Tales from the Gael

I am the hunter and gatherer!

I wrestled my wriggly fish out of the sea, hurled it across the jetty to the shouts of encouragement from 6 Muslim ladies and pranced about as it jumped about until a fellow fisherman, with a bristly chin, marched down and took my fish in hand, eased out the hook, dispatched it with ease then watched me stand victorious for my photo finish. It was just so exciting. It was a King George Whiting, which is apparently very good, and they retail in the shops for $60 a kilo…so that is quite impressive. I took my slippery catch home and duly gutted and cooked it and John and I gobbled it up for dinner. (We both wished I’d caught 2!)

So now I am ‘blooded’ I am all set to go again…but alas the wintry storms are upon us and the seas are too rough. Indeed further around the state trees are falling on busses and cars and roofs are flying off houses. It is not the time to be luring fish on to the jetty. I shall have to bide my time.

We went to Port Adelaide at the weekend…it is the 2^nd biggest port in Australia for handling mineral exports and it has a huge Sunday market as its second claim to fame. There was all the usual flea market stuff, and we had to keep remembering we are only here for a short time, and cannot go buying Georgian furniture, or other delectable antiques. Instead we went to a factory outlet place where I got a new pair of trainers for a ridiculously low price…the only snag is that John expects me to go running with him on a Saturday morning. Hmmmm. Wonder what my chances are of a Norfolk pine falling on me? Although I go to yoga and walk for an hour every day, I still stand on the scales and sigh deeply…it is what goes into you that counts…no amount of running will help if you still enjoy a little Turkish Delight with your afternoon tea.

Talking of delights, I came across a delicious Vietnamese recipe, and cooked it up yesterday. It is street food par excellence. It is called Bun Cha patties with rice noodles and leaves. I remember eating it with Emilda on the streets of Hanoi, and the barbecuing smell of the meat was just too good to describe.  We ate at a table covered with some flowery plastic cloth, and sat on tiny blue plastic chairs.  I remember it being near the railway station. Having heard of some horrors it’s usually best to ignore all the offers of extreme eating, whether it’s barbecue stinkbugs on a stick, crispy scorpions or still-beating snake hearts and just concentrate on the less showy and more conventionally delicious dishes instead. During my year working in Tien Yen I lost so much weight, and yet I was always full…it must have been the Dukan diet…all protein and vegetables. This bun cha dish last night was pork rissoles, served with squiggly rice noodles all wrapped in lettuce. Now if I had that every day I would be as thin as a stick insect…not forgetting the run along the beach in new trendy trainers. (I don’t even run for a bus)

As the weather is so stormy I have used my time to get back to the ‘Highland Rocks’, and  for a few hours each day I am transported to the West Coast of Scotland where poor Dolly is about to leave us for that great shiny place in the sky. I have been writing from memory, and then I suddenly look on Facebook and see the ex Inn Keeper in Glenelg has posted the most beautiful pictures.

Seeing the familiar hills and sea from a similar view point that I used to look out on, makes the years just tumble away. Communication is a wonderful thing.

I’ve just whirled around like an amazing Mrs Mop…cleaning up after the Queen’s Birthday. The place is sparkling and I am worn out. I HATE cleaning the bath…such a strain on the back. Anyway, that is just too mundane, especially as I am now a fully-fledged fisherwoman.

Nick arrived from Sydney for the long weekend, and he and I spent long fruitless hours on the rocks and jetty, spinning and casting and getting snagged. I fell on some giant rocks and grazed my knee and bruised my shin…major OUCH…thoughts of poo pooing children in the playground…’Oh come along, that’s just a little scratch blah blah blah’ well it was sore! And very undignified.

