The Bear and the Bees – Page 3 – The Bear and the Bees

This old house

Now that I have been back from Vietnam for a couple of months, finished my self isolation period and walked around in metaphorical circles for a while, it’s time to catch up on writing about the many jobs around and on the house. As has been mentioned before, we live in an old farm house. It’s on the edge of a village that, with the exception of too many churches and not enough pubs (here), is not too dissimilar to where I grew up in England.

This is what the farm looked like around the 1850’s. It was very much a going concern back then with quite a few workers who looked after the dairy herd and the 30 acres that produced cauliflowers, berries, gooseberries and rhubarb. The soil, being volcanic; is rich and lends itself to most kinds of agriculture – that is if the sometimes ‘high antarctic’ climate allows it.

The house and some of the outbuildings.

The house had quite distinctive chimney’s that can be seen here just behind the farm buildings and thankfully, they have fared quite well over the years. The large gable ended building on the right was actually the farm office and it had accomodation and a kitchen for the workers. Sadly, that’s no longer there, nor is the blacksmiths shop that was onsite, but periodically, I dig up horseshoes, stirrups and nails around the property. The blacksmith was probably a very busy fellow as the farm reportedly had 26 draft horses who lived in the stables on the premises; 26 huge horses – blimey and I thought our two Rhodesian Ridgebacks produced a lot of dung… Aside from the enormous horseshoes he would have had to make, the blacksmith also made and repaired all the metalwork for the farm. When you look at the burn marks around the nail holes in the hall, I could imagine the farm boys running between his forge to the house, with the glowing nails in tin buckets and handing them over to the builders and them whacking them straight in the walls.

Burn marks around the nail holes

Most people didn’t have wall paper back then, or if they did, they had made their money and showed it off by slapping newspaper on the walls and then putting up the latest wall paper designs from London (probably made in Melbourne!). Most people back then covered their inside walls with canvas or even hessian and painted it, giving the impression of a plastered wall. Thats probably what they did here as there’s still quite a few hessian fibres struck behind the nails in our hall if you look carefully.

The old roof from the courtyard – our dogs favourite sun trap

A lady called Mary Powers, was one of the original owners and according to the historical accounts she was a very enterprising woman and was the brains behind the the running of the farm. Her husband, who was the local doctor, did his rounds on horseback, looking after the communities health while she established the market garden that supplied some of the thousands of diggers searching for gold in the local area with fresh vegetables. They also had a herd of cows and established a small dairy elsewhere on the property and it was there that they processed the milk and also made butter, cream and cheese for sale.

Another view of the old property

Trevor, who was one of the later residents of the house after his family purchased the farm, was actually born in the front bedroom. He told us many stories about his life in the house and the many interesting characters who worked on the farm. He also said that his parents set up a churn for making the butter in the cellar that runs under the full width of the house and that he had spent hours turning the handle as a child. I don’t expect anything of value is really left under there, but as I still haven’t opened it up, I might be surprised, you never know. I’ll open it up one day for sure but it’s at the bottom of a very long job list, just before the 6mt deep well that has been covered over for safety.

Trevor also hinted at a few ghostly experiences associated with the house and to be honest, it would be surprising if there weren’t more than a few births and deaths over the years, but certainly we have never felt anything malevolent about the place. That said, an early house guest of ours did reportedly hear voices and movement in the night and swore that she woke in the night to a child sitting on the end of her bed and it wasn’t one of ours. We may or may not have plied her with a couple of gins over dinner so that could have been the reason for the voices, but I remain open minded about these things.

Newly replaced weather boards

When we moved in, we were so excited not to be in our usual rental accomodation overseas that we overlooked quite a few of the shortcomings and maintenance issues that the house had. I had noticed that there were a couple of trees that had grown under the eaves and actually into the roof, but I hadn’t realised that this had become a walkway for possums, rats and mice, all of whom had raised several generations of youngsters above the heads of the residents. I had foolishly gone up into the roof to investigate why there were so many lights fusing in the early days and as I shone my torch and looked around at all the chewed wires, I felt like an explorer looking into a cave full of bats, with the amount of small eyes reflecting light back at me!

The same friend who had the child sitting on her bed, was bitten on her toe whilst in bed by a mouse when she nudged it in her sleep but the last straw for Mrs. Jerry was the (admittedly very cute) field mouse sitting watching us eat dinner from the kitchen bench and occasionally helping itself to crumbs from the bread board. When the previous owners had slyly asked me if we liked ‘wildlife’, I thought that they had the Kangaroos in the paddock in mind, not the creatures residing in, over and under the house. Such was the consternation and great the threat of domestic sanctions, that I also had to nip out and buy a full set of new white goods in order to persuade Mrs Jerry to stay in the house and the second stop was the RSPCA and the adoption of a hungry looking cat, who has done us proud ever since.

A nice spot for a glass of wine as the sun goes down.

Back in the late 1840’s one of the many challenges was to make the houses weatherproof. The highest point of our village is a little elevated at 754mts ASL and we certainly do get some cold weather, with snow on the ground for a couple of days a year. It doesn’t last that long, but up on the mount, a friend who bakes professionally and has very large baking trays, gets them out and whizzes down the hill with her kids. The weather does take its toll on wooden houses and a few years ago I was replacing some of the weatherboards with a retired builder (as adult supervision) and he pulled one off one the boards close to the ground and out came hundreds of hard reddish brown pellets about the size of rabbit droppings. I was a little alarmed that they might be something unsavoury but as it turned out, the answer was thankfully less faecal than I thought. Long ago in the village, there had been a tannery that produced skins from various beasts, both native and domestic. In the tannery process, aside from a lot of urine, they used oil distilled from the eucalyptus leaves and wood chips. The dried waste from the wood had been recycled into insulation and that’s what filled most of the cavity walls in the houses.

Being an old farm, the upkeep is pretty much constant and ongoing. We had been saving up for a new roof for a couple of years and it eventually came time to bite the bullet and line up the contractors. I had actually been soliciting quotes for at least 18 months and I had seen the incredible difference in what some tradies will try and get away with. I found it hard to believe that someone could say that they’d finish a whole roof, on their own in ten days for a couple of grand, knowing that out of those ten days, there would be at least four when it would be blowing a gale and you wouldn’t last five minutes up there. Sure enough, when I asked for references, most fell by the wayside and I ended up with the most expensive, but most credible looking tradesmen.

The problem with removing an old roof is that you then can’t ignore what you’d suspected was under there, (but had secretly hoped wasn’t) and sure enough, that turned out to be a whole lot of rotten wood. I couldn’t ignore it and in-between visits from the rain and the roofers, I climbed up on the roof and replaced weatherboards, jet washed and scrubbed the chimneys, painted the visible eaves and dodged the numerous spiders lurking up there. Slowly, the house started to look much smarter.

Cleaning the Chimney’s – looking down to the old stable block

I received a few smart arsed texts from my neighbour who had driven by the house and seen me safely harnessed to the scaffolding, wearing a full ‘bunny suit’ to try and avoid sandblasting myself, but I managed to refrain from throwing tools down at his car the next time I saw it. I had to be really careful not to wash the old mortar out of the stacks, but they certainly looked good afterwards. I did not, of course and not only did I look a lot older, having been soaked and blasted, I was also hobbling around, after falling through my ladder and ‘de barking’ both shins in the process. Luckily no one saw me do that.

A bunch of really dodgy looking guys turned up one afternoon and started mooching around the garden and as I walked over to challenge them, it became obvious that by the sound of the mutual abuse, they were known to the roofers, so I bit my tongue and just watched. They fell upon the pile of old tin and wood like starving hyenas around a kill and they had stacked it all into their trailers in just over ten minutes. I was impressed with their speed and coordination and told them so. The man in charge just grinned through his missing and blackened teeth said “it’s what we do mate” They disappeared in a fog of hand rolled cigarettes accompanied by the sound of squealing tyres. Apparently, there are several groups of these ‘general dealers’ who stalk builders who are working locally and they get rid of the scrap for nothing, salvaging what they can and presumably making a few bucks on it.

Our nice shiny new roof. I still have to paint the house and build a new fence, or hopefully, pay someone to do it for me! In the foreground is what remains of the enormous tree that threatened to split and fall on the house – I wrote about this some time ago https://www.thebearandthebees.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=217&action=edit Removing the stump and replacing the fence will no doubt take me a few more months. But as its been there for a couple of years, there’s no real rush!

Another story from Trevor involved a local handyman who had been hired to build a stable on the property. He was unfortunately very fond of the bottle and he’d work well up to lunch time and then after a sandwich washed down with a great deal of whiskey, he’d curl up in a corner and sleep for the rest of the day. This didn’t endear him to Trevors father and one day, fed up with the time the work was taking, he stepped over the snoring body and to teach him a lesson, he cemented the remaining full whiskey bottles into the wall under construction, where they still reportedly remain. Not surprisingly, this didn’t go down too well, but the stable was eventually finished, so I expect that it had the desired effect…

Now this is a much better use of a stable than housing horses!

