Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.

It pays to read the instructions.


Why do so many of us feel it is unnecessary to read instructions and assume they are written for everyone else but never for us?

We especially do it with electronic gadgets.

When we purchased our new television recently, the instruction book lay unopened in its plastic wrapping for about three days while we fiddled about with the remote and various plugs and wires. We pressed all the buttons, often making matters worse each time or undoing something we had unwittingly done correctly. The screens passed through black to speckled greys to pixel size coloured blobs and when we had a channel functioning correctly, the sound went off and we were left looking at a talking head.

It caused many heated arguments and words to the affect of ‘well you do it then if you think you know so much about it’, sometimes accompanied by the remote being flung at the head of whichever ‘Know-all’ was sitting at the other end of the couch.

Eventually one of us deigned,…. I forget which one,…. to reach for the book of instructions. Now these are objects of mystery in themselves. They appear to be written in every language spoken by man but as the saying goes, ‘appearances can be deceiving’. We can only read the oriental version of English. We can read it, but can only make wild guesses at what some instructions mean. So we hop from one reasonably well written sentence to another.

After more hours of impatient tempers and frustrations, we call the television repair man and irritatingly, he fixes it in ten minutes while making light hearted conversation about this and that. Followed by writing out a bill while small smirk loiters around his mouth.

We pay the bill without complaint just to improve the atmosphere in the home.

Even new cars can bring out this ridiculous behaviour. Instead of getting the pristine and glossy manual out of the glove box we fiddle and fuddle about with knobs and buttons, peddles and gears putting windscreen wipers on when we mean to put heaters or radios on and try to drive out of the garage by pressing a foot on a pedal and doing something dreadful in the way Hughie, Teddy’s friend did. He pressed hard on what he thought was the brake pedal and shot straight through the end of his garage. The result of this mishap was chaos and a large repair bill for his new car, his garage and a neighbour’s fence. Perhaps, if he hadn’t been so impatient to get out on the open road and had spent a little while reading the manual and doing an airline pilot type check he may have saved so much trauma, but then it is easy to be wise afterward.

The same mind-set applies to our computers.
Teddy has been more than a week trying to load a new version of a programme. He has worked at it for hours and so far he has announced at the close of at least three consecutive days that ‘I’ve done it! I’ve got it to load!’ Only to find the next morning the programme is no longer on his computer.

A quick phone call to our young I.T man and it would probably be fixed in a jiffy. But no, I think that word ‘young’ is the tripping point. Combine it with the need to demonstrate he can do it without any help and he has the lack of success he is trying so hard to avoid.

The same thing happened last week.
The weekly email giving instructions for the Burke and Wills walking group appeared on his screen.

We rose before dawn to make sure his packed lunch and coffee was made and after his customary three returns to the house for the things he had forgotten such as his phone, camera, or glasses, he was gone with a cheery wave saying, ‘I’ll be back about 2 p.m. It’s only a short walk’.
Come 2p.m. no Teddy in sight.

Late in the afternoon when the daylight was giving way to a gloomy evening, he walked in the door looking tired and a little footsore. I suspected some sort of hitch had occurred but bided my time for the explanation to be forthcoming.

Eventually after a coffee and a long sit in his chair while he stared into space he told me.

He arrived at the usual parking place from where the group leave. There was no-one there so he suspected he had missed them. He drove to three other possible parking places. Still no sign of anyone so he went back to the original and thought he would start walking from the end of the walk and meet up with the others somewhere around halfway as they were coming from the opposite direction. He met no-one. He enjoyed his lunch while he sat at the top of the hill and began the walk back to the car park.
When he arrived back at the car park just after noon there was one person there who remarked ‘You’re early Teddy.’
‘Oh, well, if I’m early now, I was bloody early this morning because I’ve done the walk already.’ he replied.
Slowly the rest of the group arrived and Teddy told them he had already been but would do the walk again. This time with company.
His reputation for reading the details properly of where, when and what time, written in the club emails has well and truly gone down the gurglar.
He had simply read the name of the walk and assumed he knew the rest.
A bit like buying another new electronic device, we assume the details are the same as every other gadget we have.
I’m now going back to my automatic electric stove which turned off last week and I can’t work out which buttons turn it back on. Bother the instruction book, the advice seems completely useless. I’ll get it worked out one day. In the meantime I’ll use the gas top to cook on or the barbeque. I’m not going to be beaten by a stove!

The child lock on the dishwasher almost won the battle but fortunately my son turned up and removed it.

Cheers for now
from your ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia --Bookshops.


Dear Del,

I do love bookshops.

From the moment I step over the threshold I find myself in another world as I riffle through small books with quirky titles, large tomes that may be handy after I’ve read them for holding the back door open, drool over gardening books and ignore cookery books because I know I just can’t fit another on my kitchen shelves. I stop by the psycho babble self-help books and usually after perusing the titles usually find I’m past the age where I think any of them can make an improvement….. The kids have given me a stack containing the words ‘healthy ageing’ which I have at times found very interesting and have kept ready for returning them when our well meaning children come up against their fiftieth birthdays with a thump. I glance at the astronomy section knowing Teddy would stop dead in front of it, giving the impression he had been super glued to the floor.
Usually I dally in front of the biographies hoping to find someone of interest and then I move on to the humour section and open up something which will have me gurgling and giggling with delight.

Looking around I feel amazed that so many new writers and authors have found the thousands of words and new ideas or research to put between the covers of them all. I also feel quite surprised there are still brave editors and publishers willing to pay to print them. I’m aware the self-help range is lucrative and the sports personalties that have done well in their chosen sport and can find good ghost writers are a paying area, but it is gratifying to find publishers still willing to try and sell good novels and unusual subjects to the public. It gives a lie to the popular thinking that reading is as pastime is being superseded by electronic books.

My favourite book shops are those that sell used and second-hand titles. Here I can look for authors’ no longer in print sometimes finding little sentimental notes written inside the covers which give an indication of the person who first owned the book. Sometimes I feel quite sad to see a favourite title I’ve read sitting among the preloved books looking pristine and fresh as if the pages have never been opened and enjoyed. These places are treasure troves for me and not just because of the books. It is always fascinating to discover the personalty of the person behind the counter.
Obviously they all share a passion for the written word but that is where the similarities appear to end.

In a village not far from here we have a dithery type of woman. She clucks around behind her customers chirruping away happily about this and that giving the impression she could have been Miss Marple’s nitwit sister.

In another, there is a large woman who never moves from her chair and your progress around the dusty shelves where spiders and silver fish live out their lives peacefully, is accompanied by the click, click, click of her knitting needles. She knits some fascinating shapeless looking things in horrendous colours. I’ve never seen her wear any of them so I presume a hapless relative has to say “Oh how lovely’ when they receive the results.
Then there is another shop I like to go where the owner appears to have just stepped out of the teacher’s staff room of St Trinians School. She really knows her books and her stock and I would never dare to contradict her opinion in case I was made to write out ‘I must not be rude to my elders’ a thousand times. She always has a few of my favourite authors so I steel myself for each visit and make sure my shoes are polished and my skirts are straight.
One of the most fascinating of owners I have met was a previous owner who lived in our village. During the 1970’s he had an ‘alternative lifestyle’ store when the words really meant what they said…….. One would think the way these words are bandied about nowadays that the last generation came up with them and it is a new concept.
His, was one of the first in this area however and all the people who had fled to the country in the attempt to enjoy a self sufficient life or join a commune would pass through his doors seeking books on meditation, vegetarian cooking, how to care for various stock and how to make mud brick houses etc. In other words everything of the period when we were all making love not war.

