Man vs Wild

I went for my afternoon constitution.I had seen, on Google maps, a park nearby; Norma Croker Park.Norma Croker was an athlete who came 4^th in the 200 metres at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. She was in the winning relay team for the 4x100m. In 1960 she was disqualified from that race but came 15^th in the long jump. She went to Brisbane State High School so they have made a park for her in her honour.I didn’t have a map, just a rough idea of where it was. I was becoming a seasoned bush trekker now and this time remembered to take water with me. I set off down the road and soon came to where I thought there would be an entrance. The first thing I noticed was a sign...The helicopter I had seen yesterday was obviously not from International Care Home Search and Rescue...it was hunting Fire Ants!It stopped me in my tracks.How big are these ants if they are being hunted by helicopter? Where has Will brought me? I definitely think that when you arrive here they should show you a video at the airport and then you can decide if you want to stay or catch the next plane back. I thought King Browns were bad enough but now there were Fire Ants to deal with!I nearly set off back but then thought ‘What would Jenny Agutter do?’ So I carried on. The path was lovely, a clean, wide concrete strip. I spotted a lovely blue kingfisher sitting on a telephone wire. I paused to take a picture......then carried on. Suddenly the concrete path came to an end but a dirt path carried on. It dipped slightly into a gully with a stream. There were logs and piles of rocks and over hanging trees. It looked like typical jungle to me. I stopped again and gulped. Images of lurking King Browns and giant Fire Ants hiding behind trees played through my mind. I began to wonder how I was ever going to cope when we finally got to Frogknot!

Jungle!

The ‘Jenny’ in me urged me on and I crept cautiously forward. Once out of the gully I stopped again. The path stretched forward through knee high grass! Poor Norma Croker! Her park is a death trap! I looked down at my white hairy legs sticking out below my shorts. They might as well have had neon signs flashing ‘Bite Me! Bite Me!’ attached

Would you walk down a path like this?!

‘Be brave’ said Jenny. So I carried on. It was hardly aerobic exercise at the speed I was going but my heart was certainly beating fast!I was startled by a black beer can lying by the path and then spotted what looked like a large spiky beetle in the middle of the track! I was relieved that it turned out to be just a leaf.

It's not normal is it?

I came across a tree that looked like it was covered with bloody claws!I carried further on and came to a bridge over another stream that flowed down into Oxley Creek. There was a rusty shopping trolley lying in it. How familiar? It was just like home! I felt a bit better after that so continued on.I came upon a small wooded hillside and the path sloped up. So up I went. The grass here looked as if it had been mowed but I did not drop my guard. You can’t trust those King Browns.Suddenly I came to a road. That was it! That’s all you get for coming 15^th in the long jump! A gully, long grass, a spiky leaf, trees with bloody claws and a rusty shopping trolley. I’d be livid if I was Norma Croker! In fact I thought about writing to ‘A Current Affair’. They would definitely get another half an hour of awful television from this!I would have stood there outraged for a bit longer but I realised I had to head back. So, I girded up my magnificent loins and turned round, down the wooded slope, past the rusty shopping trolley and over the bridge, past the bloody claw tree, over the spiky leaf, through the knee high grass and across the gully, back to the concrete path. When I reached the main road I just thought I would see what lay over the bridge that the road went over....I decided it looked like the ‘wong’ way to me (sic) so headed back home through the now familiar wilds of the Archerfield Industrial Estate.I walked in the door and exclaimed,“I survived!”Dulcie was sat at the table. She looked at me as if I was mad and then blew out a cloud of smoke!

Breaking news!

The telly, having spent 24 hours in Malaga, Spain is presently cruising the Mediterranean, passing Algiers on its way to Suez!

Dulcie and Son's Partner Cleaning Company Inc

Today we tackled the windows.

Dulcie cleaned out the runners along which the windows slide and I cleaned the windows. You can lift out the sliding window to clean both sides. I couldn’t keep up with her and she finished her job before I did. At one point I had lifted a window out and was wiping one side of it. Quite a bit of collected dust fell off on to the lino so Dulcie brought me the dustpan and brush. I was just sweeping it up with Dulcie monitoring me when the flippin’ window fell forward and crashed into the side of my head. Ouch!

I put some washing on downstairs and later when it was ready I was on my way down to hang it out but checked by the sink to see if there was any recycling. The recycling bin is under the house and Dulcie puts anything for that bin by the sink. There was an empty box and a bleach bottle. I picked the bleach bottle up and there was still some liquid in the bottom so put it back. I put the box in the bin and then got the washing out of the washer and hung it up outside. I was just putting the washing basket back under the house when the bleach bottle came flying down from up above and landed with a thump at the bottom of the steps! It did make me laugh!

