The Bear and the Bees – Page 5 – The Bear and the Bees

Guns and Mangoes in the Punjab

I was on my way back to the far west of Pakistan and in order to get there, I had to fly from Singapore via Dubai to Karachi. Knowing that it’s Ramadan and that people are fasting, I carb and alcohol loaded before I got off the plane. It’s actually illegal for non Muslims to eat or drink in public in Pakistan during Ramadan, so I ate my pitiful airline lunch and washing it down with a little plastic bottle of Shiraz, I made the most of it.

I had a number of meetings in Karachi and I was helping to select a new office there for our local sales team and then I also had to select a new service provider for security, because this is a place where my employer requires that you don’t go anywhere in Pakistan without men with guns. Lots of men, with lots of guns.

There are only a couple of hotels that are generally acceptable for foreigners to stay in in Karachi and sadly, a number of the hotels or major buildings close to them have been blown up at one time or another. The Karachi Marriott has only been blown up once, in 2002 (when the US consulate was also targeted) and because of the up armouring carried out by the owners, they now claim that its the ‘safest hotel in Karachi’ Lets hope so, because that’s where I am staying this time.

The Pakistani people are charming but formally polite until you get to know them well. The thing is, getting to know them beyond the pleasantries that dominate the first few minutes of any meeting. The state of your health, the health of your family, the number of children you have and the weather are all prerequisite topics. Even if it’s abundantly clear that what they have to sell, you don’t want, you still have to go through the motions and then politely tell them that the office that they want you to pay a fortune for, is actually somewhere that you wouldn’t run your chooks in it for fear that they would catch something. Obviously you don’t tell them that exactly, but you get the picture.

The longest internal leg of my trip is from Karachi to a town called Rajanpur, in the Punjab. It’s not technically in the region named Baluchistan, but its right on the invisible border that runs through the mountains, so it might as well be. I booked a flight there and back hoping to avoid the hellish drive but I found out that because of very high daytime temperatures (50 deg C plus), sand storms and high winds that around half of the light passenger aircraft who service the smaller airports have been unable to land in that area over the past few days. I didn’t fancy getting turned back and having to try and divert from whatever other airport was open and make the journey in an unknown vehicle, so I resolved to drive in a small convoy. Well, for accuracy, I’m not driving, I am a passenger and a fairly nervous one at that.

At ten hours, it’s a dreadful journey for anyone, but as a jumpy passenger, with all the jingly trucks wandering across the road, motorcyclists weaving in and out, pedestrians darting though the traffic and beggars and pedlars trying to flag down vehicles at every choke point, it’s enough to make you close your eyes and pray. In fact, I think that’s what my driver is doing most of the time.

I think I mentioned that it’s Ramadan? and so I got up early and shovelled in as much spicy chick pea dahl and roti as I could before the journey, thinking that I’d manage the drive better if I ate my fill at the hotel as an early breakfast – at 6am, which for the faithful is still 3 hours into the fast, but as an nonbeliever, I get a break on that, even if I do have to eat in my room. Part way through the ten hour drive I am reminded why lots of chick peas are not good travelling food. I feel like I am in the scene in the Peter Sellers film where someone passes wind in the lift, but I figure that my travelling companions won’t get the reference and besides, they are heavily armed. Giving in to the dahl probably wouldn’t have been the best idea anyway as I always have a small but powerful attack squad of Giardia or some other exotic parasite tucked somewhere about my intestines. As a result, I am beginning to feel a sense of impending doom with my stomach fermenting and gurgling malevolently away.

While we are on the subject of pop (or is it poop?) culture references, this morning the security guards were checking over their weapons in the car park and exchanging admiring glances at each others ‘modifications’ – it’s probably a boy thing… Most of the guards have the 30 round magazines on their folding stock AK47’s with another reversed and taped onto it giving the ability to change mags quickly when needed. One actually had a small welded brace made to hold two magazines together without the need for tape and that was universally admired. A couple of them had local versions of the MP5K, which is a very useful short weapon for bringing to bear in cramped circumstances, such as from inside a car. Not that you’d want them fire it without it being absolutely necessary, I hasten to add, as you’d be as deaf as a post afterwards. Being former military men and all really good guys, they wouldn’t do anything so crass as to add some bling to their weapons or wear a Rambo like headband and I wouldn’t get into a vehicle with them if they did, but some of them do like ‘mission impossible’ ring tones on their mobiles. The accompanying Police Commandos also have “No Fear” emblazoned on their t shirts and vehicles.

My own personal paranoia goes into overdrive when I am up in the mountains and I refuse to move without something that goes bang close to hand. On previous trips I have managed to persuade them to place an MP5K under my seat, where it is never mentioned, but it’s accepted that if there’s an orange jump suit being handed out, I’m not putting it on. We aren’t going high up or out of the way this time and I don’t need a weapon because of the all the others in friendly hands around me, but it’s a matter of principle and possibly, just possibly because it makes make me feel more like one of the gang. Not that I could really be one of the gang as I’m the only white boy and just about the the only one without a beard. This time, they waited until we were just about to leave and then, with straight faces, handed me a dinky little .38 calibre pistol, in a holster that seriously looked like it had been made for Bodyguard Barbie. Hmmm, “Shukria” I said politely and with as much dignity as I could muster, I then slipped it in the seat pocket, where it sat, looking very small.

Yes, apparently ‘desert pink’ is a legitimate colour.

Part way through the journey and late at night, I arrived at the little town of Rahim Yar Khan, where I had reserved rooms in a small hotel. The chain, which is actually owned by the same people as own the Marriott franchise in Pakistan was allegedly the best in town, but I wasn’t expecting much, just a place with a lock on the door, air con and a bed. When we arrived, I discovered that they wouldn’t let me, a foreigner, stay due to the local security situation. I know, because it is my business to know, that there had been significant inter tribal conflict lately and in some parts, there was more than a general resentment of the west, but I wasn’t aware of the government directive that hotels ‘without security’ had to turn away foreign guests. I gestured through the window at the four vehicles, two with flashing blue lights and with my private army rapidly fanning out to cover the street and without a trace of irony, said “I think I have enough security for us all, don’t you?”

That didn’t work of course and we were politely turned away and instructed to call the chief commissioner of Police for permission, but by that time of night he wasn’t taking calls. Some serious string pulling by the guy running my security detail got us into an approved government ‘rest house’ for the night, which actually was quite comfortable, even if my security head was woken up every thirty minutes or so by members of the intelligence agencies demanding copies of my passport and trying to force us to leave and drive on and into the next regions responsibility. That would have meant that we continue driving through the night, which you just don’t do in that neck of the woods so he refused and told the spies to wake me up and kick me out themselves. As he’d anticipated, they didn’t want to do that and instead let me stay asleep, even though he had to go downstairs minutes later and have a two o’clock in the morning meal before the fasting started.

The next day, looking out of the window I was mortified to see that my security detail had actually slept in the back of the trucks and I resolved that the next night, I’d find them beds or at least they would be under cover. I expected to hear lots of grumbling and rubbing of bad backs but they were as cheerful as ever and they climbed back aboard for the next leg of the journey

After several hours in convoy, I arrived at the same 1922 British built fort that I been to for a tribal council or ‘Jirga’ some time before. I doubt that the Brits actually laid the bricks here, more like directed the work, but the same tough looking individuals that I remembered from the last time I was there were still on the site and their crinkled faces and twinkling eyes told me that they were happy to see me and by extension, what that could mean in terms of progress for their remote desert community.

