Saturday 29 December 2018

Unacceptable!

This morning I had an anonymous phone call.  This person has called 2 or 3 times now.  She never
gives her name but the story is always the same.

It is a poor me story & it goes like this:  Is this the church?  Which island are we on?  Long silence while she considers the fact we are not on her island.  Then she tells me how ill she is; how she has a doctor's appointment on the mainland that she can't get to unless the church takes her...

Lady, it goes like this:  I don't know who you are; you do not attend our church; I don't know where you live ~ or even which island you are on; you have no idea if I have mainland transport or not; you have never offered recompense for my time, my boat fare or petrol; you know you have the appointment so you have had plenty of time to save travel costs & arrange transport; there is the question of insurance ~ which we do not have to cart a sick person around town; there are legitimate companies like STAR who specialise in this, who have paid professionals & insurance.  This is not our job!  I know you, & lots of people like you, think it is but our job is to share the gospel, nothing more, nothing less.  Why are you ringing me?

Yes, I am mad.  This is not acceptable.  In our country we provide services for these sorts of contingencies & they do not cost the earth to access. These are the services who have the right insurance, the right sort of cars, trained carers ~ none of which we have.  Do not ring me. *sigh*

Thursday 27 December 2018

Revisiting an Old Friend.

My mother is a clever woman.  She did very well in school, motivated by the lure of the coveted book prizes that were always awarded to the best scholar.  I inherited her prize books.  These are mostly either the Billabong series by Australian Author Mary Grant Bruce or the *Dimsie*  school stories by English author Dorita Fairlie Bruce.

I wasn't a discriminating reader.  The books were there; I read them. The Billabong books have worn pretty well & I have read them all though I don't yet own them all.  They have been reprinted several times & are on my list of things to be acquired but the Dimsie books are different.  For one thing they are now extremely dated.  For another they have been much more difficult to acquire, especially the first book & the 2  outside of the school setting when Dimsie is all grown up.

I have been waiting a while but these 3 arrived just before Christmas & I have Dimsie Carries On due next week.  What fascinates me about these books is not their storylines, mostly highly improbable & requiring a well exercised suspension of belief, but their historicity.

Books like these reflect with devastating accuracy the cultural mores of the times.  I am old enough, just, to remember all the pink bits on the map were *us* ~ the British Empire.  Us was important. In our family half the family was still in Scotland. The MOTH's family were 2 pound migrants out of Glasgow. For many Australians *going home* still meant visiting England.  Thankfully we're over the cultural cringe now but more than the history books that only tell you what happened, books like Dimsie tell you how people thought ~ & that is infinitely fascinating.

I had only ever read Dimsie Goes to School once, a long, long time ago.  Re~reading it as an adult I wondered that the main theme was considered suitable reading material for children ~ not the card cheating which, by today's standards is very small beans indeed ~ but the death of a child, mental illness, abandonment...And it is so strange now, seeing such a clear demarcation between the school child & the adult & how young the teenagers seem by today's standards.

However, one thing that really, really stood out to me, was the impact of WWI.  No, all the stories except the last are set between the wars but we see the beginnings of Armistice Day, so ingrained now, & the ongoing impact of men who had been through one war only to be spat out crippled, deformed, mentally scarred.  And let's not forget the hair when hair was still a woman's crowning glory & a *bob* the height of modernity!

Canada's *Anne* books actually pre~date Dimsie but have aged better, as have the Billabong books. This is due partly, I think, to a more unconventional central character & partly to more universal environments that haven't changed as much as the boarding school. In Dimsie's world the co~ed boarding school is unthinkable.

Dorita Fairlie Bruce was only one of many, many authors of school stories for girls & one of the more popular ones @ that.  In the way of these things I also owned a smattering of the other popular authors of the time: Brent~Dyer [the Chalet School books], Angela Brazil, & of course Elsie  J. Oxenham [The Abbey Girls] ~ all hugely popular in their day & time, now often hard to get your hands on unless you are a serious collector.  I'm not.  Collecting the Dimsie books fills out the series my mother owned, nothing more, nothing less.