The city folk and the holiday makers who still lived conventional lives would arrive for their summer holidays or winter skiing holidays and be rather taken aback when the proprietor of the alternative bookshop gave full vent to his alternative lifestyle by dressing in beautifully co-ordinated ladies clothing each Saturday morning and walk the length of the shopping centre greeting one and all while flinging his caftan and braided hair provocatively.

It was quite a sad time when he sold the business and retired to live his dream. Although, it did give the lady who liked to ride into town on her pet milking cow during that same decade the opportunity to gain the full attention of the visitors. The reason being that while riding a cow is somewhat unusual not many people did it wearing from the waist down a Mexican riding outfit. Fewer still did it while being from the waist up with the exception of a sombrero hat, completely naked. It was positively astounding when a person witnessed her well developed body for the first time.

I believe her cow riding days are over and the lady now resides quietly in a retirement nursing home. I wonder if she shares her memories with others and they look at her in disbelief and scepticism.

I’ve heard of another second-hand place this week which I haven’t visited. I must make sure I go to see what treasures are there. Life is still full of discovery isn’t it?

Cheers from Cynthia.

Ash???

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia .... Ash

Dear Del,
The word on many people lips this week has been ash. Not a very interesting topic one would think but it has buzzed about offices, homes and various forms of media all over the country.
The problem has been the ash from a volcano in South America which is spewing out massive clouds of the stuff that has gradually made its way around the world. It has become a general nuisance to many people as it hangs about in the air preventing planes from taking off and landing and forcing travellers to try and find alternate domestic forms of transport.
Meetings have been rescheduled; celebrations, theatre appearances and funerals have been poorly attended by interstate travellers. The poor folk waiting to travel internationally have been bunked down on uncomfortably hard airport floors and seats and after a few nights and days of sleep deprivation are ready to blame anyone who looks anything like an airline employee for their predicament. I don’t think it matters to them if they are speaking to the top brass or to the cleaning ladies; they just want to blame someone.
Many seem to have completely lost the plot and evidently consider that a large fire hose and a good yell at Mother Nature should fix the lot!
White faced airline bosses are fronting up nightly to the television cameras trying to appear calm and reasonable while their brains must be running hot as they calculate the losses in revenue resulting from their planes sitting idle on the tarmacs collecting dust (or maybe it is ash).
We have watched all this going on from the comfort of our couches and muttered the sort of things that non involvement in a disaster brings to the mind of the observer’s lips, such as ‘poor things’ and then add as we settle down in front of our wood fired heater a little more comfortably ‘glad it isn’t us.’

Also featured on our regional news has been a complaint by our local firemen that they were being called out to too many fires resulting from careless persons who have put hot ash onto piles of rotting down autumn leaves.
Teddy did his ‘manly’ thing of huffing and puffing at the stupidity of people doing such an obviously silly thing. ‘Should know better etc’
His outburst would have left that grumpiest of men Victor Meldrew, speechless with admiration.

About three days later when we woke and I went to the kitchen to make the first cup of tea for the day. I looked out at the small wisps of steam rising from various parts of the back garden as the winter sun melted the heavy frost. One area behind our garden shed which backs onto two other neighbouring garden sheds and a new budgerigar cage seemed to have an uncommonly large amount of steam rising quickly and thickly into the clear morning air.
I called. ‘Teddy what is that?’
‘What?’ He sauntered across to the window.
Like a flash he was out into the -3 degree morning. Next moment he was rushing across the white frost encrusted grass wearing only a pair of work boots and the habitual light cotton short legged pyjamas he wears all year. In one hand he held a spade, in the other he had the bucket used for the dog’s water. Soon he was digging into the leaves behind our shed and pouring water into a hole.
It didn’t appear to help a great deal and more smoke and steam rose in an ever increasing column. I felt a twinge of apprehension as I stayed well away from the action but ensured my hand was close to the phone ready to dial 000.
After much frantic running back and forth and more digging (you will appreciate running in boots not fastened properly can make the physical action appear somewhat unusual and a little silly to the onlooker) gradually the column diminished and the emergency was over.
Other than for his knees having turned an attractive shade of blue from the cold and contrasting well with the bright red of his face brought on by the exertions, the emergency appeared to be over.
I said nothing when he eventually came back inside smelling strongly of hot ash and burnt leaves. I made the tea and we wandered back to the bedroom as he spread the odour of relief, burning guilt and embarrassment behind him.
I continued to say nothing about the episode feeling he felt quite silly enough without me pointing it out.
Ours and the neighbours sheds hold all the usual things that are thrown in them such as lawnmowers, lawnmower fuel and various tools and it would have been dreadful to have all the contents go up in smoke but at the very least, insurance would have covered some of it. But to have our neighbour who has just spent an enormous amount of time and expense lovingly building a palace for his pet budgerigars presented with eight or ten roast birds for his Sunday lunch would have been dreadful.

Since that day Teddy has admitted what happened to various mates who commiserated, mainly because they have been guilty of doing the same thing. One fellow actually managed to burn his fence down and another succeeded in spectacular flames reaching for the sky before he could get things under control. He spent a long time ‘in the dog house’ having been put there by his neighbours and his wife.

So yes, ash has been a big topic all round lately Del, I hope it clears up soon.
Cheers from your ‘flower child friend’

Cynthia.

Burke

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia.

Dear Del,

As you probably know when someone refers to you as a ‘Burke’ they are telling you that you are an idiot.

J. O’Hara Burke was an Australian explorer of the worst type. He knew nothing about the Australian bush, didn’t take anyone with him on his expedition who did, but still felt he had the ability to cross the unexplored and unknown continent from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

When he set off with William John Wills it became clear Wills would have been a far superior leader. Burke was in a tearing hurry to get away because he was afraid he would be beaten by another explorer John Stuart. So he decided to leave some of the most important members of the expeditionary force behind. (They must have been slow and careful packers making sure they had everything they needed.)
He was racing John Stuart a distance of 3,200 kilometres. Unbeknown to Burke, Stuart didn’t get very far and had turned back. (A mobile phone would have been so handy back then wouldn’t it?)

So Burke, the hot headed, argumentative bloke in his rush to win and encumbered by enormous ignorance led one of the most disastrous explorations in our country’s history despite having a very well supplied expedition financed by the committee in Melbourne. Only one man, John King survived to return to Melbourne.

This is a potted version of a heart rending story and if read from this distance of time, it is so easy to see the simple mistakes that could have been avoided if he had only taken a bushman or good aboriginal tracker with him to show him the indigenous plants they could eat or where water could be found etc.
I have been banging on about this subject because Teddy has joined a U.3.A walking group.

The group has about fifteen to twenty members and they take some very difficult and long walks some days and occasionally camp overnight.
The ages range from early sixties to middle eighties and the sexes are equally represented.

Teddy was already pretty well equipped for hiking but because the weather can turn from warm to wintry blizzard very quickly up in the ranges he needed some new wet weather pants. He shopped for these on his own and arrived home without having tried them on for size. When he did, the pants came up to just under his armpits. He looked like the bottom half of that old cartoon character the kids watched many years ago…Yogi Bear.

I suggested unless he wanted to get shot by the roaming hunters he would be more comfortable in a smaller size.

