THE HUT: the accidental guesthouse.

 

Some people have a lot of friends and some, for reasons no one can explain, do not.  My mother could make friends the way a dog collects fleas while I must have the equivalent of an inbuilt flea collar.  The fact that she brought me up, taught me how to interact socially with people through her example, was friendly, charming and engaging, all things I naturally emulated just as one does the language you learn at home, mattered not one whit.  I did not make friends easily.  

Even so I had plenty of company even though I was an only child.  Two of my cousins lived two doors away, there was another family with three children one house down again, no fences and plenty of room to play.  Added to this at five years of age I must have told my parents about a girl I met and got on with at school.  The next thing she was brought around to play and joined our neighborhood group.  She lived barely a kilometer away and we've been friends ever since.  Now, however, like my cousins, she lives in another state or, rather, I live in another state.

From the age of ten I was sent to a weekly boarding school and only managed to see my friends on weekends.  We all went to different schools but would gravitate together on the weekend due to our proximity and the fact that our families were friends.  My school friend would go her own way sometimes and, as we became teenagers, that became more often but still we prevailed.  At high school I was friendless.  I loathed the school and did not fit in.  When I finished there I said goodbye to no one and didn't look back.  Perhaps I just didn't have good friend making skills and, not learning them, this affected me throughout my life.

As I grew to adulthood and married, I moved away from the state and, each place we lived, I tried to make friends.  It wasn't easy and quite often we lived in areas for my husband's work that were quite different from the social background that I'd known growing up and, I confess, that came as a shock.  I had lived in something of a privileged environment.  Then, when the job finished, we'd up stakes and leave.  After three moves interstate, making some ties, then moving overseas and making more ties, then back and two more interstate moves and a divorce, I had made a number of connections and some friends.  I'm very fond of some of those people but they are now far away and some also divorced.

Happily my son was eleven when we, my husband, son and I, settled here prior to our divorce and my son has inherited my mother's stunning ability to make friends.  This has gladdened my heart.  He is now forty two and still keeps in touch with most of his school friends.

By the time I settled in Queensland I was, frankly, tired of trying to make new friends.  I joined a tennis club and tried for a while but the women were a pretty tight knit group and, after thirty, it just gets harder to break in.  There is also something to be said for the fact that you are more like the people from the place from which you originate.  I realized this recently when I managed to contact a younger cousin to whom I hadn't spoken for fifteen years.  She was the younger of the two cousins who lived in my neighborhood.  Fifteen years just compressed into nothing in moments.  We talked for two hours and I realized how very alike in mind, speech and attitudes we were, even though we are two unique individuals.  It was like going home again.

Most of my relatives remained in Sydney so I'm very much a foreigner now and feel very distant from my roots, even though I'm only one thousand kilometers away.  I'm like a transplanted plant.  I've acclimatized but my roots belong elsewhere.  My cousins' children don't even know me and I find that sad.

Close friends would have helped but I have none here.  I do have my partner, a man I met twenty five years ago.  We are more like companions now but he is my rock.  I also have a male friend whom I see regularly.  I seem to get on better with men for some reason but that's okay.  My childhood friend from school and I see one another once a year or so but don't phone as frequently now.  I see my son and his family regularly and, as my parents have passed away, that's it.  Before Covid I worked and met many people, which filled the friend gap, but now, as it has for all of us, life has shrunk.

It's made me think of one remarkable part of my childhood and youth.  It was a place that brought all kinds of people into my universe and filled my life.  It was the Hut.

I have to explain about the Hut.  It was built on my parents' property by my uncle, my mother's brother, for him and his wife to live in while he built a house on the land next door.  Eventually his new house was two doors down because my grandfather, my mother's father, asked my father to subdivide his land so he could build beside us.  He had previously owned and built on the land in front of us, which was lower than our land, but my grandmother died and he sold the house and moved then regretted it later and wanted to move back.  Both the houses, as well as his earlier house, had a magnificent water view and this was one of the draw cards that brought so many people to want to come and stay in the Hut.

The Hut comprised one large living and bedroom space, a kitchen and a bathroom.  Outside it was weatherboard with a pitched fibro roof and inside was plasterboard walls and a ceiling that was probably plasterboard or something but in which bush rats would leave macadamia nut shells and also reside along with the occasional python.  The building had an entrance door with two steps leading up to it and a side door that came off the small hallway between the kitchen and bathroom.

If my parents had charged people to stay in the Hut, I might have been left a rich woman.  My childhood up to my early twenties were full of people who made the pilgrimage to our beautiful and welcoming surrounds.  Our house was a big brick post war house, more modern than those of my other cousins who lived in Mosman.  Their houses were smaller and of a more purple brown brick that I hated.  They had fences and no views.  My house was spacious, red brick with a picture window in the living room that looked out over Pittwater and, off the living room, was a verandah where my parents had barbeques.  These were sit down affairs and Dad would barbeque a scotch fillet that had been cut into steaks.  With this would be served jacket potatoes with sour cream, Mum's version of a Ratatouille, a Three Bean salad and sometimes bread rolls.  Wine and beer would accompany all this.  I was allowed small amounts of wine from the age of twelve presumably because I had a French godmother.

When I was fifteen, Dad decided to have a swimming pool built and, after that, basically every weekend became like a party.  While not actually a party, although we had a quite a few, the whole neighborhood always gravitated to the pool, which had no fence in the beginning and a two meter drop on one side.  There were no small children in the area by that time, no one ever fell off the edge and our Labrador, an avid swimmer, knew where the steps were where she could get out so we never had to worry about her.

