Dateline Mallacoota.

Oh so busy!!! Here are the headlines from my life over the past few weeks – and some photos.

Reformed Writers’ Group meets at Lucy’s Noodles! 

(I love the ambiguity of this “Reformed” label!) Had a fab time – met some great people and felt totally energised! Had to come home afterwards and sit outside in the dark with Basil, stargazing over a glass of red. Outcome – I have a writing buddy – we’re going to take ourselves out somewhere regularly and just sit and write, then talk about what we’ve done – now THAT is a way to get productive!

Night-Moves with the Fruit Bat Colony. 

Local cat, Basil and Crazy Cat-Lady Betty watch waves of fruit bats just on nightfall every day. There must be thousands upon thousands of them – an awesome spectacle.

‘There are so many of them,’ says Basil. ‘It must be chaos at Bat Central every night as they all fire up their wings and jostle for take-off rights’

According to local, Peter Kurz, fruit bats can poop in-flight. It is therefore advisable, while watching the waves of fruit bats overhead, to keep your mouth closed, no matter how awed and overwhelmed you are.

Betty Cleans Up - Job Prospects Sparkling! 

In what must be this century’s greatest irony, Betty cleans for 3 different ‘bosses’ now, and is hopeful of adding a fourth to the list.

‘I’ve always hated housework’, said Betty, 53, ‘but there’s something so very satisfying about a clean toilet.’

Betty can often be heard singing as she cleans – looking for an echo in those motel bathrooms, perhaps, or just singing for the sheer joy of it all?

Basil Growth Spurt Fails to Diminish his Cuteness. (Photo article)

Yes, I would like to go for a walk, but I'm in charge. I have the lead. Follow me.

This way please...

Ssshhhhh! He doesn't know I'm here.

I can see the top of your head from up here!

Watching the sun creeping across the farmland behind, and hoping for a horsey visitor.

Lounge-lizard Basil - it's been a big day. I can barely keep my eyes open.... oops, too late!

Wonder-Drug Increases Artistic Output. 

Amazingly, a short but intense burst of Prednisolone took away the crippling aches and pains that had stopped local woman, Betty, in her tracks. Once again able to wield a broom/chisel/shovel, Betty gets out of bed with ease and performs tasks with the painlessness that she used to take for granted over a decade ago.

A recent project was the revamping of the vegie cage. The chook-wire has been peeled back and the roof dismantled. The vegies have been liberated, a new raised vegie bed and herb bed have been constructed over a floor of weed-matting, and the cubic metre of garden soil has been shifted by Betty’s own fair hand. Silverbeet, broccoli, cabbage and potato will be on the menu this winter – so far.

The first log-sculpture has also been completed now that Betty can hold tools again. More will follow. Watch this space.

The next project is in bits on the shed floor. It’s a bunch of big sticks that were just on the side of the road, and when finished, will be a beautiful cat-tree for Basil to climb in his Cat Palace. There may also be enough sticks left over to create a bird-feeder stand (and if not, there are still plenty of sticks by the side of the road!

The Return of Biker Betty and the Rogue Nose-Hair

 Betty actually took the Harley out of the shed, where the poor thing had been languishing, as Harleys are wont to do.  On a fabulously sunny day, the intrepid pair beetled along the twisty road from Mallacoota to the highway, then fanged it up to Merimbula, with a stop at Eden on the way home. Big smiles all round, except for the times that the rogue nose-hair wiffled about inside Betty's helmet, driving her mental on the road (note to self: exterminate, annihilate, defoliate!) Basil's alarm when leather-clad, big-booted Betty stomped through the back door, helmet in hand may have been attributable to the shock of her ghastly helmet-hair, which has been as neglected as Piglet of late..

Proof that Piglet came out of the shed! Enjoying the view at Eden, NSW

Life is fabulous! Bleep bleep, over and out from beautiful Mallacoota.

Betty and Basil: a story of soulmates ;-)

 
You know I’m a kitteh tragic, right? I’ve always been this way, but my cat-craziness increased exponentially when I acquired my little bestie, (that's bestie, not beastie!) Basil, who has captured my heart and imagination utterly, totally, truly madly deeply. He’s a little cat with a giant personality. He grabs life by the balls (he has none of his own these days) and absolutely loves the ride. Indoors or out, Basil knows how to have fun, and he's made me his very own partner in crime. He even pats me on the head, coz that's apparently what besties do. I'm flattered, and pat him on the head as well.

