Renovation Bum
There is a book by Kingsley Amis in which he lists the horrors of arriving at an airport:
Disembarkation bum
Customs queue bum
Luggage collection bum
Taxi negotiating bum, etc. etc.

Over the years Right Foot and I have adapted the Bum Recital to suit a range of unpleasant situations, most recently Kitchen Renovation Bum. Carpenters who put up a cupboard, leave the other six in a pile and don’t come back for weeks, incompetent plumbers who charge a fortune, and the biggest Bum of all, the painter who works for an hour, then announces cheerily that he is going into hospital for heart surgery the next day but hopes to be back soon! I may need some heart surgery myself.

Due Recognition
It had been a couple of years since we’d won a Trivia Night and I’d had to forgo the Mary Owen Dinner to attend this one but it was in aid of a very, very good cause and I do so love proper general knowledge questions rather than MTV videos and the other crapola that feature at many triv nights now. The downside of Friday night at the Hawthorn Town Hall was the appalling food but I’ll get over that. What’s really bothering me is the lack of acknowledgement for our performance. Oh sure the MC announced that Table 9 had won but we wanted the world to know that we were representing our University and stuff like that. So just in case anyone’s interested let it be known that Table 9 was occupied by seven librarians from Swinburne, one from La Trobe and one from Holmesglen TAFE. So there.

Grand Footling Update
Week 15 and Grumpy Girl’s grumpalino is developing finger nails and prints. Wow.

Eurothrash

For 11 years we have lived in an apartment building with communal laundries. For me, this has meant saving every dollar coin that came my way to use in the washers and dryers. It has meant going down two flights of stairs to look for a vacant machine, load the washer, unload the washer, load the dryer, unload the dryer, engage in barneys with my neighbours and stave off passing snowdroppers. It has meant engraving my name on four dozen pegs.

So the piece-de-resistance of our renovation was to be the installation of a washer dryer in the new Bunnings kitchen, Pommie style.
Such things are common in Europe and we finished up with an Italian number with the brand name Thor. For weeks we have been amusing each other with Thor jokes: “I’m thaw but I’m not thorry” and “I’m thaw too but I’m thatisfied”.

But the Thor has had the last laugh. The first plumber we contracted to install it took one look and fled the scene. The second did a bodgy job and when we attempted our first wash the kitchen cupboard filled up with water. The Thor’s next trick was to dance boisterously around the kitchen to its own bump and grind musical accompaniment.

At our next laundering attempt we both stood peering nervously at the Thor which sneered back, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

We were right to be afraid. Euro washing machines have very long cycles. The German one we had in Kuching took days to agitate, rinse and spin. The Thor wash cycle lasts 90 minutes. Our difficulty was figuring out how to get it to move on to the drying cycle and our efforts only succeeded in putting our clothes through the wash three times. That’s three times 90 minutes. At 1.30 a.m. the Thor was still boogeying around the room, the clothes were turning into mulch and Right Foot and I, bleary-eyed and anxious, were huddled in the bedroom awaiting the knock of the angry upstairs neighbour.

We were thaw all right but definitely not thatisfied.

The best news I have ever received in my whole life
After years and years of hoping and despairing, a miracle has occurred and Right Foot and I find that by the end of October, all going well, we will be Grand Feet! Yes it’s true – Grumpy Girl and Thieu (Guess what that’s short for) are having a baby (actually a Capuchin monkey if the photo is anything to go by).

We have been concealing this secret for five weeks now waiting for various genetic tests to be completed but Grumpy has finally given us the go-ahead to broadcast it far and wide.
So to the tune of “My baby just cares for me” please sing along with me:
Our baby’s got arms and legs
That’s what Dr. Skinner says
Our baby’s got eyebrows too
They’re all there on the ultrasound scan
Grumpy Girl is going to make me a gran!

Now at last Right Foot can make a start on all those wooden toys he has collected dozens of books about: Noah’s Ark, The Little Red Engine, A Victorian Dolls’ House and, above all, a stable full of rocking horses. Standby for ‘Rocking Horse Rampant with Flared Nostrils and Ears Erect’, Rocking Horse Couchant with Sable Bridle, Ermine-spotted Saddle and Tail Argent, and Rocking Horse a Little Wobbly, with Dodgy Paint Job but it’s only a Prototype.

My handcraft skills are at a much more rudimentary level so I have sought help from the ABC’s Play School website which has a long list of things to make that are within my capabilities, i.e. that of a preschool child. I think I’ll start with 'Toy Wok' (put a doll and a teddy bear into a wok and pretend it’s a space craft). Easy peasey.

Two weddings and a funeral (with another one to come)

Who WAS that insufferable American with the Kermit voice who presumed to translate the Latin mass and talked over the inspirational music at the Pope's funeral? How crass, rude and arrogant!
We couldn't get a descent picture on SBS so ended up listening to Ray Martin's inanities for a couple of hours. When Ray is the best thing going times are tough.

The rottweiler didn't look too bad in that first outfit but how about her teeth? Why wouldn't you get them fixed when you had the heir to the throne to foot the bill?

On the subject of 'The Bill' spunky June Acland married boring old Jim Carver on Saturday night in the latest episode of the ridiculous soap opera this once great show has become. Will we ever see real policing again? Bring back the scrotes and toe-rags PLEASE.

Bunnings men have taken over my place completely now. Roy Replacement for Peter who spat the dummy Plumber is, I hope, doing his best to make water come out of the tap at this very moment.
I have to keep escaping to nearby cinemas and have seen three movies in five days. On Sunday, all movied out and with Joe Carpenter firmly ensconced in the kitchen, I took Right Foot to the G to see the Hawks robbed of their only likely victory for the year. Right Foot does not know much about footy and asked a number of very elementary questions to the bemusement of the young woman sitting in front of us. "Which one is Spider?" "Who are the guys in orange?"
The high point was late in the third quarter when he asked, "Who is the one in the lime fluoro pixie shoes?" It was, of course, the great, high profile, former captain, Shane Crawford. General merriment for all within earshot.

On the other hand, the Richmond supporters were still wearing their bloody idiot tee-shirts. Ha!

Part two of the Great Renovation of 05 is underway - the installation of a Bunnings kitchen - which means a constant succession of tradesmen:
Andrew Apprentice Electrician
Peter Plumber
Joe Installer
Frank Tiler
Aldo Not Sure What He Does But Seems To Be Indispensible And Will Have To Be Paid.

None of these guys much likes working on 50 year-old appartments. Peter Plumber was the first to spit the dummy. It was all too hard so he packed up his tools and went home, throwing the schedule into disarray and forcing Right Foot and me to camp in the dining room, boiling kettles and cooking toast on the floor. It's going to be another fun weekend. Grrrr.

Floored by a flawless floor.
The delays and cost blow-outs are over. We now have an ice-rink gleaming, ballet rehearsal room sheening, Tassie Oak MAGNIFICENT floor. It looks a million dollars which is roughly what it cost. You could eat your dinner off it and we may have to.

Desperate Housewife

There is no furniture in our appartment and the carpet has been torn up revealing the concrete beneath. And not your smooth grey, parking lot, could-draw-a-hoppy-on-it, kind of concrete. Instead there's a vulcanic, granitey Martian landscape, sulphuric and acne-pitted.

We have rented a neighbouring flat which, despite having no power or hot water and all our stuff piled high, is Ritz-like by comparison. We need so many candles to be able to read in bed that it looks like a black mass and I choke on the smoke when I blow them out. We do the dash between Number 22 and Number 24 in our PJs each morning to take a shower and forage for food.

But amidst the Hell that is renovation I think we finally turned the corner when Right Foot painted the Feature Wall in brilliant yellow. A glimmer of hope is flickering in my heart.

Twelfth day of Christmas yesterday so I took the tree down. It is a melancholy task.

We have only room for a small tree which does its best to showcase our gargantuan collection of gorgeous, gawdy, and oh-my-Gawd! decorations which include a few home madeys and many we have picked up on our travels. My favourite overseas decoration is the cross-eyed Vietnamese Santa and the most intriguing home made one is a glowy white ball with a Christmas wish in red glitter pen from Julianna and Glenn. Nobody knows who Julianna and Glenn are, why they are wishing us 'Merry Christmas' or, more likely, how we have managed to pilfer someone else's Christmas decoration. Just one of the many mysteries to ponder at Christmas time.

Christmas positives
(1) Trying on a skirt in Myer. They don't have my size so the sales assistant goes down to David Jones to get it for me. By the time she gets back I have settled on something else. She smiles.
(2) Buying a set of bowls and the young casual has no idea how to wrap them. She makes two or three attempts while I make helpful suggestions and the queue behind me grows and grows. I turn and offer a general apology. The woman immediately behind me says, 'Don't worry, it's fine.'and leans forward to massage my shoulders.

Christmas negatives
(1)'Bad Santa'. Very bad movie.
(2)Living on shortbread and champagne. Longing for tofu and beans.

Ah, the bliss of living in a post-ANZIIL symposium world. There is nothing more to mop up except accolades. The international students were brilliant. Joy to the world.

On Saturday night we cooked Chicken Kiev to empathise with Petite Soeur who is currently shooting a Dulux commercial in the Ukraine. Oi! Garlic! Butter! More Garlic! More Butter! No vampires came near us all evening. Yesterday Petite rang to wish me happy birthday and told us that the hotel, the weather and, above all, the food in the Ukraine are excruciatingly bad. No Chicken Kiev to be had anywhere.

We have started feeding the possums again after neglecting them for weeks while we travelled. I gave them strawberries last night to assuage my guilt. Paris has no possums but our appartment was in Rue d'Esquirol - Squirrel Street. We didn't see any squirrels but we did see beautiful beautiful Paris and all its wonders. And tasted the best ice-cream in the world, excellent crepes, leaden croque madame, tolerable wine and vastly inferior fruit and vegetables. I bought two jumpers in Gap and lots and lots of books, all written in French so requiring concentration.

We went to a revue at the Lido which looked a lot less sleezy than the Moulin Rouge from the outside. The show itself was colourful but rather lame: I think it had been toned down for the more conservative tourists. I have seen far racier things in Melbourne.

