Cu-Cu Catchoo

The Townsville Jazz Festival was on Sunday.

Hayden and I tried to look cool while we watched, but the bar we were in kept filling up with Mums and Dads and their really little kids. They ruined our buzz. We had to leave when a two year old took control of her own stroller and started pushing it round and round our table while she improvised a little song of her own. So unhip.

Shivers

I’ve been flat as a tack recently. Morose, especially around the house all day long by myself. I’ve been waiting to find out whether I’ve got more writing work coming or if I need to go and look for some myself, and in the meantime I’ve been …bored.

But today something happened to take my mind off things. Some men arrived to pull down the big old tree that has been shading the carpark of our block of flats, probably since before the flats were built. It was a good tree, and it did a really good job of shading the searing hot hurty gravel of the carpark, through which you have to scamper on tip-toes on your way to the pool in summer. However, Corporate Services said that it had to go. So it had to.

Corporate Services didn’t give us any warning that this was going to happen. The first I heard about it was when a bush-ranger-looking guy knocked on our door to see if I knew who owned the cars that were parked under the tree out the back. I said: “Sorry mate, can’t 'elp ya,” in my flattest Townsville accent, so that he’d know I really meant it, and was about to close the door when he added “Cos we’re cutting down the tree today.”

And at that point I thought I might go and have a look at what was going on. I have spent a bit of time trying to stop this kind of thing from happening, after all. I changed out of my jarmies, and when I got out to the carpark it was clear that the fellers had had no luck finding out whose cars they were - they were on their way to removing one of them with a tiny loader.

One of the fellers must also be wanted in another state, because he jumped clear of my photo with alacrity. The guy who'd ripped the arms out of his work shirt and was wearing it with footy shorts told me that if I caught the other guy on film, he’d break my camera. Riiiiiightio.















The original bush-ranger looking guy backed down the drive with the offending car in tow.

Then he "parked" it in the street with the other abandoned vehicles before getting on with the business of chopping down the tree. Note the grass growing up under that classic black Holden ute - it's been there a long long time. In this shot you can also see the number plate of the car from our place, in case you recognise it and want to know what's happened to it. Also, see those two takeaway coffees on the dash? They've been there for at least a year.

The actual tree-removal was very quick in the end.
Before:



And 15 minutes after:


















Let the long hot shadeless summer begin!

Pears

Yesterday I found myself browsing on Paris Breakfasts, a blog of Paris and watercolours, who mentioned Chardin and got me thinking about still life pictures. Later on last night, I bought these pears in Bilo - they're beautiful and if I was going to make a still life picture I would paint them.

Instead they were gonna be another exciting lunch ... but I was snacking on biccies while I was admiring them, and now I'm not hungry any more. Oh well, maybe pears for dinner?

Afternoon Walking

When I lived in a big city, I was never without membership to a gym, where I would go at the end (always the end) of each long day in order to empty my mind while cycling/walking/climbing stairs to pop music videos. If I ever skipped a couple of days, I'd get a sort of craving for pop music .. and I'd know that it was time to go to the gym.

In Townsville, gym membership is unusally expensive and there's no incentive to join because there are so many excellent places to go for an afternoon walk. And the wide open spaces are just as good as pop music for filling my head up with nuttin.

My new favourite spot for a walk is the wetlands reserve just behind Townsville. It's beautiful, and just up the road from our place. I don't know why I never went before this weekend?

The flat open space and the rumply hills in the background remind me of the savannah country around the mine where I worked last year. Somewhat ironically, the country around that mine was I think the least damaged landscape I've ever seen - I suppose that I will ever see. I didn't have too many words for it then (didn't have too many words for anything) but at the time it seemed amazingly rich to me and incredibly beautiful.

The Townsville wetlands can't match the gulf savannah for prinstinity, but they definitely have that same theraputic quality - the exercise, the fresh air, and my head full of nothing at the end of the day.

Savoury Treat

This morning I received word that my writing job is very nearly complete (just waiting for final-final-final sign-off).


I decided to celebrate by making myself an extravagent lunch: a hamburger of my own devising (cream cheese, roast sweet potato, bok choy and fried mushrooms, topped with Hayden's roast capsicum relish). Delicious.

Although it did fall apart the moment I tried to take a bite. Not to worry.

Question: What do I usually have for lunch?
Answer: I have absolutely no idea.

Innisfail Rocks Out

The original inhabitants of the wildly beautiful Johnstone Shire told their particular musical stories with the aid of clap sticks. Eons later the sound of castinets and Spanish hand clapping would ring through the rainforests and cane fields to tell another fascinating story.