Yesterday morning before he got his plane, we spent the whole morning in the sunshine, and although we didn’t even get a nibble, we couldn’t believe it when 2 beautiful dolphins swam around and around, and came right up to us…it was fantastic. Made up for our lack of ‘tight lines’. Talked to a fisherman coming in on a very expensive ocean-going yacht, with mighty fixed rods over the back and I asked if he had any luck…he looked a bit cagey, and said, ‘there was a heap of water between the fish!’ Made me feel better. Maybe the elusive darlings have all migrated to warmer climes. The silly man in the fish tackle shop seemed to think the squid were throwing themselves on to the hooks last weekend. I am starting to believe the myths regarding ‘fishermen tales.’!

From being a hunter gatherer full of evil intent I felt a little chastened last night as John and I went to see Jane Goodall talking about conservation to about 2000 people at Adelaide’ Ridley Pavilion.  We must be kind to our fellow man, animal, planet etc and not go plundering the oceans. Hmmmm.

She was fantastic though and it’s 50 years since she first went to the Gombi and made friends with those chimps that formed the basis of her studies and gave so much pleasure and interest to so many. I first heard of her in a National Geographic magazine in Singapore in 1977, where she had plotted out the family tree of the old matriarch, Flo. Last night it was more about what each of us can do to be a better world citizen…Oh well, I am not depleting the fishing stocks. (yet)

John and I went back to Handorf on Sunday. We ate cinnamon toast with cream and sliced oranges then walked about. It is the oldest German settlement in Australia, and quite quaint with pretty shops and an olde worlde feel.  I had my palm read by a blue eyed man wearing a red bandanna. He told me that all my major lines swooped the wrong way into my lunar mound (as opposed to my mound of venus) so it means all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Basically I remember being ‘here’ before and so am melancholic and have spells of wanting the ‘other life’ HA HA HA! Always knew I was a Russian many moons ago!

I did give thought to the pioneer women of Handorf…way back when. Whilst their men folk were off founding Australia, they tended the home steads and carried baskets of vegetables and dairy produce on their backs down to Adelaide. I suppose as the crow flies on The Pioneer Women’s trail it must be about 20 miles. On the homeward journey they were required to each carry two bricks for the construction of a church. It must have been a struggle for those women on the steep slopes on such a narrow track climbing back up in the heat or in the rain or fog.

By  contrast we zoomed off in our mighty modern motor to see the great Murray River. It was vast and brown, and home to the paddle steamer, Marion, which is similar to the Waverley that plies its way around the west coast of Scotland.

We searched for a nice place for lunch but it was all a bit dire.  Then, just as we were about to settle for fish and chips (again) we saw a guy with a sign for roast pork rolls and fresh yabbies. $5 each. We decided to have that. My yabbies looked OK, they were big and I tore into the shells, all set with my lemon wedge…but oh my goodness, they were mush with a very large black vein….UGH. John was struggling with his roll…. So we binned it all, and as we crossed the street imagine our surprise when we saw a sign.

‘Yabbie races today in the pub lounge. Race starts at 12.00.’

Presumably, after the race they’d been popped into the pot and been boiling away for about an hour.  Best not to know.

Got this beautiful picture of a poppy from a friend yesterday. I adore poppies, and for the last 4 years I haven’t seen the collection we bought at some garden show. Nick said they were beautiful last year in Edinburgh.

One of the ladies in the Writers Club was telling me about her sulphur crested cockatoos.

In the 80’s they had been used to using her pine windbreak and an ancient walnut tree to dine on, but both died.  She tried to plant a new hedge, interspersed with bottle brush to encourage the native birds, but the cockatoos didn’t return. Then followed 3 years of drought and water restrictions, all the conifers died and the battered bent quince tree keeled over. Possums ruled the garden, thriving on rose buds and ornamental plums. But just last week she heard a huge rumpus. The cockatoos were back, lunching on an olive tree, then transferred to a candle pine and finally, beside the house, 12 of them picked discarded plum kernels out of the gravel drive-way. It made me think of the meeting last night with Jane Goodall and her dire warnings. But maybe we, like nature and the birds can adapt to change.

