The Occasional Adventures of Betty

RefrigeRANT

2012-01-31T13:25:00.001+11:00

I spent 850 hard earned dollars on a brand new Samsung refrigerator in October 2009. It started making a little ticking noise in about September 2011, but still worked perfectly well, so I thought nothing of it. In early December 2011 I took the fridge to the house in Mallacoota. I left it unplugged for a week, to allow the gases to settle, then turned it on. It worked for about an hour, then shorted-out, taking half the power in the house with it.

Long story short – the fridge mechanic in Mallacoota (who is the auto electrician, of course) had a look at it and pronounced the compressor dead. The fridge was only just out of warranty – but the compressor has a FIVE year warranty. You with me so far?

Since then I have made at least nine phone calls to Samsung, and sent three emails. Each time, I have had to go through the entire sorry story again with yet another call-centre operator whose main prerequisite for the job would appear to be that English is not their first language.

First Call

‘The fridge is in Mallacoota.’

‘That’s outside the service area.’

‘OK, there’s a mechanic here who can fix it as long as you have the part.’

‘OK, email us your proof of purchase’

Email #1, with proof of purchase attached

Second call

Preamble (fridge out of warranty, failed compressor still under warranty, fridge outside service area etc etc) plus ‘Can you just replace the part?’

‘Yes, ok. Email this address and someone will contact you within 24-48 hours.’

Email #2 sent,

48 hours later, no call.

followed, a week later, by email #3

I went to England. In my absence a letter arrived. My daughter contacted Samsung and gave them the address to send the part to.

Third call, over 3 weeks later.

Preamble (recited slightly less patiently) plus 'The part you said you would send hasn’t arrived.’

‘We don’t send parts to customers.’

‘You told me you did.’

A letter from Samsung arrived, asking me to send the letter back to them(???) Confused, I made the fourth call.

'I'm not sure why I'm supposed to send this letter back to you - what is the point of this?' (They couldn't tell me, but so began The Amazing Samsung Run-around. Nobody was sure what the letter meant. I just wanted my bloody fridge sorted!

Fourth-eighth calls, all on the same day a week later – I was told so many different things by different people, who would put me and my (Samsung) mobile phone on hold, then get back to me (or not) – or leave voicemail messages for me to call them back – and then I would have to explain the entire thing again. Someone actually told me I hadn't sent my proof of purchase! I offered to resend it, and quoted the date of the email I had sent several weeks earlier. In the end, with a vein throbbing in my forehead, I just lost the plot.

Preamble plus ‘PLEASE - Can someone just tell me how the heck I can get this under-warranty compressor fixed?’

‘You have to take it to a service agent.’

‘It’s in Mallacoota. I’m in Canberra. There’s someone in Mallacoota who can fix it, but you need to send him the part.’

‘We don’t send parts out to customers. We send them to authorised technicians.’

‘There’s a fridge technician in Mallacoota.’

‘Get him to call us with his details so we can authorise it.’

The Mallacoota guy who fixes fridges is the auto-electrician, right, so he is licenced to gas up car air-cons, not fridges. Samsung will never authorise him. Never fear though, because the real estate lady in Mallacoota knows an engineer who can do such things.

‘I’ll find out his details from the real estate agent.’

By this time, my left eye is twitching and I am in serious danger of imploding.

Turns out the engineer is retired – therefore, he may be perfectly capable of fixing my bloody $850 fridge, but I just know what Samsung will say about that – it’s not even worth phoning them again. My head is in my hands, I'm ready for a straitjacket and I want to take to the $850 fridge with a baseball bat.

So. In disgust and desperation, Mark & I find an ancient op-shop fridge that costs $80. We clean it up and put it in the house. It works like a charm. We bring the offending two year-old, $850 Samsung fridge back to Canberra.

Right, Samsung. Now you have no excuse.

Today’s phone call.

After reciting the preamble and adding that I brought the fridge all the way back to Canberra so it would be within their service area, they gave me the names of two service agents. Oooh, now I’m getting somewhere.

Wrong again. Here’s the story – the compressor is under warranty, so Samsung will provide it to the authorised agent. Paying for the service call-out and the labour will be my responsibility.

Bottom line. The throbbing vein is back. To fix my two-year old $850 Samsung fridge with the shitty compressor that only managed to last until the actual fridge itself was out of warranty, it will cost me $116.60 for the service call-out (and first 15 minutes), then $33 per 15 minutes after that. The workshop informed me it would be about a 2 hour job. Do the numbers – that’s $347.60. Add the cost of fuel getting it back to Canberra (about $50) – and the same to get it back down to Mallacoota again when it's fixed - and the $80 op-shop fridge in the meantime – that’s more than half the cost of another brand new Samsung fridge! All to replace a part that (a) is still under warranty, and (b) should’ve lasted a damned sight longer than 2 years! I don't think I can be bothered.

When I move to Mallacoota I will buy a new fridge, yes. But guess what?

It won’t be a Samsung.

Oh no, Samsung, this loyal customer is now a very frustrated and angry ex-customer, and you are on my shit-list. I've had two Samsung fridges and four Samsung phones in the past. My next fridge will be a Kelvinator or a Fisher and Paykel, my next phone will be an iPhone rather than a Samsung Galaxy, and I think I'll go for the iPad option, rather than the Samsung Galaxy Tab I had been eyeing off. So long, Samsung!

In which Betty has house guests in paradise

2012-01-31T08:56:00.001+11:00

What better way to end the school hols than a ride with friends to my favourite place? Originally we were going to ride to Bright in Victoria, but the accommodation there was all booked out, so we decided Chez Betty in Mallacoota would be a lovely alternative.

The ride down, via Cann River, was lovely, although it was rather warm. I chucked a Mr Bean by the roadside, removing my thermal undershirt without removing my (over)t-shirt. (Deb, pls forward photographic evidence of this marvellous feat!)

It was baking hot in Mallacoota and the March flies were biting. This was the only blot on an otherwise fabulous trip. We visited the community markets and my bikie buddies bought me a housewarming lizard for the back porch (ta heaps guys!) Going to Betka Beach on our bikes was, er, do-able but not comfortable – the beach itself was magnificent, but donning bike gear afterwards, over sandy bods and feet, ensured I looked like the proverbial beetroot by the time we got back to the house. This is because I dare not ride without all my protective gear – call me silly, but with my history of falling off my bike… Note to self: a car is a useful thing for such activities. When I live there full-time I will have my car on hand for chauffeuring duties.

Cruising the bottom lake, which is enormous, on the 100 year-old ferry, the Loch-Ard was brilliant – a running commentary by George (the Captain) and chat with Pam (the Admiral) complemented the stunning views – and I don’t have enough superlatives to describe the majesty of the sea eagles. We learned that they are quite fussy, and saw for ourselves that they prefer mullets (the fish, not the haircut) to mackerels.

At home again, the roos in the back paddock were entertaining, the night sky was unimaginably starry, the wine was abundant and I befriended a rather large visitor (see pic) who liked the carrot I dangled over the back fence.

As the hostess, I felt I should stay behind to wash the sheets & towels etc, so bade farewell to my fab travelling companions on Sunday. It was roasting weather, so I imagine their ride home wasn’t very comfortable – but it only took an hour for the washing to dry, which was nice!

Peter and Margaret from Adobe Mudbrick Holiday Flats, treated me to a lovely dinner at The Tide on Sunday night – many thanks, my friends!

The high winds of Sunday arv continued overnight and when I woke on Monday morning, all ready to pack and head for home, there was already 13mm of wet stuff in the rain gauge, and more falling from the sky. Naturally, my wet weather gear was in Canberra, where I had discovered that a certain cat (I’m not certain which cat, mind you!) had peed on it and rendered it stinkily unwearable.

What to do? Stay another day? (but it’s back to school on Wednesday!) Ride home in the wet and get my lovely leather jacket all soggy and disgusting? (yuk, and clammy…) Go into town and look for something waterproof? Brilliant idea! I waited for the rain to lessen a bit, loaded the bike, locked up and headed to the hardware shop. I bought myself a bright orange waterproof, which would probably get me barred from the Harley-riding fraternity, and which pretty much guaranteed an immediate stop to the rain, and a sauna all the way to Bombala. Well, most of the way – I was glad to have its sauna-inducing properties on the high parts of the Imlay Road, when I rode through some very cold, very low cloud.

Speaking of the Imlay Road – now the roadworks have been finished, it’s a brilliant run again. 60kms of sweeping turns, and in that whole time I only saw 6 logging trucks, one campervan and one Forestry ute.

In Bombala I removed said waterproof, pretty much guaranteeing I would be rained upon, and continued home. A few random raindrops hit me when I was about a kilometre from home.

As I close the door on Mallacoota - for a few weeks, at least - and face the inevitable, imminent return to school for a new academic year, I feel rested and revitalised, ready for the challenges of 2012 – one of which will be to lose the blubber that I found over the holidays!

The Travel Bug(s) - I got the lot!

2012-01-29T16:26:00.000+11:00

In which Betty has literary adventures, finds the English heartland and succumbs to some travel bugs.

So the rest of my English sojourn taught me several things:

England, despite being the country of my birth, is a foreign country. And a cramped and crowded one. And overheated in the winter, except for the train that I took from York on a freezing morning – the heating in my carriage had broken down, and the air-con was blasting colder air into the already frigid air. I could barely feel my toes by the time we reached London – and it was warmer off the train than on it.
Heating problems notwithstanding, it’s far better to catch a train than a bus – road traffic is an abomination over there. Gridlock on a Sunday arv at Clapham Junction ("Ladies & gentlemen, due to works on the railway line, please change to the bus") stretched what should've been a one-hour train trip into a two hour road-ordeal.
English birdsong is magnificent.
I have no immunity to English germs.

I don’t think I could live in England again – it’s so crowded. However, I had some wonderful times. Cousin David drove me and Auntie Min around Epsom to show us around – we went to Epsom Downs, where the famous Derby is held, and the Epsom Well (reputed to have therapeutic waters).


Epsom Well

Epsom Well again - up close

I had a family New Year at Cousin Helen's, in Kent - great fun.

Auntie Min tripping the light fantastic with Helen on NY Eve. Cousin Ray makes sure he gets a photo of this momentous event before heading back to the wilds of Penzance.

I visited my other aunt and uncle in the (very) little village of Coleby, in Lincolnshire. It’s the England you expect after watching The Vicar of Dibley, with endless green fields and hedgerows, old stone houses, a village green, an old parish church with an old churchyard – English heartland stuff. I went to one of the (in)famous village parties and met lots of neighbours.

Jan & Brian, my 'village people' aunt & uncle. You can tell from Brian's impish expression that he's about to say something wicked. He's a (very funny) mine of information about architecture, English history and the difference between toffs and the middle class, and Jan filled me in about family history and showed me the how and why of setting up binoculars properly, to further my birdwatching education. The pair of them also made me eat lots of Chorley Cakes. Had an absolute ball!

