoting the coolness of the liquid within. I opened the bottle; it certainly looked unharmed after its term in the cooler and I poured some out over a bowl of similarly just released “Golden Honey Clusters” (needed a change from “All Bran”, or birdseed and groats – still dieting, of course).

It seems that I like milk after all; mind you, only when it has been frozen at minus eighteen degrees for five weeks, then thawed partially and stored at three degrees, thus keeping the icy heart intact. Indeed, it is particularly nice on “Golden Honey Clusters”, which I’ve found also serve as a good lunch or dinner – no preparation and such a pleasant change from salad.

And here are the lyrics of the 1966 Herman’s Hermits song, “No Milk Today”, for those of you who are trying to remember how it goes… Aw, I’d never given it much thought before (perhaps because it was a bit before my time). Rather sweet if a tad repetitive.

“No Milk Today”  –   Herman’s Hermits (Peter Noone)

There has been some excitement here at Lakeland Court recently owing to the inexplicable appearance of some big brown crop circles in the nature-strip at the end of our cul-de-sac. My astute neighbours Wendy and Marita were a little sceptical…

“Sally, did you happen to do some mowing a few days ago,” Wendy asked.

The penny dropped.

“Oh the crop circles?” I asked.”I thought I would do you a good turn,” I added, “but your grass was thicker than ours.”

They nodded and laughed with relief because they had not been visited by aliens.

I like to know where I am in the world so yesterday I retraced my path to Beenleigh Ambulance Station, the place where I had been lost in the dark last week; as it happens I wasn’t very far off.

As you can see from the photographs, the sun was going down on my return journey but this time I reached home before dark. A cyclist of about twenty years old slowed down and passed by while I was taking the shots from the bridge. His head turned from left to right to observe the whole scene – the setting sun on the river, to bicycle against the railings, to me on the other side – and he smiled warmly as if to acknowledge that we were kindred spirits. Very sweet.

According to Chris, our man with the latest (and the ‘mostest’), probably about a hundred people work on six-hour shifts around the clock (all apart from last Sunday, the first Sunday off since the breach) to make good the damage to the sea wall and railway line only a stone’s throw from where we live at Dawlish. The work is expected to be finished on the fourth of April – Chris’s birthday and, coincidentally, the date of my return from Australia.

An update from our man on the spot!

Admittedly, the grand, remote-controlled gates were only slightly open – enough for a person to pass through – and perhaps the house seemed formidable, standing as it does like a big fortress at the end of the cul-de-sac… A wind was blowing (still is) through the screen door of the side entrance to the open-plan kitchen-dining area where I was sat (writing to Oss’m) at my computer. Aside from the sound of the wind howling there were other noises that emanated from the neighbours’ surrounding properties and my own – a whinging cry from a tired baby, the scrunching of feet on stones, a heavy ceramic pot scraping on cement, the repeated efforts of a rusty bolt being forced open and the hollow, tinny sound as, at last, the door opened and fell back against the aluminium shed, a vertical blind clacking together in the breeze, and my washing whirring away at spin phase; all these sounds I found not unpleasant because they were the little sounds of life around me as I tapped away on my keyboard. But they were peripheral sounds that barely intruded, not like the tiny knock, hardly audible, that sounded quite close.

I looked up in the direction of the main front door, the view of which was obscured partially by a pillar, but I reckoned that if anyone was there I would probably have seen a shadowy figure through the frosted glass; and I glanced at the side doorway, open but screened. There was no sign of callers. I decided the knock must have come from a stick that had been propped against a wall and which had blown over in the wind, therefore I saw no reason to investigate further and I resumed typing.

A few moments later my eyes were drawn to a movement outside – it was a smartly dressed couple walking out from my driveway and through the open gate. At the same time I noticed several other well-dressed couples walking down the driveways of some of the houses up at this end of the street; I continued to watch as, without speaking to one another, all the impassive callers rejoined on the tarmac, turned around and walked back down the road. The scene reminded me of various film-makers’ impression of heaven at the point when someone has died and he or she is met by a host of people who have already passed over.

Yesterday morning two young American gentlemen rapped loudly upon the same front door – my front door – and I greeted them with smiles and apologies because I was going out, and anyway, “I don’t live here” and “Why not come back when Sue and Glenn are home?”. They gave me their card before they left and then I left (I was genuinely on my way out and was pleased to be able to tell the truth on that score).

Today I felt quite differently. It seemed to me that the knock was too timid if the mission was to spread ‘the word’. I suspected that the couples were fulfilling a call of duty and perhaps even dreaded meeting wary householders. I imagine that expectations are very low nowadays. Nevertheless, the knock was heard and I gave the matter a little more thought than I might otherwise have done.