I was standing in one of the checkout queues at Woolworths in Kianawa Shopping Plaza (my favourite shopping plaza) early this morning when I overheard a peculiar conversation over at the next checkout.

“I really like your hair!” a man’s voice boomed.

“Thank you,” said the lady serving at the till, “I had it all cut off on the weekend.”

“I HATE long hair!” the booming voice shook the shop floor and reverberated in the eardrums of shoppers and shop assistants alike.

I looked at the lady serving at my checkout; she had long red hair in a ponytail, which was much more feminine than the cropped head at the next till. I envisaged my own long hair and I wondered what kind of man would dare to proclaim to the world about him his hatred of long hair. The assistant and I both glanced in the direction of the man.

He was a big middle-aged man wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a wide-brimmed hat. He had an enormous pot-belly and a stupid-looking face.

The man in front of me on my queue smiled a Mona Lisa smile to himself and left with his shopping. My provisions moved along the shopping travelator and I responded to the “G’dday” of the lady with the long red ponytail:

“Aren’t you glad that you have long hair?”

She smiled knowingly and acquiesced. The woman with the short hair overheard me and turned around to explain whilst still serving the man with the hat, the stupid face and pot belly.

“I always used to have long hair and only had it cut because it was my birthday – the big five o”, she couldn’t bear to say it properly (and I commiserated with her).

The man with the booming voice and poor taste in haircuts reached the end of his checkout to gather up his bags of shopping. He looked at we three women chatting and he made another announcement.

“My friend died of cancer yesterday,” he bellowed.

“Did she have long hair?” asked the smart fifty-year-old with the jaunty short hair, and her laughing eyes darted over to the redhead and me.

“I was about to ask the same question,” I remarked.

We womenfolk laughed and the man looked astonished.

The bike, which my brother Bill has given me for my particular use, is the same one I had last year; in fact it hasn’t been used by anyone else since I left nine months ago – such is its allure. And, come to think of it,  even before then it wasn’t wanted by its previous owner who gave it to Bill rather than the dump. Well, it may be plain silver (or grey, perhaps more accurately) and it may have funny handlebars (to some people) but it has some plus points – I need not buy an expensive bicycle lock (nobody will ever steal it) and I prefer to walk up hills anyway (it’s so tedious to have to pedal away like anything and go only two metres). The old bike enjoys going at a leisurely pace so I can take in the scenery and best of all, it seems to know where it is going – it especially enjoys going to our local Minnippi Parklands where there are lakes with ducks  and turtles, and designated areas for remote controlled aeroplanes; there is even a quiet spot where ladies can balance on one leg for great periods undisturbed (hence no photographs of the statuesque lady who I saw).

Now I am heading off up north a little way to the Sunshine Coast to stay with Lorelle, my childhood friend, until Friday. She has a wonderful pool, something you will be aware of already if you have read my book, The Innocent Flirt Down Under (a smashing read!). Must dash – calling in on another friend en route….

Well, that is the question. It was to be – was it not? – that I was destined to be nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows (especially the arrows) of outrageous fortune, rather than to take arms against a sea of trouble-makers (with bows and arrows). To Die, to sleep, to say an end to the heart-ache (albeit up a bit and to the right), the pain in the neck, the stomach-ache, and the thousand or so unnatural shocks that my flesh has hitherto been heir to – ’tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. Ah, and here’s the rub (oh for some liniment), having shuffled off this mortal (?) coil who else would bear the proud man’s contumely and who would fardels bear? Perchance to dream….

As for myself, I had no compunction, rather I felt good when, having taken up the bow (from twenty-five metres), I managed to shoot the deer in the neck, heart and stomach.

Sadly, the garage door suffered irreparable damage at my hands (twice) and five arrows need new feather flights.

Apart from all that, nothing is the matter, dear.

I have just been in Bill’s garden, talking to the menfolk (Bill’s good friends whom I have got to know over the years). It felt a bit odd being the only woman in the company of four men but it was quite pleasant. They all refrained from using any coarse language in my presence – it’s nice to observe that Australian men are still old-fashioned and courteous – and we enjoyed a bit of friendly banter.

I noticed that three of the men were smoking whilst Sam was not.

“You don’t smoke any more then, Sam?” I asked.

