Internet Quest #5: The Yugoslavian Photo

 Friday 16th November 1990: from the train from Istanbul to Venice: 

Slide labelled: Yugoslavia.

Quest: Where is this?

1. photo evidence - narrowing down.

Previous photo: Tuesday 13th November 1990: cats in a cage, Istanbul zoo.
Following photo: Saturday 18th November 1990: Venice, the Arsenale.

 2. the railway in Yugoslavia, 1990. 

I can then googlemap the route, like in Lion.

22/4/2022 I found this online - eventual successful search term: "rail line thessaloniki yugoslavia 1990" 

Too much railway, too long to find.  Let the quest rest. 

3. Four years later – what was the route from Thessaloniki to Venice in 1990? 

Why didn't I think of this next?  Why did I start looking on Thursday 12 February 2026 again? I was at work, I was alone, I was distracted, I was texting a friend about... reading old letters, accidentally I was just putting them in a box and I started reading them, I got so many when I was away in 1989 and 1990, Poste Restante London, Kurfurstendamm, American Express Rome...

12/2, noon.

• looked at the old links. 
• googled "Let's Go Europe 1990". some for sale online. 
• went to the online University catalogue. Let's go Europe 1990 not in the collection.
• googled Bradshaw's 1990. 
• googled Europe train guide 1990
• searched University library catalogue for Thomas Cook European Timetable... no luck.
• (looked at Insta - many such halts on this quest)
• googled Thomas Cook European Timetable 1990. Some were for sale, checked out how much.
• found this link: International guides – Timetable World 
• navigated to this: Timetable World and found this:  

 
A M A Z I N G !

Then THIS bit:

 

M A G I C A L 

The route from Thessaloniki found, more or less: 12/2/26 3.06pm

4. googlemapping

I'd already been googlemapping but now I had a focus.

Photo evidence: train heading north/northwest mostly, shadow on the west side, so in the morning, November so maybe 10am, 11am...

I didn't find anything on 12/2, I had to um work, then go to the movies Le amiche  an Antonioni.  I'd kept a friend up to date with the Quest, via text, poor thing she was kind.

---

Sunday 15/2

Home from Fairday, 7.45pm I started googlemapping: Skopje, Belgrade, Gevgelija, Monastery of Saint Maria Magdalena, back to Thessaloniki, along the Motorway "Friendship" - a lot of the the landscape was too flat, too wooded, the curve wasn't there, or on the wrong side of the river.

Monastery of Saint Ilija, Thessaloniki, Kozhle, Smesnica Mosque, Khojan's Bridge. Skopje to Pristina, North Macedonia. Te Livadhet. Untold nameless points. Back to Skopje. 

9.30pm I watched Episode 4 of The House of Guinness. Went to bed.

Monday 16/2

Up early. I should have been writing my diary. "Journalling".

7.22am Skopje. 7.25am Markova Cheshme. 7.26am Bela Voda Cave. 7.27am Municipality of Demir Kapija. Bela Voda Cave. Skopje. 7.39am Archaeological Park Stoba. 7.40am NOB Monument. the land was sere, the hills seemed right, the train line - I would lose it on Satellite, switch to Map to find it again, but mostly it followed the valley of a river, all the way up from Greece.

5. Monday 16/2/2026, 7.44am - found it. 

F O U N D  I T.

I started. I stared. Stillness. Achievement. An End.

The curve was right. River out of sight to the right. Brown land. A factory over a hill (3D view). the building – the building I had photographed, my only photo in Yugoslavia (a single photo in 5 days travelling!) – gone, just the foundations left. Still an empty forgotten sort of place.

I googled streetview, route R1102. I saw day-tripping cyclists, closer views of the factory. 

 

I found a nearby village, Zgropolci. I googled it - poisoned with radioactive waste from the fertiliser factory.  

It's in North Macedonia. It's here: 41°39'11.7"N 21°52'37.5"E

I got ready for work. I was riding my bike in today. Late start.

Postscript

I have diary entries from this train trip. I mention Skopje, Niš, Ristovac, Povir, Trieste. I spend time with Julie (Melbourner, lost her in Trieste), Chris (NZ) , Sandra (an American, gave me a coffee) and Leanne (Wyoming). I sleep in a couchette, the whole compartment to myself. I go to Athens! – the train arrived 6 hour late. I read Jane Eyre, Joseph Andrews and Chatterton, all bought from a bookshop in Galata. I admire conscripts in Skopje, handsome Athenian boys, Athenian girls with amazing complexions.  Yugoslavia is a fairytale come to life - an old man sowing a field by hand, hayricks and stooks, horse-drawn ploughs, more wagons than cars, one being pulled by a black cow and a donkey. Gathering mists, twilight falling... 

 

 

Revenants

I told a friend I spend my days painting watercolours, strumming my ukulele and writing my blog.

