Dubrovnik

Our ferry from Hvar to Dubrovnik didn’t leave until late afternoon, so b/f and I breakfasted in Stari Grad at a café we’d found the day before. Yesterday’s breakfast had been awesome, but this time the tomato was a little off and poor Jess turned green and felt awful. However, I managed not to spew (it would have been better if I had), and b/f and I made our way slowly to the bus.

The trip from Stari Grad to Hvar Town was short but lovely, particularly when we were spat out at the other end into the flashiness of Hvar Town. I resented the huge cruise liners in the harbour on account of what they were doing to the marine environment, though I daresay I am as much to blame as they are for travelling at all.

I still felt crook so had to sit as still as possible for hours until we could finally board the ferry, which was late in getting in to Dubrovnik. I was anxious about our accommodation person waiting up so late for us, though I texted her several updates. When we finally arrived, caught a cab and walked up the steps to our apartment, she was waiting for us. She spoke largely to b/f, assuming he was the one who knew what was going on, which was probably just as well as I was too tired to lipread.

Dubrovnik was very hot and I still didn’t feel 100%, but there were things to distract me. When b/f and I set out the next morning, we discovered a mortar shell sitting in the alcove outside our door. We bought Dubrovnik cards, which gave us entry to places like the Franciscan monastery which had an ancient pharmacy and the most gorgeous atrium full of plants. I was also impressed with the exhibits in the Natural History Museum – little shells encased in glass baubles.

We ventured up onto the city walls, which were splendid. I don’t get vertigo, nor any kind of dizziness because meningitis did something to my inner ear, but even so I was anxious about getting too close to the edge. From the walls we looked out to the ocean, and down onto terracotta rooves. We bought some overpriced sorbet which melted into a sticky pool within minutes, and tried to count all the stray cats we could see. B/f was delighted to find a sticker on the wall which said ‘Where the hell is Burgunperry?’ After stepping down off the wall, we had drinks in a square, listening to performers and singers.

When we got back to our attic apartment, a cat followed us inside. B/f picked him up to take him out, and was bitten. There were fireworks in the city, which we watched from the window above the toilet. Very glamorous.

The next day we thought about visiting a nearby island but we were pretty much broke by then, and too wrung out. Dubronik was very expensive – we had stupidly (at my insistence), eaten breakfast within the city walls, and two croissants, one egg and four coffees had come to 60AUD. So we lay in the airconditioning and read, which was also luxurious, and had dinner in a lovely restaurant with bougainvillea. The next day we had separate flights, but met again in Singapore airport and headed home. After two months of travelling and a glorious holiday I was sad to start work again, but, as usual, soon I had no time to think of anything except the next deadline.

Jess at the end of her hols.

Stari Grad

On the ferry to Stari Grad I finally finished my bloody book and packed my laptop away. When we pulled into the harbor, b/f & I decided to walk into town rather than catching the bus, which was heaving with backpackers. En route, some young men opened their packs in the grass on the side of the track and changed their clothes.

‘What are they doing?’ I asked b/f.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What language are they speaking?’

‘French.’

‘Perhaps they just got off the plane and they’re too hot.’

I had booked the AirBnB in Stari Grad somewhat in error, not realising how far away Hvar, the main town, was. As it turned out, it was a blessing, as Stari Grad was far and away my favourite place on the trip. We located the house in which we were staying, and were greeted by our host’s Mum, who was looking out for us as we walked up. She took us to the house and showed us the air conditioning. I logged into the wifi & sent off my book to my agent.

B/f and I wandered into town, which was calm and quiet, with clean, paved streets. We had a drink to celebrate my newfound liberation from my literary albatross, then went back to the house for a siesta. That evening we ventured out again through the cobbled streets and I snapped a shot of a family in the square, the little girl dancing with abandon.

We found ourselves outside an interesting looking restaurant, and decided to venture in. Well, it was just gorgeous, with mismatched furniture, a visitation from a cat, good wine and that excellent Pag cheese. Although b/f is immune to romance, I was charmed and very happy.

The next day we wanted to explore, so b/f and I hired bicycles from a fellow with a stand near our accommodation. We went east first, and the path soon disappeared. I wrestled with my giant bike, until a strapping Mediterranean man, walking behind us with his girlfriend, lifted it up for me over the rocks. B/f walked on, oblivious; one of his habits. Eventually we could go no further and decided to swim in a cove. Except it was, we discovered, a nudist cove.

‘I think we’re overdressed,’ b/f mused. ‘Shall we put on our birthday suits?’

‘No! Well, you can, but I’m not going to.’

We watched a German woman fastidiously apply sunscreen to every inch of her skin, and those of her two boys. I snorkelled, but there was nothing to see except the algae. It made me sad; the ecosystems must have been disrupted by all the boats shunting into the harbour. The top half of a pineapple had lodged itself among the rocks and I figured the rubbish wasn’t helping either.

Stari Grad UNESCO plains

We then set off east to visit the UNESCO paddocks, which had been farmed for some 2000 years. Weirdly, this info wasn’t in the Lonely Planet; I’d found it by poking around online. B/f was anxious about making sure I didn’t get hit by a car that I couldn’t hear and I was a bit stressed too, so we pulled off down a track and discovered old structures made of stones, set among cypress trees, with some cool plants in flower. After cycling for a bit longer, we headed into Vbroska, which was such a pretty place I wish we could have stayed there. We made our way along the bay until we reached a resort, and yours truly started getting pretty shirty on account of the heat. I wanted to swim, but b/f wanted to push on through the resort. I spat the dummy and we turned back and parked our bikes, then stepped over the rocks into the water, which was gorgeous

Harmony restored, we climbed back on the bikes and b/f found a way through the paddocks that was much quieter. I was still hot, but distracted by the amazing vegetation around me.