Below is me in the Botanic Garden…with a fossil pine. It is the Woolemia Pine. It was recently discovered in the Blue Mountains of NSW, in about 1994 and it is said to be 200 million years old. I actually saw one in Inverewe Gardens in the NW of Scotland, where scientists say they are trying to see how it copes with different climates and temperatures. And here is John, after we walked to Brighton for some eggs Benedict!

Phew, it seems I don’t have the killer ecoli bug that is killing so many in Hamburg. I am back up on my horse and feeling a lot better. Though goodness knows why? I googled remedies for this killer bug, and it suggested BRAT, ie bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. I duly followed it, then went on a tour-about at the weekend and promptly ate an apple doughnut, an apple pie, a Cornish pasty and an organic duck pie!

This is me who actually HATES pastry! Oh well, all is well and I am now fighting fit and full of the joys. Gloominess is such a necessary evil, for afterwards the world just takes on a new lightness.

On Saturday John and I drove down the Fleurieu Peninsula to a cute little town called Carrickalinga. Pretty countryside and we passed through the McLaren vineyard country and duly stopped to buy a case of Cleanskins. You get a delicious wine which has failed the ‘test’ so it’s sold off quite cheaply without a label. We bought a case of Sauvignon, and so far no complaints. John was very pleased with the giant bottle of port he managed to squeeze into the box as well! I can see some decadent lunches ahead.

On Sunday we headed north, away from the beaches into the great swathes of agricultural land, and we drove for miles and miles in a straight line.

Imagine the surprise when we saw this sign!

Desperate for a coffee we called into Tarlee, and found this rather nasty ‘Take Away and Deli’ that offered very old looking pies and cakes with cerise and luminous green icing. When we drove out, John said, ‘what the …was that?!’ and just on cue a sign appeared!

We drove on and on and came to Burra, a copper mining town that relives its heritage once a year, and everyone dresses up and pretends they have just arrived from Cornwall.

There was a giant machine made from blue gum and iron, and is called The Jigger. This was built to transport a water pump that was sent from Cornwall, way back when, and it took 2 months to get up the road from Port Adelaide. Not such lucrative years, but the mining did pick up later on. What was memorable for us was as we gazed at the scarred hillside, a real live wild kangaroo suddenly bounced past!

Went to my Writers meeting on Thursday and was absolutely entranced with the guest speaker, a lady called Christobel Mattingley. She has written so many books, and is at present working on her third biography. She told stories of her research and they became stories within stories and we all just sat spellbound. She told us about Edward Ebineezer Gostelow (wonderful name) and his passion for Australian birds, and then Adam Forster, who painted Australia’s wild flowers. The stories were threaded with snippets about Thistle Harris, (imagine naming a baby girl Thistle and her growing up to be a botanist!) and the tragic story of an English woman who became a famous bird painter married an Australian and just prior to sailing for the Great Southern Land contracted measles and became deaf, so she never heard the sounds of the birds she painted.

You can google Christobel, and there is even a little you tube link where she is talking about the bird man, EE Gostelow.

After Christobel’s talk, Heather, one of our ladies told a story about Sydney James Cook. He was an aborigine boy adopted by Dr Charles Duguid who came to Australia as a ship’s surgeon in 1911 and then migrated the following year. Sydney joined the family around 1930 and was brought up and educated alongside Dr Duguids other 2 children. Well Heather apparently lived next door to Sydney  and she and her friend used to play with him when they were little. She remembers daring him to eat a worm for a penny(because aborigines like that sort of thing) and he did…loads of them! (quite smart, he knew how to make a small fortune!) and then he threw a big stone over the wall, nearly killing her friend, the irony was that scratched on the mighty boulder were the words ‘I love you.’ She said she saw him about fifty years later, quite unexpectedly. She and her husband were taking a drive in the centre of Australia and they saw this tall aborigine man with a stick, standing like a statue. They stopped and spoke to him, and were amazed at the ‘Oxford’ English reply, very cultured. It was Sydney. He had returned to his own land and his own people.

