What a saga! Six weeks offline took me through fury, despair, insanity, and finally into deep resignation. At that point the problem was suddenly fixed, and now I am jubilant, ecstatic, excited, whole.
The first month was down to our server, Gotalk (yes I will name names!). We called in the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, the Gotalk Resolutions Team, our local member ... all to no avail. I'll spare you all the boring details of their dereliction of duty. They finally connected us on Feb 20th but didn't bother to tell us until we phoned yet again on 23rd. Then no-one could figure out why things weren't working our end. Finally a technician called in person to check things here - which had by then been checked many times by every other means - and, finding nothing wrong, went to the local exchange. As he thought, they had not yet got around to wiring us up, so he did that. In the process of which he found they had been going to connect us to a faulty wire – whenever they finally would have done it. So he changed that, and suddenly at 11.39 yesterday morning we were up and running. I told my writers' group in the afternoon that it was a measure of my great dedication to them that I actually showed up there instead of staying home to play on the net! As it was, Andrew and I were up till all hours catching up with voluminous correspondence. (Yes I have been able to use Neighbourhood Centre computers, but they are old and slow and much in demand, so it was very limited access.)
Whew! What a relief! Apart from feeling emotionally bereft without my online pals, it has been costing us a heap to use our landline instead of email, engin and Skype - not to mention the hours waiting in queues during the many calls to our server. Our bill jumped from an average of $80 per month to over $300 - and that's without downloads. Yes, we will be disputing it!
Well, there was one bonus from not being online. I'm now Secretary of the Neighbourhood Association, which involves sending files by email, amongst other things. When the Coordinator of the Neighbourhood Centre realised I didn't even have a flash drive (memory stick, for the uninitiated - of which I was one until recently) she arranged to get me one. 'There aren't many perks of your position,' she said, 'But this is one. We need our Secretary to have this piece of equipment.' And she got me one in a luvverly shade of magenta which of course matches everything I wear. It even has an attachment to clip onto my keyring. I feel flash all right!
Any'ow, apart from that we successfully moved, with much physical and financial help from loving friends and family. The new place is lovely! AND is lower rent. It has the same number of rooms but they are all smaller, so we have been doing a lot of what one pal calls de-materialising. The Op Shop has become used to us popping in every few days with yet another load of contributions. Nearly all the teddy bears have gone to bring joy to others, after all. The one I acquired first, which I actually bought new for myself some years ago – a very traditional, teddy-ish teddy – has been passed on to our new god-daughter, Flo, who was born 5 weeks early and is amazingly strong, present and calm, also beautiful. I have kept only the newest one, Snowy, who came from the same Op Shop a couple of months back ... partly because he was the smallest. (Also he is marked unsafe for children under 3 - but that's all right, I'm nearly 5.)
After the frantic effort to clean, pack and vacate the old place asap, we have been settling in here slowly - so no, there are no photos just yet. We're pretty right now, only a few more boxes of books to bring in from the garage. I devoutly hope to get them all on the shelves this weekend.
We have installed a cat door, which was not possible at the former home, and Levi and Freya love the new freedom. Like us, they seem to like the atmosphere in general much better than where we were.
I didn't want carpet but we have only a little, not at all offensive – and it's a Stainmaster! It's an easy-care sort of place, with a well-established native garden, also easy-care. There's a spacious patio area at the back, where we like to sit. Our neighbour is an artist about our vintage and a real sweetie with whom we discovered various friends in common. She has a boarder she's been trying to get rid of, who is apparently leaving soon, and her divorced son is staying with her until he finds a place. We like the son and don't warm to the boarder, but both blokes have been helpful in handyman ways during the move. We're even closer to the shops than we were. And we have now found the quickest and easiest way to get to the beach, after exploring all the other ways first. We love walking on the beach, and have been doing a lot of it.
Hope to catch up with everyone else's posts soonish.
Love and hugs to you all!
Showing posts with label LIFE AND LIVING. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LIFE AND LIVING. Show all posts
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The Move
Here we are bang in the middle of it, virtually camping in our present home, surrounded by chaos and increasing dust, as we fill boxes with glassware, knick-knacks, and books, books, books, books, books…. We have permission to stash stuff in the garage of the new home before actually moving in, which will save us a lot of money in removalist’s fees. Boxes from our two local liquor stores are particularly good for books, we’ve discovered – small but sturdy, designed for wine bottles, not too heavy for us oldies to lift and carry. Various good friends are coming and helping us pack. Some have done it a few times themselves, so they are very efficient by now at wrapping, taping and labelling. The removalist will only need to take actual furniture.
M from the WordsFlow group came Monday and Wednesday. She has some chronic condition to do with ligaments, which means that she can’t sit long in an ordinary chair and if she over-taxes herself in any way she suffers excruciating pain. She brought her portable recliner chair which travels on the roof rack of her car, and sat in that, wrapping glasses and ornaments and putting them in boxes as I handed them to her. Or she knelt on the floor, taking books from shelves and boxing them. She had the alarm set on her mobile phone so she knew when to stop and lie down flat for 10 minutes.
D, an old friend who is also in WordsFlow, came on Tuesday even though she’d given herself a painful back from overdoing things in her garden the day before. ‘I think I can still help a bit,’ she said, and sat at the dining table lovingly wrapping and packing our crystals. A friend of hers from the Back Pain Relief Association had travelled all the way from Brisbane that morning to give her a special device to stop her back from spasming. I am blown away by the selflessness of these friends.
On Sunday a friend with a van is coming over at 4pm to help transport whatever there is, paying forward the recent help she got from some other friends (not us) when she moved house. On Monday another friend with a van is coming. He is the guy who mows our lawns – as a favour, because he sees that we help people and so he helps us. He’ll be pleased with the new lawn: the proverbial pocket handkerchief!
A WordsFlow participant who works as a cleaner phoned and said she has to visit her Mum one day, but as soon as she knows what day suits her Mum, she’ll get back to us and work out which day she can help here.