He is thoroughly enjoying the walking group. They have tramped across the high plains and admired wildflowers, wild herbs and various medicinal plants. A member who is a geologist has educated them about the rock formations. Some of the tracks they have taken are rough and steep and the longest so far has been the trek of about fifteen kilometres across the face of Mount Buffalo. Here they marvelled as they stood in bright sunlight looking down at the valleys and the towns shrouded in a soft comforting blanket of fog like the fabled town of Brigadoon.

I haven’t been able to take part in these walks because of some physical problems I have but his absence has given me time to think about why they must find it so exhilarating. His pleasure when he returns home after seeing our part of the world from hidden places few people venture into is so evident. He describes the wildlife living in its natural environment as the birds flit around them and the animal eye them curiously as they wonder who these interlopers are in their bushland domain.
His muscles do ache afterwards, the rocks are hard and the tracks can be steep and slippery, but the discomfort is worth the pleasure.

It is a mixed group. Some have spent their lives in offices and suburban life until they decided to enjoy a ‘tree change’ or as they say in England a ‘move to the country’. Some of the women have spent their decades moving the dust about in their homes as they looked after families and perhaps, for almost a lifetime swallowed the need for adventure behind their domestic façade. One man was a sailor, others were farmers. Each has their reason to escape to the pristine and natural world to perhaps experience something no one else has seen. Perhaps they can find an uncut gem glistening in a stream, or a speck of gold or a small relic from a settler’s hut. Perhaps it is to breathe the fresh air and leave their worries behind.
At our age we are often faced with the loss of friends and family through illness. We watch them fade away while we silently feel relief it is not us that has developed dementia, heart disease, cancer or whatever else is taking them from us. We know our time is coming and we never know when the time will come that we will recognize that peculiar expression of sympathy and relief as people look at us. All too often, we have seen how suddenly it can arrive.

Teddy and the motley group I have dubbed the ‘Burke and Wills mob’
(hence the bit of history at the beginning) are making use of their good health and doing things that some people think is risky and silly. Seeing things in their own environment that may, if a decision about global warming is not made soon, will fade away along with our generation.

As we watch friends we have loved for a lifetime pass through the final stage of life we sometimes see people who have led the sort of lives we read of in novels and expect the ending to be happy and complete the story satisfactorily. Often however, the novels have a badly constructed and poorly planned ending which leave the reader dissatisfied.

So I think it must be for some people as they look back through the years.
Old school friends and family we have passed through the decades with face the changes and difficulties of later decades lacking hobbies, without any meaningful interaction with their communities and feel discarded by families. Some seem to retire to become professional sick people. It is very easy to allow our physical ailments to become the focus of our lives and conversation.

We all need a reason to wake up in the morning and to face each day. It is the families, the friends, the volunteering, the gardens, the pets, the hobbies, the interest or participation in sports and the little pleasures which will make these final years worth while.

We recently lost someone who was a driven character rather like J. O’Hara Burke. He gave up all his interests and hobbies for his work. He was filled by a towering ambition to succeed.

This didn’t save him from being forcibly retired by redundancy when the company he worked for relocated overseas. He felt he had ‘been thrown on the rubbish heap of life’ as he said.

I wonder during his working life if he hadn’t driven himself with that overpowering ambition and had stopped to walk awhile in the bush and see the wonders it contains, or if he had volunteered his services to a worthy cause, or taken time to admire and grow a garden he may have lived much long, seen life a little differently, spent his days more quietly and trodden the earth more softly?

We’ll never know now but it is something for the younger generations to contemplate and those nearing retirement to think on deeply. Don’t be a ‘Burke’ with your life.
There is a poem I remember learning as a child which I still like to have on my wall.
May you read it and reflect.

Cheers, Cynthia.
W. H. Davies
Leisure
WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
( I always like to add)
No time to greet the friends we meet
When passing on the busy street.

A Letter From The Other Side, (Mates) 2011, No 7

Mates.



Someone seeing the two chairs on our back veranda may have assumed that I had been sorting clothing ready for the recycling depot. As they approached they would have heard voices coming from each scruffy pile. The voices were those of Teddy and his Irish friend Hughie returned from a morning’s fishing, or at least dangling their lines in the river.
Despite their protests they were about as welcome inside the house and seated at the kitchen table as any dog would be after recently rolling in a steaming, fresh cow pat.
This is why they sat outside in the fresh air.

Protruding from each pile was a hand holding a bottle of beer and the discussion that was proceeding in a desultorily way was about the beer and its merits and whether it came up to the heights of the previous batch of home-brew and its comparison with the batch before that one. Judging by the number of bottles decorating the path around their feet, it needed quite a lot of sampling to be made before a judgment was to be reached.

Eventually the subject turned to the activities of a small spider about the size of a twenty cent piece which was making its way up one of the veranda posts and bets were laid and estimates made about the length of time it would take the spider to reach the top of the post.

It was the ideal occupation for the afternoon because both of them were well beyond doing anything which required greater exercise. Hughie was gradually seeping further down into his clothing and was slowly assuming the look of a friendly Cane toad which had somehow managed to grow a tousled crest of grey hair.

As the spider wandered upward oblivious to the interest of the inebriated humans watching, I heard Teddy say.

‘I feel a bit bad taking the bet Hughie because your eyesight isn’t as good as mine and I will be able to see when the first front leg gets to the top more easily that you can.’

‘Hhmm’ Hughie agree, ‘but my hearing is much better than yours, so I’ll be able to hear its first footfall more easily than you can mate.’

‘True, true’ agreed Teddy ‘Well that’s settled then.’

They sat in companionable silence until the spider inconsiderately decided it would circumnavigate the pole and begin going back down the post.

‘Stupid thing. It must be a woman changing its mind like that,’ muttered Hughie.

‘Yep, nothing quite like the female of a species to alter its mind.’ agreed Teddy.

All was quiet once again as they contemplated the fickleness of the female spider making its way slowly toward the ground.

Evidently her actions reminded Hughie of something which had occurred to him last week.

‘You know that woman called Sonia Hepall?’

‘No can’t say I do’ replied Teddy.

‘ Doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you anyway and you’ll know to keep away from her.’

‘Sounds an ominous woman’

‘She’s deadly, I’ll tell you.’ Hughie sank a little lower in the chair.

‘I met her coming out of Bingo last week and offered her a lift home. It was coming on dark and she has always been pleasant enough. She accepted the lift and we set off for her place.
We were getting along fine until she said to me that if I turned left at the next road it would be shorter.
I don’t know that area of the town very well and it was coming on evening as I say. Well I took the next left and all of a sudden the car felt as if the wheels were falling off and she began screaming hard enough to shatter me eardrums. ‘Stop, Stop Hughie’ she kept screaming at me and made me get even more panicky so by the time I got my wits about me, I was going down the second flight of steps before I realized I had turned left through into the park entrance instead of the laneway.’

‘Oooh that was a bit rough Hughie. What did you do?’ Teddy queried.

‘Well she was swearing and calling me every name she could muster up and I can tell you she had some in that lot of spiel I hadn’t even heard before. Telling me what a stupid bugger I was and doing a great job of imitating a banshee on steroids.
Naturally I pointed out it hadn’t been my entire fault because she had been the one to say ‘next left’ which meant she was at fault also. Well, that set her off even more!’

‘Not very conciliatory then?’ Teddy sympathised.