The village green (and I think that funny structure may be the old well?), Coleby

I fed my love of literature and history when we motored through the Wolds and visited Somersby, where we went to the tiny church of St Margaret and I touched the baptismal font where Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was christened (his father was the rector there.) We saw the Dambusters memorial in Woodhall Spa, and looked at Windsor chairs in an antique shop.

The tiny St Margaret's Church, Somersby, where Tennyson was baptised

I had a Dickens experience, visiting Gravesend and Rochester in Kent, and a bit of a Jane Austen moment on an outing to Box Hill in Surrey when Cousin Janet came visiting from the West Country. Ann and I drove past the place where Charles Kingsley is buried.


Kent: The house where Charles Dickens honeymooned, and did a bit of writing

Rochester Cathedral, seen from the walls of Rochester Castle

The lookout at Box Hill: Jerry, Janet & Auntie Min

I went stomping around York with my friend Abhay until my legs almost dropped off. It seems that no matter which way you go, you end up going past the Minster. York is beautiful, and the National Train Museum there was great fun.


York in Turner-esque morning light

York - monastery ruins, courtesy of Henry VIII

Australian ruin (oooh my aching feet!) courtesy of my youthful, long-legged guide Abhay (left)

I found myself in awe of the driving skills of the Brits – so many of the roads are far too narrow for two way traffic – especially when cars are parked along both sides of the road – and yet they manage somehow.

RANT: found myself not a fan of the NHS when, the day before I was due to fly home, the Killer Sore Throat bug was worsening rather than improving. I had no voice, couldn’t swallow, was shivery and miserable, and I started to worry that I wouldn’t be allowed on the plane home. Auntie Min was also a victim of the bug, so we taxied to the doctor. Here’s where I got cross. I had to pay fifty pounds to see the doctor, and the receipt they gave me was just a cashbox receipt – no indication that it was from a medical practice – I will never be able to claim anything back (despite the reciprocal agreement that England and Australia have regarding doctors’ visits...) To add insult to injury, the doctor said the bug was probably viral, not bacterial. He prescribed antibiotics anyway, telling me they would probably have limited efficacy – and then the chemist told me that as the doc had prescribed capsules rather than tablets, the prescription would cost thirty seven pounds to fill, rather than five. Rather a lot for something that the doctor doesn’t expect will be very useful anyway, don’t you think? I told the man in Boots "Thanks but no thanks, a funeral would be cheaper", and took my germs and my prescription away in disgust.

Some fast talking (well, squeaking) on my part and a kind-hearted community-minded pharmacist who must unfortunately remain nameless (i.e., not Boots!) took pity on me and let me have the tablets instead. For God’s sake, the actual drug and dosage were the same – but ridiculous prescription rules mean that if you are prescribed a 250mg erythromycin capsule, you have to have the 250mg erythromycin capsule, not the 250mg erythromycin tablet. Duh!

The tablets were far more effective than the doctor had led me to believe. Within 18 hours I felt human again.

So – that was the rest of my trip. Because I was so sick I wasn’t able to catch up with Ann again, or my friend Fran in London – and my plans to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum had to be shelved. Bugger. Perhaps next time.

Because there will be a next time! It was very hard to say goodbye to everyone. As long as I have family in England, I’ll keep going back. I’ll try to avoid germs next time though.

A Neolithic Adventure

2011-12-31T18:38:00.001+11:00

Stonehenge

As 2011 ends and we look ahead to the future, Betty has been busy exploring the distant past - having a bit of a neolithic adventure with Ann.

On Friday we looked at the grey sky, shrugged, packed warm clothes and headed to Wiltshire, through the sorts of places that I always think of as the Real England: tumbledown ramshackle villages with narrow streets and thatched-roof cottages; hedgerows and woodlands where you expect to see Tom Bombadil or Bilbo Baggins, and rolling swathes of green fields full of standing stones and barrows.

First stop: Stonehenge. It was a wee bit chilly and there was a very light sprinkle of rather cold rain - but it couldn''t extinguish the excitement I felt at finally seeing Stonehenge in the flesh. Pity there were all those barrier ropes. And tourists. ;-)

Back in the car, we drove through increasingly crappy weather. Bruce the GPS refused to find our next destination, so I was given the task of navigating. I know some people will be laughing at that, but I'll have you know I can read a road map very well. We did not get lost. Not even once. The next stop was the West Kennet Long Barrow, a neolithic communal tomb, just a short walk through slippery mud next to the A4, and I got us there with no problems at all.

On the way we had a couple of brief photo stops. I had a bit of a Wind in the Willows moment when I spied these riverboats moored at Upavon (at least, I think that's where it was),

and when I saw (on my trusty road-map) that there was a village called Huish up ahead, we just had to do a little detour (Huish is my daughter-in-law's maiden name).

Eventually we got to where we wanted to go:

It's just on the other side of the A4 from Silbury Hill, which is another neolithic construction. In Wiltshire you fall over a henge or a barrow every five minutes!

After checking out the barrow we pressed on, in even worse weather, to Avebury, a little village that has sprouted in the very midst of a henge and a cluster of standing stones, and which is one of England's most important sites for modern pagans.

We were very fortunate to have the company and expertise of Gordon, who is the Wiccan high priest of Avebury, explaining the stones to us. We were very unfortunate that the weather was so disgusting - that steady soaking rain that you think isn't too bad until you realise you're drenched - so we didn't get to walk around all the stones. We did, however, get to 'debrief' at the Red Lion afterwards!

The journey so far.

2011-12-31T17:10:00.002+11:00

Picking up the thread from Abu Dhabi...

We are delayed by thick fog, and when we finally leave, it's through a surreal landscape of desert sand and white mist. I hope to get a better look at Abu Dhabi on the way back.

The second leg of the flight is an odd one. I can't sleep and can't watch telly (the in-flight entertainment system is dead). By the time I arrive at Heathrow I’ve done half a dozen cryptic crosswords, read 50 pages of When God was a Rabbit, and am well and truly ready to put my feet on solid ground, breathe some proper non-pressurised air and meet (dramatic music) The Family. I have no trouble recognising cousin Helen at the airport, and off we go to Epsom.

It’s been almost 30 years since I last saw Auntie Min, but the years have just melted away. My cousins – even the ones I’ve never met, like Helen – don’t feel like strangers, and it's lovely to reacquaint myself with those I’ve met already. We spend hours looking at old photos of ourselves (and taking some new ones).

Alan & I used to be best buddies when we were little, and got up to all sorts of mischief. It was Ally who taught me to play Knock Down Ginger (sssssh, don't tell Auntie Min!)

Steve is my Epsom tour guide and shopping buddy. I have to run to keep up with him. He has an amazing memory for dates and events, and knows heaps about the history of the local area.

Ah, my lovely Auntie Min. A wicked sense of humour and a heart the size of Phar Lap's!

These precious days of just being family run into one another. We’re not doing anything special, but every minute feels special. There’s no pressure. The daily rhythms and routines are soothing – and of course, once I’ve organised a SIM card and a dongle, life is complete!

Waitrose, Sainsburys, Poundland… call me weird, but I really like poking around supermarkets in foreign places. Leave me in the main shopping precinct, and while I won’t exactly shop till I drop, I’ll certainly browse for hours - it's all about getting a feel for local tastes and habits, I suppose, and exploring the similarities and differences between home and here.

Early in the year my friend Lucy’s mum, Ann, came to Australia and we did a girly road trip to the chocolate factory and ghost house at Junee. At that time (and occasionally during our online Scrabble games as well) Ann had said to be sure to contact her when I come to the UK – so of course I make sure I do - besides, I am delivering Lucy's Christmas mail to her family!)

Lunch at the pub in Worcester Park

Ann and I take Auntie Min to the pub for lunch on Thursday, and then Ann whisks me away to Wokingham. My head is in a whirl – I don’t know what’s where or what – things seem familiar yet unfamiliar at the same time. I really do feel like a stranger in the land of my birth! The traffic is chaotic (‘this is nothing!’ says Ann) and fast, on such narrow streets. I can’t get used to darkness falling around 4pm. It feels like the middle of the night by about 6pm!

I'm waking between 3 and 4am most days, which is around the time I often wake at home, so I think I’m pretty much over my jetlag. I use the wee hours to get started on a new novel (and, today, to catch up on blogging!) I’m having a ball.

(Next: a Neolithic Adventure)

Waving from Abu Dhabi

2011-12-26T14:16:00.000+11:00

Yoohoooo! Here I am in Abu Dhabi awaiting the leg leg of the trip. Boarding is in 20 mins, so this'll be quick.

Survived the flight! Survived the obnoxious twat in the seat in front of me, who had the =extra leg-room seat, but still needed to keep his seat reclined for the entire 14 hour flight. My little telly screen was almost up my nose, and in the squishiness of it all, my meals had to trace a tortuous path from the tray table to my mouth (sometimes via my clothes. This shirt is going to be a wonderful record of "what I ate on my trip".)

Sleeping pills are a wonderful thing. Half a Stilnox knocked me out for 4 hours - that's 3 hours and 20 minutes longer than I managed to sleep on the last long-haul flight I attempted, Stilnox notwithstanding - so I see it as a big improvement. I'm quite sure that I smell, but I suppose everybody else does too.

Lots of crying babies, lots of people coughing and sneezing (aaaaargh, GERMZZZZZ!) but overall a reasonable trip. Decent food, but a second glass of wine at dinner would've been nice!

Abu Dhabi is currently shrouded in fog - can't see a damned thing, so it's really hard to get a sense of the place. Maybe on the way back...

Nearly boarding time - gotta go - 10 hours in the air (maybe some more sleep if I can, or is that just downright greedy???) Bye all!

In which Betty embarks upon a New Adventure

2011-12-25T16:57:00.000+11:00

I haven’t seen my Auntie Min since 1982 – but I’ll see her tomorrow! I just have to get through the ordeal of flying to the other side of the world. I have my aisle seat booked and some sleeping pills in my bag. Wish me luck!

I’m not a fan of flying – it’s that closed-in, trapped feeling that triggers all sorts of anxiety nasties. To short-circuit the possibility of a mid-air incident (wouldn't that be embarrassing?), I have a cryptic crossword book, a notebook, something to read and something to write with. I may grab a Womens Weekly for Auntie Min as well.

I’m currently at the airport in Sydney, hideously early. That was my stuff-up. I booked my bus ticket from Canberra months ago. I’d actually booked a 3pm bus, but for some reason I had it in my head that I was to depart at midday. Oops. The nice man from Murrays let me on the midday bus instead (thank you!) and now I’m wafting about the airport with a few hours to kill before check-in, and a few more hours till it’s time for Etihad Airlines to take me up, up and away!

In the meantime I'm blogging, people-watching, eavesdropping on a group of airport cops talking about bikies and complaining about being bored (overheard: "Some days you just do a lot of wandering aimlessly"); watching a group of Malaysian tourists admiring(?) the airport's Nativity display, and wondering what the heck to do next. A cryptic crossword, perhaps, or should I head to the bar for a glass of Christmas cheer?

Oh yes, Christmas - Merry Christmas everybody! More when I get to the Other Side. Onwards and upwards - let the adventure begin!