Today our coven sister WhiteStar spent most of the day with us, packing books much faster than we could have managed and following us to the new place to help us unload at that end. WhiteStar was cheery company, and she was enthusiastic about the new place. She exclaimed over the lovely courtyard, the well-kept garden, the clean carpet (so different from what we’ve been putting up with here).
‘Feel that lovely sea breeze,’ she said and indeed it was beautiful. It feels like high summer here already; it feels like Bali. I’m sunburnt just from ducking out to the shops today, briefly, in a sarong. February will probably be stinking. That breeze will be very welcome! (Yes I know; sorry all you Northern Hemisphere people freezing in the snow.)
We’ve developed a pattern: get up and get to work on the packing, fill the car with boxes, take them over to the new place and unload, repeat. It’s great that it’s only a five-minute trip, no chore at all! We’ve been making two or three runs some days. Then we go for a late afternoon swim in the creek. We’re experiencing king tides all along this coast at present; the creek is high. It’s turquoise-blue and clear. Today we shared it with a stately pelican cruising past us like a yacht – until he suddenly flapped his wings, lifted slightly out of the water and then plunged his long neck under the surface. Sure enough he brought it up a few minute later and raised his head high in the air to gulp a fish down that great gullet. ‘Poor fish,’ said Andrew. ‘Lucky pelican,’ quoth I.
We also shared the water with a tiny yellow runabout which kept a safe distance from us, and with a young mother giving a swimming lesson to her little girl who was just past toddler-hood. The child was reluctant to get out again when it was time to go. So were we!
Although we can walk to the beach from the new place – in fact that’s the only way to get there – it turns out to be quite a hike over the dunes in soft sand that’s very hard to walk in. And once you get there, it’s quite a small stretch of beach: I can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. I think we’ll continue to drive to our favourite spot in the creek for a swim, and to our current nearest (vast) beach when we want to go walking by the ocean. That’s all right; it will take no longer than it does to drive there now.
The new place is the same number of rooms (except for the ensuite) but they are smaller in size. My huge desk has had to go, which my friend Leah bought me – good heavens, ten years ago! – in return for some transcribing work I did for her on the handwritten diaries she kept when she moved from Australia to Israel. We donated the desk, which was getting rather worn by now, to the op shop at the Neighbourhood Centre. Our four ancient armchairs went the same way, and so did a huge, I mean HUGE, toy dog which in a fit of madness I insisted Andrew buy me for my birthday. He was a blue heeler, almost the size of a person, and looked very convincing with his front legs propped up on something like the arm of a chair. ‘How can you bear to part with him?’ squealed a wizened little old lady working at the op shop. But we had our $20 worth of fun out of him and, as Andrew said, ‘It’ll bring some child joy.’ (He asked me what I planned to do with my teddy bear collection. After deliberating for some days I gave him the answer: ‘I’ve decided to keep them.’ Well there are only four – it’s just that they too are quite sizeable, even if nothing on the dog. I’m a child at heart!)
We’ve even managed to cull some clothes and some bedding, also some curtains we’ve been dragging around with us to four different places now without ever using them. The one thing we can’t cull, however, is of course the books. People ask why we don’t give them away when we’ve read them, and share the pleasure with others. Are they mad? Don’t they know about the pleasures of re-reading?
I was proud of myself for budgeting well for the move, and of both Andrew and me for finding cheaper removalists and carpet cleaners than the first ones we spoke to, thus saving ourselves a considerable amount. But things are not as cheap as they were last time we moved, five and a half years ago; we wound up short of some of the money we’ll need to pay out on Wednesday – the Big Day. I asked First Foster-Son and his wife if they could lend it to us, saying we could pay them back within two months. A message came, saying a late Christmas present is on the way, non-returnable, and we should take ourselves out to dinner once we’re moved and settled. Yes, it’s quite a lot more than we requested, and that would be a very slap-up dinner indeed! We’ll undoubtedly follow that excellent suggestion, and it will enable us to do some other things we’ve been desiring, too. New shoes for me, a book Andrew needs for a screenwriting course he’s just enrolled in, and so on and so on.
Life is good.
M from the WordsFlow group came Monday and Wednesday. She has some chronic condition to do with ligaments, which means that she can’t sit long in an ordinary chair and if she over-taxes herself in any way she suffers excruciating pain. She brought her portable recliner chair which travels on the roof rack of her car, and sat in that, wrapping glasses and ornaments and putting them in boxes as I handed them to her. Or she knelt on the floor, taking books from shelves and boxing them. She had the alarm set on her mobile phone so she knew when to stop and lie down flat for 10 minutes.
D, an old friend who is also in WordsFlow, came on Tuesday even though she’d given herself a painful back from overdoing things in her garden the day before. ‘I think I can still help a bit,’ she said, and sat at the dining table lovingly wrapping and packing our crystals. A friend of hers from the Back Pain Relief Association had travelled all the way from Brisbane that morning to give her a special device to stop her back from spasming. I am blown away by the selflessness of these friends.
On Sunday a friend with a van is coming over at 4pm to help transport whatever there is, paying forward the recent help she got from some other friends (not us) when she moved house. On Monday another friend with a van is coming. He is the guy who mows our lawns – as a favour, because he sees that we help people and so he helps us. He’ll be pleased with the new lawn: the proverbial pocket handkerchief!
A WordsFlow participant who works as a cleaner phoned and said she has to visit her Mum one day, but as soon as she knows what day suits her Mum, she’ll get back to us and work out which day she can help here.
Today our coven sister WhiteStar spent most of the day with us, packing books much faster than we could have managed and following us to the new place to help us unload at that end. WhiteStar was cheery company, and she was enthusiastic about the new place. She exclaimed over the lovely courtyard, the well-kept garden, the clean carpet (so different from what we’ve been putting up with here).
‘Feel that lovely sea breeze,’ she said and indeed it was beautiful. It feels like high summer here already; it feels like Bali. I’m sunburnt just from ducking out to the shops today, briefly, in a sarong. February will probably be stinking. That breeze will be very welcome! (Yes I know; sorry all you Northern Hemisphere people freezing in the snow.)