The Southern end of the stable had suffered rather from the weather and the stonework column to the left of the door had been made with a very poor lime mortar mix. By the time this task came around to the top of the list, the mortar had the consistency of paper mâché and the collapsing stones had jammed the rotten wood of the door shut. I knew I had to remove that column and not being a dab hand at stone wall building, I decided to extend the weather boards down to the ground.

Replacing the weather boards single handed was an interesting challenge as I seemed to only be able to find a time to start when the skies were about to open and the wind would pick up to the point that being up a ladder was almost suicidal. I did eventually manage to rope in Jerry minor, who kindly left his computer games long enough to help me and that got the job finished.

I finished the timber work off with a stable door, which is something I had always wanted just there.

And here’s why!

Covid – 19, my internment…

As far as interesting weeks go, this one’s a cracker.

I arrived in Vietnam around three weeks ago for some contract work South of Da Nang, on the east coast. Whilst on the plane I noticed that around 25% of the people on the plane were wearing masks and frantically wiping off arm rests, tables and screens with alcohol wipes. I never snigger at hygiene and I always pride myself on being clean and tidy. In fact, when I was younger, I was referred to by one ex girlfriend as the Persil kid (that’s a brand of washing powder for those unfamiliar with it) but looking back, I don’t think that was an entirely complimentary nickname.

With some trepidation, I also noticed that 100% of the crew were not only wearing masks but were also wearing surgical gloves and I wondered what sort of a flight it was going to be? Having read up on the current Corona Virus variant, now known as Covid 19, I knew that cleanliness and avoiding close proximity with infected people was the key to not getting sick, so I looked around for a seat with no neighbour; but to no avail and I was, of course crammed in with the rest of the plebs. Back home in Australia before I left, there was no chance of buying a proper mask that had a decent chance of preventing an infection as they had all sold out and the only ones available looked like they were made from blotting paper and would only be useful as a false teeth catcher if you sneezed hard. I slipped one of those on, just to fit in. I eventually arrived in Da Nang after the usual shenanigans at the various airports and settled into a spartan but pleasant routine of early mornings, long days and early nights – with the occasional bout of binge drinking on Sunday nights.

A few days ago, Mr. Ho* our interpreter, wasn’t feeling too great and he’d gone for a bit of a lie down. He’s in his 70’s and it’s pretty hot out in the countryside, so I wasn’t surprised he was feeling the heat. The next morning however, we discovered that he’d got one of the drivers to take him to hospital early that day as he was feeling quite sick. I thought nothing of it until the hotel reception called up to ask for a copy of my passport and my flight schedule. I put two and two together and figured that Mr. Ho was suspected of having the Covid 19 virus and that they were tracing anyone who had been in contact with him. When I also had to submit my air tickets, I began to suspect that it was a bit more sinister than that.

*not his real name

It transpired that a Vietnamese socialite had flown from Italy through the UK and then through Hanoi to Da Nang some ten days earlier than I had arrived on a similar domestic itinerary. The socialite had evidently had symptoms when she arrived but had created a scene when the authorities tried to stop her. “Don’t you know who I am?” or something like that and she was allowed to enter the country. An older couple from the UK had sat just behind her on the plane and had followed her from the UK to Da Nang and they became sick around 5 days later. My interpreter had kindly dobbed me in as a new arrival and the potential cause of his sickness and so that afternoon, I got a polite call from Mr Ho asking me to come in and be tested. I should have fallen back on my usual *“Don’t tell him Pike” attitude when I got there because after lunch, I naively agreed to comply and trotted down there like the proverbial lamb to the slaughter.

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YMVPXmaKds

On the way out of the hotel, I noted that all of the staff had donned masks and gloves, so clearly the ‘word had passed around’ that there was a potential carrier in their midst. Not one of them made eye contact as I walked the long walk to the car. Not being entirely as green as I am cabbage looking, I had taken the precaution of also wearing a mask and packing a ‘bug out’ pack (no pun intended…) in advance before submitting myself to arriving at the quarantine station of the district hospital. I had actually been to the main building before when leasing an ambulance, driver and medic for the duration of the work I was doing, so I knew my way into the main admin area, but I wasn’t headed there. There were large signs in Vietnamese with arrows pointing to a quiet area around the back and in driving through the trees and around the dustbins, I was casually reminded of where the British military (allegedly) places their clap clinics on their own hospital grounds and I allowed my mind to drift slightly until the car pulled up. I was interested to see that there was a bilingual sign announcing it as the “infectious respiratory disease wing” and that there was a barred, but open window with a masked and gowned human sitting at a desk. I noted that she wasn’t wearing any gloves so I thought that it was a reasonable hope that there’d be no intrusive examinations.

I was beckoned in and my identity was checked by a no nonsense nurse who spoke very little English. She was not impressed that I had handed over a photocopy of my passport and visa instead of the originals, but I had cunningly cached them just in case… I knew that if it were confiscated, there would be little opportunity to find a local forger to create a replacement at short notice.

A couple of locals turned up as I was being interrogated in Vietnamese and I was quickly shuffled out to sit in the sun and ponder my future. It was over an hour before I was brought back in and on the strength of a 37.5 degree temperature, I was rapidly absorbed into their containment system. It didn’t matter that I explained that I’d been sitting in the sun for an hour or that the sore throat I unwisely admitted to (as a result of snoring hard the night before) was nothing out the ordinary, I had blood taken and had a chest Xray.

Things did not bode well when it was explained that although the bloods and the Xray was normal, the next test results would tell them what the follow up steps should be, but that they would only take swabs the next day and that the results would take at least another two days. In the mean time, I had to reside in the isolation area. When being accompanied to my cell, because there’s no other way of describing it, I saw Mr Ho through the glass next door. He rather sheepishly waved to me but I couldn’t see because of his mask whether he was smiling or grimacing. Upon hearing the door slam behind me, I quickly started to fashion a shiv out of my toothbrush. I reasoned that I only had to be lucky once, but he had to be lucky everyday.

Internment diary, day 1.

The bed, if you can call it that, reminded me of an exercise bench. Padded, but certainly not meant for a rest. The room itself was on the outside of the building and had barred windows (bars on the inside, I noted) and the locked door had a gap underneath of around two inches. I figured that that was probably an environmental touch to allow the geckos to enter and eat the ants, cockroaches and mosquito’s that lived in my cell. Pretty quickly I decided that there was probably more chance of me getting sick in here than outside, even if I was sharing an airline seat with a bunch of Chinese Italians and it was then that I started to monitor the routines of the staff for obvious weaknesses in their patrol patterns.

23:10, there’s a knock on the door and it’s a person in full PPE demanding my passport. I walk to the glass door sans mask and I see them recoil. I lock the door and make a point of kicking the wedge, that I carry for times like this, under the door. There’s another frustrated bout of knocking but it doesn’t last for long as I have sound cancelling headphones.

Internment diary, day 2.

Overnight whilst dozing, I had heard shouts and running feet outside my cell and it wasn’t long before a man dressed in the full NBC (Nuclear Biological & Chemical) suit banged on the door and as I let him in, I saw he was holding a mosquito net. He also said, in reasonable english, “you must lock your doors and windows, there may be thieves around” Ahh, that explained the shouting then.

The mozzie net was a nice touch, but sadly it was several hours late, as I had already become acquainted with the local insect world. Appel on that first morning was at 05:45, but as I hadn’t slept, I was up and about already. I resisted the temptation to snap to attention as these two bustled into my cell and instead, I determined upon a campaign of passive resistance.

The temperature check revealed that I was normal (36.5) and the blood pressure result came back (translated) as ‘pissed off, but otherwise normal’ Then came the long swab up the nose moment. I had experienced one of these before (a long story) and I knew how unpleasant they could be. It is literally the medical equivalent of bamboo slivers under the fingernails and about as much fun. I refused to show fear before my captors, but couldn’t help a loud involuntary retch as the follow up oral swab reached back somewhere close to C1. I was frankly impressed by how quickly the blue ninja’s leaped back from me, obviously expecting some virus laden projectile vomit to be coming their way. Sadly it didn’t, but it amused me to see them think that it would.

Internment diary, day 3 AKA – the longest day

The of the two smallest cleaners in the Republic of Vietnam and possibly the Empire of Lilliput as well, are completely dressed in head to toe PPE and have just bustled into my cell with a mop and bucket but they are steadfastly refusing to meet my eye. One of them covers the door as the other, not turning her back on me, quickly runs her mop over the floor, making the barest of contact but depositing enough bleach around the place that ebola would certainly die, if it were to raise its crook shaped head. I decide to mask up and stand in the hot corridor while they toss my cell and just for the hell of it, I stand to attention, with my back to the wall.

The doctor, who thankfully does speak a little english, appears from nowhere in his NBC suit and ignoring my posture, tells me that the results will possibly, hopefully, be back later this evening, but maybe tomorrow. I thank him, but this sounds like ‘mañana’ to me and I know enough from my couple of years in Mexico to know that mañana, whilst literally meaning ‘in the morning’ and mañana mañana, means ‘tomorrow morning’ can also means ‘sometime, possibly in the future’. I ask him what happens if the tests come back negative and he says that ‘we can go’ – assuming that I want to be in the same car as that snitch, Mr Ho. I also want to know what happens if the test comes back as positive. Behind his mask, I swear that the doctor is grinning when he says “we need two negative tests before you can go” In my head I tot up the testing in the morning, then at least two days waiting for results and hey presto, I am in the chokey for at least another six days. I am not fooled and start planning the building of a glider in my head.