The same year the pool was built a tragedy befell us.  My uncle next door died from a massive coronary at the age of forty six leaving a widow and my two cousins, one my age, the other seven years younger.  My aunt, however, was stoic and determined to give her children a happy life.  The cousin my age loved sailing and my aunt was always holding parties for the young sailing fraternity which tended to spill over to our house.  At this stage the Hut also sprang to life as a secondary party place.  These were nice parties, supervised by parents, with food and also some alcohol was allowed as we grew older.  For an only child, I had it pretty good.

The Hut, however, was usually more a place of residence or short stays for other people from my earliest years.  My parents would sometimes allow people they knew to live there for a while, no rent required, when they were stuck for a place to live or building one.  When Dad was still a journalist, a female work colleague who needed a place to stay, occupied it for a couple of months as I remember.  She was a very glamorous woman and I don't know her story, but she was just taken to the family's bosom.  My mother was very accommodating.

I think now that my parents probably needed to keep a roster as there was a continual flow of their friends and family coming to stay at the Hut on weekends.  I just took it all in my stride.  My father's sister would often come for weekends and stay in a bedroom in our house as she was widowed and alone.  Sometimes this would be when the Hut was occupied, sometimes not.  Her son lived there with his first wife for some months, rent free.  He went on to two more marriages but that was later.  While he and his new wife lay in bed there one morning, one of the possums that also made the roof their home, gnawed its way through the ceiling and, the two of them on waking, saw a little black nose and two beady eyes staring at them through a little hole.

The Hut became my grandfather's final home before he went into a nursing home.  After selling the house he had built between our house and my uncle and aunt's he moved on again, twice more as I remember.  His sister lived with him at that stage and helped look after him as he became an invalid but she died and he came back again.  My parents hired a nurse, who became like a friend to them, and she came to care for him every day for some years.  My father put an electric bell into the hut and connected it to the house so he could call for help at night.  Eventually and sadly he went into care.

A couple of years later I even lived there with my husband for some months after we were married.  I didn't like it nearly as much as the house as it didn't have the same view, but I think my mother had wanted to get rid of me for years and I wasn't as welcome in the house anymore.  My mother had a kind of two headed llama attitude to me.  Sometimes she liked me and sometimes she didn't.  There was no particular reason, in fact I don't think she had really wanted me but she did a pretty good job of hiding it until I was married.

Improvements had been made to the Hut even before I was married.  The wall between the kitchen and living area was opened up by half.  It still covered the kitchen bench plus a bit and the kitchen had been modernized as had the bathroom.  The bathroom comprised a shower, toilet and basin but a new lining had been put in and the shower now had a flexible shower hose.  I decided to put tiles on the kitchen bench and it looked really good.  Little did I know that I would fully renovate a cottage in the bay side suburb of Mount Martha in Melbourne in the next year of my marriage.

After we left, further improvements were made when my parents hired my father-in-law, a builder, to add a large verandah to the water view side of the hut.  The inside was also relined.  While it was never a building of beauty on the outside, it became pretty snazzy inside.  People on the North Shore of Sydney were not pretentious and I hope they have remained the same.  Their houses didn't need to be spectacular as they just blended into the hillsides surrounded by a mass of vegetation.  The outside of the Hut was always an olive green that blended into the tropical bush surroundings.

After we moved interstate, the neighbor with the three children who lived beside my cousins gave my parents a shingle to hang on it.  It had come from her and her late husband's hardware store and it said: The Lodge.  My parents hung it on the outside of the Hut but I was not happy about it. The Hut was the Hut and always would be to me and is what everyone called it.

To my utter regret my parents sold the property when I was in my thirties and living in Perth and then they moved to Western Australia as well.  If I'd had the money I would have bought the house.  To this day my heart breaks at the thought of it.  For thirty years some other family has lived in the home in which I was conceived and which I love as if it is part of me.  I hope they treasure the place and that no developers ever ruin it or the places around it.  I imagine the present owners probably think of the Hut as the Lodge.  I know it is still there.  I've checked on Google Earth.

Although I lost the house that I never owned as it was my parents, I wonder if I could go back.  In part your home is not just a place but a time and that time was so full that it could never be relived or replaced.  I am just so immensely grateful that I grew up in a place of such physical natural beauty, which had so many people passing through it.  Not many people get so lucky and it certainly helps me to deal with the far more solitary life I lead now.  To put it the best way I can: I had it all.

END

 

 

WHY HAS THE MEGHAN AND HARRY SOAP OPERA SIDELINED SERIOUS NEWS.

 

I wasn't going to write about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle as it's been done to death, but that got me to thinking.  Why?

Why has this attractive and privileged pair pushed every other newsworthy item out into the vacuum of space?  Why have Covid, the progress of vaccine delivery, wars, national and local news of importance, the situation in Myanmar, Tigran refugees from Ethiopia and so forth, fallen so far down the rank of newsworthiness?  All have paled into insignificance in the face of the couple's interview with the former talk show hostess (host, if you insist on gender equivalency), Oprah.

This fact must reflect on the mentality of the human race in some way and I'm trying to figure out exactly what that is.  I imagine the people of Myanmar didn't drop out of their protest against military rule to watch the interview if, by chance, it was subtitled, however I wouldn't have been surprised given the global attention it has received.