Plant & drystone wall.

That evening there was a full moon and b/f and I ate olives and cheese and drank red wine on the verandah of our AirBnB, which was screened by a grape vine. I was marvellously happy.

Split

After the quietness of Veli Losinj, Split was a shock. There were plenty more tourists and shops selling plastic wares for them, and the heat and dusty road near the bus stop was oppressive. We walked through the Riva, a baking marble plaza fronting the water, found our accommodation and switched on the air conditioning. 

However, Split was full of history, we found the next morning, walking past the fish markets and into the warren that led to the Roman ruins of Diocletian’s Palace. After watching some Roman-clad actors doing a bit of bad theatre in the centre, then a male choir singing traditional Dalmatian songs (lovely!), we attached ourselves to a tour group and walked through the cobbled streets in the heavy sun. The ruins were spectacular, rearing against the blue sky. They dated from the 4th century, when Diocletian built the palace for his retirement home. I couldn’t hear much of what the guide said as I was too hot to concentrate, but b/f repeated some of it for me. I tend to retain information more easily by reading, anyway. One part of the area was where Cersei did her walk of shame in Game of Thrones, and the underground dungeons were where Daenerys kept her dragons. It was cooler there, at least, and I felt for the menopausal women flapping brochures and fans.

A gorgeous, golden European evening.

That evening I wanted to get away from the tourists for dinner, so we followed some steps away from the centre and up into Marjan Forest Park. The views of the city were beautiful, but even better was the soft golden dusk, falling into the cypress trees. B/f mused how he had once thought the Victorian masters had fudged this effect in their paintings, but when he came to Europe he realised that this was how it actually was. A big change from Australia’s bold sunsets. There were charming Medieval grottos fitted into the rockfaces, too.

We didn’t find any dinner on the hill and by the time we got down, b/f often pulling me out of the way of cyclists whizzing dangerously past (I couldn’t hear them coming), I was hangry. We found a good place near our accommodation, and breakfasted there the next morning as well. Over our coffees we watched the ticket inspectors booking local cars, then we set off for the ferry for Hvar Island. While waiting in the holding pen, having a cool drink outside another cafe, b/f pointed out a young man with a cochlear implant. I was so impressed that he was travelling around by himself, although I shouldn’t have been, as I was intrepid when I was younger too. I watched him talk to some nearby women, his mobile in hand. They shook their heads & I realised he wanted the wi-fi password. I explained this to b/f and asked if he would take it over to him (it was printed on the café docket), and b/f obliged, as I was too shy. The man with the cochlear nodded when b/f showed him the code, then settled down with his phone.

Split by night.

Finally we boarded the ferry for Stari Grad, and I pulled out my laptop and furiously set to finishing my book.

On Holidays! Veli Losinj

The next morning we packed up, left our friend’s father’s apartment and traipsed back to the bus station. B/f held my hand as we crossed the road because of the unpredictable traffic, even at crossings. Our friend’s father had told us to be careful of the cars because Croatians had only recently acquired cars en masse and they were poor drivers. 

At a café outside the bus station, b/f ordered a coffee.

‘Would you like one too?’ he asked me.

I shook my head. ‘My tummy’s upset.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m anxious.’

‘What about?’

‘Missing the bus.’

‘We’re forty minutes early!’

‘I’m still anxious.’

B/f was unable to comprehend. I settled for a lemonade.

After half an hour we queued for our bus and found our seat, but there was a lengthy delay. From what we could gather, the bus was overbooked and the woman who couldn’t find her seat set up an almighty noise. The harried bus driver called the company on his phone. Eventually it turned out the woman was on the wrong bus. The passengers sighed and smirked as she bustled off.

Outside the city, there were yet more delays, and the traffic slowed to a crawl. We looked down at a car below us and saw the driver watching a video on his phone as he drove. We wondered aloud if there was an accident or if the traffic was bad because of school holidays. A woman overhead us and said there had been an accident. Then the bus stopped altogether and a man dashed off onto the grassy verge, took a lengthy leak, then bolted back into the bus. The woman who could speak English was becoming visibly agitated and harangued the bus driver. I watched the rocky landscape out the window and charted where we were going via Googlemaps. When we reached the car ferry, the passengers cheered. We loaded, climbed out and went onto the deck. The water was incredible. I noticed that the agitated woman had found a friend, and realised she had been wanting to meet her friend on the ferry and this was why she’d harassed the driver

View from the ferry.

B/f cracked open a beer and appeared to be enjoying himself and the scenery. I sat on a bench nearby & laughed everytime the nearby door to the cabin opened & fell off its hinges.

Finally we reached Veli Losinj, which my parents had recommended to us. We were very late and our AirBnB host was concerned, but I managed to text and find him. The AirBnB place was gorgeous; a little nook overlooking the square and the harbour. B/f & I had a lovely dinner by the water but belatedly realised we had been fleeced with tourist prices. Oh well, it was a gorgeous view and the harbour was so tranquil.

