Topher and the Melon

Growing up on the farm we grew all of our own fruits and vegetables. Beside the house there was a large area, known as the side orchard; although that was a misnomer since a large majority of the farm had been a pear orchard at one stage.
Anyway, in this orchard next to the house there was a number of fruit trees (apple, apricot, plum) as well as vegetables like pumpkin and sweet corn. The rest of the vegetables were grown in another area behind the house.
Our farm was 12kilometres from town and there was another farm next to us; they used to pass through our farm to reach their place further up a valley.
 Every day my brother N and I used to walk home from the school bus with two of the neighbor's children. Ally was the same age as me and Topher was a year older. Topher got his nickname because his little sister couldn't say 'Christopher' when she was a baby.
One day, as the neighbors children were pausing at our house on the walk home, Topher spotted a large melon growing in the side orchard. It looked exactly like a watermelon and Topher fell in love with it, he wanted that big beautiful melon!
Sadly, although it looked like a watermelon on the outside, it was actually what we in Australia call a jam-melon or pie-melon. When you cut them open -instead of sweet, juicy pink flesh- you find pale yellow flesh that tastes horrible raw. When cooked in pie or jam its great but raw its terrible.
Topher was in LOOOOVE with that melon. He was deaf to our explanations that it wasn't a watermelon, and every day he would stop to stroke and admire the gleaming green beauty. He begged my mother to let him have that melon, she agreed.
Topher waited impatiently for the melon to ripen and be ready for picking. Finally the day arrived; that melon was HUGE!!!
I still remember the sight of Topher bravely staggering up the road carrying that massive melon. He refused help and managed to carry it the nearly-kilometre home, it took ages but he made it.
Now to find a knife and cut that beautiful prize open ready for the feast.....I wasn't there to witness the event but apparently the poor kid was heartbroken!!!...totally devastated!!!....all that hard work and devotion had been for nothing.
Fortunately he took it in good grace and accepted our "I told you so". 

housemates pt1

When people ask why I prefer to rent alone I tell them the story of H and G.

H was a woman in her late 40′s. Myself and G were in our early 20′s. She rented a big-ish three bedroom place and myself and G paid her board (although if welfare or the real-estate asked we were ‘her cousin’s kids who’d just moved to town and were staying with her while we got settled’ she didn’t tell them she was sub-letting).

H was divorced with three boys (10-15 yrs old); her ex had custody. They used to stay with us regularly and there was always half a dozen other kids hanging out at the house too.
When I moved in I was aware that H was a supposedly recovered alcoholic. She was supposed to be, but I quickly realised she wasn’t. She was on a disability pension that paid fortnightly and you could tell what week it was by what she was drinking. On pension week it was the cheap scotch; on the non-week it was cheap cask wine. She was a really nice lady when she was sober but a real misery-guts when drunk. You couldn’t have alcohol in the house because she’d drink it and she quickly ran out of people who’d fetch her alcohol from the local bottleshop (she’d lost her license for DD). Even the local Taxi driver refused to do pickup-and-drop off's for her, no matter what she offered (pick up her alcohol from the local bottleshop and deliver to her house).

Did I mention that she was a heavy smoker? Ironic since she was also a severe asthmatic. I’ve literally seen her sitting there with a cigarette in one hand and an asthma puffer in the other; wondering why she was always running out of inhalers.

I left after 3 months but it took me that long again to get the smell of cigarettes out of my clothing.

Oh, and the young guy G who lived with us? A month after I left he got arrested for molesting a young boy J that used to stay with us. J was about 10-12 and from a town about an hour away and his mum was friends with H. J’s folks were going through a rough patch so he used to stay with us regularly. Nice kid but he really walked into the lion’s den. We never suspected a thing!

G served 3 years of a 6yr term before getting out on good behaviour. H died 5 years ago from Liver failure and pneumonia.

What a weird experience and that’s why I’m wary of housemates

A new photography client

I have a problem to solve.
You see, I've been trying to establish a bit of a business as a photographer. Don't get me wrong, I am well aware that its a really hard trade to get into - especially when you don't have any qualifications. So I am well aware that I will be checkout-chick for quite a while yet.
However that doesn't stop me from the opportunity to spruik for clients among my workmates. And I've had some nibbles. One was looking particularly promising....at first glance...