Today I took Will to work and brought Roxy back. I intended to go and get some shopping later and said I’d get Dulcie and I a pie for lunch. I had to judge it just right because I had to have that pie on the table by 12.00 exactly. I went to the bank first and then to Woolworths. I don’t know if it is the same Woolworths we used to have in the UK but here Woolworths is a supermarket. I felt a bit strange walking in on my own because usually Will is with me. It was another solo aussie adventure!..Walkabout with a basket.

The girl on the till was chatty again.

“How are you today?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Keeping out of trouble?” she asked.

“Yes” I said. I was just not used to this. She took my short answers as a sign and shut up. I felt bad. I shall have to prepare myself next time.

The last stop was the pie shop. I asked for 2 chicken and veggie pies. The girl looked and said;

“Oh, we only seem to have one left.” I asked for a Pepper Steak one instead then added,

“And a vanilla slice, please.”

She put them into bags and then put them on the counter and leaned a bit closer and whispered

“I gave you an extra vanilla slice, darling.”

Perhaps she thought I looked under nourished. Perhaps my belly overhang was not up to the standard of her usual clientele. In any case it was very kind and if she gets bitten by a King Brown on the way home or startled to death by a dragon truck she can die happily in the knowledge that she did a good deed today.

The pie was on the table just before 12.00pm. We both enjoyed them and I shared a vanilla slice with Dulcie. I put the other in the fridge, for Will. Then again, I might not tell him and have it tomorrow myself!

A Day With Dulcie.

Will went off at 7.15 am this morning for his first day in his new job.Dulcie and I were home alone.We had a leisurely breakfast and pottered for a bit; I checked my emails, Dulcie had a smoke, before getting to work.Feeling a bit guilty that I am not contributing to our living expenses and having a serious addiction to Pepsi Max and coleslaw I decided that it would be a good idea while we are around to get at those high kitchen shelves that Dulcie cannot reach. I passed the knick-knacks down to her and she washed them while I wiped the shelves. Just like the aussie workmen in their high visibility green waistcoats, we had a few sit down drink (fag) breaks but were finished by about 11.00.It was very quiet. Not many cars passed by and strangely no light aircraft or helicopters passed over. At one point the blue faced honey eater flew onto the railings of the back steps and cheekily peered in at us. I went down to check the rain gauge and collect the junk mail from the post box. The rain gauge read 9mm. It seemed a lot to me but we worked out that Will had not emptied it the other day when he checked and there was 7mm then, so there must have been 2mm overnight. Never has my life been so meteorological! We get constant temperature updates courtesy of the radio or weather channel.We sat and quietly flicked through the junk mail and commented on the price of meat. Pepsi Max was on special at the Super IGA! I made a mental note of that.At 12.00pm exactly we got our lunch. Like a precision team we laid out sliced corned meat, bread, butter, lettuce, beetroot, sliced tomato and coleslaw...of course, then sat down to make our sandwiches. Dulcie had to get up because we had forgotten the pickle! How could we forget the pickle? We never forget the pickle!We munched silently and then Dulcie remarked how quiet it was. ‘Yes’ I said.‘Not many cars about’ she said ‘and we don’t get many visitors’. ‘No’ I said.As if to prove her wrong we heard footsteps on the steps outside and Joanne, the angel from next door appeared at the screen door. She brought some magazines and chatted for awhile and asked if Dulcie needed anything before heading off.Dulcie looked at the magazines.She read aloud from the front of one;‘This beautiful 5 year old girl used to be a boy!’ She looked up in disbelief and said,‘Good God! I have to read that!’She read for a bit and then shook her head and said ‘I just don’t understand it.’I didn’t feel much like getting into a discussion about infant transgenderism. It was 27 degrees! so I just crept over to the sink to wash up. She was up in flash to knock me away!‘Clear off! I’ll do that!’ she said.When it was done she went and sat on the end of the sofa near the open door to wait for the postman.I was beginning to get a feel for her daily routine.You can hear the ‘Postie’ coming as he rides a motorbike. He went up the other side of the street and we sat quietly and waited to hear him coming back down our side. As approached she leaned forward and I got up and peered out of the door next to her. He drove right past! I cannot tell you the disappointment of that moment. It was pure rejection!It was all becoming a little too much so I decided to go walkabout!I put my cap on and rubbed some sun cream on a few vulnerable bits and headed out into the blazing sun. I felt quite brave without my David Gulpilil (Will) but Heck! I was Jenny Agutter and British through and through! It’s good to get to know your neighbourhood and get some exercise at the same time. I chose the wilds of the Archerfield Industrial Estate! I could tell they expect very few pedestrians to pass that way as they had let the trees grow across the footpath. I passed the Airport Cafe and noticed an amusing statue outside. It looked like a typical old wild west prospector complete with floppy hat and long white beard. It made me chuckle as it looked so out of place. I was just thinking how it felt a bit like looking at those pictures where the eyes follow you around the room when I suddenly realised it wasn’t a statue at all and it was actually following me with its eyes! Yikes! I quickly looked away as I had been staring at him for far longer than was comfortable. I hurried past.