‘Bloody unreasonable I thought.’ replied Hughie. ‘She moves away from me now when we meet and won’t speak to me at all. Not that it worries me much now I’ve had a decco ( Aussie for seen) what she is like when she is upset.’

‘Not very understanding woman obviously’

‘No Teddy she isn’t. I suppose telling her to bugger off home didn’t help.’

‘Holds a grudge does she? A bit of a chip on her shoulder?’

“Oh, I think the grudge is too heavy to hold at this stage. Everywhere she goes I think you’ll see a lorry parked out the front with a Mountain Ash tree on its tray!
She hasn’t helped my reputation with the ladies at all. I catch them looking at me with weird expressions and eyeing me from over their tea cups as if they suddenly expect me to leap up and begin Morris dancing or take out a sabre and charge around the room.’

‘Oh they’ll get over it when some other bloke does something they think is silly. You know what the women are like.’ Teddy soothed. ‘How is your car?’

‘Huh, it sounds as if it has a few tin cans full of stones rattling about in it and I know it’s only my imagination, or maybe a trick of the light or something, but sometimes I seem to catch it wearing an expression of condemnation over what happened.’

‘Must be a female car.’ Teddy said in a knowledgeable manner.’Whatever goes wrong has to ultimately be your fault.You can’t escape their reasoning you know.’

‘You’re right mate, I hadn’t considered that ass…..as,’ his pronunciation faltered as he began another bottle and tried the word again. ‘Aspect.’




I left the house to go for a walk to reassure myself the rest of the word was still as I had left it and as close to being sane as it is possible, at least in our neighbourhood.

Cheers Cynthia.

http://elizabeththompsonmywrite.blogspot.com/

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia. 2011, No 6.

Dear Del,
It is hard to imagine how you must be feeling. To sit in the dark, with a barrier of surgical dressings between you and the world, your books, electronic media and the radio work which has been your life. The isolation must be shaking your foundations to the core.

I know you are not able to read this letter but I hope some kind soul will read it to you because during this stressful time you may like to hear of what is happening. I shall do my best to keep you up to date with news from our small part of the world and paint the pictures and characters with my words in such a way that your active imagination will enable you see it all happening as you listen.

It is autumn here as you know and the grey-green eucalypt and dark pine forested hills make a backdrop for the town where the streets and the valley are ablaze with every colour of claret, red and gold. It is also the season for the game the Gang-gang parrots play. It is called ‘drop the Liquid Amber seedpods on the dog’s heads’. They are a parrot which is grey and pink, rather like a Galah but larger and only their heads are a bright pink. When communicating, their voices sound like unoiled doors opening and closing and a tree with a dozen or more feasting on the seeds could be mistaken for a meeting of drunken town councillors.

Before dropping the pods which are about the size of large walnuts, they hold them in their claws the way children enjoy an ice-cream cone. When they are finished with them they aim the pod at anything passing underneath. The dogs pretend they don’t know what is happening and enjoy the fun until the aim becomes too good and they are hit in the eye or somewhere else they object to. They then wander away to sleep out of range and the birds fly off to find another accommodating mutt.
This time of the year is a feast of seeds and berries for all the birds and I’m sure despite the strong views held by many people concerning exotic trees being planted within the forested areas; the native birds have delighted with the northern hemisphere’s culinary additions to their diets.

The principal occupation and exercise for people at this time is the sweeping and blowing of autumn leaves into enormous piles ready to be heaved into mulch and compost bins.

Anyone mentioning within hearing of the most avid members of the gardening fraternity that compost as a subject really doesn’t hold their interest, would I think, receive the sort of look that is given to someone who has just committed the worst of social faux pars.

The type and design of the favoured compost bin is a topic which can fill an evening’s discussion. There are the rotating ones, the big traditional bin which has to be turned by hand, smaller neat lidded varieties and our favourite, the worm farm composting three story mansion.

We have five varieties of friendly worms munching their way through everything we place in there for them. They never complain about the cooking or the way it has been served.
I have read in a scientific journal that they are quite social creatures and if the amount of castings and the increase in the population of our mansion inhabitants is any guide, the article must be correct.
They make good neighbours in that despite their numbers they are extremely quiet, no carousing even when cake and biscuits have been served and they keep to themselves. They must have a very active life and produce enormous amounts of worm ‘juice’ which is great when diluted for seedlings or for using as foliage spray.
Where two or more people are gathered together outside shops, churches or just standing in the post office queue, you can guarantee the making of compost will become a hot topic. It may be avoided at funerals, although I doubt that the practical down to earth country people would consider it to be an entirely taboo subject.

Most good cooks have a recipe from great-grandmother’s cookbook for plum pudding or Christmas cake; likewise all keen gardeners have THE special recipe of great-grandfather’s compost making.
Compost is an essential part of any garden here because of the poor mountain soils.

A rather reclusive chap who lives in an old defunct pub took to making his compost in the pub’s cellar. He began in a small way because the cellar was damp, not well maintained and wasn’t much use for anything else. In fact if he doesn’t do some maintenance on the building soon, he may find the pub will descend into the cellar and he and his family will be living in a damp bungalow.

He is known to have the sort of temper that if the wind is right and he is hopping mad about something, he can be heard on the other side of the valley.
One quiet afternoon last week when even a sneeze from one of the genteel ladies of the retirement village would have disturbed the peace, he began yelling all sorts of retribution he planned for his children and down trodden wife.

This noise was disturbing his neighbour, a man who has spent his life chopping trees in the forest and hauling them to the timber mill and developed a great deal of muscle in that time. His size can block the light as he passes through most entrances. He is kind but generally a person not to be messed with.

His quiet afternoon in the garden was being spoiled by the twerp next door so he decided to try and cool the situation. He poked his head above the fence between their homes and asked what the trouble was all about.
‘Come and see.’ invited the pub dweller. ‘Come and see what those brats of ours have done in the cellar. They’ve only taken some dishes down there and smashed them all over the place. Wait till I get hold of the little bugger’s this time.’ He threatened.
The neighbour followed the irate chap down the rickety ladder into the dimness of the cellar. He could see round white objects scattered across one section of a bench. He lifted one up and put it to his face.
‘You stupid melon headed idiot,’ he said slowly. ‘Why don’t you check your facts before you start abusing the poor kids? Here smell this’ He held the white object out toward the other man.
“Oh…..Oh yeah.’ He sniffed at it. ‘I forgot I had tried out some mushrooms down here to see if they would grow. They’ve done alright haven’t they?’ He wheedled.
The neighbour tossed it at him and hauled himself back up into the light.
‘Stupid bastard’ he called back over his shoulder.’ I wish they had been toadstools ya’ silly fool.’
The poor little wife smiled at him gratefully as he passed her. He wiggled an eyebrow as he muttered. ‘Should shut him up for a while, love.’



My letter has been a long time dawdling its way to you because my computer had some kind of seizure and needed to be taken away by our little I.T man. I have to admit every time I see him I come over all motherly and want to keep him here and place him on an extended diet of boarding school stodge.
To be without the computer for so long left us quite a lot of time to redesign the vegetable garden.

This is now completed and we have the bad backs to prove it.
One day after a few hard hours of work we were slouching about on our couches enjoying the luxury of a job well done and reading our books.
I became aware of the dogs becoming restive and looked up to see an extremely large tourist bus sitting on its haunches outside our front fence.
It loomed over our garden as the flashing of camera’s twinkled through the windows the length of the vehicle. One woman even left the bus to lean across the fence to get a better angle of our Honey Locust and the Golden Ash.
We had been warned our street was on the tourist route during autumn but of course had forgotten.