A workmate has a daughter who apparently wants to become a model, a super-model. Mum wants to hire me to shoot some portfolio photos....cool....no problem...I can deal with that.
Then I find out that the girl is obsessed with those TV shows about supermodels. Those talent-search type shows where they take a group of kids and train them up with a flashy modelling contract as the prize.
The daughter is an avid viewer and its given her some bright aspirations.
Nothing wrong with that, dreams are good. Except now I am worried that I'm about to get a know-it-all as a client. You know, one of those annoying people who have watched ALL the shows and think that qualifies them as an "expert"....just usually makes them a pain in the butt for the real experts.

Then Mum tells me that her daughter already has ideas for the photos she wants done. Again, that's good, I don't have a problem with taking on a client that knows what she wants done. Makes my job easier.
Uumm, what's that Mum? She wants to be photographed 'topless while someone pours melted chocolate over her? Ummmm Ooo-kay, that's gonna be a little trickier.

There is a fine line between "Artistic" and "Pornographic"!!! and I think that pouring melted chocolate over a naked female could be teetering right on that fine line!!!

However I was reassured that Mum was agreeing to the photo shoot and the scenario. I did stipulate that Mum would be the one doing the pouring. I quite understood that Mum picked me cos she wants only females to see her naked....well, semi-naked...daughter.

Now I finally discover that the girl.....is only 14 YEARS OLD!!! Mum wants me to photograph a child in these poses???!!! What the hell am I gonna do?

why I quit journalism

Below I have copied a post that I made on a blog called Cube Farmer, its on the news.com.au website and is written/moderated by Kate Southam http://blogs.news.com.au/cubefarmer/index.php/news/comments/how_to_say/ 

The Blog post was about the level of work that bosses and companies are placing on their employees and the negative affect that its having on staff moral and health. It was based on the premise that bosses either; a) don't realise how much work they are piling on their staff, b) can't read the signs of an employee under stress, or c) the boss already does long hours at work and can't understand that not everyone is capable or wants to do that.

I was replying to a guy posting under the tag of "Andrew". He said that he had/is working in the media industry and talked of the pressure put on him and what affect it had on him. I can sympathise with him. The media industry is nowhere near as glamorous as people imagine it to be.
I was severely under-prepared for what I was about to face and severely under-prepared for the lack of assistance if you are struggling. Mostly I wasn't helped because I was the bottom of the pile and those above me also had massive pressure on them from those above them.

Below is the post I left on the CubeFarmer blog:

"Oh Andrew, I can sympathise with you.

I was also in the Media industry. I also quit because of the massive work pressure. I was the only full time journalist at a small rural newspaper covering four shire territories. My office was a tiny shopfront that I shared with an advertising sales rep. My editor was in a town nearly an hours drive away and also edited three other papers beside my own. At the time I left I was classed as level 1 journalist (just completed cadetship). I was working 6.5 days a week, driving nearly 300km a week (my car but they paid travel) and frequently took work home. I wrote and photographed about 70% of the stories; from front page lead to socials to sports photos. There were 3-4 correspondents but they had far more freedom to pick and choose their stories.

I never went to university or did formal training in writing/journalism. I only have high school level English and Photography training.  I was taken on as a cadet after being one of those correspondents simply because of my ability. The previous journalist had left and I was bumped straight in as second year cadet. I was promised all the training and support that I would need....that never happened. I was drowning and they were too far away to see it. Its hard to explain problems by phone/email and neither the editor or I had time to drive back and forward between our offices. I swam for as long as I could, nearly three years, and never found the shallow end. I turned to alcohol to shut off my brain at the end of the day, gained massive weight and suffered severe insomnia.
As a journalist you're expected to be alert, cheerful and on-the-ball but that's hard to do when your functioning on 4 hours sleep per night, eat at your desk and have to slap on thicker and thicker layers of make-up to cover the bags under your eyes. Even harder to cover the blood-shot and bleary eyes.
In the end I drowned under the pressure, had a massive car crash and ended up with PTSD, depression and Anxiety as well as legal and financial problems.