The Border Military Police post

NOT a ‘Game of Thrones’ set…

It’s a very hard life that they lead, what with having to live with contaminated ground water and struggling to make a living from subsistence goat farming. Although the land in the Indus river valley area is incredibly fertile and almost anything grows, including mangoes, cotton, sweetcorn, rice and wheat, nothing will grow well out there in the desert, except for immediately after the rains and then the land is inundated and would wash any crops there away. In most desert areas hunting is banned (not that a ban stops people) in order to preserve the wildlife, or so they say. I have a feeling that the real reason is to preserve the wildlife for the wealthy Arabs who fly in with their hawks and four wheel drives and live in luxurious tents, with flushing toilets and air-conditioning.

The last time I came to the fort, the locals had laid on a feast of roasted goats that were hacked into pieces and laid on several platters for us to eat with our fingers. The goat was a similar temperature to molten lava at that moment and I was busy trying to cool my rapidly blistering fingers when the grinning tribesman opposite pulled apart a large piece with his asbestos hands and dumped it onto my place with the admonishment to “EAT” so, I ate. Everyone was fasting this time of course, so there was no roast goat, but recognising that I wasn’t Muslim and following their traditions of Pashtunwali,the unwritten code of looking after travellers and defending them with their lives, if necessary, they insisted that I had a drink of water and a few slices of delicious local mangoes. I had no idea where the water was coming from, but it would have been rude to refuse, so I drank it, all the time thinking about the consequences. I felt, rather than heard the shriek from my stomach.

One of the fierce looking, but very friendly Border Military Police guards

I knew that we had a small number of Border Military Police who were out in the desert guarding the technical equipment on our behalf and I wanted to visit them to make sure that they were being looked after, so my private army took me on a 30 minute ‘Mad Max’ type road race to the sites. I was reminded of Legionnaires standing post in forsaken corners of North Africa when I saw the remoteness of the location and I ambled over to introduce myself to the old grizzled guards who spent a month at a time living in a brushwood shelter on site.

This, believe it or not, is the security guards ‘barracks’ in the desert. The shapes on the horizon are ancient undersea reefs.

I shook all their hands and thanked them for their duty and as we had some fruit in an cool box in the back of the car, I got that out and left it with them. As we drove off in our air-conditioned vehicle. I noticed my guards looking quizzically at me and I hoped that I hadn’t embarrassed anyone by offering food during the fast. Generally speaking, when a non Muslim makes a minor mistake of etiquette, but does so inadvertently, you are forgiven with a smile and it’s usually forgotten, but in this case I wasn’t too sure.

I had been swallowing Imodium like it was candy all morning and had been able to manage my rapidly rioting innards, but right there and then, I needed to stop the convoy and consumed with embarrassment, I scampered off behind a small bush. Within seconds, I was surrounded by armed men, all concerned for my wellbeing, but luckily facing outwards in ‘all round defence’, in case someone wanted to attack me when my pants were down.

That evening, when it came around to the Iftar or ‘breaking of the fast’ meal, the guards left the commander and I alone in the guest house. As is traditional, we started with dates and again, slices of mangoes. I remarked how much I loved their mangoes and I was told that it was mango season at that time and we could stop on the way back to Karachi and buy some. The commander drank the allegedly refreshing and sugar laden pink rosewater. I tried it but being the plebeian I am, I preferred the sugar laden coca cola that I was offered. We had a delicious chicken curry, again eaten with fingers (I’m not even going to describe my innards by this time) and mercifully, lots of naan bread and I asked if we could arrange some bedding for the guards and somewhere inside for them to sleep. “No room Sir” I was told, but I insisted and suggested that they sleep in the dining room, which had fans. Begrudgingly the guest house managers agreed to allow that “those who wanted it” could sleep inside where it was cooler, inferring that anyone who took up the offer was not at all welcome really.

My bathroom had several resident crickets and as soon as I had got into bed, they started up. I knew that there was no chance of sleep with them around, so I took a running shoe and after chasing them down, battered them into silence. No sooner had I done that, but the door flew open and two guards ran in to see if I was being attacked. I assured them that I was not and that my room was now cricket free. Through the door, I saw that all twelve (!) of the guards had decided to sleep on the floor outside of my room. After their food, they were revved up and ready for a fight, but luckily for me, they had no where to go.

I managed to reassure them that I was not in danger of imminent kidnap by showing them the carcasses of the crickets, which were already being dismembered by ants, but they must have thought that I was complaining about the mess, so they brought the manager out of his bed by his ear and instructed him to clean the room. When he had done so with very bad grace, my guards (note the possessive pronoun) as good as tucked me back into bed. When the door was closed, I had to jump out of bed again and rush to the loo. I tried to be as quiet as I could so they didn’t knock on the door and ask me if I was ok.

Very early the next morning, the guard commander who spoke the best English woke me with hot water and a towel. I realised that I was expected to use that to shave but that he also wanted to chat and so I invited him to sit down in my room as I packed my small bag. It transpired that the guards had quite taken to me and genuinely wanted me to know about the history and the peaceful nature of Islam, so that if I wished, I could use the occasion of morning prayers to convert. I saw no irony in hearing about the peaceful nature of Islam coming from a heavily armed man in a fortified guesthouse in a province where many would have quite happily staked me out in the town square and very, very politely declined the offer but agreed that as soon as I was feeling better I’d look more closely into the history. He took that as a partially successful conversion and I was allowed to continue my ablutions.

On the journey back to Karachi we stopped at a Chinese run highway building project to see what they were doing about security in challenging circumstances. The Chinese, not wanting to lessen their profits are often a little slipshod about the security of their workers and as a result are the only ones currently having people kidnapped for ransom. The government, who are embarrassed by this, insist that they live in fortified bases and provide large numbers of troops to guard the men working there. Of course, they also require the project people to pay for it all and no doubt make a tidy profit of their own.

When we left, I noticed the almost indecent haste with which the convoy was barrelling down the highway. I knew that the guards were trying to get home to Karachi before Iftar and the leapfrogging Police vehicles that changed at each invisible province line were hard pressed to stay ahead of our own drivers. I didn’t complain and just made like my driver and closed my eyes. It was dark by the time we got to the outskirts of the city and I remembered that we hadn’t stopped and bought any mangoes. “Don’t worry Sir” I was assured and I nodded off again. When I awoke, we were inside the Marriott compound and all of the guards had de bussed and were formed up to say goodbye. I had intended to pay for their Iftar meal as a thank you, but we’d run out of time. I pressed an envelope with my remaining cash onto the guard commander and asked him to pay for the food on my behalf. They were certainly not expecting anything, but nor was I expecting the gift of a tray of mangoes that they had obviously purchased en route as I slept.

A great gift from really nice heavily armed people.

It was my best trip to Pakistan yet and I told them all so. I have several weeks and five countries to visit before I get home again, but I will really remember this trip and the people I met. Some old friends and now, some new ones.