I was watching "Les revenants" last night and thought about a place I was last year on my big bike trip around Europe. I came out of a range of high hills and this town was in the valley, with more hills - the Massif centrale I think - on its further side. It was late, already dark. I was there for a night, camped at the nearly empty Camping Municipale near the footy fields. Had a pizza for dinner from a little place that was just about to close - nothing else was open - wrote my diary and read a bit in the empty recreation room, breakfast at a blissfully quiet and warm McDonalds the next morning on the way out, heading north along an old railway bike track lined by fields full of dead brown sunflowers, to... another place I'd never heard of, a town of pink stone on a river, whose name I can't recall.

Plus ça change...

Monday 4th Oct 1982 [after a gap of a month]
I hate myself for this, but I've left off without writing in this for too long. I must get into the habit of writing in it more! But how can I be firm with myself? Not only am I morally (?) weak, but a disgustingly strong procrastinator.

... Now, my trip to Taronga Zoo. I was going to give a very detailed recount, with all the animals I'd seen, but it would take far too long. I went by myself (I go almost everywhere by myself; the places I go don't interest anyone else).

The Dead Outnumber the Living

I follow some friends' blogs that just aren't updated enough. Every day I look - every day - and for nearly all of them the "Last Updated" gets further and further into the past: 4 months, 11 months, 6 months, 1 year, 4 years...

Some of the blogs in my reading list I know have concluded, begun with a purpose and the purpose fulfilled, the last post a farewell and thanks. Another blog will never be updated again, the guy keeping it died. I won't let go of these for I don't want to forget.

And there are 2 or 3 hugely popular ones I follow that are updated all the time, ones even you might have heard of if you were gay or Australian or a birdwatcher - or all three. They don't disappoint me/fill me with ineffable nostalgia.

But friends* - dear friends - get your act together. Try harder. Think. Write, post pictures. I want to read your quirky musings, see your great paintings, be amused by those slower hidden sides of you I never get to see.

Or you could write me letters, I don't mind.

In the blog-o-sphere, life is cheap. A blog - a million blogs - appear with a burst of life, then stutter, and fail, the never-next post a fading hope. I did some research on blog half-lives and dead blogs. Millions are begun, 80% - or more - fail. A blog about dead blogs - last updated in 2006. Pressed Blogspot's "Next blog" button and see for yourself: "It's our anniversary tomorrow!" (8 April 2010). "God bless the two of you who still get alerts when I update this blog..." (4 May 2012).  "Relaunch soon. Watch this space." (2 February 2011). Blog after unhappy blog.

But then: "After a nearly 2 year hiatus...I AM BACK!!!! Can't wait to update and share..." (28 October 2014). And who am I to cast the first stone? My first post was my only one for nearly 2 years.

So "M", "J", "C" and "H", my cleverly disguised friends*, post again, for me. For this post is for you.




* and that hot single guy with the sailing boat who finished his last post mid-sentence 11 months ago.

Throwback Thursday #tbt

Thursday 2 February 1989
Hitchhiking with Stephen from Bern

We awoke about 9, much much later than we had intended, + after a false start at a not very busy entrance, didn’t begin hitching till 11.15 or thereabouts.

Another huge intersection, heading out of Bern in all directions. We waited there for about 3½ hours before we got a lift, + even before then had only had one offer, but he went in the wrong direction. It was funny the things that people did – many shrugged, or smiled, others did incomprehensible things – bending a finger down (I’ve got a little willy), or pointing vehemently at their laps (Look here, I have an erection!) or showing with their hand that they were going either left or right – as I said, incomprehensible. The 1st lift was only a matter of a few KM’s, from a youngish beery guy with a sparse moustache, but he said we’d have more luck to Fribourg from there – Flamatt, that is. We were there over an hour – it seemed we’d had the best of hitching in one day, the worst in the next – before we got a lift to Fribourg, from a nationalized Italian man in a little fiat. The Eingang at Fribourg Sud was very smelly – cow – + muddy + dusty, but it was less than half an hour before a youngish, quick sort of woman picked us up in a little red Honda looking thing. And there was someone else right behind us who was willing too! She took us to Vevey, through country that only recently had covered itself in snow for us; mountains + hills as usual looking wonderful out the windows.

Wicked

"It's Madame's birthday" I explained to the man selling programs. I waved away the money Clare proffered in her fist, and paid, feeling like a big shot.

I knew nothing about this production but I was looking forward to seeing this Fiyero's jodhpur- and green regimental-encased thighs, a highlight of the last Fiyero I saw. This one looked like a young Carey Elwes and I think it was probably the angle from the Dress Circle but his lower limbs didn't set my pulse racing?

Lots more happened in the show than I remembered and lots less too, which happens when you don't pay attention and also read the novels these things are based on.