In which Betty seeks (and finds) Equilibrium

2011-12-21T07:58:00.000+11:00

Marking and reporting hell seems to hit harder each semester. It lasted for half a term this time – that’s some serious hell-time, and I wasn't the only one who struggled. In combination with everything else going on around me I suppose it’s little wonder that I fell in a heap.

After almost 2 weeks of doctor-ordered rest I had to go back to school – and what a shaky old time I had of it. Exams had to be marked, there was an Everest of paperwork to do, and the end-of-year activities were full-on. It was ugly, and I drifted through the days like a ghost, mostly, trying to keep my head down. One big panic attack, bucketloads of misery and (a bright spot!) a very successful Morris Dancing workshop, run by ME (yes you read that right) later, I’m pleased to report that I limped – ok, crawled – to the finish line, horribly battered and bruised, but still breathing.

In amongst all of that there was a lovely visit from Dad & Diana, who came over from Christchurch for Boomerang Boy’s wedding; the wedding itself and the purchase of Chez Betty in Mallacoota; the relocation of much of my furniture to the aforementioned Chez Betty and the acquisition of a new housemate in Canberra.

Mr & Mrs Boomerang Boy - beaut day, beaut location, sterling weather, stellar company!

The Groom, with Mummy & Grandies (Mummy is the one in green)

Two new housemates, actually.

My daughter Kate (the Tetris Queen) and her evil sidekick Aldwyn Grandkitty have taken up residence with me – a mutually beneficial arrangement that should save us both some money. Aldwyn has made the place his own, and entertains us by climbing doors and curtains. As a cat lady who has been without cats for several months now, I am amused by this, in the same way that grandparents are amused by the antics of children when they no longer have to raise them. The Tetris Queen is finding the challenge of fitting her stuff into my house, um, challenging. Surrounded by boxes, we bumble along one day at a time and drink a lot of cider. It’s nice.

I’ve spent the last 2 days in Mallacoota doing a lot of nothing. Very Good Medicine. My modest little house is just about set up for holidaymakers, and I’ve spent plenty of time enjoying the outlook from the back yard (and the front yard, which is lovely) and the antics of the wildlife. I’ve been feeling the school-induced stress just evaporating, the way it always does in this magical place – ah, Equilibrium, there you are!

Meltdown

2011-11-29T10:11:00.000+11:00

There probably isn’t much in this world that’s more embarrassing than sitting in a classroom full of teenagers and being utterly unable to stop tears from pouring down your face. Except perhaps doing it twice.

What triggered it? Who knows? Sleeplessness, exhaustion and relentless overwork, more than likely. Whatever the cause, the descent into marking and reporting hell put me over the edge this semester. My brain, over-tired, decided that if I wasn’t going to give it a break, it was going to take a break of its own.

When I couldn’t stop crying, my head of faculty sent me home via the doctor. The doctor put me off work.
I didn’t cook a single meal for myself. I rarely ate. I slept a bit. I babbled inanely on Facebook, just to have some communication with the outside world, to prove to myself that I was still compos mentis (because everybody knows how much brainpower Facebook demands, right?)

I decluttered the house, but couldn’t declutter my mind.

I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think straight. I still had to get my reports written. It took me about four days to churn out some embarrassingly bad reports (wonder if I can get four days of sick leave restored? Hmmm, probably not. And unfortunately I now have no sick leave left.)

I’ve been back at school for 5 days now and I’ve cried almost every day. I feel like a ghost, drifting through the days and trying to hold it together. Some days I manage better than others, but I have to show up for work every day for the next 3 weeks; have to supervise and mark exams, proofread reports, go to meetings; have to listen to the very public digs of a bullying boss. What the hell am I doing to myself? A job is not supposed to reduce a person to this, to strip a person of their sense of self worth and turn them into a gibbering and inadequate wreck. I’m better than this.

An hour ago I marked my last essay for the year. Can I have my brain back now, please?

Fully Sic - gone, just like that.

2011-10-23T22:12:00.002+11:00

A friend posted this pic on Facebook. I'm not sure where it came from, but I'm hoping it's in the public domain.

I can’t stop crying. A couple of hours ago it was announced that Marco Simoncelli – he of the crazy hair and the wild, give-it-everything-you’ve-got riding style, had ‘succumbed to his injuries’ after a dreadful, dreadful crash at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia. The image of his helmet bouncing across the track will stay with me for a long, long time.

I feel as if I’ve lost a friend, even though I’ve never met him. Marco, aka Hair Bear, Fully Sic, Super Sic and probably a host of other names, was a regular visitor to my lounge room throughout the motoGP season, via the magic of television. Last weekend my friend Tali was his grid girl at Phillip Island. I felt a vicarious connection with him because of that. Tali’s feeling pretty gutted right now – as are all my motorcycling friends - as am I.

We all know that motorcycling is dangerous, but we love it anyway. And even knowing how dangerous it is, we are still shattered – and, I think, kind of surprised - when we lose someone. Especially someone like Marco, who was one of the young gods of motorcycling. When they are on the track, they seem protected somehow. High speed 'offs' that would kill lesser mortals seem to have little effect on them. These young blokes achieve the impossible, race after race. They crash at horrendous speeds. They slide, they get up and more often than not, they walk away.

But not today.

Marco Simoncelli, you crazy charismatic gutsy young man - you will be fondly remembered by more people than you could imagine, and you will be sadly missed.

My heartfelt thoughts go out to Marco’s family – and to Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi, who were drawn into this awful, awful accident of Fate through no fault of their own, and who will be burdened with the memory of it forever. Hugs all round.

If you haven't yet, but would like to leave a condolence message, or read the tributes of other fans, here's a link (thanks Andrew).

Spring - and a young bird's thoughts turn to love.

2011-10-07T12:11:00.000+11:00

Pretty in pink - the inlet just before sunrise

Seems to me I have to revise my statements about birds every day that I am here. Yesterday I said something about birds of a feather sticking together – lorikeet with lorikeet, rosella with rosella and so on. Well… I’ve just watched what I can only assume is a very confused brush wattlebird courting a kookaburra! This is the same kookaburra, I believe, that has been hanging around the flat for the past week. The one who took the sausage.

So - I'm making a big assumption here, given how wrong the birds keep proving me, but it appears this curmudgeonly kookaburra is a girl bird, and she's been receiving lots of attention from a randy brush wattlebird

This morning the magpies tried to exact revenge for Wednesday’s indignity, and the kookaburra flew away momentarily. When it returned, it sat on the feeder box and fixed me with a beady stare – I was sitting inside the flat at the time – and then flew into the window with a clunk that sent it plopping to the ground. It picked itself up and laughed a self-deprecating kookaburra laugh (“Aw crap, can’t believe I just did that, heh heh”) before hopping back into the tree.

And that’s when the wattlebird started doing its courting dance, fanning its tail feathers, prancing and bowing and bobbing its head, and trying to move itself into a position to, er, consummate the relationship. Imagine a Jack Russell terrier trying to lurve a Labrador, or Charlie Chaplin and Xena, Warrior Princess – that’s what it was like. When the kookaburra spurned his advances and flew away, he followed close behind, trying to mount her during flight (positively scandalous!) The pair of them have been back to my tree since then and repeated the performance, so I know it wasn’t a one off. Is this inter-species lurve commonplace in the bird world, I wonder?

A more conventional couple yesterday – a pair of rainbow lorikeets – had me blushing while I was outside feeding the king parrot. Kingy & I have become good mates now – he cosied up to me as he nibbled sunflower seeds from my hand, and the rainbow lorikeets, not game to get close enough to steal the seeds, decided to bonk each other instead, right in front of me. I felt I should avert my eyes, but it was all over in about 5 seconds anyway. Ain’t spring grand?

I put the SOLD sign there myself!

While the birds have been courting and bonking, I’ve been sorting out my entry into capitalist pigdom, and can make the following report: so far, so good! My modest 2 bedroom cottage with massive shed and lovely gardens, overlooking farmland and bushland, now sports a SOLD sign out the front - I helped put it there myself yesterday. As it’s an investment property, I can’t actually 'live the dream' in it for 12 months, so I’ll be looking to rent it to holidaymakers over the next year. Set well back from the road 3kms out of Mallacoota, it’ll be a quiet place to stay, even at peak times of the year, and with heaps of parking space, Mr Fisherman will even have room to park the boat. I’m in the process of getting a managing agent to take care of that side of things for me. Settlement is on 9 December, so I’m going to have to work fast to get it set up to receive guests over Christmas. What an adventure!

The Birds, the Birds!

2011-10-06T08:23:00.001+11:00

I learn a lot about birds every time I visit Mallacoota. My first silly misconception, long ago, was that, parrots being parrots, they’d all get on. Not so. They’re like people. They stick with their own kind. The rainbow lorikeets hang with the other rainbow lorikeets. The crimson rosellas stick with other crimson rosellas. Same with the king parrots. They’re like colour gangs. Mallacoota is a sort of feathered West Side Story. A bird eat bird world. A jungle.

I formed the opinion early on that the gorgeous rainbow lorikeets are the thugs of the parrot world. They bully each other and every other bird that tries to share the feeder box, parrot or not. They even chase other rainbow lorikeets out of the feeder box, like naughty kids who refuse to share the sandpit. Remember the Tweety cartoon where Tweety gets hold of the Jekyll and Hyde potion? Rainbow lorikeets remind me of the Hyde-Tweety. They drop their heads, raise their shoulders and hunch themselves up like monster birds, then hop threateningly at one another, peering down their hooky little beaks. It seems to work. I might try it on my Year 10s, next time they misbehave.

King parrots, on the other hand, are gentle giants. (late observation: I learned, 5 minutes ago, that the gang mentality is alive and well in this species too - they're shy when they're all alone, but surround them with a few friends, and bang, they can bully with the best of them! Bugger - now I need to edit what I said yesterday.) Stunningly beautiful and very good natured, they’re quite shy on their own, and don’t stand a chance ~~against the~~ when outnumbered by lorikeets. This lovely boy is quite tame.

When he gets over his initial fear, he will sit on your head or your arm, and take food from your hand. Curiosity gets the better of the rainbow lorikeets then, who see a potential source of food in your hand, and want a piece of the action. They sneak or flutter closer, not quite brave enough to hop on the hand, bobbing their heads to get a better look at whatever the king parrot is eating, and trying to calculate how they can get some too.

Cor, wotcha got there mate? Can I have some?

No, bugger off!

Feeder box rules don’t apply here. Here on The Hand, the lone king parrot will fight back.

So yesterday, with all this attention from my little feathered friends, I felt quite popular. While I was hangin’ with ma homies – feeding the king parrot and fending off the lorikeets - my sausage-eating magpies spied me, and decided it must be sausage-time. They’re in the habit of peering through the window to find me. They even jump up and down at the back door, beaks clacking and sometimes warbling to demand food!

Madam Magpie: Oi! That parrot's not eating my sausages, is it?

Madam, suspecting human treachery, and fearful for her sausages, was clearly disgruntled, and actually swooped me when I had my back turned! Beastly, feathered ingrate! Her wing slapped me on the back of the head and the ‘clack’ of her beak on my ear gave me quite a jolt.