I got out. I now work in retail. It doesn't fulfill my creative drive but I get better hours and can switch off at the end of the day."

I have been left disillusioned with the industry as a whole. I loved the creative element and loved the people that I met. But I was also left jaded by what I heard, saw and had to write about.

Duck Shit

One of the funniest photo shoot that I ever attended as a journalist would have to have been when I was still a part-time correspondent. A local environment group won an award from the Prime Minister's office and set up a photoshoot for local journalists down at the river.

The award winners set up river conservation programs and also ran classes for school kids on subjects like the kind of critters that live in their waterways (macro-invertebrates to you technical types). They had been sponsored in this by a major local business -I think it was the company running a nearby minesite. Anyways the mining company had been sponsoring the local River-Watch program and had won an award from the Prime Minister's office and we journalists were invited along.

So I rock up to the river bank one afternoon to find them already set up. They had a table on the riverbank with items like microscopes and various specimen containers (ice cube trays and ice cream cartons to us non-scientific types). the two ladies from the riverwatch group had rounded up a couple of handy teenagers (brother and sister) to be in the photo and they had the town's iconic bridge in the background.
The table and its microscope were to be the foreground with one lady from the riverwatch group and a teenager pretending to look at bugs under the microscope. The other lady was at the riverbank alongside the other teenager both armed with scoop nets and the bridge as backdrop.

First photographer up was the guy representing both the other local paper (my rival) and the state-wide paper(both run by the same company). He was armed with, what has to be,one of the biggest cameras I have ever seen. it was so big he held it in two hands and had to hold the flash-umbrella between his chin and shoulder. He was there for ages and must have taken literally HUNDREDS of shots. The kids were getting restless, the two women were tired of holding the same pose for so long and the media lady from the PMs office had steam coming from her ears!

Did I mention that the Prime Minister's office had sent a media person and a photographer to us for the shoot? She was a big lady and rather fierce; he was a suave Italian with gel-slicked hair, expensive leather shoes and immaculate black slacks and a crisp white shirt. And here he is tip-toeing through the mud and duck-shit beside the Blackwood River!!

Meanwhile I had turned up in my jeans and sneakers fresh from my day-job, grabbed my little Digital Camera and ducked around the annoying guy from the other paper as I fired off a quick series of snaps. I then stood back to enjoy the show. The PMs camera-man was whining about how the other guy was stealing all the light (it was late afternoon) and the PMs media lady was breathing steam and threatening to march in there and tear the other photographer out by the collar.

I could only stand back and giggle.

Fox tail

As a kid growing up on the farm you tend to take things for granted, things that other (non-farm) kids might never experience. Stuff like life, sex, birth and death. I'm not alone in this, plenty of other people who grew up on farms would be nodding their heads in agreement.

Mum still tells the story of the time I was in Kindy and was asked to bring an item in for show-and-tell. It was lambing season and my father had recently killed a fox in one of the paddocks. So he went and cut the dead fox's tail off and presented it to me to take for show-and-tell. I thought this was a great idea and loaded it into a plastic shopping bag.

The next day and my big moment arrived. I stood in from of the ring of my classmates who were sitting on the floor in front of me, and pulled out the fox tail.

I failed to notice the look of absolute horror on the teacher's face. She was fresh out of college and city-bred so my casual presentation of this piece of dead animal came as a real shock for the poor girl! Okay, it had been dead a couple of days and was a little smelly, but I thought it was really cool - as did the other farm kids and we all soon had a rousing discussion on foxes and how to kill them.

I'm guessing the poor teacher needed trauma counselling and couldn't wait to get back to civilised society in the city.

Hot Chilli

The other day I was talking to a customer about chili peppers and it reminded me of the story of my brother N and his first encounter with chili.