In the middle of the show we became aware of a stir nearby, I turned to see a young man hurrying along the seats, starting and stopping, climbing over the back to an aisle and running hither and thither - was he actor? Did this happen last time? Voices and mutterings and movement over in the Dress Circle's better seats, people half standing, agitated, looking all ways in the gloom but mainly at someone in their midst, the young man - not an actor - racing down the stairs just near Clare, trying to escape! He couldn't find a door and stopped dead at the Candy Bar, then raced back up into the gloom, followed by our goggling eyes. "Call triple-oh!" a woman shrieked. "What's happening?" cried Clare! So strange, all in the gloom, a stage show taking place below us. It soon settled down, the young man found an usher, a person who'd had a fit was helped out, attended by their companions, we with whispers and looks of surmise regained our quietude and paid attention once more to the stage where, despite the kerfuffle, our inattention and my expectations, the show had actually gone on.

I was having a cup of tea with Clare at her place after the show. Clare, phone in hand on broad bosom, was scrolling through all her Facebook birthday wishes.
"Aw, Maisy posted, dat's noice. And Lizzy. Ah, one from Bec. And B– J– too, he's a nice boy."
"B– J– doesn't like me."
"What? Why?"
"Oh I don't know. I don't really know him. I think he thinks I'm a sleazy old man."
Clare took her eyes away from the phone and looked at me quizzically.
"Oh I know," I said, "but you've got a much better disguise."

Happy Jar Endgame

I needed some cheering up last night and I spied the Happy Jar
 on my fridge, where it's been almost exactly a year. So I opened it.

Here are a couple: "Michael knows how to sail a boat! Wow! I wish I knew that." This is true, I do. I always wanted to sail and never did then one day, I got involved and now, I can sail. And I do, too, all the time. That is pretty great. You do tend to take things for granted. I can sail a boat! That makes me smile.

"Michael has just the right mix of cynicism, compassion, honesty, kindness and sentimentality." That's nice, isn't it? So many elements I couldn't demur on all of them in the same way, so I try picking them out one by one: I think I'm way too cynical and honest, am I honest? Oh, kind! huh... then I think, what is "just the right mix" anyway? and so all my takes on the attributes get muddled and the whole thing goes on too long and it all slumps back into this nice list which makes me feel good.

I never added any slips of my own so each of the six was a surprise - and a nice surprise. No blank slips or backhanders here. Whoever wrote them - thanks. Especially that bit about my excellent physique.

After the ball is over

I picked up the sheet music to Meet Me In Saint Louis from where it was lying on my desk, and was working out its chords for ukulele, and it was all pretty easy until I hit Bb7b5. So I spent and hour or so working out what that meant, googling why dominant 7 chords had flattened sevenths, what the fifth the b5 referred to, and finally worked out the notes I had to play. I still have to work out the fingering, all for a single crotchet.

And somewhere along the way, somewhere in the interwebs, I came across this old song, and I found a youtube of Irene Dunne singing it in Showboat.

And I was surprised it was in Showboat, cos "I've never seen Showboat", so I've been spouting this last year or two, joking about my faulty credentials. But the movies of Irene Dunne were the backdrop to my early teens and I had seen this very scene and recalled it vividly, down to the drunk man's hat, Nola's brave smiling, the surge of the refrain with its nostalgia and loss.

So I had seen Showboat after all. Something else that I then began hazily to recall: my puzzlement on watching it that Ava Gardner was nowhere to be seen. Similar to that time when I watched Anna and the King and there were no songs. Or, slightly younger, when I was completely confused about Mexico and Spain and their respective positions on the globe.

Anyway, this song's been stuck in my head since Sunday.

Projects On-The-Go: Keywords

I'm giving keywords to all my digital photos, so that, for example, if I search for "Mum", all the pictures of my mother will be collected in one place. She's turning 80 in 6 years time, it'll be useful.

But "Mum" is easy, she comes under [PEOPLE] (you put square brackets around it so it appears at the top of the list). [PEOPLE] is one of the top-level keywords I use - it's like a heading for "Mum", "me", "Auntie Pat" and "Patrick".  Also I put in words that mean a person here - like "skipper" and "surfer" and "neighbour".

So currently I have eight of these top-level keywords, based on how I perceive the world, and what I take photos of. They are

• AMENITY - started out as pictures of bubblers and picnic tables and bridges, because I like those sorts of things, but it's turned into anything made by humans that's useful and fixed in the landscape - parks, ferry wharf, fence, gate-post.
• DETAIL - adjectives, like colour. Aspects of things, like exhibit, dead, funny. Other general descriptions of photos, like portrait, group, view, selfie, dud.
• EVENTS/ACTIVITIES/TIMES - Birthday Party, Ted's 40th Birthday Weekend, picnic, swim, sunset, dusk, Christmas.
• NATURE - names of birds (I'm a birdwatcher) and flowers; tree, branch, Lenny (my sister's greyhound)
• PEOPLE - described above, but also including bits of people - finger, eyebrow, leg, hair - if that's what the photo's of.
• PLACES/LANDSCAPES/BUILDINGS - actual addresses, places, countries, national parks, lighthouses, Sydney Opera Houses, motel, cabin; river, sand, cafe, camp-site.
• OBJECTS - things like clothing, book, ukulele, armchair, hat, earring, coin, Lindt bunny -
• TRANSPORT - boats, cars bicycles (I go on cycling trips, there are a *lot* of pictures of my best friend, the bicycle), buses, trains, ferries. I'm a sailor, so lots of boat pictures too.