That’s the thing with birds – one minute it’s all sunflower seeds and sausages,

and the next, it’s a Hitchcock movie!

The magpies don’t have it all their own way though. Earlier in the day, Madam Magpie was industriously thrashing a piece of sausage on the ground, when a brown and cream bomb hurtled out of the blue at her, bowling her clean over and nicking the sausage. A kookaburra. It took up a seat on the seedbox and cackled a bit – and made threatening noises at Madam when she approached to remonstrate. I had no idea that birds could ‘growl’ - I told you I learn a lot about birds here!

The Kookaburra - not as cuddly as you'd think! And a bit of a curmudgeon to boot!

Kookaburras may look like lovely cuddly plush toys, but that long snappy beak, with the little hook on the end, is pretty lethal. To appease my growling kookaburra friend, I offered him some sausage of his own, and he accepted! I was grateful he didn’t snap a hole in my hand (the kookaburra method is to divebomb and grab, which often snaps its prey's back or neck, if it happens to be a hapless lizard or snake) – but this bloke's aim was true, and he left not a mark on me as he swooped the sausage and headed off for a safe perch on which to enjoy it. Phew.

So – that was my eventful day. Oh, and I bought a house.

The Dance of the Lyrebird

2011-10-04T17:07:00.000+11:00

The lyrebirds of Karbeethong are a lovely bunch. This morning I came across a youngster strutting his stuff in the undergrowth. I'm pretty sure he was a youngster because his tail feathers weren't very big. I shot a video of him on my mobile phone, but the quality was too abysmal to upload here.

Anyway - I did a couple of voice recordings (again. on my phone - aren't telephones amazing things these days?) and identified a heap of different bird calls (all produced by the lyrebird) - a kookaburra, a currawong or magpie, a golden whistler, a south-eastern whipbird, a satin bowerbird, and several other calls I couldn't identify. The clearly identifiable lyrebird sound, though, is the sound that's reminiscent of a camera shutter - a sort of metallic chyoo chyoo chyoo followed by a squawky chirrup. Upon the squawk, the bird does a funny sort of sideways hop, and bobs the 'lyre' shape of his tail feathers forward over his back and head. I wish my video had worked out! The little fellow let me watch him for about 10 minutes, and then my knees gave out, ha ha, and I had to move. Startled, the bird skedaddled.

I'm not sure yet how to upload sound files so you can hear the variety of his calls, and the genius of his mimcry. Watch this space.

Lyrebird-chasing is one of my fav pursuits whenever I come to Mallacoota - that, and feeding the dozens of birds that come to the door of my flat. I have a new magpie who must have young to feed, as she keeps coming back for more, and leaving with a beakful of food, presumably for the babies. She was so eager to see me this afternoon that she came running, and I thought she was going to come inside!

Of my latest pursuit - house-hunting - on this perfect Mallacoota day of blue sky, bluer water, sparkling views and balmy weather - I can't give you any updates - but I have been back for a second look at a house I rather like. Stay tuned!

A New Mallacoota Adventure

2011-10-03T17:41:00.001+11:00

White-out in Mallacoota - the inlet has disappeared into the rain!

To everyone who was wondering whether I was dead or alive - I'm alive, although another killer term has taken its toll. I couldn't even contemplate blogging last term (and I'm sure everyone's sick of my moaning anyway!) So - the term is O-V-E-R. I'm older, crankier, more stressed... The wrinkles are deepening with every new parent-teacher night and every after-school meeting - but it's holiday time now and I've brought my battle-fatigue (and my Year 12 references) to beautiful Mallacoota to destress - and to embark on what might be a massively Huge adventure with a capital HUGE!

New aftermarket screen

This was Piglet’s first ride to Mallacoota, and we came via Bombala and Cann River, dodging echidnas and foxes on the road. It was cold and wet, but Piglet was a real trouper. I loaded him up with a couple of Andy Strapz AA bags that Pisshead Pete let me borrow. They didn't hold as much as I'd hoped, so I had to leave some stuff behind (note to self: buy an Andy Strapz A Bag.)

The aftermarket screen I fitted has made a world of difference - no buffeting! - although I found my shoulders and thighs sore by the time I got here. I really need to build up some ride-fitness. Well, fitness of any sort, really - I did my walk into town, wandered around some of the residential areas having a stickybeak, and back to Adobe yesterday. My first proper walk since my accident in March, and 12kms may have been a little excessive - pelvis and knees were fine, but Oh My Aching Feet! They just wanted to drop off and limp away, except they didn't have the energy...

At the moment, outside the flat, there’s total white-out. The lake has disappeared into the rain. It’s been like that, on and off, since Saturday, so I haven't been bushwalking or bird-watching. I have, however, been looking at other things. Houses.

I’ve been coming here once or twice a year for the last five years now. Every time I arrive it takes my breath away, and every time I leave it breaks my heart. So this time I’m on a mission - I'm looking for a house to buy.

Yep, ol’ Betty’s looking for a sea-change, or a tree-change (you can have both in Mallacoota) – and you know what? I’m really kind of scared! Scared of the mega financial commitment; scared of change; scared of leaping into what could be an abyss. I’m a single woman of 52 with a mortgage, a motorcycle and a job that’s killing me. I want Something Else, and that something is, I think, here in Mallacoota – a daggy little fishing town that has barely changed in 40 years, teeming with birdlife and wildlife, with stunning beach and inlet views, fertile, grow-anything soil, and not a traffic light for about 70kms. (No McDonalds, no movies, no shopping malls… wow). I’m a little nervous about the whole thing.

But I’m going to do it. What’s the worst that can happen?

My chair - finished at last!

2011-07-31T14:07:00.000+10:00

Almost done...

Finished at last!

Piglet's Big Day Out

2011-07-30T21:15:00.000+10:00

In which Betty and Piglet go for a Real Ride

Piglet, all excited at the prospect of a real ride

‘Oh bother,’ said Betty. ‘It’s been such ghastly weather since I picked up Piglet from the Harley shop, I fear we haven’t really bonded yet.’

That was an understatement. Piglet’s very first ride from the showroom in Fyshwick was in horrid rain. Poor Piglet (so named because he/she/it is a baby Hog) sat in Betty’s shed through nearly a week of shitty weather, and Harley ventured out at all until the beginning of school.

‘A commute is to riding as Mcdonalds is to fine dining’, said Betty grumpily. She felt a certain disturbing ambivalence towards Piglet, although riding to school in temperatures of minus 5 and minus 6 was rather bracing. By about Tuesday Betty was feeling quite fond of Piglet, and was also delighted, the following Saturday, to note that she still had all her fingers, despite the freezing weather and the lack of heated grips.

It was important, because Saturday was to be a Very Special Day.

After Stupidball, Betty and Piglet sallied forth on their first proper ride. It was a little ride by anybody’s standards – only about a hundred kilometres all up – but it covered urban roads, highway and some sort of countryish roads.

What a fabulous ride it was, too. Piglet had plenty of grunt (or should that be ‘squeal’?) Very torquey down low, and Betty was very excited to actually get into top gear for the first time! On the run to school, poor Piglet is lucky to make it into third gear!

Piglet waits patiently in Bungendore while Betty has a hot chocolate

Piglet looks so tiny - but packs a punch!


Piglet waits patiently outside friend Trace's place, back in Canberra after a fab first ride

For the first time, Betty felt truly comfortable on Piglet – the week of commuting had given her a bit of practice with the ride position and the controls, so that today she was far more confident, and actually rode Piglet like a motorcycle should be ridden. It was lovely.

On the on-ramp to Parkes Way from Northbourne Avenue, on the way home, Betty laughed maniacally inside her beautiful new Arai helmet as she twisted Piglet's throttle. Piglet responded beautifully, making Betty shriek her head off with delight, and they went home the very best of friends.

You can't see the grin inside my fab new helmet, but it goes from ear to ear!

Chairbodgers R Us

2011-07-19T10:41:00.000+10:00

From this:

To this:

in 10 days - what an adventure!

My beautiful double bow Windsor chair began its life on the woodpile of Rare Chairs, at Moonan Brook in the Upper Hunter (NSW). It was hand made (by me, with a little help from my friends) using traditional tools and methods that involved no electricity, under the tutelage of Howard Archbold, and in the company of some truly fabulous people with levels of woodworking/tool-wielding experience that ranged from zero (me) to extensive (Karl, Ed and Rusty are builders, Michael's a keen hobbyist, Mark has a machine workshop and Fiona has done some silversmithing). Chairmaking the traditional way, however, sans power tools - was new to all of us except Rusty. The 10 days absolutely flew by - and apart from chairs, great friendships and memories were also made.

Here’s a pictorial and a bit of bush poetry to go with it.


The workshop

The Forestry Cottage at Moonan Brook - our home for 10 days

Fifty five kilometres from Scone in New South Wales

There's a sleepy little valley full of trees

With a woodpile and a workshop where you make a chair by hand,

And it's strictly people-powered if you please!

A hardy group of chairmakers withstood the winter chill

With gloves on hands and beanies on our heads

We brought sleeping bags and pillows and a vast supply of food,

And some booze to stop us freezing in our beds

There was Kiwi Rusty, who had come to make his seventh chair,

There were Ed and Karl, who knew a thing or two

And Michael and Fiona, making Dad and Daughter chairs,

And Mark with his enormous 'Yeeeeaaah!' and Sue.

Mark on the shave-horse, with his trusty drawknife

The support troops at the cottage, Marjorie and sleepy Liam

Kept the fires alight and brought us daily treats

And the scent of baking 'Ed-bread' and the nightly Happy Hour

Kept us going, even though dead on our feet


Guess which lucky chairmaker had a birthday - thanks heaps for the surprise celebration, folks!

'Ed-bread', baked fresh daily

Every morning there was groaning as we nursed our swollen hands,

Aching shoulders, tired feet and creaking bones

And the plaintive cry of Michael - 'I need mothering!' - each night

Rang throughout the valley on our journey home

But the lovely chairs we crafted with our blood and sweat and tears

And the pole-lathe and the adze, the scorp and saw

Will remain long after all the niggly aches and pains have gone

To be precious heirloom chairs forever more

To our host and teacher, Howard, we extend a hearty thanks

Even though he worked our fingers to the bone

We will leave the place far richer than we were when we arrived

At Moonan Brook, just fifty five from Scone.

The results of more than a day's hard work - robinia wood, shaped by drawknife and destined to become chair legs and arm posts

Turning the legs on the pole lathe - great leg exercise - who needs gyms?

The scorp - most of us declared this to be our favourite tool, used to sculpt the seat from slabs of deliciously-scented camphor laurel

A shy baby echidna who lives under the workshop and who visited us occasionally. Wildlife in the valley includes dingoes, wallabies galore and an abundance of feathered critters.


L-R: Windsor chairs by Fiona, Sue, Mark, Michael.

Delicious Chairmakers' dinner - a final-night tradition at Rare Chairs

Getting ready to take our precious artisan chairs home on Sunday morning. Nobody wanted to say goodbye!