In 2007, the journey between the two tales will be captured in this original outdoor music theatre piece by internationally-renowned musician and composer John Rodgers with song and dance from indigenous and Spanish performers and a visual journey through times of dynamic cultural and ecological change.

The promo blurb for this concert put in my mind the expectation of a much more swirling, abstract sound-scape piece of performance art incorporating "eons" and "visual journeys" and "clap sticks". Knowing the work of composer John Rodgers a little, I expected this to be achieved in a complex and interesting way, but I was wondering how on earth he was going to communicate it in a manner which the good folk of Innisfail could connect with.

Well. When we arrived at the venue, I immediately grasped how he'd managed that: the place was swarming with little girls all dressed up in spanish-doll dancing costumes. The audience was made up principally of these girls' mothers, and as we sat down we could hear them discussing the technicalities of sewing up the costumes.

The concert itself was much less abstract than I expected, and much less about indigenous culture than the program had advertised. It was the story, told with music including some really beautiful flamenco guitar, old Spanish songs and a bit of Spanish-style dancing from the girls, of two men from Spain who lived in Innisfail in the first half of the twentieth century.


One of the men was the architect and builder of this place: Paronella Park. It was to be his Spanish Castle and pleasure garden, but abandoned since his death in 1940-something, it has become North Queensland's answer to Angkor Wat in terms of beautiful ruins rotting in the midst of jungle. The other Spanish man was a master of flemenco guitar, a passionate gambler, and a fisherman who spent much time in his later years just sitting on the pier at Palm Cove trying to catch Spanish mackerel. This man had taught John Rodgers to play flamenco guitar back in the 1970s.


It was a great concert, on the whole. Even though the audience was restless all around us during the long sections when their daughters weren't on stage, it was still really wonderful to hear good musicians performing complex and beautiful music, and doing it really well. And the didgeridoo player, the sole "indigenous performer", added an amazing bass sound to some of the keening lovelorn Spanish ballads. The rest of the time though, he didn't have much to do. I did see him close his eyes through one of the big flamenco set-pieces: I'm not sure if he was listening really really closely or if he was just having a snooze.

I'm not sure why they tried to sell the concert the way that they did. It clearly didn't help the audience relate to what was going on on stage. Perhaps that's what the concert organisers had to do in order to get the Government funding stamp of approval? It's not that I mind, I'm really glad that they were able to bring the concert up to North Queensland - it's the sort of thing that we never ever get to see here.


PS: I have to say thank you so much to Hayden, who yet again showed how good he is to me by driving me all the way there and back (about seven hours driving in total). I'm glad I was able to make it easier for him by reading Harry Potter out loud the whole way.

End of the Week

It's the end of the first working week I've had in a while. I've been working on the publication of the little writing job I've been doing for a while now. Writing the thing is no bother at all - I just sit at home in my jarmies, tap tap tapping on my computer. But trying to get it into print has been a miniature nightmare. Mostly it's the waiting I hate - I send my little stories out into the world and then wait wait wait for someone to tell me if they're good enough ... or not.

But now the sun's going down on the last part of a Friday afternoon. I'm going to rest on the weekend.

Hope you have a good one too.

Exciting Delivery No. 2

Even though our delivery lady is a surly cow who, no matter how many times she comes to our place always drives around the back and then complains when it takes me five whole minutes to get to her rather than as I suggest come to the front door which is always wide open and will take me no time at all, it's still always exciting to get a package delivery. Recently I have been taking advantage of the extraordinary exchange rate to buy things off Amazon.com, and the first of them arrived today. (Yay!)

I chose this book, How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton, on the recommendation of Jane Brocket. I had never been inclined to read anything by Alain de Botton, but she's just so enthusiastic about him. Plus, what I'm really looking for at the moment is any kind of Proust-extender - ever since I got over half-way through, I've been worrying about the day when I will run out of Proust. Maybe I'll be able to start again and keep reading him forever? But what if I can't? Maybe Proust is just like Dostoyevsky? My bookmark has been stuck in the middle of The Brothers Karamazov ever since Hemingway told me that you can't read anything by Dostoyevsky twice. There's no way I'm going to get stuck in a world with no more Dostoyevsky to read. That would be horrible.

Sourdough Bagels

The sourdough thing is now getting out of hand.

At first it was gratifying to think that I had baked something that Hayden actually liked (often he has to feign delight when I tell him I've been baking .. especially on his birthday, poor thing). I was really pleased when I baked a second loaf as good as the first - proof that it wasn't a fluke! My sense of pride grew and we made some to take along to a barbie as a gift to the hostess.