One Saturday we went to a marche aux puces (flea market) where Right Foot was in his element. He even found an aeroplane ashtray, at a price no Aussie could consider. Much of the stuff there would have been in an antique shop in Australia. When I could finally drag Right Foot away we went to Pere Lachaise Cemetery which was cold, wet and pretty miserable. We struggled with our map in the wind and rain, trying to find Abelard and Heloise, the original residents. Several people asked us for directions to Jim Morrison's grave. We eventually caught up with them all - Spaniards, Italians, Japanese, all way to young to remember Jim Morrison but making the pilgrimage all the same. The young Italian was quietly singing 'Light my fire'. Right Foot had only one question - 'who was Jim Morrison?'

Snapshots from Shanghai.
The photos are back and show us cavorting along the Bund on China's National Day(s) holiday, mixing with the locals all of us wearing party hats. Coming from 'Audalia' seemed to be acceptable. We didn't get the negative reaction we often did in Malaysia.

We visited the museum which was beautiful, restful and very interesting.Museums in Asia are unpredictable: this is one of the best.

I had no trouble fulfilling my desire of purchasing a hot pink cable-knit jumper - gorgeous! But our quest to buy coffee was a major undertaking, requiring a lot of miming and head-shaking. We eventually found a small, hard-to-open jar of bitter instant coffee in a locked cabinet in a supermarket. Everything else on offer was self service but the coffee was obviously too precious a commodity for that.

It was a shame to leave the wonderfully comfortable Broadway Mansions hotel, especially for an overnight flight with the capricious and, dare I say it, inscrutable China Eastern Airways. Never mind - at the other end was Paris and our first-ever landing on continental Europe. So very exciting.

Arriving at Charles de Gaulle airport in the early hours of next morning took the edge off the excitement. We had to wait for the Bureau de Change to open before we could buy a rail ticket to the Gare du Nord and on to our accommodation in Place d'Italie. Our early attempts at communicating in French were disappointing but at least we could read the signage.

Meanwhile back in the real world.
Last night on SBS a program on ancient Greece explained that the word 'symposium' originally only meant a 'drinking session'. WHY did they change it? Helping to organise the ANZIIL symposium is quite a responsibility. I don't think I'll ever be nervous again about writing and delivering a paper. That's for babies.

Today is that horrible first day back at work after a holiday when you are deluged by emails, questions, gossip and backlogs of urgent stuff as you grimly fight to rise above residual jetlag and depression.

Two weeks in France left me cursing my English and Irish forebears for emigrating and depriving me of my European birthright. How could they leave? How COULD they? Wonderful Paris: the culture, the architecture, the sophistication. Amazing Avignon with a view of the Papal Palace from our hotel window and where I danced along the 'pont' of song and story. Although Right Foot loved it all too he did not share my sense of loss, becoming more and more Aussie every day. And there ARE negatives. Here are some: the high carb diet of croissants for breakfast, baguettes for lunch and crepes for dinner makes you feel sluggy and spong. The fruit and vegetables are essentially compost and good coffee is hard to find. And as for tofu. Quand?
In Avignon we stayed at the Ibis which is pronounced 'Abyss' in French and the breakfasts were exactly that, abyssmal.
Worst of all, smoking is public places is still permitted and prevalent. As an American girl we met at the Arc de Triomphe said, "Like, didn't they get the memo?"

They smoke all over you in China too but the food is much better - beautiful vegetables, plenty of tofu and magnificent brekkies at the Novotel in Beijing and the Broadway mansions in Shanghai. It was National Day celebrations in Shanghai and life was one long street party. They have lovely museums and nice shops. The Bund was everything I hoped.
Beijing has nice places too but the museums are badly curated, poorly lit, dusty and dingy. It is also scam city and the harassment on the street is fierce. Our best day was a trip out to Simatai where you can walk on the only remaining authentic section of the Great Wall. It was exhilarating and hugely satisfying.

And now we're back in little old Melbourne which is OK I suppose. At least the smokers have to stay outside in the cold, tee hee hee.

This morning Right Foot and I withdrew all our money from our running away account. We have done quite a bit of running away over the last few years and there was only $164 left but we hope this is enough for a Supreme de Volaille and a Crepe Suzette which we have been hanging for since 1968.
We have also voted in the federal election, packed the vegemite and a selection of native flora which I suspect will not get past the first customs officer who sees it and certainly no where near its intended destination, the Australian memorial at Villers Bretonneux. A lady in the tourist office in Peterborough, South Australia has sent over several Glad resealable sandwich bags containing sprays from indigenous shrubs so Right Foot can leave them in memory of his great uncle, a 19 year-old Peterborough local who was killed at the Somme in 1915. I hope these tributes don't end up in a bin along with a collection of putrid salamis, raw cheeses and ostriche feathers. The kind lady deserves more, so does Right Foot and so, especially, does great uncle David.

Two more sleeps and Right Foot and I are off to Shanghai, France and Beijing in that order. I am very excited, never having been to Continental Europe before. But before we get there I'll see Shanghai in all its Last Emperor glory (I hope). We are flying with Dodgy Air and they are even more obsessive about reconfirming flights than I am. We arrive on National Day, a major public holiday, so are expecting chaos. My Mandarin teacher has written down the address of the hotel in Chinese characters for me so that's gotta help doesn't it?

My last civic duty before I go is attending tonight's graduation ceremony, wearing my highest heels so I don't trip over my trailing gown, and with my mortar board rammed down over my eyebrows to prevent its slipping off. I don't do costuming-up well.

After months of "Yes I will, no I won't" I posted my cheque for Membership of the MCC and am now awaiting the arrival of a shiny medallion or something. I wrote the cheque out weeks ago and twice walked to the postbox and came home with it still in my hand. After 20 years on the waiting list I couldn't decide whether I really wanted to join up but now the deed is done. It was the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony that made me decide.
Soon I can start dining with the nobs and frocking up for the footy. I wonder if I ever will.

Matt is back so Grumpy Girl has moved out leaving a very small footprint and a beautiful box of Belgian chocolates (and I don't mean those overly sweet shell numbers). She was an exemplary guest and we miss her company.

It is only six weeks before we are scheduled to make another attempt to see Shanghai and I am wondering what could go wrong this time. Not 'til I am strolling along the Bund will I really believe I'm going.

Petite Soeur is off to Bora Bora early next week to film a glam advertisement. I never get sent to places like that for work. Only places like Glasgow.

Grumpy Girl has been back from Europe for a week now and is staying with us. She's great company: so interesting to talk to and so helpful too. She cooks for me, vacuum cleans for me, wears my clothes for me.
GG sets a fine example for anyone trying to live a healthy life. She walks to work, St Kilda to Collingwood, every day and never a morceau of unhealthy tucker crosses her lips. Last night she had dinner with a friend so we took the oppportunity to get meated up. Roast beef. Very good. A bod can only take so much tofu.

One of my dad's favourite sayings was, "There's no prizes for second". Only winning was good enough. He was a keen tennis player and when he moved his young family to the outer eastern suburbs in 1953 the first thing he did was establish a tennis club. He was president for eight years and became the club's first life member. In 2003, a year after Dad died, the club celebrated its 50th anniversary. At the anniversary dinner someone suggested selling the naming rights to each of the six courts. Family members were slack and it was an anonymous donor who paid for one of the courts to be named after Dad. We were touched but wondered how he would feel about having his name on court number 2. No prizes for second. But at the ceremony on Sunday the numbers were taken off and the names unveiled. Dad's court is in the middle of the three at the front - Centre Court. He would have loved it.

We got a call from Grumpy Girl in Rome last night - so wonderful to hear her voice. I hope I get to Italy one day - and all the other places. I've bought a French phrase book in preparation for our trip in October and have found it very different form the phrase books I remember. There is nothing at all to help me should my postillion be struck by lightening: instead there are phrases for purchasing le morning-after pill and dealing with other modern dilemmas faced by travellers.

I started Mandarin classes yesterday and hope that I will be able to ask the taxi driver in Shanghai to take me to the Novotel which should impress him mightily.

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After 20 and a half years on the waiting list at the Melbourne Cricket Club I have been offered full membership. But now I am wondering if I will take it up. I am able to take up to four guests along. I always went to sporting events with my dad and my eldest sister but Dad is now dead and Maureen lives in the country.

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Two of the medications I take are not on the PBS so I have to pay heaps for a private prescription. The woman in the pharmacy is always very sympathetic. Her mum had been taking one of them too but she died recently and I inherited them. At the handover the pharmacy assistant and I both got rather teary in the middle of the shop. The next time I saw her she piled me up with another batch of supplements she found at her mum's. We teared up again. Now I am hesitant to go in again - what else will have emerged from mum's effects?

It has been a royal wedding weekend. Two staunch republicans, Right Foot and I, stayed up until 1.00 a.m. to watch Our Mary become a princess. Right Foot hadn't been up so late since he was 19. His main concern was that the Danes would get their carriage etiquette right. They did. Thank God. He goes ballistic in movies if someone is sitting in the wrong seat or the wrong person has his back to the horses.
It was clearly a love match, in contrast to the appalling farce of the Charles and Di fiasco. Good luck Fred and Mary.

Grumpy Girl and Petite Soeur are both overseas, Grumpy in Europe and Petite in Vietnam. It is very strange for us knowing neither of them will suddenly appear at the front door. We are still looking after their Stuff of course so there is no chance of them not being thought of constantly.

The Jazz festival finished yesterday: we went to the Jellyroll Morton concert, all Right Foot's favourites were played and the group finished with the legendary Dr. Jazz. Magnificent.

It is now Week 12 of semester but I am as busy as I was in Week 3. I wonder why? When will it stop?

Dayus Horribulus

At the third attempt to collect my car I succeeded. That was the only thing that went right today. I had to pay the excess of $450 but the mechanic inadvertently charged me $4500. We spent about an hour talking to various people in Mombai but without much luck.