We’ve developed a pattern: get up and get to work on the packing, fill the car with boxes, take them over to the new place and unload, repeat. It’s great that it’s only a five-minute trip, no chore at all! We’ve been making two or three runs some days. Then we go for a late afternoon swim in the creek. We’re experiencing king tides all along this coast at present; the creek is high. It’s turquoise-blue and clear. Today we shared it with a stately pelican cruising past us like a yacht – until he suddenly flapped his wings, lifted slightly out of the water and then plunged his long neck under the surface. Sure enough he brought it up a few minute later and raised his head high in the air to gulp a fish down that great gullet. ‘Poor fish,’ said Andrew. ‘Lucky pelican,’ quoth I.
We also shared the water with a tiny yellow runabout which kept a safe distance from us, and with a young mother giving a swimming lesson to her little girl who was just past toddler-hood. The child was reluctant to get out again when it was time to go. So were we!
Although we can walk to the beach from the new place – in fact that’s the only way to get there – it turns out to be quite a hike over the dunes in soft sand that’s very hard to walk in. And once you get there, it’s quite a small stretch of beach: I can walk from one end to the other in 10 minutes. I think we’ll continue to drive to our favourite spot in the creek for a swim, and to our current nearest (vast) beach when we want to go walking by the ocean. That’s all right; it will take no longer than it does to drive there now.
The new place is the same number of rooms (except for the ensuite) but they are smaller in size. My huge desk has had to go, which my friend Leah bought me – good heavens, ten years ago! – in return for some transcribing work I did for her on the handwritten diaries she kept when she moved from Australia to Israel. We donated the desk, which was getting rather worn by now, to the op shop at the Neighbourhood Centre. Our four ancient armchairs went the same way, and so did a huge, I mean HUGE, toy dog which in a fit of madness I insisted Andrew buy me for my birthday. He was a blue heeler, almost the size of a person, and looked very convincing with his front legs propped up on something like the arm of a chair. ‘How can you bear to part with him?’ squealed a wizened little old lady working at the op shop. But we had our $20 worth of fun out of him and, as Andrew said, ‘It’ll bring some child joy.’ (He asked me what I planned to do with my teddy bear collection. After deliberating for some days I gave him the answer: ‘I’ve decided to keep them.’ Well there are only four – it’s just that they too are quite sizeable, even if nothing on the dog. I’m a child at heart!)
We’ve even managed to cull some clothes and some bedding, also some curtains we’ve been dragging around with us to four different places now without ever using them. The one thing we can’t cull, however, is of course the books. People ask why we don’t give them away when we’ve read them, and share the pleasure with others. Are they mad? Don’t they know about the pleasures of re-reading?
I was proud of myself for budgeting well for the move, and of both Andrew and me for finding cheaper removalists and carpet cleaners than the first ones we spoke to, thus saving ourselves a considerable amount. But things are not as cheap as they were last time we moved, five and a half years ago; we wound up short of some of the money we’ll need to pay out on Wednesday – the Big Day. I asked First Foster-Son and his wife if they could lend it to us, saying we could pay them back within two months. A message came, saying a late Christmas present is on the way, non-returnable, and we should take ourselves out to dinner once we’re moved and settled. Yes, it’s quite a lot more than we requested, and that would be a very slap-up dinner indeed! We’ll undoubtedly follow that excellent suggestion, and it will enable us to do some other things we’ve been desiring, too. New shoes for me, a book Andrew needs for a screenwriting course he’s just enrolled in, and so on and so on.
Life is good.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Moving House
Well, everything happened very fast! A week ago our landlord came round to give us notice, as he wants to move back in here himself. We were oddly un-bothered by this, even excited. He promised us a good reference – which he afterwards gave us – and even to help us move if necessary, to save our costs.
We put the word out to all our friends in this area, and one of them emailed us almost immediately about a place she’d found on the net which sounded perfect. It turned out to be for sale and we were told they could only offer us a 6-month lease, so we lost interest. We want to be assured of longer tenure than that!
We registered with the agents anyway, in case something else should come up that might suit. And we started looking at places listed with other agents, but couldn’t find anything suitable in our price range. Having cats is limiting, too; so many places stipulate no pets.
This morning the agent for the first house phoned and offered us a 12-month lease, telling us we were just the kind of tenants the owner was looking for. She pointed out, too, that any place we might get could later be put up for sale. So we went and had a look, loved it and said yes. We’ll move within the next two weeks.
It’s actually $20 cheaper in rent than where we are now, much closer to the beach – almost on top of it – and has air conditioning, which we haven’t had here. There’s also a big ceiling fan in the main bedroom. There are three bedrooms, same as here: one for us, one for visitors, and a consulting room / temple. The yard is much smaller, but adequate for the cats, and will need a lot less mowing and weeding. Here we have an ensuite and another big bathroom; the new place has only one bathroom – but that’s not a big deal.
It’s about the same distance by car as we are now from the shops, and from our favourite swimming spot in the creek. We’ll no longer have a local store that we can duck down to in five minutes on foot via the back lane, but again that’s not a very big deal and will be more than compensated for by being able to duck down the lane to the beach in even less time. I know where we’ll be going for our daily walks from now on!
So I don’t have to resign as Secretary of the Neighbourhood Association – a position I was appointed to just two months ago – and will have no trouble continuing as facilitator of the WordsFlow writing group, which meets at the Neighbourhood Centre every Friday during school terms. We’ll be able to keep going to our local doctor, who suits us very nicely. (We’re fussy about our doctors, so are most reluctant to leave one we approve of!) I can continue with my Tai Chi lessons at the Community Hall, consult the same physiotherapist, and keep buying from the excellent local butcher. We’ve built up a rapport with many of the local shopkeepers; we won’t have to start over. We’ll have exactly the same proximity to nearby towns we like to be connected with, and we’ll still be lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean.
We’ll leave to the landlord the rattling sun roof he never fixed, the cockroaches that came back after he failed to authorise a recommended follow-up to the first spraying, and the filthy carpet that he promised to replace as a condition of our moving in, but kept finding excuses not to for five and a half years. Every cleaner we got always said, ‘There’s not much we can do with this,’ and they were right. It looked good for only a short time before the underlying grime showed through again. It‘s just too darn old – and was obviously not a great carpet in the first place.