Finally, I think my sourdough bubble was popped last night. I felt roundly mocked when Hayden set out to make these sourdough bagels: he didn't follow a recipe, he just had a quick look on the internet, closed the computer and flounced into the kitchen to begin boilling up the dough.

I'm not going to tell you whether they taste good or not. Update: OK, they're delicious.

Exciting Delivery No. 1

The smell of our place has just improved - we have taken our biannual delivery of specialty coffee beans.

Plus, I'm baking my first ever loaf of sourdough. I got the recipe from this lady, who lives in a mudbrick house outside Melbourne. (Enough sourdough cred you think?)

Trust me, the smell of coffee plus baking bread is a real improvement on the smell of the yeasty starter I have been nurturing all week until it got sour enough to bake.

I have just peeked in the oven (again) and my sourdough loaf is looking very tall. I hope it turns out alright.

About Love

If you want to hear about rosemantic love, have a little read of this.

In the Shade

Here are some photos I took this morning as I finished up my walk in the shady expanse of the Townsville Botanical Gardens.

It’s taken me quite a while to develop an appreciation for these gardens. Back in Melbourne, we lived quite close to the massive and lavishly-flowered Melbourne Botanical Gardens. An easy amble on a sunny Sunday, down the left bank of the Yarra with a pause at our favourite art deco milk bar, would often end at the Botanical Gardens for a rest in the middle of the rose garden. In fact, all over Melbourne we were spoiled for beautiful English-style gardens.

When we arrived in Townsville, the appeal of these dank and overly shady gardens, infested with mosquitos, was really lost on me. I could well understand that it is too hot here for most flowering plants to grow, and that anyone who wanted a look of colour in their garden would instead plant one of the kinds with the variegated leaves. Back then, I thought they looked quite vulgar.




(These ones are actually known as Red-Neck Palms. How apt.)









I came to appreciate them more when I started to think about what I would plant in my own (hypothetical) garden in Townsville. Light and shade are super-important concerns here, because plants have to be really really tough if they are to survive the summer sun. The variegations of the leaves are a form of protection for the plants, a way for them to limit the amount of light they take in. Quite often it's only the new delicate growth that is coloured, while the rest of the foliage is ordinary green.

On the other hand, the plants that grow in the shade seem to require a really deep shade. The plants here are either super-tough or super-wimps. Nothing in between.

The Dazzle

Last July I was walking along this very beach with the smell of coconut tanning oil in my nostrils, trying to come up with an idea for a winter pudding and having no luck at all.

This time of year in Townsville is just dazzling - warm days and air so clear that we can see the far-off islands that are usually lost between the sea and the sky (if you click to enlarge the photo above, you'll be able to see them too). It's the way that the sun glances off the water - why doesn't it do this at any other time of the year?


It makes me wonder what was so wrong with summer? I feel that I'm being paid back for all my complaints about life here. And I also feel that I shouldn't post these pictures without offering to share - to anyone who's sick of wintertime, our guest room is open to you.

Golden Coats

We're back from the Gold Coast, which really only lived up to its name on the very last day we were there. It's always the way with beach holidays, isn't it? Cold, windy, rainy until the moment when you're repacking the car to go home.

We were down there in order to introduce my parents to Hayden's, as a sort of precursor to the wedding. In fact, my whole family turned up for dinner and it was lovely, just like the engagement party that we never thought we needed. The trip was also supposed to be a nice change for Hayden's parents, Ken and Jillian, from wintry wet New Zealand.

OK, so they didn't get to see much sunshine, but they did get to meet four extremely cute labby puppies, who spilled out of a car in the carpark of the Murwullumbah Rainforest Information Centre. Within one minute, one of the little fluffballs had already nearly drowned himself in the pond.

It was eerily quiet at the beach today

Wet and Cold in the North

Now it's wet and cold. Fat raindrops are glistening on our pet lemons (we've been watching these lemons grow for nearly a year now. It's going to be quite sad when we finally have to cut them up and put them in a pudding).


And look what's written on the thermometer:





sub-20 degrees! That calls for jeans and jumpers and the making of much cosy: a blanky on my knees when I'm watching TV, soups and roasted pumpkin and many other delicious carbs.

It's been a nice change, actually.

Heart Strings = Tug of War

Also last Sunday we caught up with Rob, who has been trying really valiantly not to mope since his girlfriend Hanna left to take up her dream job in Sydney. (I’m trying not to mope without Hanna as well – she was my best yoga buddy and she put me onto aqua-aerobics too. One hour class + two hours chatting over coffee = a morning well spent with Hanna.)

