Southern Summer Solstice 2016

Sydney has come alive with purple-blue jacarandas, our annual floral tribute to Dame Edna Everage, so it's time for me to tap out something mildly entertaining and possibly even informative about the year almost passed. I shall make no comment about the recent US presidential election beyond expressing my astonishment at a respected nation so publicly and unashamedly soiling its pants.

Of course things haven't gone all that swimmingly here either unless you're wealthy.  But then the Abbott-Turnbull Government was never elected to represent all Australians or even Australians.

Still on a slightly political note, with Ali the Nissan Pathfinder just a year off voting age we began 2016 with a search for a new car.  Another Nissan, a Mazda or a Subaru all seemed to tick our mid-sized SUV box since ISIS drives Toyotas; something to accommodate two larger blokes who still haul landscaping materials and do a little touring - our last mildly adventurous vehicle before the Prius.  The Subaru Outback came out head and shoulders above the rest and we are absolutely delighted with the choice.  Her number plate is DDH-39H so we named her DeDe Halcyon after the society lesbian from Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’ - the link after the next paragraph explains further.

Our first big trip was to Melbourne and DeDe excelled herself.  Being a computer with wheels, the trip was an excellent opportunity to work out why things beep, flash and perform a multitude of other mysterious functions that are best not investigated in traffic.  We had a great catch up my old friend Michael at Rutherglen where we also bought wine.  Then we stayed with Uncle Russell in Melbourne and Anne in Canberra on the way home where we enjoyed good dose of capital culture and our favorite restaurant in the whole world.  Tales of the Subaru - Southbound 2016

We visited Anne again in September and spent half a day at Floriade which is more memorable for pain than flowers.  I fell down some stairs in Melbourne a few month earlier which jarred the bejesus out of my still problematic teeth and that coincided with the beginning of an ongoing bout of plantar fasciitis in my right heel so a walking stick is now my sometimes companion.  Tales of the Subaru - Floriade 2016

Speaking of falls, Peter had eight weekly sessions at the Hornsby Hospital Falls Clinic where he graduated youngest in his class.  We’re both getting older which for me is a pain in the foot and for Peter a pain in the head although not nearly as bad a pain as he suffered prior to his neurosurgery.

The Russians have discovered that gravity on the Moon is not a constant; it varies slightly from place to place which makes my theory about personal gravitational fields a little more convincing.  I suggest that gravity in our immediate personal space intensifies with age.  This accounts for an increased incidence of dropping things; overall sagginess; and falls in general.  I could also mention incontinence but that would just give rise to a yet another chorus of "Too much information!"

Peter had his third neuropsychological assessment earlier in the year and that’s not a process you want to endure too often.  The aim was to see if there had been any further degeneration and the good news is no.  There’s been some improvement in his language area which is due in no small degree to the efforts of Linda and the speech pathology team at St Joseph’s Hospital, Auburn who are marvelous!

Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia received a large conscience salving donation about that time after I spent a great deal of money on one of our chooks.  Poor Hazel wasn't a well woman and required two nights in hospital for a gynecological procedure - or was it cloacalogical?  She's now sparking on all plugs as are a couple of African women who benefitted quite directly from her chooky women's problems.

Whilst on the feathered, furry and otherwise members of the family, Fluffy, Uranus and Baby Blue are all fine; and Kevin, who is now going on 17, is doing extremely well with a little bit of pharmaceutical assistance.  Prednisone three times a week has made all the difference.  He's also become a little more user friendly in his old age, something we neither take for granted nor approach without due caution.  We do love our Boy though and he does love his two Dards - completely on his own terms.

And speaking of two dards, or two mums, we were pleased the Senate blocked the legislation for Abbott's intentionally decisive same-sex marriage plebiscite which was non-binding on Parliament and quite likely unconstitutional anyway.  The money can now be spent on something much more appropriate while Malcolm Turnbull makes a last ditch effort to locate his missing balls and put the matter directly to Parliament which has responsibility for it under the Australian Constitution.