As I mulled about the exceptional number of viewers it attracted along with the opinions that followed, pro or con the couple, I can only come up with one explanation.  It is this: that for over a year the world's population has been under siege by Covid-19 and people needed to be distracted mightily by a real life soap opera in which the word Covid did not rear its ugly head.  At least, I don't think it did.  I didn't watch the interview but, in all the comments I've read about it, Covid wasn't mentioned.

The British Royal family have provided the world with its longest running real life soap opera.  Princess Diana reignited interest in it in the 'eighties with her glamour mixed with sadness and, now, one of her two sons and his Cinderella have defected to the New World.  The fact that they are pretty people has a strong bearing on this and that's another reflection on the human psyche.  If you're not pretty or handsome, you just don't cut it in the world of media.  I have long felt it a shame that Princess Anne, even in her youth, didn't grab the media's attention in the way Diana did.  Anne is quite brilliant, witty and would have made a fine queen but nobody cares because she's unattractive.  It's no use denying it, it's true.

Now let me be almost cruel.  If Meghan looked like Fergie, the Duchess of York, no one would care either.  If Andrew and Fergie had defected shortly after their marriage it would certainly have caused a ripple, much as Andrew's indiscretions have lately in the media, but that has also been eclipsed by The Interview.

How in the world has one woman's supposed mental health problem, (apparently caused by marrying a handsome, wealthy and privileged prince and being accepted by a family who, decades ago, wouldn't have done so, but who have accepted her wholeheartedly), become world news and so divided public opinion?

Meghan has said she had suicidal thoughts caused by hurtful remarks made by a royal or a senior royal staff member or some such.  (Again, I didn't watch the interview, I've read this post the interview.)  We've probably all had suicidal thoughts, I know I have.  I haven't, however, actually got to the point of getting out a bottle of pills or a razor blade but I have been seriously depressed.

There are levels of contemplation of suicide, some serious, some not as, and when people on social media, or even broadcasters, criticize Meghan and don't believe her statements about suicide, they have been jumped on by those who feel they aren't taking her mental health seriously.  In other words, she's become the poster child for those with mental health issues who feel they are neglected.  Totally understandable but also take these following things into account.

Meghan was a thirty-seven year old actress who had clawed her way up in show business and that means she's tough enough to take knocks.  She is coloured and must have suffered a degree of racism in her life, and on her way to the top, and yet she's deeply hurt by someone wondering what colour skin her son would have.  I mean, I'd be a bit miffed by the tactlessness but deeply hurt?  At her age, she must be better at rolling with the punches than that.

When Piers Morgan, the British broadcaster, publicly disbelieved Meghan's statements about her feelings of suicide, he walked off his show in disgust after thousands of complaints about him expressing his opinion.  Meghan also took exception and filed a complaint against him.  Here's the thing though:  she had quoted a remark made by a member of the Royal family, or one of their staff, without naming which one in a publicly broadcast interview and, as such, she practiced freedom of speech but isn't allowing Piers Morgan the same courtesy.  For someone who is as supposedly vulnerable as she is, why was she so quick to file a complaint against Morgan instead of weeping in Harry's arms as she apparently did over the 'What colour her child would be' remark and saying she didn't want to live anymore.

It is because she is not the weeping type but a very assertive woman.  Harry, misguidedly, is trying, through Meghan, to protect his mother posthumously.  For him, I believe, it all comes back to Diana, who really did have mental health issues that were exacerbated by having no one help her.  Harry is afraid for his wife's mental health and it's very sweet of him.

I may be quite wrong.  I'm not in Meghan's head and she may have mental health issues.  She may well not have been prepared for the rules, regulations, service and tradition that would be her lot after being an independent and successful actress.  However, she committed to these things in a marriage ceremony and must have known the ramifications to the Royal family if she rocked the boat.  I believe, not wanting to be a working royal anymore, she's pointing the blame finger to extricate herself.  She wants her cake and to eat it to and has probably justified everything to herself in her own head.

There is one more thing to note, and I saw it in a news clip of the interview.  Perhaps some of you noticed it too.  Meghan is heavily pregnant but get a load of her stiletto shoes.  They're four-inch heels at least.  This is sheer vanity in her present state and, being a woman myself, I am very fond of high heels, but not if I was that pregnant.  Meghan carefully cultivates her image and is one tough cookie.  She has chosen her life and was not victimized into it.

Those in the world who are interested in the story are projecting themselves onto the couple and living vicariously through them.  It beats being in lock down, losing your job and wondering what the new world will be like in its restricted and more dangerous form.  In the western world, you were once reasonably safe and could get on with your life, free of wars and starvation but now no one is safe and we need our fairy tales again, and this fairy tale comes with enough edge to make it interesting.  It's also a series with more episodes to come.  What better way to be stuck in the house with nothing to do than to watch two incredibly privileged people who are also stuck in their house with nothing more to do than trash an institution that took them to their hearts, and to create PR for their forthcoming Netflix production about heaven knows what?

END

 

  

SPACE EXPLORATION FOR FUN AND PROFIT: OR WHY ARE WE FOULING THE ATMOSPHERE FOR A FEW BILLIONAIRES TO TAKE A JOY RIDE?

 

Polluted Earth by Freepik.com

Okay it's time for me to whinge again and loudly.  I may only amount to one small voice on this planet but I can't hold back solely for that reason.  It's amazing how celebrities are heard and quoted even though some have brains smaller than those of pet guinea pigs.  In fact it's truly quite terrifying as, for instance, when Kanye West decided he was smart and informed enough to run for President of the USA.