First we let Rob thrash us at 2-on-1 basketball. (He’s really tall. And accurate with the goal shooting even after a couple of beers). Then we thought that a little live jazz down at the surf club might further lighten his spirits.

Townsville can be really tough on couples, and it has been the setting for many a tug-of-war, especially between couples who move to Townsville for one of them to take up a job here. No one moves to Townsville for any reason other than work, and it’s often the case that it’s a good career move for one person, while the other person has to take a serious dip or put their career on hold for the duration. The worst example couple I know is Debbie and Clayton: they moved here from Brisbane so that Deb could become the HR Co-ordinator on a mine site. Clayton's a chef, so he's at his busiest when Deb comes home on the weekend ... not at all ideal.

All the good employment opportunities here are in the "dirty" industries: big dirt-moving machinery, any kind of engineering, any trade, or construction. There’s not much on offer in the sort of work I used to go for – quite high level administration, personal assistant or event co-ordination. There was absolutely nothing here for Hanna, whose specialisation is European languages. That made it really hard for her to stay.

But it’s not always bad. Sometimes it works out really well; mostly when the other person was already looking for an excuse to give up their day job. Hayden and I fall into this category – I agreed to move here on condition that I would work only part time, and that I would have loads of time at home to do my own writing. Al and Julie are another couple who are making the most of it: they moved up here from Melbourne when Julie was offered quite a good job in a law firm; Al now works part time in the bike shop and spends the rest of his time training for Ironman, and it's much better for him to train in the mild Townsville winter than the snivelling Melbourne one, up to the world champs in Kona in August.

We never think of ourselves as here in Townsville for the long haul. We’re only here while it’s good for Hayden’s career - and we'll disappear in a flash when the next opportunity comes along. But already we’ve had way too many goodbye drinks … and it does get me down sometimes.

At the Finish

I have done my fair share of waiting at the finish line in the three years that Hayden and I have been together so far. Yesterday it was his turn to wait for me to finish my very first fun run/walk.












I was going for the title of Queen of the Castle ... but I didn't get it.

Aussie Skimmers

Last night we went to see the men of the Australian swimming team ploughing effortlessly up and down our local pool. They’re going to be training here for the next month.

We were lucky to see them in Townsville. Not just cos it was really convenient for us, but because they had a real Townsville sense of security and paranoia going on – basically, the guy at the pool gate just waved us and our camera through, plus anyone else who wanted to go and have a gander.

However it did seem to me like they have been mucking around with the water. They seem to have replaced all the regular pool water with some scientifically formulated substance that has no more resistance than air. It was amazing to watch. They swam at the same speed that we were walking beside the pool. When they dived in they travelled exactly the same speed over the water as under it, and even after they had stopped their strokes towards the end of each lap, they would still be propelled towards the wall at full pace.

Sticky Mess

It’s true that recently I have been dissing Townsville’s meagre offerings in the realm of music and art. I even felt a bit justified and smug when I read Anna Goldsworthy’s report (in The Monthly) of the Beethoven concert that she and the Seraphim trio did in our local cathedral back in March. It was quite a hilarious recounting of their sweltering performance at the sticky end of Townsville’s wet season (email me if you’d like to read a copy).

But it’s easy to diss. And I feel not so much that my complaints have been heard and rectified as just shamed into a bit of an apology, because we’re getting not one but two really interesting performances up here as part of the Queensland Music Festival. Hayden doesn’t know it yet, but we’re going to drive all the way to Innisfail (about three hours north) especially to hear the one by John Rogers, a long-time favourite composer of mine. (I'll never forget his work based on The Inferno; the last part was performed on a flute and an oboe made of ice and the performance ended when the instruments had melted away.)

Also, I’ll be interested to see what the people of Townsville make of the other performance: the African Children’s Choir. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it has been argued successfully in court that Townsville is a racist town - too racist for an aboriginal person to get a fair trial here. At least one Palm Island resident has had their trial moved to Brisbane for that reason. If it’s true that the town is prejudiced, it’s going to be interesting to see their response to the African kids singing, cos not only are they black but they’ve each lost at least one parent to the African AIDS pandemic (so, you know, probably gay as well?).

I used to be really wary of artistic performances that purported to have some kind of political raison d'etre or a social conscience of any kind ... it always used to seem to me like they were fishing for government grant money more than anything else (and I've written a fair few grant applications so I know how your mind bends trying to come up with an angle that gets them to share their grubby pennies). But this one is going to be co-ordinated by David Bridie who is another one of my old favourites, so it should be in good hands. And, you know, it's going to be one of the two good shows we'll get here this winter, so it's not like I'm going to pass it up.