The blinds will be closed a little more until the end of the season because I’m not keen to be caught by people taking photographs as I lie on the floor trying to exercise my spine back into its allotted place.

Many of our businesses rely on the tourists and that is fine by us because I think quite a lot of these people need to see the country where the sheep, cattle and other assorted animals can be viewed with their coats in place and not just when they have been undressed, had their insides scooped out and what is left of them is on display in neat little plastic wrapped trays on the supermarket shelves.
I had better go out and rake more leaves for the worms with our new rake which is quite wide. In fact I had great trouble carrying it back to the car and nearly collected a small group of children who were floating about loose on the pavement.
The leaves will soon be gone and we can expect the snow and the skiers to arrive.

I shall be interested to hear all the anecdotes you have heard while being in hospital. The place must be seething with them.
Your flower child friend,
Cynthia.

Visitors And Fish

By

Elizabeth M Thompson

The tourists, with the exception of a few wandering elderly citizens and grey nomads, had mostly left the village. The inhabitants could once again find parking where they wished, jay walk across the empty streets and saunter the isles of the shops. Even stopping for a chat here and there along the paths became possible once more without fear of being trampled by children or their parents as they barrelled along seemingly oblivious to where their feet were taking them.

During the summer, so many visitors appeared to wander along with their eyes permanently fixed on the hills surrounding the town.

Even the one-way street signs were once again being observed by the majority of motorists. The gentleman who lived at the end of Helen’s road and drove a large Mercedes on a restricted license was perhaps one exception, as were a few cyclists who held the opinion they were allowed to ignore road signs and knock over elderly ladies at will.

As usual, many of the locals had entertained visitors to their homes and for most this was an added pleasure, which living in such a picturesque place brought.

However Helen had learned it could be anything but a delightful experience.

While overseas during the southern winter, she had met a couple from Europe who expressed the urge to take part in an adventure holiday. She is of a generous and hospitable nature but confessed to her friend Del, as they sat chatting over a cup of coffee, that after having had time to reflect, she was most probably also under the influence of a very good red wine when she issued them an open invitation to come and stay with her.

She discovered to her chagrin that meeting and getting along with people in a hotel, could be a very different experience to having them under one’s roof.

The complaints began soon after their arrival. How untidy the bushland looked, how noisy the birds were, how the shops didn’t stock the right sort of food. She noted however they didn’t offer to do any cooking.

When faced with the reality of going into the wilder areas of the mountains, the idea of visiting such remote places where there were few people and little emergency help appeared to frighten the life out of them. It was patently obvious to her that any idea of an adventure trip could be completely thrown out of her ideas pool.

She could understand the culture shock someone who had spent their whole life in a large city could suffer when confronted with Australia’s great outdoors. Many possibly found them greater and less inviting in reality than on film.

For instance the wildlife all around had certainly not been trained to think it should stay well away from tourists. So when a brown snake about a metre and half long sidled past as they strolled along a bush track, the terrified couple refused to venture out again unless they were shielded in a vehicle. The snake Helen assured Del was going about its business entirely oblivious to the panicking couple. She surmised it had probably already enjoyed a meal and was simply trying find a warm spot in which it could take its afternoon nap.

Her temper began to really unravel when the complaints became more personal and hurtful.

She had grown up in her large rambling home. The house grew each time her family grew and her father built it section by section. She admitted that the plumbing had never really been changed and it was known to have idiosyncrasies which took some time getting used to. It could on occasion make a body feel as if it was a lobster about to be boiled or a pack of peas being deep frozen. They complained bitterly of these occasional spasms.

The neighbours came to visit. Being ordinary not very well educated folk with less than perfect grammar but possessing hearts of marshmallow, they tried to welcome her guests to their home for a traditional barbeque. The offer was met with disdain and the conversation gradually petered out.

It was about this time she remembered an old saying of her mother’s. One she had never fully understood until now.

Following each of the dreaded visits by her father’s unruly and enormous family, her mother would survey her usually neat and dusted living rooms which had been left by the guests looking as if they had been refurbished by an army of wombats, and mutter quietly.

Outside, her eyes would harden as she gazed at her carefully tended garden, now beaten by children who had thrashed about with cricket bats and flattened the herbaceous borders while searching for lost balls. The muttering would become audible and voiced with great emotion. ‘After a week, visitors and fish begin to smell the same.’

Helen’s patience had dried up along with her housekeeping money. With nerves twanging she watched them do as they had done each morning while drinking coffee through pursed lips. The cups would hover in the air and they would look into the liquid as if suspecting her of adding a pinch of foxglove or hemlock to the coffee beans. It was she had mused, not an unwelcome idea to her.

The days dragged on a little longer while she racked her brain trying to make the signals plain it was time they moved on……..preferably a long way on.

She decided to ask them to leave. It seemed the only sensible solution. It was after all, her own fault they were there at all.

Full of resolve, she planned to give them a pleasant day and after they returned home ask them to depart, begone, farewell, whichever word sprang to her lips first or if her resolve dissolved and she became the vacillating coward she now believed herself to be, think of a sick relative she needed to visit, without delay.

They left after breakfast for a local deer farm with magnificent gardens, views and a top class restaurant. A few miles out of town they passed an elderly gentleman walking along the rough gravel side of the bitumen road. He was a well known old ‘Bushy’ and lived in a shack in the hills. His plumbing for all anyone knew was non-existent and he was best conversed with upwind and from a distance. He shared his shack with his dogs and they probably shared their fleas with him. But he was known to be a dear old gentleman who had lived a very hard life.

It had been a particularly trying few days for Helen. The stifling heat made the effort to cook appetizing meals irksome and she swigged at her indigestion medication while she tossed salads and sizzled steaks; poking them savagely and too often in an attempt to ease her frustrations.

As they passed the old chap a brilliant idea occurred to her. She pulled up quickly, throwing her shocked backseat passengers forward in their seat belts with a jolt. While her guests straightened their hair and clothing she executed a quick three point turn and drove back to the stoic figure as he steadily crunched along the gravel in boots which seemed to be ill-fitting and filthy.

“Hello Arthur’ she called, hoping her bright manner would give her a positive response, ‘would you like a lift this morning, I see you are limping a little?’

A lift was a rare treat for Arthur because most people knew it took a good week and a can of air freshener and insect repellent to rid the inside of a car with the evidence of his presence.

His cracked lips spread out under about five days of bristle on his leathery face. The few yellow teeth he had left went up and down with pleasure.

“Would I Helen? You’re an angel, you bet I would!” He opened the back door, smiled happily at the appalled couple sitting in the rear. ‘Well, move over.’ he grinned at them, breathing heavily in his haste to make himself comfortable and filled the car with his special aroma.

They moved over, pressing against one another as they tried to avoid making any actual physical contact with Arthur. Helen observing their reactions in her rear vision mirror surmised with satisfaction that they appeared not to have entertained anyone like him in their vehicle at home.

The following day after much frantic repacking of their immaculate clothing into their immaculate and expensive suitcases they made very insincere farewells to her and she expressed the most insincere disappointment at the thought of them leaving.

After telling Del her tale she giggled girlishly, “I must take Arthur some scones next week, and wrap up some bones for his dogs.’

Del, smiled and suspected Helen hadn’t done very much for the tourist trade but felt it wouldn’t weigh on her conscience very much either.