Money and fame seem to make your opinion matter.  Well I have neither but I've know that I've had a quite substantial brain since I was around seven, although not an egocentric one because no one bothered to build up my sense of self worth.  In fact it wasn't until my mother was in a nursing home that she said to me, "I think that you're one of the smartest people I've ever known."  That meant a great deal to me even though she had dementia by then.  Nevertheless she was undoubtedly the cleverest person I have ever known and so I took her compliment to my heart.

Enough prattle, here is what I'm a tad bothered about.  Firstly, we're wrecking our planet, we know that. Secondly, it seems that any billionaire who has run out of ways to amuse him(usually)self decides to go into space exploration.  Not just any type of space exploration but the kind designed to generate tourist dollars.  Last week (in March, 2021) SpaceX, Elon Musk's space venture company, sent an unmanned  rocket a certain distance into the atmosphere and then managed to land it successfully.  A few seconds later it exploded but his ground team said the launch had been a success.  They now just had to figure out how to stop it exploding on landing at the next attempt.  Apparently by 2023 Musk wants some wealthy tourists to accompany him on an expedition in space but I'd be damned if I'd put my hand up at this stage.  In fact I wouldn't put my hand up at all for reasons I'll get to later.

Richard Branson of Virgin fame has been working on his own space exploration business even prior to Musk.  It seems it's the must do thing for billionaires who have run out of ways to amuse themselves.  Just over a year ago Branson's last attempt went stunningly awry.  The quote below is from the December 13, 2020 edition of the Washington Post:

"Virgin Galactic aborted its third attempt to reach the edge of space on Saturday after the engine of its space plane ignited for about a second and then went out. The vehicle then glided back safely to the runway, and the pilots were reported to be in good health.

It was the first test from the company’s new home at Spaceport America, a taxpayer-funded, modern mirage of a building in the New Mexico desert from which the company hopes to routinely fly space tourists starting next year.

A successful flight would have brought the company, founded by Richard Branson in an effort to open space to the masses, a step closer to flying Branson himself to the edge of space, followed by the line of people who have paid as much as $250,000 for the chance to fly on a suborbital mission, see the Earth from space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness."

I doubt, frankly, if the $250,000 (US dollars I presume) the potential tourists would pay would be enough to cover the fuel required for these little forays into space for no purpose other than a thrill.

Below is another quote from NASA's Shuttle Trivia online web page:

"At liftoff, the two Solid Rocket Boosters consume 11,000 pounds of fuel per second. That's two million times the rate at which fuel is burned by the average family car. The twin Solid Rocket Boosters generate a combined thrust of 5.3 million pounds."

Musk and Branson's rockets may, or may not, be smaller than their NASA counterparts but note the amount of fuel used in a shuttle launch and then imagine the number of experimental launches the two tourist companies undertake to refine their rockets.

Is the thrill of a joyride in space by a tiny number of well heeled persons enough to justify the extreme amount of fuel, and thus carbon dioxide, belched into our already sick atmosphere?  I don't think so.  I hate telling people how to live and what to or not to say, but in the case of using up this planet's oxygen, I feel justified in suggesting that Musk and Branson's companies should stop their tourist space programs.

We have rockets launching, frequently I'm sure, to maintain communication, weather satellites and the space station.  We did survive without these but they have been useful.  Space tourism, however, is no reason to belch more crap into the atmosphere.

I love those people who are all for colonizing other planets when we can't maintain our own.  When I think of humans in space I just imagine them as slightly evolved apes.  You know, apes in space and, instead of swinging from vines, they're making their way from planet to planet to wreak destruction elsewhere in nifty little, fuel consuming rockets.

I  can also imagine colonies of humans in a hundred years or so with children who long to see mother Earth but simply won't be allowed on it.  Earth will be for the privileged humans who survived and re-greened the planet against all odds.  While I still dream of seeing Italy and Greece, imagine what it would be like to grow up on an arid planet, sustained by artificially produced oxygen, dreaming of a green landscape with beautiful blue waters.

That's what we are destroying.  All the talk of reducing carbon emissions is valid but not enough.  What no one dares to address is the population.  It has to be stabilized before people are delegated to having no more than two children, but does anyone really address this issue?  No, they don't.  I think those people, such as David Attenborough, who are really trying to get the mass of humanity to think about the damage to the planet are afraid they will lose their audience and any chance to influence it if they address the sensitive area of child breeding.

Isn't it better to deal with it now?  No one is suggesting anyone be culled, just that we think for the future about how much arable land and living space there is and how many people the Earth can sustain without us having to give up the conveniences, such as power and communications, that civilization has given us.

I once spoke to a fellow who said, "Who cares how many people are on the planet, scientists will figure out a way to feed us."  I wonder if he thought how much space we would be allotted and if there would be enough plants to recycle the carbon dioxide back into oxygen.  The trouble with a lot of people is that they are just not far sighted and only think of the now.

I am fortunate.  I was born into physically beautiful and natural surroundings and fell in love with this planet from the moment I could perceive.  I feel a need for trees, clean air and enough room to move.  I don't need to pay $250,000 to orbit the earth to look at it, while it's still blue from above.  I live here.  It is my father and my father and I respect it.  I can only pray it survives us intact.  I have a very real fear it will not and it is disgusting to look for an alternative place to inhabit if we can't care for the one we have.

END

 

MEN AND SHEDS.