One of his female acolytes, similarly dressed, darts from behind the protective form of the doctor and tries to ram a thermometer under my arm. After having seen one of them take the thermometer from me previously and slip it directly under the arm of Mr Ho next door, I’m none too convinced of its cleanliness so I intercept her and whip out my hand sanitiser and lube it up before placing it under my uniform – and yes, even the bloody issue pajamas are striped!

The thermometer covered in alcohol gel stings like a b*****d, but I refuse to let on and I remain standing outside the cell as the cleaners finish and at the appropriate moment, I remove the thermometer and check it. My blood runs cold, but not apparently cold enough as it’s now showing 37 degrees. The nurse grabs it and lets out an excited squeal as she runs off to make sure that everyone knows that the foreigner is rapidly deteriorating.

06:30 I get a call and hear that there’s a ‘red cross’ parcel on its way over with the project manager. I furtively slide over near the window and watch out for the car. I am able to jimmy the lock and do a quick handover, just as a nurse shouts out and the driver tries to distract her. I am back inside in an instant and tear open the food parcel like I haven’t eaten in days. Of course, when I glance at my watch and and see that its only 07:00, I know it’s going to be a very long day.

11:07 – I hear an argument outside and someone is arguing with Mr. Ho. I hear the word ‘passport’ mentioned several times and I know it’s my passport they are referring to. I’m pretty certain that they won’t find it unless the Cemetery next to my hotel has CCTV and they caught me on camera cacheing it.

14:26 – I have spotted a motorcycle parked close to my cell. I think I can hot wire it without too much of a problem.

16:38 – I resolve to shank Mr Ho at the earliest opportunity.

17:30 – I am looking for a beam to throw a rope over…

20:15 – Mr Ho hears from one of his contacts that we have been given the all clear. I give Mr Ho 15 minutes to have the doctor here with a certificate of non infection, but without much hope that this will actually happen.

20:30 – the doctor arrives, presents the certificate and shakes my hand before wishing me luck. He actually walks us out of the quarantine area and waves us goodbye.

I still wish Mr Ho serious and lasting harm…

Bees, wildlife and bushfires

Down in country Victoria where we live, it’s supposedly summer, with warm sunny days and cool nights. Not that you’d know it just yet as I don’t think we have had a night without lighting the fire and for me, at least, the electric blanket on most nights. We seem to get a day or two of lovely sunny weather following some welcome showers and all the flowers come out of hiding and the bees burst out of the hives in a bid to catch the early blooms. Then of course, the weather changes again and like last night, it drops to 2 degrees C and all thoughts of a good honey season go out of the window.

As the weather temporarily improved, the lovely old rose bushes around the house started to flower and the climbing roses looked and smelled fantastic. Over the winter I had lost both of my bee hives largely because there wasn’t enough food for them plus I wasn’t there to supplement their feed. It wasn’t just me though and I don’t know anyone locally who has had a good year for their bees. Of course, the awful bushfires have wiped out many colonies and burned most of their natural food. As a result of that, I resorted to buying two ‘nuc’ or nucleus hives from a professional beekeeper at Woodend, on the other side of Melbourne.

I drove over to see him one morning and I found him working without a hood or gloves on his hives in the bright sunshine. His bees were busy and all around him but they didn’t seem at all aggressive. Not being quite so confident, I slipped a small net over my hat and wandered over to introduce myself. It turned out that he’d recently relocated from Sydney to the area he grew up in on the strength of the anticipated honey season. He said that it was just bad luck about the fires and I could certainly smell some smoke in the air, but he claimed that was only from his bee smoker and not from the bush surrounding his property. I was glad to hear that, but mentally prepared myself for a quick getaway, if it was needed.

It was clear to me that his bees were really docile, compared to the ones I had previously had. It’s not that my old lot were super aggressive, but if you accidentally squashed one whilst raiding the hive, they’d let you know by dive bombing you and pinging off your mask, which can be quite disconcerting, to say the least! The beekeeper explained that like all bees, his took their nature from the Queen and as she was quite docile, her offspring were as well. Just as well, I thought as we were lifting the frames out and into the boxes I had brought with me. By the time I got them into my car, I had quite a swarm around me, but by driving slowly, with the windows open, most of them flew out and hopefully back to their own hives.

I decided to stop in Woodend to grab some lunch and I parked in the shade and left the windows partially open so the car wouldn’t overheat. I stepped into a very fashionable cafe and ordered up a drink and a slice of cake. Unfortunately, I had underestimated the number of choices that the dreadlocked server would have to run through in order for me to avoid anything that could even remotely be considered as unhealthy, non organic, or harmful to the environment. I turned down the fair trade civet cat poo coffee in favour of a skinny hot chocolate that they guaranteed was made without child labour and a slice of (surprisingly good) vegan chocolate cake. Whilst I was waiting for my food, I felt a tap on my shoulder and a lady said “excuse me, do you know your back is covered in bees?” Ahh, no I didn’t but I thanked her as I felt a gentle scratching on my stomach. I excused myself and stepping outside, I lifted up my shirt gently and I noticed that one of the little critters had made its way inside my clothing. I took my shirt off, gave it a gentle shake, dislodging my hitchhikers and then after redressing myself, picked up my food and to the curious stares of the locals, climbed into the car and ate my food, with more than one bee trying to land on my cake .

Along the way, I could see a lot of bees in the rear view mirror. I pulled over and saw that the inside of the car was covered in bees as a bump in the road must have dislodged the lid of the box along the way. They weren’t bothering me thankfully, but I prudently decided to to wear my face veil in the car on the drive, just in case I suffered a high speed sting. I got some funny looks at the traffic lights I can tell you. Eventually, I arrived at home and I gently carried them over to their newly renovated hives.

You can see Her Majesty in the centre of the picture. She’s quite a lot larger than the others, but just to make sure I couldn’t lose her, the beekeeper had kindly put a small pink dot on her back.

Safe and sound, all in their new homes.

I had a call one morning from the local school, where Mrs Jerry is a teacher as there had been a baby ringtail possum found in the playground. Its possible that the baby had fallen from the drey (nest) or even off her mothers back. The trees were being cut down because of the risk of bushfire locally and she might well have been panicked by the chainsaws. When I got there the little critter was clearly alive and had a fine covering of fur, which was a very good sign. Mrs Jerry had him wrapped warmly in a towel in her office and he was very quiet, but wriggled when I held him.

The little ‘fellow’

His eyes weren’t open, which was a concern as its touch and go if they’ll survive at around that three to four months old stage. We got him home and promptly discovered that ‘he’ was a ‘she’ and that she really wasn’t keen on taking the possum replacement milk from a bottle. That worried us because the first night is usually the make or break time for orphaned joey’s (baby Kangaroos and possums are both called joey’s), but she survived for another day, eventually lapping the milk from a jam jar lid but not peeing or pooping anything, which usually means that the kidneys are stuffed and sadly she passed away. I was unsurprisingly upset by that but I reasoned that at least she had a better chance than she would have done if she hadn’t been found.

Again, as a result of vegetation clearing as protection against the spread of bushfires, we ended up with a small parrot to look after. When the kids brought it round to Mrs Jerry, they hadn’t a clue what it was as it resembled a small and very strange fluffy dinosaur.

Now, you try and tell me that he’s not enjoying that tickle!

I thought that he was possibly a Galah as we had hand raised one of those before when we lived in Queensland but as he got a little older, we could tell that he wasn’t a Galah at all. Although you couldn’t see colour through his pinfeathers, there’s a tell tale curved ‘U’ of dots on the top of the head where a Galah’s crest will be. It actually looks a bit like a bad hair transplant at that stage, with all the plugs in a row and whilst he had the plugs, this little fellow didn’t have the distinctive ‘U’. he did have two lovely pom poms on his head though!

I had been weighing him diligently on some nifty digital scales that I’d picked up from cash converters for $10 – (probably traded in as one of the local crack dealers upgraded…) and he’d been steadily putting on weight daily. We’d been feeding him on a mixture made by a company called Wombaroo, who also make replacement food for most Australian mammals and birds.

Pretty soon, he began to colour up and of course, he’s a Crimson Rosella.

He was quickly named Jeffrey by #2 Son. I have no idea why, but the name stuck and here he is, just around 2 months old. Jeffrey will gradually lose most of the green colouring leaving him that lovely scarlet colour with blue cheeks and blue edging on his wings. He’s pictured here in front of my Mum, who when over for Christmas, loved holding him while I was tube feeding him.

I make no real comment about the bushfires except to say, that they are worse than most people can remember and so much wildlife has been killed. The bush will regenerate, but I do worry about the birds and mammals and especially the insects. If they can’t find enough food to eat for long, they’ll die out and we’ll be in a real mess. It is a rare privilege to be able to help some of them survive, but I do wish it wasn’t necessary.

A holiday, at last.