My parking permit has gone west with the old windscreen so now I can't park outside my own appartment. My rego sticker is hanging by a thread.

I had to go to Hawthorn Campus and couldn't find a parking spot this side of Ayer's Rock.

I arrived at Lilydale and couldn't find a parking spot this side of the Great Divide.

My PC was plastered with urgent post-its so I couldn't even play Alchemy over lunch.

I left my banana at home.

I need alcohol - straight into the vein if possible.

It's now a week and I still don't have my car back. The worry is that I am starting to bond with the automatic courtesy car although it broke down on me the other night. It does have drawbacks - no power steering, electronic windows or central locking. Its radio doesn't work and I am driving around with my trannie on the dash like we did in the sixties listening to the Beach Boys or commentator postmortems on the way home from the footy.

Grumpy Girl and Matt finally got away on their several-times-postponed trip and should be in Barcelona by now, keeping out of the way of terroristas I hope.
Now we are concentrating on moving Petite Soeur to her new pad so it's been back to Dan Murphy's for more boxes. Altogether, we must have removed 100 or so plonk cartons from the Prahran store but their supply never seems to diminish. It should give Grump's and Petite's new neighbours a good scare when they see all that stuff being carried in.

Spent Saturday afternoon helping Grumpy Girl shift her stuff into the spare room at an obliging friend's place. he lived in a court where one of the neighbours has made name-boards for everyone. Each house was clearly identified in flowing pastels: Sheridan, Cartwright, Smith etc - very pretty and neighbourly it was.

The Affordable Art Show was a great success. The Exhibition Buildings were crammed with art, "art", artists and buyers scurrying around with their prizes under their arms looking for more. So now Right Foot has enough framing to keep him happy for quite a while. After the Affordable Art we had drinks to farewell Grumpy and Matt. All their twenty- and thirty- something friends were there: so interesting to talk to.

Today the hailstones are finally being beaten out of my car and I am now driving around in an automatic - my first experience of one and right toey I was coming to work today. Still, only four more days to go

Last night I cooked the rest of the fish that had been in the freezer since Good Friday. This was not nearly as pleasant as having a fish dinner served up to me at the Orrong on a Friday night. I kept thinking about witnessing their deaths at the hands of a four-year-old fisherperson and watching them suffocate. Not nice. They were also a gamey, strong-tasting lot. From now on it's fish from the fish shop for me.

I saw four films over Easter: a double bill of Tati films at the Astor (weird but fascinating); Starsky and Hutch at the Jam Factory, sitting on a pile of someone else's popcorn (mildy amusing) and Mystic River at the Como (gor blimey).

Today I am doing a tutorial by telephone from Singapore. Should be interesting.

Good Friday - no loaves but lots of fishes.
After our failed attempt at swimming with the seals in New Zealand we were keen for another try. The other party who had booked the boat with us cancelled and, rather than take out the Maureen M with just Right Flipper and me, the captain called his wife who turned up a few minutes later with the entire extended family. And so we went snorkelling. It was freezing in Port Phillip Bay but this time the seals cooperated, sliding off their new version of Chinamen's Hat and joined us in the water. Fantastic. There was also boomnetting, diving off Maureen M's roof and a sort of keelhauling trick which I decided wasn't for me. Then it was time for some fishing. The fish leapt into the boat on the lines of four-year olds. We were given a huge bag of fish and another of mussels to take home so we abandoned our plan of dining in Queenscliff and drove home for a fish-feast.

Eventually the RACV turned nasty. If I didn't get my hailstone damage fixed they would cancel my car insurance policy. But what was I going to do while the car was being repaired? Travel to Lilydale by train? I'd rather have my finger nails pulled out. So I rang auto repairers until I found one that would loan me a courtesy car. Bless you, bless you, John of the Toorak Accident Repair Centre. May every good thing befall you and your heirs even until the 10th generation.

Problem - the car is an automatic and I have never driven an automatic before. I drove around Kuching for three months in an appalling old rattletrap rather than learn how to drive the shiny new automatic they had for me. What to do? I considered going into a dealer and pretending to be a serious buyer and asking for a test drive but then they would have rung em up every day until I did buy one. Right Foot had a better idea. He rang a driving school (not the RACV) and arranged a lesson for me. The lesson was for 45 minutes but after the first 3 the somewhat mystified instructor announced there was nothing more he could teach me. I had it nailed. So we spent the next 40 minutes cruising around St Kilda and South Yarra while he pointed out all the red-light and speed cameras to me. He'd formed the idea that knowing that would be more help to me in the long run. Percipient.

M.R.I.
Friday afternoon I had an M.R.I. X-ray. They roll you into a thing like an iron lung but first you are blindfolded and strapped in. You get to choose a CD to listen to through headphones. There were three lists to choose from: classical, headbanger and daggy old buggers. I selected Van Morrison and heard a few bars of "Have I told you lately that I love you?" before the racket kicked in. MRIs are accompanied by an amazing cachophany of sounds - jackhammers, ghostly rappings and dentists' drills. So for the next 25 minutes what I heard was:
'Fill my heart with gladness'
Jackhammer, jackhammer!
'Ease my troubles' jackhammer, dentist's drill!
'And you fill my life with laughter'
Jackhammer, dentist's drill, ghostly rapping!
'We should give thanks' ghostly rapping!
Dentist's drill, dentist's drill, dentist's drill!

Saturday we re-booked our postponed tripped to Shanghai and Beijing with a side trip to Paris thrown in. This was an act of defiance against gammy legs, vile terrorists and a strange superstitious feeling that I am not meant to see Shanghai. I intend to.

We survived another Grand Prix and the almost as horrendous Moomba celebrations. As I attempted to read in my living room on Saturday afternoon a hornet flew over so low and loud that I ducked. Right Foot was on a tram and said EVERBODY ducked. I took refuge in Stonningtom library, curled up in an armchair reading 'The number 1 ladies detective agency'. Bliss.
On Sunday we escaped to Werribee Park to commune with the lions, hippos etc. - roars of a different kind and much more entertaining. By the time we got home all the parties were in full swing - other apartment dwellers were raging on all sides while we sulked inside watching a man answering questions about penguins on "The Einstein factor". Why didn't they ask us to their parties?
Yesterday was the shabby old Moomba, so tired so sad so pathetic.
Quelle lost weekend. Next year we definitely go away.

I went to the sawbones this morning with my x-ray collection and he tried various means of inflicting pain upon my dodgy knee but the damn thing wouldn't cooperate so I have to have another photo session next week to look for hot spots or cold spots which I have just Googled to find a bit more info on. It appears I will be radioactive for a few days after the procedure. I'm trying to think of a way to turn this to my advantage - there must be SOME extra power attached to being radioactive surely.

I went to a conference yesterday and heard some interesting papers but much of the program was rather dull. The lunch was not up to the usual standards and the trade exhibitions were just plain boring.
The venue is totally a maze and I had to offer Lou a lift home just so that she'd have to help me find my car. This was very a effective strategy and saved me hours of misery.
All day meetings tomorrow and Saturday - busy, busy, busy.

We've had a great day today in Christchurch, riding the city circle tram and seeing all the sights. We found all the arty shops that were conspicuously absent in Nelson. Right Foot has been buying up all the weird and whacky things (as he does) and I have made one or two purchases myself. We've just had a fantastic, and very cheap Chinese dinner preceded buy a rich, bitter local draft beer which pubs sell in takeaway bottles. What an excellent idea. Tomorrow, we have a few more touristy things lined up for our last full day, then home on Friday afternoon. See you!

Spent the morning taking the cure at the thermal pools in Hanmer Springs. Beautiful hot water amid mountain scenery accompanied by a drizzling rain. There were lots of European tourists of stupendous proportions also easing their aching bodies and souls. Right Foot was inspired to break into song,
" I'm a big fat momma with meat shakin' on the bone,
And every time I shakes it Poppa,
A skinny woman leaves her home."
Truly, he has a song for every occasion.
We have now handed the van back to Maui with great relief. Never, ever again.
A taxi to the Centra where we have a large and very comfortable room on the 9th floor - bliss, bliss. Now we're doing our first reccy of Christchurch, scoping out the eateries, shops and a bit of culture as well. This is much more like it.

Our last night in the motorhome and we are in Hanmer Springs, a quaint spar town where we are planning to take the waters tomorrow morning. Then it will be on to the luxury of three nights in the Centra hotel in ChristChurch. Hello Centra! Give me Doctor Jazz! He's got what it takes, I'll say he has!

Happy Birthday to all Australians - have a good one.
Lots to catch up on blogwise. We visited the glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef. They are interesting but receding rapidly and we wondered what will become of the tourist industry that has grown up around them when there is nothing left to see.
Feeling all scenic wondered out, we headed to Nelson which was said to have a thriving arts community but this was a lie. Nelson is a dud - don't go there.
So it was back to the scenic wonders and we are currently in Kaikora where we have just been on a snorkelling trip to swim with the seals. We have seen hundreds of seals up close and personal in the last twelve hours and they were all lolling around on ther rocks when we swam out to the reef but unfortunately they weren't in a mood for frollicking with the humans. There we were, six freezing crazies floating around while the seals looked back at us and said, "Nah. Too cold in there for us." Still it was a great trip.
Now my personal Grey Nomad is all ready to take off to Hanmer Springs so gotta go,folks

Up very early this morning to beat a hasty retreat from one-horse -town. We had a spectacular day's drive yesterday and will continue on to the glaciers today. After that I think I'm ready for some more big city action, such as it is, and maybe we'll go to Hamilton where there is said to be a thriving arts community. Anything thriving would do me right now

Te Anau
First a message for Petite Soeur - we've been trying to email you but cannot remember your address. If you send to my groupwise address I can reply to that.
We've had the best day today. Milford Sound is everything they say, just spectacular. Stunning scenery all the way on the drive in and seals, birds and more gorgeous stuff to look at during the two-and-a-half hour cruise. Lunch was a bit miserable but that won't show in our photos.
Tonight we will make our first attempt to cook in the van. Four days in and we haven't used anything much, not even the shower or lav. The van is OK and camp parks are much better than I remember from the eighties but we have decided that we won't be doing the twelve month around Australia thing beloved of other Grey Nomads. I think I prefer the three weeks in Europe or Asia.
Tomorrow we head vaguely in the direction of Franz Joseph.