Problems: 
So there's some things that overlap - is "road" an amenity or an aspect of landscape? What if it's this picture:

I can't not include "road", but it's not landscape, or amenity for that matter either. It just is. (The other keywords for this are "40, Heritage 18-footer Spectator Ferry Outing, Milson's Point, road, sign).

"Driftwood", "pine forest" - landscape or nature? "Tent" - object or amenity?

Then there's things I have no idea where to put. Graffiti? Hole? Rubbish? Rust? Gear? Why am I taking photos of rubbish anyway?! This is where I'm stuck, unless I give in and add a ninth top-level keyword: MISCELLANEOUS.

Coming up soon: Projects On-The-Go: Updating my cassette tape collection!

Blogpost labels: Tedium, obsessed, trapped, insanity, help.

Happy Jar Starter Kit

Someone sent me a Happy Jar Starter Kit, with instructions. It includes some small slips of paper, folded, that have compliments written on them, and I was to put them in a jar and add to them with my own little slips of paper describing things that make me happy, then at the end of a period of time - a month or a year - I was to open them all and read them... and be made happy.

But purportedly have compliments written on them. What if there are mean things written on them? "Under that awful exterior you're ok sometimes.""You should totally write blogs for a living!" What if there are meaningless things written? "You're great with kids!" "It's great how you like flowers!"

What if the slips of paper are blank?

It's mortifying. I've put them in a jar - an old Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve jar, it's sitting on top of my fridge - and I haven't read any of them, and I haven't added to them. When that month or that year was up, I think it would make me glum to read "The warm sun on my legs as I sit at my computer in my darling little bed-sit, deliciously frittering away a morning" or "Finding an actual Italian card-game iPhone app" or "Bonne Maman Raspberry Conserve boom-tish!" And I considered all these, briefly, and they're all true, in their small ways, but it makes me glum to read them even now. And I have a care for my future fragile self.

There's no conclusion to this. Those little bits of paper trouble me when I remember to dust the fridge-top. Here's a picture of them. Can you see the slips of paper? It's hard to make them out, there aren't that many.

 

Update: OK, so finally posting on this blog has actually made me somewhat... relieved.

Sasanqua-blossom time in Glenview Street

May-time isn't Spring-time, but it might as well be. Sasanqua camellias, mock orange, the last of the frangipani falling, small and unfurled but still lovely.

I was on my way to Five Ways, which is like the Erskineville of Darlinghurst, in fulfilment of my Quest, which is: Get Everything Done before you fly out on Thursday.

Five Days to go...

These are a few of my favourite things!

A famous friend of mine (AFFOM) recently agreed (avidly jumped at the chance?) to do a newspaper magazine supplement feature, Ten Favourite Things. AFFOM found it incredibly difficult not just putting in 10 photos of his/her beloved son/daughter (trying to keep it anonymous here, folks). AFFOM even thought about *borrowing* some lovely things, to make a good impression. AFFOM was telling me about it and said breezily, "I bet you have ten favourite, interesting thing". AFFOM meant things, but I'm no judger. But anyways, as we down-home bloggers say, it got me to thinking (ok I'm channelling Laura Ingalls Wilder), what are my ten favourite things?

I didn't have an existential crisis, as AFFOM may have, but it's not as easy as you think. Anyway(s), to cut a long blether short, here are my ten favourite things. In no particular order. Not counting photos or books. Sort of.

1. My pin-board. Look! It's green baize. Baize. Of course I love it! Baize. Plus I can pin things to it.
1a. I love my computer. Gateway, tool, repository etc. Useful expensive thing.
1b. I *love* my desk. I almost took a real photo of it. I thought, it's the *only* piece of furniture I would ever hang on to, if I won 30 million dollars. But then I recalled my armchairs (2b), shelf (4b), ikea dresser (7d) and my bedside cabinet (8c)

2. my ukulele. I *love* my ukulele. Whenever I look at it a quiet smile of affection ghosts my lips. When I take my clothes off to go to bed, I hang them over the back of the armchair, and sometimes a drawstring or sleeve hits the strings, and a quiet chord sounds. Sometimes I tune it. Infrequently I pick it up and strum 2 or 3 of the 4 chords I have learned since I got it, in 1993.
2b. The armchair is one of a pair that Dad got from the waiting room of where he worked, when they were being chucked. Modern timeless sixties design, original black vinyl cushions.

