Jungle Book

I was very lucky last night and got to sit in on the last dress rehearsal of the local production of The Jungle Book. 

Both my younger nieces and my sister Jen are in the cast, and Jen got me a chance to sit in and watch instead of running the gauntlet of all the perfumes you get in the audience at a normal performance.

I felt very privileged, and the other great thing was it meant that, all alone in the seats apart from the Directors far below, I got to take a few pics without using my flash and without bothering anyone.

A dramatic scene where the wolf pack and friends all see off Shere Khan and Tabaqui the jackal.  My niece Molly is the very far right wolf.

I really enjoyed the production!  The set is to die for, far and away the best I've ever seen.  The costumes are lovely, and the acting and singing were fantastic.  Special mention to the young fellas who played Baloo and Tabaqui.  Both played their parts to great effect.  Shere Khan was still lacking some of his costume (last minute panics are the norm in theatre after all) and it is all down to his amazing ability and presence that he gave me the shivers even so.  Here are Shere Khan and Tabaqui threatening Mowgli and his girl (whose name I can't currently remember and hopefully Jen will remind me.)

The duet of the young ladies who were Mowgli's human mum, Messua, and his love-to-be was the singing highlight of the night for me.  The lad who played older Mowgli has a voice to die for too, as did mama wolf.

My sis Jen is second from right here in the orange sari, looking beautiful as usual. Molly was a wolf, and a villager. Here she is being a bully to Mowgli in green pants.

And doing a nice fall as Mowgli retaliates.

Niamh was a butterfly at the ends and a monkey in the middle of the play.

This is her on stage on the right before they started.  Behind them is the just amazing tree that the set designer made.  It has three levels, can be entered from front or back, and has a branch coming out the side that they could walk or swing along.  As I said, best set ever!

Naughty monkeys up to no good. Niamh is back left.

Some of the kids were amazingly young, especially baby Mowgli and the wolf cubs, and all did fantastic jobs.

I really enjoyed watching them all on stage waiting for the pre-start talk.  There was much excitement, colour and movement. 

I used to love being a part of the theatre crowd.  Seeing a rehearsal like this brought me much closer to that experience than seeing a full production.  Think the many late nights in being part of one would kill me now though! 

If you are a local, definitely go and see it!  Tickets are selling fast but there are still some seats left as I type this.   Darlington Theatre Players at Marloo Theatre.



    
 
    

            

Rarrrrr!

Firstly beanie finished!

The recipient says he loves it, which is kinda sad because I badly wanted to keep it.  It made me happy just to wear it.

Secondly, red-head standoffs happen here a lot.  This one was between Mr Kitty and some chickens.

Kitty:  "I didn't really want to  go over there anyway."

The chickens won.

Hey food-person, are you in there?

Thirdly Andyroo had a call-back interview for a job today so I went into town to be his chauffeur.  While he was in the interview, I took myself off to, "Walking With Dinosaurs."  It was simultaneously lame and interesting!   I figure it is good author research in case I ever want to add some more Cretaceous critters to a "Land of..." book.

Plus, you know, the chance to have people take stupid tourist photos of you.

And to take even stupider selfies.

Yes I patted every one of them.   Of course I did!

   

So I have this Beanie...

A gift from Brigid this morning, just to remind me that Monday is Brigid's day.  Soft pastel feathers, especially grey ones, are always my gentle reminder from her.

 
I got cranking on the latest crocheted offering this weekend while spending some nice downtime in the warm spring gazebo, and got it almost finished.  It looks pretty ordinary right now.

But I has evil plans. Which one to choose?

Think the forwarder horns look best but am very tempted to make one or two more horns and go for the dinosaur look.  :D  My only directions were to cover the ears, to make it green and gold, and make it silly!

Mr Cyrano Fitty Kitty also enjoyed the downtime in the warm day with me.

For a change of pace, I also participated in my first hazard reduction burn of the season on Saturday.

Only a little one at the actual station, but it was a bit smoky and we had to shut it down.  The problem is we have a tiny window between when it is dry enough to burn and when we can't burn any more due to safety. Hope the neighbour who complained won't mind if his house burns down this summer de to too much fuel in his immediate surroundings!

On sunday I got to do this at our latest incident management team training day.  I was on the boards outside the ICV.  Interesting!

 
That's me on the right there in my yellow record keeper vest at the debrief afterwards.