Jan and Tony are well - falls aside - and had a lovely time in the Canadian Rockies and Alaska mid-year.  They must have been bitten by a travel bug while they were away because they've just returned home from 11 days on Norfolk Island and are booked on a cruise around the UK and Ireland next year just two days after we return home from our return visit to England with Scotland and Iceland tacked on this time for good measure.  It's going to be a tag-team event.

We travelled northward mid-year to visit Shara and Tom in Armidale then lovely Aunty Joan on the Gold Coast.  We stayed at my father's old family home in Nimbin en route.  It's now a B&B which in that part of Northern NSW can as easily mean Bong & Breakfast as Bed & Breakfast.  Grandma would be horrified by that but our indulgence at the lovely old Queenslander did not extend beyond a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc one night and a lively Shiraz the next.

Whilst on the Gold Coast we also caught up with Shara's sister, my old friend and colleague Anstee or Gillian to most; as well as the gorgeous Annie Green who also lives up that way these days.  We had a lovely couple of nights on the river at Port Macquarie on the way home and visited my late great mate Dave's mum Noelene before dropping in on Peter's cousin Warren and his wife Lorna a little further south.  Tales of the Subaru - Northbound 2016

We visited the McFoleys, Cate and Brian, at Batemans Bay and they visited us which is always fun.  Cate and I were great mates at university and have decades of shared history.  We also managed a couple of visits with Peter’s good friend John en route.  Peter and John worked together at the Water Board a lifetime ago and travelled North America and Europe in about 1980 so there’s a lot of shared history there for them as well.

I now have four kinds of dentists - an endodontist, a prosthodontist, a periodontist and of course a regular dentist who bought me two shirts when she visited Hawaii recently.  Now who has a dentist who does that and how First World are my problems?  And on that topic, I got a clean bill of health from my new cardiologist which is the vogue medical specialist for the over 60s - that and a proctologist (for men, at least).  Peter had another barium swallow this year to check for further degeneration given his family history of oculopharyngeal dystrophy and whilst there has been a slight change he appears to have escaped the worst of it - touch wood!

Teeth, hearts, throats, bums and travel aside, the house, and the garden in particular, have kept us busy and that’s not a bad thing.  There’s a lot of joy in a garden, particularly when your chooks and cat-shaped-being keep you company and you have lovely next door neighbors as we do. 

Stay tuned for a string of new travel blogs in 2017.  We're Cotswolds, London and Scotland bound and then it’s off to Iceland for a little puffin spotting with our good friend Lin and her cousin Margaret.  The final week is still being planned but we’ll be visiting Lara, Nikos and Yiannis in Cambridge before we head home for a very well earned rest.

Happy Solstice et al to one and all

Tread lightly upon the Earth this coming year

And give a little more than you take

Much love

Glenn, Peter (Lyle to some) and Kevin

PS:  We almost made it through the year without further incident but then I rushed Peter off to the emergency department last week with stroke-like symptoms.  There went three days in hospital where two different nutters kept us entertained with no less than five major psychotic episodes between them.  It was like being back at school except for the security guards.  Peter's 3T MRI showed no new damaged so everyone was at a loss to explain what happened but no diagnosis is better than a bad one.

Tales of the Subaru - Floriade 2016

Me & Bob Menzies

We didn't get away from home until 12.30pm then only made it as far as the fire station before I realised I hadn't packed my Ventolin which I rarely use any more but much like a hanky, if you don't have one you're sure to need one so back we went.  That then saw us approaching the local Maccas at around 1.00pm which drove home the reality that the first stopping spot on the motorway was a good two hours hence and far too close to the dinner I was looking forward to.  Mindful of the diabetic implications of not eating fairly regularly we went - Maccas do have a few healthier options these days.

The first hour of motorway driving reminded me of a Mad Max movie, or at least the only one I've even seen from back before Mel Gibson completed his metamorphosis into a complete and utter prick.  The road was thick with trucks, semis and B-doubles, which had me wondering if I really wanted to go to Canberra but an hour along it thinned out and I began to enjoy the verdant green countryside and the masses of new dams, ponds and just plain overflows that have sprung into existence as if by magic if not a bloody lot of rain.