 

There will come a time when your man reaches the age when he disappears into his shed all day and only emerges for sustenance.  It may happen when he's twenty-five, it may happen when he's forty or when he's sixty something.  Don't let it worry you.  Consider it this way: if he's in the shed and at least you see him at meal times, he's not found another woman to amuse him.  You may occasionally want to see him but at least you know when you can find him.

We don't need to live in one another's pockets when we commit to each other for life, but we all need our space and this is his.  Do not go in and try to rearrange it or touch his things.  This is his kingdom, his castle and a female no go zone.  It is only fair.  You may even find he is creating extraordinary things in his domain.  I know my man is.  He sure spends enough on equipment to create his masterpieces but at least I know where the money is going and see the sense of achievement on his features.  You may even get to see him grow in his craft.

Some men retire after busy working lives and have no idea of what to do with themselves.  I know women retire too but we are better at finding repetitive, useless household chores to do.  Men have overlooked these all their lives and I wish I could do the same.  Housework to me is not a sign of achievement.  If your man, therefore, finds a hobby in which to immerse himself in his domain then great because, for one thing, he won't be picking on your house keeping.

Being in his shed also allows him to retain a very important part of himself, which is his single, pre-committed self.  Every one, male and female alike, needs to keep a part of them that is just for them.  We are single entities who are born alone and die alone no matter who we connect up with on the journey and it is important to be comfortable in one's own company as well as to interact.

I pity men who live in apartments and whose only version of a shed is their parking garage, if they're lucky enough to have a lock up one.  Of course some flats have only on street parking.  I can't even begin to imagine what kind of man can cope without his own space in which to dream.  Going out all the time to find other ways to amuse oneself becomes very expensive.

Some suburbs have community Men's Sheds where the guys can get together, work and exchange expertise.  These places often have tools, both manual and electric, for the members to use.  It is interesting to note that there are no Women's Sheds, as yet, that I have heard of.

I am going to make a sexist statement here but I believe it is true and it is a facet of men that I admire:  men can channel and direct themselves to one task without anything disturbing their concentration.  Of course women can too but, I don't believe, quite to the same extent.  Try getting a woman to do this without thinking about other necessary things she should also attend to while men don't even let these considerations disturb the ether in which their brains exist.

I have a theory about this that I may have written about before.  I believe it became embedded in our genes through the historic behavior of the sexes.  Women became confined to certain tasks because they alone could get pregnant.  You can't go hunting in the latter stages of pregnancy and so hunting became, pretty much, the male's domain, while being confined to the hearth, gathering nuts, berries and watching the children, became the female's, whether she liked it or not.  Now hunting requires concentration.  The hunter sets his mind on his prey, stalks it and follows through with the kill.  He doesn't stop to gather berries or admire a pretty sunset or contemplate the meaning of life, he just does what he has to do.

Women got to multi-task, even though those tasks were boring and demanding.  Keeping your eye on children requires considerable multi-tasking as you attempt to do the other things you need to do.  Programming women's minds to do one task alone just wasn't going to happen but, I believe, it did to men's.  I think we should just enjoy and admire the differences that have developed, after all, variety is the spice of life.

The other good thing about sheds is this:  the initial passion for sex will gradually diminish no matter how loving a couple is and, in order for their commitment to survive, they must find other outlets, both singular and apart, to remain interesting to one another.  If one finds an outlet and the other doesn't, this is sad.  Not all of us have it within us to find an interest or hobby.  My mother used to like entertaining and brought people to the house.  My father was an artist and worked alone but benefited from my mother's social interactions because he met new people through her.

Sadly my mother developed dementia and could not longer pursue her greatest passion, which was to read and, eventually she could no longer entertain, although her friends did not desert her.  During the day, however, she was at a loss as to what to do.  During this time my father never lost pace in his studio cum shed and phoned me (as I lived interstate) concerned with how to alleviate my mother's growing depression.  He was such a clever man but he didn't see what he needed to do.  I had to tell him to put one or two days per week aside just to give my mother something to do: take her for a drive, a picnic, see a movie.

He then learned how to cook for her and do all those little things that had always been her domain and he enjoyed it.  He would even phone me and share recipes he had discovered.  Her version of the shed, the home, finally became his but he didn't resent it.

I remember my father's fabulous ability to direct himself to one task to the exclusion of all else and so wish I had his passion but he didn't fail my mother when he was called upon to partially relinquish it to take care of her.

If your man is happy in his shed, even if you only see him a few times a day, leave him be.  At least he'll still be there for you in a crunch and you for him.  You don't need to be glued to each other to be in a happy relationship; you just need to know the other is there and that you care about each other.

END

PRESCRIPTION DRUG DEPENDANCY AND PARENTS: why they are similar.

 

When you are frightened but have reached adulthood, are so far into it in fact that you have grey hairs and your parents have died long ago, who do you turn to allay your fears?

The wonderful thing about being a fortunate child is being able to rely on adults who love you without question.  Life never really replaces the feeling of security you felt at that time.  They are there for you, nurse you when you are sick, feed you and provide you with shelter.  You learn to trust them implicitly and don't even think to question that trust, because they looked after you from the beginning when you were a helpless blob of no earthly use.  There are many children now and throughout history, who have not known such parents and that sense of support and I truly feel for them.