The Cruiser Quest - an unexpected twist

2011-06-28T18:04:00.001+10:00

I went to the GP (that's the doctor GP, not the motoGP) this morning, to get my xray results. The good news is that my bone has mended. The bad news is that it's going to be pretty fragile for a while yet, so I need to be careful. I was given the heads-up about that by my lovely GP a while ago anyway, along with the exhortation to 'get thee a cruiser' - so, no surprises there.

Next stop was Eurotune, the Triumph dealership in Queanbeyan. Helen & Anders were really helpful. I sat on an America - HUGELY imposing and very heavy. It was parked on a very slight slope, but I couldn't haul it upright off the side-stand, so that was that. Bye Bye America. Next - the lovely Bonneville. The T100 was, alas, too tall. The SE was a much better fit, although I still couldn't get my feet flat, possibly because of the position of the pegs. Who on earth put them right where I would put my feet in order to get them flat on the ground? I wonder whether the pegs can actually be moved? Straddle-walking the bike would be pretty much an impossibility, coz my little legs won't touch the ground if I stretch out past the end of those bloody pegs. Sheesh, I hate being this short! I booked a test ride anyway, for next Monday.

That sweet Harley Sportster 883 Superlow has really taken my fancy, so I headed to Robbo's Motorcycles back in Canberra to have another sit on it and to book a test ride. Lo and behold, Blake, the sales guy, said I could have a ride on it this arv. I fanged home to get my gear and fanged back to Fyshwick in record time.

And then I couldn't do it. (This is the bad bit. Look away if you don't want to see a grown woman cry.) I sat on that nice, low, easy-to-ride, beaut little bike and the last 6 years of riding just evaporated. I was back at Stay Upright with my heart thumping out of my chest and tears in my eyes, so terrified that I couldn't move. WTF?

Blake was brilliant. I would've been fine once I actually got out on the road, and I think he knew that. Another few minutes and all would've been ok, I think (maybe). The boss, though, told him to pull the pin on the test ride. How farking embarrassing. Blake was an absolute champion:

"Don't beat yourself up over it - the last time you were on a bike you fell off and broke your pelvis. And this is an unfamiliar bike, unfamiliar riding style. Why wouldn't you be nervous? Be kind to yourself."

I still felt like the world's biggest loser. I'm giving myself tonight to be a big sook, then tomorrow I'm going to give myself a very stern talking-to. I wonder whether it would be useful to get out on the road on something more familiar, just for my first ride, post-accident? A little GPX or something small like that? Despite the sporty ride position, it'd get me out there in the traffic on two wheels, juggling levers etc.

The other thing that I guess has bothered me is this - I've never taken a bike for a test ride in my life. I've never ridden anybody else's bike. I've never test-driven a car. I'm so nervous about the possibility of damaging someone else's ride that I just can't do it. Maybe THAT's the problem (in which case the previous paragraph about test-riding a little GPX is rendered null and void!)

I think if I were to just buy the bloody bike I'd be able to ride it out of the showroom, no probs - but then, what if I hated it after 50kms? That has never happened with any of my other bikes - I've fallen in love with each one (especially my last SV) almost instantly - but what if??? What if this horrible fear means I've lost my nerve altogether? Wouldn't I know it already? Wouldn't that have manifested as a "Hmmm, don't think I'll bother getting another bike" mindset? Surely my desperate need to get back on a bike means that I haven't lost my nerve, right? That this is a temporary setback, yes?

Okay, so tonight - perhaps some self-indulgent snivelling, maybe even a pizza - and definitely a Wild Turkey while I feel sorry for myself... Tomorrow, a big bowl of HTFU for breakfast, and it'll be a new day. Thank goodness.

Betty's Cruiser Quest

2011-06-28T06:18:00.000+10:00

Bikers are a clannish lot. If you ride a sportsbike, it’s the only sort of bike worth riding. Cruisers are for fat old men or outlaw bikie gangs, and don’t get me started on girly scooters! And then there’s the marque loyalty and stereotyping. BMWs are for old people and accountants, Harleys are for outlaws or weekend warrior accountants, Ducatis are for poseurs and speed freaks with too much money (but probably not accountants).

I’ve always ridden Jap bikes, mostly Suzukis of the sporty type. I’ve never wanted to ride anything else. And I'm just as prejudiced and clannish as the next sportsbike rider.

There was something a bit karmic, then, in my doctor’s suggestion that I get a cruiser. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. You need to be sitting on your arse (that’s a medical term), and not your pubic bone, he said. The bottom line, then: cruiser or nothing, for the foreseeable future. It’s surprising how attractive the concept of a cruiser suddenly became.

And then I sat on some.

Japanese cruisers have taken the essence of the cruiser motorcycle and vamped it up to make it more muscular than its American inspiration, and that, I think, was a mistake. Even on Suzuki’s entry-level M50 (with chrome-painted plastic!) I felt like a pimple on a pumpkin. If motorcycles were horses, sportsbikes would be thoroughbreds and cruisers would be Clydesdales. (I suppose that would make scooters those little Shetland ponies you ride at school fetes. Ooh-er, slap my wrist, tee hee!)

My latest quest, then, is to find the perfect Betty-sized cruiser. After sitting on (but not test-riding – yet!) millions of the things, I have refined my wish-list.

It can’t be a 250cc jobbie. Tiny tank, no guts – and they feel like a postie bike (which is fine if you’re a postie). I want a bit more road-presence than that. And a decent-sized fuel tank.

It can’t have footboards – I find them uncomfortable. Let’s face it, I find that whole feet-forward thing weird anyway – and what I’ve noticed is that the bikes with footboards tend to be the biggest, most muscular cruisers, made for people with feet the size of New Zealand. Footpegs for me, thanks.

And while we’re on the subject of footpegs, I’d like them not too far forward. The long wheelbase of a cruiser and the shortness of me means that in order to sit with legs stretched forward to reach the pegs, and arms stretched out to reach the bars, I’m not going to cruise comfortably – I’m going to be bent like a paperclip.

No chrome! Okay okay, we're talking cruisers, and that's going too far. How about 'as little chrome as I can get away with'?

Is anybody else hearing the strains of The Impossible Dream right now?

My quest has taken me to just about every bike dealership in Canberra, whenever I could steal out of Marking Hell for an hour. What an adventure. Even being a pimple on a pumpkin is preferable to huddling over piles of exams. Sitting on a motorcycle, even one that doesn’t fit, puts a grin on my face like nothing else can.

Watch this space.

Mental Hellth Pt II

2011-06-25T02:23:00.000+10:00

Betty claws her way out of the Pit of Despair and peers around, blinking like an owl in the sunlight – and twitching, definitely twitching. A nervous tic above her right eye, yes. She looks around furtively and checks over her shoulder, then lays a finger to quivering lips.

Sssssshhhhhhh, don’t tell anyone I’m here, she says.

The blog sits impassively. Betty throws caution to the wind and flings herself at it, squealing with delight.

Oh, little blog! How I have missed you! It feels like forever – I’m so so sorry! It’s been just dreadful.

The blog stares blankly. Betty looks hurt.

Oh, come on, don’t be like that – I don’t have long. I have to be back in Reporting Hell soon. I just snuck out for a quick visit – I’ve been so desperate. Couldn’t get out any earlier coz I was stuck in Marking Hell, and that’s one level deeper than Reporting Hell.

She looks at the clock on the wall and grimaces, then starts babbling.

I’ve been doing the numbers. Listen to these –

The number of 12-hour days I’ve worked in the last few weekends - 3
The number of days last weekend that I was too sick to do any exam marking at all - 3
The number of exams I marked between 4.30am Tuesday and 1pm Wednesday of this week - 3
The number of days I got to school at 7.30am and didn’t leave before 6pm - 13
The number of days I got to school before 7.30am and didn’t leave till after 6.30pm - 2
The number of Year 10 reports I wrote - 50+
The number of Year 11/12 reports I wrote - 50+
The number of other people’s reports I proofread/edited - 100+
The number of tutor group reports I have yet to write - 20+
The number of times I thought about walking out and never going back - 20+

The blog’s upper lip starts quivering. It’s only human, after all. Betty flings her arms around it again.

Yes, it’s been horrible – horrible! But guess what? There have been some bright spots in there – like diamonds twinkling in a bucket of shit. I haven’t got time to tell you about them, but as soon as I get out of Reporting Hell I will. Here’s a hint: motorbikes!

On hearing the word motorbikes, the blog relaxes. Betty is still carrying her walking stick everywhere, but only using it for minimal support these days, and is booked in for another xray.
That stubborn bone will surely be mended by now, thinks the blog. Perhaps then, Madwoman Betty will calm down, cheer up, chill out.

Betty seems to read its mind, and laughs maniacally. An unseen force begins pulling her backwards. She scrabbles for balance, but is drawn, almost magnetically, kicking and screaming, towards the bleak, swirling vortex that will drag her back down to Reporting Hell for another week.

The blog pricks up its ears. It’s sure it hears Betty’s voice piping through the swirling miasma:

I’ll be baaaaaaaaaack!

Mental Hellth - living the dream

2011-05-29T18:44:00.000+10:00

You know those nightmares you have when you are heading inexorably towards your doom (falling from a cliff, driving an out-of-control car, that sort of thing) and you can’t do a damned thing about it? You can’t even scream out because for some reason your voice won’t work. You can’t breathe, you can’t move, you can’t do anything to help yourself – you just watch everything unfolding, a sense of silent desperate helpless hopeless frustration gripping you. There is no escape.

That’s my life right now. It’s why I’m blogging, instead of marking the 60-odd essays, writing the 120 reports, and creating the two exams – Herculean tasks, all of them - that are due this week. Blog and be damned, because you can't do all that other stuff - there’s simply no way.

I managed to mark 30 essays today, after starting at 5am. Yes, it is Sunday. Somewhere in there I managed to cook 2 vats of soup so at least I will have easy-to-prepare, no-fuss food this week, rather than opening a bag of potato chips.

I give up. It can’t be done. My head hurts. I’ve cried this week, several times, out of sheer exhaustion and frustration. I teach such a full load that I barely have any free periods during the day. So - just about all my planning and marking has to be done outside school hours. Oh, but school manages to eat into that time as well. There's a meeting every Monday till 5pm and basketball training every Thursday after school. There’s a basketball game every Saturday, and last week there was one 7.30-6pm day and one 7.30-7.30pm day at school, so I didn’t really have much time outside school hours to do any of my school work then either. I can't run on adrenalin any more, coz I used it all up.

I am so tired by the end of the day that I can’t think straight. Mindless, I can’t even enjoy reading a good book before bed. Besides, if I had any mental energy left I would have to spend it on marking, not reading a book for pleasure. My eyeballs are full of sand. I wake at 5am with lead in my veins, and organise my lessons for the day so I can at least survive one day at a time. Still no time to do my marking. Did I mention my head hurts?