That's when Hume came into our lives, so named because it was the Hume Motorway that he was attempting to cross, a decision that would almost certainly see him discharged from his own existence.  All the surface water and new aqua-environments had moved Hume to go exploring which is exactly what Eastern Long-Necked Turtles do when things get moist or dry.

I was travelling at 110 with the rest of the Mad Maxes and Maxines whizzing by considerable faster than that so it took about a kilometre to safely pull over.  I then reversed a few hundred metres in the breakdown lane whilst getting blasted by passing behemoths before getting out and power-walking the rest of the way since running is never an option.  And there was Hume, straddling the white line between the breakdown lane and the outside lane on his was to absolute oblivion.  I snatched him out of the path of a Woolworth the Fresh Food People B-dub which was clearly intent at living up to its corporate slogan by delivering its cargo so quickly that it would arrive at its destination before it left its point of origin.

Hume was safe and possibly even as grateful as a turtle can be although he did to a stinky-piss which is an Eastern Long-Neck's one and only method of defense.  Once back at the car we popped him into my faithful BYO wine carrier which I never travel without and continued on our way while Hume hit us with another stinky-piss so we wouldn't forget that he was there.

The search was now on for a safe and permanent waterhole, there being a good many that were neither.  Thanks to us an DeDe the Subaru, Hume has now migrated beyond the range his short legs would have otherwise taken him but still well within the range of his species.  He is now safe and sound in the wetland surrounding Rowes Lagoon near Collector.

Relocating Hume

So on we rolled, pleased that the Universe had seen fit to provide us with an ever increasing set of obstacles that morning which ultimately caused our path to intersect with Hume's in a non-flattening way.  But there was more to come - a roadside echidna by Lake George.  That required two u-turns with a backtrack of several kilometres in between and me all the while wishing I and moved my echidna relocating device (leather gardening gloves) from the old car to the new but being moderately confident that the towel I'd thrown in the back as an afterthought would somehow suffice.  But it was not needed.  Another slow crawl along another breakdown lane revealed that George the Echidna had turned tail and headed back down towards the lake which, being intermittent as it is, is currently in the process of again becoming actually lake-like for the first time in a decade or more.

Our various delays saw us roll quite fortuitously into Anne's Ainslie driveway just seconds behind her.  She'd planned to be home hours earlier but found herself taking a friend to the doctor and then on to hospital which put us all back into realignment.

Canberra Tucker Tip #1

It was great to catch up with Anne and Cassie the Staffy who looks like a Hairy-Nosed Wombat then celebrate my 62nd birthday at Timmy's in Manuka which is my favorite restaurant in the entire world.  There is nothing overly flash about Timmy's, especially in fashionable Manuka, and it's even BYO with no corkage which makes unique in that part of Canberra, but they do exceptional Malay/Chinese food.  The shan tung chicken is not to be missed and nor is the English spinach in garlic.

Next morning we were off to Floriade which was lovely but if you've been at any time over the last ten years or so there's no need to rush back.  Nothing has changed beyond the expansion of the stalls and concessions, most completely untreated to gardening.  There is also a new amusements area that has alleviated visiting children of the need to look at the gardens and wonder at the marvels of both nature and plant engineering.  Let no child go unentertained or any spare dollar unspent!

Entertaining the kiddies

Canberra Tucker Tip #2

The Burmese Curry Place is in the lovely old Sydney Building on Northbourne Ave and it’s a lunchtime must because you have to get there early for dinner.  We've managed the latter just once but in the last four times we’ve been in Canberra we’ve missed out on both every other time because of a fire around the corner; closed for holidays; or just plain bad luck but I was determined to change that!

We headed to the footbridge over Parkes Way and hoofed it into town for lunch.  And there was I, like Moses looking upon the Promised Land but unlike Moses, not forbidden by my Invisible Friend from entering so in I went.  And there-in did I find my very favorite egg curry which is two slightly pierced hard boiled eggs in a curry sauce - the stuff of my dreams!