Well the meeting closed with Elizabeth, (the 90 year old treasurer) telling us she couldn’t bank the week’s takings until next week as she was going for an eye op.

Last night we watched a documentary about Australian cattle being transported to Indonesian abattoirs. I am still reeling with shock, revulsion and pity. Conditions were the worst you could imagine and the cruelty was beyond words. The journalist responsible for most of the filming was Lyn White and I do hope her report does some good. The Greed for Gold has a lot to answer for.

On a lighter note John’s colleague, Dean is getting me a fishing rod. I am very excited as I have great plans of emptying the ocean around the jetty. He is so optimistic he said he’d supply the recipes as well!

Tomorrow is the 1st June and it is officially winter.

I have the blues today…was going to write more of The Highland Rocks, but just couldn’t get into it, and feel full of the woes, like what’s the point, will anyone want to read it etc etc. Was going to sew but the needle feels too heavy. Might just curl up with Dan Brown’s latest. Outside its cold and showery and the seas are crashing about. Can’t be bothered going out and getting soaked. Tomorrow I am going to the Writers’ Club in Adelaide, where I will meet up with the other elderly members. The secretary is 90 and she writes poetry. I need to make friends, but inertia has set in, and I’m homesick for proper BBC and friends to have a coffee with. I have ventured to yoga, but everyone just stares at their own belly buttons, and then we all leave, as though we are going somewhere special.

Did go and see Babies last week. A documentary about 4 babies from Japan, US, Namibia and Mongolia. Fantastic, as all 4 tots all reached their milestones at the same time, regardless of money, stimulus, material wealth or time spent with educational toys or chatty mums….the African baby mostly rolled about the dirt eating old bones, and his mother mostly ignored him, yet in the end he was quite the star and the most easy going. I did love the Mongolian baby, he lay at first parcelled up so he couldn’t move and his only stimulation was when a rooster jumped on the bed and marched around him. Later we see his face as a goat with giant horns dips its head into his bath.

By contrast the Japanese and American babies were bamboozled with every kind of mobile stimulation known to man. Lovely documentary by the French man, Thomas Balmez. Need the proverbial shake. I should be more positive and march about, but when you can’t you can’t. So for now, it’s off to Dan Brown.

Daytime TV in Australia is quite depressing as it is peppered with adverts reminding you to book your funeral. I don’t really watch ‘daytime’ as such, more the morning chat show but I am concerned suddenly with all these reminders. Then last night as I was preparing dinner I put on the ipod and all this music I hadn’t listened to for ages had me just about in tears. John Denver songs I played when I was pregnant with Gerry, old country stuff I heard when I was a student working the summers in Kintail, most of the folk there now dead, and of course Leonard Cohen with all the angst that he brings back. Oh well, you can’t have ups without the downs. And the mind makes hell of heaven and heaven of hell, so there we go. Onwards and upwards.

Yesterday I went for a walk alongside the beach as I do every afternoon and as I passed an elderly man putting away his mobile I heard him say, ‘3.37’ so I quipped, ‘and all is well!’ and he stopped me and told me he had just had a bypass and this was his first time out of the hospital. He just felt like a walk, and that was the nurse ringing up to check on him….and yes, it was 3.37 and all was well! I walk past all these people, and each has his own little drama going on. I just march, hoping to see some dolphins or a friendly face.

We went to Adelaide Art Gallery on Saturday. I was amazed at the collection and it felt wonderful being amongst so many ‘old friends’. There was a room dedicated to 16 and 17^th Century Italian Art, and other stuff related to the courses I did for my OU degree…memories of the trips to Antwerp and Venice, Rome and Florence…magical days. Paintings and music seem to trigger the memory and then it all floods back. Just a pity all the learning doesn’t…I can’t remember anything factual, let alone write an essay.  Ah well.

We regained our strength with a light lunch!!!

And staggered off to the Zoo where we met up with all our Australian buddies ie the koala, Tasmanian devil, wombats and kangaroos which was nice, but the highlight for me was the meerkats and the pandas.