3. pink flamingo. This was purchased on the Caribbean coast of Mexico at a cost of USD5 back in the days when that was worth $200 Australian. We couldn't afford that! I said to Michael (Other Michael), who bought it. Now it's mine and I never want to part with it. Oops, there's some books too, wasn't going to go there...

4. playing cards. I have a collection of about 50 packs but these are the ones I take away with me on holidays, to actually play. Cribbage, euchre, canasta, scopa, briscola, 500, bridge, pig, murder winks, gin rummy, bezique!
4b. this shelving unit. Another sixties-style piece. Amongst others, it supports 4 books of card games on its shelves.

5. lighthouse lamp. My brothers and I shared this in our bedroom when we were kids. Dad had it in his bedroom when he was a boy. I've been minding it ever since I left home - it's not really mine, if Dad ever wants it back, he only has to say. Thanks for the loan, Dad. The globe, blown out in this picture, has a beautiful cloudy mottled appearance, like a snow leopard, which strangely enough is my Spirit Animal.

6. globe. I always wanted a globe, I used to hungrily spin the one my Collins cousins at Carlingford had, even though the cardboard at the bottom had worn away and it spun super-wonkily. Now I have my own, and though I never touch it, or look at it, or dreamily spin it thinking of faraway places, I could. Whenever I wanted.
6b. Mexican blanket.
6c. clown toy, recently re-discovered. Who on Earth gave it to me? Me? This is the only clown in my life I can bear.

7. Broken bird. I have so many broken birds. 3, actually. An ex I went on safari with in Botswana bought me this, and I treasured it in spite of everything, until one day a curtain flailed and caught my hornbill and threw it to the ground, where it broke into 4 pieces. I was very upset my eyes stung. It's glued together and I love it still, as I love my green bird (21, sorry no pic) that my first ex sat on and broke, and my 4 swallows that hang on the wall that my Mum gave me, that I dropped as I left her house the day she gave them to me...
7b. Stewie (from Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy") mints tin. I basically *am* Stewie, this tin is *me*, ie one of my favourite things.
7c. cloth. I bought this from a peasant somewhere. I love bright coloured stripes. This is the closest thing to a newspaper magazine supplement favourite thing I have.
7d. ikea dresser. It's really a sweet little piece of furniture. When I lived in my (compared to my current bed-sit) huge one-bedroom flat, this contained all my board-games in it. My board-games are languishing in Storage now, and my beautiful ikea dresser now contains my mending, electrical cables, keys, maps and napkins.

8. my painting of a green shed of Hokkaido, Japan, by my friend Lehan Ramsay. Oh Lehan.
8b. the orange 70s lamp that shines its light on my picture
8c. the bedside cabinet upon which the lamp stands. It belonged to my maternal grandparents, part of their wedding purchase of furniture, then grandad spoiled it and put a new top on it and it was used as a type-writer stand (a type-writer upon the like of which Thoroughly Modern Milly was proficient) and which I stripped and sanded and varnished. Never Again.

9. my bike. another gift from another ex. actually, one of the previous ones. the Botswana safari one. KR.

10. cuff-links. These belonged to my great-grandfather Peter Symington - Da - who wore them on his wedding day. He married his first cousin Nellie Symington - Nanna - but that's another story. I love all my cufflinks: the ones I got in France, the ones Michael gave me, the ones Cathy gave me; and my rings: the one I bought in 1989 with the money Clare gave me to spend in Paris, that I had already spent 3 times; the one Michael (again) gave me that the cleaner stole; the one Trish gave me... maybe I've never bought a ring? Also, my silver chain from Mexico, with the Story. My tie-pin I never wear; my greenstone swirl that fell on the one-bedroom flat's horrible pink and white bathroom floor and broke...
11. my diamond ring
12. my car
13. my Kashmiri scarf
14. my slide projector
15. my artichoke bowl
16. my Coaching Days glasses
17. my broderie anglaise shirt
18. my Camper™ sandals
19. Tanqueray gin
20. my martini jug
21. my green bird
22. oh ok my iPhone, that latterday Junior Woodchucks Manual
23... and at this point I will close by saying AFFOM may have been right.

Transit of Venus

The Astronomy Club had set up their telescopes on the terrace in front of the Quad when I arrived at work. It was overcast and unlikely they'd get a chance to see the transit of Venus in their - or even their children's - lifetimes. But when I came out at lunch, it had turned into a blustery cloudy marine kind of day, the sun flashing out in patches for minutes at a time. So I lined up with the other quietly excited introverts to take my turn at one of the telescopes. And bending down and looking through the eye-piece I saw a small black dot on a smoky yellow background - the telescope had magnified the edges of the sun out of view. There was another viewer nearby, like a camera oscura, that threw an image of a white sun with a small black dot on a round screen. It looked like the dot ball in billiards and the difference in scale between the small black dot and the large white disc was interesting.