Te Anau
We just found out about David Hookes this morning. It is a shock and very upsetting. Who could forget his performance in the Centenary Test in 1977? - one of the cricket highlights of my life. Vale Hookesy.

We had a great time in Dunedin and finished off our stay there with a tour through the Cadbury factory and now have enough chocolate to last through several Easters, but no cute chicken-or bunny-shaped ones that we don't have the heart to eat.

We are now in Te Anau waiting for our trip to Milford Sound tomorrow. We're camped right on the lake in a beautiful spot and are now cruising the main drag seeking out a funky spot for dinner tonight.

NZ has been badly affected by drought and we have driven for days through landscape as dry as outback South Australia but have finally arrived in a lusher, greener, very picturesque area. Magnificent.

Internet Cafe, Dunedin
This entry will self destruct in 10 minutes.
Our third day of Grey Nomading in our 'Winnebago', which looked alarmingly big when we first saw it but not nearly big enough when you're actually living in it. Maui have provided the bare minimum of equipment, two spoons, two glasses etc.
Dunedin is beautiful and the experience is enhanced by having been in Edinburgh recently - there are lots of resonances.
We indulged in some industrial tourism today by visiting the Cadbury factory. Tomorow it's off to Milford Sound, a must-do but I'm dreading the cold.

Extreme Librarianship
Tomorrow Right Foot and I are off to the South Island of New Zealand, where I shall avoid Queenstown for fear of being persuaded to jump off a cliff, go white-water rafting, or endure looping loops in a light aircraft. We are Winnebagoing our way around like a couple of Grey Nomads in training, taking it easy. But before I do that I have to finish another submission about why the university will come to a sticky end if our unit on Information Literacy is not found a new home in another core compulsory subject, the previous one having been voted off the campus. Everyone else is jostling for position as well, trying to ensure their special interest makes the cut. I rather enjoy a bit of a barney.

Yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas so we took down the tree after we'd watched Murder Investigation Team, the Pseudo Bill program that is more like the real Bill used to be before it turned into a soap opera. Pseudo Bill has an interesting female lead character. She is small and fiesty and has a ferocious interviewing technique which invariably brings even the most hardened toe-rag or scrote to his knees. I like her style.

I had a call last night from an old friend living in Queensland - let's call her Ofliq - loving life and full of plans for the future: career goals, academic aspirations, personal development. That's what I like to hear from my contempories, none of this retirement plan stuff, thanks all the same.

Extreme Painting
And the saga of the bathroom continues and expands. Poor Right Foot has lost his entire week's holiday and I'm struggling to keep up his morale with endless iced coffees and exaggerated compliments. When it all gets too much for me I escape to the cinema or the shops, hoping vainly for improvement when I return. And, as we only have one bathroom, I have now been holding on for a very long time.

Christmas: beautiful presents, food and drink with beautiful people around the pool at Grumpy and Petite's.
Boxing Day: snapping up bargains in the city.
Saturday: cricket at the G with Liz
Yesterday: more bargains, this time at Chadstone
Today: escape the heat with the Lord of the Rings.
And all interspersed with tasty left-overs and the sounds of poor Right Foot groaning and moaning as he paints the bathroom. It has taken days to scrape back 50 years of unwise colour choices and at leat one attempt to cover up the whole sorry mess with pink and yellow floral wallpaper.
And now, the new Barbara Trapido is ready for me to pick up at Stonnington library.Bliss

Yesterday the RACV finally squeezed me in to their sixty-cars-a-day hailstone damage assessment program. I got off with relatively minor damage, about $2000 worth. I said that as I was paying the excess anyway I wanted my scratches from various pole-wrapping episodes fixed as well. The assessor was a bit dubious at first but suggested I use my 'wiles' on the repairer and tell him that "the boys at the RACV van said you'd look after me." I wonder.

My favourite Christmas sight so far was the elderly woman, embarassed but determined, scalping tickets to Handel's Messiah outside the Melbourne Town Hall on Sunday afternoon.

Another lost weekend but the shopping is done.

Everytime I go into Border's I head for the T section of Fiction hoping to find a new Barbara Trapido and on Saturday I did! Joy to the world but mainly me.
After a couple more bookshops on Sunday I realised how many books I haven't read and am wondering if I'll get through them all before Alzheimer's kicks in. Probably not.

We ran into Petite Soeur at the Cinema on Saturday night, surprisingly dressed in leather. It seems New Boyfriend has a motorbike. Oh hell!!! I remember my mother's dismay at my courtship on the back of Right Foot's motorbike, but I also remember the exhilaration of taking those corners with my face buried in Foot's broad back and the nuisance of wondering what to do with the ruddy helmet when we arrived at our destination ready for a glamorous night out. I bet Petite will think of something.

Stress City. After a week of making merry interspersed with fruitless shopping trips I am now convinced that Christmas is a very very bad idea.

Thursday and Friday I spent at a research writing retreat for our academic staff, helping them with their database searching. It was very successful and S and I were extremely busy. The academics were mightily impressed. A few more brownie points for the library and a couple of excellent bottles of Yarra Valley vino for us. All good.

My renewed enthusiasm for Christmas has waned. I spent several hours on Saturday at Chadstone and a couple more on Sunday in Brunswick Street looking for gifts, excitement and the meaning of life. Didn't find anything.

Our tree does look wonderful though. All the decorations we have bought on our overseas visits are out of their wrappings for their annual airing. This year there are two new ones: the kiwi Petite Soeur bought and the Cheshire cat which has a grin that's much more than a smile. It is a classic, textbook example of a lear.

The main problem with Christmas is the monotonous regularity with which it comes around. It should be tied to some irregular astronomical event. Every few years the astronomers would announce,"Hey! There's going to be a Christmas!" THEN, I'd get excited. Maybe. Briefly.

Yesterday afternoon we had a spectacular hail storm here at Lilydale. It was weather like we used to have in the 50s but which I thought had gone away for ever. In the library rain pored in through various apertures in the ceiling and the noise was deafening. Now all our cars have dints in them and my mirrors were flattened against the side of the car. The question is: can I be bothered dealing with the insurance company to have it fixed? Boring.

We had a wonderful night at Mecca, out on the balcony watching the sun setting on the Yarra and celebrating Grumpy Girl's birthday. I feel a little seedy this morning however. Next time definitely only an entree and a shared dessert.
The waiter was very efficient and attentive but managed to offend me nevertheless. When I said I didn't need to see the dessert menu because I had already checked it out on the Internet, he made a patronising remark about how good it was that I was up with the technology. So I informed him (in the style of the heroine of "The Mummy") that I was a librarian and we had, as a profession, invented the Internet. That fixed him. And so for the benefit of the waiter at Mecca and any other doubters here is a quote from an article in Educause Review (Thanks to JP for sending it to me)

From the article, "Why IT Has Not Paid Off As We Hoped (Yet)"
(Educause Review, vol. 38, no. 6 (November/December 2003): 40-51.)

"The real heroes of the digital revolution in higher education are librarians; they are the people who have seen the farthest, done the most, accepted the hardest challenges, and demonstrated most clearly the benefits of digital information. In the process, they have turned their own field upside down and have revolutionized their own professional training. It is a testimony to their success that we take
their achievement for granted".

It's Grumpy Girl's birthday today and what a joy she has been to her nearest and dearest all these years. The Grump gives parenting a good name. Tonight we are going to Mecca where we went for Petite and Right Foot's birthdays too. It has spectacular views and wonderful food. Check out the menu at http://www.mecca.net.au/menu.htm

On Saturday we went to see Blithe Spirit - so corny, so predictable and so much fun.

Yesterday, I marked the remaining Marketing Communications exam papers then tried in vain to get Right Foot interested in the Davis Cup. The Aussie fans were decked out in gold and green but were waving red, white and blue flags or had them painted on their faces. Other countries wear colours that match their flags. I love this about Australia - patriotism will never topple over into Chauvinism while we can't make up our minds what our national colurs are.

Something surprising has just happened. For the first time ever I have been given a Kris Kringle present that I really like. Not merely do I like it but I was planning to buy one for myself. It is one of those spiral serving plates that will be a valuable contributor to my entertaining portfolio. Even though the presents were given out randomly S and I ended up exchanging plates. She was not the recipient I had it mind but seems happy. We had our staff Christmas lunch in a rusticky place in Healesville, warm sunny and nice.
Yesterday was our seminar at Hawthorn where I did my three presentations so now there is just one more big academic occasion this year and then it's time to party.
My weekend will be dominated by a pile of Marketing Communications exam papers to mark relieved by a visit to the Playhouse to see Blithe Spirit.

Yesterday was the annual Information Literacy Seminar with Grumpy Girl's graphic featuring prominently on all the promotional media. Apparently a couple of regular attendees declined to come this year because they thought the theme was too risque. So the venue was filled with just the saucier, racier type of librarian who all had good fun with the notion of librarians "embedded'' with the academics. The graphic was on the showbag given to delegates and on the way home on the tram I was accosted by a Customer Services Officer wanting to know where he could get one. Was it a shop? What did he have to buy? I was beginning to glow with maternal pride but then he said, "You see, I know someone called Gale Thomson." What? It was only then that I noticed the name of the seminar's sponsor, Thomson Gale was emblazoned accross the top of the bag. Maternal love is the blindest of all.
The seminar was, as usual, a great day - so social, such yummy food, so many old buddies, such comfort and style at VU's city campus.
At lunch time I walked up to the Charities Card Shop at the cathedral. I hadn't been there for three or four years and something had changed. They now have security checks before you can go in - to the crypt in St. Paul's Cathedral! Once inside however, it was the same lovely place. Lots of elderly ladies to fuss around you, anxious to help. This is the only place in Melbourne that comes close to the feel of a Country Women's Association function - except no pikelets. I was careful not to buy any cards that would support a charity run by the treacherous Protestants: this would have caused my mum to spin in her grave. I stuck to secular organisations like the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Amnesty International and the East Timor Association. I bought some from the Mercy Hospital for Mothers for Mum's sake: the IRA did not have their cards out. I bought two from the Alzheimer's Association which had pictures painted by dementia patients. They were both way better than I could do even now with most of my marbles still in place. Grumpy Girl did not inherit her talent from me.