THE END.

King Parrots Feast on the Chinese Pistachio

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia 2011 No 4

Dear Del,


You will remember that Teddy has been making an Inuit canoe.

He has kept it as close as he could to the original design. No screws, just wood, string and instead of animal hide, he used an old canvas painting drop-sheet bought in 1976 which like many things in his shed was kept because it might come in handy one day. Well with the advent of the canoe, the day arrived.

He experienced a few minor setbacks of his own making along the way.

Eager to demonstrate it to one of our neighbours he put it onto the grassed area outside his shed and stepped in and sat down. A sharp cracking noise came from one of the wooden ribs so that had to be repaired. Then in another rush of enthusiasm he demonstrated the repaired canoe to our son-in-law and flung the paddle too vigorously during the display. It broke in half.
Another delay while a new paddle was shaped amid yet more wood shavings which seemed to blow, walk and creep their way across the verandas, lawn and into the house, infest his socks, the carpet and eventually the washing.
I hoped by the third demonstration he would remember it was actually being made to go into water.

At last the launching day came and with much care the Titanic as I had unimaginatively named it was ready to be launched onto the large and deep lake a few kilometres from home.
It was still the busy tourist season and so the lake was swarming with holiday boats, jet skis, old fishing tinnies, and all manner of floatable objects that would support children and the big grown up children more commonly called men and fathers.

Many of the boats arrived on bright shiny trailers, because they were expensive beautifully painted fibreglass or lovelingly cared for painted wooden sailing boats which would have originally made enormous holes in the sailors bank accounts and probably put a shiver up the spines of many accountants as they paled at the thought of justifying the gross expense their clients had indulged in.

Teddy turned up with his old painting drop sheet, wooden and string canoe and placed it on the waters edge.
Someone in the crowd noticed the ugly duckling sitting at the waters edge and soon the word passed around and a few dozen pairs of eyes watched with interest, bemusement and uncontrolled mirth as Teddy sat in the fragile structure and using a branch lying in the water pushed out.

To the amazement of the majority, Terry and his canoe floated and stayed upright. In fact as he pointed the bow at the wash from a larger boat which had passed him to get a better look, he flicked across the small wave without a problem.
He paddled his way out and across to where the mouth of the river which feeds the lake enters and received a shock as the change in temperature against his legs from the cold mountain water made it feel momentarily that he was, to quote him in seafaring terms, ‘taking on water’, or as I would have said, sprung a leak.

Not so, it was just the thinness of the drop sheet between the water and his legs allowing him to have such a quick reaction to the changing temperatures. His confidence grew which is never a good thing with Teddy, it makes him rash. I know, I have been married to him for forty seven years and rash and Teddy are a bad mix.

He paddled into faster water and forgot a basic rule of canoeing, he grabbed at a branch that was in the way. Naturally, this overbalanced him as the canoe kept going and he staid with the branch. Next thing he was upside down. Not a good way to be.

I had given him two choices while the canoe project was in progress he could take a course with the local canoe school or, he would find during one cold day, a large axe through the bowels of his project because I begun to use it for kindling. He knew I wasn’t kidding. We Aussie girls are not to be messed with. He took the course.

Now that he was upside down he realized the course had been a good idea because he did really need to be able to breath. He had practiced righting himself or getting out so that he could right the canoe.

He admitted later after he was washed and warm that the ‘Dad’s Army’ prase which became immortalized in our generation of ‘don’t panic! don’t panic’ came into his head.

After what seems a very long time he resurfaced, took a great gulp of air and recovered some of the objects which had been flung out of the canoe. The cricket hat which one of our boys wore for years and Teddy has worn ever since our son left home now lies at the bottom of the lake and I suspect during the next few months there will be further litter from his canoe which will join the hat.

He came back to his launching site, nonchalantly put the canoe back into the trailer and came home feeling he had done the sea faring blood which runs in his mothers side of the family proud.
The escapade did show up a few ‘minor adjustments’, another phrase I remember a bloke called Frank used a lot. The opening had to be enlarged to accommodate his body and long legs so that the next time he upends himself he doesn’t removed a layer of his shins as he abandons ship in a hurry.

Also, he has fixed a watertight jar to place a camera in so he can take a video of himself upending. This will be a great memento for me and the family if he doesn’t resurface at some time. Very thoughtful of him. Something we will play a lot.


The other thing is I have to rename it because it didn’t sink on its first voyage. Let me think on it for a while, there is the Marie Celeste or the Bounty, or The Bismarck. No nothing there. I’ll give it more thought. Maybe ‘The Ugly Duckling’, at least it floats.

Of course his sons and son-in-law are thrilled to be told he is going to make a second canoe so they can go with him when they visit.

I wonder how long it will be before we see any of them? It could be quite a while and most probably during very bad canoeing weather.

He mentioned he might take it down to the beach when we visit them. ‘After all, the Inuit’s built them as sea fairing craft’. He said.

I won’t write what I said, but the gist of it was NO!

As my neighbour remarked when we watched him disappear around the corner dragging the canoe on a set of wheels he has made to allow him to take it to the river nearby, 'He's not quite like the rest of us is he?'

'No' I replied 'no, never has been really.'

I need to do a little gardening therapy but before I go, a quote from ’The Little Book of Crap

Advice’ by Michael Powell ‘Experience is something you don’t get until AFTER you need it!’

Cheers for now ‘your flower child’ friend,

Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia 2011 No3.




Dear Del,

After all the rain and humidity Teddy has just finished following the lawnmower around once more. No self respecting groundsman would ever call the assortment of clover, grasses and various unspecified weeds we have a lawn but when they are all cut to the same height they can masquerade as a lawn for a few days. This summer we have had little respite from the constant mowing. There has been none of the usual browning off and arid appearance of most years. Instead every four days or so the green mown areas have become a ragged tangled assortment of plants looking as scruffy as Walter, our long haired spaniel, does after he has spent an afternoon rambling in a paddock.


Since we have been back, Teddy has become especially keen to keep our place looking neat and even to go so far as to remember to trim the edges of the grass and beds after each cutting. Quite a new innovation for him.


Ours is a tidy town………. ask anyone who lives or visits here.
The Shire council and the citizens are proud of this fact and work hard to maintain the public gardens, walkways, bike trails and anywhere within the boundaries that people like to stray. There is not a trace of graffiti in sight and no local youth would risk their personal reputation or that of their parents by daubing anything mindless about.


The citizens are equally fastidious and woe betides anyone who shows an inclination to allow their garden or lawn to resemble a grassy meadow or a miniature jungle.
Many visitors murmur vaguely of their love for gardens as they enjoy the green and colourful displays each season brings and express the wish that they too could retire to live in such a lovely place. They need to be aware that to actually move here may come at the price of missing out on a game or two of golf or perhaps giving up the afternoon naps lounging about in front of the television during daylight hours.

It is frowned upon to become complacent about the appearance of milk thistles, uncontrolled ivy and any other plants considered a pest in this region and should a person be so negligent as to allow them to multiply, it will bring the wrath of their neighbours upon them.
Many of our visitors are young sportspeople, cyclists, skiing enthusiasts, long distance runners etc and not really interested in horticultural matters. Some learn of the unwritten rules of behaviour very quickly and painfully if they ignore the obvious pride and floral artistry which is on show all around them.