Egg curry with chicken & prawn

The Selection - simple but good

Since I was on a walking stick the rumor of a shuttle bus back to Floriade where DeDe was parked sounded quite enticing so we went to the appointed bus stand and stupidly got on the first bus that came.  It sailed right past Floriade then over Commonwealth Bridge en route to its actual destination of Tuggeranong which is Canberra’s southernmost satellite township just a little north of Melbourne.

The kindly bus driver stopped and let us out opposite the Albert Hall, an amusingly named performance space on the south side of Lake Burley Griffin.  We were now roughly twice as far away from Floriade as we had been at the Burmese Curry Place and I was still on a walking stick but off we set, back across the bridge and through the parklands to our destination and a well-earned cup of tea although it must be said that they had special people working I their tea, coffee and muffin facility but that’s another politically incorrect story.

The penultimate highlight of my day - the egg curry being unsurpassable - was dancing with the trumpet player from the strolling army band.  Yes, strolling.  Unlike America, marching isn’t seen as a particularly worthwhile pursuit in Australia so military bands stroll or walk in preference to marching when and where they can and Floriade is such a place.  Now what I didn’t know was if you walk in front of their spectators rather than behind - and remember I was on a stick - you have to dance with one of the band members and so it was.

Army Strolling Band

Sometimes life actually imitates life.  We had with us two pieces of our lotus water feature that required repair and modification by their creator who lives in - now wait for it - Tuggeranong.  Unfortunately, despite successfully made email arrangements followed by repeated unsuccessful attempts at communication by phone, coppersmith extraordinaire, Annie, was not at home and nowhere to be found.

Never mind, with unrepaired and unmodified garden art in tow we set off find a nursery, just for the sheer joy of a meander.  That’s when Thelma the sat nav proved herself to be a lying bitch, several times over, and was told so in no uncertain terms.

Canberra Tucker Tip #3

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - the new National Arboretum for all manner of reasons, one of them being food.  They have an excellent bistro menu with Peter and me each selecting gourmet burgers - his composed of several species of dead animals; mine of several species of humanely euthanised legumes both served on slaughtered and sliced tree trunks.

Gourmet Burger on a slice of tree

They also have a smarter restaurant called The Conservatory which looks much like where we were apart from table cloths and waiters.  The do breakfast, lunch and dinner and we will be going back before 11.00am next visit so I can experience their Son-in-Law Eggs which are crispy deep-fried poached eggs with caramel chilli, coriander and shallots - yummo!

Nursery Tip # 1

Host Anne - rare sliced beef salad - then guided us to the nursery strip in Pialligo which was a joyous and productive experience thanks to my new friend Trevor at Rodney’s Plants Plus who solved all my vegetable flowering and fruiting problems in ten minutes flat.  Many businesses are relegated to specific neighborhoods in Canberra.  Fyshwick has long been known for brothels, sex shops and all things automotive; Pialligo is plants and airports.

Canberra Tucker Tip 1A

No visit to Canberra is ever complete without going to Timmy’s twice so we returned for an early lunch before heading north.  Timmy recognised us immediately and brought the exact same dishes we’ve enjoyed on our last 27 visits - shan tung chicken and English spinach.

Nursery Tip #2

Of course if it’s not food it’s nurseries or perhaps hardware stores so we stopped at the Bundanoon Bloomery on the way home.  You can’t miss it in the main street of Bundannon in the lovely Southern Highlands.  The Bloomery is owned and run by our good friends Allan and Ian and while you won’t get a discount for mentioning my name they will happily regale you with tales that are both amusing and quite possibly embarrassing so do drop by.

As always, DeDe performed flawlessly and ran off the smell of an oily rag.  Subaru would do so much better to ask me how best to advertise their product rather than using a camp clone GI Joe doll and a Lou Reid song about transssexuality, drugs, male prostitution and oral sex - not that I don’t celebrate both camp clone GI Joes and Lou Reid; but what the bloody hell were they thinking when they came up with that campaign?!  Did the advertising execs forgo the usual long lunch and vats of chardonnay for copious lines of cocaine or was it something cooked up in Tokyo?

My favorite shot at Floriade 2016