I seem to have porked up a bit over winter and last year's summer clothes are uncomfortably tight. Dieting's a bore so I've been shopping for some fat clothes. I bought two very practical, style-free, go-with-everything skirts in the hope that my bod will gradually return to normal while I'm wearing them out. This may be a little optimistic over the party season which is already in full swing here. Actually, I'm getting into Christmas this year, having had a year off it while living in a Muslim country last year - a new zest for Christmas is not something I ever expected to experience.

Tim Winton's 'Cloudstreet' has been voted Most Popular Australian Book in a poll run by the ABC while my pick, 'The harp in the south' came in 14th, behind even Bryce Courtney. Good God.

Wednesday is the CRIG seminar where Grumpy Girl's caricature of me gets another airing. This time I am 'in bed with the academics'. Thursday we are having our own Information Literacy forum and I am giving three short presentations which may or may not fascinate and amaze all who hear them . Friday is the first of many a Christmas knees-up, the exams will be over and half our staff are banished to live off their husbands for two months. Such is the fate of academic librarians.

Last night was the National IQ Test. Right Foot and I were both off to a flying start, getting the first fourteen questions right but it was downhill from then on. Arithmetic and rotating shapes in mid-air (why would I ever want to do that?) are not what we're good at. We both did well on the memory tasks which was reassuring. Why is it that when I see a column of figures my eyes glaze over and my brain goes into reverse? I have a Masters degree in Business after all. But the compulsory accounting subject in that course took years off my life. I had to get a tutor, an Indian girl half my age to get me through it. She always talked about rupees in her examples as I tried painfully to understand. Maybe if Eddie had talked rupees I would have done better, but I doubt it.

Yesterday was the funeral of the second of my colleagues to die of cancer in the last couple of months. Younger than me, this one. It is very scary and very sad.

Friday was my birthday. After the usual cakefest at work Right Foot and I went to a knees-up for TAFE librarians where I found myself at a table with my current boss and three of my former bosses. Sounds like an uncomfortable situation but we had fun. The venue was a student hospitality restaurant and the service was the usual off-the-wall stuff that you get in those places. On Saturday I had my real party with Grumpy Girl and Petite Soeur who gave me a most bodacious blouse which I love. There's nothing like a well-chosen gift to make you feel cared for. Right Foot gave me a camera to replace my recently deceased Minolta which had consistently produced surprisingly good photos considering the approach and attitude of the photographer. It was a very different birthday than last year's which I celebrated at Denis', a tourist trap restaurant in Sarawak with only Right Foot to celebrate with me.

On Sunday, RF, Petite and I went to see 'In the cut', very gripping, very gritty New York edgy crime thriller. Best performances I had ever seen from any of the cast.

Z has sent me some photos of her recent trip to Melbourne including those taken at the NTEU rally. There she is, carry a placard and marching down Collins Street. A pinko Malaysian librarian. I wonder if she has shown the photo to anyone in Kuching.

Following on from the news that Petite and Grumpy both made it into the top twenty in the HQ short story competition, we now hear that Grumpy has made it to the final ten. They both write so well. I remember them reading their stories to me as children while I was rushing around doing housework and how they would stop me in my tracks with with an image, an apt phrase or a subtle twist in a well-constructed plot. Clever cloggs both.

Maternal Boast
The magazine HQ has been running a short story competition and yesterday Grumpy Girl and Petite Soeur received news that they had both been shortlisted. Because of the identical surname and address the judges thought Petite had submitted two entries but she assured them that Grump is her sister so they said, "Well, she has finished in the final 20 stories too!" Grumpy's story is about how a map triggers the end of a relationship and Petite's story is about a Stop & Go Man who swallows a bird. Excellent reading both, I have copies should anyone be interested.

We are all still grappling with our amazing new phone system but this morning I mastered 'Call forwarding' which has made a big difference.

The Melbourne Cup
Yesterday Right Foot and I went to our first ever Melbourne Cup with three other Swinnie librarians, their Handbags and 123,000 others. I wore a skirt and jacket from Jigsaw (at Brandsmart), a silky tee from Ralph Lauren (also at Brandsmart), a rose in my hair (from Myer, city store) and completed my ensemble with a $2 pure silk scarf from Arthur Dailey in Swanston Street.
Right Foot wore his Country Road suit and looked very spiffing. However, he hated the whole thing. It was very crowded and got very hot. The only cool place was the lavoratories and there were groups of young women sitting on the loo floor, sipping Champagne and resting their feet. I got my best photos in there.
Right Foot's aversion to public toilets made him decide not to drink anything at all, not even water. He sat on the Esky with his back to the action reading a book called 'The history of Heidelberg and its people: 1838-1900'. I tried to get him interested in Paris Hilton, New York Party Princess, but he said he'd rather have a Party Pie. He went home an hour before the big race on a train packed with other poopers.
I soldiered on to see the housekeeping money come in at 4th, 5th and 6th places. Great. Of the three horses I had in the Swinnie sweep, one was scratched, one came in second and the other is still running. Six horses altogether and I won $7 and lost untold millions. Some tedious nag no-one had ever heard of won.
Within five minutes of the end of the race, all the Swinnie librarians and their Handbags were on the train back to Queen's Road where we watched the last two races on TV and polished off the rest of the food in coolth and comfort.
I am really glad I've been to the Melbourne Cup at last. I have it out of my system now. Actually, it's a bit boring.

Z is safely back home now and seems very pleased with her trip. She has gained a lot in understanding and had a few victories. She is also very happy with the 'stuffs' she bought, particularly the two sheepskin rugs for the floor of her new apartment. These should be an object of great interest in Malaysia.

Yesterday I mentioned to Right Foot that our little fingers were so small that they didn't serve much purpose at all and we could easily get by without them. This sparked a conversation about the things we couldn't do without a little finger. Three are:
that telephone gesture people do by folding down their middle three fingers and putting thumb and pinky to their mouth and ear;
the finger cocking that's required when drinking tea in polite society;
and punks who have HATE tattoed on their knuckles would have to settle for HAT or ATE.

The delightful Z is winging her way home today after two weeks in Melbourne. She made some interesting comments about the differences between here and Kuching. She thought our morale was much higher and the work ethic stronger. Staff here have initiative and don't require supervision. We also manage to have a lot of fun along the way.
The most unusual experience she had was participating in the NTEU industrial action last Thursday. She marched through the streets to the rally with the rest of the staff. Such opportunities are rare in Dr Mahathir's Malaysia. On the same day he made his infamous remarks about the Jews.

I'm not really into nostalgia but yesterday morning we got up at 8.30 to watch 'Basil Brush', a revival from the seventies we used to love about a fox and his humans. It is full of corny often predictable jokes. I remembered watching Basil in hospital in 1979, still in pain a week after a kidney operation and the agony of laughing as Basil visited Germany and was constantly greeted as Herr Brush. I still have the scar from that surgery and I'm certain it became wider during that episode of Basil Brush.

This time last year I had been in Malaysia for ten days and the Bali bombings had just occurred. I remember hating being away from home and people who felt the same sense of grief. There have been lots of commemorations over the weekend but I did not see much because, ironically, I was entertaining my Moslem colleague, the delightful Z while she is in Melbourne from Kuching.
Actually we had a wonderful day. It was very pleasant showing off the city and seeing things through her eyes: Victoria Market where she bought two large sheepskins for her new appartment, Southbank for lunch and a Charmaine's ice-cream, Chloe at Young & Jackson's, Federation Square, the Circle Tram up to the State Library, Bourke Street Mall, the arcades and laneways, the parks and finally, the casino where Z won a dollar on the fruit machine.
She is staying in the VIP suite on campus - magnificent! I wish that sadist who built our accommodation in Glasgow could see how we treat our guests.

It is now a year since we first went to Sarawak and coincidentially the permanent Information Resources Manager is currently visiting our Melbourne campuses. I have been catching up on all the news and things seem to be going swimmingly which is very gratifying. I would love to go back and see the results of my three months hard graft.
The delightful Z is clearly doing a great job.
She remarked on the different shade of our green and it certainly is much lighter and brighter than the jungle green of Kuching. I took her to Safeway where she bought crumpets, she seemed quite fascinated with those.

The planet Mars is relatively close to us right now so Right Foot and I went along with the masses to the sixth floor of the car park at Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre last Wednesday to view it through a telescope but we were late and it was cloudy and cold so we gave it up.
The next night, earlier and more warmly dressed we drove out to a park near La Trobe University with another group of hopefuls. Mars looked very pretty when looked at with the naked eye, in its brief periods of visibility. It was another cloudy night and another long wait but eventually we got our 30 seconds each at the telescope. And what did we see? I couldn't quite make out all the features I'd heard about but the polar caps were visible. I could see it was a planet not a star. It looked like a small disc, a communion wafer, pale and translucent.
And we made lots of new friends in the queue just like lining up for finals tickets

Today I have submitted a copy of our Elit conference paper, edited (i.e. slashed by 3000 words) for publication, we hope, in the International Journal of E-literacy. I hope they will accept it and won't want further ammendments because I am OVER IT bigtime. Time to move on.

Second week back at work after our adventures in Scotland and England so I have finally stopped saying, "This time last week we were on the London Eye or walking along Hadrian's Wall, etc." It was all so wunnerful that I have tried to hold on to it as long as possible.
Our paper went very well - there were lots of questions, lots of interest and a full house. All the Aussie presentations were very well attended. We rule at that stuff!