The meerkats were just the funniest little creatures, and I had never seen a live one before. They obviously appointed one little guy as the official look-out while the rest all partied around the enclosure. This look-out spent the whole time alert, thinking the giraffes might invade at any minute. To be honest I don’t think the giraffes could have cared less. He should have been more worried about me, I was just desperate to steal one of the gang…I imagine it would provide endless fun and amusement!

The pandas were cute, just being pandas. As were all the other creatures….nice Zoo and for once all the animals were alert…even the Taipan snake (most poisonous ever) was moving about for the world to see, instead of being comatose as they usually are.

Climbed up to Mount Lofty and Mount Barker on Sunday. Nice views and nice to exchange the sea side scenery for the lovely lush hinterland. Look at this maple, it’s like the ‘burning bush’.

All for now. Going to make some pumpkin soup.

I am sitting here looking down at a very stormy sea. The surf is crashing and still the intrepid ‘keep fitters’ walk along with their heads down, marching with a mission. I had toyed with buying a cheap fishing rod to cast off the jetty, but seeing the weather today, I think I might have missed the halcyon days of casting a line out to a calm sea. John’s colleague Dean was very excited to hear I liked fishing, and offered to take us out on his boat, from which he has been known to land whoppers. Hmmm. I am very excited, but now with this stormy weather I think the trip will have to be postponed.

We have been gallivanting. Toured up to the Barossa Valley to view the vineyards and have a little taste. It was all so beautiful. The trees were so gorgeous, avenues of autumn splendour and the vines red and gold. We came across Jacob’s Creek, a huge concern, and we duly snapped the original creek, before going up to see the manicured lawns, the neat and tidy vines. I’m glad they are still producing the nice white I used to buy from the Co-op! We bought a pink and a fizzy!

The Barossa valley still has a German flavour from its early days, where people came, fleeing from religious persecution in Prussia and set up their Lutheran Churches and learnt the wine trade. John and I meandered round the old settler cemetery near Bethany, with the German inscribed stones, and I reflected how people like to be buried in amongst what supported them in life. I remember the graves in Vietnam, stones and mounds appearing amongst the rice paddies. Here stones are surrounded by grapes. How nice.

Have joined a yoga class and really enjoyed it, not as much as ballet of course, but it was good to have a stretch and get back to downward facing dogs and warrior poses, things I haven’t done since Doha. Nice ladies, and no one talked about funeral arrangements. This is positive.

Had a quiet giggle at my new hairdresser. His name is Steven, and he has NO interest in travel and cannot see the point of going anywhere. This is OK, but then after snipping away, he thought he would maybe like to go on a safari in Africa, as that would be quite special. I nodded and watched him snip.  He suddenly got really excited and had to stop as he launched into a fantasy about going to Las Vegas, to the gambling machines, the poker machines, and be part of all the glitz. I was quite amazed at his transformation from a homely gentleman who was telling me what oil he uses to rub on his elbows to this closet wild man. He said he blows his pay check every week on ‘scratchies’, lotto, horses and pokies! These poker machines are huge here in Australia, and John tells me that even in the office they have a ‘book’ on whether the job will be finished on time!

But much much worse is the terrible accident at the races on Friday. Oh my. I snapped this picture from the paper. It shows a group of people happily watching a race, when suddenly a riderless horse leaps over the fence into the unsuspecting crowd. Seven people were hurt, though none too serious. Look at the faces if you can….totally unaware! Magic photo.

Apart from that, I am frustrated with the stupid commercial channels on TV. I have been watching Australian Masterchef, and last night, there was a run off between two contestants…we got the scores for one fellow, and the tension was rising, when suddenly the screen went blank and we were on to the budget. They had wasted so much time on adverts, they had run out of time. Aaaargh. On a more positive note, I have ‘met’ Maggie Beer, a sort of Delia or cooking icon of the Barossa Valley on the above programme. She has introduced me to Verjuice…something I had never heard of. Wonderful stuff, I cooked a chicken with it last night…(it’s made from the juice of unfermented grapes) and was apparently huge in the middle ages and this Maggie Beer has brought it back to attention. Good to learn of new things.

