What a fabulous Weekend

A week or so ago Ian and Amber from SACBRA - I really hate acronyms that don't at least hint at what they stand for - particularly when I can't remember anything past St Andrews Community... which of itself is quite a meaningful objective. Before I get too far off track the Celebrating St Andrews event needed a bit of setting up help and I volunteered to provide, labour, landrover and lots of smart remarks about whatever took my fancy including the loss of an item of intimate apparel which were found to be missing after a night of horrendous winds and considerable damage to tents and campervans.

Thursday evening did not augur well for the weekend. It began raining late in the afternoon and continued for many hours. It wasn't particularly heavy at least for the first hour or two during which with the aid of a quantity of diesel and petrol I was able to get a campfire started and well ablaze before Peter turned up for a bbq which we had been planning to share with a couple of other horticultural chaps whose names shall remain like themselves not present. We wandered about the place showing Pete what had survived and what I planned to do with the dam paddock - an English park with deciduous trees and swathes of exotic and native colour. The house paddock, a mostly native garden with rock pools and stream inspired by Gordon Ford and the chap at this year's garden show who made billabongs look deceptively simple and whose name will not spring to mind. And finally the top paddock which is to be a nursery of trees both native and exotic. a lifetime's work - just as well I've got another one.

Despite the blustery showers, behatted, jacketed and in excellent humour we made disparaging comments about our colleagues inability to help empty a bottle of Pepperjack while we stood warming and smoking ourselves - what is it with bloody smoke! - in front of an excellent bed of glowing coals and and flaming logs of Chilean Poplar.

Our hardy, hairy bushmen interlude over, we retired before saturation to the caravan where Peter prepared an excellent salad while I nuked a couple of potatoes before dropping them on to the back of the barbequeue grill and danced between raindrops a fantasy I've maintained since childhood as I cooked our meat to pink perfection, opened another bottle. Dan's WE3 Cab merlot - not Pepperjack but not bad either.

The dinner and conversation were most enjoyable but eventually the rain and our world changing ideas came to an end and Peter drove off into the night and a couple of weeks of well earned break from lecturing at NMIT.

Celebrating St Andrews

The posters had been around for weeks but I hadn't really taken a great deal of notice and wasn't particularly engaged until asked if I could help set-up. I have a deal of respect for people who are prepared to add to the normal chaos of their daily lives by volunteering to work towards rebuilding communities which have been significantly fire effected. It's a generally thankless task and I had chosen to not get involved beyond the odd helping hand.

It was a bit of a surprise to discover that the event was to be held only about a kilometre away and had a whole range of activities and events for the whole community. I spent a fair bit of the day on Friday helping various of the organising comittee's members get stuff done. The weather is fantastic. They are a great bunch of people, most of whom I have not previously met, although we all live within about 10k from each other and have lived in the area for many years. Their enthusiasm and fears about success and failure are plainly visible as we work to get set-up. They've put so much effort in, I really wanted it to be a success. By the end of the day we are all pretty stuffed and I leave hoping that the night will be quiet for those staying on site.

The night is very windy but not as bad as it has been over the last few weeks and the morning is cool and cloudy. I skip breakfast having had an enormous dinner including two completely unnecessary serves of icecream the previous evening, and head off down Nink's road to the event site. The wind has done quite a bit of damage but spirits unlike some the tents are not damaged.

A bunch more work - I was only going to spend an hour but it turned into two or three and I went home desperate for some sleep. Ros & I had a quick lunch, checked the program and decided to get there about 4:30 ish. Sleep came in minutes not a snore to be heard by either of us!

Showered, dressed and prepared for whatever the weather could throw at us we drove down Ninks road where I caused a bit of drama by stopping to take a couple photographs. The road is only just wide enough for two vehicles and I'd reduced it to a single lane for about 4 minutes and of course there were cars wanting to travel in both directions. Nothing will stop a determined photographer!

We arrived and began the meet and greet which lasted until we left, very close to midnight. It was a wonderful evening. Old and new friends, met and mingled, ate and drank, listened to short speeches and danced and listened to a variety of live music which went almost continuously all night. There were hundreds of conversations, a few tears, much laughing and jokes none of which have been remembered or will be recorded here. As I spent much of the evening enjoying myself by taking photographs I've decided to let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

The link to the pictures which are available for viewing or downloading on Picasa is http://picasaweb.google.com/Nossida/SACBRACelebration?feat=email#

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did taking them.

With the Celebration of St Andrews, the SACBRA committee have done a fabulous job in beginning the creation of a new feeling of community.

SAD or BAD!?

If I lived in the Northern hemisphere I might have recently been suffering from SAD (Seasonally Affective Disorder). However I think it might more likely be something like Bushfire Angst Daily or Building A Dream or who knows?

Truth is I'm not quite sure where I've been. Rob Gordon would suggest that I'm in the "Cortisone Phase" of a post traumatic experience but again I'm not so sure.

I know I've lost a house and a bunch of stuff that I'll probably never replace and a cat that I might, but at no point in any of the time since Feb 6 have I felt particularly traumatised. In fact I've mostly felt nothing in particular. Of course in daily life, I've been angry, upset, frustrated and happy and relaxed and also just blank. Having been diagnosed previously with depression and still on medication for same, I have sometimes thought that it's like being depressed but with a purpose ie all the same symptoms but with energy or focus which prevents one from just sitting. I've pretty much decided that it would be useful to talk to someone as I suspect that it's a long embedded ability(?) and desire to survive by "managing" or controlling my emotional and physical wellbeing and environment.

Perhaps none of or all of the above as well as a degree of frustration that at the age of 60 once regarded as nearly venerable and a time for reflection and relaxation one has been prematurely reborn with a new beginning, life and a new bloody mortgage.

My head has been pondering the preceding for most of the last month as well as taking on a new role at IBM which has demanded a very steep learning curve and a recognition that there have been a number of outstanding actions that I haven't been able to get to grips with like responding to mails, actually putting drafting pen to paper for a couple of garden designs including my own and updating the blog. I've mostly just been rolling along making sure that I eat and drink and generally remembering to take my be nice pills.

I'm not going to attempt to fill in the blanks since August. It would if possible, take too long and anyway a bit of a mystery is probably no bad thing.

That said, here's a few things that have or haven't happened yet. The dead pine trees are still dead and despite 100Kph winds and my fervent wishes, refuse to fall over. They are obviously not taking any notice of the council's arborist who has declared them dangerous.

I finally had the ailing "Big Dog" Fergal given a quiet send off at the local vet. Poor old bugger couldn't even scratch himself and that's no life for a poor bloody dog.

We've moved the caravan to enable the building of a barn. My builder Mick has given me a whole bunch of trusses and roofing iron from a house he's demolishing. Its a great gift and will significantly reduce the cost of a barn.

We've survived foul winds and a bit of rain. The dam is now overflowing for which I am grateful, but I hate to see it flowing across the bottom road.

We've had a new gas heated shower unit delivered. Ros is very happy.

I've ordered a 110,000 litre from Pioneer for delivery in mid-October.

Council has approved the house plans and yesterday we signed the contract with Mick & EdgeBuild his company. He reckons it will take about six months so we will probably be in the house in April 2010. Ros is very pleased. She's starting back at work tomorrow at the Austin one day a week. I am very pleased with both of these events.