A view of the city of Brisbane looking across Archerfield Airport.

The ‘Postie’ pulled into an industrial unit just ahead of me. I fought the urge to give him the finger. I was still not over the feeling of rejection!I checked behind me. Good! The prospector was not coming after me.I heard a raucous call in a bush nearby and peered in. It was a blue faced honey eater! Was it stalking me? They might be beautiful to look at but they can’t sing for macadamia nuts!All the local wildlife seemed to be wearing high visibility green waistcoats. I felt quite out of place and wished I’d been the person who had invented them.If a King Brown doesn’t get me then a monster truck probably will. They sneak up on you and then ROAR like a dragon as they pass by. Terrifying!

A bit over the top eh?

I only passed one other person wandering aimlessly but she looked like she had slipped out unseen from a care home.I tell a lie. I did see someone else, another man walking into another snack bar. He was a very well built chap who had the biggest belly overhanging his tiny blue shorts. Heck! Not even Tom Cruise would have been able to negotiate that overhang in Mission Impossible 5, had he been that way inclined...(which my lawyer points out that I must say clearly, he is not).It made me speed up a bit to burn extra calories.I was just starting to feel a bit lost and was considering turning back when I recognised where I was and so kept on going. There was a helicopter flying backwards and forwards ahead over some bush land. I wondered if they were searching for someone who had slipped out unseen from a care home.

International Care Home Search and Rescue!

I started to feel the heat and my throat was dry. I didn't need any green frog to tell me the weather. I am a meteorological expert now and I could tell it was hot! I had forgotten to bring water with me. It could have been a fatal mistake but luckily as I was searching for a billabong I found Celtis St and crawled up the steps gasping ‘Pepsi Maaaaaaax!’All thoughts of ‘Tom Cruise Belly Man’ forgotten I stuffed down three of Dulcie’s jam drop biscuits as well!

More Musings!

I must say I have been very impressed with the general good humour of working people we have come in to contact with here in Brisbane. The woman at the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (Don’t ask me who is in charge of the minor ones!) was very helpful when we went to register the car in our names. She was very jolly and Will remarked ‘This looks like a fun place to work!’ She agreed it was but added, “it depends on who your supervisor is at the time though.”

The woman at the RACQ (like our AA) was also very friendly and helpful when we went to join. Even the girl on the till at our local supermarket seemed happy in her job and chatted merrily to us while packing our bags. I think it must be something to do with the sun or perhaps everyone is just living life to the full now because tomorrow they might be bitten by a snake!

Practically everyone I meet seems to have a snake or spider encounter they are willing to share and it is not always because I ask them to. It just slips out in general conversation. Will’s cousin has a snake that lives over her bed (!), a friend we were chatting to at the weekend knew someone whose ceiling was covered with red back spiders and Dulcie says she killed a snake everyday when she was  younger...with a shovel! Considering all this it seems quite amazing that I have not yet bumped into any myself. Heck! It’s not even that I’m not looking. I am constantly checking...everywhere!

Changing the subject to more pleasant creatures....the koala is back in Will’s sister Wendy’s garden. Fancy having a koala living in your garden? She has wallabies and possums too. Hopefully I will get to see them all soon.  

It is quite noisy here. We are right next door to Archerfield Airport. In the past when we have stayed here we have just noticed the whining of small planes but this year there are far more helicopters. Some sound like they are about to land on the roof! The landing flight path for the main Brisbane airport must have changed too because they pass over all through the night...and then there is the screaming of the ‘Hoons’!

We probably have ‘Hoons’ in the UK but I have never heard them as you do here. ‘Hoons’ are young lads (or girls...let’s not be sexist) who must have more money than sense as they rev up their cars whilst pulling on the handbrake causing the tyres to squeal and the car to spin round in perfect circles. You hear them at night when the roads are quieter and then come across their burnt black rubber markings in the middle of a major road junction the next day. Heck! They must go through some tyres!

It’s a wonder with all this noise that we get to hear any wildlife...but we do. At night I can now imagine what it must be like to have tinnitus with the constant background whistle of the cicadas. Then there is the loud ‘tutting’ of geckos or the sound of fruit bats, which to me sound a bit like miniature hyenas with squeaky voices. I've heard lots of them but not seen any yet. Last night there was a new sound...like someone playing a guiro in a tunnel...Will said ‘it’s a green tree frog in the downpipe. It means it’s going to rain’. I never know whether to take him seriously or not but, blow me over with a helicopter down draft, it did flippin’ rain!