On Friday night I went to the Mary Owen Dinner. It was my second but there were women there who had been to all eighteen. The Moorabbin Town Hall was packed with women in the feminist colours of purple, green and white. Most were in their forties and fifties but quite a number were much older and there was a sprinkling of youngies too. I was introduced to Mary Owen Herself. Imagine - you have a retirement dinner and have to hold it in the Hawthorn Town Hall because there is no restaurant big enough. And then you hold it again every year in town halls around Melbourne and the dozens of people are turned away.

It was a fabulous night.

Well, I am sufficiently recovered from my dicky knee to accept Petite Soeur's invitation to walk in the Mother's Day Classic again this year. After all the treatments I endured:
acupuncture
boring exercises
painful physiotherapy
drugs
shark cartilege tablets
rest
fish at every meal
etc.
it is impossible to know which one did the trick so I am perservering with all of them except, for the time being, the physio which is expensive as well as painful.
I checked my collection of remedies and found only one is from the dodgy pharmaceutical lab - Heaven knows what's in it - it's like buying a chiko roll at the football.

Second day back at work after our six-day holiday in the Daintree courtesy of travel agent's muddle. It was wonderful to see North Queensland and snorkelling on the Barrier Reef was unforgettable, exhilarating and hugely satisfying. Great grub up there too, especially the barramundi.

Now it's back to lots of hard work including writing the conference paper. We're desperately hoping that SARS will not prevent us going to Glasgow. That would be too disappointing to bear.

I don't think I ever recorded the story of my birthday bracelet so belatedly I will. When I was in Kuching, Grumpy Girl and Petite Soeur sent me a bracelet for my birthday but it never arrived. They were both extremely upset and so was I. I told them I would prefer not to even know what the gift was so they didn't tell me and bought me another very similiar one for Christmas. Very nice, very me.
A month or so earlier I had received a card from Pos Malaysia telling me a parcel was waiting to be claimed. Thrilled and relieved I sped to the PO only to find not the bracelet but three tubes of Vegemite which a dear friend had sent to alleviate our homesickness. It was wonderful to have it but, at the time, something of a disappointment.
When we arrived at Melbourne Airport nearly two months after my birthday, Customs took some of our stuff for fumigation. The same thig happened to Petite when she arrived couple of days later. Another two months went by and Petite received a card to say her fumigated goods were now available for picking up at Balaclava PO. When Right Foot went to get the parcel for her there were TWO. One was the fumigated cane balls as expected but the other was the bracelet! It had taken four months for it to go to Malaysia and back and the parcel had obviously been opened but the bracelet lay unharmed in its wrapping. I can wear the two together, they look very well.

My wounded knee feels a little better. Maybe it's the powdered shark, maybe it's the acupuncture.

The physiotherapist tried acupuncture on me this morning but it doesn't seemed to have helped much. He has also suggested I buy some powdered shark whch is supposed to build up cartilege. I will get some tomorrow: I am very sick of not being able to walk.
Yesterday I limped around the Ned Kelly exhibition at the State Library feeling more sorry for myself than poor Ned, martyr that he was.

We are trying to cobble up funds so that Susan and I can both go to Scotland to present our paper. A is sending begging letters on our behalf to all the cashed up departments who could conceivably cough for us. Here's hoping.

Lefty
Susan and I submitted an abstract for a paper to be presented at a conference in Glasgow and we found out this morning that we have been accepted. Great excitement for half an hour and then the harsh realities of who would pay for us surfaced, as we knew it would. I am determined to go somehow. We have both given papers before but not overseas and I am NOT going to miss this chance - not sure when I will get time to write it though.

I'm soldiering on with the orthotics in my shoes - they seem to be helping to make me walk straight and I am sooo sick of limping and languishing.

Lefty
We went to see 'Ned Kelly' which isn't bad but Righty was irritated by the unintended anachronisms. The major problem was with the carriages of course, as Righty is the world expert on Australian horse-drawn vehicles. If you have seen the film you might remember the scene where Naomi Watt's horrible husband stumbles as he clambers into the carriage. Well no wonder he stumbled! The klutz was getting in the wrong side and not only that, everybody was sitting in the wrong seat. The children were facing the horses. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. They should have had their backs to the horses and Naomi should have been in the 'seat of honour', facing the horses and on the right hand side. Klutzy should have got in from the left and sat on the left. But it gets worse. In another scene we see a carriage stored inside a stable with the horses. According to Righty, the ammonia in the horses' dooings would have had a major deleterious effect on the carriage's varnish and no-one would have subjected their carriage to such treatment. So there.

Lefty
Last Friday Susan and I went to a cocktail party hosted by the PVC to bring together all the Kuching veterans, wannabes, soon-to-bes and backroom boys. A very blokey occasion, there were about four women and 60 or so men, mostly engineers. Hmmm. Good grub though and a passable white wine.

This morning I paid (boy, did I pay!) my second visit to the physiotherapist who repeated the pummelling he gave me last week. I hope it is helping - my knee stills feels very dodgy. He told me there was a lot of tension in my body (what else is new?) and that I should walk like a West Indian, loose, limber and relaxed. So we practised together, large Sri Lankan physio and small, fair-skinned woman in surgical gown walking like West Indians around the tiny office with its panoramic views over St Kilda Road. Suddenly a window cleaner appeared in one of those contraptions they sit in, swinging gently in the breeze and staring unswervingly at his sqweedgie.

The Left Foot
Back at work at Lilydale today still smarting about the loss of our holiday in China but greatly relieved to hear that SR has gone to Kuching to take care of User Ed and the cataloguing backlog. I spoke to her on the phone and it was really weird to visualise her sitting at 'my' desk while I was alone in our usually shared office. My Kuching adventure is over but I was thinking of them all today and suppose I will for quite some time. I hope the first hand experience I had will have long-term benefits for the library there and for me as well.

This will be the last blog from the Frontier Librarians as we return to the normal pattern of our lives, beginning with the celebration of our 33rd wedding anniversary on Thursday 16th. We will take the blog down in early February. Thank-you for all the positive feedback we received: the number of readers made us aware of our wider audience and changed the nature of our entries from the family orientation we had anticipated. Our daughter, Meredith, aka Grumpy Girl set up the page for us so we could easily keep in touch with her and our other daughter, Hilary, aka Petite Soeur.

When Hil was studying German in secondary school she learnt that the word for mother was 'mutter' and began calling me that, soon abbreviating it to Moot. By extension, that made her father 'Foot' and the plural obviously 'Feet'. I am left-handed and left-footed so it was not hard to tell who was who. None of you guys ever needed to know this piece of family lore but as some have been curious, it was time to explain.

I will miss the blogging experience but there is nothing more to say except maybe Salamat Datang or should that be Auf Weidersien (or something).

The Right Foot:
For me, KL will forever be associated with the mystical law of Bad Things that Come in Threes (See the preceding Tale of Woe from the Left Foot) - I must do a Google search and see if there is a proper name for this phenomenon. But no doubt my rather jaundiced view of KL is also profoundly coloured by the (misplaced) perception of Eastern Malaysians that KL is a fabulous city whose nature is compounded from the essences of those great trading centres like Baghdad, Rome and Tyre. And I must admit it really is an attractive place with vibrant and often admirable architecture, really efficient services and lots of bustling life wherever you care to look. It is a fine city, but after Kuching, you really couldn't live there.

After sampling life in Kuching, KL looks too much like your standard wanna-be modern identikit Southeast Asian city, secure in its very own economic miracle and keen to emulate Singapore or Hong Kong in outward and visible display, high energy output and general brouhaha. To that end, it is busily knocking over whole streets of charming shophouses, replacing them with mega-malls and ever-larger extensions to existing mega-malls and carving freeways through its parklands. I really can't imagine its inhabitants slowing down at sunset to walk along the riverfront - after all, there are still several hours left of quality shopping time left! The nice thing about Kuching was the sense that a visitor from 1850 would feel pretty much at home there today - water taxis still criss-cross the Sungai Sarawak (even if they now advertise Lipton's admirable Yellow Label tea); while the river pirates are still kept at bay by the White Rajah's toy fort, peeping over the feathery trees that line the river. Real shopping still goes on in the markets and carpenters still work in Jalan Carpenter. Real life goes on in the kampongs all along the river banks; fishermen fish right under the hugh sign proclaiming that fishing is prohibited at this point and you can still meet and greet kingfishers lording over the secondary jungle not ten k. from the city centre. People stop wherever the mood strikes them to appraise the durians and debate the merits of red or white garlic. Moreover, cats really still rule in Kuching! Long may it remain that way!

The Left Foot
Alas, the new year started even more badly then the old one ended. When we tried to check in at MAS, it was discovered that the dates of our flights and accommodation were out of synch. with the dates of our Chinese visas. Major stuff-up by travel agent. The guy found a supervisor and although she was very sympathetic, there was nothing she could do. Her exact words: "If I let you get on that plane you will not like what the Chinese will do to you when you get off". It was a public holiday and no hope of acquiring an emergency visa. Also, our visas for Malaysia had expired on 31st. I was stunned, shocked and so disappointed. I couldn't believe what was happening. Within two hours we were on a plane heading for Melbourne, feeling like we were being deported. We were in the last two seats, not together, and surrounded by Poms with streaming colds and hacking coughs just to add to our miseries.

Since then I have been battling with the travel agent for compensation, gradually moving up the hierarchy. Red tape, red tape!

There have been some consolations. however:
Steve Waugh's innings last Friday afternoon;
dinner at Saigon Rose with Grumpy Girl and Petite Soeur that night;
Right Foot reunited with his banjo and his shed;
and the big, blue sky after months of overcast weather.

Still, it was an ignominious end to our travels and I am still longing to see Shanghai before it is finally ruined by commercial development.

On Monday it is back to Lilydale for me, though many of my thoughts will be with colleagues in Kuching on their first day of semester. Good luck to them all.

The Left Foot
New Year's Eve in Kuala Lumpar and we went with several trillion others to see the fireworks at the Petronas Towers. After minding our spot for an hour and a half, Right Foot discovered at a quarter to twelve that his pocket had been picked. People had been warning us for months about the possibility of this but now it had finally happened. Right Foot was anxious to return to the hotel to cancel his cards, etc. so off we dashed, seeing only a couple of fireworks as we headed for the railway station. RF was on the phone for an hour and a half ringing banks in three countries, trying to arrange emergency cash and cards. We finally tumbled into bed, setting the alarm for 6 o'clock, in view of our early flight to Shanghai, city of my dreams.