I was still working on my bloody book; I wanted to send it off so I could have a holiday. During my breaks, b/f and I swam and snorkeled (nothing to see but algae and a handful of silvery fish; the water was too degraded), sunbaked on the cement like the locals, drank coffee and wrote on postcards, bought wine and cheese from the supermarket and partook of it. Then we discovered that we needed to stay an extra day (such hard luck!) as the ferry didn’t run until the following day, so we moved into a hotel around the corner. B/f then lost the key while we were swimming. I was furious but diverted myself with my pal Inga Simpson’s new memoir, Understorey, a good read.

 As we were negotiating to pay for a replacement key, the owner brought in the one we’d lost – some kind person had found it & placed it on the bar while we were out. My equilibrium was restored.

The next morning we caught a taxi to Mali Losinj and sat in another café watching the water, the lorries going up and down the harbor and sunburnt Europeans with big bellies on their yachts.

‘I don’t feel well,’ I said to b/f.

‘Why not?’

‘I’m anxious.’

‘We’re an hour early. We couldn’t have got here any earlier, unless we camped.’

I laughed, and my nerves subsided.

Easter Shenanigans

Easter was a wonderful escape from the stress and confines of Bris Vegas.  I was liberated by J1&S at 6.15am on Thursday morning when I was far from compos mentis, but it was a very pleasant and relaxing trip to Coonabarabran. The baby went to sleep, and so did I.  Then I read some of my book and watched the scenery. Outside Moree we stopped in a park and the baby sat on the grass and S went off to find booze.  On his return, he said that he’d just heard Tony Abbott had been stepped down for possession of steroids to help him run his marathons.  I was beside myself with joy: I resent Abbott’s patriarchal attitudes & his antagonism towards gay people & how he thinks he’s hot in his budgie smugglers when he’s really an ugly mutt, not least because of his personality.  Then S explained it was an April Fools’ joke and my balloon was pricked.  Sometimes being the most gullible individual in the universe has its drawbacks.

L&F’s property was just gorgeous, especially because the country was so similar to the country in which I had grown up.  I helped S collect firewood (I picked up 3 pieces), then drove the quadrunner, which I haven’t done since I was 15, and S directed me to the top of the hill to watch the sun go down.  The end of the day, when the light was long and low, was always my favourite, and the dusk with its soft purples and pinks was the same as on our property, and as in the watercolours my father painted.

The next morning I went for a run and scratched my legs in the long grass and infested my socks with grass seeds.  The smell of the bush, wet with dew, was just as I remembered it, and the sky was the same shocking blue above the low hills.  I ran among the native pines as I had on our property, until I ran into a spider’s web, saw the size of the spider, had a minor freak out and galloped back to the road.

E&R turned up before lunch so we had a glass of champers, then lunched outdoors in L’s beautiful garden.  Then L took E and I to a dam for a dip.  I had buggered my bikini in another dam on Australia Day and hadn’t yet got a new set, so I was reduced to my pink Bonds undies and my sports bra.  It was warm on the surface but bitterly cold beneath and we didn’t stay in for long.

L was a wonderful cook and catered for my various food allergies, which was amazing, not least because she cooked for 16 other people that night too (they didn’t have allergies fortunately).  I drank too much sav blanc and woke up disgruntled the next morning.  I went for another run, keeping to the road this time.  Milo, the Jack Russell, belted ahead of me and wouldn’t go home when I told him to.  His little feet skittered along, he picked up a rock for me to throw, and seemed to be having a marvellous time.  Then F came on the quadrunner looking for him - they’d been wondering where he was – and scooped him up.

‘Do you want a lift too?’ he asked me, concerned by my sweating and red-faced visage.  I shook my head, intent on seeing it through, and it was worth it because the endorphins made me more civil.

At lunch time we headed to the gorge, stopping en route for clay pigeon shooting.  I didn’t participate as I don’t like violence, weapons or shooting, except for that done with a lens, and I shot accordingly.  The gorge was green and lush, with a creek running through it.  I opened more champers and chatted with N, who had turned up with her husband for the day.  Then the neighbour M2 made some extremely potent cosmopolitans and served them to us in aluminium mugs.  I liked that (I like pink drinks in whatever form), but I was somewhat overwhelmed by the alcohol content, and after I’d said goodbye to N I had a have a little power nap in the car with the baby.  The latter woke me up with his vigorous vocalisations, though I’d turned my hearing aid off.  I ignored it for a bit, then staggered out.

‘You’ll make a great mother,’ S said dryly, tending to the baby.

‘Oh well, my husband will just have to get up to look after the child when it’s screaming, won’t he,’ I returned.  And my conservative relatives wonder why I’m still single.  I like to tell them I’m a lesbian and that I’ve written a novel to prove it.

J1 also expressed her disgust that there was a plethora of available men circulating and yet I had failed to make a move on any of them.  I explained that I wasn’t a fast worker and I was very particular, although I was by no means ungrateful for her efforts.  She still didn’t look very impressed.

Towards the end of the evening, after the boys had exerted their manhood and made a bonfire and E and I were drunk and giggling hysterically, the way we always have since school, E. unveiled some butterscotch schnapps.

‘You wanted something sweet, Jess, here we have it.’

‘Butterscotch?  I’m allergic to dairy!’

‘No, you can still drink it, I’m sure you can.’

‘What are the ingredients?’  I stumbled to fire, the only source of light available, to read the ingredients, but it had nothing listed.

There being no satellite connection available to consult the Oracle, I tried the next best thing.

‘P1, where are you?’ I yelled.  ‘P….1!’