This morning I had a sudden fit of grieving, in reaction to the thought that there’s no point starting some replanting I’ve had in mind. When you live in a place so long, it gets to feel like yours; and we’ve been happy here. But that was before I saw the new place, which is certainly a great consolation!
We put the word out to all our friends in this area, and one of them emailed us almost immediately about a place she’d found on the net which sounded perfect. It turned out to be for sale and we were told they could only offer us a 6-month lease, so we lost interest. We want to be assured of longer tenure than that!
We registered with the agents anyway, in case something else should come up that might suit. And we started looking at places listed with other agents, but couldn’t find anything suitable in our price range. Having cats is limiting, too; so many places stipulate no pets.
This morning the agent for the first house phoned and offered us a 12-month lease, telling us we were just the kind of tenants the owner was looking for. She pointed out, too, that any place we might get could later be put up for sale. So we went and had a look, loved it and said yes. We’ll move within the next two weeks.
It’s actually $20 cheaper in rent than where we are now, much closer to the beach – almost on top of it – and has air conditioning, which we haven’t had here. There’s also a big ceiling fan in the main bedroom. There are three bedrooms, same as here: one for us, one for visitors, and a consulting room / temple. The yard is much smaller, but adequate for the cats, and will need a lot less mowing and weeding. Here we have an ensuite and another big bathroom; the new place has only one bathroom – but that’s not a big deal.
It’s about the same distance by car as we are now from the shops, and from our favourite swimming spot in the creek. We’ll no longer have a local store that we can duck down to in five minutes on foot via the back lane, but again that’s not a very big deal and will be more than compensated for by being able to duck down the lane to the beach in even less time. I know where we’ll be going for our daily walks from now on!
So I don’t have to resign as Secretary of the Neighbourhood Association – a position I was appointed to just two months ago – and will have no trouble continuing as facilitator of the WordsFlow writing group, which meets at the Neighbourhood Centre every Friday during school terms. We’ll be able to keep going to our local doctor, who suits us very nicely. (We’re fussy about our doctors, so are most reluctant to leave one we approve of!) I can continue with my Tai Chi lessons at the Community Hall, consult the same physiotherapist, and keep buying from the excellent local butcher. We’ve built up a rapport with many of the local shopkeepers; we won’t have to start over. We’ll have exactly the same proximity to nearby towns we like to be connected with, and we’ll still be lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean.
We’ll leave to the landlord the rattling sun roof he never fixed, the cockroaches that came back after he failed to authorise a recommended follow-up to the first spraying, and the filthy carpet that he promised to replace as a condition of our moving in, but kept finding excuses not to for five and a half years. Every cleaner we got always said, ‘There’s not much we can do with this,’ and they were right. It looked good for only a short time before the underlying grime showed through again. It‘s just too darn old – and was obviously not a great carpet in the first place.
This morning I had a sudden fit of grieving, in reaction to the thought that there’s no point starting some replanting I’ve had in mind. When you live in a place so long, it gets to feel like yours; and we’ve been happy here. But that was before I saw the new place, which is certainly a great consolation!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Getting Older - The Gift
You may have seen this before. A friend just forwarded it by email, which probably means it's been going the rounds a while. But I hadn't seen it before, and in many respects it speaks for me.
I hate those so-called jokes people send about getting decrepit, gross and stupid with age. They seem so negative and fearful. I could never explain why I didn't find them funny. Now I know – it was because I simply couldn't relate.
THIS is what MY experience of ageing has been like (and never mind about the hair – it was grey for ages before it went purple!):
Old Age, I decided, is a gift
I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometimes despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother/father!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.
I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?
I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love .. I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set .
They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.
Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.
So, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it.)
I hate those so-called jokes people send about getting decrepit, gross and stupid with age. They seem so negative and fearful. I could never explain why I didn't find them funny. Now I know – it was because I simply couldn't relate.
THIS is what MY experience of ageing has been like (and never mind about the hair – it was grey for ages before it went purple!):
Old Age, I decided, is a gift
I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometimes despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the sagging butt. And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my mother/father!), but I don't agonize over those things for long.
I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly. As I've aged, I've become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I've become my own friend.
I don't chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn't need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.
I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging.
Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?
I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60&70's, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love .. I will.
I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set .
They, too, will get old.
I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as well forgotten. And I eventually remember the important things.
Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody's beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.
As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don't question myself anymore. I've even earned the right to be wrong.
So, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be. And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it.)
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Mystery
I saw this quoted on someone else's blog and liked it so much I wanted to claim it too:
'I'm reminded of a dear teacher I had in high school who refused to go on to the next poem in our antiquated textbook until we had all agreed on the same interpretive vision of each poem -- her vision.
'Wearily we raised our hands. Yes, yes, that poet was just about to jump off a cliff.
Onward!
'If we can offer each other a cognizance of mystery through the poems we share, isn't that a greater gift?
'Won't a sense of inevitable mystery underpinning our intricate lives serve us better than the notion that we will each be given a neat set of blanks to fill in -- always?'
– an excerpt from Lights in the Windows by Naomi Shihab Nye
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lately I've spent far too much time with someone who always wanted to analyse and get at The Truth of absolutely everything. The above sentiments are SOOOOOOOOOO welcome!
Monday, January 14, 2008
What a Party!
The invitation came by email, and read:
Greetings Chums!!!
THIS COMING SUNDAY 13TH January from 5.30 PM you are invited to
daevid's 70TH BREATHDAY PARTY Party at EWINGSDALE HALL turn right immediately (approx 50 metres after the exit roundabout) once you have turned off towards BYRON BAY from Pacific Hwy coming from the north.
There will be yum vegie food for sale but bring: intoxicants, YOUR POETRY(for the poets open mike from 5.30-6.30 and in between acts) songs, drawings, brilliant ideas, crazy costumes, instruments, & a pal or two and kids if you like!