Growing up on the farm we had a huge vegetable garden and heaps of fruit trees. My brother and I were always munching on some form of fresh, home-grown produce. I tell you, there is nothing like picking something off the bush and chomping straight into it. Anyway, mum always grew capsicum (what the Americans call Bell Pepper) and they were a favourite of N's. Mum was always complaining that there were never any capsicums available for dinner since they'd already been pilfered.

When N was about 12 we were in Perth and visited the massive markets at Fremantle. At one end of the building is all the fruit and produce stalls. A big heap of long, bright red chili peppers caught N's eye and he asked mum what they were. She told him they were chillies and were related to capsicums. Since N loved capsicum he announced that he wanted to try a chili. Mum allowed him to buy one but warned him that they are really hot. N was still determined and selected a good looking fruit.

Mum cautioned N to just nibble off a tiny, tiny piece to test the heat....did N listen to her??

Nope, nuh-uh, no way...he bit off at least half the chili in a single bite!! He crunched away while we all watched with great interest to see the response. It seemed to take ages!

However, soon we saw the message travelling from N's tongue to his brain. OMG, YEOW!! Poor N was left gasping in pain and bewilderment. We didn't really use much in the way of spices at home so N hadn't really encountered hot and spicy before. It was a nasty surprise!! It took something like three bottles of water to put that fire out but N lost all interest in food for several hours afterwards.

Do you speak another language?

I've always enjoyed learning languages. I don't know much besides English (my mother-tongue/native language) however I also know a few words or phrases in Swedish, Japanese and Filipino.
My father is Swedish and my mother (who's Australian) live in the country and learnt the language. I studied Japanese in high school and I work with a lot of Filipinos so I picked up bits and pieces.

I think learning another language is fun and its a great way to meet people and break the ice. I love meeting someone from, say, the Philippines and saying hello to them in their tongue and watching the looks of surprise and delight on their face. Its great fun. I meet interesting people and they love that I've made the effort and tries to connect with them- especially if they're a little unsure of their English skills.

However I am aware that some other Aussies are a little puzzled, confused or down-right annoyed at my learning another language.

That was re-enforced for me at work the other day. I was in the staff lunch-room and chatting to a couple of Filipino women. I was showing them the words I knew and they were giggling and chatting happily to me. A female department manager over-heard my conversation and was totally puzzled and confused as to why I was taking the time to learn their language. "Was I planning to go to the Philippines?" the department manager asked. "Nope," I said. "So why are you learning the language?"she asked. "Because I want to, because its fun," I said. She seemed genuinely amazed that someone would actually take the time to learn the language 'for fun'.

Am I missing something here? what's so wrong in that? I don't think she was being racist, I think she was genuinely confused.
Hey, maybe I will visit the country one day. If I do I will have an advantage, I'll know some language and chances are I'll have made some new friends who will be only too happy to host me and show me around. Learning languages is fun.

Walnuts for brains

I mentioned in my previous post that I used to be a journalist. As a journo you get used to some of the more "interesting" characters that you meet. The weirdo's, the nutters and the attention seekers.

One of my favorite stories was about the local artist who wanted me to print a critique of a member of the state parliament (who happened to live in my home town...I'd know the woman for years before she became a politician and went to school with her kids).

The Artist wanted me to quote him-without naming him at any time-as saying that this particular politician 'had the IQ of a walnut'! I, of course, protested vigorously saying that there was no way I would be able to print that since a statement like that is considered SLANDER and would cause massive trouble-both for me and for the paper.

The Artist's response? No, it isn't slander because no one has ever proven the IQ of a walnut!!

I didn't print his article.

This was the same guy that wanted me to print copies of the "political cartoons" he used to draw. They were DISGUSTING!! Really slanderous, offensive and just plain gross!! Really sick stuff!

Why you can't ride a horse in a wedding dress

Years ago, in a past lifetime, I was working as a journalist for a small rural newspaper. One day I get a request to cover the wedding of the son of a prominent local business owner. Mother of the Groom (MoG) was also a big advertiser in our paper so I was tasked to get a pic for the social page as a gesture of good will to her.

