Prawn Porn

I should be madly cleaning the house in anticipation of my youngest daughters arrival from Canberra. She’s the Clean Freak, the one who threatened to put me into an aged care facility if I didn’t lift my dusting game. One year she spent Christmas cleaning the grout on my bathroom floor, another was spent vacuuming dog hair out of her sister’s car.

Her cleaning phobia is/was an anxiety issue which seems to have eased now that she has her own home to maintain. In full time employment Cat Balou often bleats over the telephone, “Mo, how do you find the time to wash windows?”

I don’t, but that is no response for a Clean Freak. “Sweetheart, it’s all about priorities”, covers a plethora of circumstances, I have found.

The root cause behind her phobia can be dated back to the breakdown of her parent’s marriage. Fun Time Daddy moved into a sparkling new house with shiny accoutrements including a female play thing whilst Mummy, the Boring Responsible Parent, was ensconced in a sixty year old hardiplank surrounded by thirty year old furniture which had seen kids and pets through too many childhood illnesses to mention. And lets not forget the twenty two carpet snakes living in the roof space………

Several hours have been spent in meal prep however. Canberra is land locked and we are a family with a heritage steeped in seafood so it seemed appropriate to whip up some fruits of the sea. Do you know just how long it takes to remove the poo shute out of three kilos of prawns?

So, the bread is freshly baked, the mango and avocado salad is chilling, and the Tiger Prawns are in the fridge marinating in garlic. You can’t get more Queensland than that. Because said daughter is vegetarian for health reasons I’ve also made individual vegetable bakes. Yes, still playing the Boring Responsible Parent.

Sweets? We don’t do sweets in this family. We’re more cheese platter people.

The bubbles is chilling as is the chardonnay. Sadly, I have found another down side to ageing which means I also have to include a jug of cold water on the dinner table these days. My dear old Dad would be rolling in his grave in disgust.

So no books, no travel, no movies this week. Just some Prawn Porn.

And be careful where you walk, Cat Balou. Those pot plants are bunched in a group in front of the bookshelves for a reason. There are some things no daughter who does not like disorganisation has a business knowing about.

Salute🥂

PS. Another feel good this week:

Saw Keith Urban interviewed . When asked the thing he was most grateful for he stated his ” willingness to pursue curiosity“. Oh, Keith, bliss….

Caroline Jones, Journo, & a Book Review

Winter temperatures in Queensland are at their lowest for over a hundred years and we are only twelve days in! Actually, I don’t mind it. You can get a lot done when you’re not a wet slimy mess as is the case in summer. Achieving heaps but at a relaxed pace. Even my reading is less frenzied.

Late last month Australian journalist, Caroline Jones died at age 84. One of the obituaries stated that Jones was a “groundbreaking Australian journalist and champion of women in media…who paved the way for women and became a passionate and generous mentor to young rural and regional reporters”.

Which led me down a rabbit hole, of course……

Essentially, Jones joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) in 1963 becoming the first female reporter on the daily current affairs program, This Day Tonight. She went on to become the first female presenter on Four Corners, a hard-hitting news program, followed by a stint presenting a spirituality-focused radio program on ABC Radio National. This morphed into Jones hosting the much loved Australian Story from 1996 until her retirement from the ABC in 2016.

In addition, Jones also worked alongside Aboriginal broadcasters at Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association in Alice Springs as they produced their first cultural and current affairs programs for television and was appointed an Ambassador for Reconciliation by the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation. She was a foundation member of the Australian Council for the Arts, formed in 1973, as well as a foundation member of the Australian Classification Review Board, formed in 1970. Jones was also co-patron of Women In Media, and in 2017 the annual Caroline Jones Women in Media Young Journalist’s Award was launched. 

Among the many awards she received were the Order of Australia in 1988 and being voted as an Australian Living Treasure by The National Trust in 1997. This is a woman who hung tuff amongst the corridors of testosterone.

I’ve just finished reading Jones’ 2009 book, Through A Glass Darkly : A Joy Of Love And Grief With My Father,  a personal account of her father’s death and how she manages the grief over several years. 