The line up:
5.30 poets open mike
6.30 the molotov with stefanie petrik
7.30 Kirtan & acoustic songs
8.30 Trypswych (Sound Art )
9.30 Vashuda & friends
10.30 GONG 70.
This means 1970's gong set played for the first time live in Oz with ORLANDO FURIO drums GREG (Hunter.S.Thompson 2) bass DAEVID EL ALIEN guitar GILLI SMYTH: chaoswhisper MICROCOSMIQUE synths.....plus additional surprise soloists. YASSS!!!
12.00 MIDNIGHT. TEN YEAR REUNION OF AUSTRALIAN SPACE ROCK BAND:ALPHA OMEGA
MC'd by Willie of the Zinnias!!!
Wheeee!
Hope you can make it rain or shine!!
HUGE hugs!! LUV Y'all!!
daevid & tribes
Let me translate a little. I met Daevid Allen in 2005 through Thom the World Poet, I met Mick ("Microcosmique") last year through his wife Parvati, and knew Gilli Smyth back in Melbourne days when we were both around the poetry scene in the eighties. She was working with Daevid back then too, but I didn't get to meet him at that stage. They are wild and wonderful performance poets and "space-age rock" musicians. Daevid is part clown, part elf: sweet, clever, funny and irreverent. His energy would be amazing in anyone, let alone a man just turning 70.
I threw on my purple Goddess gown, grabbed my latest book of poems, some intoxicants of the alcoholic variety, my husband Andrew and a couple of pals, Raeline and Dan who are visiting Australia at present. Raeline's an old friend, an Aussie who's been living overseas for 12 years but gets back here now and then. This is the first time here for Dan, who lives in the Florida Keys. So far he's seen Melbourne, Sydney, and a rather wet and dreary northern New South Wales, where he did at least manage some surfing at Byron Bay a few days ago.
'Love your frock,' said a woman in jeans behind me, when we stopped to raid the ATM.
The Goddess gown
We got a bit lost on the way to the party – which allowed us all, and Dan in particular, to observe the stunningly beautiful scenery in the Byron hinterland. When we arrived, Daevid greeted us with warm hugs and shouts of, 'Hello darling, I'm so glad you could come!' Other poets I knew came up to kiss me too and tell me how good I looked. (The Dress is always a winner!) And then I couldn't wait to find Stefanie.
She's been my friend on MySpace for a while, and wrote my favourite celebratory poem about our recent Federal election. And she's off to Austin soon for the April poetry festivals, like me a couple of years ago and Bob Mud last year (he's going again this year too). Great to meet each other in person, and she promptly put me down for the open mike she was organising. Then she opened the proceedings herself with a rip-roaring number about 'Maracca Man'.
'Who's the man in the hat?' I whispered to her during the subsequent performances. 'Archie, from Nimbin,' she whispered back. I knew it! Another MySpace poet friend I was about to meet in person; great! But before that could happen, Mick (yes, the muso – also sound and lighting engineer) came and snuck me away to give him a Reiki treatment. His house was in the recent floods in Murwillumbah; the water came up to his chest and a lot of stuff was ruined, including his equipment for gigs. He was pretty stressed.
Stefanie put me on last to accommodate the Reiki, but I got back in time to hear a number of other performers, including Ghost Boy – yet another MySpace connection – who delighted us with a poem to "Your Anus". I did two birthday poems in honour of the occasion, although not written for the occasion. Thom had sent through two by email that morning, which were written for it – one of which you can now find on the Gong website (click on News in the sidebar) – and I thought, 'I bet he wants someone to read them'. But I looked at them and saw they relied on a lot of shared history with Daevid so I didn't think I could do them justice. Instead I did these:
Birthday Poems
These two poems, Rosemary and Magic, were written in 1984 when I invited Carmel Bird to my birthday party. She recalled the time when we were children in Tasmania, and she came to my party.
1.
Rosemary
If I come to your party
Will there be a cake
With green jelly
Dark green jelly
Deep pool jelly
For the frogs?
Shall we go into the summerhouse
Underneath the willow
Our smiles revealing
The gaps between our teeth?
Will the butterfly cakes
Filled with the red jelly
And the cream
Leave icing sugar dustings
On our noses?
Are we going to look
For a fairy ring?
Or has there been some alteration to the plans?
© Carmel Bird 1984
When poets have events, they tend to do it with poetry. Some time earlier, Carmel and I had been in the entourage for Melbourne poet Ken Smeaton's wedding to Marita, and recited poems onstage. I refer to that in my reply to Carmel:
2.
Magic
For Carmel
Behind the summerhouse
under the willow,
do you remember
there was a swing?
I used to drift,
leaning against the ropes,
toes ruffling the dirt,
watching the sky through leaves.
I trailed the stems’ transparent green
around my hair and fingers.
I’ve read somewhere
that willow casts a spell:
it turns us into poets.
When you came to play
on my birthday,
did you sit in the swing?
I know you went into the summerhouse.
You must have gazed hard
at the sky through slats
and up, through curtaining fronds.
Now, when we play on stages,
it’s not for elocution, not for school.
This power, these words, are ours.
Last week, you wore white frills
and flowers in your hair.
I was dressed in glitter.
There were balloons.
We showered our audience
with rose-petals, lollies….
You ask,
if you come to my birthday this year
will there be magic?
Yes.
(Both first published Women’s Studies Journal Vol. 1, Nos. 4 & 5, Special Section on Celebration. Also published in my Secret Leopard: Selected Poems 1974-2005. Paris, Alyscamps, 2005.)
It was particularly appropriate as, in their youth, Daevid and Gilli were protegés of Robert Graves, in whose book The White Goddess I read about that property of willow.
Raeline urged me to recite my C**t poem. When some other readers came back for a second go, I asked if I could have an encore too, and Stef obligingly announced me again. It brought the house down as always, and Ghost Boy told me afterwards he thought it was an excellent response to his Anus poem. Some of the women thanked me for it, and when I finally introduced myself to Archie he told me I'd stolen the show.
Love it, love it, love it! I'm such a ham, when I actually get to do any performing I wonder why I don't make the effort to attend spoken poetry events much more often.