Pizza and a hand made chair

Recently, we were having pizza (and a glass of wine) at the local winery when an email pinged into my inbox. I resisted the temptation to look at it there and then, but instead resolved to look at it later as I was, at that moment outside admiring at the owners 1974 blue Rolls Royce, which was parked out in the rambling grounds of the winery. He very kindly allowed me to take it out for a spin, so I did. Carefully…

I do feel quite like an east end villain enjoying the spoils of my last ‘blag’

Not only does the winery do a very nice glass of sauvignon blanc but they make lovely pizzas in a enormous Italian oven that quite literally fell off the back of a lorry. Apparently the leg of the oven had broken ‘beyond economical repair’ according to the insurers and the new owner acquired it for a fraction of its new price. The new supports for the oven didn’t look great and so it was bricked into the corner, where it does sterling service.

The pizza oven – boxy, but good…

After lunch, I managed to check the email whilst sitting near the house greyhounds, who roam free through the dining area. They are rescue dogs, who otherwise would have been put down and with the exception of “Psycho” who is wearing the blanket like a shawl, they are very good natured animals.

This sofa is not for sharing – dogs only…

The email was from Rundell & Rundell, the Kyneton company who had arranged the ‘lost trades fair’ I attended some time before. I’d signed up
for a chair making course in the hope that a place would eventually become available. Lisa, the lady jointly in charge of the business and of taking bookings told me that there was quite a waiting list, but that she’d add me to it.

The email said that there was a cancellation, the first in around five years and could I get there the next week. Yes! I said, clearly not working out the logistics properly as I was in Singapore at the time. My domestic suggestion that I would be coming home for the week to see them all and that I’d be making a chair whilst there was quickly seen through and it was pointed out that I was coming back to make a chair and that I might see them all whilst there. Point made and taken.

Kyneton is a bit of a drive from home and so Mrs Jerry researched some B&B’s and motels in the area. Sadly, the prices were around $200 plus for a night, so that was a non starter, I therefore persuaded Scarlett, my 1970 MG roadster to take me there on an almost daily basis. She didn’t mind the cold mornings and with only one tyre blowout, she faithfully carried both me and ‘Q’, a local farmer, who was also attending the course, along the country roads and through the tiny villages that must have been social centres during the gold and wool rushes.

On the way – an autumn morning in the lovely hamlet of Glenlyon

The countryside here is remarkably English in appearance, but it’s obviously not England as the mobs of Kangaroos standing around in the fields demonstrate. I love the cold misty mornings with the top down on the car (Scarlett’s roof is full of holes and so drafty that it feels just the same with the roof on or off!) It’s funny how a car can make you happy though. Driving her on days like that just makes me smile.

Delinquent sheep mugging a farmer

I have to confess to have been a complete woodworking dunce at school. Well, perhaps not a dunce, but I was certainly too busy acting out to have paid enough attention to the rules and niceties of working with wood. Over the years I have turned my hand to making shelves, boxes, kennels and parrot stands, with varying degrees of success. To be honest, my earnest efforts could have best described as ‘rustic’ and driven more by necessity than a genuine desire to create something unique and long-lasting.

The course I was about to embark upon was seven days long and was advertised as teaching a person how to make an heirloom wooden chair in the traditional way. The kind of chair I was intending to make is known as a Windsor chair or ‘double bow’ named for the two bow shaped pieces of wood used in its construction – it’s a British chair, but one that is also known as a ‘sackback’ chair in the United States.

The yanks named the chair for the burlap (or hessian) sack that they slung over the back of the chair to keep the draught away from the sitters body in the old houses. When I first looked at the chair, I wasn’t sure how comfortable it could be, but I was pleasantly surprised when I sat in one.

The essence of traditional chair building is that you make everything by hand, use no electrical tools and certainly no sandpaper, because they didn’t exist back in the eighteenth century, but I have to admit that the legs were turned on a lathe and I used a power drill, for the angled holes. Curved pieces of wood, such as the bows, have to be steamed and bent by hand, much in the same way that they would have been well over two hundred years ago.

Bending the top bow – fresh out of the steamer

Due to that lack of sandpaper, traditional tools such as draw knives, scrapers and travisher’s are used to shape and smooth the green and unseasoned wood.

My Fijian mahogany seat, part way through being ‘dished’ and trimmed.

There are several parts to the sack back chair; the legs, the seat, the bows and the spindles. In order to work the green wood for the spindles, it’s best to use it when it has been soaked for a couple of days and then cut into staves, around half a metre long. There is a device known as a shave chair, which looks a bit like a cross between a ‘steam punk’ rocking horse and a medieval torture device. The shave chair helps you grip pieces of wood while you are working them between a leather padded jaw and using a traditional draw knife, shape the wood to your needs.

Sitting at the shave chair, my position for several hours a day. My ‘under construction’ chair is next to me.

The thought of creating something literally from green wood was something that I relished, but at the same time, worried me because the thought of using such fine motor skills or truthfully, finding such skills in the first place was a little daunting, because my hands are to woodworking what boxing gloves are to flower arranging. The traditional draw knives and spoke shaves felt very strange to me but even for a woodworking duffer like me, under the careful tutelage of the instructors Glenn and Peter, I soon got the hang of them. I did discover that I seem to suffer from a condition called ‘grain blindness’ (not recognised by the British Medical Association) – thats not something to do with home made alcohol, it’s just that I seem to have an issue with recognising which way the wood grain runs, not something that aids a woodworker, so things tend to take a bit longer than they might for other more able chair makers.

Drilling the back bow. Note the mirror for checking the angle of the drill.

Glancing around the workshop at my fellow trainee chair makers and seeing that they were all moving along much more quickly than I was, I couldn’t help but feeling that I really could have done with an electric sander, but that just wouldn’t have been in the spirit of things. I think that perhaps I could have made a small fortune selling small squares of #220 grit sandpaper though…

Everyday at around ten o’clock, Mrs Rundell came around to the workshop with freshly made cakes but one day, some fantastic home made doughnuts and jam appeared. Her son Tom had knocked them up for us that morning and they were still warm when we fell upon them like hyena’s on an unattended fresh kill.

Warm doughnuts and strawberry jam – it doesn’t get much better than that.

Fuelled up by the excellent snacks, I got back to the pleasurable work of assembling the various parts of my chair. Some fine tuning was needed to make sure that everything fitted as it should and muttered curses could be heard from more than one of us as we struggled to fit the spindles into the top bow. Once we were all happy, we warmed up the traditional brown glue (allegedly made from cow lips and a**eholes) and sparingly dabbed the parts before fitting them together.

It was at this stage when I learned the meaning of bodging. Apparently skilled itinerant tradesmen in the Chilterns (a beautiful area of England) who used to turn chair legs using a bent sapling to power a lathe were known as ‘chair bodgers’ so, ‘bodging something together’ wasn’t originally a pejorative term, but when used to describe my earlier attempts at woodworking, it certainly could have been.

The very cool sapling lathe. Note the beard required to operate one.

As I had seen at the lost trades fair, there was a whole subculture of traditional artisans who built stone walls, tanned and tooled leather, smithed metal and worked wood and as they called into the workshop to say hello, they looked the part too. Beards seemed standard, as were sturdy boots and checked shirts. The beard was sadly beyond me, but for a week, I got to be a small part of the community.

