Letter From The Other Side, from Cynthia

POLITICIANS WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
Dear Del,
Have you ever asked yourself where politicians come from?
There seems to be a pandemic of elections in the offing around the world at present and we are not immune.
We have the misfortune of expecting a state election and a federal election soon giving us all very little time to catch our collective breath and cool our addled brains after all the gabbled and garbled advertisements between them both. We will barely have the time to shred or compost all the mail-outs and leaflets which will be flowing into our mail boxes from politicians suddenly keen to make our acquaintances and assuring us they have our very best interests at heart and always have done. They stand smiling on our doorsteps like long lost relatives while dreaming of the coming moment when we would elect them to be the messiahs of our little part of the world.
It is a nightmare scenario.
I have in the course of my life spoken with a few politicians and seen them at work and in more relaxed circumstances. I have never warmed to any of them and whichever party they were representing had nothing to do with colouring my views.
They seem to be a separate species to the rest of us and I have been wondering where they actually come from.
I don’t know anyone who likes them, would like to be become one when they grow up, wants to marry one or cohabit with one or readily admits to being related to one in the presence of anyone over the age of three.
Is there a special humidified place where they are genetically constructed in a particularly formed womb which is only able to produce the politician breed? It is a puzzle.
Each one must be especially endowed with selective hearing to enable them to avoid unpleasant truths and questions put to them by mere mortals. All of which they can’t or won’t answer. Their skin must be much thicker than any human’s and their eyesight must be very special to enable them to see our sick and fractured world through eyes in such a way they remain convinced of their invincibility to keep it going without leading us all into complete annihilation.
This special eyesight also allows them to see into the future and tell us exactly the type of utopia we can all expect if we would only listen to them.
There are some REAL people from the REAL world who try to become politicians but of course they have little hope. Many of us recognise them and vote for them but the strength of the SPECIES POLITICIAN and those other REAL POLITICIANS backing them will inevitably win.
Should the unthinkable happen and a REAL person actually by some absolute fluke makes it into a parliamentary seat, they will inevitably be hunted. If they resist, their emotions and morals are sucked out of them and their body ejected out the door of the parliament by the SPECIES POLITICIAN to spend the rest of their lives as a sick and broken sub-human wandering the land.
What can we do about it?
I suspect that which has always been done….nothing.
No REAL human wants the job when they have watched what has happened to others. The pay is not comparable with private sector pay, the home life is negligible, the early death rate is high and everyone dislikes them and is willing to tell them how they should be doing their job. It isn’t a very good career summary really is it?
I suspect we shall all just moan our way through more of the empty promises the rosy outlooks, the dire warnings of doom if we vote from the other party and accept what happens in the way we usually do.
Other countries have revolutions and wars but live to regret their actions when the people they put in power turn out to be REAL POLITICIANS they hadn’t recognised and are just as awful as the ones they replaced.
So far throughout our short history Australians have gone about getting their way pretty well. We have done it without wars and revolution using our basic traits of tenacity, a will to survive no matter what our harsh environment throws at us whether it is drought, bushfire, plagues or as is happening at present, thousands of square kilometres of damaging floods. We have a very strong collective will to defeat any opponent from without or within and we posses what some people tell us, is an ironic sense of humour they find hard to understand. When coupled with a highly developed amount of inertia it is a difficult mixture to dominate.
As a nation we have been largely ignored by the rest of the world and allowed to get on with our own way of doing things. Our lack of respect for anyone pompous enough to try and tell us how to live is sneered at as we continue to do things our own way.
After a while the REAL POLITICIANS who are bred for speed-talking and debate find we have all gone to the football, cricket or beach and they have no one to talk to or debate with, leaving them to feel free to slink off out of the spotlight.
Teddy and I have a good supply of C.D’s and books for the coming tide of talking heads on the television and will do our law abiding duty and vote, hoping that just once it may result in something good or at least, not worse.
Happy walking on your beach Del,
from your incredibly cynical
‘Flower child’ friend,
Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side, from Cynthia.


Dear Del.

In a bid to save the small amount of sanity we have left, Teddy and I are going to have a few days away next week.

Our last two attempts at a break away were dismal failures.

During the first one Teddy caught the flu’ and coughed and sneezed his way to a Guinness Book Of Records title in four days his nose becoming ever redder and shinier while his body sweated and shivering in turn. He has always been prone to extended sneezing episodes and while I try as hard as I can, the peculiar contortions of his face when in the throws of the fit always make me laugh. The dogs just go out of the room as the mighty explosions issue forth but then they have better manners over such things than I do.

The second time we tried a holiday I booked a pet-friendly house in Ballarat. The owner assured me on numerous occasions the place was fully fenced and suitable.

I had stipulated an escape proof fence for the dogs and a single story building.
We did all the usual packing and preparations one does, drove ourselves and two very excited dogs all the way to Ballarat to find the place not only had a spiral staircase, it possessed less amenities than we have had when camping and the fence purported to be dog proof had a hole big enough to let a small moribund pony through it.

We looked about, swore a good deal at the false representations of the owner put the bemused dogs back into the car and drove home all the while composing an email which turned out to be one of the most irate emails I have ever written to anyone in my life.
Well, we may be silly but we are hoping this will be third time lucky.

Again we have booked a pet friend house. This time it is the original settler’s stone farmhouse on a four thousand acre farm near the Grampian Mountains. The farmer has six hundred acres set aside around two houses he lets out. I trust a farmer when he says a fence is dog proof because when you have a few thousand sheep and the bush has big wild dog problems, the fences have to be dog proof.

The glossy brochures say we will have lots of the usual wildlife and it will be interesting to see our spaniel, the city slicker’s reactions to kangaroos, emus, wombats and possums. I suspect our country girl; a cross breed German shepherd Basenji will not be at all interested unless the snakes which are very active in autumn decide to come into her area.

After last week’s storm we may even have water in the river where they can dog paddle.
However, after the last couple of debacles I will not get my hopes up too far as I have learnt over the years, disappointment in life is always lurking nearby.

Everything except our food is provided and if we keep putting food into our bags at the rate we are we shall need a refrigeration truck to follow us up there. We will be some distance from shops however and as Teddy is a type 2 diabetic and I have a few health issues I have to have investigated when we return, we both need separate diets. I have checked the size of the fridge and it seems to be adequate.

At the moment I can not eat bread, dairy and quite a few vegetables and fruit. I’ve found it is extremely boring to live on rice and not much else.
The upside is I can fit into slacks I haven’t pulled up past my knees for years.

Maybe while we are up there I can forget the specialist I have to see on the Monday after we return. I haven’t met him yet. If he is one of the pompous types some hospitals foster it will mean an ominous beginning to our relationship.
The dogs have almost as much in their bags as we do- food, toys, towels, treats, beds, various first aid things and grooming brushes.

Teddy will be taking THE TELESCOPE which seems to be accompanying us everywhere we go at present, plus he is packing a couple of fishing lines and his lap top will have to come of course because he plays chess with a dozen or so people most days. So he has his priorities set. I doubt if the idea of packing any changes of clothing or filling up the car with petrol, stopping the mail etc have occurred to him at all. The practicalities of daily life pass him by and holidays mean just deciding to go somewhere and getting in the car don’t they??

We shall be in touch when we get back Del, in the mean time we are going a-roaming where we can watch birds, smell the gum trees and get away from the telephone and the looming federal election.

Wish us luck on our third attempt in three years,
Love from your ‘flower child’ friend,
Hay, Ho, Hay Ho, It’s Off to play we go’
Cynthia