And then the real show started. There were some stupendous women musicians as support acts – Mohini who sings in the Beach Hotel at Byron Bay, Yashuda who is also a well-known local performance poet – and finally we heard Daevid, Gilli and crew. Their music was psychedelic and wonderful. I'd never attended a Gong concert before. I joined the swaying throng in front of the stage. Quite an experience – an alteration of the senses for sure.
"Imagine if you were stoned!" I whispered to Raeline. It was such a buzz even without that.
Driving home, I told Dan he hadn't done too badly: "You surfed at Byron, and now you've attended a hippie party and heard a Reiki Master recite obscene verse!" But he was studying an interesting car we passed, and I don't think he heard.
Greetings Chums!!!
THIS COMING SUNDAY 13TH January from 5.30 PM you are invited to
daevid's 70TH BREATHDAY PARTY Party at EWINGSDALE HALL turn right immediately (approx 50 metres after the exit roundabout) once you have turned off towards BYRON BAY from Pacific Hwy coming from the north.
There will be yum vegie food for sale but bring: intoxicants, YOUR POETRY(for the poets open mike from 5.30-6.30 and in between acts) songs, drawings, brilliant ideas, crazy costumes, instruments, & a pal or two and kids if you like!
The line up:
5.30 poets open mike
6.30 the molotov with stefanie petrik
7.30 Kirtan & acoustic songs
8.30 Trypswych (Sound Art )
9.30 Vashuda & friends
10.30 GONG 70.
This means 1970's gong set played for the first time live in Oz with ORLANDO FURIO drums GREG (Hunter.S.Thompson 2) bass DAEVID EL ALIEN guitar GILLI SMYTH: chaoswhisper MICROCOSMIQUE synths.....plus additional surprise soloists. YASSS!!!
12.00 MIDNIGHT. TEN YEAR REUNION OF AUSTRALIAN SPACE ROCK BAND:ALPHA OMEGA
MC'd by Willie of the Zinnias!!!
Wheeee!
Hope you can make it rain or shine!!
HUGE hugs!! LUV Y'all!!
daevid & tribes
Let me translate a little. I met Daevid Allen in 2005 through Thom the World Poet, I met Mick ("Microcosmique") last year through his wife Parvati, and knew Gilli Smyth back in Melbourne days when we were both around the poetry scene in the eighties. She was working with Daevid back then too, but I didn't get to meet him at that stage. They are wild and wonderful performance poets and "space-age rock" musicians. Daevid is part clown, part elf: sweet, clever, funny and irreverent. His energy would be amazing in anyone, let alone a man just turning 70.
I threw on my purple Goddess gown, grabbed my latest book of poems, some intoxicants of the alcoholic variety, my husband Andrew and a couple of pals, Raeline and Dan who are visiting Australia at present. Raeline's an old friend, an Aussie who's been living overseas for 12 years but gets back here now and then. This is the first time here for Dan, who lives in the Florida Keys. So far he's seen Melbourne, Sydney, and a rather wet and dreary northern New South Wales, where he did at least manage some surfing at Byron Bay a few days ago.
'Love your frock,' said a woman in jeans behind me, when we stopped to raid the ATM.
The Goddess gown
We got a bit lost on the way to the party – which allowed us all, and Dan in particular, to observe the stunningly beautiful scenery in the Byron hinterland. When we arrived, Daevid greeted us with warm hugs and shouts of, 'Hello darling, I'm so glad you could come!' Other poets I knew came up to kiss me too and tell me how good I looked. (The Dress is always a winner!) And then I couldn't wait to find Stefanie.
She's been my friend on MySpace for a while, and wrote my favourite celebratory poem about our recent Federal election. And she's off to Austin soon for the April poetry festivals, like me a couple of years ago and Bob Mud last year (he's going again this year too). Great to meet each other in person, and she promptly put me down for the open mike she was organising. Then she opened the proceedings herself with a rip-roaring number about 'Maracca Man'.
'Who's the man in the hat?' I whispered to her during the subsequent performances. 'Archie, from Nimbin,' she whispered back. I knew it! Another MySpace poet friend I was about to meet in person; great! But before that could happen, Mick (yes, the muso – also sound and lighting engineer) came and snuck me away to give him a Reiki treatment. His house was in the recent floods in Murwillumbah; the water came up to his chest and a lot of stuff was ruined, including his equipment for gigs. He was pretty stressed.
Stefanie put me on last to accommodate the Reiki, but I got back in time to hear a number of other performers, including Ghost Boy – yet another MySpace connection – who delighted us with a poem to "Your Anus". I did two birthday poems in honour of the occasion, although not written for the occasion. Thom had sent through two by email that morning, which were written for it – one of which you can now find on the Gong website (click on News in the sidebar) – and I thought, 'I bet he wants someone to read them'. But I looked at them and saw they relied on a lot of shared history with Daevid so I didn't think I could do them justice. Instead I did these:
Birthday Poems
These two poems, Rosemary and Magic, were written in 1984 when I invited Carmel Bird to my birthday party. She recalled the time when we were children in Tasmania, and she came to my party.
1.
Rosemary
If I come to your party
Will there be a cake
With green jelly
Dark green jelly
Deep pool jelly
For the frogs?
Shall we go into the summerhouse
Underneath the willow
Our smiles revealing
The gaps between our teeth?
Will the butterfly cakes
Filled with the red jelly
And the cream
Leave icing sugar dustings
On our noses?
Are we going to look
For a fairy ring?
Or has there been some alteration to the plans?
© Carmel Bird 1984
When poets have events, they tend to do it with poetry. Some time earlier, Carmel and I had been in the entourage for Melbourne poet Ken Smeaton's wedding to Marita, and recited poems onstage. I refer to that in my reply to Carmel:
2.
Magic
For Carmel
Behind the summerhouse
under the willow,
do you remember
there was a swing?
I used to drift,
leaning against the ropes,
toes ruffling the dirt,
watching the sky through leaves.
I trailed the stems’ transparent green
around my hair and fingers.
I’ve read somewhere
that willow casts a spell:
it turns us into poets.
When you came to play
on my birthday,
did you sit in the swing?
I know you went into the summerhouse.
You must have gazed hard
at the sky through slats
and up, through curtaining fronds.
Now, when we play on stages,
it’s not for elocution, not for school.