The finished article – back at home

At the end of my seven days, I really felt that I had achieved something. Because I wanted to get home, I missed the end of course cheese and wine party, but sitting at home on my handmade chair more than made up for that.

From Big India back to the dogs

After two weeks in India Chennai (Madras) and Mumbai (Bombay), I am overdue to go back home to the family. Unfortunately, I have 48 hours before I get there, two overnight flights and a day in Singapore. It has been a good trip, meeting people and learning new things. Not all of which, I actually wanted to know…

After my first week in a very ordinary hotel in Chennai (great food and service though), which unfortunately smelt strongly of something nasty, I found myself back at the Juhu beach Marriott in Mumbai. It’s a hotel I try to stay in whenever I’m in the city because it has a great business club floor and and really good gym and pool. I have also been vegetarian for the last thirteen and a half days and I’ve lost a kilo in weight. That has, of course been assisted by the usual bout of intestinal nastiness which I get when I haven’t been here for a while and have lost whatever resistance I once had. It doesn’t seem to matter how careful I am, but after years temporarily hosting almost every intestinal parasite known to science, it only seems like I need to pick up a dirty glass and BOOM, it’s all back on me. Literally.

I always seem to get a family shopping list when I go to India and this time, it was cushion covers. Now, you wouldn’t have thought that buying cushion covers could be difficult but let me tell you, this time I had very specific instructions, not to buy anything that wasn’t exactly like the internet search pictures. My driver sent the shopkeepers the pictures on my phone who assured him in advance, that they had exactly what I wanted but when we arrived, I found out that they had the Indian equivalent of “same same, but different” They were so insistent that their wares were in fact what I really wanted, I almost began to doubt myself.

My targets – hand screen printed and embroidered…

Time for a short digression – I asked my driver to take me to the ‘gateway of India’ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_of_India This is a beautiful monument built by the British for King George V and Queen Mary to ceremonially enter the Jewel of the old Empire. It wasn’t actually finished in time for their visit in 1911 and they had to be content with seeing a cardboard model instead. When it was finished, it served as the first port of entry for British VIP’s from its opening in 1924, until the Somerset Light Infantry marched the Empire out of India on February the 28th, 1948.

The gateway -a must see for locals and Gora’s* together

(*not always a derogatory term for foreigners)

Anyway, back on story. I have been to the gateway many times, but for me, it never gets old. As an Englishman, albeit one several countries removed, I cannot help but feel emotional when I think of the great and good (and bad) of my countrymen and women who had the audacity to presume to rule India for almost 200 years. I felt the need to see the sunset from the gateway and I asked my usual driver to take me there. He rolled his eyes, as he often does when I ask him to go against the traffic at the busiest time of the day and he manfully pulled one of the most dangerous U turns my sometimes fragile mental state has had to contend with.

We got to the gateway some 30 minutes after sunset, but that was my fault for not making the decision much earlier. That and the fact that Rajasthan was playing the Mumbai Indians (yes, that really is the name of the local cricket team) in the vicinity and a multitude of fans had almost blocked Marine drive, which is the seafront road adjoining Chowpatty beach.

Indian craftsmanship at its best.

Eventually, I stepped out of the car only to be accosted by a young lady carrying a small baby who immediately said “Sir, don’t give me money, but please buy me food” Two years previously I had been accosted by and had accompanied a lady with a baby past several open and relatively pleasant smelling food stalls with me offering to buy her some food to the ‘nearest shop’ which was actually a table set up in an alleyway and I handed over enough rupees to feed a small village for half a bag of rice and litre of water. I looked a little closer at the lady and realised that she was the very same person that I had been previously ‘had’ by. My driver, always polite, but clearly no stranger to the scam, looked quizzically at me and having been my driver the last time I was there, was amazed when I asked him to translate that it was lovely to see her again and that her baby hadn’t aged a day.

He said “Sir, how can you remember her?” thinking that as a daft foreigner, I might actually think that all non white people look the same. I reminded him of the night we first met her and how much I had spent for so little and he laughed and translated the same to her. She had the good grace to smile, admit that it was her other sisters baby and waggle her head in the friendly way that they do here as I purchased a jasmine garland from her as a consolation prize.

I walked across the road to Leopold’s, the ‘touristy but good’ iconic restaurant that was attacked in 2008 as part of the assault that killed numerous people and seriously damaged another nearby institution, the Taj hotel.

‘The Taj’ Still being repaired ten years later.

Leopolds Cafe has the reputation of having the rudest waiters in India. I wasn’t sure about that, but I certainly found that they were the wittiest in town when I was accompanied by my driver Dharminder who speaks Marathi (the local dialect) and translated the wonderfully catty commentary they kept up non stop, to describe customers who did not openly venerate the profession of waiting table. It’s fun, the beer is cold and the food is relatively hygienic, so I try to go each time I am there.

Dharminder told me that had already spoken to the ‘lady with the baby’ and shown her the photographs of my shopping mission and asked her to find out where they were sold. For a price, she had reported back that she had found a shop nearby and that their stock was exactly what the strange Gora was after.

The shop was tiny and the floor to ceiling shelves were packed with colourful fabrics and with four of us in it, there was barely room to turn around, but the owners scurried up and down ladders fetching everything that they thought I might want. It was clearly a well rehearsed routine and they shuffled and dealt fabrics onto the counter like card sharps. I face timed Mrs. Jerry (at 1am unfortunately) to show her the wares and the whole performance was repeated. The lady with the baby stood at the window, smiling and head waggling whilst no doubt, mentally counting up her commission.

I came away from the evening with a stack of colourful cushion covers and yet another unique Bombay experience.

My flights home were long and not the most comfortable ever, but I shouldn’t complain as I am now back by the fire at home, watching the dogs.

George, transfixed by the flames.

Wives and Sweethearts…

I am back working in Singapore and living in the area called ‘little India’ Sure enough, it is about as ‘India’ as Singapore can get, but with the added benefit that its pretty clean. Walking down the ‘five foot ways’ that stand outside all of the old shops and protect pedestrians from the monsoonal downpours, I passed stalls selling the ceremonial garlands of flowers that are used as offerings at the Hindu temples. The smell from the blooms are so strong that often the stalls have their own swarm of bees who determinedly try to gather any remaining nectar.

Forget your aftershave? No problem, just sling one of these around your neck – bees included…

When we lived here around six years ago as a family, we used to troop down to little India to a restaurant called ‘Fatty’s’ at Bencoolen square. It’s the sanitised version of the Chinese street food that you might have had elsewhere in Asia and a little more expensive than you would get at other restaurants in the area but its good food. Damn it’s good food.

S$25, including the beer. Expensive for street food in Singapore, but well worth it

The clientele who sit outside, in the waning evening heat are usually Caucasian, with the locals all sensibly sitting in the air-conditioned comfort inside. On the occasions when I do sit down alone with a cold beer on a warm evening, I tend to think and when I can, I write.

