It’s Beginning To Look Like Christmas…

So, to borrow a phrase, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas….The days are long and hot, cicadas chirp throughout the evening, and the kookaburras and magpies start their birdsong from 3.30am onwards. Oh, and the grass needs cutting on a weekly basis. It’s exhausting I tell you.

Ronan Keating’s version…..

Refusing to go anywhere near a shopping centre and the humidity is preventing any reading of real worth. This means resorting to DVD’s because I just cannot view anymore tragedy on the telly. Thank goodness for the local Op Shop which also serves coffee and Hummingbird Cake for $8.

This week I found a copy of all time favourite, Valiant, a delightful computer generated epic set during World War 2, and covering the exploits of carrier pigeons. With its references to the White Cliffs of Dover, Andrews Sisters, the Dambuster theme song, and a cute white mouse working with the Resistance called Charles De Girl it goes way over children’s heads.

The movie ends with Valiant and his fellow members from Squad F being awarded the Dickin Medal with a message then displayed commending all the animals that in real life saved thousands of lives during World War II.

Forty five minutes of pure pleasure. Chew on that, Spiderman.

I did venture to the dark side, also known as having crossed the Brisbane River in a northerly direction, to enjoy carols performed by the Brisbane Army Band. Brilliant and a great wake up call to get into the mood.

This weekend a friend has volunteered to play guinea pig as I attempt fellow blogger’s ( Valerie AKA Muriopsis) Sweet Potato Casserole recipe as well as a tropical Coconut and Lychee Granita.

If all else fails I have this to fall back on. $5. Bargain.

This Week In Books

With summer on the doorstep we are sliding into a heatwave this weekend. Thank God the house is currently spotless and full of both reading material and mangoes.

My Chilli Chicken with a Mango Salsa

The DVD Fairy made a donation to the Little Library last week encouraging a selection of movies not generally considered. These included POMPEII, featuring an abundance of flames and fury with poor little Kit Harrington copping the wrong end of the stick yet again. And then there was OBLIVION which caused a great deal of psychoanalysis on my part. Sci Fi AND Tom Cruise. Why do I self inflict like this?

This facility has become so popular in our local parkland that the Council has agreed to install a separate utility to house books for Little People, allowing them the sensory pleasure of choosing their own books. WOOT WOO!

Read Jane Harper’s fourth novel, The Survivors, based in a small coastal town in Tasmania, unlike her previous books where the harsh Australian outback becomes a stand alone character. Couldn’t put it down though I have lots of “buts”……….

Stephen Fry’s Mythos is a retelling of Greek Mythology and is written the way he speaks making it easy to keep up with who is whom in the zoo.

My garden is beginning to suffer due to the lack of rain ( though the media continues its scare tactics by quoting expected cyclones : Was 15 down to 4). Optimistic, I treated myself to a new addition:

Stay hydrated…….

NY, Errol and Bushfires

Just over twelve months ago my first task upon retirement was to head to the New South Wales South Coast, my old stomping ground and source of many wonderful memories.

It was an opportunity to revisit this part of the world as well as reconnect with two beautiful lasses who played a major role in my life some forty five years beforehand.

Highway along South Coast

The beautiful south coast has been under siege for days. New Years Eve saw the residents and holidaymakers of one coastal township flee to the beach for safety from the raging bushfires. The battle continues with the navy enlisted to relocate people to safer shores.

My South Coast

So frightening, so compelling, so awful. I had to switch off the tele for some respite from the news.

Thinking of one of those childhood friends I put the same Errol Flynn DVD that we watched together just twelve months earlier. * Errol, chocolate, and pink champagne – what a way to spend a day together.

Again. Again.

This beautiful friend still has no power connected and sleeps on the couch watching for embers. Two houses in her street were lost to the fires and despite a call to evacuate this brave, headstrong woman chose to stay and defend. Vision impaired and a widow. No snowflake this lass.

My other friend still has no power. Food and fuel are low, but positivity and kindness are abundant. She can’t get out of her pocket of the world as the highway could be closed for weeks.

Another heatwave looms this weekend. My thoughts are with those doing it tough, and the firies and emergency service personnel who have been kept on their toes for weeks. To my two gal pals, to a blogger friend with the chocolate labs, and to all those affected……….no words. Just hang in there……..

*I also wanted to share a traumatic scene involving crabs with my daughter which to this day frightens the bejesus out of me and caused lifelong scars. I’m pretty fearless, except for seaweed which is where octopi and crabs lurk. Blame Against All Flags and Reap The Wild Wind and a lack of parental guidance.

But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and my adrenaline loving child was only interested in recipes utilising crab meat. My neurosis was quickly sideswiped. And yes, my Thai Crab Balls were a success.

Child minding.

Snakes, Cyclones and Errol

A summer of rolling heatwaves, lack of rain(in our wet season), and now Cyclone Oma hitting the coastline finds me more than a little wistful today. No damage though the local coffee shop on the coast where I caught up with girlfriends a few days ago had a foot of water running through it two days later.

So it’s windy, humid, and the grey clouds once again tease and my thoughts have wandered to where I could have been.

I downsized just over two years ago with a view to retirement. Three hours mowing the lawn each week to be frank, sucked, and the swimming pool was providing more pleasure for the Brown Snakes than for me. At one stage there were 11 Pythons living in my roof space, and when the bush rats ate through the wiring setting me back nearly $20k I put the house on the market.

Not a big decision really, though I did wrestle with subdividing or just offloading. I opted for the latter.

I found a nice little house only minutes away which meant I was still close to the water and very familiar with the locality. A small block with a house thirty years newer which was designed as an Airbnb should I want a passive income down the track.

So my house sold two days after being on the market at the inflated asking price. Contract crashed at the very last minute. Picked up two days later by a developer who paid an even higher price.( He later told me that when the house was demolished it was obvious the snakes had been breeding).

So I should have been really excited, right?

As fate would have it the very day my contract went through for my new house a property in which Errol Flynn had lived came onto the market in Hobart, the capital of our Island State of Tasmania. A lovely house with a view of the mountains. More importantly, so much cooler than Queensland. Did I howl like a banshee or what! Visions of holding monthly (black and white) movie nights and serving champagne cocktails instantly came to mind. We girls do like our champagne cocktails.

Pulling up my big girl panties I’ve been very happy in my new home. Only two snakes in two years, though they did eat my pet cockatiels, and it only takes ten minutes to mow both front and back lawns.

Retirement means I don’t have the same ties. I can relocate. I’m wondering if I should make an offer to the owners of the Hobart property, or is it simply Cabin Fever getting to me? If this summer is indicative of our new normal I don’t want to play here anymore.

*Snakes are protected in Australia. The fine for killing a snake is almost the same as murdering a child. Also, they are territorial, so even when you pay the snake man $125 per snake to remove them, no further than 500 metres by law, the blighters mostly come back. (Sssssshhhhh. Secret. A girls best friend can be the garden hoe).