2008 January Bulletin

Ra-a-aaaain!
Raaaain comin’ down on the caaaane,
And the roooooves of the town!!

That’s from a song…

Ummm, Hello there…

about … well, rain; written on a farm near Innisfail, the wettest town in Australia – and possibly the world if you live there – in the late seventies, by the members of a theatre troupe making a big splash in North Queensland at the time. I wonder what happened to them – and to the rain that was so ubiquitous, all along the east coast in those days, yet has been so sporadic of late that the most recent rain event seemed almost apocalyptic. Indeed, it did bring flooding to many places all around us, but we were not directly affected by it. In fact, we had the luxury of actually enjoying it – waking up at night, hearing the drone of heaven on the roof and slipping back into sleep with a smile, remembering childhood; bringing out warmer clothing than we would normally wear at this time of the year and thanking the heavens, literally, that it wasn’t the usual 40 degrees for Christmas; and occasionally during the day… did I say day... it went on for daze… just sitting and listening to it, and at other times just sitting listening to the silence when it wasn’t there; and listening to the frogs and crickets; and remembering again and again that this is how it used to be; and wondering… dreaming of cyclones. (see The celebration of Cyclone Dreaming No 2. 10 May 2007)

One of John’s nieces with her husband and three kids – eldest starting high school in 2008 – stayed with us for four days from Boxing day. A good time was had by all, going fishing, making things out of clay, eating, more eating, and finding – perhaps making – room for even more food. We did a bit of driving – a trip to Nimbin; another to the Cold Roast (Gold Coast for those no up on your Strine) with the kids swapping cars as we went. The favourite game was I Spy With My Little Eye. I won’t regale you with the details here, but if you can believe that there would be anything worth saying about I spy and another game called Buzz, see my blog.
http://twogreytoes.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html

A number of people have told me there’s nothing on the disc of the concert. Trust me, there is. The problem is incompatible technologies. It happened to us once on a CD player that we bought in the mid nineties – old !!??!! technology – but I had forgotten about it, because we no longer use a CD player to play CDs. We use a DVD player. When we went to replace our old player we were advised to buy a DVD player instead – much cheaper than the “genuine part” if I can put it that way. So if you have a DVD player, pop the disc in as though you are going to watch a movie on your TV. The disc will play through your TV speakers. The disc will probably also work in your car player, though that may also depend on how old the car (or player) is.

Hope your year is better than any previous.
Bliss the day!!