I remember Peter, my late father in law, telling tales of Singapore street food, cold beer and transvestites, although it has to be said, he denied any detailed knowledge of the latter during the days when he was here on national service with the RAF Regiment at the end of the war. He loved Singapore but like most men of his age couldn’t bring himself to talk about some of his experiences in uniform, but he was here when there were still inmates from Changi prison around who had lost their way and their minds and couldn’t be repatriated to their home countries. That really affected him and he struggled to talk about it. Official statistics say that around 850 POW’s died in Changi, but of course, that doesn’t count the civilians who died or the servicemen who died afterwards as a result of the abuse and neglect they received at the hands of their captors. Of note during that time was the resistance shown by the prisoners to the demand of their captors that they sign a promise not to try and escape. They refused, of course and the resulting incident became known as the Selarang Barracks incident (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selarang_Barracks_incident). Read it; it will make you very proud and very angry at the same time.

Contrary to American claims, there were British servicemen who took part in the relief of Singapore. After all, we’d lost it… It was British paratroopers who were personally sent by Mountbatten and six of them, senior officers, medics and administrators, who jumped into Singapore to oversee the handover and prevent the slaughter of the prisoners, although the Yanks like to claim it was all down to them :-). These men were traumatised by what they saw; the living skeletons of men who just refused to lay down and die.

Today, it’s the weekend and I am leaving tomorrow for ‘big India’ – to the cities formerly known as Madras and Bombay to be precise, but before I head back to my tiny hotel room to pack, I am having lunch at the Penny Black pub on the banks of the Singapore river. I am no stranger to this particular wateringhole (pun intended) and I am perched, ever so precariously, on a tall stool at the top of the steps leading down to the water.

Don’t lean over too far whatever you do

A hundred and fifty years ago when large merchant ships came into the harbour, the river would have been so full of small ‘bum boats’ (so called because your bum was so close to the water apparently) that you could walk right across the river without getting your feet wet. The buildings that line the river here would have been ‘go downs’ or warehouses for all of the merchants to store their wares. Now, they all are bars and restaurants, some with bubbling fish tanks outside that house some unfortunate aquatic creatures that are destined to be someones dinner.

Bum boats or Twakow moored up at Boat Quay. The row of buildings on the far left is roughly where the Penny Black now is. Published courtesy of the NAS.

A few years ago during a very convivial lunch at the Penny Black, an old friend who I am going to again refer to here as ‘Eric’ was holding court at his usual table and as he was wont to do, decided to engage some glum looking perfect strangers, sitting at an adjacent table in conversation. The couple, who were quietly minding their own business, looked up in surprise as Eric barked “cheer up, its not like someone has died” “Actually” the lady replied, “my father has and we’re here with his ashes as he never got to come to Singapore when he was alive” Never one to let an awkward situation put him off his stride, Eric walked over to them and introduced himself; offered them both a drink and upon learning that her late father had been in the Royal Navy, promptly bought a glass of port and set it down upon the small wooden box containing the late sailor.

Eric, having been in the Royal Marines and later, the Royal Navy as a commissioned officer regaled them with salty tales of what sailors got up to in Singapore when her Father would have been in the Navy. It turned out that he had always wanted to be buried at sea off Singapore, but that it hadn’t been possible to arrange through the British High Commission here and they were feeling rather sad that they wouldn’t be able to fulfil his last wish. One of the revellers listening into the conversation was actually a ships master and his vessel was moored in the harbour at that time. He said he thought that he might be able to arrange something for the following day and they all teetered back to their beds after promising to meet up at noon.

At the allotted time, Eric, who was just topping up on his alcohol levels from the day before, called up the ships master who sadly confided that he’d taken the rather rash decision of asking the harbour authorities if it would be ok, if they carried out the scattering of the ashes just off the coast and in doing so, had inadvertently unleashed the sudden wrath of the government who threatened to charge him with polluting the waterways and to bar his ship from ever docking in Singapore again. The couple were running late and hadn’t yet shown up for the promised ‘ceremony’ so the panicking drinkers racked their brains trying to think up alternatives. After ordering yet another expensive round of drinks, they decided that they would pay for tickets on one of the many tourist boats that ply the waterway past the pub every few minutes for all and surreptitiously let the ashes trickle slowly into the water, whilst hopefully avoiding the gaze of the other passengers and the crew.

By the time the couple arrived, dressed appropriately for a funeral service, but wholly inappropriately for the tropics, sat down at the table of grinning drinkers and were immediately handed large glasses of port and assailed with the traditional Naval toast for Saturday* “wives and sweethearts” to which the youngest sailor (or in this case, the oldest sailor, Eric) rejoins “may they never meet”

*A few years ago, it was decided that as more women were serving at sea that someone might be upset by this particular toast and it was changed to ‘our families’ No Matelot worth his salt would ever recognise the change, of course and when not in polite company, the original toast continues to be used.

More drinks were ordered and the plan for the afternoon was unveiled. The bereaved couple were obviously a little disappointed to miss out on the expected trip out to a large vessel and the ships master saying a few words as the urn was consigned to the deep, but they became a little more cheery as more rounds of drinks appeared and disappeared. A couple of hours later, the sky looked ominously dark and the winds has whipped up to around 15 to 20 knots. Not bad in a sizeable vessel, but in a bum boat, it could become quite wet and uncomfortable when they turned the corner of the river into the harbour where the statue of the Merlion now stands. The bum boats quickly returned to their moorings and tied up for the rest of the day. “Never mind” said Eric, “we can do it tomorrow” With tears in her eyes, the daughter explained that they were leaving early the next day. Without missing a beat, Eric called the waitress, who was a long time accomplice to his schemes and asked her to bring a tray of port with enough brimming glasses for two each for everyone sitting in the bar at the time.

Eric suggested that the daughter say a few words about her father and his years in the Navy, which she described as ‘the happiest of his life’ and this left quite a few of the listeners with moist eyes. Her husband proposed a toast to the assembled company and thanked them all for taking the time to listen and for their attempts to organise the scattering of the ashes. As can be imagined, Eric had spent the time taken up by the short speeches perfecting the next part of his diabolical plan. He said a goodbye to the old sailor by proposing a ribald toast and called out “bottoms up” as all the glasses were drained. He then dramatically threw his glass into the water, which caused everyone else to do the same. Wobbling carefully down the stone steps to the Singapore River, he removed the lid of the box and with a flourish, upended it.

In the flush of an afternoons drinking and under the now dramatic skies and gusting wind, the former Marine and Naval officer had forgotten all of his basic seamanship skills and had tipped the ashes into the wind. The swirling grey cloud instantly returned to its recent location, the bar table. That table and all of the others of course. Around thirty people blinked the late sailor out of their eyes and joined the uncontrollable laughter that luckily had started with the daughter of her recently airborne father.

And next, onto ‘big” India.

Travels with my parents and a newly acquired phobia

There comes a time in your life when you realise that maintaining 9, 000 miles distance between you and them will not prevent your parents from coming and staying with you. Of course, we could have tried joining the witness protection program, but that would have been a little over the top and it does mean that all of those niggling jobs that need doing and never quite seem to get finished, get finished and are finished well.

This trip, they are only here for three weeks and it’s actually not long enough as they have been fantastic company, very generous and industrious, especially my father who has worked tirelessly (for gin and the occasional meal) in the kitchen washing up, which is his speciality and in the garden, which now looks great.