I located him in the darkness and explained, with great eloquence and significant pointing, that there were no ingredients listed on the bottle.  Unfortunately however, P1’s reading had not yet extended to the distillation process of butterscotch schnapps.  Defeated, I returned to E.

‘I’ll pass out!’ I warned her.

‘Well, you’re going to do that anyway.  Just drink it.’

As it happened, I was fine, if exceedingly drunk.  I listened to some ghost stories the boys told, filed one away for a future story, and then conferred with E&R and decided it was time to go home.  I was stuck in the back of the ute and R negotiated us with great care over the rocky landscape.

I woke up at 7 feeling sorry for myself, and staggered out in my hot pink flannel PJs.

'You're not going for a run today?' Fred asked.

'I've got a hangover, Fred.'

'You're getting soft!' he scolded, trying not to smile.

After a cup of tea I managed to clothe myself and accompany M1 into town to get bread for 17 people, whereupon I made various hungover quips about Jesus feeding the 5000 with loaves.

The rest of the morning we passed playing Cranium.  R was my partner and I was most impressed that he accurately detected my rendition of Shakira.  As we played, P1 assiduously cleaned up the kitchen, brought things in from the utes and put them away, then attacked the edge of the table with a cloth, rubbing it furiously.

‘Do you think it’s clean enough?’ I teased him merrily.

Then my poor, long-suffering father picked me up at midday and we drove back home, stopping en route to visit grandma in the nursing home and BabyW, a new addition to CousinA’s family.  He had pretty blue eyes.

For the past five days I’ve been writing, and now I am thoroughly sick of it.  Mum is in NZ visiting rellies so dad and I have been conducting our small rebellions: leaving the door open so the sunlight gets in (and the flies), not cleaning things up immediately, leaving the coffee grinds in the sink … Mum would have a hernia.  However it is always lovely to come home and find your favourite Bushells Extra Strong teabags in the cupboard and a bottle of Malborough sav blanc in the fridge … frankly, life could be a lot worse.

On Socialising

If January was spent working like a dog to get the first draft of my novel done and losing weight because I was so stressed I stopped eating, February by contrast was about overintoxication, catching up with friends and meeting all kinds of new and interesting people. With the novel in the post to my agent, I got on the plane to Sydney for a week of hedonism.  First stop was lunch with my old uni friend K in Kingsford.  I was surprised by how much coming back to the area around UNSW felt like coming home, having lived for two years in Randwick in an art deco apartment.  An old, white-haired man named Neville lived downstairs.  Neville had Xmas cards stuck on his door, Christian platitudes on little pieces of paper on his walls, and a habit of accosting one beside the recycling bins and talking at great speed.  He was, however, as sharp as a tack and picked up straightaway that he had to talk clearly because I was deaf.  Which meant that I had to listen to most of his rambling, most of which centred around the necessity of recycling, with which I was in complete agreeance and which, therefore, was redundant.

I digress.  Lunch with K was in one of the plethora of Asian restaurants lining Anzac Parade and I had an excellent laksa and good conversation, then proceeded to the Rupert Bunny exhibition.  I loved the abundant femininity of his early work, overflowing with women with flowers in their hair, lavish frocks with lace and bows and sumptuous fair skin, and of course anything to do with Paris makes me swoon.  His work had such an enviable air of wealth, indolence and indulgence which you could never find in the 21st century.  Later, his style became Modernist, with the flat planes and colours of the Fauves.  Although it was technically very good it didn’t move me in the same way.  Before I left I reacquainted myself, as I always do, with the paintings in my favourite room of 19thC Australian art: the stunning blue skies of Tom Roberts’ Fire’s On (Laptsone Tunnel), Elioth Gruner’s Spring Frost, donated to the gallery by my great-grandfather, and Sydney Long’s romantic paintings.

I dined with the lovely I., with whom I’d lived in the art deco apartment with H.  She was the perfect flatmate and we never fought once while we were living together, and it’s always just so lovely to catch up with her again.  We had a posh dinner in the city and I put on a black and red wrap dress with my red heels, but it was bucketing with rain so I looked like a drowned rat when I arrived rather than the sophisticated young lady who had stepped out the door, which was most unfortunate.

I decamped from the Eastern to the Western suburbs for a night, staying with E. and, the next morning watched So You Think You Can Dance? until 2 in the afternoon.  I am subsequently addicted to this program and blame E. for my conversion to trash.  Then it was lunch with B. and second cousin D. in Danks Street, which was not far from where B. and I had lived in Surry Hills.  It was full of wankers but there was a very pretty Parisian café which I frequented the next day, and sat on a brocade couch beneath chandeliers, watched the people on the verandah outside and read my book.

I also caught up with people from my Masters writing course whom I hadn’t seen in about eight years.  That was wonderful, especially spending an afternoon with S., who had moved to Malabar and showed me around the area and the work she’d been doing with Indigenous people there.  Before we went to the airport we picked up her little girl from day care.  She’d had her face painted and I asked if she had this done every day.

‘Yes,’ she said shyly.

‘Well!  I should come along!’ I exclaimed.  She looked at bit unsure about that, but later asked her mum if I could come to the beach.  Mum replied that unfortunately we were off to the airport.  She was an adorable kid.