Not far away from us lives a gentleman I have always privately called Mr Rottweiler. He is a short, stocky gentleman with a square face, square glasses with thick lenses and a large overbite to his square jaw. I have always found him pleasant to converse with and during the singing of the carols last Christmas admired his clear bass voice.

It seems I was quite accurate with my nickname for him because he was telling Teddy of his fury one morning not long ago when a cyclist peddled past him as he was putting the finishing touches to the large grassed nature-strip in front of his home.

The cyclist appeared to be having problems with something on his bicycle and in his attempts to fix the problem he freed up his hands by throwing a half filled aluminium can of drink onto Mr Rottweiler’s newly cut grass. The can landed right on Mr Rottweiler’s left boot. Without thinking about the size of the cyclist, the fact he was about thirty years his junior and could possibly do him some pretty bruising harm, Mr Rottweiler bent down, picked up the can containing what was left of the contents and threw it back. He is obviously not only a one man vigilante ranger against litter, but could also qualify as a candidate as a pitcher for the local baseball team because he hit the cyclist on his right shoulder. It made a satisfying thud and the cyclist made an even more satisfying yelp of pain.

The surprised cyclist looked behind him, yelled some abuse as he turned around and peddled back to the seething elderly gentleman who was now hopping about with anger with his grass rake at the ready in his hands.
‘What did you do that for you silly old bugger? You could have hurt me!’
‘Well!’ barked back our canine look-alike friend, bouncing a little higher in his agitation. ‘Come here,’ he challenged ‘and I’ll finish the job!’

We suspect the cyclist rode off thinking what a mad lot of old fogies live in these parts and enjoyed the telling of the tale over dinner that evening about the grandad who had the effrontery to challenge him to a fight

So I guess the lesson here is that appearance may not always be deceiving when we assume something about someone and also I would ask you Del, if you know anyone who loves this place and would dearly wish to live here, warn them they must also be prepared to love their gardens and be ready to keep them in a certain state of neatness. Especially if they buy a home near Mr Rottweiler’s end of town.

From your particularly neat, garden happy ‘flower child’ friend,
Cynthia

A New Year. A New Adventure,
Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia No 1 2011


Dear Del,
To begin my first letter of 2011 after such a tumultuous start to our country’s year is difficult. Where does one begin?

Should it start with the torrential tropical rains and humidity which reached thousands of kilometres to the south bringing enormous butterflies and a few birds we rarely see? Then as people raised their periscopes to view a land which at this time of year should be waving fields of golden grain, green orchards laden with fruit, bananas, mangoes and busy tourist towns full of gallivanting and frolicking tourists, the periscopes instead showed them a very different view.

The raging floods eventually covered a part of Queensland an area the size of Germany and France. For Queensland, that is not such a large chunk of their total land area but to those affected and the rest of the nation, it is a very vital area because it contains the beautiful city of Brisbane and the food bowl of the Lockyer Valley.

We have heard and seen the stories of tragedy and sudden death, the heroism of ordinary people; such as the man who stood on a railway bridge and caught a woman being washed down the river as she balanced precariously on her car’s roof. She jumped into his arms and he ran from the bridge before it was washed away. His reaction wasn’t to brag of his bravery but sorrow at not being able to save her husband.

There were the helicopter pilots who risked their lives flying at night amid live electricity wires as they used torches or any light available to rescue forty-two people from their roofs.
There was an elderly fellow who saw the plight of some thoroughbred horses and cattle frantically swimming and trying to gain a footing onto a tiled homestead roof. He took his small dingy out into the torrent to bring the injured and terrified animals to safety. He and the owner of the animals had never met before the flood, but are now firm friends.

People from safe areas gave homes to animals from pet shelters and to those who were at risk in their own home or paddocks.
Strangers helped strangers, giving beds and food to those whose homes had been swept away or made uninhabitable.

As the flood subsided, leaving many thousands of kilometres of roads damaged, bridges wrecked, coal mines flooded and industries large and small ruined…who amongst us will forget the sight of the riverside restaurant floating down the river and being crushed by the bridge, taking with it the sixty thousand dollar grand piano to the bottom?

Amongst the tragedy there was the humour of people standing in a metre of filth in their front gardens remarking about it being the first time they had experienced waterside views.

As soon as it was possible, an army of people arrived equipped with shovels, trucks, anything that may be useful to help remove the stinking poisonous silt lying in a thick layer over everything. They came by canoe, bicycle, bus, even surf boards. Bakers brought free bread; others brought freshly prepared food from their own kitchens if they were lucky enough to have power. The local politicians rolled up their sleeves and got to work, carrying sandbags giving a hand where they could. People did anything they could to enable them to assists the massive effort which will be needed to put some semblance of normality back into their towns and city.

Where does one begin? As one man said, ‘Just get stuck in mate and work.’ said another.
The army moved in to help and a navy mine sweeper is working in Morton Bay, which is a marine sanctuary, trying to locate hazards such as trucks, shipping containers, sunken yachts and enormous amounts of household goods.

Queensland isn’t the only state to have suffered this year. Western Australia also experienced vast floods, taking peoples homes, stock and livelihoods and in the south others suffered the scourge of our southern summers and lost their homes in bushfires.

Here in Victoria, our valley has been beset by a mould which has devastated the ten million dollar chestnut harvest and in other places locusts moved methodically devouring the first few green tinges of the best crops farmers had grown after eleven years of drought.

Now, following heavy rain in Victoria, there is a stinking black sea of water fifty kilometres wide and ninety kilometres long sweeping across the flat plains of the west, taking everything before it.
The smell from rotting vegetation, dead stock and wildlife can be smelt by the journalists as they fly over to make their reports. To walk or venture into this thick foul liquid is taking your life in your hands because of its toxicity.

Today, it is forty-one degrees Celsius and it will help to dry some of it up but the land will remain waterlogged and possibly toxic for a long time. Organic farmers will be devastated. The rivers will run with the toxic water for a long time resulting in the death of millions of aquatic creatures and give mosquitoes the opportunity to breed in clouds, potentially carrying disease such as Ross River virus.

As I write this letter, there is the biggest cyclone Australia has ever experienced bearing down on one thousand kilometres of Northern Queensland’s coast. It is expected to affect an enormous area inland as far as Broken Hill. The storm surge alone is expected to be up to nine metres high is some low lying areas. All patients in the hospitals in Cairns are being evacuated south and a large proportion of the population of the state has been told to move to safety while they can. Children have been evacuated south and once again people are trying to save animals. Everyone is battening down and waiting to see what Yasi, as the cyclone is named, is brewing up for them. Airports will be closed and emergency teams and volunteers are being prepared all over the country. It is too late for people to make the decision to move out now.
As their courageous and stoic state premier Anna Bligh said yesterday, ‘We are in for a terrifying twenty hours. Someone seems to have a grudge against us this year.’

A tourist remarked to one journalist that, ‘It seemed kind of exciting to stay’ I have a feeling if she survives, she will not want to be so excited again.

One sensible lady was roasting a leg of lamb while she still had the power and time to do it.
It’s a harsh land we live in and to add salt into the wounds, those rotten Poms took the ashes from us! There’s no justice at times is there?

I have to grudgingly admit they have been very generous with their donations to the flood relief and I was amazed the Brisbane grounds actually dried out enough for them to play a match there.

I also think that if the selectors; using the revolving door policy they seem to have adopted with their team selections, had chosen eleven grandmothers from a few local retirement villages, the old girls couldn’t have played any more ineffectually than our team did at times.
I might try out for wicket keeper next year. Not much gets past me.