So I contact MoG for details of the nuptials. That's when I get told the Bride has decided that she doesn't want to take a horse-drawn carriage to the church (so old fashioned), she wants to RIDE THE HORSE DOWN THE MAIN STREET. Good idea but she never factored in the physical difficulty of straddling (as in leg on either side of the horse), while wearing a wedding dress and still looking elegant. Forget the strappy stiletto heels for a moment.

Fortunately MoG had used her considerable local connections and managed to find a local farmer with a couple of quiet and presentable nags to loan for the day. I say a couple because there were two of them, two because Mother of  the Bride (MoB) has decided that making a grand entrance from the back of a horse is a great idea and she wants a piece of the action - I mean, she wants to share in her daughter's special day!

So we assemble in the carpark at one end of town, at the opposite end of the main street from the church. The Bridesmaids/Best Man/Grooms are all to travel up the street in a fleet of vintage cars followed by the horses.

It was while we were assembled in the carpark that they discovered a rather big hitch in this grand wedding plan. MoB's decision to ride with her daughter was rather last-minute and she had neglected to find out if her own wedding attire was suitable to riding a horse....remember they're not riding side-saddle?!
MoB has chosen a lovely mauve suit with a jacket, white blouse and skirt....a short (knee length) tight skirt...see my problem? She couldn't get on the horse very elegantly with such a tight skirt, let alone straddle it.

In the end MoB had to roll that skirt practically up to her groin in order to sit comfortable....roll it up all the way round, not just tuck the back part under her bum and roll a bit of the front in order to free her knees!!

So mother and daughter had to ride all the way along the main street, about 2km, with mum practically using her skirt as a pink belt, showing the world her knobbly knees, veiny thighs and cellulite. The bride's wedding dress was bunched up in a rather odd fashion (again forgot to check the physics of riding a horse when designing her outfit).

That was probably the most bizarre wedding I ever had to photograph; the poor official photographer and I had to work REALLY hard to get some "decent" photos of that event! Pity the bride, you don't want to censor you wedding photos to hide what color knickers your MUM was wearing!

Jellyfish

Otherwise known as 'the day my aunt walked on water'!

If you're from Western Australia and you've spent any real time at a beach along the South West coast then you would be familiar with the annual plague of STINGERS!! These nasty little seaside menaces are a type of Box Jellyfish. They may be tiny but they pack a real punch. Nowhere near as bad as the Irukandji jellyfish that plague the northern waters-those little nightmares will kill you. The Box Jellyfish we get here just have a really painful sting in long red welts. The thing is the jellyfish are completely transparent, a square cube shape with the stingers appearing like black threads out the four back corners. It takes calm water and a practised eye to spot the jellyfish swarms in the shallows.

When I was a child I had an aunt who lived on Geographe Bay. We were on a farm about an hour inland from her but used to spend many school holidays visiting her since she was my mum's favourite aunt and mum loved the beach.

Aunt was a very big lady, very "well proportioned" if you know what I mean. Sadly its the family curse since a large proportion of the women in my family are built this way...not as big but  certainly "large boned".

Aunt used to love to tell the time she had a rather...personal...encounter with Box Jellyfish. She had headed out for her daily swim, the beach was only one street away from her unit. Once on the sand she kicked off her shoes and peeled off her wrap then started wading out into the water. The waters in some areas of the bay are quite shallow so you can be quite a way out till the water is waist deep, the point most adults like to get too before they dive in and start swimming. Once Aunt was out far enough so that the water was up to her waist she dived in....and disaster struck.

Unwittingly Aunt had dived straight into a large swarm on these jellyfish and the low front of her one-piece bathers had acted like a mini trawl-net, scooping dozens of jellyfish straight down her cleavage!!

Aunt reckoned she performed a miracle that day, she walked on water she was gong that fast in her haste to get back to the beach and get those nasty, stinging, slippery little invaders out of her bathing costume.
She was also madly struggling to wriggle out of the top half of her bathers and said later that she didn't really care who was there to witness her.