Back in Bris Vegas there were lots of new people to meet, courtesy of my friend J1. who has been very good at getting me out and about since I’ve been here.  There were drinks with various people, including P. and J2., by the river.  The former was exposed to my dancing proclivities, which emerge after the consumption of too many cocktails and, to my delight, I found he could masterfully swing a woman about the dance floor.  I also accidentally stepped on the foot of a man behind me with my red stilettos and was horrified to find him hobbling in pain for a good few minutes.  I hovered anxiously until he burst into a smile; he was teasing and I’d been my usual gullible self.

There was also a V-Day promo on that night, and P. wandered from girl to girl, handing out skewers crammed with marshmallows and strawberries and drizzled in chocolate.

‘Uhm,’ I said when he handed me one, ‘I can only eat the strawberries.’  I was allergic to the gluten in the marshmallows.

He returned with a skewer of strawberries and chocolate.

‘Uhm,’ I said again, ‘I can’t actually eat the chocolate.’  I was allergic to the dairy in the chocolate.

He returned with a skewer of halved strawberries.  The strawberries were delicious and I was, by this stage, utterly charmed.

The following week I went out again and met a boy who danced jive, a girl who was decoding the DNA of the liver (or it may have been the kidneys) and another girl who worked with creeks.  We contemplated a cosmopolitan sitting unclaimed on the table before us, bought by one of the boys in a round of drinks.  Not being able to resist anything pink, I naturally had to drink it.

There have also been various attempts to watch Breakfast at Tiffany’s with N. and J1., aborted first by a downpour and then by a defective DVD, so attempt #3 is in the pipeline.  These lovely ladies also came to dinner last night with their Plus Ones and I didn’t even have much of a hangover today, which was good as these have been proving most disruptive to my writing schedule.  I did, however, have a virus from Sister which turned out to be almost as bad.

And now March is almost upon us, and I have only a month to get another draft done, and yet my calendar is still booked every week, which can only mean one thing: guilt.  Well, it will have to be mastered.

On How Not to Tan

You know you've turned into a Pom when you fail completely and utterly at your attempts to render yourself a sophisticated, svelte golden young woman, instead burning yourself horribly in strips so that you become, initially, like a piece of red-and-white striped candy cane and then, when you brown and flake, like a cicada crawling out of its skin.  Yeah, it's bewdiful.

Or perhaps I was always a Pom in terms of sun-sense.  Last year in Thailand, having spent two weeks rigorously applying sunscreen, I was just as white near the end of the holiday as I was when I stepped off the plane, so at Railay I decided to dispense with sunscreen and sit on the beach for an hour.  Bad move.  By that afternoon I was burning up and had to go to bed draped in wet towels, and by the time I got back to London I was, once again, shedding my epidermis.  A few years before that I sat on the beach in Oz at midday for two hours, also sunscreenless, read Harry Potter, and got so burnt I couldn't sit down.  You'd think one would learn, wouldn't you?

This time I have.  The ignominy of being a peeling piebald, together with the horrifying melanoma ads currently on TV, have ensured that I will 'embrace the whiteness' as my sister suggests.  My only consolation is that Brother H has been pretty much as useless as I.  This year he also baked himself, but instead of having strips created by the failure to apply a second layer of sunscreen, he missed an egg-shaped section between his pecs.  He also roasted himself in Thailand: I have photographic evidence of him standing in the sea kitted out in snorkling gear, as red as a brick.  I'm keeping it for his future husband.

So, aside from undertaking radical dermabrasion, I have removed myself to my sister's in Brisbane.  It is very hot, to the point of being debilitating so that I am required to take post-lunch naps to remain sentient, but I am the happiest I've been in a long time because I can write. 

My sister's kids are also a constant source of entertainment, not least because they can be teased, confused, and thrown about a room.  My niece begins school next week but already has her aunt's perspicacity (and good taste, having appropriated auntie's Prada sunglasses), for she asked me at dinner last night, 'Auntie Jess, why do you need another pair of shoes when you already have so many?'

I was briefly flummoxed, then replied, 'Well, a girl can never have too many pretty things, and besides, the shoes under my bed are only a small selection of the shoes I own.'

Her brother, meanwhile, is a charming little fellow, and shares his mother's delight in watching me stagger out of the bedroom in the mornings and struggle to raise my consciousness to a functioning level.

'Mummy, Auntie Jess is AWAKE!' he broadcasts to the world.  I grimace and make myself a cup of tea while he prattles on, and it's at times like these that I'm truly glad I'm deaf.

On Being Alive Again

Well, I made it through, although the angel fish didn't.  While I endured three months of unremitting hell, Andromeda made revolutions of her tank that became slower and slower.  Eventually she sank to the rocks at the bottom, her eyes disturbingly dark, and H buried her in the garden.  He then bought me four more fish to cheer me up, but three of them died too.  I am relinquishing my dreams of having a wall-length aquarium; I think a beagle called Basil will be a safer bet.

So, the thesis has been submitted and I am enjoying the unsurpassed delight of waking up and realising I don't have to go to the British Library.  I have the leisure to read for pleasure not for study, to have a social life that involves going out more than once a month and also permits alcoholic beverages, and to contemplate, heaven forbid, finding a bloke who isn't intimidated by my possession of four degrees, including an (almost) doctorate.

I rewarded myself with a trip to San Francisco, and shopped my little heart out in Anthropologie, and stocked up on skin products and Benefit makeup.  At a friend's recommendation I took the boat to Alcatrez, which I hadn't visited though I spent a year on exchange in Berkeley in 1999.  I confess to enjoying the aloe garden more than the prison, which had an interminable audio recording (which I couldn't hear well) of men attempting escape by digging themselves out with spoons.  I also stopped by Coit Tower and enjoyed the smell of eucalyptus in the morning heat.  Then I went across the bay and stayed with a friend in Berkeley, though the poor boy had his orals the following week and I was anxious about disturbing him.  

