Once More Around the Sun - 2018

January was stinking bloody hot, the hottest on record, but of course there is no climate change and the Abbott of the Abyss has taught us that “Coal is good for humanity.”  Peter and I have finally embraced that message, joined the masses who couldn't give an airborne act of copulation about sustainability and thrashed the shit out of our ducted air conditioning.  Bugger the planet, we’ll be outa here in 20 years so let somebody else's grandchildren pay the price!  Yes?

Kevin celebrated his 18th birthday in February and now he's headed towards 19 albeit rather slowly and with long sleeps between meals and toilet breaks.  The birds that regularly visit our garden no longer take Kev seriously and he shows little interest in them anyway.  He does, however, enjoy a morning ramble which usually includes a graze on fresh grass which he never throws up again until he comes back inside.  We do treasure our very special Old Boy and don't take a single day with him for granted.  In fact we don't take any day for granted.

That goes especially for family and friends.  Jan is managing fairly well but Tony has had a rough year with his back and the sudden passing of his younger brother, Noel.  Since he's now 78 we've been trying to avoid spinal surgery for a raft of reasons and have finally had success with a nerve block on his lower back.  Let's all touch wood and cross our fingers!  That came after their long awaited trip to Japan which they enjoyed but felt a bit compromised because their general decline in mobility and corresponding increase in pain.  Ageing is a bitch!

We said sad goodbyes to two of our Significant Woman this year.  Our most gentle girl, Sylvia, simply stopped walking and eating one day in early April although she seemed otherwise well and happy.  I tube fed her three times a day for a month and administered a series of pills and injections but on our third trip to the avian vet it was clear what must happen.  She went without fuss and is now helping to push up a couple of camellias.

Miss Margaret, who was a small chook with a big personality, joined her in November.  Marg suffered a prolapsed cloaca mid-year but once that was fixed and she had a remarkable recovery.  But as it happened, her hormones were extremely determined.  They fought the implant she was given to stop her from laying and it was on again.  All Kathy the avian vet could do for the second prolapse was to help her gently along.

Hazel has also had an implant to stop ovulation and give her a chance to recover some condition.  Like Sylvia, she's an ISA Brown and if you're considering chooks I urge you to stay well away from them, personable creatures though they are.  ISA Browns are an engineered breed, designed to lay an obscene number of eggs in a very short time.  There’s no well-earned retirement, just chooky “women’s problems”.  Hazel, Sylvia and Margaret racked up some seriously impressive medical bills between them but Truganini and Oodgeroo, both Australorps, go from absolute strength to strength and lay almost as many eggs.  If you're getting chooks get purebreds!

Which brings me to Lottie, Molly and Ethel, our new Chooklettes who arrived in mid-November after quite a search.  Point-of-lay purebreds are scarce as hens’ teeth so we got Lottie and Ethel at 6 weeks and Molly at 8.  Lottie is a Light Sussex named for Jan and Tony’s gracious neighbor; Molly is a Lilac Sussex named for Tony’s very special Auntie Molly; and Ethel the Plymouth Rock is named for my dear irreplaceable Auntie Eth.  The Significant Women tradition continues.

When Peter first sustained his Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) I fought long and hard to get some kind of rehabilitation and while every facility I approached was sympathetic they were also quite blunt about the fact that rehab was only available if the ABI was the result of a road accident which attracted third party insurance.  There was very little for anybody else.  I won't labour the details but the first few years were extremely difficult, especially after Peter’s wonderful dad died and his formerly supportive cousins moved in to hijack what was left.

After months of dead ends and floundering we had the extreme good fortune to be taken under the wing of St Joseph’s Hospital at Auburn which was not too far from where we lived at that time.  They provided us with several months of in-home occupational therapy and when that came to an end we were picked up by their amazing speech pathology team and here I must acknowledge both Belinda McDonald and Linda Clarke, especially Linda who stood by us both for a full eight years and found slot after slot for Peter long after any other organisation would have dropped him off their books.  Linda, Belinda and the dozens of students they organised to work with Peter over those eight years made a huge difference to both of our lives.