I am of the ‘as one door closes, another one slams in your face’* school of pragmatism and so in business and in life, I usually plan for the worst outcome and then I’m not too disappointed when ‘it’ actually happens. Sometimes though, the stars just align and things occasionally go right. Here’s one of those occasions.

*that saying came from my Mum, who is as pragmatic as they come.

I had a business trip planned late last year that included a meeting in Barcelona and feeling rather proud of myself, as soon as I announced that at home, Mrs Jerry decided that as it was in school holidays and I had lots of air miles to be used, she was coming too. Jerry minor overheard and bagged himself a seat on the plane and Ms Jerry major, who was in the UK at University, also decided she was flying over to Spain and joining us. We found somewhere nice for the two newest ringins to stay while we were away and we were set to go, with my flight and a couple of days of hotel stay covered by the company.

Sure enough, with numerous flights, cars and hotels booked; around a month to go before the trip, I lost my job and I ended up feeling a bit silly. Luckily (for me), my flights were non refundable and so the company decided that I could keep them (a small win). There was no serious discussion about cancelling the whole thing as family in the UK had been alerted and they were all getting as excited as we were. A couple of weeks later, we embarked on a series of flights from Melbourne to Heathrow via Singapore and when we eventually got into Madrid, we found out what a fantastic city it is.

We stayed in a great little hotel right in the centre of Madrid, a short walk from the Palace, the Opera house and all of the best restaurants. I happened to be invited to a fun reunion with my former team from work at a very posh restaurant in the city. One of the many things I love about Spain and it was particularly evident that night, is their lack of measuring spirits when pouring. A sly raising of the eyebrows in the direction of the pourer is enough to see a glass well and truly topped off. It turned out that the kids were also quite delighted with this as later in the week as when a waiter automatically assumed that they would be having a drink as well, a moments inattention could (and did) see your 15 year old grinning behind a balloon glass of Monkey 47 gin.

I hadn’t quite realised just how much the Iberian pig was revered in Spain and every lunch spot and restaurant claimed that their own ‘especial’ Jamon was the best in town. I tried a couple and I can testify that as most of it probably comes from the same farms, it’s all very similar but very, very good. Looking up at the ceiling in one small place just off the main strip made me think of a blend between a meat ‘laundry’ and a scene in a horror movie.

The food was lovely and mostly very healthy, with lots of oily fish, prawns, fresh vegetables and of course, copious amounts of wine. I did however experience a moment of health related panic and mentally check my insurance cover, when one morning I glanced behind me and down before realising that I had enjoyed a magnificent beetroot goats cheese salad the day before. I consciously raised more than a few glasses in historic city squares to my dear late father in law Peter; who really did love Rioja.

On the other gastronomic hand, there were a number of diversions where deserts were concerned and whilst for the most part, I stuck with my boring but favourite vanilla ice cream, I made an exception at one of the most famous Churrerias in the city. I made several very early trips to this one at the end of my Jalk’s, returning to the hotel with bags of Churros and mugs of hot and almost pure liquid chocolate. Ohhh, it was so good.

The very famous Chocolateria San Gines. One of the few times there wasn’t a very long queue out the door – that was because it was ‘dark o’clock’.

We visited the Palace (one of several in fact) and whilst it was very impressive, when comparing it to somewhere like Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace, I was struck by close up, how shabby it actually looked. I suspect that Spains socialist government have different priorities where spending is concerned and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but just a coat of fresh paint and a couple of carpenters could have made a heck of a difference in a couple of weeks.

The Palace, just don’t look too closely at the paint…

There are no photographs allowed in the Palace, which was a little disappointing and there are teams of eagle eyed security guards who are determined that there will be no selfies taken ‘in front of the throne’ and whilst they aren’t quite in the same league as the scary Babushkas who guard St Petersburg’s Hermitage museum (they have finely tuned extra sensory perception that detects the very intention of thinking how nice a picture of the Kolyvan vase would look on your wall), the stares from the female guards will reduce your self confidence to fly checking furtiveness with their stares in an instant.

In a lighter moment, whilst enjoying a long lunch at a restaurant near the opera house, we observed what may or may not have been street theatre or a candid camera skit taking place in front of our eyes. A not wholly unattractive lady with the longest legs and the shortest skirt paraded with her boyfriend around the square primping for photographs and doing “oops, I dropped my handkerchief” straight legged bends with her back to an appreciative audience (not me, of course).

My slightly shaking hands recorded this upon her retreat from the square

Barcelona came next and it was a very different city to Madrid. That’s not to say that it is a second tier city at all, just that it is well, different. We stayed in the student quarter which was busy, young and multicultural. Online, we found a bijou apartment that was advertised a having been ‘newly renovated’ and after booking, we received a note that our host ‘Juan’, was looking forward to meeting us at the train station. Of course, it turned out that ‘newly renovated’ might have meant in this decade and that our host was in fact, called Igor and the prison tattoos of St Basils Cathedral on his hand plus the initials “VOR” (thief, in Russian prison parlance), suggested a fairly interesting past. He was however, kind enough to help us up the stairs with our luggage, which was just as well, as the location should better have been be described as a ‘garret’ and I would likely have been in ICU from tumbling down and landing under our oversized suitcases.

Just have a look at the view down the stairs from our doorway.

A couple of days later, having survived the altitude upstairs, the noise of the non stop partying going on downstairs and the nauseating vertigo from looking down the stair well, we moved out and returned the hire car. We only discovered later that all of our credit cards had been skimmed following a great lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in the main square, but oh well, you live and learn and before we knew it, we were on the train south, past Alicante and towards the coastal town of Denia.

Denia is an old fishing village with something of a piratical air. Of course, new money and Russian accents have arrived in town and there are now a few flash restaurants and some very nice boats in the Marina. You can still find plenty of the old town if you look and it’s really worth a wander round. A good friend had very kindly leant us his apartment for the first few days, which was on the outskirts of town in the foothills of the mountains. Being out of season, the complex was quiet and the very nice apartment became the base of operations for our beach and city forays, which did unfortunately mean driving home, so the long lunches had to be more or less dry, but that wasn’t too much of a problem as I was often pretty exhausted after a day on the beach and a couple of drinks would have seen me face down in my paella.

The next phase of the holiday was moving down the hill into the town of Denia properly and into one of, if not the best, hotel in town. The photograph below was the reception area of the very posh La Posada del Mar; the hotel we splashed out on for the last couple of nights. I loved the floor and it reminded me of the terracotta floor that we had in our first house in Queensland, although we had chickened out of having the intricate patterns for more sedate feature tiles.

The cool, cave like interior of the ‘reading room’

Once again, I dragged myself out for several early morning jalks whilst there and as no-one else would get up, I explored the old town alone. I was glad to see that there’s nothing of the Benidorm or Torremolinos ‘egg and chips’ culture here and it’s a real town, where real Spanish people live. Clearly, there are quite a few retirees who also live here and during the day, tan themselves into their graves whilst lathered in Ambre Solaire. There’s also a reasonable, but not overly pretty beach. One evening, we caught up with a lovely old friend met during our time living in Malaysia and we all had dinner (and more gin) on the seafront at the pretty town of Xavier. I had a chance to practice my sketchy Spanish on the locals who smiled and politely nodded, usually bringing me what I had asked for but no doubt shaking their heads at my efforts after I’d gone, but it was fun and it impressed the kids, even if they didn’t know what I sounded like to a native ear. Of major note in the town of Denia is the fort on top of a small hill overlooking everything and it’s a great place to see the surrounding area. It was built by the Arabs who ruled the area between the 8th and the 13th centuries and they did a good job.

One morning the glassy looking sea was too much to bear and we rented a speed boat for half a day. After working through the paperwork (in Spanish) and signing all of our worldly goods away, we motored slowly out of the harbour past the mega yachts with all their ‘toys’ parked ostentatiously on their hydraulically lifted back decks. I saw more than one Russian Federation flag fluttering from the back decks of the Panamanian registered vodka palaces and I idly wondered how much salt you’d have to mine to be able to afford one of those.

We were limited on the extent of our exploration by the fear of breaking down at sea and our desiccated bodies being found months later by fishermen, but there was a three kilometre stretch of the national park that was very much worth exploring, so we risked it. We all took turns at the wheel of the boat and as our eldest daughter took multiple selfies for the ‘gram’ we sped along. I mused at the many ways that I could end up losing our security deposit on the boat and be prevented from returning home by the local representatives of the Bratva. I chose to keep those dark thoughts to myself though, as everyone was having far too much fun.

We snorkelled in a crystal clear bay at the end of the park and followed dinner plate sized jellyfish as they pulsated through extended families of sardines. The seagrass on the bottom also hid the bodies, but not the waving antennae of small but delicious looking Langostino, but of course you can’t legally catch them, it being a national park. It didn’t stop one local chipping away at Mejillones clinging to the stony walls and although I tut tutted, I was secretly thinking how nice they would taste with garlic and white wine.

Running out of time on our rental, we dragged ourselves back in the boat and sped back at a decent rate to the harbour, already planning our next meal. The return of the small vessel was thankfully painless and we wandered back to our hire car and thence to the Jamaica Inn, on the waterfront of the old town for another relaxed dinner.