Of course it’s not that simple. Loss and Grief and Love and Family and Responsibility are all big subjects and so I’ve been dipping in and out of this book slowly, like dropping a spoon into a can of Milo and licking the grains aways at a pace that allows you to enjoy every single malty morsel. 

Written in four parts, Jones initially provides a landscape painting of her father’s life. This resonated with me as it would with many whose parent’s lived through a Depression and World War. It’s a delightful read with it’s remembrances of times past : the weekly ritual of polishing shoes, back gardens laden with fruit trees, listening to the football on the radio.

Part two deals with her father’s illness and ultimate passing after an operation. This is brutal reading, with all the patient’s suffering, the medic’s attempts to play God, and the daughter’s inner rage, though again is so beautifully written. Maybe ” the medic’s attempts to play God” is poorly phrased, but you can guess, this resonated with me as well.

Caroline then exams her grief and questions her faith, even seeking out spiritual  guidance from a psychic. Been there, done that. Seven years after losing her Dad Caroline concludes having  coming to terms with the loss she experienced.

This is Caroline’s personal journey but it is a journey we all share in one form or other. The grim topic is made bearable because of its authenticity and it is so beautifully written. I’m sorry not to have paid her more attention whilst she was still with us.

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”

      – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler

NOTE:

Please be aware that I have not recently suffered any loss and am not in mourning. I was simply intrigued by Jones’ career path and wanted to learn more about what made the woman tick. I’m so glad I did.

I will admit that something else about Caroline did resonate. Her mother died when Caroline was a young though there was no time for mourning as her father, a returned serviceman, was from that stiff upper lip generation. But the time does come, often years later, and when it does it ain’t pretty.

Next book will be fun and fluffy : decapitations, poisonings, nuclear war, genocide. Promise.

Darby O’Gill and the Little People

It was only months ago that the entire world awakened to the news that 90 year old actor Sean Connery had passed away. Connery, tall, dark and with a Scottish accent as soothing as butterscotch was the first actor to portray fictional British secret agent James Bond on film, originating the role in Dr No and going on to complete a further six titles in the series. To be honest I was never a fan of Agent 007 and his Martinis. Nor was I hugely impressed with him in most of his other films though as he aged and gained that slightly grizzled appearance and opted for more quirky roles I tended to warm to him. Roles such as Indiana Jones’ eccentric father and as the political prisoner in The Rock. Unlike many I didn’t mourn Connory’s death, preferring to reflect that he seemed to have lived a good life.

A few days afterwards I suffered one of my manic decluttering sessions. These are slap hazard events and generally occur when I’ve been advised to expect house guests. It meant that the complete contents of all storage units, shelves and the book case in my lounge room were dispersed across the floor with no space available to move. With no room to walk the cloud of dust was thick and played havoc with my sinuses as I began to fill a cardboard box with items for the charity bin.

Amongst the Neil Sedaka cassette tapes and a Playschool CD, I came across an old Sean Connery DVD that I had purchased when DVDs were the latest big thing when my daughters were both just toddlers over thirty years ago.

Darby O’Gill And The Little People is a Walt Disney movie released in 1959 when Connery was still fresh faced and well before the statement moustache. It tells the story of an irishman, Darby O’ Gill, with his taste for liquor and tall tales, including his encounters with King Brian of the Leprechauns. It is a movie full of whimsy, rollicking irish music, a scary-as-hell banshee and the proverbial pot of gold. Young Connery played the love interest to O’Gill’s pink cheeked daughter with a decidedly odd Irish accent.

It’s funny how memories can be triggered from nothing, isn’t it?

I remember having been enchanted with this movie as a child, back in the days when television was new to Australia and the whole family would gather around on a Sunday evening to watch Disneyland.

My father must have enjoyed this movie too as he was forever reminding my sister and I to “keep an eye open for the Leprechauns who live at the bottom of the garden”. Along with the fairies of course.