Enter Prime Minister Julia Gillard who recognised that an extraordinary number of people like Peter far worse had fallen through the cracks of a highly flawed system.  She set about building the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) which, along with The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, is a lasting legacy of her prime ministership and for that I acknowledge and thank her as well.  The conservatives fought to stifle Julia's plan but it limped to fruition under their reluctant watch when they took government.  It had become a force that simply could not be stopped.  Peter has been approved for support and the plan I presented was accepted without amendment.  We were treated with curtesy and respect every step of the way which I might tell you has been our same experience with Centrelink over the years.

We headed northward in DeDe to visit our lovely Aunty Joan in May.  She moved from her home on the Gold Coast to a facility on Bribie Island just north of Brisbane where she's enjoying the company and is also much closer to her son Peter and his wife Mandy who live quite close by.

No northern sojourn would be complete without a few nights in Armidale and a wander around my alma mater.  I like to remember and catch up with friends.  This time it was my old mate Sheree and it’s been a full 40 years since we both lived on Top D at Drummond College but it was as if no time had passed.  We always spend time with Shara and Tom as well.  They're not from the day but it's been almost as long.  There’s comfort in being with old friends who’ve shared your history.

Next was the town of Esk in south-eastern Queensland, the ancestral home of the Kransky Sisters who we discovered aren't quite as famous in Esk as they are in other places.

Click here - The Kransky Sisters  - Psycho Killer

That aside, a very friendly woman in the deli section of the Esk IGA kindly offered us each a free cheese kransky.  I don't eat anything even vaguely mammalian so politely declined the offer but Peter assured both Mavis and myself that it was rather moreish.

We motored on to Warwick wondering why there is no Trevor, Brian or Pamela and that's where DeDe’s windscreen was struck and cracked by a stone on the town bypass which, like much of Queensland, was under reconstruction.  When we were hit by a second stone at the back of the unrecognisable Sunshine Coast development orgy that was once Mooloolaba we just laughed.  I'd neither cracked nor broken a windscreen in 46 years of driving but you know they say about Queensland: Beautiful one day, two cracks in your windscreen the next!

We had 5 nights at the Gemini Resort at Golden Beach just south of Caloundra which is where Kim, Annette and I used to stay when we had our Queensland spring holidays back in the mid-1980s.  I worried it might have changed but wasn't disappointed and nor was Peter.  We had views up the Pumicestone Passage, over the northern tip of Bribie Island and out to sea.  It was perfect for day trips and driving down to the southern end of Bribie to visit Aunty Joan.

Next came the Anstees; Annie and husband John; another flash apartment; and a very nice Thai dinner at Coolangatta on the way south.  Now anybody who knows Mrs Anstee should sit down immediately, OK?  She baked us an excellent banana loaf for afternoon tea and even made passionfruit butter to go with it!  I remained gob smacked next day as we continued on down the ever lengthening and still somewhat newish Pacific Motorway for a couple of nights at Port Macquarie.  We like to catch up with Noelene Bailey who is the mother of my late great university mate, Dave.  It's been about 35 years since David left the building and I can't drive past Port without stopping by to visit Noelene.  It's that shared history thing again.

My annual political observations in two words: Donald Trump - twat; Scott Morrison - joke.

And speaking of jokes, I was joking when I said we had joined the masses who couldn't give an airborne act of copulation about sustainability although we did give the air conditioning a hiding last summer.  That said, we do have solar power and unlike many, we close all the windows when the air is on.  We have planted about six extra trees this year and just when I'm certain there's no more space another one presents itself and we suddenly find a spot that's perfect. 

So, my friends, our message is the same as every year.  Tread lightly upon this fragile planet of ours.  It took it 4.5 billion years to develop its extraordinary diversity so let's not bugger it up.

Peace, love & happiness

Glenn, Peter (Lyle), Kevin, Fluffy, Uranus, Baby Blue, Little One, Peggy
& the Significant Women