Mrs Talasiga's Diary

[Lambchop]

Hello Lambchop - nice to meet you too.

Did you ever watch the Shari Lewis show (a long long time ago) - she had a sock puppet called Lambchop - it was very cute.

This was fun. Where is the rest?

I'm glad you liked my recollection of our trip into the hinterland but I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Where's the rest?". Sadly, as my diary is true, the rest of the story is rather mundane... although we did meet an interesting woman at the waterfall after the class (but that's another story).

The rest of the diary, of course! We'd like to hear more about Mr. T. Up to now, we've only seen his side of things. We enjoyed the view from an alternative perspective.

Oh, and please explain why you took potatoes on this trip. Were they emergency rations in case you ran off the road? I remain confused about that.

Yes, I'm afraid as impressive as a 50kg sack of potatoes may be, they did get a rather small mention in the diary. As Mr T says he does rather rely on them as his staple diet and these are particularly good potatoes. Buying them in bulk brings the price down to about $1 / kg which is very good here at present.

Thank you for explaining that. I can see you had a logical explanation for the potatoes.

You are careful to store them properly, I'm sure. With what is apparently Mr. T's unnatural degree of potato consumption, you wouldn't want any of them to have gone green.

[mutepointe]

I often get the opportunity to read the short version of people's life stories. They usually start out by saying, "I had a normal childhood....." and then go on to say how they still live in the same house that their grandaddy built by hand or they have 15 brothers and sisters or they quit school in the 8th grade so that they could run the farm because their Dad got injured in the mines.......

Mrs. T, what you think may be mundane, might be pretty interesting reading. We'll let you know when you give us some more samples.

[jw wren]

Reading short versions of other people's life stories does sound interesting. Is that in the role of teacher or therapist??

I'm sure you'd like to get more of an insight into Mr T, however, he doesn't feature all that much in the diary. It will give you an idea of his context 'though.

While he was away once my Aunts and I went on a bush walk ...

Aunty B: "Look! Did you see that?"

Aunty G: "No, I was checking the car, what did you see?"

Aunty B: "I don't know, it was this big" she exclaimed, holding her hand about a metre from the gound, "and it ran across the road very quickly."

Aunty G: "It can't have been that big."

Aunty B: "How would you know, you didn't see it?"

Aunty G: "If it had been that big it would have been a kangaroo or wallaby."

Aunty B: "No, it looked more like a cross between a possum and a cat - it wasn't a kangaroo - OK, it was this big then," she said, holding her hand about a foot from the ground, "bigger than a cat 'though."

Aunty G: "What colour was it?"

Aunty B: "It was white with tan spots. It had spots right up its big fluffy tail."

Aunty G: "Big fluffy tail - are you sure it wasn't a fox?"

Aunty B: "With spots?"

Aunty G: "Well, it must have been a spotted quoll then."

Aunty B: "A what?"

Aunty G: "A quoll: its a native cat. They used to steal cat food from Pat's back verandah. I haven't ever seen one but that sounds like what it was."

Uncle R and I returned from our walk to see the new Aboriginal Cultural Camp.

Aunty G: "Aunty B saw something!"

Aunty B: "Never in my 73 years have I ever seen anything like this!"

Aunty G: "I didn't see it, she did."

Aunty B: "It ran across the road."

Uncle R: "What was it?"

Aunty B: "What did I see G?"

[talasiga]

[Lambchop]

Well, it's a quoll! Handsome!

I'm definitely in favor of illustrating the diary. It really grabs the attention. (Just avoid spiders, ok?)



(Edited to add parentheses around the spider phrase, because I didn't want it to become the focus of attention, as spiders upset many readers.)

[mutepointe]

Discussing quoll is not mundane. We want more.

[jw wren]

If the "Back roads Adventure" is to be a movie then I envisage the quoll diary entry as an animated short.

I'd like to see the creature morphing in Aunty G's thought bubble as she works her way through kangaroos, wallabys and spotted foxes to quolls.