Homebrew

I've just finished bottling up my latest batch of home brew. I'm still in the early phases of this whole brewing caper but so far its proving pretty easy so far. At first I started out making Ginger Beer from scratch. That meant making and feeding a 'mother plant' for a week before mixing it into a sugar solution. Some batches were great. Some very dry. The worst was a recipe I found in an old cookbook. For some really strange reason it involved instant coffee...all I can say is YUCK!! Avoid that one if you can, its NASTY.
I also tried one of those Ginger beer kits-in-a-can. Not bad but it came out really sweet. Like so sweet I had to cut it with lemon juice in order to drink it without gagging. I've talked to other people and they've had the same problem so it wasn't my fault. I've now put the brew back in a tank with more yeast in an effort to brew some more of the sugar out of it.
This latest batch, the one I've just bottled is a beer. I can't drink it for at least two weeks but it smells okay.
I was shocked at how expensive brewing equipment is. The kits they sell in the shops range between $60 and $80. I made my own for about half that. Just went to Bunnings and bought a 25L openhead water tank from the camping section, along with a plastic tap; then off to the specialist brewing supply place for a airlock tube. Total cost about $30. Once I got home it took a couple off minutes to drill a hole in the lid for the airlock and I was in action.

Anyway, all this talk of home brew reminded me of my younger brother N and his adventures with brewing at home. Years ago when I was a kid my father dabbled with making his own fruit wine. Not very successful. For years there was this huge green glass bottle in a battered cane basket that my parents used as a doorstop. Apparently it was filled with one of my father's failed brews... zucchini or something equally gross.

N was poking around in the shed and found all my father's abandoned brewing equipment and hatched a plan to have a go at brewing himself, a spot of moonshine...should I mention that N was just 13 years old at the time?! Don't ask me how he managed to buy the beer product kits, given we grew up in a small town and everyone should have known his age. Still, N was always tall for his age and very confident; he'd been buying alcohol from bottle shops for several months already and kept a mental list of all the places in several towns that were scarily slack about checking customer's credentials.
So N set his new project up in his bedroom wardrobe and was soon in action. Some of his batches were killers, especially after someone told him that you could up the alcohol content just by manipulating the sugar levels. Mum was always terrified that he's blow the house up. She knew what he was doing but turned a blind eye.

Grandma and the Abalone

When I was a child my grandma Norma loved to tell the story of the time she found some abalone while at the beach. Gran was swimming at a beach near Adelaide in South Australia and stopped off to explore some rockpools. While poking around the rocks she found several large abalone, a time of mollusc - like a sea snail. Somehow Gran managed to prise them off the rocks. I don't know how she did it since most people who harvest wild abalone use a knife blade or flat-head screwdriver since the mollusc is very strong and will clamp itself to the rock if disturbed.
Anyways Gran managed to prise several abalone off the rock with the intention of taking them home to eat, since she had been told that they were delicious,  a real delicacy in some countries. It wasn't until she had gotten them off the rocks that Gran remembered that she had no way to get them home. She had caught the bus to the beach and hadn't bought a bag since she wore her bathing costume under her clothing.
However, being the creative one, Gran stuffed the abalone down the front of her bathing costume before heading off to the bus stop. It was only once she was on the bus that Gran realised one uncomfortable problem...the abalone were still alive!! Initially the abalone had frozen in fear but they soon re-woke and began slithering around exploring their new (temporary) home.
Gran said it was one of the most uncomfortable bus journeys that she had ever taken. Trying to keep a straight face and sit still as these snails slithered wetly around inside her clothing. I never remember her saying how they tasted or if they even ate them at all, in the end.

Emily Barker

I've just tracked down the website of a young singer named Emily Barker and I've really been enjoying her latest tracks. You can find her via http://www.emily-barker.com/, or go to YouTube or iTunes and search for "Emily Barker" or "Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo" or "The-Low-Country".
The Low Country was the name of her previous group and they classed their music style as Alt-Country. My Mum has a copy of one of their CD. Lost track of her for a couple of years so she must have broken up with The Low Country.
I was at school with this girl; or rather she was a year below me. She was a singer then and had an amazing voice even then. At school Emily was part of a four-piecee all-girl group calling themselves RAJE, based on their initials. Both her parents were teachers, I never had her mum Ingrid as a teacher but her dad Don was my year 6 teacher. Her dad had a big interest in horticulture and they had a beautiful property on the banks of the Blackwood River in Bridgetown. However my biggest memory of Mr B as a teacher was getting taken out on numerous excursions to go birdwatching as that was another one of his loves. Emily's siblings are also musicians, singers and artists.
Emily Barker was not only a good singer, but was also a really nice person. I used to be a journalist for one of the local papers and remember writing stories on Emily and her successes. I was glad to find that she was still a really nice person and that fame definitely had not gone to her head.

getting woken in the middle of the night.