I don't think I've ever really recovered from my childhood because I was one of the fortunate ones.   When I was ill last year and later when I convalesced and thought I would never get better, I turned to my son for support and to unburden myself of my emotional fears.  He may be forty plus but I didn't feel right about this as it's meant to be the other way around.  In fact I felt pathetic no matter how good he was about it, but deep down inside me there was this vacuum where I was flailing about seeking something or someone because I was frightened and still am.  I realized pretty quickly what that vacuum was;  it was my parents who were long gone and the feeling of safety they gave me.

Even if harm came to me as a child, I had unwavering trust in them.  Whatever happened I knew they were there for me and would do everything they could to help me.  Now, without them here to be my advocates, I have to do it all myself and have for decades even when they were still around for emotional support, which is vital when you are ill.  You need it to help assuage your fears, for advice and just to know someone cares.

One problem is that the older you become the more redundant you also become.  If I were to die tomorrow my son and those who love me (and there aren't many of those around any more) would be sad but not devastated.  My son has children now and I am on the downward side of the peak of my life.  I hope I have many more years but it's me who cares most about that now.  There are no parents left whose hearts would break and my son and his family would mourn a bit while getting on with living.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect for a minute to be mourned the way a parent mourns their child, that is the nature of things.  It's just hard becoming redundant when I still have the heart of a child, when I have been cossetted and treasured, when I still want to hold onto life in the same way.  I am not redundant to myself.

My last year has been peculiar to say the least.  When I had Pneumonia everyone was concerned even over the two months it took to recover from it.  Before that, however, I was weaning from a long term antidepressant and still am ten months on.  The illness came smack in the middle of this and it was hard to tell if it was Pneumonia still making me sick weeks after I left hospital or weaning from the antidepressant.  It's now six months since my illness and I still have bad days as I continue to wean but it's so hard to tell which is causing me to feel bad.

For the other people in my life, putting up with a person who is distressed for ten months has become tiresome.  I do my best to cover it but it's not easy coming off an antidepressant and it also, obviously, has psychological repercussions.  I don't feel the latter have been too bad compared to the physical but I do know I feel hopelessly overwhelmed.  I also know I am irritating those closest to me.

I feel like a complete wimp.  I have always been stalwart and strong during my illnesses, one quite severe, and always felt I would bounce back.  This behavior is uncharacteristic of me but now, at the age of sixty-eight, I really feel the need of my parents.  Perhaps the absence of the antidepressants has affected me more than I realize.  The thing about being old is that you become the senior.  There's really no one much more senior who is up to the task of being the mentor, the wise one.  The older most people get the more they need care and support so we have to turn to the younger ones who have their hands full of children and making a living.

Hence, while I'm still able, I have to paddle my own canoe through these rough waters and tell my troubles to my much younger doctor.  While what I say next may seem arrogant it is true.  I am highly intelligent.  I spend a lot of time trying to understand what is happening to me and to read everything I can on the Internet about withdrawal.  There really isn't enough out there but what I do have is experience of prescription medicines and how badly the wrong type of antidepressant can kick you about.  My doctor's solution to improve my energy again is to put me on another antidepressant when I'm fully off this one (which was discontinued).

Do you really think I want to go through experimenting with new ones to find the right one?  The wrong ones can really have very adverse effects.  I know I've been there.  I don't want to feel worse before I feel better but I believe my energy won't come back for a long time after thirty years on this drug without resorting to another antidepressant.  I think this is the reason I feel such a need for my parents again; it is because I've been reduced to the helplessness of a child in a no win situation.

Every time I lower the old antidepressant the teeniest bit from its already teeny amount, I feel physically lousy again.  I will have to be fully without the drug for at least two weeks before I can even go through the hell of experimenting with a new one.  Ten months into this horror I don't know why I'm as sane as I still am.  The rest of the world is dealing with Covid-19 while I am dealing with this while trying to avoid the virus as well.

I know I'm far from the only person going through their own particular brand of hell this year.  Covid-19 has compounded everybody's problems.  When I think about it, it has also thrown other major problems into the background because everything pales into insignificance in the face of it.  But we all still have our individual, important problems in the midst of this all consuming one.  It's a real shame we can't all give one another a great big hug and weep together as if we were each other's parents.

I am beginning to see the similarity now between my parents and my antidepressant.  I relied on them both and they bolstered me both psychologically and physically.  I needed both my parents and the pills a lot more than I realized and, while I will always miss my parents, I would really love to be free of my reliance on this drug, which I didn't think I needed anymore until I tried to get out of its grip.

END 

AUSTRALIA DAY: One nation, many peoples.

 

It's Australia Day again and once more we must brace for those who rail against celebrating it and try to spoil it for the rest.

Yes, I agree that the twenty sixth of January, 1788 was invasion day for indigenous Australians.  Eighteen years earlier, on April 29, 1770, Captain Cook had landed at Botany Bay where he and his crew looked around a bit then sailed north, looked around a bit more, foundered on a reef, repaired their ship, sailed north again and, before waving a not too impressed farewell to Terra Australis on 22nd August, 1770 planted the Union Jack on Possession Island, not even the mainland, to lay claim to it and the mainland in case Britain could come up with a viable use for it.

Indigenous Australians were then left in peace for another eighteen years while Britain made up its mind about what to do with such an apparently barren, far flung continent.  It seemed a shame to waste it but it didn't really provide them with the military tactical presence it needed to guard its trading routes and holdings in the Dutch East Indies.  Finally, however, some bright spark at the higher levels of the Public Service thought it might be a dandy place for a penal colony.