Quietly excited introverts.

Someone was giving out sun-viewing glasses, like cardboard 3D specs but with thick brown plastic instead of the blue and red lenses. I put a pair on and looked at the sun - and I was looking at the Sun, our star, up in the sky - but in front of it was that tiny dark circle that was Venus - and it was like the Sun, and Venus, and Earth, were all beads on a string, and I could feel myself looking across space, across all that distance to a planet, and a star, seeing so far. I felt as big as that space, and I was amazed! and I was elated.

Modern Dance

I went out on Saturday night, with an old friend who works in a book shop. She had cheap tickets to a dance thing at the STC - modern dance! I know nothing about dancing - I mean, The Dance - and it was like I was a visitor from 1958*, so Modernistic, and strange, and clever it was. And the music - I mean the accompanying insistent noise soundscape - nearly an hour and a half of it, it must have been the product of someone's conscious thought! All very interesting. I thought, what would King Louis the 14th and his Court have made of this? but I couldn't come to any conclusions. I guessed that Isadora Duncan might have appreciated it a bit more than the Sun King, but would still have been puzzled. I thought if was bloody fantastic.

*1858

Dream Camping Trip

Last Friday at the office, so weary, but all set for the camping trip: esky, camping gear, clothes packed, knew where I was going. Then first thing in the morning, "A" emails me with an I-know-it's-late-notice-but invitation to a fabulous Disaster Movie themed birthday party the next night. And I said no I couldn't go I was all set for this camping trip.

Then I see on twitter that Donna Summer died, which made me sad about my ex and me, nostalgic I suppose, he used to play her a lot. So I got a bit teary, and as the day wore on I found I wasn't excited about the trip, but was determined to stick with it - cos I never know when to stick with a plan or when to give it the flick - so I stuck with it, and Lolly Sherman said I'd feel a lightening of spirit once I was on the Open Road, but the first half hour of the Open Road got me down the Princes Highway as far as Rockdale, and though it got better after that it was just driving, in the dark, for a long time...

And I got to the National Park, and had trouble finding the entrance from the highway, no signs, just a gap amongst the shadowy trees, a dirt track disappearing into the dark...

yes I though Deliverance, I thought Cabin in the Woods as I  drove down it to the camp-ground, negotiating the 4wd track at 15kmh, the camp-ground when I reached it a series of clearings on a final loop of the track, on hillocky ground amongst the trees; and all of spots seemed filled up but it was hard to tell in the flickering light of one big bonfire surrounded by 3-4 guys all staring at me with beer bottles in their hands - staring at my car rather, as it slowly circled them - and it was the sort of place where the anti-government the-NPWS-is-idiotic my-farther-(sic)-and-grandfarthers-(sic)-fought-for-this-country (rough quotes from a 4wd website about this camp-ground) crowd liked to gather; and one of the big tents had a sofa out the front, and there was no moon and it had taken 5 hours to get there instead of 3, and I didn't want to put the tent up in the dark and my spirit hadn't lightened on the Open Road, and as I finished the loop by the bonfire one of the guys mooned me as his mate slapped his thigh and guffawed, and I felt a little despondent.

One aborted stop-off at a flood-lit Tourist Park, where everyone was asleep; a nightmarish walk onto the beach there in an attempt to get into the being-awayness, but it was pitchy dark, and cold, I couldn't see, I almost walked into the surf, it was strange and weird and unfriendly; and dinner the packet of squashed-fly biscuits I'd fondly imagined having for afternoon teas over the weekend, eaten as I drove home without stopping, slapping myself to stay awake from exactly 11.11pm.

Houseminding in Glebe VI

Tuesday: day 12 of 12

Hola jet-setters,
thanks once again for the use of your place, I loved being there although, actually, I was hardly ever there.

Coupla things:

• I chucked the keys back through the letterbox, hope you found them.
• On Saturday I heard a thump from upstairs - the picture had fallen off the wall and tumbled to the floor, taking out the little chest of drawers and some bracelets. The little china box, miraculously, didn't break (ok perhaps not miraculously - luckily?).
• Couldn't work out how to water the back garden - EMBARRASSED. Did the under-cover bits this morning with a saucepan. I *did* water the ones on the porch.
  
• There is a load of sheets in the washing machine that needs drying. I cleaned the towels and bathmats that are in the bathroom.
• I didn't end up using any of your food or drink, except some margarine and sugar - and not at the same time.
• I thought it was too risky to open the back gate so I left the recycling in the kitchen. I walked my little bag of rubbish out the back before I left. (Too awkward to do this with the paper and glass)
  
• I ended up only using the big computer in the living area, and only really to surf the web. I tried to work on my "movie" but stalled right at the beginning.
• I had a series of #fails last night which meant I couldn't make the cake I was going to leave as a thank you - so IOU 1 Claudia Roden orange cake, ok?