Shopping? I try to sneak in a bit of time for grocery shopping. A zombie shuffle along the supermarket aisles is almost therapeutic, except for the guilt induced by the fact that it's eating into my marking time. Last Friday, having run out of food and energy, I bought breakfast from *gasp* the McDonalds drive-through, on the way to school at 7am. Nice one.

My house is a pig-sty. My garden is overgrown and neglected. I spend my days and nights paralysed with tiredness and frustration, and have to conserve all my strength to get myself through the days at school, teaching one class after another in a relentless bloody grind. Mark your essays, I tell myself. Fuck off, says my overcooked brain, fighting for its life by retreating into avoidance mode – because that's all it can do - and the problem is compounded. My life is an endless vortex of overwork and guilt. It's hell on earth.

I’m living the dream all right. The one where I am heading inexorably towards my doom (falling from a cliff, driving an out-of-control car, that sort of thing) and I can’t do a damned thing about it. I just watch everything unfolding, a sense of silent desperate helpless hopeless frustration gripping me. There is no escape.

Too Busy to Blog - feels like the world is ending!

2011-05-23T20:26:00.001+10:00

School has eaten my life
My inferior pubic ramus refuses to knit
I am battling bikelessness and the depression that naturally follows that state
I don’t know how long I can keep this up
I miss my blog, dammit!

The less said about my lack of healing, the better. No idea when I’ll be able to get back on a bike, and this is causing me massive distress. Don’t even ask, coz I’ll bite. Or cry. Crying is more likely…

So, to distract myself, I’ve been thinking about toilet paper – as you do.

I buy an ‘eco-friendly’ brand. Apparently it’s recycled (eeeew, I hope it’s not recycled from Other People’s toilet paper! YUK….)

My toilet paper has little green frogs printed on it. This is supposed to show that it’s frog-friendly toilet paper, I suppose – but I find that peculiar. If someone wiped their bum on pictures of ME, I wouldn’t assume they were using Betty-friendly toilet paper… I would assume they were – oh, come ON – if somebody wiped their arse on YOU, would you think they were respecting you or caring about you???

Why do toilet paper manufacturers put cutesy pics on toilet paper? The other day at my daughter's house I had to wipe my bum on cute little puppy paw prints. Awwwwww..... And wtf have sea-shells ever done to deserve the ol' arse-wiping treatment?

Here’s a message to the manufacturers of the eco-friendly toilet paper – I would rather be wiping my bum on images of nasty environmental ravagers and destroyers – images of Exxon execs, for example – than poor innocent little green frogs/sea shells/puppies...

Just saying…

Oh. My. God. I need to be riding a motorcycle again.

A Bike Weekend - with a twist...

2011-05-01T22:15:00.001+10:00

I love going away for weekends on the bike, except I don’t actually have a bike at the moment. That is a bit of a spanner in the works!

Before my accident, plans were in the pipeline for a bike weekend to Bright, in Victoria. I decided that I would still go, even though I’d be on 4 wheels rather than two. Turns out Bright was a bit far for a cripple in a car, just for an overnight stay, so my lovely bike friends made some last minute changes and bookings, and we ventured to Wyndham, NSW, instead.

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Wyndham is a tiny little town a bit in from Pambula on the far south coast of NSW. It’s in a communications Black Hole. The TV ads there are for businesses in Alice Springs, (?!? Hello? That's in Central Australia!) and Darwin, which makes you feel as if you’ve somehow arrived in an alternate universe. There’s no mobile phone reception there, and no internet, and there was a Monty Pythonesque feel to dinner at the Robbie Burns Pub (established 1848), which was one of the most memorable dinners I’ve had in a long time.

There were six of us. Mark the Miffy Friend and I went in my little car, which was designated the Support Vehicle for the trip. My biker mates Pen, Pris, Peaches and Deb put panniers and petrol in the boot of my car, and off we went. The petrol was a sort of security blanket for Peaches, who wasn’t sure how far his Ducati Monster could get on a tank of fuel.

The weekend went something like this:

Nimmitabel Bakery (the one with the anatomically correct bull-elephant in the back yard) was the scene of an animated conversation about Pippa Middleton’s underwear (or lack thereof) over coffee and pepper steak pies.

Lizzy’s Settlers Cottage in Wyndham was our ultimate destination. We took the Darragh Mountain Road from Bombala. It was lovely, but showed signs of recent flood damage (like much of eastern Australia at the moment!) – lots of land slips and plenty of gravel on the road.

Lizzy's Settler's Cottage, Wyndham NSW

We enjoyed fish & chips on the wharf at Eden (and sausages and chips for me, coz I don’t like seafood). Yummo.

Almost every night last week I dreamed – quite literally – of riding a bike, so I’d expected driving the car to be a right royal pain in the bum. It wasn’t. Yes, I would’ve preferred to be on a bike, but going in the car was a whole lot better than not going at all!

After fish and chips in Eden, we returned to our cabin, and the Big Fun began there. We all sat out on the back deck, enjoying the rural views, the enormously fat horses (who liked salt & vinegar chips!) a couple of bottles of red and the company of good mates, before we headed up the street about a hundred metres to the pub, for dinner.

Hello Monty Python! We had the most fabulous night there! Due to things like libel laws, and good old-fashioned decency, I can only give you a brief pencil sketch of the high points of the night – but believe me, it was magnificent!

*The local characters were straight out of – of – actually, I’m not sure, but it seemed a combination of Little Britain, Monty Python’s Life of Brian and the film version of The Name of the Rose. I say this with great affection, because they were lovely and friendly – but there was a slightly surreal quality to the whole evening.

*There was a child chasing a dog around in the pub. Nobody thought this was odd. The dog ended up wearing a green t-shirt. Nobody thought this was odd either.

*There was a Potato Crisis and the meals were severely delayed until potatoes were sourced (from Tasmania, apparently, given how long it took our meals to arrive) Eventually, said potatoes appeared on plates next to a series of identical heart-shaped (in honour of the Royal Wedding?) chicken schnitzels.

*Pen played the stringless guitar in the pub. This sterling performance was later topped by her performance, back at the cabin, of ‘listening to whale music’ with a lampshade on her head. Virtuoso stuff! She's a very talented performer.

*Pris entertained us with high-decibel snoring for much of the night. No wonder we needed to drink so much wine!

Miraculously, we all awoke to the beautiful country morning on Sunday with clear heads, and had a spirited ride to Candelo, along winding rainforesty roads that glittered with sunshine and dew. We spent a couple of hours sampling the delights of Candelo Markets, where Peaches broke a tooth on a killer quesadilla(!)

At Bemboka Bakery

At Bemboka Bakery we ate MORE stuff, including this little fellow – in celebration of Pen’s birthday last week, before heading up Brown Mountain.

Brown Mountain is probably my favourite road to ride on a bike, but my poor little car didn’t like it one bit. It struggled to get up the steep, winding road that still showed evidence of severe weather about a month ago. Fallen rocks (about the size of a small car!), fallen trees, land slips… It was a relief to get to the Piper's Lookout, near the top, without having my engine explode.

Mark, Deb, Pen at the lookout.

I fully expected to find poor Peaches of the Broken Tooth by the side of the road somewhere, on a de-fuelled Ducati – but it didn’t happen. He actually made it to Polo Flat servo at Cooma, and refilled his weeny tank there.

Our final stop – the place at which we had a parting of the ways – was Williamsdale, back in the ACT (Google Maps lists it as being in NSW for some reason...) We hung around there, talking and laughing the way you do when you want to prolong the time you’ve spent together. The car boot was emptied and the bikes were re-loaded. Pen & Pris ate ice creams. We finished the salt and vinegar chips. We talked about organising another ride. It was sad, and nobody was in a hurry to head home.

Weekends spent with good friends are priceless. I hope we do another one soon – and I hope I won’t be driving the Support Vehicle!

End of Term Madness

2011-04-17T15:29:00.000+10:00

Remember my ‘off’ three weeks ago on Macquarie Pass? Well… the doctor in Accident & Emergency back in Canberra – the one who sent me home with Nurofen, a pat on the head, 3 days off work and a diagnosis of a ‘pulled muscle’ was WRONG. What I actually have is a stable, undisplaced fracture (yes, fracture) of the superior & inferior pubic rami. A minor pelvic fracture, certainly, but something a little more serious than a pulled muscle. Still gobsmacked that a person can show up in A&E after a motorcycle accident FFS, complaining of severe groin pain, and the bloody doc doesn’t bother to have the pelvis x-rayed! Am I wrong to be a bit worried about the standard of A&E doctors? Thank goodness for a switched-on GP!

So – I had a whole week off school. And what a shitty week it was. During that time I had my poor old cat euthanased. I cried buckets, tried to get as much rest as I could, borrowed an automatic car from Mrs Boomerang Boy, to get myself to x-ray & CT appointments, and felt pretty sorry for myself. My bike was officially written off by the insurance company. I went back to school for the very busy final 2 weeks of term, on crutches, unable to do stairs, and set up camp in my downstairs classroom.

The school, the staff and the kids were brilliant. A small and evil, but essentially, rational part of me says “well so they should be – it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for me to spend the remainder of term on sick leave!”, BUT – I'm also incredibly grateful for the way people were able to shuffle things around and step up to help me out. While bits of my body may have been a little bit broken, my brain wasn’t, and typing up lesson plans to send to school for someone else to teach, when I felt mentally capable of teaching the lessons myself, was driving me batty. I wanted to be at school with my students, dammit! Things like playground duty, however, were out of the question - and my busy colleagues covered my duties and swapped classrooms with me, and were absolutely wonderful.

It’s true what they say about adversity often bringing out the best in people - and I learned a LOT in the last fortnight!

Apart from having it reinforced that I work with a wonderful bunch of people, I also learned that:

Year 10 boys get a big kick out of taking a turn around the room on the teacher’s crutches – and will queue up for the privilege!
It makes students feel important if you ask them for help – whether it’s carrying stuff or scribing on the board for you – and they actually worry about their spelling when they’re writing it up in public!
Ex-students and students you don’t even know very well are keen to touch base and make sure you’re ok after something like a bike crash. I seriously felt so ‘cared-about’, there were times when I struggled not to get all teary!
Photocopying makes us lazy, and you don’t realise it until you can’t get to the photocopier and have to resort to low-tech or no-tech!

Having said all that – the last two weeks have been difficult, and the last week, with Basketball Presentation night, a Parent-Teacher evening and three full days of marking Yr11-12 Oral presentations was actually a sort of hell. There were times that I didn’t think I’d manage to hobble to the end of term – but I did! And now - thank goodness for school holidays! And thank goodness for Mallacoota – my equilibrium is in severe need of equilibrating (is that even a word???)

Vale Miffy

2011-03-31T20:52:00.001+11:00

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-- Dylan Thomas --

My dear, feisty, cranky, demented old cat, Miffy – whose name was really the splendidly Welsh Myfanwy – did the good Dylan Thomas thing today, and raged against the dying of the light.

Who was I kidding with my wishy-washy dreams of a peaceful, dignified end for a grand old lady who has terrified vets in her long, cranky lifetime? Miffy died as she had lived – with a snarl on her lips, and a fight on her paws. That’s probably how she’d have wanted it if she’d had enough of her mind left to know what she actually wanted.