Never before did a place with such an inauspicious start become such an equitable, fair and successful country.  In the beginning and for a long time afterwards the true Australians were not treated at all well, to the extent that there are actually no original Tasmanian aboriginals left.  We can assume that not all settlers treated the indigenous people badly as not everyone is a raging, imperialist racist.  There are always fair minded people but, in general, indigenous Australians were considered, as were most people of colour around the world in the British Empire, to be not quite human.  Some proved themselves useful to the invaders, others were mistreated and still others slaughtered wholesale.

Let us keep in mind that it wasn't just the Aboriginals that the British authorities treated badly.  They treated their white prisoners appallingly as well.  Some governors of the penal colonies were better than others but the authorities in Britain, not caring for the encouraging letters sent home by released prisoners, wanted to discourage people from committing crimes so they too could, after serving their sentence, start a new life in a sunny, wide land of opportunity so they sent increasingly sadistic governors there.

This nation was once a set of scattered penal settlements run, basically, by upper level Public Servants who couldn't make the grade in Britain.  No wonder they were ill tempered.  Finally the colonies began to become self-sufficient, nay, to flourish and become self governing.  Indeed they no longer wanted to be tarred with the brush of being penal colonies and, on 10th January, 1868 the last boatload of prisoners arrived.

On January 1, 1901 Australia was federated and became a single, self governing nation but it wasn't until 1962 that indigenous Australians were allowed to vote and it wasn't until 1976 that Aboriginal Land Rights came into effect.

The situation was inequitable in the extreme but, over time, the invaders gained maturity and realized their many mistakes in the treatment of indigenous Australians and have been rectifying those mistakes and will continue to do so.  Surely now is the time to unite as the single people we should be.

There isn't a country on Earth, save New Zealand, that has not been overrun, invaded or conquered and, in New Zealand's case, it was simply because it had no human inhabitants when the Maoris settled there.  The land that is now Australia is one of the more recent cases of foreign incursion and, perhaps, that it why its indigenous inhabitants aren't ready to let go of their anger and who can blame them?

It must be considered that there is no way that the continent, would have remained undiscovered as technology advanced and transports became faster, mankind discovered how to fly and even reach for the stars.  A worse nation than Britain may have claimed Australia.  It is, I believe, fair to say that two hundred and fifty years ago, with the stiff competition in trade, discovering new territories and warring between themselves, the countries of the northern hemisphere were not kind to each other, let alone the peoples they discovered in these lands and who didn't have to ability to fend off incursions by technologically advanced invaders who viewed them as uncivilized and backward.  Slavery and abuse of these peoples was rampant and continued even after slavery was abolished by the British in 1833, the French in 1794 and the USA in 1865.  Despite this indigenous Australians were used as unpaid labour in some industries until 1960.

It would be a rare nation that is comprised of just one race of people.  I can't think of one.  Since mankind began its journey out of Africa millennia ago and some settled in Europe, others in Asia and still others in the Americas, certain racial characteristics developed.  As continents shifted and weather patterns changed people have had to change locations to find food and that often meant invading settled territories.  The races that had developed started to mix it up with other ones and so it has continued.

I have always thought it is amazing that, until now, there have remained at least four distinct races.  I will use the Wikipedia definition to name them: Caucasoid (White), Mongoloid (Oriental/Amerindian), Negroid (Black), and Australoid (Australian Aborigine and Papuan).  One definition also includes Bushmen/Hottentots.  I believe that over the next couple of centuries, thanks to global travel and the greater enlightenment of human beings, the lines between the different races will blur significantly due to intermixing.

I have watched Australia change since I was born in 1952 from a majority white country to a multi-racial one.  I admit that lately I think that this has been going on too fast.  My reason for this is not racist but culturalist, if there is such a word.  Australia has developed an identity in the two hundred and fifty years since white settlement.  It is, apart from its past treatment of Aborigines that it is now very aware was wrong, a fair minded and equitable country.  I have watched a generation of Asian (Chinese) grow up here and delighted in how Australian they have become as have the Indians.  I am, however, perturbed when I see Arab women here clad in burkas.  I shudder at the suppression of women and am not too sure if those of an Arabic and Islamist background will take up our egalitarian attitude.  Frankly, if they don't, I'd rather they leave.  When people emigrate here they fill in a long form to ensure they will conform to Australian society, but will they?

When I worked in the taxi industry I saw young, male Indian and Pakistanis deluge the industry.  They were not immigrants but aspired to be and many were dirty in their habits and misogynist to boot, although fine looking as well as pleasant as people.  If they were to be allowed to live here permanently, I hope they would learn that certain behaviours are not welcome.  These things concern me.  Immigration must not allow a culture that has developed to be overwhelmed by those with different attitudes, it's as simple as that and I think that's why a lot of Australians are feeling the government needs to slow the rate at which it takes people in and give them time to adapt, rather than let their culture overwhelm ours.

So now the descendants of the first white settlers are feeling a bit like we're being invaded but it's only a matter of the rate at which that invasion takes place.  Australia has, thus far, benefited greatly from its multi-cultural mix as people bring the good aspects of their culture with them.  In the last thirty years the Asian immigrants have had an easier time assimilating than the Italian and Greeks immigrants of the fifties and onward.  I have had Italian and Greek people I know tell me how they were called 'wogs' at school and elsewhere and been appalled.  I didn't grow up in the kind of environment where that happened, lucky me, but I've heard it enough to know it was endemic Australia wide.