The Left Foot
Howdy from KL everyone! We left Kuching on 28th, having carefully replaced the borrowed palm Christmas tree in the courtyard garden and armed with numerous hideous gifts which we are managing to lose at various locations each time we pack.

KL is interesting but I am choking on the ciggie smoke. When I am dictator, cigarettes will cost $500 each.

The Left Foot
An evening of packing has given the apartment that horrible bare and temporary look. I am still a bit feverish but I'm determined to be better when my holiday officially starts tomorrow. After three months here, my last sleep in Kuching is imminent. There are so many things not working now that we wonder what will be still going in the morning. I'd like it to be the fridge.

It is rather weird and a little alarming to think that in two weeks I have to immerse myself in Lilydaleania again but I cannot wait to see those gals.

The Left Foot
I am leaving the office now to go on holidays at last. It's been a day of farewells and I have acquired a parcel so large that I cannot imagine how I am ever going to get it home. What a pity the DHL man had just left.
So what have I achieved? I've heard a lot of kind words today but what do I think? I think I've made a good start on moving things in the right direction and I hope the momentum won't be lost. It's been interesting, challenging, frustrating and satisfying. I've been out of my comfort zone and a member of a minority group which is a salutary experience. I am very tired and can't shake off my cold and don't think I will until I can get away from the air-con. What I need now is a holiday. Tomorrow we go to KL for a few days then to China. When I return to Lilydale I know my thoughts will be divided. I will be wondering how all the processes I have set in train are going along. I'm sure I'll be informed if everthing falls in a heap!

The Left Foot
Christmas Day in Kuching has been very relaxing and pleasant. In his usual way, Right Foot produced perfectly chosen, custom-made presents which we opened around the palm Christmas tree - just a teaser for our real Christmas in Melbourne on 19th January. We couldn't get through to Grumpy Girl by phone but we've sent her an email. Happy Christmas GG and Matt.

Buffet lunch at the Hilton was nice but a little strange. As well as all the traditional Western Christmas food there was a wide range of Malay and Chinese fare on offer. For most of the guests it was the usual eat and run we've become accustomed to, no lingering over coffee for this lot. Ours was the only table to order a bottle of wine. People here just don't drink.

After lunch we went up to the pool to doze in the sun and stand around in the cooling water. We stayed there for hours, catching up on five months news from Petite. Very soothing. I have another cold, the first one arrived for my birthday and the second for Christmas. I suppose it's the constant change of temperature from the tropical outdoors to the freezing air-con inside.

We're now sitting around reading all the books Petite bought over and munching cheese straws from Patterson's cake shop. Tres bon.

The Left Foot
We took Petite to Bako National Park and we got a much closer look at the proboscis monkeys than we did the first time we went there. That's the sort of luck that follows Petite around. The monkeys did all their stunts for us, swinging and running and chomping etc. Fantastic. We then trecked through the jungle so that we could have a swim in the South China Sea. This is when our luck ran out. Poor Right Foot was stung on the right foot by a stingray and was in agony. We struggled back through the jungle to the canteen where a bevy of wise men administered traditional Malay first aid. The pain subsided and so did my vision of spending yet another Christmas Eve in a hospital emergency ward.

We had very choppy seas on our trip back to shore and were saturated. Now we are safely back in the ET where the toaster has just died. The dryer expired yesterday and now there is not much left of the mod cons we started out with three months ago. Will the building still be standing when we leave on Saturday?

It's a very unusual Christmas Eve. No shopping for turkey in Prahran market, no last minute present wrapping and definitely no Ray Martin and Carols by Candlelight. Tonight we will dine at the Top Spot on top of a multi-storey carpark. Tomorrow lunch and a swim at the Hilton Kuching. Different.

Merry Christmas to everyone especially Grumpy Girl. X0X0X. And a virtual H o P while driving to Adelaide and back.

The Left Foot
We're just back from a meal and a couple of Tigers at our favourite riverside restaurant with Petite. It is so amazing having her here and hearing her voice from a metre away instead of on the end of the phone line. She says she's enjoyed her first day of living at Kuching pace. I wonder how she'll feel after another four days.

I have three days off work now and intend to enjoy every second. It was very satisfying teeing up those two appointments today - A and N are just what we need to turn an inward looking refuge into a customer focused library. Z was thrilled when I told her and is now really looking forward to her new job. They will be a wonderful team. I was able to talk up the salary for all three which may not please the Institute but which is good for the profession. Librarians rule!

Merry Christmas to anyone still reading this piece of self indulgence, especially to Grumpy Girl who will be celebrating in Adelaide. We will miss you GG. Have a relaxing and restorative break from all your enterprises. Happy Christmas to you.

The Left Foot
Petite is here! Beautiful, brilliant and brown as any local and much, much suaver. We met her at the airport then alas, I had to come to work. The day has started well, though. I have rung the two successful candidates for the library assistant positions and both have accepted the offer I made. We agreed on a salary somewhere between what they wanted and what SS was willing to pay so I am feeling gooooood. Now back to Problem Number 199. Someone tell me, is it really Christmas out there?

The Right Foot:
Kuching is famed as Cat City, so you might expect its feline population to be something special. Not so, but far otherwise, Best Beloved. Taken all in all, the Kats of Kuching are as lean, mean and ill-favoured a set of moggies as you could ever not wish to encounter. Tabbies, gingers, a few black and white and tortoiseshells seem to make up the bulk of the population. Most are rakish and mean-looking, with fur in poor condition, torn ears and dingy whiskers. Almost all of the street cats you see have very short tails, or no tails at all.Some have strange knotted or kinked tails and it makes you wonder how they could ever curl them decorously over their paws as they sit surveying the world. There would be no eloquent tail tip to twitch in order to express finer nuances of feline meaning.

Kutching's kats appear to scrounge a meagre existence around the bazaars and markets, using the deep stormwater drains as a sort of cat highway to keep out of harm's way. They are usually not unfriendly although they don't court human company. We got caught in a sudden shower along the Waterfront one day and, together with a crowd of people, found refuge under the wide eaves of a hawker kiosk. While everyone looked up and out at the rolling clouds, I glanced down and there at our feet, cool as a cucumber, was a ginger cat, washing his paws to while away the time. Most buildings have a resident cat or two to help keep things in order. The State Library has a large piratical animal with a very loud meouw who strolls around amongst the diners out on the cafeteria terrace and demands chicken with menaces. Swinburne Uni campus has a very self-possessed tortie who sleeps on the sunny steps surrounding the security guard's office. We visited a longhouse village recently and I was pleased to see that the ends of each house featured a number of protruding floor boards which made perfect sunny cat perches and that the village moggies had smugly taken up residence, glancing down through half-closed eyes at the earth-bound village dogs as they wandered about.

The Left Foot
Our last weekend in Kuching and some more or less serious Christmas shopping at last. I've never been this lax before. It was quite successful though and the Right Foot finally found some cargo pants in his size, though not his first choice of colour.

We've packed two jumbo boxes of stuff to be sent home by DHL, RM800 for 50kg of mostly faded tee-shirts. Still we can't carry it around China.

We paid our last respects to the night market hoping for a repeat of the magnificent roti we had during the fasting month but there was no sign of the roti man so instead we had mee ayam followed by steamed dumplings, followed by strange green sweets made of agar agar and coconut. Interesting.

I had a phone call from Melbourne yesterday asking me when I would be arriving home.
"11th January", said I.
"So you could be back in Kuching by 13th for the start of semester then?"
Too flabbergasted to think I stammered and stuttered something about how I couldn't be spared from Lilydale. Truth is, I've had enough and I'm ready to go home. Gotta see Grumpy Girl before she goes to Cambodia, gotta see whatever's left of the cricket, gotta catch up with "The Bill" and gotta attend a couple of social functions I've been looking forward to. I could feel myself weakening today and my mind was running on ways I could manage it but eventually my brain kicked in and I decided this time I just say no.

The Left Foot
Drama upon drama at work and no end in sight yet. Word got around that we were interviewing for an Library Assistant and all this week people have been appearing at my door clutching their resumes and expecting an interview on demand - a walk-up interview. Apparently this happens in Malaysia. My carefully constructed induction program for Z went out the window as we listened to a succession of appalling stories of under-payment and exploitation. Young people working seven days a week for RM320 per month. Outrageous. When I finally called a halt we had two stand-out candidates and were struggling to choose between them. Still undecided, I started to type up the interview report. Suddenly the other Library Assistant came into my office and handed in his resignation. Momentarily stunned, I rallied enough to congratulate him on being accepted into a Bachelor's degree course at another institution. Then of course I realised I could offer both our candidates a position. One of them is unlikely to accept the salary on offer so I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get senior management to agree to an increase. One of the things I was asked to do when I first came here was to initiate a cultural change in the library. It was a big ask but if I can get these two appointments through, they and Z would be a brilliant team and we would be more than half way there.

Right Foot and I decided to get our hair cut so we could see out and to ensure that Petite recognises us at the airport on Monday morning. RF went to Al's in some back lane and I went to Fantastic Sam's in a slightly more salubrious part of town. I wish I'd taken the trouble to memorise the Chinese phrase for "That's enough!" before I went. A series of gestures and grimaces failed to convey the message so I wrenched the apron from around my neck and stood up. Still she came at me with the scissors, all the way to the cash register when I hastily paid 0.000005% of the cost of a haircut in Chapel Street and fled into the night.

In 58 and a half hours I will see my brown-eyed girl.

The Left Foot
Only five more days at work for me and I'm as busy as ever, just when I thought I'd be cruising. The resignation of the library assistant has meant another round of interviews. The security gate arrived today and the book chute. The delightful Z is spending the week with me, learning the ropes and she is everything I'd hoped. She identified all the issues in no time without any prompting from me and we are doing our best to solve them but it is HARD.