There is something rather surreal about watching a house burn down. Even more so when its 1am, your standing on the lawn in your pyjamas and its the neighbor's house that's being consumed by the flames. 

It was summer time and I had left my window open to catch the breeze. I was woken by lots of people talking and shouting and by a strange crackling sound. I lay there for a few seconds wondering what was going on before raising myself on one arm and using the other to pull the curtain aside. At that stage ot much of the fire could be seen just flames licking out around the loungeroom chimney. Most of the fire was within the roofspace, hidden below the corrugated iron.

I must say, it took me a further minute or two before my sleep-fuddled brain processed what was going on next door. It took a further minute or two to pull on trackpants and stumble into the next room shouting to wake my housemate. By then the house was well alight. The only thing I could do was move my car which had been parked along the side of the house facing the neighbors. I had to be quick since the firetrucks were already arriving. The neighbors on the other side of the housefire were frantically detaching and moving the four LPG gas tanks that are on the side of their house in the direct path of the fire.

The house was owned by an old Italian couple. She became quite frail and even though he was still pretty active, he wasn't really physically capable of looking after her. She was moved to a nursing home in the city up the road and he went with her. Their grandson, his wife and baby lived in the house for a while but they moved back out to the family farm and the house has sat empty since then. I didn't realise it, but all the elderly couple's possessions had been left in place since grandad used to like to re-visit his house. Now all that is gone up in smoke. Standing there on the side lawn beside the old couple's daughter, son and grandson we could only watch in disbelief as the firemen swarmed like ants.

Our fire department is made up of volunteers but they did a marvelous job. There was little they could do to save the building so it was just a matter of putting the fire out as quickly as possible. All they saved was a bundle of framed photographs and a couple of vintage cameras. Mopping up the last of the hotspots took ages. It was a good four hours before everyone packed up and left and I could go back to bed. I managed to get a couple of hours sleep before work in the morning. Getting out was rather interesting by dodging the police cars and media crews. I even had the chance to be interviewed by a news crew but ducked out. This face belongs on the other side of the camera lens, thankyou!

At least I had a great excuse to explain why I was so dopey at work that day!

A cool shower on a hot day

It has been a very long, hot and dry summer. At the end of another hot day I like to go up the back yard, turn on the reticulation in my vegetable garden and then settle back to watch the show. Within minutes of the sprinklers starting a flurry of small birds come flocking in. They are a small dark green bird we call Silver-eye. Soon there are a dozen birds gathering in the bushes on two sides of the vegetable patch. After a quick chirpping discussion they swoop down to enjoy a cool shower. Some like to just swoop through the spray then back to the safety of a thick bush to preen. The boldest of the little birds will come right down to land in the plants closest to the sprayjet. They ruffle their feathers in delight or seem to be rubbing against the wet leaves or catching the waterdroplets rolling off the the leaves around them. The show lasts for about half an hour before they head off again. The little bird in the photograph above is perched among the leaves of Kohl Rabi plants.

Bug girl

The other day I was busy working my checkout at the big green supermarket when I had an encounter of the 8-legged variety.
There I was scanning the customer's groceries when I suddenly became aware of squeals and shrieks very close at hand.
Looking up I noticed my female supervisor and the female customer, both with horrified looks on their faces, hopping around squeaking in fright.
At first I was puzzled, what had I'd done? Then I became aware of the breathless squeals of "spider, spider, spider". It took me a while to locate the fearsome beast that was causing such a panic...that's because it was TINY! about the size of a match head or a grain of rice. Its a variety that we, in Australia, call a 'jumping spider'. They're totally harmless! Not that you'd know it with the way these two women were carrying on! Before I knew it the panic had spread to the (Filipino) checkout girl who was standing behind me and she started squealing and trying to get away from me.