Our eventual exit from Spain and return to Australia was relatively painless and the suggestion that we return another time was unanimously agreed. It had been our first family holiday (even if we weren’t all there together) for a few years and despite that I had to do some job hunting after Christmas, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

The week that was (pretty shitty actually)

So… here’s how the week started. Mrs Jerry went down with some horrible lurgi. Influenza A had been going around the town and especially at her place of work and given that a couple of people locally had died; it was with some trepidation that I made her comfortable in bed and left the house with pup #1 to visit a nearby Sunday market and load up on the organic veggies.

I knew that there would be the usual begging for shiny things all the way around the market and it’s pretty usual for our kids to want everything toylike and attractive and so I was prepared to come back with all the normal items of cheap crapola but it took several rounds of the market for him to commit to the exact piece of plastic that he hadn’t already snagged on previous visits. All of the time, I was fretting about Mrs Jerry and as soon as I could, we jumped back in the car and headed home.

When I got back, I could see that Mrs Jerry had deteriorated to the extent that she needed to see a doctor and quickly. The quickest and best way to get her professional help was to call an ambulance. Regular readers may recall that we are currently fostering not one, but two young boys? I knew that both of them had negative memories of the emergency services and I didn’t want them to see the ambo’s carting Mrs Jerry out of the house, so I shuffled them into the bedroom with an admonishment not to open the door and then asked our lovely neighbour to come over and look after them.

The delightful lady ambo’s arrived soon after and they very professionally retrieved Mrs Jerry from her sick bed and transferred her into the ambulance and I let the boys out of the bedroom, transferred control to our neighbour and followed the ambulance in the car. Over the next couple of hours, the test results thankfully discounted the Doctors first suspicions of meningitis and instead revealed the unholy trinity of a nasty flu, plus a sinus infection and just to top it off, a skull cracking migraine.

Returning home to collect some essentials, I noticed straightway that there was a hissing sound at the back of the house and saw that the sandy coloured woollen carpet had alarmingly become several shades darker. I rushed into the master bedroom and straight into what appeared to be a Turkish bath; not, I hasten to add, that I’m overly familiar with such places, having had a confusing experience at the hands of a Turkish masseur when still in my teens, but such was the heat and the steam, the same environment immediately came to mind.

Mentally dodging the steel trap like paws of a giant Turkish man, I ducked under the sink and saw that the flexible hot water line had burst and there had been several hours of scalding water soaking into the carpet, seeping through the floors and cascading into the heating ducts – AAAAARAGGGGHHHH!!!! Continuously cursing like an angry sailor, I resembled the steel ball in a pinball machine and pinged between the mains tap to turn the water off, the animal pens to feed and settle everyone up for the night and the closing hardware store and with literally minutes to spare, I bought the damaged part. I then wet footed it over to the hospital to bust Mrs Jerry out and get her back home to her own bed.

Kids are far from stupid of course, and when I later retrieved them from our neighbours house, pup #1 heartbreakingly asked if she had died? Thankfully, I was able to say that she’d be there when he woke up in the morning, which was doubly good as both boys have their own negative experiences of the emergency services and hospitals. I of course, was due to fly to India the very next morning for at least two weeks; but there was no question that I was going to cancel the trip and instead, stay at home to wrangle the nippers. The grown up side of the house was temporarily uninhabitable and so we had to move fast. Luckily, The insurance company was actually pretty responsive and later the following day, they supplied a consultant with several industrial blowers and a couple of jukebox sized de- humidifiers in order to try and prevent the floor and carpets from rotting. The wardrobes, being made of MDF and being highly susceptible to moisture were unfortunately already ‘blown out’ at the bottom and were therefore irreparable.

That set the tone for the rest of the week and it all went downhill from there…

The eldest pup had gone to school the next morning in a strange mood following the weekends events and he managed to break his glasses into several pieces whilst in a temper after a disagreement with a schoolmate. He was upbraided by his teacher and the principal and by the time he got home; he was very sheepish boy. He laid low for the next 24 hours before returning to his normal mischevious self.

Mid week, we received a call from Ms. Jerry minor, who at that time was in the US with a social theatre company and as part of her duties she’d been writing a short introduction to the show on the definition of feminism and wanted a few pointers from her Mother. She’d also been having some troubles with a broken tooth, which had caused the poor things cheek to swell up like a tennis ball. I checked the exorbitantly expensive health insurance we’d purchased and of course, it didn’t cover dental work. Ohh, the joy of it.

With the vain hope that things usually came in threes, I thought that we were probably ‘done’ this time around and so it was a very unwelcome surprise when the next day, we received a call from Jerry Juniors wife telling us that he’d gone down with an appendicitis. Thankfully, it had been possible for his delightful wife to get him into hospital and have it whipped out before it burst, but it had apparently been a close run thing. Finishing my phone call where I had received the good news about him, I heard an excited small dog yapping out in the garden from the direction of the chook run and with a quick expletive, I ran outside to see which dogs were loose. Jerry and George, were in their pen, contentedly gnawing on the bones I had left out for them earlier, so I knew it had to be Stampy; the whirlwind of a dog who has a delusional view of her ability to kill much larger creatures and most vehicles.

The by now frenzied yapping almost drowned out the sounds of the panicking chickens and it transpired that during my rushed round of animal feeding that morning; I had failed to secure the door of the pen properly and she’d stood on her hind legs and worried the door to the extent that the bolt had worked loose and allowed her into the doggy heaven of the chicken run. As I approached the presumed murder scene, Stampy proudly trotted out of the roost with a mouthful of multicoloured feathers. She did a cartoon double take when she saw me and turning in mid air, she dashed back into the hen house and tried to hide, but the girls were having none of it and they were squawking madly from their perches. Luckily, Stampy hadn’t managed to get a fatal grip on any of them but I knew they wouldn’t be laying any eggs for a while.

The usually indestructible Jerry minor was also stricken with the flu but he had been dosed up with drugs and had cried off school and had taken to his bed with computer games and mountains of snacks, so he was temporarily taken care of. I then ferried the youngsters to their respective school and daycare locations.

As luck would have it, pup #2, who is now four years old was being uncharacteristically ‘divine’ early on the Friday morning and was cheekily campaigning to be allowed to stay at home and ‘look after’ Jerry minor. He has both the bluest of eyes and the blondest of hair and does not fail to unleash both when he’s caught out and found to be in a behaviour deficit and he was turning them on for me like a spot light, in a bid to get his own way. I confess that whilst he’s massively cute, I am slightly immune to his Jedi master like charms; having been similarly gifted at his age and I had, in the past, pulled all of the emotional heart strings that could possibly be pulled. Before she left the country, Ms Jerry minor had been the target of pup # 2’s Jedi mind trick and he fluttered his baby blues at her as an excuse for being naughty. She pointed at herself saying “look, I’ve got those as well and it doesn’t work with me! The wry smile on the four year olds face when he was challenged told us that he knew he’d been well and truly busted. Needless to say, he went to school.

Summing up the week that evening as we reached for the gin bottle, we decided that things could have been a lot worse, we just couldn’t quite think of how… We were all looking forward to a holiday the following week, but I was quite nervous about what could happen in the meantime!

Travelling with Kids

It’s school holidays and before you know it, they’ll be over, so this time, we resolved that I’d take a couple weeks off work and get out of town. Mrs Jerry and I had planned to drive over to Adelaide to see our eldest son Jerry junior and his lovely wife. It’s pretty much a full days drive if you don’t drive like a madman, but you really do want to take a few breaks along the way and of course, share the driving if possible. I’m not a good passenger (now, there’s an accurate life admission, if ever I made one…) and so I’d rather be in the driving seat than elsewhere.

It’s going to be a doubly interesting drive because circumstances have conspired against two little boys (4 & 8), both brothers, whom we have been individually providing respite care for. As a result of both full time foster families suddenly being unable to look after their charges for different reasons, they have been in our full time care for a few months now. Our youngest son, Jerry minor, had decided to take this drive over with us because he misses his brother and new ‘sister’ but he has also selflessly ‘volunteered’ – i.e. paid for his passage, by agreeing to wrangle the youngsters when needed. Just as well, because its been a few years since I have had to travel with little ones and I am a bit out of practice. Mrs Jerry, as a teacher, does it all the time of course and I am full of admiration, but she does takes delight in my fumbling attempts at (almost) middle aged* parenting. Our wonderful eldest foster daughter doesn’t live at home now, but is 26 and thankfully no longer wriggles out of her seat belt but she’d have been a real help on this road trip. Her equally wonderful younger sister, (now 19) was however, a bugger for quietly undoing her seat belt and rotating around the car to make herself more comfortable, popping up in different places as it suited her. Sadly, she’s also otherwise engaged.

*I have used the (almost) middle aged line before and its not that I’m not middle aged, I’m actually 54 (or 8.71 in Jerry’s years) it’s just that when you’re convinced that you’ll live to 120, 60 is middle aged. Fair enough?