This power, these words, are ours.
Last week, you wore white frills
and flowers in your hair.
I was dressed in glitter.
There were balloons.
We showered our audience
with rose-petals, lollies….
You ask,
if you come to my birthday this year
will there be magic?
Yes.
(Both first published Women’s Studies Journal Vol. 1, Nos. 4 & 5, Special Section on Celebration. Also published in my Secret Leopard: Selected Poems 1974-2005. Paris, Alyscamps, 2005.)
It was particularly appropriate as, in their youth, Daevid and Gilli were protegés of Robert Graves, in whose book The White Goddess I read about that property of willow.
Raeline urged me to recite my C**t poem. When some other readers came back for a second go, I asked if I could have an encore too, and Stef obligingly announced me again. It brought the house down as always, and Ghost Boy told me afterwards he thought it was an excellent response to his Anus poem. Some of the women thanked me for it, and when I finally introduced myself to Archie he told me I'd stolen the show.
Love it, love it, love it! I'm such a ham, when I actually get to do any performing I wonder why I don't make the effort to attend spoken poetry events much more often.
And then the real show started. There were some stupendous women musicians as support acts – Mohini who sings in the Beach Hotel at Byron Bay, Yashuda who is also a well-known local performance poet – and finally we heard Daevid, Gilli and crew. Their music was psychedelic and wonderful. I'd never attended a Gong concert before. I joined the swaying throng in front of the stage. Quite an experience – an alteration of the senses for sure.
"Imagine if you were stoned!" I whispered to Raeline. It was such a buzz even without that.
Driving home, I told Dan he hadn't done too badly: "You surfed at Byron, and now you've attended a hippie party and heard a Reiki Master recite obscene verse!" But he was studying an interesting car we passed, and I don't think he heard.
Monday, December 31, 2007
New Year Transformation
"Love is an action," said the Prodigal Son recently, in his capacity as guru.
Andrew and I have already put into action a new year resolution – we've moved our desks from separate small dark offices at opposite ends of the house and put them together facing each other in the living room. Suddenly we have light, air and companionship. (The Prodigal Son came in very handy to do the heavy lifting and re-connect our ADSL and phones.)
It's great because we can consult each other when we're working without having to dash up and down the passage, and at night if one of us wants to watch TV and the other wants to go online, we can still be together anyway – or we can both be at our computers and watch TV at the same time, as we are doing right now. The Beatles movie "Help!" is on telly. (Oh, how young they look!) Silly plot but lovely music, so we are listening with half an ear whilst I blog and Andrew googles fairy shops all over the country which may wish to buy his book Jorell.
No more will visitors who can't make us hear their knocking have to stand outside our front door phoning us on their mobiles! (Translation for those who need it: calling us on their cell phones.) And I find I'm much more inclined to jump up and wash a few dishes or something, now that going into the kitchen isn't an expedition.
My former office was also my temple. I've dismantled that as well. Over the years I've amassed and been given so many wondrous objects, you should have seen my altar! It covered a large wooden dining table. The end result was clutter. Time for some of those treasures to go to bless other people, and for me to get back to basics. So now I step out into the back yard to do my morning and evening rituals. How much more appropriate for a Pagan to be out in nature!
I do have a beautiful wand, an athame and a ritual sword – but right now, for these private rituals, I'm using my forefinger. I like the reminder that I need nothing but myself for the creation of magick.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The year that's been.
Like so many people nowadays, we do the xmas update letter to far-flung friends and family. Omitting the greetings and closings, here's the latest summary of events and highlights:
It's been an up-and-down sort of year. The biggest drama was Andrew's heart attack in July, however it was a mild one, not even painful, and he is well recovered by now. It taught him not to push himself too hard, and he is now taking time out each day for things like walking, swimming, resting and reading.
His environmental fairy story, "Jorell", was published early in the year and launched on Environment Day under the auspices of the local Environment Centre. It has sold well locally, and we're about to take delivery of a second edition. A big thrill for us was when the cover artist, Tom Giffin, a young Californian, visited us with his Aussie girlfriend and presented us with the original of the beautiful cover painting.
A film company opened up not too far from here; Andrew approached them about making a movie of "Jorell", and they were very encouraging. He now has the task of writing a screenplay and attracting sponsorship. Luckily my son Steve, who is now working as a film financier, has a lot of clues about screenplays. He turned up to visit just at the right time to help Andrew tackle this; also he addressed my writers' group on the subject on several occasions, and held them enthralled for hours at a time.
I started the writers' group late last year, wanting to give something back to the community that helped get me to Texas for my 2006 poetry tour. It's hosted by the local Neighbourhood Centre, and I co-facilitate it with Pam Moore – another performance poet, ex-librarian and so on, like me. It's called WordsFlow, is full of talented, fun people, now has its own blog, and we just launched one member's first poetry book. In the coming year we're planning to branch out into a local history project, the creation of a community newspaper, and a book for children in hospital. The Neighbourhood Centre is very keen on the suggestion from Thom the World Poet when he visited last year, that we transform this town to Poetsville. It's taken a while, but we shall do it!
My poetry's still going strong. I've had a few pieces published in on-line literary magazines, and there's a faithful Yahoo group of "Rosemary's Readers" who like to receive new ones in their email every so often. It was fun to participate in the "30 poems in 30 days" project at Writer's Resource Center in September, particularly as my Texas friend and soul-sister Connie Williams did it too and we got to interact there. Otherwise, my main writing activity has been blogging. I enjoy MySpace and Twitter, am getting to like Blogger – and I tried Facebook briefly and hated it! Andrew does a bit of blogging too, but he's by no means so addicted as I am. We're both still working on memoirs, and I hope the blogging proves a painless way of recording some details. We belong to a memoir group which meets monthly in Byron Bay. We don't always get there, but have had some great meetings and very useful feedback.
An online magazine called The Smoking Poet did some nice reviews of "Jorell" and also of my poetry book "Secret Leopard" . And we've finally got a website. It's not finished and is probably subject to some changes, but the bits about our books are there to stay.