Where was I in this melee? I abandoned the groceries and began attempting to capture the wee beastie before the panic spread. I succeeded in catching it, then took it over to release it in one of the potted plants in the shopping centre. Crisis averted and I went back to work.

I've always been interested in natural history. As a kid I read books by people like Gerald Durrell, James Herriot and David Attenborough. Sadly not all my family members shared the fascination.
I grew up on an 800 acre sheep farm so there was always plenty of wildlife to study. I often found weird looking insects in the firewood pile. I'd load it into an old jam jar and race inside to show Mum the cool critter I found. I'd be so caught up in the moment that I generally ignored the face that Mum was halfway up the kitchen bench, hyperventilating, but trying to pretend interest. "um, yes dear" *gasp pant* "that's great" *pant, pant* "now, how about you let it go" *wheeze* "I'm sure it doesn't like being in that jar".

Mum and my sister are both major arachnophobes so I was regularly called in to rescue them from some crawlie beastie. They'd lock themselves in the bathroom. They took to stuffing towels under the bathroom door after one of my brothers threatened to stuff the spider under there with them.

call me a fighter

What were you doing when you were 11 years old?
In Australia that's year 6, the second last year of Primary school.
When I was 11 years old an orthopedic surgeon told me that I would be in a wheelchair by the time I was 20. As if puberty wasn't bad enough. I'm being told that I face the rest of my life as a cripple. Well, its been 20 years or more since that shocking news. The good news is that I am up on two feet. I walk without help. Sure, they're not the prettiest pair of legs by any stretch of the imagination, however they get me where I need to go. That's why I call myself a fighter.

I have a condition known as Spondylolisthesis. Basically my entire spinal column had slipped off of my pelvis by up to 75%. I also had a very severe case of Knock-knees. I underwent four operations in the space of three years; spent a total of five weeks in hospital and missed many hours of school since we lived nearly five hours from the nearest surgeon. The bottome three vertebra of my spine have been bolted into my pelvis with titanium rods and screws and I have a pretty impressive collection of scars.

My parents handled the diagnosis in very different ways. My mother was very pragmatic, level headed and supported me unreservedly.

My father reacted badly. For months leading up to the doctors' visit he had refused to believe that I had a real, legitimate problem. Instead he yelled at me for being lazy and performed these horrible parodies where he'd stagger around, tongue hanging out the side of his mouth and making gurgling noises. After the initial diagnosis it seemed like he could not get out of the room fast enough. He only visited me once in hospital, never came to another medical appointment and would bolt every time I tried to start a conversation with him.

While my Mum busied herself with ferrying me back and forward to numerous tests, xrays and medical appointments- all while juggling three younger children (including a toddler and a baby). My father threw up a wall, put his fingers in his ears and tried to forget that I even existed. Like I was this massive embarrassment to him. The brilliant veterinary surgeon and geneticist couldn't even breed his kids right!

But, I survived all the surgery. I have some pretty impressive scars and I've been told that I walk with a hitch in my step. You know what? That doesn't matter to me now. What's important is that I beat the doctor's prognosis. I am walking. I don't need that wheelchair. I live with pain but I've learnt to push that to one side and keep on moving. Scars can be hidden under clothing and I can choose to tell people about my 'disability' or not. With all this titanium I'm carrying I reckon I'd be worth a great deal- going on current world metal prices -hope no one gets crazy ideas!

They might not be the best, most attractive set of feet but at least I can walk!

What's my story?

Okay. Who am I and what's my story?
I'm a 30+ female living in Western Australia. I set this blog up to tell my story.
I'm not doing it for fame or glory. I just think that I have some interesting stories to tell and this seems like a good place to tell them. So, I'm going to treat this blog kind of like an online diary. Feel free to read it, let me know what you think. Just don't abuse me for what I post.
I have stories about me. Stories about my family and some of my photography to post.