We visited Adelaide’s china town, and I had the best Pho since leaving Vietnam.

John  is very tense this week, the big boss from Korea is arriving today, and yesterday John had meetings with the Irish sub contractors…the job is a nightmare, and causing a lot of sleepless nights to all concerned.

The sea is still wild, and the balcony is getting spattered with rain, and I have to go out now…which is not very appealing.  So different from when we walked back on Saturday night and saw a bride having her picture taken on the sea wall.

Well for me the week was summed up by a picture on facebook…it just says it all. Let’s just hope the hat was buried at sea as well!

I must say I did love it all, the pageantry, the spectacle and best of all ABC had the BBC commentary and it was as if I was at home in Edinburgh! There was Hugh Edwards, and Sophie and oh look there’s Elton John and how awful the Duchess of Kent is looking, and poor Camilla, she looks so agitated and unhappy. John remained glued to his crossword, as I prattled on, but he awoke and rose up like a phoenix at the sight of a rather gorgeous bridesmaid!

Look at this one…HA HA!

Had to giggle at this picture too….there’s always someone trying to get in to a good photo!

Over on the other Australian channel, Dame Edna Everidge was adding her gossipy girly take on the scene. I had to laugh out loud as she gasped in anticipation when Mrs Middleton made her appearance, ‘Aaah, it’s all right possums, we can all relax now, for here she comes in her neat little suit, ready to show us the emergency exits to the abbey!’

So, sadly it’s all over, morning TV has nothing else to speculate on, and we are just back to the local news, of murders and killings.

My news coincided with the Royals Big Day, as my Gerry and Cathal are to be wed next year. They want a winter wedding, possibly in Feb or March, so there will be no speculating on what I shall wear. I shall invest in a kilt, olive green ‘twin set and pearls’ and some sensible brown shoes. Of course I shall also wear my Russian white fox-fur hat. I have no plans of being cold! It’s all right for these brides in their long gowns! By the way the dog in the picture belonged to the photographer!

Otherwise little to report…walks along the beach sighting pelicans surfing on the waves.

They are so cool. Last night we walked out along the jetty and talked to a young Singaporean medical student who was fishing. He showed me Orion, his sword, his belt, his arm that had fallen into the sea because his constellation was so low in the sky. And apparently if I wanted, I could have got up this morning and viewed the planets aligned in the sky. It was all very uplifting.

It’s been a roller coaster week, with Easter and Anzac day back to back. Half of Australia seemed to have visited Glenelg and ‘our’ beach was mobbed. The holiday atmosphere was quite infectious, and we duly bought our ice creams and hot cross buns and nearly choked at a sudden Easter message complete with icons and religious paintings that interrupted a TV ad. There was the crucified Jesus, and the message of his death on Good Friday. Then the advert for sofas continued. Hmmm.

John and I zoomed down to Victor Harbour then meandered back through Strathalbyn in the Adelaide Hills, it was all so beautiful, and we sipped at a vineyard and bought a bottle of unoaked Chardonay, and hoped that John’s colleague would be impressed…we actually paid more than $20 for it! He is such a wine snob and would deplore my liking for boxed pink!!!

The REAL red wine in this country is Grange….we were very curious and called into a smart ‘bottle’ shop in Glenelg and asked about it…there was just the slightest straightening of the spine, an almost hushed respect as we were led over to the locked display cabinets…and offered a bottle, costing $540!!!!

Such mighty price tags…the other one was an alpaca waist coat that I so lusted over in a cute German-themed village in the mountains. That too was $500 and the only way I was going to get it was photograph it! There are fields of alpacas about…such cool creatures.

Anyway after all this exposure to trees and plants and so on, I read about a lady living in the southern highlands of NSW.