Dear, dear Miffy. When Pete the Vet made a very kind house-call to enable her to exit this life from a comfortable spot in her own home, she demanded a blood price. There was a brief moment when I thought I must’ve made a terrible mistake – and that Miffy was not ready to go – and that will probably niggle at me for a long time.

The bowels that no longer hung on, even as far as ‘Poo Corner’, behind the armchair; the complete lack of customary catty toileting fastidiousness; the late night confused yowling; the daytime confused yowling; the weird behavioural loops… as I cuddled my growling cat in her last moments, and said choked words of farewell to her, I tried to keep those things in my mind.

But I still felt like shit.

I'm sorry, Miffy. Deep down, I think we both knew it was time. Goodbye, my dear old friend.

Jamberoo Hoodoo

2011-03-28T09:52:00.003+11:00

A few years ago I went to Jamberoo with some bike friends. We were caught in a severe thunderstorm along the way. It was terrifying. The next morning, the ride on slippery, skinny Jamberoo Mountain Rd was shrouded in thick fog – and terrifying. We also got word that our friend Deb had had a nasty off on her big BMW 1150GS on dirt, and was in a bad way.

This weekend, Deb and I, and some other friends, decided to give Jamberoo another go. It’s a beaut little town, after all; very picturesque, and with a great pub.

Photo source: http://www.coast-accommodation.com.au/images/property_images/4702_1.jpg

I should’ve taken notice of the ‘signs’ though. I reckon there’s a bit of a Jamberoo ‘hoodoo’ going on.

The previous weekend, the weather was bad enough for the treacherous Jamberoo Mtn Rd to be closed by a fallen tree and a road washaway

3 other riders pulled out during the week.

On Saturday my basketball game started nearly 15 minutes late – that’s a first!!! – and I’d forgotten to pack my reading glasses and toiletries - so much for leaving on time.

How many more ways could the universe have said “maybe you shouldn’t go on this ride”?

We’d agreed beforehand, because of the road closure, that we would go via Kangaroo Valley – a beaut road. HOWEVER, Brian phoned our destination pub and was told the Jamberoo Mtn Rd was actually open – so hey, we rejoiced and decided to go that way after all.

Except it wasn’t open, and we only discovered that when it was well and truly too late to go any other way. We were stuck with the Macquarie Pass – the road I had said “I would prefer to avoid”.

Authorities have branded Macquarie Pass a motorcycle black spot after 144 accidents and six deaths in the past five years. (Illawarra Mercury, 28 Aug, 2008)

Motorcyclist survives Macquarie Pass plunge (Illawarra Mercury, 16 March 2009)

Four survive after car rolls off cliff (ABC news, 10 May, 2009)

I’ve heard horror-stories about buses/trucks having to do three-point turns to get around a couple of the corners. I’ve heard of people simply going over the edge. I’m not that much of a ‘corners’ fan, to be honest…

So.

WTF happened? I don’t know. Mark doesn’t know either, and he was riding right behind me.

On the second hairpin from the top – a steep, decreasing radius turn, I was probably doing 15kmh. A small group of Harleys rumbled and spat uphill in the opposite direction.

Here are some pics to show you how heavily trafficked this deadly bloody turn is.

Next thing I knew, my bike was almost on its side , heading downhill and for the opposite side of the road, the concrete lip barrier and the million-foot drop. I hung on for dear life, but when the bike hit the barrier I was dumped, hit the back of my head on the ground and came to rest a couple of feet away, past the beginning of the Armco barrier beyond the tree. The bike must’ve bounced up, headed over the concrete barrier, caught the tree (see pic) with the front left side of the screen, and bounced off. It flipped back onto the concrete barrier and lay there suspended, trickling radiator coolant onto the concrete barrier. The front wheel dangled over the drop, while the rear wheel dangled above the road.

Here’s why I’m the luckiest motorcyclist in the universe:

Neither my bike nor myself went over the edge.

Total strangers Russell and Jamie – a young pair of trail-bikers – appeared a moment later with a trailer.

At the same time, the tail-end Charlie of the Harley riders – an OMCG on a club ride, by the way – pulled over and rendered assistance. Four strong blokes recovered my poor dead bike from the brink, bent forks, bent frame, smashed fairing – but miraculously, NO BROKEN LEVERS – and securely strapped it between Russell & Jamie’s bikes on their trailer. Our OMCG friends continued on their way, and Russell and Jamie delivered me and my bike to a service station at Albion Park, about 10kms downhill (thanks heaps, guys). It would spend the night there.

Maureen in the ‘support vehicle’ collected bruised and battered Betty from the servo and we limped to our accommodation, while

Mark rode back up the bloody Pass and back to Canberra to pick up his van, which he then rode back down the bloody Pass to Jamberoo for the night.

My Ventura Bag, which was ripped off the rack by the impact of the crash, contained, amongst other things, 56 Year 10 essays, which I had optimistically taken away with me. They could so easily have ended up hundreds of feet below, at the bottom of Macquarie pass, never to be seen again (come to think of it, so could’ve I).

By Sunday morning every part of my body had seized up, and every step hurt. I wasn’t much help collecting the bike from the servo. In fact, I was no help at all. Apart from that, I was starting to feel the need to pee, and it was a long, slow, painful 100m or so hobble to the toilet.

The TOILETS OUT OF ORDER sign brought me undone in a way that a near-death altercation with a tree, a concrete barrier and several hundred feet of long drop hadn’t. The cleaning lady, seeing my distress – I was howling in a dreadfully pathetic and desperate way: “But I can’t walk any more and I need to peeeeeeeee” retracted her “There’s a Macca's about 5 minutes down the road, you’ll have to go there” and instead handed me a wad of loo paper and pointed me in the direction of the men's urinal.

‘Maybe you can squat over the trough, love – it’s flushing ok.’

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my injuries were such that I couldn’t have squatted for a million dollars. How the hell does one pee standing up when one can barely stand anyway?

I did it. I managed not to pee all over myself or make my injuries worse, and found myself very close to the hysterical giggles that inevitably follow hysterical sobbing in such a bizarre situation. What an adventure.

Fast-forward to Goulburn police station, where I reported the accident, and then Calvary Hospital, where I was given some painkillers and a pat on the head. My middle-aged bones remain sound, my kneecap is attached and unbroken, and apparently the pain in my groin is nothing more serious than a strained muscle. I will be very colourful in a couple of days.

Crutches hired, I was home sweet home by about 5.30.

In one sense it was one of the crappiest weekends ever. Weirdly enough, though, it was also very life-affirming. I’m a lucky, lucky woman.

But I think I’ll give any future rides to Jamberoo a miss.

A (shaky) Tale of Two Countries

2011-03-13T18:46:00.000+11:00

On 22 February, Christchurch, that most English of New Zealand cities, behaved most un-Englishly. It did a shake, rattle and roll routine that left scores of people dead, and thousands homeless.

Here in Australia the horror was metaphorically and literally a bit close to home. Aussies and Kiwis, while we poke fun at each other all the time when things are going well, are really pretty close. Some of us, like me, even have family over there on the other side of the Tasman Sea.

Even though, like me, he’s a Pommie by birth, my dad, who’s in his 70s now, has spent more of his life in Christchurch than anywhere else on earth. He’s officially a Kiwi citizen, a Cantabrian, and a resident of that grand old lady city, Christchurch – she who has so recently been brought to her knees by the greater power of Mother Earth (and that’s been one helluva mother-daughter stoush, I have to say!)

I’ve avoided blogging the whole Christchurch earthquake thing, probably because I have felt it from such a personal angle, despite being across the Tasman. Besides, I’ve been part of the chain that’s been busily passing messages between family members here and in the UK.

But now it’s time. Over the last few weeks I’ve made many phone calls to my dad. He and Diana were rendered ‘earthquake refugees’, without power or water, not knowing whether their home would stand, be condemned-but-habitable, or condemned-and-get-out-now-coz-it’s-unsafe. They still don’t know. At the height of the awfulness, they had to abandon their home - and their traumatised cats - for a while. They’ve stayed with my youngest brother and his lovely wife in another part of town, and also with Diana’s family in faraway Nelson (which sounds like a lovely spot) but are now back home and sleeping in their own bed , despite continuing aftershocks, while they await the engineers’ pronouncement upon the stability and habitability of their home.

“Come back to Oz, Dad,” I’ve said, more than once since the first very nasty Chch earthquake back in September 2010, and about a hundred times since the latest shake-up. “You have family here – and no earthquakes.” His response?

"Canberra? Bah! Too many bushfires! Brisbane? Floods! And then there are snakes and poisonous spiders! No way, Australia’s too bloody dangerous!"

Ah, Kiwis – shaken but not stirred.

There have been some amazingly heartening developments in amongst all the doom and gloom. Armies of uni student cleaner-uppers have been working around Christchurch, digging tonnes and tonnes of silt from people’s homes, gardens, streets etc. Random people from all over the place have converged on Christchurch, shovels in hand, keen to help wherever they can (many many thanks to the wonderful-but-anonymous people who, out of the blue, helped my brother and a mate of his clear the liquefaction damage from Dad & Diana’s house).

New Zealand is an amazing place. It has a disproportionately massive heart, perhaps because it’s really so small in international, as well as geographical terms. It still has an enviable 'community' feel.

Despite Christchurch’s own straitened circumstances, New Zealand was one of the first countries to offer help to Japan after the devastating earthquake & tsunami that hit Japan's east coast on Friday. That selfless response made me a bit teary.

You see, I have a Japanese connection, too. I spent 1977 living and going to high school in Mito-shi – in Ibaraki Prefecture – as an exchange student. My host families and old school friends are all there, in a place that copped a hiding on Friday from that bloody tsunami. As I have gradually and foolishly managed to lose touch with my Japanese friends and families over the last 30-odd years, I have no way of contacting them, or knowing whether (or how badly) any of them were affected by Friday’s unimaginably awful disaster. It’s a feeling that niggles at me and makes me feel uneasy, unsettled – guilty, even, because of the lack of contact.

Something in particular that’s stuck in my craw, though, since then, is this:

Only two days after the Japanese quake disaster (and OMG, that news footage is bloody terrifying) I am getting streams of jokes about it on my mobile phone. I’ve yet to get one about the Chch quake. I’m still trying to think it all through – why do people feel that it’s ok to make jokes about the Japanese situation, but not the Christchurch one? If, as so many people say, humour is such wonderful medicine, why are we leaving our Christchurch cousins out of these bleak, 'healing' earthquake jokes, hmmm?

Oh, maybe that sort of humour isn’t quite so funny after all, when you’re talking about something close to home. Maybe it’s only jokeworthy when it happens to people who don’t look like us; to people who don’t speak our language; to people who were our enemy in a fucking war that finished a couple of generations ago.

Oh dear, I’m having a rant, aren’t I? Maybe I'm being oversensitive about it, I don't know. Am I? The more I think about it, the crankier I get *sigh*.

Japan, my thoughts are with you.

Oh Miffy...