As a result of the new additions to our family and despite my suggestions that we could just tie them to the roof rack on our little car (they thought that sounded like fun…), Mrs Jerry decided to get a bigger vehicle and consequently our formerly pared down family and luggage requirements had again expanded to fill an entire 7 seat 4WD. The youngest two have a bit of a complicated history and as a result of being brothers and not having lived together for quite a while, they can often trigger each other into some fairly impressive rages and the red faced dervish that Jack Jack of the ‘incredibles’ movie becomes when he’s annoyed, comes to mind with the youngest. The older brother tends to roll his eyes a bit at the other and tries to ignore him, but after being severely poked and teased over a period of time will eventually lash out, scrapping, throwing toys and yelling etc. I don’t want to paint them too badly because we love them and as individuals they are quite lovely and lots of fun to be with, but together, they sometimes require an exorcist rather than a carer and it’s about the time that they are crawling around the ceiling like spiders that I usually find I have to go away for a couple of weeks on a business trip…

Not being able to create a plausible excuse to abscond on business this time, I committed to the trip, loading an impressive amount of crap into the new car and the boys, being transferred quickly from bed to seat, settled down fairly well. It was really quite early in the day and they were still dozing as we exited the little village we call home. Of course, by the time the sound of our big dogs barking died away, they’d already had a sly dig at each other and harsh words had been exchanged. Jerry minor, who is almost 15, slid across and started to talk softly to smallest boy and thankfully, he soon quietened.

En route to Adelaide, there’s a small circular salt lake located just off the western highway near the town of Dimboolah that we usually make a point of stopping at as it breaks the journey, has a relatively decent loo and is quite spectacular, being bright pink in colour. Unsurprisingly, it’s called ‘pink lake’ but this time, due to an overcast sky and a lot of seasonal rain, it wasn’t its usual bright colour and the youngsters were rather non plussed.

Someone else’s picture of the actual pink lake

Jerry minor performed a few spectacular backflips for the camera (him being a sucker for instagram ‘likes’), which entertained us for a few moments and then as it looked like more rain, we started back up the hill to the car. Smallest boy was not impressed that we were leaving so soon and immediately threw himself to the ground and started working himself up into a frenzy. I, not altogether sympathetically, started to giggle and reached for the camera. The others, sensing an epic hissy fit in the making, ran away, leaving me to try and placate the little fellow. He pummelled the ground, threw handfuls of sand at me and yelled unintelligible small boy insults until I hugged him, stroked his hair (and at the same time finding I’d actually really missed looking after small kids) and then took his hand while we jalked up the hill. As confirmation that it was going to rain, it actually started and I was able to explain that we were just trying to stay dry and not cheat him out of time at the not so pink lake. Major meltdown avoided.

Many people have observed that there’s nothing quite like it when a small child trustingly reaches up and takes your hand. It is at the same time the most wonderful feeling but also an awesome responsibility. I had one of those moments walking up a small hill in the spitting rain under an overcast sky that day. It had been quite a few years.

We eventually reached our well appointed rented beach house on the outskirts of Adelaide and started to spread out and create a mess. Jerry minor slipped away to his room and into the world of social media and the little kids noticed that there was a full toy box and a shelf full of puzzles so they diligently began to build blocks. Thinking that they would be kept busy for a least a few moments, I snuck upstairs to pour a healthy sized G&T. Leaving them alone was big mistake as it happened, as the parting question from the eldest scamp was to ask if he could do a jigsaw puzzle and in saying yes, I fell for it. One thing I have learned, but had obviously forgotten, is that kids will approach you when you are massively tired or distracted and will cunningly ask a leading question that you might be tempted not to answer as diligently as you should, or to react as quickly as you would if they had your full attention. By the time I got back downstairs there was a small mountain of jigsaw pieces in the middle of the floor and half a dozen empty boxes that had once contained some quite challenging and distinctly seperate, 3 dimensional puzzles. Oops.

The trip overall was actually a great success, with the smallest boys being taught by the older two to skim stones into the sea and they had great fun chasing Jerry juniors equally small Dachshunds around the beach and in and out of the shallows.

We had a great trip to the zoo, which everyone loved and we aren’t keen on zoos, especially when they are done badly. I found my close second favourite animal after the Koala and saw the Goodfellows tree Kangaroos. They really look like stuffed toys and having breakfast to distract them, this one was too engrossed in his grub to worry about me gawking at him. We have two species of tree roo in Australia and Makali here isn’t one of them. He actually comes from New Guinea.

Yep, thats a Kangaroo, who lives in a tree.

The big draw for the kids (and my Mum) at Adelaide zoo were the Pandas, of course and their enclosure was far and away better than the sad dusty looking area that I had seen in Beijing – and that zoo, sadly I would not recommend.

Smallest boy was particularly taken with Funi.

Partially because he’s a great son and partially because he had taken up a lot of slack on the Adelaide trip, I took Jerry minor on a long promised ski trip the week after. The two of us loaded up the new ‘tank like’ 4WD and set out east to the nearest snowfields. They are around 5 hours away and it’s really not a terrible drive at all, but concentrating hard on not breaking the speed limit and in the process, collecting a huge amount of fines along the speed camera infested Hume highway, really takes it out of you and given that Jerry minor quickly slipped into a teenage coma next to me, I had to stop often in order to stay alert. Just because we don’t actually have enough mouths to feed (two adults, four kids – at home, three dogs, two cats and six hens), I was also looking out for roadkill – or more specifically, kangaroos and wombats that had been hit by cars, but still had living joeys in the pouch. Not for food you understand, but to try and save them. We’d reared orphaned native animals in a previous life when running a wildlife sanctuary in north Queensland and I quite liked the idea of giving the youngsters the experience of being responsible for something, so I brought along my animal first aid kit and scanned the roadsides for sad lumps of fur.

The temperature started to drop as we headed up into the Alpine areas, but there was scant sign of snow yet. We had to pick up skis and snow chains at the small town of Bright but I wasn’t too excited at the reports of little natural snow and I hoped that there’d be enough man made stuff to keep us happy.

Ominous looking and hopefully snow filled clouds

We made it up the Alpine highway to an elevation of 1, 861 metres to the resort at Mount Hotham. Trying hard not to wheeze too obviously in the thin air (me only), we got the keys and checked into our small cabin. It was too late in the day to get a run in but we went out into the resort on foot and bonded over dinner.

That night it snowed and the next morning, we excitedly took the bus down to the beginner slopes and clipped into our skis. Jerry minor had skied before, but several years before and I was interested to see what he remembered. I was a bit nervous, having had my worn and knackered hip joints swapped out for the latest titanium and ceramic versions only months before; but as it happened, we were both evenly matched on our first run and luckily nothing exploded within me. Having convinced myself that I was due for a catastrophic ‘Yeti’ as we used to call spectacular crashes on skis, I had purchased a helmet and not having tried it on in the shop, discovered that it was rather like having a large black space hopper on my head. It was just about as streamlined and as such, it probably slowed me down to a speed that any crash would have been telly tubby, rather than Schumacher like.

My massive helmet, paired with the worlds largest goggles.

I offered up some of my old no nonsense military ski instructional techniques that seemed to work and pretty soon, he was flying down the runs with me chasing and filming him. Back in the Marines, it was a case of ‘you might not have skied before, but in two days you’ll have your house on your back, so learn quickly’ and Jerry minor responded to that well. I am not so overconfident to think that I could get Mrs Jerry out on skis as she much prefers the spa’s over whizzing down the piste, but she has, in the distant past, ventured out on the cross country skis with me and then sadly vowed never to do so again.

We had dinner that evening in the general store, which doubles as a pub and over a great mushroom linguini and burgers we gawked at the outrageous helicopter skiing videos that were clearly not set in our hilly, rather than mountainous, Australian Alps. After dinner, we waited for the bus back up the hill and smiled at the off duty resort staff, who on their night out, had built a ski jump on the small slope outside the bar and were busy crashing through a pile of plastic crates in a sledge. I remembered doing something similar during my season in the NSW ski fields on a working holiday 30 plus years before, but I think I may have been naked with the crates having been stuffed with paper and set on fire. How the hell I have lived this long is beyond me.

The second night brought a huge low pressure area through the mountains and a 7cm dump of fresh snow fell on top of the man made base. Whilst it was a bit icy and visibility wasn’t great , we loved it and we pretty much made the first and last lifts of the day up the mountain. I tried feebly to dissuade Jerry minor from the impression that as a right of passage, he should dive naked into a snow drift and roll around outside the chalet and leaving no doubt as to his parentage and thus inherited poor judgement; he ignored me – but thankfully, insisting on wearing his jocks, a woolly hat and gloves, he tore out into the snow, rolling around as I filmed him.

He was back inside within a couple of minutes and rapidly turning red as I checked the footage and realised that not being a millennial, I had completely cocked up my only task. Without a word of complaint, he was back outside again in an instant, hamming it up for whatever social media site he was planning to post it on. It was very windy that night and the visibility closed right down, but we had fun just being together and the apres ski stories he told made me think that being a teenager hadn’t changed all that much from my day. Overnight, the now howling gale brought more snow, suggesting a great morning on the slopes.

Given that it was our last day, I planned to get up early and dig the car out of whatever snow drift it was sitting in so that we could load her up and get a couple of runs in before we had to drive back. Upon reaching the car I saw that there thankfully wasn’t too much snow blocking the car in, but there was a huge mound on top of it. Congratulating myself on having purchased a diesel and having filled it up with Alpine fuel, which allegedly wouldn’t freeze above minus 7 degrees, I was rather shocked to discover that the car wouldn’t start.