Her garden has grown into the most wonderful paradise, she just planted what she loves, where ever, and it’s grown into this idyllic place where wallabies, wombats, golden bell frogs and lyre birds just live alongside her. She has 800 fruit trees, with 272 different sorts of fruit, from cherries to avocados. She has 132 varieties of apple (not just Granny Smith).Each young tree is netted until it’s above wallaby height, then the tree guard is used elsewhere. She has roses, flowers, vegetables, and bushes that grow the smaller, sourer fruit that birds prefer. I just read it and was immediately lost!

Today I went to Adelaide to meet with the ladies of the Society of Women Writers of South Australia. It was very eclectic. I had to smile, as I looked around the gathering, as I’d had an email from Ruth earlier in the morning advising me to be aware of some of the ‘womens’ groups.’ She’s had experience of gatherings that were supposed to be discussing scones or such like, and inevitably the conversation would turn to the more popular theme of funeral planning. Again hmmmmm!

I heard on the News last night, the account of a desperate woman driver who went berserk in a shopping mall car park. She wrecked about 4 cars before her own car eventually came to a stop, crunched on a big JCB digger that just happened to be parked. She is 94 (obviously had the funeral chat with her friends) and was quite lucid about what happened. ‘My foot just got stuck on the accelerator, it was just numb, and the car just flew on its own.’

When asked if she was hurt, ‘Well, a wee bit of a bruise under my bosom, because of the seat belt.’ And are you going to drive again? ‘Oh no! Haven’t you seen it? My car’s a right off and it wasn’t insured and I haven’t had a license for years!’

Had a giggle at that, as well as the story about stoned grannies in the USA. Should a granny who is stoned be allowed to carry a gun???? Now there’s a thing!

The rest of the news is gloomy, so many murders in this state. Apparently John and I drove past a body on Saturday. She was bundled up in a blue car on the side of the road.

But enough, we’ve walked for miles, enjoyed the hot spell, and now we are all geared up for tomorrow…I shall watch the great nuptials along with the rest of the planet and wish them well.

PS I am having problems with my microsoft…so pictures are not going in as I want…soooo annoying!

Acker Bilk is playing Stranger on the Shore, and I feel very mellow, looking down on the beach at the perpetual playground of walkers, cartwheelers, swimmers and sea gazers. It is all so very busy. Had to smile at a scene on Saturday. If I was at all in doubt as to where I was, the wedding picture confirmed it had to be Australia! The bridal pair with their lemony bridesmaids had to stop posing to let a group of surfies past. Funny.

John has been heralding me with tales from his new friend, Dean. Dean is the safety officer on this job and recently survived a heart attack, giving John all the gory details. Still he has recovered, and his hobby is kite fishing. Apparently the line is suspended from the kite and the fisherman just zips about catching barramundi…sounds very energetic and quite scary.

But what I was about to say, the safety officer’s report last Wednesday caused a minor stir in the meeting. First item was a Stanley knife used to cut through this massive cable slipped and shimmied off the steel toe cap of the worker’s boot and went straight through the leather and cut the tendon of his big toe. So the poor Korean is in hospital having micro surgery and out of action for a while. Second item involved a guy who got bitten by a spider whilst sitting on the toilet, has a very sore bum and is in hospital too. Hmmm. Makes one a little more alert in some of these makeshift wooden loos in the parks we have been visiting recently.

I had to add my story to our after dinner chit-chat…about the shark that came right into the shore, obviously chasing something, and it was so big, and the fin was circling just like in Jaws. All the school kids, who were about to start their surfing lesson, shrieked and yelled, and I and a couple of other ladies just looked on, amazed. Were we seeing things??? Later in the afternoon there were the usual swimmers and surfers, totally unaware of the drama of the morning.