The Right Foot is too modest to tell you about his very successful presentation at Pustaka Negeri yesterday where he wowed them with his recently acquired PowerPoint skills and stunning intellect. Like me, he argued strongly for the introduction of that most revolutionary of ideas - collection codes. It won't be our fault if codes aren't soon plastered over everything.

Petite Soeur arrives next Monday to celebrate Christmas with us. Can't wait to see her and catch up with all the ad world goss. I am feeling a little apprehensive about our holiday in China because it's going to be so cold. Our hotel is in a good location so we should be able to dash over to the Forbidden City and back before we freeze. I'm looking forward to home now and will gladly swap the luxury of four toilets to choose from for a free press and a decent news service.

The Right Foot:
It is Durian season up here. Remember back in childhood when there were "seasons" for hoops and hopscotch, yo-yos, marbles and other childhood esoterica which somehow appeared in the school yard one day, and the next, everyone was playing though the rules and techniques got passed on from one year's cohort to the next without anyone actually handing out instructions? Well, the Durian season seems a bit like that. The first indication I got that Durian madness was about to descend was several weeks ago when a single battered stall set up on a Kuching street corner, with but a single shelf featuring just a few large green spiky fruit which were attracting very few customers. I asked someone what they were, and was told they were indeed the legendary "King of Fruit" but that they were far too expensive and not at their best this early. I smelt one, knowing their rep. for vileness and thought it didnt seem too ponky. Early days!!!

Now we are right into durian mid-season. As we drove to and from Gunung Gading in our fruitless quest for the Rafflesia, we passed scores of road-side shanties, their shelves bowed down with durians and thronging with customers, otherwise and ordinarily respectable people who had driven in willy-nilly off the road in a frenzy of durian-induced madness, flung open the doors and were even now, shameless addicts that they were, busy smelling, tapping and othewise directing passionate devotions of a quite idolatrous nature to the goods on display. But the smell, that pervasive odour of necrotic flesh that is the Durian's signature scent, could now be clearly identified swirling within the cabin of our passing car, travelling at the state maximum of 90 km, windows wound up, with the airconditioning on full bore! People say that you have to eat durians on Friday night to give your system the entire weekend to work it out before returning to work on Monday and I can fully believe it. They hold durian parties here on Friday evenings, secret gatherings of like-minded addicts who are prepared to plumb the fruity depths in order to satisfy their unnatural lusts. Its only a wonder that Dr. Mahatir hasn't banned it, as he has sex between unmarried couples.

When at last we'd run the olifactory gauntlet and returned safe to the Enchanted Tower, we opened the entrance door to the lifts and out wafted the unmistakable odour! One of our neighbours has a two-durian-day habit, I'd say.

The Left Foot
Our second last weekend in Kuching and it's the time the Rafflesia comes briefly into bloom. The Rafflesia is the largest flower in the world and has a diameter of 91centremetres. We drove for a couple of hours to get to Taman Negeri Gunung Gandang with high hopes of seeing a real Rafflesia to complement all the plastic, wood and fibreglass ones we'd seen so far. The climb up the gunung (mountain) was extremely challenging for two unfit frontier librarians and we were disappointed not to find the big R at the first of the three viewing points along the way. We struggled on, both developing that shaky leg feeling that goes with low blood sugar. I hadn't perspired so much since the day Petite was born. By the time we arrived at the second viewing point and fearing cardiac arrest was imminent, I knew that the final ascent was out of the question. Right Foot drew on his vast knowledge of Australian history, comparing the actions of early explorers who survived with those who didn't, and agreed that retreat was the only option. So back down the mountain we went, seeing lots of interesting flora and fauna that we had missed on the way up when we were totally focused on the Rafflesia. So the day was not wasted and what's wrong with plastic flowers anyway?

The Right Foot has his big day tomorrow, presenting his final report to the Datu and the Board. I showed him how to use PowerPoint and he has prepared a presentation that will knock their socks off. Then he will be free and I will have my chauffeur back. That will be wonderful.

The Left Foot
Here I am stealing a few minutes from Open Day meet and greet to post a quick blog. We have music blaring out in our usually quiet library. It is a Romany meets Irish jig version of Vivaldi - I rather like it.

Lots of Aussies in today, mainly engineers and they are the star attraction. Everyone in Kuching is into mechatronics bigtime. Having taken down all the scolding notices from the library notice board, I was left with lots of blank space so have put up some of the information about Lilydale and the Yarra Valley that Louisa and Debbie gave me. So amidst all the vigorous recruiting for Sarawak there is one little corner of the library that is promoting another campus far, far away.

I presented my review of the library yesterday and talked for over an hour. I've been here nearly three months so I figured I'd give them their money's worth. It was judged a good report although I had found a heap of problems in addition to the ones they knew about before. Now we sit back and wait for my reforms to be implemented. As Lynda would say, 'Ha!'

The Right Foot:
Yes, I'm back - I haven't been amputated for my sins - yet! Mulu made a tremendous impression on me, not least because I have been laid up in the Enchanted Tower for the last few days getting over a case of Mulu Tummy (surely it couldn't have been caused by all that Oz red we consumed at the Swinnie nosh-up the other night???).

The caves and the park are so spectacular that writing about them seems banal and certainly, the photos we took somehow manage to compress the awesome into the incomprehensible. So I will share some tiny images of an enchanting place that have lodged in the brain: stepping out of the blatting heat of the full sun into the green dark of the jungle paths and feeling the temperature drop ten degrees; walking along these paths with no other sound but the "switter" of the occasional elephant-ear sized leaf as it fell from the canopy, 60 feet above, magnified in the stillness of the middle of the day; watching our guide act as bowman in the long boat that took us up the river - without saying a single word, he guided the helmsman with the merest crook of a finger to point out the best path through the rapids and shallows; watching a long boat set out on a trip, with a full complement of guys (who all took a pee on the dock before getting in), and noticing their dogs, all dutifully gathered at the pram prow, heads cocked over the side, tails wagging, intently watching the bow wake (Larsen would have loved to include it in a cartoon); the design of the long boats themselves - spare, elongated, elegant craft, only one or two steps removed from dugout canoes, that drew a mere 6 inches of water and seemed to glide over, rather than plough through the water; the sharp eyes and encyclopedic knowledge of our guide who could spot the best camouflaged insect from ten feet away and knew all about the trees and plants and what each was used for; the large family (in all senses) who were blithely setting out for a five day hike to climb Mt. Mulu (only 24 km away but reached by a track that was near vertical in places) - if faith and good nature counts for anything, they deserve to make it and still be talking to each other at the end; sitting out on the verandah in the warm dark evening, watching the LED fire-flies hover around the ceiling to avoid the pair of bats that flew endless figure-eights, scooping up their weight in insects; the young Chinese girl who practically ran into the spinning propellers of the tiny Dornier of Dodgy Airlines so she could get the seat immediately behind the cockpit, then watched the pilot and co-pilot intently for the whole flight - I hope she realises her dream of taking over the lefthand seat one day; on the runway prior to take-off; feeling the Dornier straining at the leash as the pilot ran the up engines on the brakes at the end of the runway prior to takeoff; gazing out over the endless vista of parsley-patch green below the plane's window, knowing that each sprig of parsley was really a meranti tree, or something in the same colourways, of enormous proportions.

The Left Foot
I'm frantically busy in my last couple of weeks with little time to blog. I'm writing up my recommendations for presentation on Friday, interspersed with doing staff appraisals for light relief. Now there's an unpleasant task.
A parcel of Aussies rocked up on Monday and we had a great lunch and a great dinner with lots of hard work in between. It was the first time in months I wasn't outnumbered racewise at a dining table. I don't get stared at on campus so much any more - I am now a fixture.
We have Open Day on Saturday and fortunately enough of our books have arrived to present a reasonable looking library. Everything is being decorated in black and yellow. I keep expecting Matthew Richardson to run through the streamers.
On Sunday we are hoping to get to Lundu to see the Raffellesia in bloom. This is the largest flower in the world but only blooms for a split second every now and then. It will be our last weekend before we get ready for the arrival of Petite Soeur who is spending Christmas with us. It is easy to forget about Christmas here - it's just not happening. What bliss.

The Left Foot
When we got off our Dodgy Air flight yesterday we had to find our way to the MAS airport to catch our connecting flight. About half the passengers had organised transport but those of us who hadn't were standing around wondering if it was too far to walk when the Dodgy pilot offered to drive us in his company car. So we all squeezed in while the pilot drove us to the rival carrier's terminal. Value added service indeed.
On the plane I sat next to a Muslim gentleman in full fig. He asked me where I was from so I told him I was Australian. "That's all right", he said. "Don't worry about it". Then we both opened our newspapers which were full of scathing articles about Australian politicians. Australia has been getting a lot of coverage lately, none of it favourable.

The Left Foot
Our three days at Mount Mulu National Park were brilliant. As Borneo Adventure promised we saw two million wrinkled-lip bats fly out of the cave at dusk, not in a great swoosh as we expected, but in groups of about a thousand in long wavy ribbons that wriggled up the side of the cliff then across the sky. We loved it so much on Friday night we went back on Saturday. Our guide took us through the four show caves one of which is larger than St Paul's Cathedral and has a formation which closely resembles the profile of Abraham Lincoln. We explored one unlit cave by ourselves with a torch and swam in a river flowing out of one of the caves. It was sooo Enid Blyton. Our meals were provided by a company called Jowels who popped up with picnic lunches in eskies with no ice. It was sooo salmonella.
The scenery and wildlife were both spectacular and we heard all sorts of strange noises from all directions during the night - monkeys, birds, dogs and several unidentified. We saw fire flies, glow worms, red millipedes, butterflies, bugs, lizards, geckoes, one snake and 478 species of ants. And bats. At night on our terrace they swooped over our heads to chomp up the mozzies schmoozing around the lights. We cheered like ancient Romans at a lions v Christians fixture.
One of my colleagues here told me it would get cold up there so I took my fleece. Yes folks, its true. I took my fleece to a tropical jungle where the temperature was in the thirties and the humidity running at 98%