Well that's eight. Let's catch up soon!

moikl xxx

http://mickmccabe.blogspot.com/2011/12/houseminding-in-glebe-vi.html

Houseminding in Glebe V

Friday: day 8 of 12
Erm.. oh yeah. No. Um. Dragged ma lazy slut body out of bed, watched a baby huntsman in the bathroom, drank coffee, went  on the internet. Mornings have a pattern here.

Went to three Xmas parties, the last one just up the road at the Different Drummer. I used to go here in my courting days, which I don't really recall.

Saturday: day 9 of 12
I wake up late. I seem to have all my clothes on. It is surprisingly comfortable sleeping with one's shoes on. I don't feel too bad, but I probably can't string two words together. Sadly, no one asks me to.

I go up and have breakfast at Mano. I have a toasted ham cheese and tomato croissant, some mineral water, and a long black. They make good coffee. I read one of the Australian's inserts, then I order a 2nd breakfast - Turkish toast with peanut butter, and another coffee. Tap water this time. I stop being hungry but am not any less stupid.

I spend the day at the house, doing nothing. I had PLANS! Ruined by having fun! My Xmas card would be late this year. I manage a rough sketch, on the back of my registration confirmation for tomorrow's swim. At about 4pm a loud noise from upstairs - a picture has torn its hook from the wall! This is the most exciting thing to happen here all week.

Quiet evening watching tv at the ex's. I am a little less stupid, though not perceptibly to others.

Sunday: day 10 of 12
Coffee and the last of my "organic honey" on a dry sandwich, is breakfast. *Carb-loading*for my swim today, man. I pack a banana too, to eat a little later. I leave the house, reflecting that I'm only ever here to wake up, or go to sleep. Or, like yesterday, somewhere in-between.

After the swim (1.5km at Bilgola; time: 30:07; place: 148/317) Dave drops me off outside. First thing's first: I make some coffee and look at Facebook.

I shower and change and douse myself with a litre or two of Acqua di Giò from the barrel in the bathroom cupboard. I look and smell so pretty! I go to a farewell at the Welcome Hotel in Balmain. A lesbian compliments me on my shirt.

TV at Clare's, we watch 3 episodes of Season 3 TrueBlood! Buttock count: 37.

Monday: day 11 of 12
I have only got up early ONCE while in this house, to go to Canberra. Maybe it's the sound of raindrops on the roof that is so soporific? Maybe it's staying up until 2am every night?

So laying in bed, listening to the pitter patter, I read a text from Liesel crying off from dinner tonight. I am secretly glad as somehow I had double-booked having Liesel over with CLEANING THE HOUSE AND PACKING ON MY LAST NIGHT.

I go downstairs, make coffee, wash the dishes, get dressed and write an email to Jenny Smith. I notice the Herald's TV guide, unread on the coffee table, and meditate on the fond and foolish hopes I had held at the beginning of my stay, imagining cosy nights in watching tv. I haven't switched the box on once. I probably can't, I've forgotten Deb's instructions. I looked around, and see the clutter and disarray I have made, and really *really* hope Deb's email had got it right when she said they'd be returning tomorrow. I would hate to come back to all this. Except I will be, tonight. Sigh.

Later: epic series of fails this arvo. TWO false alarms at work, forgot my keys, forgot to bring a laptop home, stayed too late, shopping fail, eftpos fail, cake fail, dinner fail, club newsletter fail, gin and tonic fail - dispiriting. But I have packed, and swept, and put the mail neatly on the coffee table, and got some laundry done, so ready for a 4.30 wake up call, eh!

Houseminding in Glebe IV

Thursday: day 7 of 12
Um... oh yeah. This morning I cooked those sausages I bought in Canberra, now or never. I ate two for breakfast, and cleaned the bbq. Like I knew I would. It was great, I thought, bbqing before work, this is great! Then I went to work smelling of bbq'd pork fat.

And I WALKED to work!

Thursday was my night at home, watching tv FINALLY and, you know, having a bit of "me" time. Hi stranger, how you doin'? Yeah, no. I went to dinner at my last houseminding gig, and said hello to the cat there, and listened to 3 months of overseas travel stories, and drank gin and ate. And then it was early, so I went to Alex and Lars's gig at some boîte on Crown Street, where the beers were $8 (note to future reader - expensive, but not criminally) and the first act was a nicely made up girl juggling (note to future reader - is she, as I imagined she might in 40 years, mouldering in a mental institution?)

Houseminding in Glebe III

Wednesday: Day 6 of 12
I saw a dead leaf under the front door as I walked from the hall into my dressing room, and I thought, "I must sweep the dead leaves out of the front pebble-garden". I was passing a built-in hall cupboard and I thought, "I wonder if the broom to sweep up dead leaves from the front garden is in there?" I opened the cupboard and it was full of BLANKETS.