A nation is like an organism.  It is a living thing that evolves.  It is not a race of people but of like minded people of various races that have agreed on a way of life.  The white settlers who invaded and took this land from its original inhabitants have evolved to be more enlightened and decent and the Aborigines are an intrinsic and valuable part of this nation.  If the 26th January invasion hadn't happened, another one would have but apart from its original horrors, it has brought benefits.  The Aborigines might have been happy to continue living as hunter gatherers with no fixed dwellings into the present day while the rest of the world developed all manner of technology and advances in medicine.  They were in harmony with the land and may, had they been able to see the future and all the amazing inventions mankind had wrought, either have wanted them or rejected them.  That we'll never know as there was nothing wrong with a life where they had all they could eat and a stunning, if harsh, environment all to themselves.  But it wasn't going to stay the same, was it?  Never could.

If the Aborigines want the date of Australia Day changed, what date would they choose in its stead?  It doesn't change anything.  I hope they will accept that the descendants of the invaders and those of the invaded are all Australians now.  We have moved too far from the past to be disparate.   I am not responsible for the sins of my forebears but I am grateful to them or I wouldn't exist.  I am part Scot, Irish and English and that wouldn't have happened if all those elements of my make up had stayed put on their little island in the northern hemisphere.  There are plenty of mixed race Aborigines now too who wouldn't exist except for the invasion. 

I will admit to one thing that bothers me about those who want the date of Australia Day changed.  There is a victim mentality involved in this and one cannot remain a victim and still move forward.  Perhaps the best idea is to create a day for indigenous Australians that will acknowledge their grievance over the invasion but I suggest they also celebrate 26th January to celebrate they are part of a great nation that has grown up to be a fair minded and accepting country.

END 

CASHING IN OUR FREEDOM: the push to make us a cash free society.

 

Some people believe that Covid-19 vaccines will come with a tiny computer chip in it that will enable governments to control our minds.  Really, I know such people.  To them I say: no one knows fully how the brain works so how will a chip make us compliant?  Secondly, governments can't agree with one another, so how will they come up with this plan for world domination?

It is amazing what people believe but God bless their imaginations and, certainly, we do have to watch out for subversive behaviour and attempts to control us.  Why, therefore, are people not up in arms when both authorities and commercial institutions want to trial a cashless society?  Personally the mind boggles at this real attempt at control.

If your money is controlled electronically you can be, at the government, tax office or credit company's whim, cut off from your money.  You may have cash under your mattress or in a safe deposit box but, if you can't use it as legal tender, what's the point?

Did you speak up when the idea of a cashless society was put forward?  I bet you didn't.  I lost my job to Covid ten months ago and that was because the work simply dried up.  Nonetheless at every opportunity I warned my customers of allowing the government and banks to push us to a cashless society.  They didn't seem too perturbed, which worried me.  Australians are a wonderful bunch but, having grown up in a fairly ideal and fair society, they don't see danger coming until it hits them in the face.

I remember almost thirty years ago, when my parents were living in Perth, WA, the Federal government pushed for an identity card.  Everyone, including my parents, was appalled.  They even joined the march through the streets of Perth to object to the card.  I couldn't really see the problem with it because the government already knew everything about everybody anyway.  I mean people had driver's licenses, tax numbers, Medicare cards and such.  This just didn't seem such a stretch to me but I admired my parents for standing up and asserting their objection peacefully and, thankfully, the government in Australia really does pay attention to numbers because they mean votes.  The identity card never did make it through Parliament after the strenuous objections.

These days I like online newspapers and their comments sections.  When a paper was hard copy, only a few people were literate and topical enough to have their letters to the Editor printed.  I know the Editors choose letters representing both sides of an argument because my father and grand-father were newspaper editors.  Of course I'm talking about unbiased media and you have to read between the lines, but most Australian newspapers are reasonable in the letters they print expressing readers' views.

Now back to why I like online papers.  When an article hits a nerve on a topical subject there can be over seven hundred online comments and that wasn't possible with hard copy.  The editors do peruse them to make sure they are not too inflammatory.  I know this as, occasionally, they don't print what I write and I have to amend my comment.  The sheer quantity of feedback is noted by government bodies and it gives them feedback on the way voters are thinking.  I've often seen our Queensland Premier reacting after a news item generated hundreds of comments and having to change the government's plan due to popular opinion.

Take for example this last week of January 11 to 18, 2021.  A quarantine hotel cleaner in Brisbane caught Covid.   The government addresses the populace through the media stating they don't know how she caught the new, more contagious strain, but they're working on finding out.  Hundreds of comments poured in following the online newspaper article, including one of mine, that the air-conditioning was likely to blame.  The news bulletin on television that night had the government agreeing it could be the air-conditioning or balcony contact.  But everyone was taken out of the hotel fast.  That's people power.  Why no one had thought of the air-conditioning, central and pumped throughout the rooms, defies understanding, but no one in authority apparently had.

I hope you see where I'm heading with this.  If you're not worried about becoming a cashless society, please think again and, if you decide it is a bad idea, please start to object peacefully, vocally, online and by discussing it with people you know so that they might also think about it too.  When a freedom is gone, it's gone and usually only violent rebellion can restore it.

The Internet, mass communication and the electronic ease of doing things is wonderful in so many ways but everything comes with a good and bad side.  In fact the better something is, the worse is its dark side.  This is the time to protect our freedoms.  The world moves so fast now, we may lose them before we have the time to do something about them.

END