Sam smiled and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket.

“I don’t smoke any more… and I don’t smoke any less,” he answered.

I thanked Sam for the material for my blog today. Now I must be off – I have a party to attend and I’m not coming back till tomorrow. I wonder if there will be anything interesting to report? Have a good weekend!

Whenever and wherever I go out cycling, be it in England or Australia, I always seem to come across things dangling from trees and shrubs. You might assume I refer to wildlife (considering all the wildlife shots on my blog recently) – perhaps athletic squirrels in Devon and basking tree snakes in Brisbane; but no, surprisingly, more often than not the things are items of underwear. I do not usually write about them, or take photo’s, but yesterday the danglers were so incongruous, and obvious, in the beautiful setting of a nearby disused quarry that I could not resist capturing the odd sight on camera.

If you look closely you will notice that the net is made from a wire coat hanger and a pair of ladies tights. How resourceful! If only the naked fisherman’s girlfriend had been wearing fishnet- tights.

“I’m not one of those who can easily hide…” as the Elton John song goes. Coincidentally, my young charge for the day looked something like Elton John (sh… don’t tell him – the baby, that is!) when he tried on my sunglasses. Baby Mason wasn’t quite sure about them and soon decided that they tasted better than they looked.

With all my wildlife photography of late you may think I’m living in the wilds of Australia when in actual fact my brother’s place is like an oasis paradise surrounded on all sides by houses, busy roads, a school, shops and a church-turned-law practice. And yet, it is amazing how peaceful it is, so peaceful that a tired possum can sleep to his heart’s content in a quiet nook.

“Want to see another possum?” Bill asked me this afternoon while I was making pastry for a steak pie.

“A live possum?” I asked. (Only a live possum was worth leaving my pastry-making endeavours for).

“Of course, alive,” Bill laughed.

Bill led me down to the shed at the bottom of his garden. One half of the shed is home to Lita’s chickens whilst the other side is a repository for useful, or potentially useful, garden items; and the top shelf makes a very nice cot for a sleepy possum who perhaps finds the clucking of chooks soporific.

“Don’t get too close Sally, you know they have sharp claws, ” Bill reminded me.

“You aren’t going to scratch me, are you?” I spoke to the possum.

Somewhat surprised to be addressed by a woman with an English accent, and still a bit dazed (because it was daytime and not yet time for him to get up), he surveyed me with his big dark eyes before giving his reply, which he managed without the need to make a single sound. He yawned, lay down, curled up and proceeded to go back to sleep. He may or may not have really fallen asleep so quickly – he might have been playing possum.

Well, it may have had only one eye but it certainly looked like a smiley face to me. I fancied it was winking.

My brother, Bill, has a huge mango tree in his garden. This year the tree has produced an abundance of large, juicy, sweet and non-stringy fruit. The only trouble is that the flying foxes seem to know exactly when the mangoes are about to reach their perfection of ripeness; and they come along in great numbers, under the cloak of darkness, to steal the fruit just before the mangoes are ready to drop of their own accord. Nobody would mind if the bats descended upon one or two choice fruit every night and ate them clean to the stones, but that is not their style; nearly every morning the grass is strewn with mangoes, often only nibbled at and bearing tooth marks, sometimes with a corner gnawed through, but never eaten clean.

The obvious answer to the problem is to pick the mangoes before the bats get to them but Bill’s tree is between forty and fifty feet tall, and many of the fruit are at the top. Being the kind of Australian male who can do or fix just about anything, Bill devised a telescopic pole with a cutting blade and a hook on the end. The long blade was apt to get caught up in dead branches and leaves, and was often more a hindrance than a help. Yesterday we ditched the blade and settled for using only the hook, which gave us better purchase and relied on just a firm tug to bring down the fruit.

Bill and I worked together, one manoeuvring the long pole while the other picked up the fallen mangoes; and we took turns in each task because the pole was heavy and difficult to control when fully extended above one’s head – our necks and arms ached. Whilst we worked a text came in on my mobile phone.

“What are you doing today?” enquired one of my Aussie friends.

“Bill and I are gathering mangoes,” I answered in text (when I wasn’t the pole handler).

Another text came back from my witty friend:

“Does it take two to mango?”