It was odd to be back in Berkeley.  I visited the cafes I used to sit in and read, walked over the beautiful campus which was at its loveliest in the dying afternoon light, and contemplated visiting my old boss at Bancroft Library but decided against it as I couldn't think what to say to him.  I also met up with my friend K and it was lovely to see him again, and he kindly drove me to the airport.  On the flight home, which was half empty, I read Nam Le's The Boat which was one of the best things I've read all year.  All of his stories, bar one, were flawless, and I fought with my usual feelings of jealousy.   

I flew into Brisbane and was surprised, as I always am, by the friendliness of the people at immigration and customs.  The latter even cracked a joke about rescuing my Pimms as it went through the X-ray machine.  My sister and the kids met me, and over the next few days I attempted to sort out my jetlag.  I met SP and the gorgeous boy bought me a bottle of champers and took me to dinner, though we were both exhausted and frayed.  On Friday I flew to Sydney for L's 30th birthday.  I stayed with Cousin A, and had emailed him previously to check that he was in possession of an iron.  I was impressed to find, on arrival, that he had cleaned his flat, and he whipped out the iron, but unfortunately it leaked all its water over my Sacha Drake silk maxi dress.  I was going to use it again the next day but found it, to my amusement, in pieces beside the kitchen sink.  

It was pissing with rain as I stepped out, and the traffic in Sydney appears to be much worse.  At Hyde Park I gave up and got out of the bus, but couldn't walk the rest of the way to Circular Quay because of my stupid (but pretty) stiletto sandals, so I had to catch the train for just one stop.  Although I was furious by this point, I enjoyed the drama of gathering up my masses of black-and-white silk skirt and tottering across the road.  Finally I made it to the Opera House bar and said Happy Birthday to L and caught up with H, whom I hadn't seen for two whole weeks.  He was sick with the flu and had no sympathy for my rage at the traffic, but I ranted regardless.  We caught taxis back to Kingsford for dinner at an Indonesian restaurant, and were overjoyed to see R.  We made so much noise that L's father came and told R to quieten down, so H and I started telling 'My sister's deaf!' stories at the top of our voices.  At the end of the evening we found we had overpaid the bill so L began distributing the change and R attempted to stuff $10 down my cleavage.  I burst out laughing, and H later said to R that he was impressed he'd got that far.  'I'm mellowing, R,' I told him.  'Yeah, right,' he replied.

I caught the train home to mum and dad's to save on carbon emissions, which entailed an 8.5 hour journey, as opposed to one hour by plane, which cost just the same.  I didn't mind it that much, despite being stuck next to a young mother with two wriggling kids, as I always like watching the landscape pass by.

Currently, I am writing fiction, enjoying the summer and drinking too many of the aforementioned alcoholic beverages, which is necessary to endure the cabin fever brought on by the descension of relatives at Christmas, the unbearably high energy levels of my sister and the kids and my family's complete inability to register any comprehension of the concept of privacy, which means that four people invariably walk in on me when I try to shower in the mornings.  Yesterday everyone except mum and I went to a nearby amusement park, where they looked at a museum of taxidermed two-headed cows and lamb corpses found in ewes struck by lightening (yes, only in Australia) and played on water slides built with scant regard for health and safety regulations.  I had a most pleasant day in the peace, fixing a short story and taking the dog for a walk to the video store, although said dog shat outside said video store and I forgot to bring a plastic bag, so I walked on unheeding.

In a few days we go to the coast for my birthday, whereupon I shall attempt to do something about my fluorescent skin, and continue to catch up on my three-month deficit of sleep.  It is strange to believe that, after four years of dislocation and stress, I can finally have a life again. Bring on 2009, I say.

Better than Mills and Boon

This isn’t an internet dating blog entry, although one of them will be forthcoming in due course. Suffice to say it’s providing hours of amusement, but (because I am fastidious in my tastes) no romance yet. For that, where better can I slip than between the sheets of a book?

The Easter long weekend took us to a Woolacombe, where we stayed in a caravan with some friends and our cousin, who also brought along his retinue, the various members of which descended on us a varying times. It was bitterly cold, although not snowing as it was in the rest of the country. As we played beach volleyball, I began to laugh at the absurdity of the situation: the wind was horizontal and it was near freezing, but we were going to have our beach activity no matter what. Anyone other than the English would have just stayed inside and toasted their tootsies by the fire.

The next day I went for a walk by myself along the shore. The tide was out and had left pools of water in the sand which I skipped over. Coming back was tortuous, as the wind was icy and determined to fold me in half and then, joy of joys, it began hailing. I finally made it back to the caravan for a game of Scrabble, which I lost because someone helped H (again) and I subsided into a deep sulk.

On Sunday we went for a long walk along a headland, then down to a cove with black sand and a log smouldering from a fire. A dog, going bananas in the sea air, bounded around with a stick. I collected some rocks for my fish bowl, and on the way back H and I sank into the green grass at the top of the cliffs the way we used to do when we were kids on the farm, watching the birds freewheeling and the sea tossing up white balls of foam into the air above us.