I’ll be in touch after Yasi, passes through and we have all stopped worrying about and for the people of Queensland.
Keep the shutters down, during the heat,

Your wilting ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.

A New Year. 2011

Letter From The Other Side; from Cynthia No 2 2011.

Dear Del,

I think if this time last year anyone had expressed the opinion that they were tired of constant rain, someone would have grabbed them in a headlock and dragged them to a suitable place to be lynched. These aggressive actions would have perhaps attracted a cheering crowd to watch the unfortunate person’s discomfort.
I would have been front and centre at the spectacle with my knitting to maintain the best traditions of bygone days.
But I think today after yet more flooding, anyone could feel free to voice the words loudly while standing among the biggest crowd without being throttled by any irate farmer.

The tourists, with the exception of a few wandering elderly citizens and grey nomads, have mostly left the village and we can once again find parking where we wish and walk the isles of the shops without fear of being trampled by children or their parents, oblivious to where their feet are taking them as they stroll along peering up at the hills. Even the one-way street signs are once again being observed by the majority of the motorists. The gentleman who lives at the end of our road and drives a large Mercedes and is on a restricted license is the one exception, as are a few cyclists who think they can ignore road signs and knock over elderly ladies at will.

At one stage during the summer we were inundated by three thousand Lycra clad cyclists who spread themselves out over the countryside in swarms, clogging the roads and weaving into the motorist’s lanes without a care in the world as they sweated up the mountain roads in pursuit of being first to the top. There must have been a very good prize to encourage them to make the struggle and lose so many litres of fluid.

Many of us entertained visitors to our homes and for most this was an added pleasure which living in such a picturesque place brings.

To one of our friends it became anything but a delightful experience.

While overseas recently during the southern winter, Helen met a couple from Europe who expressed the urge to take part in an adventure holiday.
She is of a generous and hospitable nature but feels now, when she has had time to reflect, was most probably also under the influence of a very good red wine as she issued them an open invitation to come and stay with her.

She discovered to her chagrin that meeting and getting along with people in a hotel, is a very different experience to having them under one’s roof.

The complaints began soon after their arrival. How untidy our bushland looked, how noisy the birds were, how the shops didn’t stock the right sort of food. When faced with the reality of going into the wilder areas the idea of visiting such remote places where there were few people and little emergency help appeared to frighten the life out of them. It was patently obvious to Helen any idea of an adventure trip could be completely thrown out of the ideas pool.

She could understand the culture shock people who had spent their lives in a large city would find when confronted with our great outdoors. Many find them greater and less inviting in reality than on film.

The wildlife is all around us and certainly not trained to think it should stay away from tourists. So when a brown snake about a metre and half long sidled past as they strolled along a bush track, they refused to venture out again unless they were shielded in a vehicle. The snake Helen assures me was going about its business entirely oblivious to the panicking couple. It had probably already enjoyed a meal and was simply trying find a warm spot in which it could take its afternoon nap.

Her temper began to really unravel when the complaints became more personal and hurtful.

She grew up in the large rambling house she lives in. The house grew each time her family grew and her father built it section by section. She admits that the plumbing has never been changed and is known to have idiosyncrasies which can take time to get used to. I can on occasion make a body feel as if it is a lobster about to be boiled or a pack of peas being deep frozen They complained bitterly about these occasional spasms.

The neighbours came to visit and being ordinary not very well educated folk but possessing hearts of marshmallow, tried to welcome Helen’s guests to their home for a traditional barbecue. The offer was met with disdain and the conversation gradually petered out.
It was about this time she remembered an old saying of her mothers. One she had never really understood until now.

Following each of the dreaded visits by her father's unruly and enormous family, her mother would survey her usually neat and dusted living rooms which had been left by the guests looking as if they had been refurbished by an army of wombats. She would mutter quietly.

Outside her eyes would harden as she gazed at her carefully tended garden, now beaten by children who had thrashed about with cricket bats and flattened the herbaceous borders while searching for lost balls. The muttering would become audible and voiced with great emotion.
'After a week, visitors and fish begin to smell the same.'

Helen's patience had dried up along with her housekeeping money.

With nerves twanging, she watched them do as they had done each morning while drinking coffee through pursed lips. The cups would hover in the air and they would look back into the liquid as if suspecting her of adding a pitch of foxglove or hemlock to the coffee beans. It was she had mused not an unwelcome idea.



The days dragged on a little longer while she racked her brain trying to make the signals plain it was time they moved on.....preferably a long way on.

She decided to ask them to leave. It seemed the only sensible thing to do. It was after all, her own fault they were there at all.

Full of resolve, she planned to give them a pleasant day and after they returned home as them to depart, bbegone, farewell, whichever word sprang into her head first or, if her resolve dissolved and she became the vacillating coward she now believed herself to be, think of a sick relative she needed to visit, without delay.


They left after breakfast to visit a local deer farm which boasts magnificent gardens, views and a top class restaurant.
A few miles out of town, they passed an elderly gentleman walking on the rough gravel. He is an old ‘Bushy’ and lives in a shack in the hills. Quite illegally of course because it is Crown land, but no-one worries about that. His plumbing for all anyone knows is non-existent and he is best conversed with upwind and from a distance. He shares his shack with his dogs and they probably share their fleas with him. But he is known to be a dear old gentleman who has lived a very hard life.
It had been a particularly trying few days for Helen. The stifling heat made the effort to cook appetizing meals irksome and she swigged at her indigestion medication while she tossed salads and sizzled steaks; poking them savagely with a fork in an attempt to ease her frustrations.


A brilliant idea occurred to her as she passed the old chap. She pulled up quickly, throwing her shocked backseat passengers forward in their seat belts, executed a quick three point turn while they straightened their hair and clothes and drove back to the old fellow still steadily trudging along in boots which seemed to be ill-fitting and filthy.

“Hello Arthur’ she called, ‘Would you like a lift this morning, I see you are limping a little?’
A lift is a rare treat for Arthur because most people know it takes a good week and half a can of air freshener and insect repellent to rid the inside of ones car with the evidence of his presence.
His cracked lips spread out under about five days of bristle on his leathery face. The few yellow teeth he has left went up and down with pleasure.

“Would I Helen? You’re an angel, you bet I would!” He opened the back door, smiled happily at the appalled couple sitting in the rear, ‘Well, move over.’ he grinned at them, breathing heavily in his haste to make himself comfortable and filling the car with his special aroma.
They moved over, pressing against one another as they tried to avoid making any actual physical contact with Arthur. Helen surmised they had not entertained anyone like him in their vehicle at home.

The following day after much frantic repacking of their immaculate clothing into their immaculate and expensive suitcases they made very insincere farewells to her and she expressed the most insincere disappointment at the thought of them leaving.

As their bus rounded the corner out of sight she executed an impromptu Highland Fling.

After telling me her tales she giggled girlishly, “ I must take Arthur some scones next week, and wrap up some bones for his dogs.’

It’s soggy, but fun living in the country especially during the times we make our own simple fun.
I don’t suppose Helen has done very much for the tourist trade but I don’t think that will weigh on her conscience very much.

The mosquitoes are about in great swarms following the rain and humidity so keep yourself safe from the nasty things they may spit into your bloodstream Del,
I am smothered in citronella oil and lavender so I am very much

Your flower child friend,
Cynthia.