2011-02-17T06:34:00.000+11:00

I think I’m opening the pages of Miffy’s final chapter.

The cranky little kitten came to me in Goulburn back in 1995. Her feisty temperament wasn’t mellowed by a vicious dog attack in the first year of her life, and she grew into a cranky cat. She used to torment Spike, the cat next door, who wasn’t allowed outside, by wandering along outside his windows and pulling faces at him.

The pages of her life have been punctuated by hissy fits and tiger growls, and yet she showed great tenderness to a kitten she adopted for a while, grooming it, curling up with it, teaching it to hunt beetles in the back yard, and bopping it on the head when it was distracted by falling leaves or waving grass. She has slashed vets and frightened vet nurses. She hated Ollie the Wondercat and Oscar Bin Laden the Terrorkitty. The only human she has ever loved is Boomerang Boy. She survived a stroke last year, and is now a cranky, crazy old lady. It’s nearly time to close the book.

I keep holding off turning that final page, though. I watch her closely, to monitor changes in behaviour that might signal a decline in her quality of life. I keep thinking that I will somehow know when the time has come, but I don’t know what I am looking for.

Her appetite is bigger than ever. The dementia seems to have removed the ‘off’ switch. I leave food out for her in the evening, and by 2am she is yowling for more. I leave the bath tap dripping so she can help herself to water from the tap, but it’s not enough. (Thank goodness the drought’s over, but oh God, my water bill!)

The nightly battles – mine, to sleep, and hers, to make me do whatever it is she thinks she wants (and sometimes she doesn’t know that herself) – have increased in number and intensity. Last night I fell asleep exhausted at 8.30, having been awake since 4am (thanks Miffy!) She woke me with desperate yowling at 10.30pm. And again at 12.30. And then again, finally, at 2.57am – and here I am, crying over my blog and desperate for some unbroken sleep. She is snoring next to me on the bed, and I am wondering how the hell I’m going to drag myself through 5 senior English classes today.

Her mournful meowing sessions are loud enough for my neighbours to hear (I’ve asked) and they aren’t confined to the wee hours, either. It’s driving me nuts.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that I don’t want to have to make that hard decision to end her life – and yet I don’t want to be a martyr to a demented cat either, living a zombie existence as she becomes more querulous and demanding, and less in control of her faculties, travelling through the days and nights in confused loops.

Why can’t her heart just give up? Why can’t she just die peacefully like Oscar did, curled up in a cosy armchair? I don’t want to think about her crying in the car on her last trip to the vet, or being afraid in the waiting room, or afraid of the bloke with the needle. I want her last moments to be, well, nice. Dignified. Befitting a grand old lady who has been, in her youth, a proud hunter of beetles, with a temper to terrify the toughest vet.

Most People Don't Suck

2011-01-30T15:58:00.000+11:00

The summer heat has become oppressive, and the whole of next week is going to be a scorcher – relentless heat in the mid to high 30s every day. I thought yesterday was going to be my last chance to go for a decent ride in bearable weather for a little while, so headed out to lovely Wyangala Dam for a look at it in sunny weather. It was supposed to be an easy 450km round trip, just me and the Crow and the big wide world.

View Larger Map

I had a fabulous ride, cutting a swathe through clouds of white butterflies. The Crow handled beautifully, hugging the road like a best friend and chewing up the kilometres. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, the sky was blue, the landscape beautiful through a bit of heat haze. Life doesn’t get much better.

The dam was awesome at 92% full. I was surprised by the number of people who, just like me, travel out there just to look at the water levels and shake their heads in delighted disbelief.

Then I stopped to refuel at Cowra on the way home. Put $12 of fuel in the Crow. Took everything out of my tail-bag three times before having to admit MY WALLET WAS NOT THERE!

My heart fell through the bottom of my Rossi boots. My entire life was in that bloody wallet – credit card, drivers licence, Medicare card, a little cash, and membership cards galore – Health fund, Ulysses Club, Garden Club… . My brain raced faster than the Crow on a straight road and gave me a memory of carefully placing the wallet on top of the loo paper dispenser in the ladies loo at – get this – the massive, ludicrously busy Service Centre just outside Yass. 2 or 3 hours earlier. Senior moment? Rank stupidity? Bloody disaster!

Just when you’re at that point in your life when the daily news is so depressing, so hate- and crime-filled, that your faith in human nature is approaching rock bottom, something like this happens.

Pete, the bloke behind the counter at the Mobil servo in Cowra, went through a long and involved process to find the phone number of the Yass service centre (the Cowra phone directory doesn’t extend to Yass), and paid for my petrol out of his own pocket while I spoke to the people at Yass.

Pete, you’re a star – thank you!

Also a star is the very honest stranger who found my wallet where I left it and handed it in at the counter in Yass. Thank you so much! My battered faith in human nature is now restored – it’s true that some people suck, but most people just don’t. Most people are lovely, and that is easily forgotten in the day-to-day bad news world we live in. Thank goodness for the occasional reminder, cunningly disguised as a disaster.

I made an unscheduled trip back to Cowra today to pay Pete back and to thank him again for having helped me out. My mate, Mrs Humble, accompanied me as far as Boorowa, and we rode home together as well, in 35 degree heat, pouring huge volumes of cold water inside our jackets, only to have the home-made ‘evaporative cooling’ system evaporate within ten kilometres. Crikey, it was hot! It’s a sad fact of motorcycling that one simply cannot get cool, riding at the speed limit – so we arrived back at my house exhausted and dry-roasted in our bike gear.

What a day. I think I need a little nap.

Girly Road Trip

2011-01-29T08:00:00.001+11:00

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The girly road trip has been in the pipeline for a while, ever since my friend Lucy & I put our heads together to plot a day trip for her mum’s visit from the frozen UK.

We picked a stinking hot day to drive to a hot country town in NSW for our adventure, just to make sure Ann got an authentic Australian experience, and an opportunity to thaw out.

Here they are: three generations, ready for adventure.

Only Lucy & I knew the destination (and even we weren’t 100% sure how to get there, although we knew the general direction!

Our first stop was the lovely town of Harden for coffee, then, inevitably, a wee at Wallendbeen. Back in the car again, we headed through Cootamundra to Junee, with Jenna earbashing us all the way. I swear that girl could talk underwater!

At the Golden Grove licorice & chocolate factory at Junee, we signed up for the Freckle-making tour. A freckle is a chocolate disc coated with hundreds and thousands, and full of about a million calories. Yum. They made us wear these incredibly glamorous hairnets in the freckle-making room, coz after all, nobody wants a hairy freckle. (I can’t believe I said that!)

Jenna, multi-tasking: pouring chocolate, licking fingers AND talking!

Freckles duly made, and hardening in the coolroom, Jenna was quiet while we listened to the talk where they explain the history of the factory, and played a game called licorice bowling. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear… This is how is works (in theory):

You chuck a big lump of hard licorice up into the top of a flour bag chute and see how many skittles it knocks over when it comes out the bottom, and you make a proper goose of yourself by trying to catch the skittles as they fly out the bottom. Perfectly sane grown-ups engage in this embarrassing pursuit, in the quest for a free bag of licorice. Ann had a lovely time chucking the licorice ball up in the air, again and again, over-arm, under-arm, sending it everywhere except where it was supposed to go. We did not win the bag of licorice.

Onwards and upwards, Jenna talked all the way to Junee’s other main tourist attraction – Monte Cristo, Australia’s most haunted homestead.

Even during daylight (I suppose ghosts don’t sleep) this beautifully restored home has spots that make the hairs on the back of your neck prickle. The temperature had nudged up past 30C by this time, proving that ghosts aren’t affected by the heat either.

Jenna was still talking, so we went back into town for lunch to find a sandwich. Opposite the RSL there’s an Historical Society café/museum, which was air-conditioned and perfect. The grown-ups finally got a word in while Jenna ate her toasted sandwich.

The whole trip was a big loop, nearly 500kms long, and the return drive took us along some picturesque country roads, through the tiny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Nangus and into Gundagai, where of course we had to visit that Aussie icon, the dog on the tuckerbox.

Jenna dozed off for about twenty silent seconds, then woke up and resumed her chatter. We had realised by this time that as long as she was awake, she would never stop talking, so we adopted the ‘if you can’t beat em, join em’ approach. The silliest game of ‘I Spy’ followed, (Lucy – KNEES does not begin with an ‘N’!) and brought us almost all the way back to Canberra, laughing our heads off.

A glass of chilled white wine awaited us back at my house, then Ann and Lucy took chatterbox Jenna home, and I sat in my silent house, blinds down to keep out the baking evening sun. What a great day - thanks, ladies!

The Veteran Vintage & Classic Motorcycle Club of ACT - Annual Rally - what a blast!

2011-01-24T17:56:00.001+11:00

Note: this is being written in a David Attenborough nature documentary semi-whisper, so you need to read it the same way.

1914 Monarch - yes, it goes! Magnificent!

In the genus Motorcyclista there exists a somewhat peculiar species of enthusiast known as the motorcyclo aficionado superretro. Often (but not always) characterised by grey hair and an ingenious emergency toolkit, individuals of this species are solitary creatures, often spending months – even years - secreted in large backyard sheds and garages with their ancient machines, performing fascinating rituals with spanners and oxy-torches, paints and polishes, and pistons, plugs and points, or scouring eBay for spare parts.

Once a year, at the height of summer, the individuals heed a mysterious visceral Call to Assembly with others of the species, and Nature pulls them inexorably to a meeting place like the Carotel motel in Canberra. They come from all over, and in large numbers, in cars or vans, towing trailers loaded with precious cargo. A hardy few even risk riding their lovingly-restored motorcycles - if they don’t have to go too far.

Once there, they indulge in time-honoured rituals like beer-drinking and bike-judging, and they tell restoration sagas and breakdown stories in the lost and lyrical language of imperial measurement. Iconic names trip from their tongues - Rudge, BSA, Ariel, Indian, Vincent, AJS Matchless, Triumph, Harley Davidson, Ducati...

They go for short rides that culminate in magnificent morning teas. (A keen eye can identify their feeding places by the spots of engine oil that speckle the car parks where they have congregated).

They have a Presentation Dinner that honours the most perfect and noble among their number.

Individuals of the species trailerus breakdownii exist in happy symbiosis with the aficionado superretros, and can often be seen retrieving those unfortunate superretros whose ancient machines have broken down in ways that will not be remedied easily by the roadside. Nobody sneers or scoffs. Instead, they applaud the pluckiness of the individual and the bike, and thank the Powers That Be that it wasn't them.

On our journey this weekend, one fortunate BSA devotee had his sidestand returned to him from whence it had fallen off on the Cotter Road, but the owner of the lost Triumph footpeg cover remained elusive, as Triumph devotees often do.

1923 Rudge - the King of the Rally.

Yes, that is carpet on the footboards - carpet your great gran would be proud of!

Thank you to the VVCMCC for a lovely weekend. Great bunch of people, a great event. I had a lovely time tagging along on my brand new Suzuki SV650S, and nobody made me feel like a fraud, ha ha! Here’s their website – enjoy!