At the end of March we had a quick visit to Melbourne for Andrew's son Adam's 40th birthday party. We also attended a luncheon, movie showing and general celebration of Young Media Australia, an organisation of which Andrew was the first Chairman 50-odd years ago. It was great fun, and we heard some stimulating speeches about the current goals and needs, and the things the organisation has achieved for children over the years. Sorry if you're one of the many we didn't catch up with this trip. We managed to see most family members, went our separate ways one day to catch up with a few other people each, had a quick look at the Art Gallery, and then we had to rush back home to Pottsville. Hope to make it down there again in 2008 for the launch of a "tribute" book to the late Melbourne poet Shelton Lea, probably February, and will definitely be there for Andrew's daughter Cecilia's wedding in April.
My dear friends Maureen and Alan had a birthday party for me and our other Scorpio pal Marg in their wonderful new house. It was very luxurious! And all the assembled company got drawn into a very heated – though essentially good-humoured – debate on politics, with our Federal election coming up. One person there thought John Howard was OK; we were eager to disabuse her! Need I say, Andrew and I are delighted that Dishonest John met such a resounding defeat at last. Steve arrived for his visit just in time to see us glued to the TV on election night. He was vastly amused. "This is such great theatre," he said. "Not that stuff on the TV – you two!"
We're still doing Reiki and psychic readings at the Sunday markets, but not so often in 2007 what with Andrew's convalescence and Steve's visit. We decided to be more laid-back about the whole thing. We also still see clients privately, and I've taught Reiki to a few people during the year. Early in the year we became involved with a remarkable animal healer, Doc Jamieson, who is also good at energy clearing for people. We spent some time helping him in his healing work and he in turn did some energy clearing for us. He wants to open a healing centre and have us live in and me be the resident psychic reader, but I'm not at all sure I want to leave Pottsville. We're happy here.
It's been an up-and-down sort of year. The biggest drama was Andrew's heart attack in July, however it was a mild one, not even painful, and he is well recovered by now. It taught him not to push himself too hard, and he is now taking time out each day for things like walking, swimming, resting and reading.
His environmental fairy story, "Jorell", was published early in the year and launched on Environment Day under the auspices of the local Environment Centre. It has sold well locally, and we're about to take delivery of a second edition. A big thrill for us was when the cover artist, Tom Giffin, a young Californian, visited us with his Aussie girlfriend and presented us with the original of the beautiful cover painting.
A film company opened up not too far from here; Andrew approached them about making a movie of "Jorell", and they were very encouraging. He now has the task of writing a screenplay and attracting sponsorship. Luckily my son Steve, who is now working as a film financier, has a lot of clues about screenplays. He turned up to visit just at the right time to help Andrew tackle this; also he addressed my writers' group on the subject on several occasions, and held them enthralled for hours at a time.
I started the writers' group late last year, wanting to give something back to the community that helped get me to Texas for my 2006 poetry tour. It's hosted by the local Neighbourhood Centre, and I co-facilitate it with Pam Moore – another performance poet, ex-librarian and so on, like me. It's called WordsFlow, is full of talented, fun people, now has its own blog, and we just launched one member's first poetry book. In the coming year we're planning to branch out into a local history project, the creation of a community newspaper, and a book for children in hospital. The Neighbourhood Centre is very keen on the suggestion from Thom the World Poet when he visited last year, that we transform this town to Poetsville. It's taken a while, but we shall do it!
My poetry's still going strong. I've had a few pieces published in on-line literary magazines, and there's a faithful Yahoo group of "Rosemary's Readers" who like to receive new ones in their email every so often. It was fun to participate in the "30 poems in 30 days" project at Writer's Resource Center in September, particularly as my Texas friend and soul-sister Connie Williams did it too and we got to interact there. Otherwise, my main writing activity has been blogging. I enjoy MySpace and Twitter, am getting to like Blogger – and I tried Facebook briefly and hated it! Andrew does a bit of blogging too, but he's by no means so addicted as I am. We're both still working on memoirs, and I hope the blogging proves a painless way of recording some details. We belong to a memoir group which meets monthly in Byron Bay. We don't always get there, but have had some great meetings and very useful feedback.
An online magazine called The Smoking Poet did some nice reviews of "Jorell" and also of my poetry book "Secret Leopard" . And we've finally got a website. It's not finished and is probably subject to some changes, but the bits about our books are there to stay.
At the end of March we had a quick visit to Melbourne for Andrew's son Adam's 40th birthday party. We also attended a luncheon, movie showing and general celebration of Young Media Australia, an organisation of which Andrew was the first Chairman 50-odd years ago. It was great fun, and we heard some stimulating speeches about the current goals and needs, and the things the organisation has achieved for children over the years. Sorry if you're one of the many we didn't catch up with this trip. We managed to see most family members, went our separate ways one day to catch up with a few other people each, had a quick look at the Art Gallery, and then we had to rush back home to Pottsville. Hope to make it down there again in 2008 for the launch of a "tribute" book to the late Melbourne poet Shelton Lea, probably February, and will definitely be there for Andrew's daughter Cecilia's wedding in April.
My dear friends Maureen and Alan had a birthday party for me and our other Scorpio pal Marg in their wonderful new house. It was very luxurious! And all the assembled company got drawn into a very heated – though essentially good-humoured – debate on politics, with our Federal election coming up. One person there thought John Howard was OK; we were eager to disabuse her! Need I say, Andrew and I are delighted that Dishonest John met such a resounding defeat at last. Steve arrived for his visit just in time to see us glued to the TV on election night. He was vastly amused. "This is such great theatre," he said. "Not that stuff on the TV – you two!"
We're still doing Reiki and psychic readings at the Sunday markets, but not so often in 2007 what with Andrew's convalescence and Steve's visit. We decided to be more laid-back about the whole thing. We also still see clients privately, and I've taught Reiki to a few people during the year. Early in the year we became involved with a remarkable animal healer, Doc Jamieson, who is also good at energy clearing for people. We spent some time helping him in his healing work and he in turn did some energy clearing for us. He wants to open a healing centre and have us live in and me be the resident psychic reader, but I'm not at all sure I want to leave Pottsville. We're happy here.
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