I gave Betty (because she’s black) a few moments to consider her sins and worked on freeing the rear wheels of snow and fitting the chains. I tried a few more times to get her started, which she bravely did before dying and then I rang the breakdown service. In the hour it took them to arrive, I helped dig a couple of other cars out of the snow and cleared most of the ice off my windows. It didn’t take the mechanic long to diagnose frozen diesel and commenting that it had been a really cold night, he used his compressor to blow the plug of iced fuel in the pipes back into the tank and start her up. We chatted about skiing, living in the mountains and his clever move to buy a couple of rental properties nearby whilst the resort was being built as the car warmed up. Sadly, by the time I made it back to the accomodation, it was time to check out and leave so that we could get home before dark. The roads back through the national park were by now snow covered and full of drivers who clearly had never been on the white stuff before. The newbies annoyingly crawled along at 15kmh for ages before we could safely pass them, but I breathed deeply and remained calm. It was a long and uneventful drive back with no Joeys found, but we had fun telling lots of stories that probably shouldn’t be heard by his Mum.

I’m now back in a remote corner of north western India and I am once again, lamenting the fact that it’s the dry and vegetarian state of Gujarat. Still, it gets dark soon and I can have an early night. I need one after all the driving with kids and flying without them that I have done over the last three weeks. Happy days.

Sundown at my hilltop accomodation in Gujarat.

People watching in Pondicherry

After a hectic week in Delhi and Bombay, I arrived in Chennai just in time for the weekend. I hate sitting in hotels on my own watching video channels and I keep making excuses not to head down to the gym and to go the bar instead. If I could, I’d be out Jalking (Jog + Walk) just after dawn to try and keep my jet lagged body functioning but you really take your life in your Nikes if you try doing that in a major Indian city. so, I decided that I’d head down to Pondicherry or ‘Pondy’ as the locals like to call it for the weekend.

Pondy is a former french colonial town, which is now pretty much a small city. The french actually pulled out around 65 years ago but the signs of their occupation are all around with blue enamelled street signs in french (and Tamil), french lantern street lights and the houses where La Francais used to live are coloured light blue, rather like the extremely non tactical uniforms they wore in WWI. The area frequented by them in their hey day was referred to as ‘white town’ -unsurprisingly because that’s where the ‘white folks’ lived. Outside of white town, it’s your usual chaotic provincial Indian city.

The local Police, some of whom still charmingly wear a red kepis, cordon off the side streets leading to Goubert avenue every day between 6pm and 6am to allow for foot traffic. This brings pretty much everyone who lives in that part of town down to the promenade at dusk and dawn and they well… promenade. Of course, being outdoors at those times makes the most of the slightly cooler parts of the day and you can’t blame anyone for that as it was well over 40 degrees C when I was there. Whilst I saw a couple of people obviously in their pyjamas for the dawn walk, most folks dress up for the evening parade and it’s clearly the place to ‘see and be seen’

Unusually for India where public displays of affection are not the norm, there are couples of all ages holding hands. Much older couples, with the chains of generational conservatism still holding them back, walk so closely to each other, that they might as well be holding hands and everyone seems to be in a good mood, smiling and nodding hello to each other. There are twenty-somethings, dressed in their finery, flirting together and others furiously swiping right, in the hope that they can find someone to flirt with. Traditional India Pondy might be, outside of white town, but not on the promenade.

The beach truthfully isn’t up to much and although there is a small bay where some brave souls do go down to the murky water, most locals seem to watch the action from the rocky man made breakwaters. Some just stare out to sea, others take selfies and some crowd around and eat from the street traders stalls; several of whom cook up their food on the spot. It smells really good, but I’m not sure I’d be game to try it, given that there’s no visible means of sanitisation around.

The promenade is actually quite like a Paris street in so much as it’s wide and stained by dog shit. There is also a large war memorial dedicated to the residents of ‘french India’ who died for the country in WW1. The site is considered to be french soil and becomes the focus of commemorations on Bastille day, with foreign dignitaries flying in and parades held. True, in some areas, it does smell a bit of urine, but the local authorities are clearly trying to do something about that as you don’t actually see the doggy landmines, just where they have been. Many of the alleyway walls back from the seafront have signs saying “Toilet this way, 100mts ->” The french would have had pissoirs set up of course, but sadly not here, not now and many dark corners seem to be used for that purpose. The beautiful bougainvillea that covers many of the buildings more than makes up for the occasional unpleasant aroma and I walked along in a bit of a daze from the loveliness of it all, having been moving through Bombay slums the week before.

There are many spectacular sea front mansions, some of them are sadly in ruins and there are several that have been taken up as government offices but have been allowed to become shabby over the years. Wonderfully, there are others that are clearly very well loved private houses. It has to be said that there are also some very prominent buildings that are being rebuilt in their original style, whether privately or officially, it isn’t clear.

I loved the small streets in white town and the cafes and restaurants really beckon you in. There isn’t the mesmerising smell of baking that you get early in the morning in other former french colonies as I think that must be done centrally elsewhere, but fresh coffee and flowers can be smelt everywhere.

My very French hotel. Out of the heat of the day.

I had planned to wander through the crowds along the seafront and have a drink at a small place I’d seen on an earlier visit. ‘Seagulls’ is at the southern end of the beach near the jetty and I was a bit wary of the name given that I didn’t fancy making like Rod Taylor in ‘The Birds’ fighting off the creatures while trying to have dinner. I thought therefore, I’d just have a couple of beers and eat elsewhere, but I needn’t have worried as I didn’t see a single seagull. Dozens of crows of course, but nothing hovering over me looking like it was about to open its bomb bay doors. ‘Seagulls’ doesn’t look elegant from the street and nor is it, but it has, as the french say – ambiance.

I usually look for a cold beer and a sunset to round off my days in the tropics. Preferably the sunset would be over water but as I was on the south east coast of India, the sunset was on the other side. As the light started to fade, locals appeared and ordered large bottles of cold Kingfisher beer. I was already a couple ahead of them by then and as one does, when sitting alone, I was people watching. Although I work with people, I am mostly alone on my travels and so I have a routine that works for me. Prior to the sunset, I’ll drink beer, watch people and read or try to write. Occasionally, I’ll strike up a conversation with someone as I try to talk to at least one stranger each trip I take.

The bar was patronised largely by locals who were mainly male but there were a few mixed couples of student age and a table of animated french families enjoying their pre dinner drinks. Pondy is still very popular with french expats who enjoy the mixed Indian and french food.

A lady of a certain age and her partner casually stepped in front of my table to theirs with an excusez-moi and a waft of expensive scent. She was casually dressed in the way that ‘Gucci meets braless backpacker’ is chic and they clearly knew the place and the staff well. The waiter darted forward unbidden with a tray of pastis and water and after exchanging pleasantries in fluent french, he left and they settled down to watch to the light fade.

Unusually for me, I wasn’t too irritated that they had sat in the way of the view and between them and the garlic fried peanuts that the waiter delivered, I was by now totally distracted from my book. He was probably in his early 60’s and Madame was possibly half a decade younger. He lifted his feet up onto the chair in front of him and she, in an impossibly languid and feline manner curled up next to him on the cheap plastic chair. I was happy for them, clearly in love and relaxed with being alone in a crowd together. I was also a little jealous to see how complete they were in each others company. They sipped their drinks and giggling at what he was saying, she nuzzled into his neck.

Ordinarily, I’d be cursing them for being french **and** blocking the view, but I was mesmerised

As day finally turned to night, I paid my bill and walked through white town and the crowds to a hotel I’d seen earlier in the day. Being far too early for most people to eat, the courtyard restaurant was almost deserted.

The lack of patrons helped with the service of course and the staff bustled around me fussing with the wine and food, all the time pushing me towards the sinful looking desert menu. I gave in, ate too much and there not being any more people to watch, waddled back to my own hotel. I really like Pondy and I’m sure you will too. So, if you ever get the chance to see it, please go.

Ambush?

In order to describe how I got myself into this particular situation I will have to backtrack a little. I am back on Jeju island in Korea. To get here it has taken me a nightmarish 22 hours down the back of several aircraft. I flew out of Melbourne to Bangkok, then onto Osaka before getting back to this beautiful little island very early in the morning.

Another airport dawn for me. This one is Osaka.

I had a couple of hours to wash the heinous aeroplane stench from my body in Osaka and had occasion to muse over the curious vending machine culture that exists in Japan. Most people are used to finding drinks and food in machines, but not so much items of clothing, alcoholic drinks and even toys to keep the kids busy. It makes sense when you think about it, as when little Kaito spills his hot noodles all over his clothes, you can buy him a new outfit, medication to sooth the burns and some small but incomprehensible digital games to keep him occupied. I also noticed that you can buy what looked to either be a woolly rabbit hat for your cat or a woolly cat balaclava for your rabbit. I was strangely tempted to get one, just for the hell of it, but I’m not sure that Bea, our new moggy would appreciate it.