Keeping on the death or near death experiences, I had to chuckle at an account I heard of a journalist who had been to see Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’ at the Kings Theatre in Edinburgh. Just for your information, when Puccini got to Mimi’s death, he drew a skull and crossbones at the side of the manuscript score. Well, in Edinburgh, just as Mimi falls back into Rodolfo’s arms, about to expire, there was the loud ‘PANG PONG PANG PONG!’ of an ambulance tearing down Leven Street outside!!! Mimi started to giggle and the poor Rodolfo was nearly choking as he tried to sing! The audience were in fits.

John and I have been the Perfect Tourists. We have basked in the beautiful autumn sunshine, admiring the Botanic Gardens, learning new names for all the gum trees: Blue, Silver, Ghost and knotted and spotted and goodness knows what else. They are quite striking.

We also drove into the hills, to Lofty Peak (!) and visited a wildlife conservation park. That was so idyllic as at last we saw and fed the kangaroos, patted the koala, and saw all the other crazy creatures.

John told Dean about our visit and he was just so disparaging about the ‘damn roos’, and he had a problem at the weekend with an echidna in  his garden, which he tried to lift it out with a box…this creature has swords for prickles. Anyway after much pushing and pulling and animal cruelty later, he discovered that the thing had its snout caught in the corner of the box, and was stuck! Oh the trials of gardening in Adelaide!

Books are so expensive here. I walked along the coast to Brighton (!) 4 kms there and 4 back, in my MBT trainers, so it was like carrying two buckets of cement at the end of my legs. (I am hoping this walking will get me as fit as my friend, Marion, who is training for her marathon in her pink bra.) Anyway I stopped for an ice cream and looked about Brighton, and was horrified to find the second hand books are $10…about £7. Everything is so expensive compared to the UK. At the moment all my retail therapy is spent in the supermarkets. The choices are wonderful, and I come home, my bag full of delights, and there just aren’t enough meals to justify them.  Television is OK, the advertising channels are a pain and of course EVERYONE is talking Royal Weddings. The poor Republicans don’t stand a chance for change at the moment! I am in my element, and like everyone else, I shall be glued on the big day! I fear I will be alone as I doubt it is John’s thing. He can go and fly a kite if he wants.

Rasta Mouse is alive and well in Adelaide!

Still feel weird and lacking in direction. Need to get out and DO something. Need to make friends, need to finish my book, finish my embroidery, do some yoga, learn Tai Chi….but I’m teetering on the early days syndrome. John is OK, as he has work. I feel like someone described some woman once… ‘She bathes and waits for his return!’

Stormy seas and a rainy weekend had us in an introspective mood, and the days had caught up with us, but we soldiered on. We valiantly caught the tram into the city and were delighted with all the friendly notices announcing, ‘Lovely ozzy breaky served all day, YUM!’

Instead we visited the central market and were in awe of all the produce just bursting with deliciousness.

Then we cruised through the streets, spurning cheap nasty Chinese umbrellas, and instead bought a regular black (as opposed to long black and short whites..Oh my goodness the choices for coffee is bewildering) and we bought our brolly in a classy milliners in a very antiquated arcade.

The highlight for me this week was meeting Romano, who literally spirited the money out of my purse. He was an ancient Italian just oozing with charm, and he caught me fondling some kangaroo slippers. He linked arms with me (after the sale) and waltzed across the street (in the middle of the day) and took me to his other shop. There, I was told about his great loves of yesteryear…and of course there was a Scottish one, the lovely Irene. ‘But you know, she would drink and when she drank she would go around the room, flirting and forgetting that she was with ME, Romano. And I was famous you know…I was a dancer, I danced everywhere and I did not like it when she went drinking and talking with everyone. I told her she must only look at ME’

All the while I was standing clutching my slippers and people passed and thought we were old friends who had just caught up. How lovely.

The slippers are heaven on the cold tiles in the apartment, and I am bracing myself for cold days to come.

John and I did venture out to a National Park, and although we looked and listened we were disappointed not to see any of the legendary animals. We did go for a very long walk in the bush and saw some lorikeets and some galahs and an awful lot of Australian magpies.

I am going to add some more pictures from Korea that took our fancy!