We ate dinner at The Thatch and enlightened the English as to the anatomical meaning of this term in Australia, then played bingo at the vile club in the caravan park for novelty value. The kids’ games room was filled with brightly coloured slot machines and the adults’ room, full of pokies, was identical, thereby making for an obvious transition from one kind of game to another, more damaging one.

After bingo we settled down to watch Ocean’s Eleven. ‘Oh,’ I said scathingly as a car backed up with an enormous piece of equipment on board (don’t ask me what it was), ‘it’s such a boy’s film.’
A looked at me pointedly and said, ‘And what did we watch last night?’
I squirmed. It had been Pride and Prejudice. It was an otherwise beautiful film except for the scenes with Keira Knightley in them. Twiglet is clearly suffering from a want of vitamins because she has rictus of the jaw and can’t move her muscles properly. Unbelievably, she wasn’t as thin in this film as she was in Atonement, in which she closely resembled a coat hanger.

The next day we set off home via Doone Valley, which a friend had told us about during another clifftop walk. The road into the valley was steep, with trees crouching on either side, and I said that I wouldn’t like to be caught on that road on a dark and stormy night. We pulled up at Doone Valley Buttery for second breakfast, and came upon a sheepdog with a screw loose. It had a fascination for stones, but if you threw her a stone, she’d take it down to the creek and stand guard over it in the water. We drove onward over narrow roads through twisted trees and thickly grassed banks, pausing by a brook for photos. I expected Heathcliff to come striding over the grass and to pinion me against a tree but alas, the vision didn't materialise.

At lunch we stopped at Dunster, where there was a castle. We had lunch at a pub which had an African Grey Parrot called Nelson in a cage. Nelson wouldn’t talk if you were looking at him, so when the old men who were sitting nearby exited, he set up a whole little landscape of croons and whistles, and then erupted with, ‘Wanker!’
‘Nelson!’ the bartender scolded him.
Said bartender was similarly odd. Overhearing our conversation on facial and body hair (specifically on getting a free exfoliation when a girl kisses a prickly boy) as he set down our plates, he added, ‘I do like a good stache.’
After lunch, full of Cumberland sausages, we wandered down the road to a paddock and watched more dogs galumping about, then into the National Trust gardens, which were just beautiful, not least because of the magnolia tree that was in flower. We climbed the hill to the castle, and once at the top realised we had to get our skates on as none of us wanted to be left behind in the waiting room at Swindon train station.

And the romance? It began as soon as I opened the covers of Lorna Doone when I got home. There was tall, strapping John Ridd fighting the equally strong, but murderous Doones to get his girl, who had been born into the wrong family. That was a good enough plot to keep anyone reading, but what added to my delight was the way the strands that seemed to end in questions were caught up and woven back into the fabric of the work in that wonderfully logical, but improbable, 19th century way. And it wasn’t so much the characters themselves that lit up my mind, for John was faintly misogynist and Lorna needed a man to defend herself – but rather the quality of their love. It sprang up in their childhoods, then endured and made them stronger: John’s love pushed him to become braver, Lorna’s washed away her pride and breeding. It was the alchemy of love that made me fall for the book, and want to begin it again as soon as it had finished.

A Rather Long Synopsis of my Sojourn in Oz

I am back in London again. I am despondent. How could it only have been a mere five weeks ago that I was trawling the shops of Bath, buying leaf-patterned thermoses for my Oz friends?

I flew into Sydney on a Thursday morning and was amazed, as always, by how friendly, healthy and attractive everyone is at Customs. Normally I arrive on a weekend and am received by the arms of a friend and ferried to Barzura in Coogee to acquaint myself with blueberry pancakes with coconut icecream, decent coffee, and of course, the morning sunlight on the ocean. This time I was met by lovely L, who dropped her boyfriend off at Qantas (he is an engineer making the new Marc Newton themed Oz Airbus) and conveyed me to an excellent café in Surry Hills, mere steps away from her house. This is one of the best things about Oz – good coffee is in abundance. Then L went to work and I had a massage in the afternoon to aid my recovery from jetlag.

The next day I had a hair appointment but, to my utter dismay, Blondes Brunettes and Redheads was no longer extant. Instead I had to make do with Brad Ngata, with whom BBR had merged. I didn’t like the feel of the salon – it had nothing of the intimacy of BBR - so now I have to find a new salon to frequent when I come home. I did have visions of chasing my previous stylist to Ireland, whence he has returned, but I think H would disown me if I did that as I am required (occasionally) to keep my obsessions in check.

In the evening, woozy with jetlag, I staggered to the Good Food Month noodle markets in Hyde Park. Chinese lanterns hung in the trees and there were rows and rows of noodle stalls. I was beside myself: how on earth did one choose? I made a random beeline for a random stall and bought some random pad thai, and then I- and I drank a bottle of wine out of plastic cups from Woolies. I met I-‘s boyfriend, who was sick with a cold and thus thought (as men tend to do when ill) that the entire world was coming to an end. He was a nice bloke though.

On Saturday was E’s wedding. I was picked up by Sj’s boyfriend and M, who I hadn’t seen for 11 years, since I left school. We drove to Katoomba and had a look at the Blue Mountains. I was impressed to find that, below the unprepossessing slabs of rock that were sculptures (for want of a better word) leading to the viewing platform, there were delightful quotes from people who had visited the mountains. The ceremony for the wedding was held in a garden in Katoomba, and then the reception in the revolving restaurant, which had a splendid view of the national park. Once I got over the shock of the realm of coupledom that presented itself when the dancing started, I danced my little heart out (in Collette Dinnigan, of course) and can’t remember the last time I had that much fun. I need to get out more.