Sometimes, early in the mornings or towards sun set, he would hold my hand and quietly walk me down towards the back of the family property just to look for leprechauns. This was an area which was less manicured with fruit trees and wild flowers in abundance. At times the vegetation was so wild that I was too scared to visit that part of the yard by myself in case lions and tigers were hiding in the long grass.

Television has a lot to answer for really……

My Dad was a hard man, a man’s man, who always believed in Luck. Although he never spoke of his time in Bomber Command and Pathfinder Force during World War 2 he often repeated that it was just good luck that had him survive flying over the night skies of Germany. Luck. The Luck of the Irish. A lucky leprechaun.

When my own daughters came along they too were introduced to the mysteries and beauty of the garden. Didn’t matter which garden, whose garden, or where the garden was located. There were always butterflies to watch, magpies to chase, leaves to collect and the ongoing search for the elusive King Brian and the Little People.

On odd occasions I still find myself daydreaming in my own garden and wondering if a leprechaun will present. It’s one of the reasons that I put the effort into the yard that I do. The results are well worth the effort and provide much pleasure.

I haven’t caught a glimpse of King Brian yet, though I regularly listen to Bing Crosby crooning Galway Bay whilst weeding. Or The Pogues.

This movie will not be going the way of surplus books and Conway Twitty albums. It is now destined for my baby grandson who can look for Leprechauns amongst the red soil and rock faces of Arnham Land.

And so a new generation of Sean Connery fans begins.

Do You Check Out Other People’s Bookshelves?

Did you even know that even doing so was “a thing”?

Confession : I’m as guilty as hell. And I don’t go about it sneakily either. Bookshelves are less intrusive than poking around in someone’s kitchen pantry after all.

When I look at the books lined up on the shelf I’m not being judgemental. It’s more like I’m looking for a familiar friend or even a book I’ve been unsuccessfully searching for at charity stores or at retail outlets specialising in secondhand books. Like “White Coolies” by Betty Jeffrey, published in 1954, and on which the movie Paradise Road was based. ( I’ve located a copy but refuse to pay in the hundreds for it. Yes, so I have a tendency to be frugal.)

Stickybeaking through other people’s shelves has proved a great conversation starter  and sometimes I’ve even borrowed books that have been spotted. It’s okay: I have a reputation of having NEVER lost a book and ALWAYS returning them to their owner. My daughter did return my personal copy of Kokoda to the local Library which to this day has never been found but that doesn’t count, does it ?

I like this comment from The Guardian in 2012:

“Only a bookshelf can truly hold a reader’s history and future at the same time, while the present is usually found in a book bag or on a nightstand nearby. A lifelong reader myself, I’ve always had an obsession with seeing a person’s bookshelf, to get a sense of what they’ve brought inside their home and their head. Bookshelves are universal in that almost everyone has one, and unique in that no two collections are the same. They reflect much more than just the book-buying habits of their owner. Titles are easy to acquire and even easier to sell off or leave behind, so if it’s worthy of your shelf space, I want to know why.”

But, hey, I repeat: I’m not judging…..

Since the Pandemic the number of experts providing all manner of insights has grown exponentially. Have you noticed there is usually a bookshelf in the background when they are speaking? I’m spending a great deal of effort squinting at the television to ascertain the book titles. Aren’t you?

A Twitter account, Bookcase Credibility, recently emerged to keep an eye on this trend. It’s tagline – terminology that I’m grasping with – is “ What you say is not as important as the bookcase behind you”.

HOMEWORK:

This weeks exercise is to analyse the bookcase below. Not mine. Responses in the Comments section please.

4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster

Great first book review, Cait. I look forward to reading more.

Reblogged from caitsclassics.wordpress.com.

Cait's classics

Forgive me. It’s not often I start a review with an ordinary description of the book’s plot – and as my first ever blog I had hoped to do something far more clever – but I feel it’s warranted in this case. Do you know those books where you have to keep notes as you go? Tolstoy comes to mind but I’m sure there are others (Note to self: must come back to those painful yet brilliant books in a later post). Well anyway, 4 3 2 1 is one of them and I feel a brief description is imperative if you’re to have any chance of following this.

4 3 2 1 tells the story of Archie Ferguson. We follow Ferguson’s life from birth to his early 20s. His first day of school, first girlfriend, his career aspirations, fears, partners, homes, jobs, thoughts. Everything. Only we follow it four different times. Every chapter comprises four sub-chapters that describe four different Fergusons…

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Christmas Rituals #1

”A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community.”

Each and every year the daughters and I watch the same three Christmas themed movies. Even when separated by distance we text to alert each other that we are watching. We may not be together, though we are together in spirit.

Which three movies do we watch?

Firstly, the greatest Christmas movie ever made. Die Hard, of course. If you have never seen Bruce Willis playing New York policeman, John McClane, fighting terrorists in a city multi-storey mid Christmas drinks, I don’t know where you’ve been. Confession: I have gone barefoot after long distance travel and scrunched my toes on the floor.

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 For the Bing Crosby fan in the family, White Christmas, which also stars Danny  Kaye and Rosemary Clooney. No further explanation required as it includes THAT song.

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Lastly, Joyeux Noel, based on a Christmas truce on the front line in December 2014, when the Crown Prince of Germany sent the lead singer of the German Opera to sing to the troops.

The unofficial truce begins when the Scots begin to sing festive songs, accompanied by bagpipes. The German begins to sing Silent Night and he is accompanied by a piper in the Scottish army, leading to the Germans, French and Scottish officers meeting in No Mans Land and agreeing on a cease fire for the evening.   

Doesn’t matter how many times I view this movie the Scottish accents are always a problem. And yes, the cat getting punished for treason is unsettling. A wee weep at Christmas is not a bad thing…..

It’s All About The Journey.

Home after a week pottering around the beautiful small townships of the New South Wales, South Coast Region. This trip, despite its short length, was a celebration of the end of one phase of my life and for the beginning of the next. The goal was to purge some sad memories and to create some that were new and fresh. It is amazing how quickly those goals were achieved.

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This part of the world is a continuous coastline on one side of the highway, and soft green hills or rugged timberland on the other. It’s a part of the world where you don’t have to share a beach and there is a plethora of space to stop and think. Space where there is no white noise. Any plans for an overseas jaunt in coming months are seriously being overhauled.

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My favourite travel writer, Bill Bryson, who totally cracks me up said “ To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.”

Road trips are the source of much fascinating information. After a quick feed at a pub in Nowra, I learnt that The Archer Tavern was named after the racehorse that won Australia’s first and second Melbourne Cups in 1861 and ‘62. Archer was a long distance specialist having walked the 600 miles from Nowra to Melbourne for the big race.

This was the basis of a truly dreadful mid eighties movie starring Our Nic before she met that bloke Cruise, and a young Brett Climo. Whatever happened to him, I wonder?

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In Moruya, further south on the Moruya River, you can’t miss the recently closed Air Raid Tavern situated on the Highway. A wooden carving of The Airman stands proudly outside. Moruya ?Air Raids? The hallmarks of a failed education system in the 1970s were once again raising their ugly heads.

Three trawler men lost their lives during WW2 when a Japanese Midget submarine bombed them off the Moruya Coast, on their way up the East Coast. Who knew that? Some more unpalatable history, apparently.

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So, of course I had to look at the Midget Sub on display, very much bruised and battered, at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Fascinating stuff.

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For the penultimate in Trivia a celebration of another kind taking place further south near Narooma had themed food to match the quiz like game at hand, set up in tents in a back garden, with a soft summer breeze, the hum of cicadas, and a playlist of music from the last five decades.

Much thanks must go to these good people, these Adventurers, who have convinced me to add “Watch Dr Who Christmas Special” to my Must Do List. An achievement considering never having watched a Star Wars, Harry Potter, or Lord Of The Rings movie  which I rate highly as Personal Bests, right up there with my No Tupperware Policy.

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And I picked up a first Edition copy of Rudyard Kipling’s, Kim, for my Errol Flynn Collection from a second hand bookstore in a little country town that served the best coffee.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said , “It’s not the destination. It’s the journey.” So true.

Against All Flags and Burrill Lake

I’ve previously shared the movies that helped mould the person I am today: Reap The Wild Wind with John Wayne being crushed by a giant squid accounting for my fear of seaweed ( and love of calamari), and Elizabeth And Essex with Errol Flynn and Bette Davis which was my excuse for decapitating my sister’s Barbie dolls.

A road trip through the haunts of my childhood on the New South Wales South Coast has stirred many memories; some good, some bad, but none ugly. Nothing is ugly once you hit the beautiful beaches and forests of this region, except perhaps for real estate prices.

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Coming from a family that enjoyed fishing, swimming, and body boarding in these same waters I was reminded of successful nights of prawning and catching Blue Swimmer Crabs in Burrill Lake, just south of Ulladulla. The Father Bear would wade knee deep in water holding a Tilly Lamp, guiding everybody else who would have a net ready to scoop any crabs attracted by the light. No need for any bait. That was me. I always attracted crabs.(Get your minds out of the gutter please). Nips from crabs were plentiful though I never complained as nothing ever did beat a fresh crab sandwich with a spray of pepper.

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Catching up with a friend and neighbour of fifty plus years standing over these past days we sat and watched Against All Flags, a 1952 movie starring Errol Flynn and Maureen O’Hara, which reminded me of the time where I confronted my military father and refused to be used to attract Blue Swimmers. It was the summer of rebellion. I was 8 and I had just seen this movie for the first time.

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Onboard a 1700s merchant ship, determined British naval officer Lieutenant Brian Hawke (Flynn) bravely endures twenty lashes with the intent of using the wounds to help him go undercover on the pirate island of Libertania. Once there, however, Hawke is brought before the colony’s head pirates, the Captains of the Coast, and forced to prove himself in a fight to the death. As he endures the various trials of a pirate, he finds himself drawn to the beautiful buccaneer Spitfire (O’Hara) and torn between her and his mission to disarm the renegade settlement. Co-starring Anthony Quinn, it’s a Technicolor epic filled with buxom maidens, breathtaking swordplay and dazzling spectacle. From IMDB.

For the purpose of this story you need to know that when the pirates realise that Errol is a spy they inflict an awful punishment.  They tie him to a pole on the tide line and await these butt ugly crabs to come out of the water to scavenge for food. Errol as a main course – delicious!

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Off set Errol was injecting oranges with vodka in defiance of the No Drinking Rule, and was seven years off his early demise. I think he still looked damn fine, and when the mogul princess in the movie kept asking for “more”, as in kisses, I knew just where her head was at. 

It was an absolute treasure to rewatch this movie all these years later in colour and with a wonderful friend. Cath, I never knew you were such a movie buff, particularly one with such an eye for bloopers. ( Watch for Spitfire’s beauty spot changing cheeks).

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I still have a fear of live crabs though am partial to a good crab salad with mango.

The South Coast, Errol Flynn and good friends. What a great start to retirement.

Three Days Till Retirement and The Battle Of The Boobs.

Three days left till the end of my working days. The longest three days of my life.

An office full of women including two millennials, no air conditioning in a Brisbane heatwave and a definite shift of power within the organisation are creating issues. There is electricity in the air.

As an observer I am fascinated. But I don’t want to be there. I’m just a soldier – I do my work, head down, butt in the air, forever forging through enemy lines, commando style.

Two younger women jockeying for position. Both very attractive, personable and capable girls with ambition. Both narcissists. It’s a battle of the breast implants. I’ve been having visions of Gary Cooper with 36DD boobs squaring off in High Noon.

Interestingly, despite being educated career women, their personal lives are train wrecks. Truly. One has been separated for twelve months and keeps crying poor. Lost everything, she moans. And is a Life Coach.

Do you know any Life Coaches? It may be a generalisation though it seems to me that all three Life Coaches with whom I am acquainted experienced multiple unhappy relationships. One has been divorced three times. Would you go to a thrice divorced Life Coach for advice, I have to ask?

The other just suffered a relationship breakdown. That’s ok. That’s Life. Happens to us all. Heartbreak helps mould us. In this case, she is prone to entanglements with drug dealers and dipsticks.

(LIFE LESSON 34 :  “ All that Glitters is not Gold”).

As for the millennials, the 21 year old openly admitted she didn’t like working with anyone over thirty five as they are “old people”. People, this is the direct result of not disciplining your recalcitrant children or teaching them respect. Lazy parenting.

( Note to Self : Impressive effort. You kept your mouth shut. Didn’t recognise you there for a moment. Book a Doctor’s appointment).

One of our ex staff members dropped in to say hello the other day bringing her fiancé. Charming fella – introduced himself, looked you in the eye, shook hands – a delightful man in his early 30s. Said millennial’s only comment was about his receding hairline. Guess what sweetie ? Doesn’t matter, you’ll find out soon enough…..

They tell me that my aura is in urgent need of a vacuum and my chakras require rebalancing. Easy fix. Jumping on an aeroplane and travelling 1000 klms south to where the “mountains meet the sea”, to a place that soothes the soul. Salt water, surf, sand and a Chardonnay or two is all this RETIRED girl needs to get back on an even keel.

Three more days. Suck it up, Buttercup.

NB.      Apologies for the vent. Apologies to any Life Coaches. Not really.

           

Sons of Scotland and Braveheart.

Looked what I found at a recent book sale. As the movie of the same name is one of those constants in my life this book screamed that it needed rehoming. $1. BARGAIN.

I was never a fan of Mad Max – ooops, Mad Mel – when he was young man. Blame my mother who instilled in my sister and I to “never trust a good looking man”, as well as to “always wear clean underwear in case you get hit by a bus”. Mel Gibson in middle age wore his wrinkles and crags well. I adored him in this one, The Patriot, and We Were Soldiers Once, in which he always played the tough guy, the strong guy with vulnerability, the bloke that could always do with a hug no matter how scary on the battlefield.

James Mackay has researched long and hard to discover the truth behind the legend of William Wallace, and openly admits to a lot of grey areas. This is not an easy read and I resorted to pen and paper to create a mud map to keep track of who was who in the zoo. Not surprising since the days of Wallace date back to the latter half of the 1200’s. In those days they shed Kings and Queens like Australia sheds Prime Ministers.

Who was William Wallace? Wallace was the medieval Scottish patriot who was spurred into revolt against the English when the love of his life was slaughtered. Leading his army into battles that become a war, his advance into England threatened King Edward I’s throne before he was captured and executed, but not before becoming a symbol for a free Scotland.

Much of Mackay’s research starts with the storytelling of Blind Harry, though not that much appears to be known about him either. Blind Harry (c. 1440 – 1492), was also known as Harry, Hary or Henry the Minstrel, and is the author of The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, more commonly known as The Wallace. This was a lengthy poem recounting the life of William Wallace, written around 1477, 172 years after Wallace’s death. Historians have in more recent years deemed many of the battles mentioned as inaccurate.

Historians aren’t much fun, are they?

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After wading through this book, Post It Notes inserted all over the place, I watched the Special addition Braveheart which includes Mel Gibson’s commentary from start to finish. Gibson was Director as well as the actor playing Wallace, and does not hesitate to discuss inaccurate historical references that were utilised for the benefit of cinematic retelling. With Gibson’s chat along with the storyline you look through different eyes and see so many different things within the movie. The use of mechanical horses, for instance, was fascinating as were the descendants of the Wallace Clan used as extras in battle scenes who required no embellishment by way of makeup.

Never seen Braveheart? You been too busy playing with Unicorns? Add it to your Holiday Play List.

I continue to argue that this is the most romantic movie of all time, and the accompanying soundtrack is damn fine too.

ADD TO BUCKET LIST : William Wallace Monument at Stirling, Scotland.