Wednesday 26 December 2018

Goodbye, Good Riddance, 2018

We don't do Christmas ~ & haven't for several years now.  There are lots of reasons for this.  Everything from it's the wrong date, it's not biblically mandated to the commercialism & increased family violence & loneliness @ this time of the year.

When it was just us it didn't matter what or how or if we celebrated.  However we now have extended family & both sets come from families who are big on celebrating.  Last year we went to T1's.  On the regular ferry.  In the heat.  With all the ingredients for our traditional pancakes.  With presents. *sigh*  It was a bit of an extravaganza.  Exhausting.  Uncomfortable. Lovely to spend time with the family but enjoyable?  

This year the twins decided they were coming to us.  The Musical child, as always, was working. Chile Girl is in Chile. I did a Koorong run before the MOTH finished school but I spent most of the week beforehand babysitting as T1 moved house: with a 2yr old; with a brand new baby.  It was chaotic.

And I scratched my head...

I'm not comfortable with what this holiday has become but the man insists we have to accommodate because of the children. *sigh* 

So I hung the stockings on our fireplace & put out the nativity but I didn't do a tree.  I didn't do tinsel & baubles & we didn't go overboard on anything.  After breakfast pancakes we don't need a big main meal so we put out pickings: nuts, cheeses, fruit, crackers.  Everyone arrived together on the high tide in the boys big crabbing boat ~ & left before the tide dropped.  I took the Little Man to collect the eggs & let the chickens out.  Later we fed them some corn but my chickens are leery of strangers.  I don't know who was more frightened of who.


 Round about 4pm the chooks scramble up onto our deck & march to the door clucking & bocking & generally making a racket because between 4 & 5 is when I start feeding everything & every animal in the place knows it!
This is Nugget, the Musical Child's chicken.

And the boys took Dilly 2 & the Little Man & checked some crab pots while Our Little Lady & Dilly 1 enjoyed the peace & quite here.  It was calm.  It was quiet.  We have survived.

Just the same I am glad to be leaving this year behind.  It has been rough, much rougher than anticipated.  Roll on 2019.  May she be a much calmer year!

Friday 7 December 2018

What's been happening.

 I can't say I will be sorry to see the back of 2018. In many ways it has been a horrible, horrible year.  Yes we gained a wonderful new DIL & a very lovely grand~daughter but we also had an ugly family issue drag on & on & on.  It was only partially resolved when the MOTH's mother died.

The MOTH, who has been in bible college all year, was trying to deal with that as well as study when studying is not his strong suite [there is a reason I am the preacher in this family] & then his last week of school there was an accident on the boat that damaged an already damaged spine. I got a nasty virus on top of oral surgery which put me out of action so we have not been the happiest of households this past month. 

In the middle of feeling like death warmed up & turned over all my barred rocks decided to get baby brain & go broody on me one after another.  Honestly!  I was sooo cross. No eggs.   No rooster & I don't want one.  Nor do I want chicks.  We already have major panic stations because a big brown goanna has discovered the chook pen & every time he meanders past there is a terrible to~do. I don't think chicks would stand a chance & I can do without the trauma.

Strange as it may seem, I have never had to deal with a broody chook before.  Lacking a separate small cage & the stamina to constantly shoo her out of the nesting box I simply hoyed her out of the pen on her lonesome ownsome, much to her disgust.  The first day she sat on the nesting box roof & squawked crossly.  Then she sat @ the pen door & made pitiful noises. I went to bed & slept.  Finally she decided  to get over it & her sister went broody.  Same all over again.  By the 3rd chook I was so over it but I don't think she was all that fussed to start with because one day out of the pen & she  was over it!
This is our lovely Little Lady.
Isn't she just gorgeous?