We play chasey in the house, running and hiding around corners, and jumping out at each other. It’s just as well we live alone, or the Funny Farm would probably be sending a van around to collect me right now – and then who would feed the cat?

Outdoors, we are more sedate (ok, outdoors I am more sedate.) Basil goes nuts, leaping more than a metre in the air and executing mid-air twists and turns worthy of an Olympic gymnast. He forces me to undertake obstacle courses (oh my aching back!), ducking and weaving and bending to untangle his lead from the more jungular bits of the garden. He runs up and down trees and flies through the air with the grace of, er, something extremely graceful. He bounces and pounces, digs holes that a dog would be proud of, poops in the strawberry pot and eyes off birds, bees, beetles and butterflies. And lizards. He loves the lizards that love the rockery.

 He likes to sit atop the vegie cage watching kangaroos, 

and has made friends with the horses that wander the back paddock. I kid you not – they touched noses and he actually patted a horse on the nose. Truly. Then the horse did that snorty thing that horses do, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Basil, however, barely twitched a whisker. If I were to let him off the lead, I swear he’d be off, clinging to the mane of his horsey buddy and galloping across the field, tail streaming pennant-like behind him (why oh why won’t he get on the Harley with me?)

 He’s desperate to be better friends with the amazing variety of visiting birds, too. 

So near yet so faaaaaaar!

 Clearly that’s why he hopped onto the bird-table this morning and started nibbling at the birdseed while he waited for the birds to join him. The birds, less gullible than I, didn’t fall for his “look, I’m just another bird” cat-in-bird’s-clothing subterfuge, though, and stayed away in droves. Birds aren’t so birdbrained after all!

I'm just an innocent little birdie, heh heh. Hmmm, this birdseed's quite tasty!

He’s wanting to spend more and more time outdoors. This business of ‘walking the cat’ is going to get pretty old pretty quickly, so I’m thinking I shall build him an outdoor cat-palace. My internet research is about to begin, and my lovely neighbour has already offered me some timber. Watch this space for progress on that Grand Design. In the meantime I have ingeniously installed several strategically-placed anchor-points, and I can weed/dig/potter to my heart’s content, knowing that my Basil is having safe, bird-friendly fun, leaping on lizards, sniffing at snails and digging kitty-latrines.

Eventually, though, I always risk the Wrath of Khat by making him come back indoors when he doesn’t actually want to. He’s devised a brilliant win-win strategy. Yes, he thought this one up all by himself (not only is my cat Chuck Norris – he’s Einstein/Dr Spock as well!) He protests a bit, just for form's sake, then picks up his lead in his mouth, holds his head high and “walks himself” where I want him to go, as if it was his idea in the first place. So so SO unbelievably cute!

Oh Basil, how ever did I live without you?

A New Chapter Begins...

I'm here, finally, in my little house in Mallacoota – for good. No more having to leave. It’s official – this is Home now. And now that the unpacking is done, it feels like home. What a journey it’s been, though, to get here.

 

A buyer has made an offer for the Canberra house and it looks like All Systems Go there.

I spent all of last week putting things in boxes. How did I get so much STUFF? The first time I moved house I was able to fit all my worldly goods into about five cardboard boxes. This time it felt more like five hundred! Three days before Christmas, a family posse – Mick, Jayne, Steve, Sara, Kate, Mark and I – loaded up a rented truck – we even put the Harley in - and that was that. Here I am. Or rather, here we are. Basil the Travelling Cat did the Canberra-Mallacoota run three times in two days – about 1100kms overall, and behaved impeccably.

Basil the Travelling Cat at Wallagaraugh Rest Area

Travelling Cat is travelling

Travelling Cat is exhausted, and takes up far more of the armchair than he used to.

 All the hard work that Mick & Jayne did in the garden down here has been undone by Mother Nature, and I really need to mow the grass and pull out some weeds. But not today. Today, after unpacking the final box, I just want to sit and enjoy what’s left of my first Christmas Day in Mallacoota. Cheers, dears!