[Caroluna]

Hi JW,
if it's not too off-topic, what are the birds in your avatar? We don't have anything that looks like them here! Are they Fairy Wrens?...Will they be in the movie?

[jw wren]

Southern Emu-wren
It is called the Emu wren because the tail feathers are very similar to the Emu feathers.

Scientific name: Stipiturus malachrus

Size: 18 - 20cm Status: Common

Diet: Feeds on insects, leaf eating beetles, plant bugs, weevils and spiders.

Habitat: Coastal heathlands, tea-trees, swamps and dense vegetation.

Breeding: Breeds between August and January, the nest is oval with an opening on the side and one metre off the ground. Two to four eggs are laid and incubated by the male.
http://www.featherdale.com.au/featherda ... n+Emu-wren


Yes, they are fairy wrens and yes, they will appear in each episode but discretely - they are quite furtive.

[jw wren]

After lunch and a sleep Talasiga, H and I set off on a little adventure. We drove into the National Park and turned down Bakers Road, ripe for exploration despite the ‘No through road’ warning. It was lovely, we managed to go for 6 kms before it degenerated into a bush track and we had to turn ‘round.

Passing a cow paddock I slowed down to watch a pheasant coucal up a tree and Talasiga started playing ‘Vrindabani Sarang’ to the cows.

They looked up, then started to move toward him. Then they stopped so he stopped for a while.

He continued like this for some minutes until all the cows had come as close as they were comfortable – often trotting towards him.

Then one cow started bellowing and a horse came over from another paddock.

They all stood motionless – completely transfixed by the music.

H said it was the best audience he’d ever seen.

It seemed cruel to leave them without the music but perhaps the local birds will sing to the cows instead.

We drove on to the north side of the headland and watched rain as dense as steel wool racing in from the sea across the town to the mountains.

Just magic.





http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/2970/coucal.htm

[jw wren]

Has anyone else experienced this?

Or do you find that animals ignore you?

[cowtime]

If some of our cattle happened to be grazing kinda close to the house they'd always stop and come look if I was playing the GHBs. One of our dogs would take a running fit every time I played Brown Haired Maiden. Just that tune, no others set him off. The GHBs are the only thing that seems to get a rise out of anyone around here. I guess because they are use to me playing some instrument or other at any given moment when I'm home.

[jw wren]

Mum passed around some chocolate and macadamia biscuits after dinner.

“I couldn’t find Dad’s favourite” apologised Aunty G, “There are just so many types on the supermarket shelves that it’s difficult to find the one you’re looking for. I often miss things because they’re on shelves above eye level.”

Dad wasn’t complaining.

“There is something to be said for the old fashioned type of shop where the staff ran around behind the counter finding the right product on the shelves.” I observed.

“Yes” agreed Mum, “do you remember Tenner’s shop near the station? You could buy anything there and the shelves lined the walls, all the way up to the ceiling.”

“They had a sliding ladder.” added Aunty G “They’d scoot up and down getting things for their customers.”

“One hot day Mr T was up the ladder in his shorts getting biscuits when Mrs S exclaimed: Oh, Mr T – I didn’t realise you had Ginger Nuts!” recounted Mum with a laugh and a wink “but I don’t think it’s true.”

“Oh its definitely not true”, said Aunty G with a serious expression “that happened at [river hamlet]! What was his name, Mr H, yes, that’s it – it happened at H's shop near the wharf.”

Mum looked a bit stunned.

So now we know.

[mutepointe]

Dear Mrs. T:

Your writing is always descriptive and causes images in my head. I could have done without the Ginger Nuts.

There is a lady who has a weekly column in our newspaper about growing up years ago in the woods of west virginia. Your writings could be a weekly column too.

[jw wren]

mutepointe Posted: Your writings could be a weekly column too.

Any suggestions for a column title?

I generally use "Stories from the Land of Aunts" but I'm sure there are more creative options out there???