Sunday I caught the plane to Canberra, and was met by J and P at the airport and taken out to dinner. I stayed with them later on in the week and was entranced by their Burmese cats, despite the animals’ penchant for attacking one’s ankles. I have decided I shall have a Burmese cat when I grow up. For three days I scanned microfilm copies of Nora Murray Prior’s letters to Rosa at the National Library, then I discovered that there was another bunch of archives I hadn’t noticed. I panicked and raced upstairs, and the lady behind the desk was most sympathetic and said that I could bring a digital camera in if I wished, to take photos of the documents. That saved my bacon, for Praed’s handwriting was almost impossible and deciphering it - as well as taking too much time - drove me insane.

Canberra is quite frankly the weirdest city I have ever frequented. It’s basically a number of important buildings shoved out in the bush. Or beside a lake. Any vibe which the place might have is dissipated by the space, and the lack of people with which to fill it. Also, most of those who work in Canberra are white, middle-class bureaucrats and thus there wasn’t much cultural diversity. And because it is mostly populated by people who work in well-paid jobs, the cost of living is inordinately high. Thus I was annoyed to shell out so much money for ordinary food, when that money could have gone to something far more satisfying, such as a piece of lingerie.

The rain followed me from England, which would normally have pissed me off, but the country needs it. A downpour ensued on the Friday that I finished at the library, and people hung about beneath the eaves, obviously expecting it to subside, as has been its wont over the last six years. It didn’t, however, and so they gathered their breaths and dashed out, newspapers held over their heads.

Although I had very much enjoyed J and P’s company, I was glad to leave the city on Saturday morning. The plane was delayed, however, due to the previous day’s storms, and I felt bad for J and P who had elected to get up at 5am to take me to the airport. My sister was also waiting for me at the other end in Brisbane with the kids, having bribed them with the condition that, unless they did a, b or c they couldn’t come to the airport to see Auntie Jess.

They weren’t quite crawling up the walls when I finally arrived, but they were close to it. G broke away from her mother and slammed into my legs with joy, which was somewhat startling, but still delightful. Mention was made of Uncle H, so we had to explain that he was still in London, and we are of course glad that he hasn’t been completely erased from the infant consciousness. B ran enthusiastic zigzags away from us and back again, and I wondered how it was possible for a tiny bundle to have so much energy. I wish I had enough steam to run run zigzags through crowds.

Since I was ready to commit violence for want of a coffee, my sister took us to a waterside suburb, the name of which I have forgotten, to appease me. Docked nearby was an enormous cruise ship, so B was overcome with excitement. There was also free ice cream to be had, although I couldn’t quite cope with the echelons which cruises seem to attract.

Most of my time in Brisbane was spent with my sister and the kids and this, combined with the heat, completely wore me out. However the jacarandas were in bloom and there were thunderstorms, which I always find thrilling, and the Indonesian geckos went clack-clack-clack in the evenings. On the Tuesday I went to the State Library to check a reference which Clarke had used in her biography on Praed. The staff there weren’t as on the ball as they were the last time I went, but they were still very helpful. One good thing about the horrible people who live in London is that they make you respect friendliness and helpfulness when you come across it.

At lunchtime I met up with the delectable SP in the café downstairs, which I love because it has couches outside – what better way to make the best of Brisbane’s beautiful weather? SP knew the name of the golden raintree which was in flower, and on the bridge to the city he stopped a man who looked like a Pacific Islander to check that he’d found a place alright – he’d given him directions earlier on in the day. I thought again, and it was hardly as though I needed reminding, of what a beautiful person he was.

I went home to mum and dad on the Thursday, having got in trouble from H for flying instead of taking the bus and saving my carbon emissions. However the bus took TEN HOURS and time was at a premium. On the plane to Armidale I sat next to a pleasant, fresh-faced country boy, which one could hardly complain about; boys with good manners are always so very pleasing.

At home I did a great deal of nothing in particular, being gripped by that ennui which is peculiar to going home to a country town. I stacked on weight (which must now be removed before I get into a bikini in Thailand), transcribed some of Praed’s letters, read four books, cooked lumberjack cakes and Russian teacakes, walked, slept badly, wrote a bit of my new novel, figured out how to fix a short story which wasn’t working particularly well, half-decided what my thesis was about, drank far more wine and watched far more TV than I am accustomed to and ended up in a car crash, because mum missed a give way sign. That spiced up my holiday no end. However, for the most part I was hugely bored, but that isn’t a bad thing, because it forced me to stop working and to rest.

And then I flew back to Sydney, and haemorrhaged some more money, and went out dancing and ate too much Thai. I was intending to do the Sculpture by the Sea walk from Bondi to Tamarama, but I was too tired, and instead wandered through Centennial Park, in which I used to run, and then lay beneath an old Moreton Bay fig tree and felt the breeze on my skin.

The flight back was fine – the last time I’ll have to do the Sydney-London leg thank God – apart from sitting next to a pimply boy from Blackpool, who insisted on telling me about his band, and wanted to follow me around Changi airport, although I fortunately foiled that one. He was an odd person, occasionally funny, but he irritated me immensely because he seemed to take it for granted that I would find everything about him fascinating, and he nudged me in the arm by way of getting my attention, which showed a total want of courtesy. In the end, having told him I was deaf, I just pretended I couldn’t hear him and absorbed myself in Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria.