It Never Rains.....

It never rains around here......it just comes pouring down.
Were I to wax-on in any metaphorical manner, many would no doubt rapidly remind me just how very lucky I am to have such climatic joy all around me.
Sure, it rains around here...and it really does come pouring down, too, more often than not, once it begins to rain, in typical Far North Queensland Wet Season Style.
I'm not entirely sure where to begin with this little foray, and have certainly even less of a notion as to where it all may end, but when one feels the urge to write, well, at least I've always been a believer that one really should put pen to paper, or fingers very clumsily to keyboard, in this case.
In a place where relaxation is de rigeur, why am I finding it so very difficult to relax?
What is it that I want and need in order that this most essential of reasons for coming here is allowed to come to fruition? It's certainly not the weather, that old chestnut that gets the blame and/or is the talking point so many times, and of course, often when there isn't any other valid talking point around the place, we'll completely & reliably turn to the weather to bail us out where no other words, sayings, statements or expressions are either relevant or come to mind, that is, to our aid.
Can't do it this time, though.....I believe we've already talked far more 'weather' than has been good for this particular scribbling, and just as mentioned, mostly due to my own fumblings as to where on Earth to begin and worse still, where to go with it, where it will take me.
I've felt so unsettled now, not in a way where I question being in the right place - I could put good money upon the feelings being at least twice as bad if I were anyplace else - nor as to being with the 'wrong people', although I am always one to constantly question this particular issue, even spending most of my life doing so, very likely more through self-doubt blended with a little lack of self respect than to any mysterious reason, not that I expect any of this to make any sense, at least not just yet.
If it doesn't to me, how will to to anyone else, I hear myself saying.......the voices in the head are crapping-on yet again.
Anything I'm likely to state cannot really appear to anyone else as it really is, as I perceive it to be in reality, that is, any more than it can paint or tarnish me as anything other than some ungrateful & whinging bastard who doesn't know when he is well-off - well, it's not much use if all I ever write are things that avoid ultimate truths, avoid the real stuff of life, as we live it, in that warts and all kind-of way. And I've always tried to live my own life this way, to the amusement of some and to the despair and distaste of yet others, and in doing so, have tried to actively seek-out, along the way, like minded others who do similarly - people who are open books, real people, as most would refer to them as, but they are much more than simply real, these most elusive of folk - as rare as shit from a rocking horse or hen's teeth, they represent the very foundation of why I have now, and have always had, so few people that I can call 'Friends'. To the surprise of many, no, it's not at all that I'm some kind of horrible bastard - it's through choice........Mine.
I can see already that this little etching is flying around in a very haphazard manner, making little sense even to me, it's author - I know what I want to say, just not in which order I want to say it, I think.
Let's try and get it back on track, just a bit........taking one issue at a time might be the way forward here.
Relaxation, now that's where we began, so back to this precious stuff - I never seem to have a single day where I'm not running around, sorting-out 'Things' that never seem to get sorted out....you know the ones.....we fix-up 3 of them, only for 12 more to appear sneakily (or blatantly in your face with added arrogance) - perhaps, as an example, we'll need to call the power company, who, reliably as ever, have spectacularly fucked-up our latest bill, or calling RACQ to transfer membership from another state (as opposed to an Alternate State....even a Euphoric State), or making moves toward changing over driving licenses, car registration, names, addresses, telephone numbers and chasing down the error of other people's mail that is simultaneously and in total violation being sent on to us, redirected along with our own, on the basis of the person having the same surname as my wife, yet very clearly with a first name that could not be more different........mail from the new occupier of our old rental home, if this is still making sense.
I've had to chase-up this little beauty 4 times now and it's still not sorted - and we don't, quite clearly, get all of this persons mail, just one or 2 every 2 weeks or so........it doesn't take a Particle Physicist to see that this is the error of a single employee at the sorting office, who, when seeing the surname, doesn't bother to check the first name matches that as listed upon the redirection order.
But I am asking way too much for my 50-odd bucks that I shouldn't get the mail of others, I know......how very pedantic of me.
I'm feeling medium-sized twinges of that old feeling sorry for myself thing creeping-in, but superimposed upon it are other feelings that state, quite openly, that I am allowed to do so, just at the moment - that I have a Free Self Pity Pass....a bit like a get out of jail free card, that I can use at any time.....I choose to use my pass Now, if you don't mind, no question about it, right now, Please.
I need to relax, just for a little while.......need enough down time to fully unwind, although maybe that's a little ambitious, since it would take more time than I have left, almost certainly, to do that........and so the circle completes itself.......the ultimate worry, the uber, most scary and terrifying worry of them all, that of not having enough Time.
Could this be at the heart of everything here?
Certainly, in recent weeks, it's been this that has plagued me more than anything else, yet short of taking fistfuls of Valium, there really are no solutions to it. Perhaps, even, if I didn't have these distractions of having so many things to tend to all the time, incessant shite that keeps on coming, and all of it for Me, Myself and I to deal with, it would be many times worse........but again, as I type these very words, what a whinging bastard I must sound like, under what are my own apparently wonderful to the observer, life-circumstances......maybe others simply don't bother to write about such things....and I'm one of these people, usually, one to get on with it, to have no more than an 'angry of Port Douglas here' moment, to smash away at things as they come to me, like swatting flies, done, done, now on to the next one-style, ready & waiting for the next barrage to come........being on-top of things, as it were.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that there is an overriding feeling of never being able to get close to this state of play........something I never had issues with not so long ago.
It's not helping being angry, either, since it's so easy to lose focus of reality in this most useless of states - Anger.....surely one of the useless emotions up for elimination, along with jealousy and coveting one's neighbour's wife - to be phased-out come the next Millennium.......and now, all I really need to do is to add my coming & going feelings of not being understood and there it all is.........still, I will go marry a woman from a far away land who I can't properly communicate with, won't I, eh?
Dare I say it......Without in any way wishing to sound up myself, yet almost with absolute certainty, doing the very opposite, many's the day when I wish, very, very deeply that I were but A Simple Man.
I can be my own worst enemy, of course - that I choose to not surround myself with an abundance of friends, nor do I want to join this or that club or organization, to find something in which I could be interested. (this always sounds too much like hard work to me - shouldn't these things just present themselves to us? Why must we think long & hard about what extra-curricular activities we should do - Fuck all that rubbish) Yet having few hobbies or club memberships does little to help the feelings of solitude - never has, and never will - yet it's always been the way, the path that I've taken, to be so selective and, really, a man on his own. Small wonder, then, that I have overriding feelings of not being fully understood, since I've seen to it, time & again, that there's never anyone around anywhere to ever be bothered to try.
So what seems to have emerged here are a couple of things, these seemingly being, in brief, (for me, at least):
1. The fear of not having enough time left to do what is needed - not that I have the first idea exactly what it is that's left to do.
2. The inability to properly relax due to a variety of reasons....pain and all that comes with it aside, which is a whole other book-in-waiting......ongoing and everyday issues that only I am able to sort-out - but mainly, and far worse, it has to be said, originating from other people's slack-arsed ways, the errors of others that I end-up having to correct, multiple times (no, really, this is as true as I sit here) - things that lesser beings.......let's call them that, since I am an intelligent enough man.......would struggle with........if the fuckwittery of others can get to me, then surely many others would fall completely by the wayside.
It dawns upon me suddenly that these may be the very people who waste time and our tax dollarpounds appearing before judges for repeatedly not paying traffic fines/gas bills/the fuck-up's of others etc.
Eureka!
I am no fool, but intelligence alone cannot stop the enormity, the sheer mass of crap that needs sorting out, that keeps on coming, day after day.........being proactive is no kind of weapon - and it always used to be thus, but it simply isn't anymore....there's just too much of it about, this Crap.
(My oh my, didn't #2 go-on a bit there!)
3. Loneliness - that I have a beautiful wife, and a daughter who is wonderful, in spite of her occasional idiocy, typically teenage twattery and couldn't give a fuck about anyone but Me attitude - all normal teenage fare, in other words, along with my living in Paradise, that I cannot ever seem to shake-off the feelings of being totally and utterly On My Own.
(This one really isn't anything new - not new to having relocated, I should add) and whilst I had then, and still have a very wonderful friend, who knows well enough who he is, the feelings of being very much Alone remain as always, for me, a very overpowering and all-encompassing feeling.
Is it depression? I'm not sure that even severe depression is capable of such things, not on it's own, and I am qualified enough to be able to state this - bouts of depression, being familiar visitors to me, tend to take things in a single direction, where this stuff all seems much more multifaceted and multi-directional.
Another thing that is a real failing of mine - and strange that it should be seen as such, but it is, in the end, a serious failing........I give too much, much too much, which leaves so little left in the pot for Me.......what can happen then, is that I half expect certain others to give me just a little in return, when of course, for the most part, they do not.....they cannot, not really, nor should they be asked to - what needs to happen, really, is for me to reign-in the Giving, just a little bit, or at least try harder in making some of it totally unconditional.
It's an unconscious thing that we do, this giving, I'm sure.....and I couldn't just stop Giving if it meant saving my life......if perhaps I could just better understand why I am so predisposed to be Me.......but then, we aren't really allowed to fully see into those depths of who we are, only tantalizing glimpses.........trailers of a movie, that sometimes leave us wanting more, sometimes not.....there are a great many movies, of course, that we have no interest at all in seeing, and likely as not, would be no surprise of any kind were we to find out, eventually, one day, that we were never meant to unravel and/or understand so many of the things that our minds lead us toward tampering with.......we might be inquisitive beings, but it's something of a design flaw, I feel sure, that we become preoccupied with things we have little hope of ever being able to comprehend.
4. I Think (Too Much).......Therefore I Am......A Very, very Foolish Man.
And isn't the answer, so often, staring us right in the face all the while?
I am, though, still searching for my Reset button.
This blog will likely self-destruct, or better yet, not be read by anyone.

Paradise Found - But How To Keep It?

It's been said before, quite often by Me........and maybe it's especially apt since I am now injured and for all intents and purposes, likely retired from any kind of work other than piecemeal.
Work - I don't mind going there & coming home, it's just that big long bit in the middle that I can't abide. 
Not related at all, really, to the subject matter at hand, but one can't really open a piece of writing with morbidity death and doom, at least not on a Sunday in Port Douglas.
Other meaningless, not dissimilar statements might be 'It's a grand life if you don't weaken, but a much better one if you do'.......but where am I heading with these absolute Pearls?
Well, as they go and do, usually just the once, mind you, people do die, leave this Earth, drop off the twig....'Go to Ivy Cottage' was what we would call it, which was our special Nurses-Only code-word for having gone down to the mortuary. 
It goes by many names, does Death, but it's still pretty bloody final when it comes knocking....sometimes expected, sometimes out of the blue, it is The End of All Ends for our mortality, you know, that thing we've ignored for so long, thinking that it's been 'Us' who've been 'putting it off  for a bit', when all the while it was locked in as firmly as 'C' always is on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' when the contestant in the chair hasn't got a clue as to the correct answer (everyone knows C is the answer when we don't know the answer - and if anyone's listening, someone ought to change it every few months to keep things interesting, at least - C'Mon Eddie, you knobstick - earn your salary)
I'm not naturally morbidly inclined, (seen here Italicized, with new & added Inclination) if there is such a term....well, there is now......but my ex-Father-In-Law went and 'Bit The Big One' a couple of nights ago. I was informed of his passing via text message, how very convenient, although to be fair, there wasn't really any other way to reach me, since I have neglected to give my ex-wife my only recently acquired phone number for reasons I am yet unsure about, or for reasons that I am very sure about but will save until another time to discuss, unless you press me on the matter.
He passed away peacefully in his sleep, did my Ex-FIL, whilst at home with his family - way to go, I reckon, and never mind all of those who say, No, that's no way to go.......fighting a giant Sea Octopus, wrestling a 10 metre crocodile before snapping it's neck in two, or taking-on the Russian Mafia with nothing more than a copy of The Australian and a pencil....that's the way a man should die - but most of us, in The End, do as did my ex-Father In Law, and die rather peacefully & quite uneventfully in their sleep (provided they haven't been somewhat unlucky and contracted some dreadful intractable disease that can very easily remove & replace the word 'peacefully', trust me on that one)
Of the several years that I knew my ex FIL, there was not one single day that he wasn't completely totally & utterly stoned off his trolley.......permanently off his melon, I kid you not, yet always controlled and capable - and as such, it wasn't always easy for others to tell, but it was a daily and a multiple event for him - and hat's-off to that, I say.
Did he have a good life, well, I'm less sure of that one taken to it's fullest meanings, but you could never say he didn't try very, very hard, in his own way, to have one, mostly single-handedly, and he always had a special glint in his eye and a glass half full attitude about him in that most special Very Green & Hydroponic of ways. 
Rest In Peace, Man.
Yes, it always does remind us of our own mortality, this Death thing, although we don't like to focus upon it since it's scares us shitless when we do.....yet we should, if only to use the certainty of our own eventual 'who knows when' demise to help us live this life we've been given to it's absolute fullest. 
It can, in the end, be incredibly short, can the Life caper, and again, to throw-in yet another cliche, 'You're a Long Time Dead' - at least in this current version of Life As We Know It - but fuck me, we really don't know it all that well, do we?  
When are we ever going to learn that we aren't Immortal?
The TV is choc-full of ad's these days, playing upon our fears of Death, just in case some of us don't have quite enough of those already - you can get your very own Funeral Plan over the phone, usually without a medical examination, they readily tell us - and if Death is as a result of an accident, the payout is quadrupled and paid (usually) within 48 hours (how magnificent!!!! - sign me up today!!!!)....they even have couples, and don't call me a cynic when I say they might just be pretend couples, 'actors' even, telling us the peace of mind they've been given by enlisting in the Funeral Plan.....why leave the family with all that needless debt, they say?
Well, why not, I say.
Death cancels all debts, at least for the Death-ee (that definitely IS a new one!) and I have made it quite clear to the very few loved one's I have that I wish for nothing fancy, with the cheapest of packing cartons being the best I would expect before setting me on fire. 
Should anyone attend the after-party celebrations of my own demise's, a few Cucumber Sandwiches with the crusts cut-off (absolutely divine up here in the Tropics, alive or dead) and a jug of chilled water will do well enough for the attendees, and if this makes them think of or remember me only as a tightwad bastard, then at least I won't give a rat's arse about same due to being fully in Dead-Mode.
Death cancels all worries, too, isn't it just marvelous!!
Of course, what I'm doing here is trying to smile about a rather serious matter, since if I didn't, I'd become even more upset than I ever thought I would be about this latest news.
Most text messages I get are those telling me that it's now even cheaper to call China. They should add that it's also and simultaneously even more expensive to call anyone anywhere other than China, especially within one's own country.
Bastards!
In truth, most of this is now written precisely due to it reminding me of my own very fragile existence, and that even living in Paradise can be much more brief than we would ideally wish for - better take all that I've been given and live life as fully as money and, more importantly, health, will allow.
Best end things on another cliche : 
You Can't Take It With You.
You can, though, spend it liberally whilst still here so that no-one else can enjoy it, or go-on to use it after your death to buy really stupid things, such as far too many Shoes, Handbags, Houses, PlayStations, Plasma TV's, Doughnuts, Bags of Lollies.
I have a very strong feeling that in the next life, for surely this one we're in isn't It, (No wait, there's More, surely?) - there'll be none, or a very different currency required.

Blessed Am I!!

I Am Blessed!! - Well, in spite of it being perfectly true & accurate, I stole the title from a Ben Harper song playing a moment ago on Radio Port Douglas (90.9FM &/or 101.1FM).
Have to say it's a top station, too, and will be an even better one as soon as I get some kind of antenna on the car rather than the hole that's always been there, and a perfectly adequate hole, too, until now.
I'm thinking of maybe one of those nice little chunky hard plastic ones, something that makes bad youths that bit more disinclined to snap off, not that youths up here would do that....surely?? I don't need some bloody great big mast, not, at least, until I get my fully equipped Range Rover Vogue with CB Radio, for more of those Off-Road Adventures yet to follow.
Well, one must have ambitions.....
It's less of a joke than it sounds, even if, right now, it's only a thought in the mind - I, too, was such a thought in the mind of my Father (whomever he might be) and Mother (and I didn't know her too well either) - and look at me now, here, large as life and twice as wonderful, at least within my own imagination.
It could happen, you just don't know - I did use to have a superb and fully-equipped Land Cruiser, and that one DID spend most of it's time off-road. It had a CB Radio, mast antenna, a bull-bar & winch - not that Land Cruisers tend to get stuck too often, unless driven by the very foolish....I would struggle to run that one now, mind you (the understatement of the year!) and the big, heavy 6 Cyl 4.5L Petrol Driven beauty that it was didn't have 2 tanks for nought......filling them up, now, with petrol pricing gone mad, would cost a prohibitive amount of money.....it saw many a wild boar, red-bellied black snake and many other wild things. It was, in fact, owned from new, for 2 years, by an Atherton (of Tablelands fame) Doctor, who had used it only to collect the kids from school and running back and forth from the home on acreage to the practice and back.
No more of that namby-pamby bollocks once I had it - it did what it was always meant to do, and did it magnificently, not simply expensively.
Yes, as you may gather, I miss it to this day.
Meh.....I have digressed, and then some, again........
Oh Lucky, Lucky Man!!
As an update on the antenna thing, a small piece of co-axial cable was duly rammed-in to the hole, instantly improving the local radio reception beyond all expectations - no, it doesn't look too flash, but it goes nicely with the car and being free of charge, was certainly a cheap enough solution.

Behave Yourself - Or I'll Come Round to Your Place and be Far-North Queenslandish

These Saturdays come around so quickly - but  they should, in many ways, arrive more slowly, I'd have thought, since we're on Joe Bielke Petersen time here in Port Douglas, Queensland, but they just fly by - as distinct from Fly Buy, that Blue card thing that I use each time I visit Coles, which rewards me with a paper-clip for every $450,000 I spend, provided it's spent only on lettuce & within the same calendar.
Still, it's much better to get something rather than nothing, innit?
It is, of course, an extremely awesome day here again, and is also 'Portoberfest' Time, as the one chosen Saturday in October is named annually, a perfectly reasonable excuse to eat & drink that little bit more than usual, held at the 'Courty', or Courthouse Hotel, on the corner of Macrossan & Wharf Streets.
With a main sponsor of Corona (but hey, hang-on - isn't that Mexican?) there'll be such delights as German beers, (but only Heineken, if one can call that German) Guinness, sausages, sauerkraut, lederhosen, busty beer frau's, dancing boys aplenty, maybe dancing girls if not enough boys turn-up and, naturally, a good spattering of arrogance that the Germans do so well.
The Germans - don't get me started....too late.
It's guaranteed that, around 3 am this morning, German 'hand-built built by robots' (with Vorsprung Dirk Technique, no doubt) beach towels will have been strategically placed on every single optimally positioned sun lounger around every swimming pool in Port Douglas, (both public and private, heck, they just don't give a crapper)
Or is it long overdue that I change my long-held (read : since I was a foetus) stereotypical viewpoint of what constitutes all things German, bad things at least?
Times & people, sometimes, do change, and it follows that Germans, with the passage of enough time, could well have become less-arrogant.......for some of it to have evolved out of them, for them to have simply gone with the flow, so to speak - it wouldn't make them nearly as interesting, should they have taken this road, and lets face it, they've hardly been notable at all, save the spectacular losing of 2 World Wars, their BMW's, Volkswagen's, Mercedes Benz's and Bosch appliances (did I miss anything?) - or, should you prefer, as dull as dogshite since time immemorial for the most part.
Man, I'm not even sure I want 'em to change - can't bag 'em out if they suddenly become all sociably-friendly and like the rest of us.
I'm not being particularly unfair either - I have had so many experiences, mostly when a younger man in my 20's & 30's, and when holidaying in the likes of Morocco or Tunisia. These destinations were, by contrast, rather neat places to visit, back then, when holidaying from the UK, and made for a far better & more exotic break than did the usual fare of Benidorm or Ibiza, Spain's answer to the prayers of the tasteless and the choice of most Brits - who would have thought, eh?
Had they only bothered to look into things properly, they could have seen that even better deals were there to be had in Nth Africa, or even Bulgaria, should one be foolish enough to choose that little nugget of Fetta Cheese. Back then, the Eastern Bloc countries held a mild fascination, until the holidaymaker realized the lack of infrastructure as found in the former Yugoslavia or Bulgaria....but it was certainly cheap......6 weeks for the price of 2 wasn't at all uncommon, and you would often need that long just for the queue for water, milk & bread.
The tourist destinations of Spain, well, they were back then as they are now, full of idiot Englishmen the colour of Cooked Mud Crabs, or aspiring to be thus in their 10 day holidays, drinking English Beer at an English (or Eeeeengleeesh) Pub, and following though with Fish & Chips, just so that they felt 'at-home' - I mean, no point at all going abroad if one can't feel as though one never left home, even I can see that.......joshing aside, I really would rather put my genitals in a Robot-Chef, on any setting with any and all attachments as selected by my torturer - who would likely be a German dude, of course - than to ever toy with the notion of 'doing' this part of Europe, not even as a single man with 12 extra strength condoms hand-stitched and vacuum-sealed onto my knob - anyone visiting, even when taking similar drastic precautions, would still return home with more STD's than Vancomycin could ever fix-up.
But Tunisia or Morocco - these places, back then, they were still plenty different to the run of the mill Spanish or other Mediterranean holiday - you could see, experience and immerse yourself in a totally different culture, one where it wasn't entirely touristy in nature - now, sadly, well, it's all the same most anywhere on the Planet.......but back then, the one thing that was the fly in the ointment of a wonderful holiday in North Africa were, yes, you've guessed it - it was those Germans......always there to totally fuck with and ruin the one holiday per annum........omnipresent fucking Germans!!
Those Germans, man, they just loved North Africa - loved it so much, in fact, that, as was their way, they were the only people there on holiday, in their own imaginations and minds at least. Nothing would be allowed to get in the way of their holiday and it's enjoyment, and certainly not some English folks - totally & utterly Verboten.
Even multiple shouts sent their way of "Remember 66" (when England beat Germany in the World Cup Final - and never mind that they beat 'us' multiple times since, of course) or 'Two World Wars - Go Count 'Em" (self explanatory) seemed to matter not one bit. 
Trust me when I say this, they really would get-up at 3am, for just long enough to place their beach towels on all of the poolside loungers of the resort, reserving them, as they saw it, before wandering back to their room...or zimmer...to sleep soundly until it was time to wake-up & sunbathe.
They did this for several days, until in the middle of one particular night, around 4am, some Englisman had bothered to set his own alarm, before striding out poolside and throwing-in all of the neatly placed towels, before returning to his room for a little more very deep & even more satisfying sleep.
Ah, those Germans....They weren't at all happy, but then, they never are.
I don't want to dislike them, yet I always have done - and hand on heart, it is entirely related to real experience that this is the case. Much like their white South African cousins (for surely, they must be related?) I have quite simply never met a nice one.
I can't abide, nor can I fathom (in ways other than obvious & direct perversion) the depths of their Lederhosen, nor the silly dance that often goes with them. Good points about the breed are definitely in there to be found, since as everyone knows, they can build a decent enough wall when called upon to do so, and can be called-upon to torture people in a manner that is right up there with the very best.
The spoken language always seems so guttural & harsh 'Ich bich fech dich, liebling, eine kliene fleisch fich-stich pimmel lichkker mien fuhrer bascher strasse' - don't bother putting it into BabelFish, since I made it all up - mostly. Point made, it blows chunks, as a language - and let's all take a moment for thanks to so many - heartfelt thanks to our fighting men and women of days gone by, that we aren't all mincing around speaking it.
Mercy!
I can just about tolerate their adoration & worship of all things meat, since I don't mind the odd bit myself, and whenever I get the opportunity, I'll readily pile an absolute stack of sauerkraut on my sausage........it goes superbly on knackwurst/bratwurst in or out of a Hot Dog, too.
No, mainly, I just don't dig their arrogance, and no pun heavily intended, they always seem to have arrogance in spades, shovels and even, sometimes, JCB diggers.
Find me a decent German, someone, or I'll keep-on giving it to them.
And now a word from our sponsors with an ad that you'll barely be able to read, mostly due to my ineptitude at inserting images onto webpages.
You see now?? You didn't believe me about the Portoberfest thing, did you...Eh??? Eh???

*Please Note In this Portoberfest Ad, the attractive young lady-Frau pretending to skull the beer stein is fairly unlikely to be German, & I make no claims at all as to her enjoyment of a decent sausage smeared in sauerkraut or otherwise.

Be sure to tune-in next time, when we'll be discussing the Belgians, hooking into them seriously with, amongst other things, how their sometimes half-decent beer & their chocolate truffles are the only saving grace for this poor unfortunate race.

In conclusion.....Of course, you know that in truth, & in spite of my anti-rants above, that I love all peoples......aside from Germans & South Africans naturally.

Sunday Thoughts From A Beautiful Place

Doing It Tough, Tropical Style
It's a great life, provided that you don't weaken.......but a much better one if you do, so said the wise old sage that was my life mentor during my 1st ever job, that of an apprentice Bricklayer. Yes, as we do, back then, this was what I was very certain was to become my profession, before I had smashed my hands to a pulp with a brick hammer during some of England's finest and shockingly cold winter's days, not to mention twatting-up my knees for later life on badly erected scaffolding....but I've just gone and mentioned it anyway.
No, Harry, as we'll call him, since that was his name, was a wonderful man - later to be so cruelly robbed of life through bilateral carcinoma of the lungs, through a lifetime spent breathing-in the smoke of Capstan Full Strength cigarettes and cement dust and sheer rotten luck - Harry taught me many things, as a wee snip of an apprentice at 15 years old - he taught me to lay bricks - though I could never have done so in as skilled a manner as he, being a Master Builder and truly something to watch in awe when he went about his trade. He taught me quite a bit about women, although in absolute honesty, I had already discovered almost all there was to know long before this - not all, but most - and I speak frankly and honestly in this regard, believe it or nay readers.
Examples, you say?
Well, he would always remind me to pay particular attention to a woman's hair, her shoes and her finger/toe nails.....if these were shoddy, Harry would firmly say, then everything else about the woman would be much less than acceptable.
I believed him then, and I still believe him to this day - as points of reference, they are a very reasonable starting place. It has, in general terms, been advice that has served me well enough, as well as any and, dare I suggest, even better than most. I continue to look at women - don't we all, works of art that they often are - in these slightly critical ways.....and I do judge them rather harshly if they fall below par, too. Of course, I only ever look these days, being an abundantly happily married chap, to a woman with impeccable grooming and magnificent shoes at all times.....not her words & opinions, but my own. So, I should add - hastily - that I 'browse' only through sake of interest and unwavering fascination at women - at People - and do so unashamedly for these reasons only, that of wonder and interest - it's all Psychology after all, innit?
But back to Harry.......He cared for me deeply, did Harry, just as if I were his own son, and so, not at all surprisingly (although to me, back then, it was something I didn't fully fathom) he was bitterly upset and deeply disappointed when I told him that Bricklaying wasn't quite what I would go-on to do with my life, and this after only 18 months, too. He had given me his all, much more than that, in truth, and was naturally upset that I had thrown it all back in his face......something very easy for me to see now, of course.
He was a truly great man, a master craftsman, a friend and, for me, a father figure of the time, even.
I wish, deeply as can so often be the case and as is right & proper, that I could have been more grateful, more appreciative of Harry for the short time that I was blessed to have been a part of his life - I know, too, how he suffered greatly with his illness, not simply though pain and suffering, but in that way that truly great men do, when they have been very active & skilled all of their lives, only to have it all cruelly snatched away from them by debilitating disease and illness.
Rest In Peace, Harry Sargeant.
Fitting that I have digressed so through the great man - what started only as an introduction to this scribbling went-on to become what is now there. It was, of course, an intro to My Life In The Tropics.
Here, in the place I always dreamt of returning to as a retiree ( for surely, there would be no other way of permanently coming back here?? - that said, there were times I thought the only way I'd ever get into University was pickled, inside a large jar or several - but with Port Douglas, little did I know what fate had in store for Me)
I now sit and ponder my fortune at living in the absolute epitome of Paradise. Perhaps there are more beautiful places.....sure there are, and I've been to many of them, in South East Asia, many at least as beautiful........even in England, beauty and magnificence can be readily found. Here, though, it - or 'things' are different yet the same.........the same as I recall them being when last I visited, some 16 years ago, when I was a Clinical Specialist and before the back injury had come-a-knocking.
There have been a few changes, and listening to the locals, these have not been welcome ones - the Coconut Grove Resort, boldly standing at the juncture of Macrossan Street & Port Douglas Road, together with the shops that form part of it's frontage......not called Coconut Grove for nothing, and as soon as I recalled the reason, it all made sense, the anger against what eventually passed through as a project.
Where concrete and shops now stand once stood a huge Coconut grove, tall & proud trees swaying gently in the ocean breeze. The apartments are luxurious inside, but outside........this should never have happened, and had I then been a part of this community, I would have been equally vocal in opposition. So far, though, the MacDonalds, KFC's and anything 'high-rise' et al have been kept out, and I will do my own bit as an up & coming 'yet to be fully accepted' local to ensure this remains the case until I draw my last gasp.
The latest topics and bones of contention are substantial....one in  particular, this being the proposed lagoon, to be a smaller version of that built in Cairns.....surely a very needed thing on so many levels there, but here?
Well, there are, of course, arguments for and against such a project, and one might easily think that a moderate lagoon might only entice Port's visitors to stay a while longer than they might have otherwise done - give them a reason to not leave quite so soon......and yet most all of the great many resorts have their own pools, a great many of them lagoon-style and very substantial - and in tourist season here, the ocean is much more than an absolute delight to cool-off in, (even off season, it's a very fine thing basking within the relative safety of the marine stinger netting).
One could surely successfully argue that the swimming side of things are already well-enough catered for.....tastefully done, a lagoon project......well, I guess it could look fine enough.....but could it look as beautiful as already does the propsed site for it, immediately behind the Chapel of St Mary's By The Sea....an area of superb & pristine natural beauty of the finest kind.....most of which would be destroyed and lost forever if the project goes ahead, as is highly likely. Even the many tourists who go to St Mary's to marry and get one of the world's greatest photo-op's and backdrops may not be so numerous if the lagoon and all that comes with it goes ahead. This but one source of revenue lost.
And the good?
Well, it would, possibly, bring more $$$'s to the struggling businesses of Port - but then, let's just take a look at what the Cairns variant has led to........the previously thriving Pier complex is now all but dead and buried. I could not believe the extent to which this place had declined - virtually no-one within, no people and no businesses......a very large and almost totally unoccupied gym is almost all that remains. Gone are the extensive and always very populous food halls and tourist shops......gone gone really Gone.
And it is the lagoon that has caused this without doubt - it is a mixed blessing of enormity for Cairns, the huge and well built, well used lagoon area. People will swim and bask all day long, (even, sadly, occasionally rob the belongings of their fellow swimmers whilst they are distracted and in the lagoon - these but a minority of Bad Bastards, I hasten to add) but the patrons of the lagoon there at Cairns, will they get around to spending a lot of money whilst basking lagoon-side? Hmmmm, I think not, certainly not to any extent.
For Port Douglas, though,along with the lagoon as proposed......another is the junction of Captain Cook Highway and Port Douglas Road - for reasons that I cannot fathom at all, since the road is rarely too busy and visibility is magnificent, people keep crashing their fucking cars into one another, misreading, often with fatal consequence, right turns and oncoming traffic, it's speed etc etc. There's talk of sorting it out, and something will definitely be done here - it's traffic lights Vs. roundabout.....now, the people of Port abhor traffic lights, and there's not a single set to be found anywhere here....but a roundabout is the much more expensive project, and is not the one favoured despite the dislike of traffic lights. It will almost certainly be the case that traffic lights will go ahead at one of the worlds most easily seen, easy to read junctions........reducing the speed limit a little sooner has been mooted, and will be a given in any event no matter which mode goes ahead - it does seem that Port Douglas will get it's 1st set of traffic lights, and the locals are less than amused (yes, even myself).
It is these things, things that may appear trivial to you, dear reader (and I use the singular wisely here!) that trouble the people of Port, and I am now amongst their number - my own opinion is that it should be re-sited. The proposed lagoon site is far too naturally beautiful to ever be considered for anything at all - it needs to be left the fuck alone for the enjoyment of all, now and those to come.
I guess, of course, that no-one wants it next door to them, in reality, not even me.....no, especially not Me, lets be very honest here. I am even of the mind that it isn't needed - it's more of a grab for Qld Govt cash.....if the cash isn't taken by the said date, then it's gone - I would spend the monies better, maybe upon furthering the growth of the live music side of things in Macrossan Street, to an acceptable and much needed level. People of all ages love to hear the sound of music, appropriately leveled in volume & style, as they wander along. It isn't a retirement village here, nor should it ever be.....and it's not night clubs and the like that are sought, just something appropriate.
But that's just me, a new arrival to a familiar place - it really is Paradise here, but let's not tell too many people or maybe it won't always be..........aside from the aforementioned, and a complex that includes a well-integrated and stylish Coles and 'Country' Target, very, very little has changed that I can recall, something about which I rejoice daily.
Hallelujah!!!!
This scribbling didn't go at all to plan, something for which I make no apologies. Just more of my thoughts, written as they flow-in to what's left of my sponge-like brain and mind, and read by, well, lets face it....not too many people at all.
It is, though, all about the quality, not the quantity of folks! (Isn't it, my good friend - if even you're there!)
Until next time, Adieu from Heaven!

It's All Greek To Me

Or at least it was, just a little while ago, as my family and I sat with our best friends, wonderful enough, as always, to have invited us out to dinner at what was a great restaurant. The name was hardly the result of someone having been up all night thinking of the title - The Greek Tavern - pure & simple, it was more than enough to amply suggest what lay inside - sumptuous food and plenty of it, done extremely well.
It had been a good while since I had eaten Greek food, in so much as going-out to a restaurant to do so.....the last time would have been in Cairns, oddly enough, and almost certainly 1998 (or whichever was the year that 'Saving Private Ryan' was released here at the movies.)
I know this with great certainty & enough precision: just as music, movies or other things we surround ourselves with can so often enable us to accurately timeline our lives, this was a fine enough example of same. 
I was married at that time to a previous partner - she was then expecting our daughter, now a whole 12 yrs old. 
We had dined at this large Greek place in Cairns, staying there on one of the many weekends we would spend, driving-up from Innisfail, our home at the time, and checking-in to one of our favourite hotels.  
At this particular Greek place, I recall quite well that we had baby char-grilled octopus and mussels in a tomato & wine sauce, with plenty of great bread for mopping-up, amongst other fineries & trimmings.
After what was a delicious meal, we went to see the newly released SPR at the movies - we were no more than 15 minutes into the film.....and as anyone having seen the movie will well-know, it's that first 30 minutes or so that are particularly intense, with very harrowing stuff as the marines stormed the beachhead - gut-wrenching & still hard to watch........it was so intense that particular evening, with the Dolby Digital doing it's thing so well and all, that my wife of the time could not,  stay a moment longer. 
It had deeply upset her, had Private Ryan, and she was worrying such a lot about how the explosions and noise, along with her own physical & emotional upset was being 'felt' by our then unborn daughter. As many a mother to be would, and quite understandably, really, she went into foetal protection mode.......this badly chosen movie, well, it was all too much, and we simply had to leave the theatre, something I could fully understand, as much as I had been hanging-out to see the film on the Big Screen. Pregnancy can cause all manner of upset, on many levels, and this degree of audio-visual onslaught to the senses was just too emotionally overwhelming for her - it even messed with my own head and emotions quite a bit, and I'm a man who's seen several men's share of blood, snot & gore via my 'bloody, gory & snotty' profession.
Perfectly time-stamped, then was this life-event - and I can report that the daughter seems none the worse for wear for what little exposure she did have to SPR that evening, and is already a Black Belt in Taikwondo as if to prove as much (or possibly as a response?).
But I have digressed somewhat - this evenings meal was something to behold, and as well that we had brought along with us what was a very reasonable appetite. 
The 'specials' that my good friends had ordered were just that.....very special.....with dips as fresh as it's possible to be, followed by all manner of goodness......marinated pickled octopus, giant beans in sauce, beans in Giant's sauce, calamari, sausages sliced and grilled to perfection.......and then came the meat.......2 huge platters of lamb, chicken, meatballs......accompanied by, naturally, the very finest Greek salad, a type of fried haloumi cheese (the exact name of which I forget), but all of it superb, superb, superb..........we loved it to bits.
It was my wife & daughter's first foray into Greek dining, and I'm very sure it won't be their last, since they enjoyed it so much. I only hope we can find one locally that does things as well up in the Far North, which might be a big ask - I will, though, no doubt, be attempting to build a little more Greek technique into my cooking repertoire, and we'll simply have to see how that one goes.
Right now though, it's back to the packing.

Struggling & Battling - The Big Push North

The stresses & strains of moving home, along with, from recall, a precious few others including but not limited to Death, Changing Jobs, Divorce or Marriage, Serious Life-Threatening Illness........yes, there are more but I forget them.....all of these are major stressors taking the most valuable of time off the end of our lives.....or so it is said.
Being ever the optimist, I am hopeful that, instead of this, the truth lies more along the lines of 'What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger' - I must believe in this latter one, or I'm a dead man several years ago - ergo it must be so, problem solved QED.
However, married, as I am, to a beautiful Chinese woman, and having a beautiful mid-teens daughter, both of whom 'enjoy' clothing, it's very hard to get them into 'cull mode', that mode we all should enter but seldom do, as deeply as we should, when we relocate. With the daughter especially, she has so many clothes, many of them, granted, that have been 'gifted' from cousins, and most of them high-quality goods -  the sheer quantity of them is staggering. And the pairs of shoes.......Mon Dieu.....brand-name shoes that any teenager would die to have & wear - all of them have uber-high mileage, but none gained through actual wear, but that combo of frequent flyer miles within their boxes......I'm sure I'm not alone, but man, it feels that way as I fight yet another losing battle.
We have already dragged said shoes & clothing from the depths of Northern China, around Melbourne and so-on, only to have it all reside within wardrobes or drawers, never seeing the light of day, and for me, further proof is not required of it's necessity or value, ie it's lack thereof.
No......It has managed to be display goods for some 4 years now, and hidden-away display goods at that, and enough is enough.
If only it were all that easy.........in the end, they will do what they will, these women, and once again, we will transport - this time at many hundreds of dollars cost, I should add - items of clothing that will go-on to live-out their lives in cupboards & drawers.........now in Totally Tropically Style.
Of course, being a guy, and more yet, not exactly a 'clothes horse' of any kind, having that most functional of kits, 4 good pairs of jeans, perhaps 4 pairs of shoes, (2 pairs of which are Birkenstock Sandals!) and maybe a dozen T shirts, well, that's about it, underwear & socks aside - oh, I almost forgot my suit and 2 jackets....and that really IS it.
My wife keeps showing me attractive yet very heavy knitted items of hers, saying 'do you think this one will be ok for up there', and having that look of both disappointment and disbelief when I remind her of the true meaning of The Tropical North, where even the cold is warm. Sure, it can get a little less mild-weathered in the depths of Winter, with temperatures sometimes dropping to a dreadful 8 degrees C.....in the midle of the night for a few minutes on a very bad and unusual day.......of yes, I can see that they'll be in for more than a few shocks on this and other levels - I'll have the camera nice & ready!
So yes, I am suffering that kind of stress where my family seem unable to let-go in an appropriate manner befitting a 3000Km-plus relocation - and I have decided to simply let it go, and watch upon arrival, as we either over-stuff built-in robes with clothing never to be worn, or as they throw-out perfectly useless, but now outrageously expensive items, their value having quadrupled due to the cost of freighting them the full length of Australia's Eastern Seaboard.
Or am I being unreasonable here?

Looking Way Back, Feeling Like It Was Yesterday

By way of documenting what has been my life thus far, I have of late been thinking more than a little deeply about some of those critical moments in our lives - in retrospect, naturally, since we seldom see them as critical at the time - when we make decisions that go-on to become far more crucial and potentially far-reaching than we realise. For those moments that can go-on to almost seal our fate, if we allow them to, we seem to pay nowhere close to the attention that they warrant - we are young, of course, and with youth comes the inexperience of not having been on the planet quite long enough yet.
A lame excuse if ever I've made one, since 'being young' hardly held me back from anything I ever did, truth be known, once I was 'old enough', which wasn't all that old at all, really.
More on that another time.
I should mention that I feel, immediately, quite aside from a little hopping around, to and fro, that this particular blogging effort of mine is highly unlikely to be hugely amusing, although I shall do my level best to make it so - the topic and it's very nature, in it's essence, is a factual one, and whilst not so very many humerous things happened to me during my early youth, ie zero to, say, 14, the time frame I will attempt to cover in part, well, it was hardly Dullsville.
Let's see how it all goes - at any rate, it will be as accurate as I remember it to be, and no poetic license will be taken, I promise, purely to Guild the Lily to make things anecdotally funny and/or interesting in any artificial manner - of course, it would have been far easier for me to simply say "It was what it was".
So going back to these life decisions we make, and my first few of significance and some consequence..........I think I knew full-well the outcome, even then, of the decisions I made, and I could go-on to blame all manner of things and/or people as to why I made the choices, but in the end, it's always down to us, even at the tender age of 15 or at the even more tender age of 10, as we shall see.
We know pretty much what awaits us, at least in some abstract way, just as my own 15 year old daughter knows the consequences of working below her potential, which is immense, provided that she has the same level of belief in herself that I have in her - just in case, though, I shall keep on telling her, lest she is going through one of her selective deafness phases, which thankfully only ever happen on days that have a 'Y' in them.
No, it's not that we don't know we are so completely wrong, that the choices we make and the way we elect to prepare ourselves and our lives will very much influence so many things...........we just don't like to think about that side of things, since it detracts from the fun we're having, whatever that might be at the time, but which is almost always nothing of any real importance or magnitude at all.
Or, if you prefer, and in brief, we do tend to fuck around, metaphorically, much too much, and always at the expense of the important stuff until we realise, usually a little late in the day, that the clock is indeed ticking, quite fast now and rather loudly in our shell-like ear.
No one told us when to run - have we missed the starting gun?
And as for Fun.....was it Fun? - Well, some of it is way more than fun, or was for 'lil' old me in very large doses, but that's for another extract, or we'll be here all day and then some.
Lets start at the very beginning - A Very Good Place To Start
I was raised by my Grandmother after being just a few days old.
My mother was a tender (no, hardy tender.......let's just say 'young')16 years old, and not in any way, shape or form, was she capable of raising a baby, on so many levels - on any and all levels. She had fallen pregnant to a US pilot, stationed in my home town, as so many US servicemen were, back then in the 50's. He was, and still is, a man I know very little about, save the few details as mentioned and those that now follow. He truly did want to marry my birth mother, to do the right thing, and he did love her very deeply,  asking her, nay begging her to return with him as his bride to America. She flatly declined - clearly grossly insufficient bubble gum, tootsie rolls, chocolate and nylon stockings had been offered-up as the dowry, and he was a good 10 years older than she, which may not seem like a lot or any big-deal, but at her age, and back then, in the mid 1950's, of course, it really was. (It was just as big a deal for a 15 year old young woman to be 'with child', and when it was 'my time to come-out', my birth mother was obliged to have her baby at a place that was always referred to simply as 'The Home', a small hospital/birthing unit way out in the countryside - one went there with a big tummy and came back with a baby, and that's all anyone ever needed to know)
He (my Father) finally had to return to the USA, and she remained there in the East Midlands of England, or it may have been a very different BoxxyMary talking to you now. As it was, and as it still is, I have not one clue as to who he is, or was, having never seen even as much as a photograph (I was told none were ever taken......sif!) and later, by Grandma, that 'it was all done in the name of 'protecting' me' and, that no one knew anything....and in any event, 'why was I concerned' and so on it went, this sweeping of all and any information under the carpet so completely. I really wasn't so interested as much as simply curious - I never, ever really pushed further for any information, wasn't ever truly bothered, always, at that time, seeing myself as fortunate enough to have love all around me in more than sufficient quantities - it really didn't seem to matter. 
Now, of course, as has been the case for quite some time, even if it ever did matter one fine day, there's not a soul left alive that I could ever ask.
My partners over the many years have been far more interested in this than I ever have been, so much more curious than I to know what he was like, if he was still alive etc........perhaps it's only now that the tiniest spark of interest jumps in and out of mind occasionally, but it is hardly the case where it ever does. It was only ever an issue at school sometimes - well, lots of times - kids can be such cruel bastards. I can't recall anyone else, back then, in Primary School especially, who didn't have the full complement of parents, which made me stick out like the proverbials. Endless teasings of 'so what did you say your Daddy does' and similar made things a little difficult at times, to the point, occasionally, where I would lash out at the offender. There was a very brief period, at around age 11yrs, I think, where I was very angry at the world, asking lots of questions and declaring how very unfair it all was that I only had a Grandmother whilst everyone else had a Mum and a Dad. Once I setled down from the foolishness & began to look around me, I saw my peers, all of whom had Mothers and Fathers, and many who had major issues with same, often being beaten or worse - at the very least, they weren't at all happy, or always seemed much less happy than I. My phase of being angry didn't last very long at all, and I refocussed, seeing abundantly clearly how incredibly lucky I was to be as surrounded by love, and slowly just beginning to see just how special my Grandma really was, giving and sacrificing all things so that I could have a life. There was never a lot of money, not at any time, but I went without very little and wanted for nought. No one could have had more love than I, and once I could see this, could focus upon it, all of the anger and bitterness left me and has never returned.
I could quite easily atribute that the ways that some parts of my life have gone could well have been influenced by lack of parents - in many ways, it would be wrong to do so, and likely incorrect, but that I have been married so many times, and have found life to be so unsettled for me so often.....it's very hard to say with any absolute certainty that there are or aren't any root causes there - there would have to be some, I feel sure, but I cannot say there was any lack of love - there has never been any lack of love at any time throughout my life, but there was none evident during my early childhood - I was loved to bits, and so I feel I can almost put to bed entirely any notion of blame - I have made my own beds and have had to lay in them, as is only right and proper.
Of course, none of this ever really stops me wondering about it all, trying desperately to seek some sort of Holy Grail that will go-on to explain why my life has taken the twists and turns that it has - nowadays, though, I refuse to beat myself up about it quite so much (I use other stuff instead!) - but seriously, I really don't have that luxury any more, having far more things that life has thrown my way that I need deal with....Such Is Life.
And now, after our short intermission and digression :
As for my birth mother, and as I was to go-on in my own life to 'mirror', almost, she was having far too much fun to trouble herself with the likes of education, let alone marriage to a US pilot. She certainly was in no state of mind, nor emotionally able to handle the complexities and demands of a newborn baby and, really, I've never really blamed her for this (certainly, through my work as used to be, young mothers are something I have dealt with time and again,
Most all of them are simply not ready emotionally, and it's just a case of them being physically able to reproduce having arrived quite some way ahead of their abilities to properly cope with a child, still being a child themselves)
No, with my 'mother' - it was simply who she was - she enjoyed a good time, lots of boyfriends and a little later, enjoyed far more of the good life than was good for her, by continuing the high life, sitting on bar stools in her favourite pubs and bars, getting drunk.
I can't say we ever bonded, though she did try, more through those feelings of obligation we can have than anything, once I was around 7 or 8 yrs old, by having me over to cook me a roast dinner on a Saturday, giving me a little pocket money and so-on - later, I would go-on to despise the woman that she was, though not through any part of her abandoning me, but for being a drunk and an embarrassment to me. My Grandma was always protective of me, and would always remind me that she (my Grandmother) was my mother, and that was certainly the case - my birth mother was what one would refer to as the 'Black Sheep' of the family, I guess one might say, and it was for this, for who she was, that I distanced myself from her.
I couldn't ever feel love for her, no big surprise, really, since I didn't know her - I was here in Sydney, Australia, when she finally died, in the UK, at only 54 years of age, and not at all pleasantly, of cervical cancer, and after never having had what could remotely be called a 'good life' for more than a fleeting moment - one riddled with chronic back pain and so much suffering, I felt sorrow only for her and the suffering that she had endured.........deep compassion, but no more compassion than anyone else that has ever been in my care over the years in similar circumstances.
It didn't feel at all wrong - there was no guilt and there still isn't.
In contrast, when I received news that my Grandmother had finally passed away, no matter that it was expected, I cried more deeply than I've ever cried, weeping uncontrollably - I still do - more at what was never said........I did, though, fly her over here twice, once to Sydney and again to Townsville, and made a point of telling her what she had meant to me most clearly, but there is always the deep lamentable feelings of not having said enough........something so many people go-on to experience and something that everyone can learn from.
Anything & Everything can all be taken from us in a Heartbeat, and we must shower those we love with Love, always, always, Always.
Back again now :
When I was born, my Grandmother stepped-in very swiftly, after one day, with me only days old, my birth mother had become involved in a decent session on the Gin, followed by her going-on to breast feed me a little too soon afterwards - my Grandma later would recount often to me that I slept very deeply for almost 2 days, without waking for feeds or anything, clearly as pissed as a fart for the very first time, yet unable to celebrate and enjoy it, being so young, immature and all.
My Grandmother became my Mum, in all and every way, in an act of pure love the true depths of which I was not able to fully understand or truly appreciate until much later in my life, as aforementioned. Mum was what I always called her, and thought of her as, always. It was pure good fortune for me to have had so much love - I knew then, and know even more now that she's gone, just how very deeply I was loved, more than she ever loved her own children.........I was her favourite, and she loved me this way forever and always, until she breathed her last.
Try as she might, and she did try as best she could, when it came to my education, my poor Grandmother couldn't get me to see the sense of staying-on at school. I was a reasonably smart kid, but to state that I didn't really know it well enough then would be a huge understatement.
I would even go-on and get the 'Golden Ticket', winning a scholarship passage through to what was then, a 'new' kind of school that had opened, one that could offer far greater things than the Secondary Modern School I was at - an all-singing, all-dancing 'Comprehensive' school was it's name. There were only 4 of us chosen from the entire school, for this special 2nd chance at getting a better foothold in life......those precious few of us that had missed the 1st boat, that had been wrongly 'streamed' following the dreadful 'Eleven-Plus' exam that kids sat in their final year at Primary School. (this I.Q.-based form of measurement was thought to be, at the time, the very best way of determining how to stream children - those smarter and capable enough of passing the exam would go-on to one of the city's 2 Grammar Schools, and all others to their choice of Secondary Modern School - it has since been proven to be a dreadful example, amongst others, of sorting good and able from less-good/less capable, but back then, streaming of children was de rigeur, or the dog's bollocks, should you prefer)
Here's just how smart I was at age 11, though, as I sat in the examination room sitting my own Eleven Plus examination, determining my own future with great accuracy. I could answer almost all of the questions, and easily, but doing so would thwart my cunning plan - in brief, all of my friends were 3-4 years older than I - ever since being 7 or 8 years old, this was the way of things. It was where I felt at my most comfortable, amongst people I could relate to properly, and would be something that continued on throughout my teens. I was what one might call 'very emotionally mature for my age' or whatever else one might call such a state of affairs.
All of my then freiends were at a certain school - a Secondary Modern School - and naturally, I wanted to be there with them, no matter that they were all at least 3 school years ahead of me and would go-on to leave almost as soon as I arrived - this part seemed to elude my thinking, somehow........I think you know what's coming
Yes, I really did intentionally fluff my Eleven Plus, and then some, answering a good 30% or more of the questions intentionally wrongly, and omitting to answer entirely plenty of the others, making sure my plan would work perfectly - I would fail my Eleven Plus - who wanted all that extra homework, better & more qualified teachers......what kind of tool wanted to go-on to be a fucking Doctor, Lawyer of Architect anyway, earning huge sums of money and all that comes with that?
Not I, obviously.
And so........Success!!!
It had worked a treat, my cunning plan, and that was that, at least for the moment.
It wouldn't be the last time I used my skills and cunning, as quite clearly, my being one of the 4 chosen from the entire school of over 1000 pupils still didn't get through to me that this offer of a lifetime, this chance to amend the earlier mistake I had made at age 11 by being given a place at the new school was something I should grasp with all 4 limbs, my teeth, my dick and anything else I could reach-out and grab.
It would have given me a bagful of A Levels and a place at University - almost certainly into Medicine, and I won't go into how many times I kick my own arse, and have kicked it over the years, as to just where I might have gone, how high I could have flown had I only done the clever things.
Oh yes, I was smart alright.
Hindsight is always such a wonderful thing, though - without doubt, I was monumentally stupid, for a smart young bloke, that is, and not taking this most special of opportunities to go to the all-new school, I left at 15 years old - and left with nothing at all in my pocket by way of papers, CSE Certificates as they would have been at the Secondary Modern joint....O Levels and A Levels as they would (and should!!!) have been at the other one - a much more powerful tool to weild.
I had absolutely blot-all in my pocket as I proudly walked out of school and waved goodbye to it for the very last time.
Like one of my older friends, I wanted to be a Bricklayer - something that still astounds me to this day, but that's what I thought I wanted to do with my life, tender 15 yr old that I was.
It would, as I saw things, allow me to pursue, much more ably, my weekend pastime of drinking lots of beer down at the pub, something we did back then whenever possible. Now, as I look back, the landlords of the 2 or 3 pubs we used all knew that I was a few years under-age, but since we were always well behaved in the Loungerooms, Bars or The 'Snug'-Rooms of said pubs, I was always served and became an accepted local. Now, a working man, I could pay my own way, too, and not be as dependant upon my older peers with an income, who would always shout me most of my drinks from kindness and friendship beforehand. I could now have as many pints of Bitter, Brown Ale or Brown and Mild Ale mix as I wanted, which was usually about 8 or 9 pints per session back then.
My pocket money of $2/week hadn't been able to buy too much beer, although it did buy a surprising amount, still - but now, with my first wage of a whole $4/week, I could even have a bag of chips and a few games on the fruit machine/one-armed bandit, too, and still enough for fish, chips and peas on the way home.
It enabled many a very full weekend down the pub, and this all seemed so idyllic at the time - this was really living.
I was now an apprentice, training to become a Bricklayer over 3 years, and almost completed 2 of those years before the bitterly cold days, and my smashing my fingers with the Brick Hammer or squashing a pinky between 2 breeze/besser blocks once too often began to make me see a little sense.
I was cut-out for better things than building.
Had I remained, even, I feel sure that once again great fortune would have made me a pretty damned good builder, since I was placed alongside the construction company's very best Master Builder, who we shall call Harry, but only since that was his name.
Harry could build anything - his workmanship could be seen all around the city - an amazing man, close to retirement (and soon thereafter, sadly, to develop advanced lung cancer) who cared for me and taught me all he knew. He was devastated that I wanted to throw it all away, and for some weeks afterwards, wouldn't talk to me - later, of course, I could understand that he really had given all of his skills and time to me, only for me to fuck-off - rubbing salt into wounds and showing great ingratitude.......I would have been much more angry in his place.
It was now time to move-on - my Grandma was beginning to get just a little bit tired, anyway, of finding so many pairs of panties inside my lunch box when I arrived home, most days, which the guys on-site had carefully put there towards shifts-end. This, along with hammering several 6 inch nails inside and through the soles of my steel toe-capped boots, into the tea hut floor.....well, they were a fun-loving bunch, bless 'em and this was like an ongoing initiation, and really all pretty harmless - Harry did get the shits one day, though, after it had taken me almost half an hour to prise the nails out of my inner boot soles, making me very late on the job.
The boot nailing stopped henceforth, but the panties continued - some of them were really rather classy, too, always as frilly and colourful as could be found....I never did ask about their origins.
There I was, still short of 17, and now bound for one of the city's largest factories, a hydraulic brake manufacturer, initially as a drilling machinist, on 'piece-work', where there was the potential to earn 100 pounds per week if one really went crazy-dangerous, and after just a few months, when my 'talents' were discovered, over to the staff side proper, as a wages clerk, where the money was just as handsome but now I was salaried and the fingernails so much cleaner.....I had my own office, my own calculator, pretty girls calling in for coffee and a chat, and things were really looking-up, at least for a while.
Now, at 17, I rekindled thoughts of the thing I had always really wanted to do, yet had kept it hidden inside, even from myself, for the most part - I now wanted to actively pursue what had always been a fascination to me - Medicine - and I wanted to care for people who were too sick to care for themselves.......I wanted to become a Nurse.
It was only now that my folly of leaving school so stpidly early became so glaringly obvious, and it would go-on to be a full 4 years before I would be able to realise my dreams.......years filled with All Kinds of Everything.
So, if you're still there.............well, there really is so much more to follow, hopefully things of much more interest and fascination.
It'll be worth hanging around and waiting for, I promise - you'll gasp, you'll sigh, you'll laugh and you'll cry.
You might even pay the gas bill :)

Sunday Windy Sunday - A Good Day For Washing The Clothes & Remininiscing

Ahhhhh - the sun is out, the sky is blue, there's not a cloud to spoil the view, but it's raining.......raining in my heart.
Nah, course it's not.
That was just Buddy, 'Raving-On'
My heart is ticking away in full, resplendant Sinus Rhythm, at around 78 beats per minute, or 'normally' should you prefer - sure, there's just a little heart-ache present, but I'm only human.
It is, though, as windy as a bastard here in Melbourne's SE burbland, and the washing machine is on it's 2nd cycle already, with clothes on the line from the first all but dry after what has been only 30 minutes. There's sure to be a 3rd on the way.
One simply cannot complain about that - it really is a good washing day.
My wonderful wife does love to wash clothes, and it's so much more than simple home duties that's going-on here. It's close to an addiction, and one I've seen several times before in others.....but one I see as quite harmless, this compulsion to wash clothes, and to derive massive pleasures from doing so - harmless, for sure, and all part of the 'nesting' instinct we all have (well, some of us have) once one has factored-in things like exponential rising power and water costs.....it'll only take laundry powder to rise in price and we'll be shafted good & proper.
It'll be back to the old dolly tub and wash-board, or down to the river, thrashing the clothing upon the stones.
Amongst other things, and in another life, I can picture a scenario where I simply grab a new pair of Calvin Klein jocks every few hours and throw the old ones in the bin, no matter that they are only a few hours out of the packet, and maybe only farted-in once, David Beckham-Style......   all of this post lottery win, of course.
How amazement, to simply thow away the shirt once it gets a little grimy, or change the Ferrari once the ashtrays begin to fill-up a bit or the colour of the full-grain leather interior begins to bore one a little.
I could instead, though, be married to a woman who had no time or desires for such mundane tasks as washing clothes or good housekeeping, and I was, once - if choices needed to be made, at gunpoint, I would stay put on the washing side of things and on many other levels, and never allow myself to forget that I am an extraordinarily fortunate man to have my family as it stands - to have my amazing wife and daughter. I only need a bit of reasonable health, a relocation to Port Douglas (yes, yes....a recurring theme) and a few bob, and I'll have the set. Is it really to much that I ask here? (Rhetorical for the most part - although I do, sometimes, think that it is too much that I ask - do I really need to say, again, that all I want is a better life-style for those that I love - maybe it's simply my own dreams and aspirations, not necessarily those of my loved ones, and this is where the truth lays - of course, only a short sojourne to the Far North will put this sucker to bed properly. I may be stupid, but I'm no fool )
Like the enjoyment of having a few coffees, I am quite wrong to expect others to derive the same pleasures as I - if only it didn't leave that little bit of disappointment that they don't - something I must learn to live with, but I digress.
For the moment, my beautiful wife is on the phone to a friend, a Chinese one, since the words are all meaningles to me and in Mandarin, and this may well take some hours, as they discuss the merits, benefits and downsides to the likes of Elephants & Toothpaste, the fighting in the Middle East and Julia Gillard's ever-tenuous grip on the top job here in the Land Of Oz.....wait a moment, now she's on the phone to another for more of the same, followed by yet a third......busier than a one-armed cab driver with crabs, and one mobile phone is barely enough, it seems. I hope to God that this latest research into damage caused by mobile use is erroneous, for many of us.
Away from the dark and forboding stuff though - soon enough, and in true Sunday-Style, the sound of the Dyson will break the peace, as it thunders through the entire home, waking-up the sleeping daughter as ridiculously early as mid afternoon, and sucking-up all in it's path as strongly and as efficiently as a sucking-up thing. My gorgeous wife at the helm will see to it that no bit of fluff remains, no speck of dust hides skulking under the sofa. She is, in fact, far and away the absolute cleanest woman I have ever known, squeakily so, and on every level I can think of - I feel sure our daughter will follow in her footsteps, once the boys start to visit our home, those that get past me waiting at the door with a big bat....and I don't mean the bats with the obscenely large 'much more than they need & then some' genitalia that enjoy eating fruit and masturbating a lot, either. A good friend, who knows full-well who he is, has a genuine riot police baton from his days as a man of the force, a black, compact thing of immense beauty that flicks-out to full extension so rapidly, and is as heavy as all buggery - a real damage inflictor of the finest kind, and I can see now, very clearly, my close scrutiny of the impressive X-Rays of anyone in it's wake, with collarbone shattered beyond repair plus or minus a depressed skull fracture just above the ear as said baton came crashing down to 'do the double'........and I may well be asking him for a lend of it if ever that long queue of acne-riddled young men start to form down the street, as can happen where very attractive young and sexually eligible young women are concerned.
Just for dissuasion, you understand - I'd never use it, unless I needed to.
Having already had the discussion with my daughter re: this potential for tragedy, she has, in principal, agreed to withold her virginity until at least her mid-30's, to go some way toward averting these menacing issues that lay just around the corner. It's good to be able to talk with my daughter about such matters, and not simply current affairs, her math homework or how she needs to work as hard as she possibly can....the usual stuff. Sends a real shiver down my spine just thinking about it all, notably how close it all is, the boy thing. (that said, she seems to have developed a crush on Viggo Mortensen, via his portrayal of Aragorn in Lord of the Rings - could this be the 'most girls want to marry their Daddy thing at work - Pffft.....I wished. Apparently, Viggo insisted upon doing all his own stunts in the movie, and is a far healthier specimen than I've ever been)
Thinking back to my own youth, along with queueing - I don't ever recall having to actually queue for it.....au contrere.....and you'll think that I'm simply boasting and having a lend of you all here, but 'It' used to queue for Me - one of the better perks of being a grossly heterosexual male nurse back in the early 80's, living amidst a nurses home chock full of hundreds of women, most of whom were extremely attractive along with the added bonus of being grossly not in the slightest lesbian - mostly.
Nothing whatsoever related to my endowment, I hasten to add, since I fall right in the middle of 'Average European Male' in that particular department.
I have not had a single complaint, though, hand on heart, in spite of the obscene numbers involved, and I really do say, with some regret, that they are obscene - more on that to come.
Shooting fish in a barrel as a reality, not an analogy, would have been very hard by comparison. There was only one other male nurse in the entire city - back then, males would tend to go into Psychiatric Nursing - the pay scales were better and promotion ladder much faster - it was a minefield to try and do what I did, be a male nurse in a female dominated to bits profession (and more of that in another story, too) - the other male was the proverbial as gay as a handbag full of butterflies, and so I was very much alone with my heterosexuality - it was all rather novel for the system to have Me in there - it was essential that I stood out, worked extremely hard and got myself noticed for all of the right reasons, and I did, at least at first. I over-learned, became a super-knowledgeable uber-nurse of excellence - it sat well with most, but of course, not with all.
But back to me.....now divorced and living-in at the nurses home, 1984-ish
I had a mate back then, who would come over to visit me in my room at the nurses home occasionally, for a beer and a smoke or several and some good music, and I can see him now, sitting on the floor, spliffing-up and shaking his head in complete wonderment, smiling in semi-anger as we got more and more stoned, as he stared longingly and with increasing disbelief and envy at the young and very attractive woman in her night-wear - a student nurse - draped on my bed behind me as I sat on it in front of her, with her waiting there patiently until he and I had finished whatever it was that we were doing. This was an almost weekly occurence, his visit. It was almost always a different young lady each and every time he came over - only ever for a couple of hours, until, at the behest of said lady on my bed, it was indicated that it was now, very much 'time for him to leave'.
I remember these days with so much fondness but also, surprisingly, with more than a little sadness - why the sadness, I hear you say, with wall to wall beautiful women on-tap?
Well.......To give you more of an idea, paint even more of a vivid picture, there would be very few mornings indeed where I would not stir to find a woman climbing into bed with me, one who had just come-off night shift at the hospital - it didn't matter, either, if there was one already in there with me, as she, quite often, needed to go off for the morning shift in just a little while - this particulr incarnation was usually when I was on my rostered days-off, or was working some sort of odd shift etc. It wasn't always for outright sex, just for that closeness, the skin on skin that feels so wonderful, warm and comforting, and to fall into that most blisful of sleeps with someone in your arms. It was love in it's mildest form, openly shared without any more committment than the willingness of the act and of the participants that did it - it was such an incredibly beautiful thing, this side of it all, something I still think of and treasure. Many times, this was all that was needed by both she/they and myself, and 'she' was one of at least 8 or 10 that come immediately to mind. There were many, many more than this that my mind has forgotten the names of, so many more........whilst at other times, it was total debauchery, including but not limited to threesomes and other variants - the only common factor was that I was the only guy in the equation......it was the height of gorgeous, sensual pleasures and a truly amazing 18 months or so.......and I really was in Heaven, for the most part.
Who needed parents?
I was well liked, and extremely well-loved in every way, emotionally and physically, but something was wrong, very wrong.
What, then, made it a bad thing?
Well, one cannot continue to do this, no matter the many never-ending pleasures, for with pleasure can come pain, and the pain of it all, for me, was that I was something of a male whore...that is, I was beginning to feel, in my mind.....No, that's a complete joke.....I was much, much more than 'something' of a male whore.
Sure, these women really did love me, and loved me for who I was, taking pleasure from my company in many other ways than simply the physical, sexual manner, but in the end, I was starting to feel a deeper and deeper sense of my being simply 'available' for the pleasure of these women.
I really do know how very stupid this all may sound, especially to any male, but this was the way of things, such as they were. This seemingly idyllic existence had a price to pay.
I did go-on to tell the aforementioned mate this stuff, but it did little to appease him from feeling that life had cheated him of his fair and equitable share of shagging, whereas I had been given some kind of very large, leader of the pack 'lions share'.....his share and several other men's share, as well as my own.
He wasn't entirely wrong, but he simply couldn't see the down side, just as you may be struggling to see it right now.This feeling became so intense for me eventually - that I was being 'used'.....and I really was, ultimately. Also, I had gained something of a reputation within the hospital for this side of my extracurricular activities - it wasn't easy in any event to be a male nurse back then, unlike now where there are many, many more, gay and otherwise. My professional abilities were called into question - those at the top with real power made my working life difficult.....possibly jealousy at work here, and a great many of those responsible for this were, in fact very high up the ladder nurses, who had only arrived there due to never having married and/or had children etc........yes, folks, they were lesbians.....and before you go saying I am bigotted or discriminatory etc, some of my very best friends have been gay or lesbian (and now I see a very different picture being built-up in your minds!!)
Needless to say....I was a very excellent Staff Nurse - a 'Mister Sister'.............running a very busy acute Children's Medical Ward but running rapidly out of respect amongst the elders at the top with real power within the system - I couldn't fight them, there were too many of them, and they wanted me gone.
Something had to be done.
The debachery, the sexual overkill, it's pleasures and it's pains, along with the constant and ongoing attacks upon my professional integrity, in the end, caused me to leave it all behind & relocate, to change tack a little.
I also very much was beginning to feel the need for one person with whom I could bond completely - as free and liberated as my life has been, from what was a very early age for losing my own cherry (a tad over 14), I have always, really, only wanted one, special person in my life......it's been finding The One that has been my own Holy Grail, but that's another story entirely, for the most part.
As for my then predicament, back in 1984 - It was not to be the last time that I would need to 'run away' and reboot my life.
This next part of my life journey was to take me to the Home Counties, a spit and a stones-throw to London.....to Hertfordshire and a beautiful little village called Cuffley.
It was 1985.
I appplied for and succesfully gained employment with an outrageously wealthy German family. They lived in what was a huge mansion, with wood panelled walls throughout, walk-in fridges, and suits of fucking armour, huge broad-swords and all manner of medievil artifacts (all of them the genuine article, not replicas) all over the place, on the wood panelled walls etc - the home was huge, gigantic and a mansion in every sense of the word.
I had my own room and the freedom of the joint, indoor pool and all, but more of that later.
My role was to take total physical and emotional care, additional to being a companion and friend, 6 days a week, including on-call night-time duties if needed, of their 21 year old son, who had broken his neck whilst at the wheel of a motor car way too powerful for such an inexperienced young man as he.
As is still so often the case with young men and, increasingly & tragically, young women these days, he had wrapped it around a very large tree at high speed. His family's wealth and their consequent spoiling and ruining him to bits had been his salvation, saving him from certain death and 'Goodnight Vienna'.
Airbags were not quite so commonplace back then, and that's an understatement, but his Mercedes was equipped with one or 2, and it was this that had saved him, albeit paralysed as a paraplegic with no use of anything below the belly button ever again, at the tender age of 18.
He was very amply built, now 20 years old, a good 6 feet 6 inches in height, and whilst not grossly overweight, was very stocky and heavy. I was now his full-time nurse amongst other things - I had to quell my natural and very British instincts of disliking 'The Germans', and just get-on with it, since I was surrounded by them through every fault of my own - through my choosing, in fact.
It was to become a very full year of very hard and demanding but rewarding work- a very different and new kind of life, and one I shall describe as completely as I can next time......if you're still there.
But let's see if that second load of washing is dry yet.