We headed into the City of Ballarat one evening for the second ‘white nights’ festival, which consists of all the bars/restaurants opening late into the night and the lovely old buildings being lit up with animated coloured lights. There’s live entertainment and select venues hold private parties on their balconies overlooking the main streets. It’s a fun evening and the buses run through until 3am, so there’s no need to drive. Just as well really.

A strangely illuminated man stalking through the growing crowds.

Moving Aphids and other critters on one of the old buildings

This one had a medieval theme.

With Jerry Junior living in Adelaide we decided to take a road trip over to see him and his lovely wife, but instead of blatting across country via the most direct 7.5 hour route, we decided in a weak moment, to take the scenic Great Ocean Road (GOR). It is possible to drive past the highlights in a day, but that would be a very long day from where we live and then of course, you would have to carry on up the coast another 600+ kms to the city of churches. Driving with my parents can be interesting as at any one time, you have to be no more than 30 minutes from a toilet and 2 hours from a cream bun. It’s good to know what I have to look forward to.

I am often quite gleefully told that Adelaide was the only city that didn’t have convicts sent to it and therefore none too subtly suggesting that socially, it’s a cut above Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. That’s up for debate, but I always love going there.

When choosing a hire car, I thought that a compact would be sufficient as there was only the three of us, not realising of course, that the hire companies substitute quite reasonably sized compact cars for other roller skate sized toys, that are notionally in the same ‘group’ but that are way cheaper for them to run. The next morning, we took off from home with the sound of a sewing machine working itself up to a decent run of stitching and started rehashing old family story’s; ones that usually ended up with me being the butt of the jokes. I brought them all upon myself, of course.

Part way around the start of the Great Ocean Road a tree had fallen across the road and blocked travel in both directions, so we turned around to Lorne and had morning tea. I tried an alternative route, cunningly suggested by the GPS and we saw some lovely properties before discovering the inevitable scenic but very dead end. Eventually, however, we got somewhere and that somewhere was Warrnambool. If you are ever there, you need to know that out of high season, it’s pretty much dead after nightfall. The hotel of the same name thankfully does a very nice dinner however.

Probably not three of the twelve Apostles, but spectacular, none the less.

Once back on the Princes highway, we passed through Coonalpyn. At first glance it seemed to be the same kind of tiny country town that we’d passed through several times before. It’s around 300 meters of the same kind of street frontage featuring agricultural suppliers, a bakery and a cafe, but the huge grain silos that dominate the town are covered in a mural of the local kids http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-25/coonalpyn-silo-artist-guido-van-helten-finishes-project/8380546 the mural was part of a project to rejuvenate the communities who were badly affected by drought and it certainly seems to have worked, with new businesses opening monthly.

There are very tall vandals in Coonalpyn

We did eventually make it to Jerry Junior’s and a welcome BBQ dinner. They have a small two-year old fur child in the form of Alfie; a rather cute Dachshund.

See what I mean?

Alfie with one of his victims. As with most serial killers, he has started to refine his tactics

It turns out that Alfie has developed his hunting instincts and has taken to chasing down rats and mice in the garden. He’ll happily kill them but he doesn’t eat them, he’s way too fussy for that. Alfie will instead, delicately chew the ears off his victim.

An earless victim

That night, I slept in the living room and shared the mattress on and off with Alfie, he kindly leant his little hot water bottle like body as a bed warmer and aside from the occasional race around the mattress in the middle of the night was no problem. I did however have rather a nice dream in the middle of the night (you know the kind), I won’t go into detail, suffice it to say that when I woke, it was with a very pleasant warm feeling. I reached over and instead of hair, I felt fur. Alfie had been gently nibbling my ear lobes.

What used to be a small pleasure is now a sizeable phobia. My dreams will never be the same again.

Country life.

Having decided that my recovery from what has been a double hip replacement (over 6 months) has been a success and that I am ready to push the rehab once again and get out and about. Those around me are not 100% convinced that I am ready for this yet, but as I have never been very good at taking it easy, I am getting on their nerves and under their feet at home, I find myself out wandering through the bush again with the dogs.

The dogs, tracking imaginary escaped prisoners

As previously mentioned, there is plenty of wildlife in the vicinity and Kangaroos, Koala’s, possums and even the occasional Echidna can be found.

A satanic looking possum awaiting to leap on unsuspecting victims in a barn

The beautiful Fairy Wrens have returned to the garden and the shy spotted Pardalotes, who like to nest in the old stone walls around the property can be heard calling to each other as they decide which of the previous years tunnels they made in the old mortar to move into. They have raised generations of their families on the old farm and they keep coming back to what they know.

Our favourite Pardalotes are back again this year – NB. not actually one of ours

Regional Victoria has many old country towns that have seen a slow decline since the end of the goldrush and of course, the traumatic crash of the price of wool in 1991. Many of the towns have seen so many jobs disappear that the young families have moved out. Schools have closed down through alack of pupils and as a result, so do the small retail businesses in those towns. Yet in spite of all this doom and gloom, some industrious small towns have managed to reinvent their themselves with literary festivals, farmers markets and craft fairs. Kyneton, is a lovely old country town and has a ‘Lost Trades’ fair https://www.rundellandrundell.com.au/lost-trades-australia. Of course Kyneton has become quite gentrified of late with several coffee shops and some great antique (junk) shops.

We went out to Kyneton last month to the fair and I really loved the way that there are people who follow the old ways of hedge and stone wall building, wool spinning and felt making, eccentric metal working (suit of armour for your stag anyone?), wooden bucket and furniture making and the most esoteric of all, tanning skins with your own wee… I have to admit, it’s a little ‘steam punk’ in places, but as I can’t grow a decent beard, as much as I’d love to, just for a giggle, I’ll never be mistaken for a card carrying hipster.

The fantastic bucket making display. Note the impressive beard…

Folding penny farthing anyone?

A good place to find your child a new double headed axe

Among the best of regular regional markets is the one at Talbot https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g635982-d4025344-Reviews-Talbot_Farmers_Market-Talbot_Victoria.html, which is held on the third Sunday of each month. It sells all the usual crapola that you find at car boot sales everywhere, but there is a great ‘bird man’, who arrives with his ute full of caged chickens, ducks and finches for sale.

I am afraid that I’m a bit of a softie when it comes to chickens. I also realise that you can’t buy them singly, as they always have to have a pal of the same kind and arrival date, or they get bullied. Last trip to Talbot saw us come back with six new hens, two ‘standard’ but very pretty, red hens and two black silky hens, with pom poms on their heads and two golden, fluffy footed Bantams. Bringing us to a total of ten hens and one rooster.

The very proud, but daft pom pom headed Silky’s

Sadly, we weren’t getting more than one egg a day out of all our birds combined as the spectacular and extremely motivated rooster had been at the hens all day and night had gone on strike and they weren’t about to start presenting us with any eggs. In the past, accidentally hatched roosters had gone to the dogs (so to speak), but we heard of a local man who collects unwanted roosters and ‘takes them to his farm’ – yet another euphemism for Sunday lunch I suspect, so he went yesterday and I’m looking forward to having some peace and quiet, as the hens are I’d imagine. Not to mention the prospect of getting some eggs again, of course.

Now, as if we don’t have enough wildlife (3 dogs, a cat plus the chooks), we always seem to come back with more from this place. Thus far, I have resisted the entreaties of the various Jerry Juniors to purchase goats, Merino sheep “they’ll be great for keeping the grass down Dad” – selling the idea like they are some kind of labour saving device or pigs “you know you can house train them and teach them to sleep in a basket Dad”…, when I know full well, that there will be a world of extra jobs entailed, not least pen building, feeding and cleaning out; not to mention the inevitable vets bills.

However, all this attempted steadfastness went to crap when I was out on some friends farm recently. I remarked how I was looking forward to having a lamb roast when I was offered one ‘on the hoof’ Apparently, this little fellow had arrived courtesy of a late season visit by the ram and as all the others were taking a ride on the big truck (kind of like when you tell the kids that your farm is too small for the bullocks and they have to go and live on a bigger farm) and that this one would be on the truck with his much bigger mates. I caved and told him that I’d have him and was instantly blackmailed with “well, he’ll be lonely on his own and there’s another, just a little bigger that has no commercial value” So, of course, I ended up bringing two home. That meant that I had to build them a pen, by sectioning off part of the garden (there’s no weeds now!) and buying hay and pellets.

The sheep with no names

The problem being, of course that when Mrs Jerry and #2 daughter see them happily trotting around the garden, my dreams of endless roasts and kebabs are shelved – “you’re not bloody killing those lovely animals” was the cry. I have avoided naming them as its much more difficult to put something with a name ‘ on the truck’ and with them being too small, I also have a while to work on/bribe the family.

Have a great Easter.

A conscious uncoupling…

The time had come for the other hip swap out. Barely six months after the first and happily, if ever one can be happy about having a fairly major part of your body ripped out , I had managed to wrangle the same surgeon in the same small, country hospital. He had done such a good job that after the first one, I had decided to stay with the public system, so long as I could stick with the same theatre ‘dream team’

Having one hip replaced in your (early) 50’s brings a raised eyebrow, but two at the same country town hospital within living memory is positively shocking with “but you’re too young” being the common refrain. It also brings with it a degree of notoriety and given my previously demonstrated desire for exploring the town on crutches following my last op, my card was marked from the get go. I could see the hospital administrators whispering to each other as I passed ‘yes, that’s him, we’d better lock the doors this time’ Nurses smiled knowingly muttering ‘he’ll not get out this time’…

Of course, that was like a red rag to a bull and as I passed Princess Margaret’s picture on the wall, I looked up thinking ‘ I bet they couldn’t keep you in’ and winked at her. Actually, having seen the latest episodes of “The Crown” she would no doubt have been a lot of fun to sneak in, or out of a ward with. It actually wasn’t that I wanted to leave the hospital and go downtown before I should have done last time, it was just that I wanted a hot chocolate, the hospital coffee shop had closed some ten minutes earlier and I had enthusiastically bought into the ‘opiates are your friend’ nurse/pushers spiel. I’m sure its something to do with shift changes, but honestly, who closes their coffee shop at 2:30pm when folks are bound to have the munchies?

After having set ourselves up in the pre op administration area and been issued my stockings and gown (‘sorry, we’ve still only got it in blue’), I downed the pre op pills but despite my looking forward to a bit of a lift, I just felt a bit ‘flat’ Mrs. Jerry and I had discussed that the last time I was here we’d had the pups with us and we’d been a lot more animated in what was (potentially) our last moments together. So much so, that when I was wheeled into the waiting area, the same theatre sister who had wryly observed my embarrassingly tumescent state some six months earlier was staring at my flat, rather than tented sheets and asked “not looking forward to this one quite so much then?”

I ended up waiting for almost two hours in that room listening to the music of my youth, minus the Clash, of course and the noises of the preceding hip replacement. Hammering and drilling were the two dominant sounds, competing valiantly with REO speed wagon blasting out through the doors. My over observant theatre nurse commented, “you can tell what kind of mood he’s in by the music he plays” peaking my interest she added “when he likes the way the operation is going, he’ll play an 80’s compilation; but when he’s not happy; it’s Lady Gaga at full blast” Interesting, I thought, just hoping that he’d had a good night sleep, not argued with this wife and had a healthy breakfast – all of the things I also want to ask my long haul pilot whilst shaking his hand and maintaining steady eye contact before taking off.

The anaesthetist, with whom I had reached a humorous accord during my pre admission interviews, entered the room and asked ‘ what’s it going to be, conscious or unconscious?’ He’d previously sold me on going with the epidural without the additional knock out gas on the grounds that it was healthier, more interesting and that I could make requests for the music to be changed if I didn’t like it. I decided that it probably would be an interesting experience and so I chose the ‘conscious uncoupling’ option. He nodded knowingly, clearly appreciating my pop cultural reference and marked my back with a pen, then injecting the epidural as the song changed to ‘ma ma ma poker face’… we half jokingly speculated as to what could possibly be going wrong in there.

A bout of determined hammering accelerated that train of thought and I settled back to contemplate my gradually numbing lower body and how it would be if the wind changed and I stayed like that – that’s a normal waking nightmare, right? After a while, there was a swish of the curtains and what seemed like a dozen or more people trooping in and out of the operating theatre. My surgeon, all smiles and bonhomie shook my hand and enquired as to my decision vis-a-vis being asleep or awake. When I told him, he asked what my favourite music was – “anything but Lady Ga Ga” I replied. “Good choice” he nodded sagely…

Upon being wheeled into the theatre, I realised that a hip replacement was a spectator sport. I actually lost count of the number of gloved and gowned people milling around. A couple of them were wearing what I can only describe as ebola suits and it dawned on me that inside one of them was now my surgeon and he was advancing on me. By this time, several of the multiple players in the room had transferred me to a table, hooked me up to machines that made strange noises and erected a sheet screen, preventing me from observing first hand what was going on. There was however a TV screen focusing, in some detail, on my junk. Well, truthfully, I doubt that was the intention, although I swear I did see the theatre nurse smirking in my direction. By now I was feeling more like a side of beef being washed down with gravy (disinfectant) and prepared for roasting – if you’d wrap your roast in a roasting bag that is. The clear film was apparently to help prevent infections and then layer after layer of tablecloth was laid over me with just a small work area for the surgeon to get cracking in.

My relaxing view of the operation and unfortunately, my junk in the x-ray. In my defence, it was a cold room…

Having tried hard to forget the smell of my cauterizing vas deferens as part of having my undercarriage converted from sports to utility, I was however quite unprepared for the strange similarity in smell of the laser scalpel slicing my buttock and the roast shoulder of pork we’d had for last Sunday lunch wafting over the screen. I glanced over at the TV monitor and watched my dissection in glorious technicolour. I did note the rather confronting X-ray of my hips just below the screen that took me back to a recent car journey with Ms Jerry Jnr. I had just exited the local hospital after a pre op X-ray and my daughter grabbed the envelope and pulled out the film. There, shockingly in the centre was a perfect outline of the equipment that created her. With an embarrassed squeal she dropped the film back in the envelope and primly said, “well, there’s something I can never unsee” Serves her right, I thought…

As Bruce Springsteen’s ‘born to run’ cranked up over the speakers, my hip joint was being assaulted by what looked like and probably was, a Dremel multi saw. I watched fascinated, as the leg was dislocated and the ball was chiselled off (literally) by several hard several whacks from a ball peen hammer, then realised that the thuds I was feeling through the table were actually resonating through my body. It’s actually quite shocking how brutal a hip replacement is when you ‘feel’ it first hand. If someone hit you that hard with a hammer under normal circumstances, you’d have to hope to goodness that there would be a copper nearby to drag them off you. This time however, the ball skittled out of the (new) hole in my backside and defying the attempt of one of the gowned wicket keepers, managed to hit the floor with exactly the same noise that a billiard ball makes when it hits a solid floor. There you go, three ball sports allusions in as many sentences, I’m obviously still in the grasp of the painkillers.

The other side of the screen – calm spacemen working on my strangely angled hip.

Prior to the operation, I had once again, unsuccessfully tried to persuade the surgeon to give me the joint as a ‘take away’ I had no intention of giving it to the dogs, of course, but a friend who shall remain nameless (Eric) had stated his intent to make it into the handle for a walking stick – “still not going to happen” the surgeon said with a smile. Bugger, I muttered. That would have been fun, or at least a talking point at parties.

The anaesthetist proved to be a born raconteur and we chatted throughout the procedure. I actually had to be told to keep still at one point as apparently my chuckling was vibrating through the table. I quietened somewhat when I saw the rasp like implement that was being used to route out the femur and how it was used. It looked like a curved cheese grater on a handle and it was worked vigorously in and out of the open bone end to make the room for the implant. The receiving socket on the hip was being ground out at high speed by something else that looked like it came from Bunnings so as to fit the ball joint exactly. One thing’s for sure, I’ll never look at Oso Bucco the same way again.

My surgeon was obviously happy with the way that things were going, as the Beach Boys sang a song about having their car taken away from them. “How did you go with not being able to drive for eight weeks then?” he asked. Actually, quite well I answered and drifting away from the conversation, apropos of the song that had just been playing, recounted a story about my taking Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys diving on the Great Barrier Reef some years earlier. The anaesthetist got it, but I think that it got lost on the telling for the bloke hammering away in my innards.

We’re nearly there, said my new mate the anaesthetist, as the surgeon tidied up the implants by stitching up the layers of fat and tissue around the joint. At my request, he had taken some pictures during the operation and I had thanked him for getting my best side (the top of my head) in focus. Before I knew it, I was taken into the recovery room and poked and prodded to check on my vitals. All must have been satisfactory as I was wheeled into a shared ward of four beds and listened to a frogs chorus of the occupants opposite farting and burping behind their curtains. I joined in myself for a few moments until propriety suggested that I stop while the nurses did their rounds. “Let’s get you out of here and into a room of your own dear” said one of them to the patient in the bed next to mine. “Oh, thank goodness for that” said the educated and very female voice back through the curtain. Oops, I thought.

After another x-ray, blood test and crappy nights sleep, I decided to stretch my legs. It seemed as though the entire staff on that floor popped their heads out of doorways and stared at me. Yes, the word had obviously passed around that I was up. I greeted them all and went for a crutch assisted wander around the floor and found the bathroom. I managed to negotiate the shower and following that, the physio staff took me through my paces in their gymnasium. I seemed to have met all of the benchmarks for immediate recovery from the operation as with almost indecent haste, I was discharged and sent home.

It seems that recovery is pretty much down to me now that the experts have done their bit. Thankfully, I only have the two hips. Hopefully, I don’t stuff them up by overdoing things…

Bears Bush Christmas.

Bear, noticing that the inside of the car is far cooler than the outside

Once again, although the dogs don’t know it, it’s Christmas. Of course, like anyone sensible, they are spending most of their time in the shade, but now and again, I can get them out into the bush for a good long walk. When it’s really hot, like it now, the air is filled with the strong fragrance of eucalyptus oil and hot earth. The Australian bush has a distinctive smell that’s hard to imagine, but it’s impossible to forget once you have experienced it and I really miss that heady aroma and the sound of crickets when I am overseas.

When out for a bush walk, Bear, who is now a human three years old and George (his five year old mother) will dash off, ears flapping, jumping over fallen trees, knocking small bushes aside in their haste to beat the other. Eventually, they will tire themselves out and just flop to the ground panting, but it takes a while as the breed was used to chase lions away from the Boers cattle in South Africa, so they have a good deal of stamina.

When the dogs find a dam, they can’t wait to get in for a drink and a swim.

I took Bear’s father (and the source of my ‘nom de plume’) Jerry, on his last walk here as he’d been having serious fits as a result of a brain tumour and he hadn’t been outside of the garden for a while. The medication we had been giving him was making a good deal of temporary difference, so I decided to get him out and about. He’d never paid more than passing attention to this small dam but on this particular day, he hesitated, looking at the water and rather than walking around it as he usually did, he glanced at me and leapt, like a puppy into the water and swam laps. He was so happy that I just sat there watching him for a good fifteen minutes. His mate and Bear’s mother George, sat watching and lapping as daintily at the water as a 50kg dog can, but she didn’t get in. I remember sadly thinking, that as I had to leave on a trip the next day, that this would probably be my last walk with him and it was. He died a few days later and now I always think of that place as ‘Jerry’s pool’.

There’s plenty of wildlife in our local bush and I often see Kangaroos and Wallabies; usually when the dogs disturb them and they end up bounding away, like a herd of Gazelles and far too fast for the dogs to chase, but unfortunately they do try, ignoring my yelled expletives demanding that they come back. Eventually they do, tongues lolling and panting and thankfully having the decency to look slightly sheepish.

This large male lives in this paddock near home and he’s well over 2 metres tall. We call him ‘Bruce’ (what else?) and he’s pretty confident. Both Bear and George know better than to go near him!

If we go for a walk at night, it’s not uncommon to see Possums and even Koalas. Bear and George are a bit puzzled but they don’t get too excited when the wildlife is in the trees.

Just get lost and let me sleep…

As it is Christmas, the usual ‘over the top’ decorations are up and you’ll notice that in the picture below, I have the fire lit. It’s actually around 28 degrees outside, but I have had the aircon on for a couple of hours, in order to justify it!

It’s not dark and it’s not cold, but why wouldn’t you light the candles and the fire?

The tree is not the prettiest we have ever had but it is the largest, at just under 4 metres tall. Getting the bloody thing home was a challenge as we only have a small car and after enlisting the help of a couple of strapping lads to heave the thing onto the roof, I managed to bribe my neighbour into helping me get it off the car and into the living room. The dogs unfortunately kept on drinking the water out of the small well in the trees stand, so it was a bit of a competition trying to keep it full and the tree green.

It’s not the size of your car, its the size of your tree that counts!

When not sleeping in front of the fire, the dogs loved the lights on the tree although Bear wanted to pee on it – and on all of the presents…

Settling down to lie like big dogs in front of a big fire on a cold night

All in all, the dogs did very well, what with the Christmas left overs and the numerous people who were willing to play with them and take them out for walks. We are now moving into the bush fire season so its hot and windy at home and sadly that means no more ‘aircon justified’ fires for a while…

This evenings sunset. Not too shabby.

Hope you all had a good Christmas and that you have a happy and safe new year.

Jerry.