I put a load of washing on when I realised I had no clean undies (I had to wear my emergency pair again today). I used soap flakes! I have never used them in a washing machine. I felt like my grandma, except alive. There is borax too, for my whites, but I think if I use it, my whites will be sent back 140 years in time, and will come out all yellowed and Miss Haversham-like.

No luck with parking this time, had to stop in a 1-hour parking zone and move the car later. Except I FORGOT. No ticket luckily when I went finally to move it to another 1-hour spot, before my lunchtime swim. On my return it I saw a nearby free-time spot and ran and fumbled with my keys like Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark", and there it's staying tonight, as I'm catching the bus in to see Tony and an AADA student play. I honestly never thought *parking* would be an issue during my stay in Glebe.
---
Home again, remembered as I came in the door and saw a Xmas card in the letter slot, that I don't have long to make my Xmas card! Let alone the Geralaina Xmas party movie. I want some cocoa but too full from a disgusting "Wagyu beef" burger from the Criterion on Park Street. I drink a lot of water instead. I sit at the huge computer screen and look at Facebook and play scrabble, and follow links from twitter, and email David about the Ocean swim on Sunday, and browse some other websites. I stay up late! Late enough for my stomach to settle and allow me my cocoa, which in my amusing twitter quips last night I called Some Enchanted Evening. I might have had gin on the rocks but there was no ice. No ice!*

It's been raining all day. It's still raining. I'm staying here to water the plants. I'm here under FALSE PRETENCES.

*There was ice.

Houseminding in Glebe II

Tuesday: Day 5 of 12
I wake up feeling not exhausted, at a normal time. I shower, and make a coffee. I have an hour to spare before I need to leave for work. I feel like life is getting back on track. I play scrabble on Facebook. I look at twitter and follow interesting links. I write to Jenny Smith. I write how I *must* cook the enormous rump steak, which I had planned for 2 or 3 meals, and which I bought in Canberra, tonight, or it will be Too Late. Though the sailing club committee meeting I am attending at the Taxi Club tonight might be an impediment. I drive to work, and find someone leaving a spot as I arrive in Arundel Street.

I finish work at 6 and park the car in front of the house. There's been a spot there each time, though sometimes the car in the spot in front, which is next to a giant fig tree, parks 5 foot out from the kerb. There are two items of mail in the front yard, scattered. I feel this is my fault for closing the mail flap this morning on my way out. There are a lot of fallen leaves. I wonder how difficult it would be to sweep the low maintenance pebble parterre clear of them. I go inside, drop the mail on the pile behind the door, go into the lounge room, empty my back pack of my so-far-this-week-unused swimming gear, then head up St John's Road to the fruttivendolo. I have heard good things about this place and I am pleased to say they had not only a great variety of fruit and veg, but unusual varieties of, for example, tomatoes, and potatoes! There were Nicola, which I had never heard of, and Bernadette, which I remembered from my childhood last century. I bought English spinach and onions, giant bananas, and from the Foodworks bread and milk.

I feel like a glass of wine but I have none, so I drink some water. I unlock the back door, for the first time, and the back gate. It takes me a while, in the dark, to work out there is bolt that needs to be drawn. There is a light over the bbq, and I put the onions on to fry with a spot of oil. I get the steak from the fridge. I unseal the plastic and try not to think about what the smell I can smell might mean. I decide to take a risk, and put the steak on the grill. I stand there, stirring the onions, wishing I had a glass of wine to drink, but I don't, so instead I drink large glasses of water, which later in my amusing Twitter quips I call Chaste Bachelors. 

So I use the bbq, and I think I will clean it later as I pull the lid down, and I certainly mean to clean it, it would be terrible not to. And I go inside and spoon on the spinach I had steamed, next to the giant piece of grilled rump steak piled high with brown fried onions, and I get the salt and pepper cellars, neither of which grind really well, and I eat my dinner at the dining table, which is otherwise covered with clutter from my back-pack - busy-bag clutter, not swimming gear clutter - and read my book.

Then I do the dishes. And after I stay up late - to midnight - on the internet. Facebook and twitter and gmail. The History function on the Firefox browser is turned off - nothing is recorded - so every time I want a web-page I must type the whole of the address, or find out the address from a Google search! I consider turning the History function on, and I recall all those websites I've looked at but haven't mentioned here, and I decide not to turn the History on.

I go up to bed. It's cold - damn you la Niña! - and I need blankets. I go down to my dressing room and look in the cupboards, but they are full of Christmas decorations and copies of Deb's books and camping gear. I gingerly open some of the larger drawers a crack in the bijou dressers upstairs, and I glimpse baseball hats (in the male dresser) and pink knitted wool (in the female) but no blankets. I put on my polo-fleece vest as a jarmie top again and snuggle up with Mrs Ames anyway. She is my book. After I turn the light out I lay there an hour, not falling asleep, not getting warm. My pulse is slow. I am no furnace.

I forgot to mention that cute guy across the road!