Sea change, tree change, regional change ...

My partner and I bought a caravan on line from a Ballarat address. We set off with some excitement, from our home in regional Queensland, to collect the van and bring it back through inland New South Wales and Victoria. Both from country backgrounds, and recent escapees from an increasingly hectic Brisbane, we had, as recently as last year, opted for regional peace and quiet, reduced debt, and part time work, over growth and capital gain in the big smoke.

On our trek to and from Ballarat we met others. The most memorable of these was a woman in a small road house in an even smaller town, not far from Stanthorpe. As she greeted us with a big smile and bare feet our  minds summed her up in stereotypical ways.

Her story unfolded, however. She and her husband had been in this place - let's call the place Dry Gully -  for ten years only. Before then they had a place in Sydney from where she commuted to Western Australia to teach miners how to lay cables under the sea.  Our earlier picture of her stated to unravel, a bit like like a butterfly from a chrysalis, as had the life of this woman and her husband some years earlier.

The move to Dry Gully was set in train when her husband bought a farm - yes, at Dry Gully - in her absence. On returning to Sydney to be told this she informed him that she had just signed another three year contract in WA. So they put a manager on the farm. Upon returning to Sydney after another three month stint the hubby had sold his mechanics business and bought the road house at Dry Gully. At least this is the story and sequence as I remember it.

The long and the short of it is that they moved to Dry Gully to run the road house, and a mechanics work shop behind it;  to milk cattle and raise sheep on the farm;  and to have fun riding motor bikes and shooting rabbits together. And, you guessed it! They've never been happier ...

Boiled egg : lost and found

I often take a boiled egg to work. Packed as it is in its natural packaging it is quick and easy to boil it up, throw it in my carry bag, butter some bread, wrap it, and voila!! A protein sandwich for lunch. The carry bags I take lunch to work in, are those environmentally friendly shoulder bags most of which are easy to launder and hard wearing. I have one, however, that is stitched imperfectly and when the stitching lets me down a hole appears, always, initially, undetected by me.

One morning, about a year ago, I arrived at work with my environmentally friendly shoulder bag, with its secret hole, and on my way across the car park lost an apple, which I soon retrieved. Later in the day when I read my emails, however, it occurred to me that the apple was not all I'd lost. The e mail  read: "Boiled egg found inside the back door. If it's yours please collect from  reception."

I bravely retrieved it from the reception desk and yet was asked by a colleague in the school corridor later in the day: "Did you get your egg?" How did she know?

Odd is good !!!

Wearing odd socks is a bit of a sign; a sign of a number of afflictions one of which could be broadly termed disfunction. Many of us do it anyway, especially when the sock we are looking for just isn't there. The closest "match" will have to do. People will be fooled.

Have you ever heard of odd shoes? Or odd feet? Well I have a pair of the latter. One foot is longer than the other and also more elegant. There have been times - particularly in adolescence - when I have been mortified by this. Most of my life I have kept my feet hidden. Now it doesn't worry me too much. Beauty in all its forms has faded so why worry about the feet?

Yet isn't life ironic? No sooner do I decide not to worry about my mismatched feet, and by extension my mismatched shoes - since two same sized shoes never fit both feet - than I meet a podiatrist who can sell me two different sizes - one shoe that fits one foot and a different sized shoe to fit the other.

I was amazed by the difference between my feet when measured. One foot is wide and size seven; the other is medium width and size seven and a half. And the corresponding odd couple of shoes fit me perfectly - at a price I hasten to add. Only those with modestly good incomes can afford this luxury.

Yes, I guess it's a prerogative of the reasonably well off, but it is interesting to reflect on how deformities  know no boundaries. Ordinary or beautiful feet or normal feet cross class and other boundaries. Furthermore if it weren't for the foot conditions suffered by people with diabetes the option of shoes to fit odd feet would not exist at all. So who of us is really odd? Who is really normal?

acoustic bass

acoustic bass

I bought an acoustic bass guitar with pickups some months ago. With the idea of living locally I walked to my closest  music store and paid off the only acoustic bass they had in the shop. All the time I was fairly confident that I was making a foolish purchase. I don't play the bass .... 

But isn't there something exciting about an acoustic bass? Big wooden body, thick black strings, the challenge of learning a new instrument. Sure I can't even play the bass line of musical notation, but I can learn. Thunk, thunk, thunk. Love that sound. 

In time I became more realistic. I'm not really going to learn the bass. I have my time cut out for me playing the guitar in a half decent fashion. So I determined to sell it. How would I word the ad.? Hmmm. I needed to research this instrument, to find some words.

You tube was helpful. Some clips of people playing it. A bass player in a ukelele band - a very good one - plays it. The bass player in the "The Cure" could clearly be seen playing it. A seller of fine old Renaissance Lutes in Germany often stocks and sells this type of acoustic bass. The price ? I couldn't tell. They were all sold. 

So, not a bad instrument, huh? Wildly popular in the late 1960s. Stopped producing them in 1987. And where can you buy them these days? Well, you may find one on e bay, if you're lucky. And this German dealer in Renaissance Lutes sometimes has one for sale. I have one in my home in regional Queensland, too. But I'm not sure I want to part with it, just yet....