I am here because of the same complicated reason as before but this time, the stakes are higher. Relations with the other party have deteriorated to the point where litigation and sensationalist headlines seem to be the only way out; unless we can reach an agreement with them that keeps everyone kind of happy. I don’t think that this is going to be possible, but I really like the other party and I sympathise with them. Business and personal relationships in Korea are highly ritualised and whilst I am fully conversant with the do’s and don’ts of polite business meetings in this culture, this will be something else. It’s going to be a meeting where emotions will be running high and death threats have already been made.

It’s definitely not usual for firearms to be used in Korea even in the conduct of most criminal activities, but knives and even swords are all fair game in persuading the other party to do what you want, so whilst I am not overly nervous for my own safety, as even with two new hips, I can run like a scalded cat when it’s needed. There are others though who might be at a greater risk than me and so I’m not looking forward to this upcoming meeting; as much as I might want to get closure for all concerned.

I may have mentioned before that I could, in some peoples minds be considered as a little paranoid (refer to the landing page) but if I’m honest, it’s probably true when it comes down to this kind of thing and that’s not a wholly bad thing as I’m not new to this and I have managed to stay more or less, in one piece.

There are a few things you need to do when you are going into this kind of meeting. The first is is to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the meeting place. If you are sponsoring the meeting, you need to literally set the scene for hopefully, safe and peaceful cooperation, you make sure that the room is comfortable, there are no sharp objects within reach and that the furniture is too heavy to pick up and be used as a weapon against you. The second thing is to know at least two ways out of the venue if something goes wrong. It usually follows that you need to have an independent means of extraction standing by, just in case the plan goes adrift, as sod’s law dictates that it usually will. When you aren’t fully in charge of things, you just need to do what you can to minimise the risks.

This time, I have arranged for independent transportation, taken a look at the location by satellite (I didn’t like the look of it as there was only one road in and out) and plotted in a couple of escape routes on foot through forest tracks. It’s pretty cold and gloomy and there’s just enough of a wet mist in the air to cut visibility down to 200 mts, which won’t help me recognise any approaching threats. I borrowed a stab proof vest from a Korean contact just in case, but I think I probably need it more for its thermal properties than for it’s intended purpose. At least I hope so, because if it gets to that stage, bad press is the least of my worries.

I’m in a small mini van with a group of young colleagues. Aside from my other colleague, the lawyer, who is quiet but composed, one of them is crying quietly in the back of the van and the others have the kind of taut, pinched expressions that you don’t want to see on anyone, particularly someone that is the same age as your eldest son. They are nervous, to the point where I think one of them might vomit, so I try to talk to them and distract them from the winding misty road ahead of us

To the initiated, the term combat indicators (told you I was paranoid) will mean something. To the less so, it means ‘the absence of normality’ which in an urban environment practically means a lack of women and children in the streets; no people queuing at the bus stop, shops closed down and shuttered. You get that feeling low down in your stomach and for me, in my balls and on the back of my neck. You just know that something bad is going to happen, but you just don’t know when. Although it was only 30 minutes from the airport, this was a rural mountain road, through close forest and there was absolutely no clue as to what we were getting into. Approaching the meeting venue, which was discomfortingly known as ‘the charnel house’ I could make out a few parked vehicles with unhelpfully darkened windows and a highly decorated building, that looked rather like a squat pagoda.

Just in case you were wondering what a ‘charnel house’ is. I have googled it for you and I was really hoping it’s ‘only’ the first definition and not the second.

I asked the others to stay in the warm van and I got out and had a look around. My intention was to complete a 360 degree circuit of the venue to see if I could tell that we were being set up, but because of the mist, I couldn’t see any tell tales as to what we might be walking into. I heard the van door open and jerked my head around to see if it had been opened by one our ours, or one of theirs. Thankfully, if was one of ours and two young men stumbled out. One to revisit his breakfast and other for a nervous pee. Being an old hand (literally) at this sort of bladder woes, I had deliberately desiccated myself, not having had anything to drink after a final airline G&T. I also take an Imodium, just to make sure that I’m not caught out at the critical moment; as that does happen, even to an old hand…

I couldn’t see any lurking media nor indeed any charging ninja’s so I completed my circuit of the building and at last, I noticed a familiar face. It was the Father of our deceased colleague. He had a neutral expression on his face, but I bowed low and then offered my hand for him to shake; for as a westerner, I have always found that a better clue as to a persons intentions. You can also maintain eye contact and hopefully not get blindsided. He shook it, smiled sadly and thanked me for coming. I knew that was about the limit of his english, but I was comforted enough by his handshake and demeanour to at least wait and see whatever came next.

His wife and two aunts, whom I had met before, arrived out of the mist and I called down to my group and asked them to join us. When they got up the slight hill to the entrance of the charnel house, they stood in a line and as one, bowed very deeply in the most respectful way. I joined in, but looking up as I did so. We entered the building, removed our shoes and placed them in the racks provided and then walked slowly up the stairs. I was struck by just how cold it was, much more than outside. I also noticed that I was sweating slightly, but of course, I put that down to my ‘thermal’ vest.

When we got upstairs, I saw how light it was, with everything made of blonde coloured wood, with lots of gold leaf and scarlet highlights. The remains of the deceased had his own compartment and I noticed that there was photograph of him and not having known him in life, it struck me how close he was to the age of my eldest. He was smiling and it was the kind of photograph that you’d want your Mum and Dad to be looking at when they remembered you.

I took my cue from my colleagues who lined up in front of the mobile altar and lit joss sticks with a chanted prayer. There were padded mats lined up directly in front of the small compartment and they immediately knelt and recited what was as obviously as well known to them as the lords prayer was to me. They then prostrated themselves and I bent to join them. The Father stopped me and indicated that I should just pray. Having lost my faith, in so far as organised religion is concerned some years ago, I just bowed my head out of respect and said a quiet thank you for my still having my family intact.

Following what was one of the most difficult and emotional experiences that I have had in a very long time, we moved out of the inner sanctum of the charnel house and into what looked like an IKEA sponsored board room. It was the temperature of a walk in freezer and we sat around a large table. My local colleagues sat with their heads bowed, so bowed that I couldn’t see light between their chins and their chests. My friend the lawyer took our pre rehearsed, but very genuine line and in Korean, thanked the family for inviting us and reiterated just how sorry we were to have lost our friend and colleague.

The Father wanted to tell everyone about his son’s childhood and the hopes that he had held and the dreams they had had for him. He spoke about their hopes for grandchildren and for their family name to continue. He was the eldest child and their only son and that he was the shining light of their family. I knew this even though I didn’t understand the words. I just knew what I’d be saying under similar circumstances.

I looked at the young men with me. Not one of them could look at the Father when he spoke. In fact, to have done so, would have been considered disrespectful, but I could tell that every one of them was physically impacted by his words. After what seemed like a very long time, I looked at our lawyer and he nodded. I asked our team to leave and wait for us outside. It was now time to try and reach closure by negotiating a respectful settlement with the family; but it was far from being about money, in so far that the amounts were almost immaterial; it was more about acknowledging that their son had died in our workplace and that, despite the circumstances and responsibility, we were desperately sorry to have lost him.

With just the two of us from the company, the parents and two aunts, I began to feel like I could at least try to get the paranoid monkey off my back and stop looking for hidden cameras and concealed doors where the ninjas would attack from. My head isn’t a fun place to be in at a time like this believe me…

I made a short, but very genuinely felt speech, which was translated by our lawyer during which the family stared at me like I was naked and in the dock and that was how I felt. The settlement negotiations passed in Korean with me doing my bit when necessary and then the lawyer and I stepped out of the room. When we came back in, there was a nod, but no smiles, because how could there be? There was however, an air of closure. Something almost tangible but you couldn’t touch it, something that literally had a smell and a taste, but you couldn’t describe it as success, because it wasn’t. Someone was dead and we were all sorry.

We bowed low and at my instigation, we shook hands. I went back inside to the young mans final resting place and I said an official goodbye on behalf of the company. I lit a joss stick and lingered a moment longer just to inwardly express my thanks to whoever, that it wasn’t my son. The Father, who had stayed close to me throughout, put his hand gently on my shoulder. I placed mine on his shoulder quickly, possibly too quickly, but that was all I could manage and we both nodded in the way that (people think ) emotionally constipated middle aged men do.

I walked outside the charnel house and into what was surprisingly, the light of day. The mist had cleared and what had been a very gloomy, chilly morning had morphed into something much brighter and quite lovely. The lawyer and I quickly briefed the team and we noticed the Father walking down the small hill towards us. He spoke to each of the young men in turn and I felt, rather than understood what he was saying. I felt that he said that he would always miss his son, but that he hoped they would live their lives with his son in their minds.

I walked the Father back up the hill to where there was large bench seat. The family was sitting there, leafing through an A3 album of our lost colleague. I asked, in English, if I could sit with them and they as one, said yes, in Korean.

I was there while they reviewed – which isn’t the right word, it’s more they ‘relived’ his life and their parts in it. I felt, rather than understood, how much joy they had felt being there for all of the milestones in his life, right up to his finishing university and then winning a position with an international company that would have set him up for life.

And there, but for the grace of [a higher power] go I.