We have this year's baby magpie on the move.  So glad she survived to get safely out of the nest, and she was already flying by the time she left it, so she is nice and mobile too.  She still has some very cute fluffy knickerbockers though.  One of her big sisters from two years ago was close nearby.  There is always one family member on duty with the baby.

Someone else has fluffy knickerbockers too, but I not supposed to say so.

   


   

Nieces are Fun

It's good being an aunty.  You can do the fun stuff and none of the crappy parenting stuff.

This week, Niamh and I had a couple of fun sessions together.  This was the result of our sausage making adventure yesterday.   Who looks more grown-up here, I ask you?  :D

Andrew and I bought a grinder and have been experimenting with making sausages.  The bought ones all make us react, even the supposedly preservative-free, gluten-free ones, and poor Andrew misses them so much.  Like a lot of blokes he loves a sausage!  So far the home-made ones have been fine.  (And they taste heaps better than commercial ones too!)  Once Niamh and I made them, we had to cook a couple so she could try the taste. 

The hood she's wearing is one of her birthday gifts, this one from my mum.  She is 12 now.  She's having a bit of a hat phase and mum and I knew as soon as we saw this pokeman hood/scarf combo, that it was perfect for her!  I want one myself.  It's adorable and snuggly soft too! 

Here she is posing with her painting with hood reversed.  She loves the art too.  I'm glad of that.  I know it's very fluffy-bunny but she is 12 after all, and I figure she'll like it for a few years. After that if she doesn't want it any more she can gift it back to her old fluffy-bunny aunty, who is already missing having its cheerful presence around the place. 

Niamh and Jerry in their dreams.

Niamh also changed out my saying on the fridge.  I love the new one she wrote for me, and the unicorn to go with it!        

"Ride on rainbows, dream your dreams, and be free."

In other news, I saw this piece of cool art in a cafe this week and I liked it and took a pic of it for my friend Nicolette who will love it.   I love Frida Kahlo, and I love that it is called "Beauty from the broken places."

It's for sale in The Pines Cafe in Darlington if any local wants to go buy it.  It's done in a beautiful painterly style, and the price is $340.

Other artiness this week was a bit more practical, like sausages.  Andrew and I re-did the legs of this old Jarrah outdoor table.  We used some of the elderly jarrah that came out of our friends, Gav and Jules's, roof when their house was extended. Score!  There is lots more too.  Good Jarrah timber is rare and precious.   I doubt that it would be used in many roofs these days.  As for the days of using it for railway sleepers in their millions, or to cobble London streets, those are long gone, thank goodness!

Anyway, with the new legs on, and the top all re-screwed by Andrew earlier, and some good coats of olive oil, it will hopefully last for another 25 years and more.  Excellent!  I hate to waste stuff, especially precious trees!



     

Well, That Was Fun!

That was a busy weekend of interesting things!

Friday night we went to one of the local pubs, the Mountie, and had a dance to a band, The Heights.  Good value!  Haven't done that in years.  Luckily there are no photos of this because we were definitely dancing like no-one was watching!  It was a really friendly atmosphere.  Well done to the pub and the band. 

Had a bit of a crappy night afterwards with one of my good old reactions. That's twice now that I've reacted to very loud music.  Does it make defective mast cells activate?  Wouldn't be surprised.   It was worth it anyway and wasn't too bad compared to earlier in the year.  Haven't actually vomited since I had a polyp taken out at the gastroscopy a few months back so hopefully that bit at least is sorted. 

Saturday my darling sis, Jen, and I went off to the Gidgegannup show.  It is an agricultural show that still has a very country flavour.  Jen's two younger kids had friends to run around with, so they went off on their own, which they can safely do there, and Jen and I did the same thing.  Our faves were the animals of course, and being a small show we got to get up close and personal with quite a few.

This guy was so huge and prehistoric and snooty!

I think this is a Plymouth rock. Just adore those feathers!

This lovely lady is called Pythena.  I haven't had many chances to touch snakes so getting to stroke her and look at her up close was lovely.   She has beautiful eyes, like living mercury.

And here's my fave of the whole show, a nameless ( to me) but friendly and interactive Anglo-Nubian nanny goat, although my choice of fave was a close run thing with some of the young Saanens that were there.  I loved all the goats actually.  We had some really nice bonding moments. Goats are so intelligent and interested in people.   Think I need a couple!  Maybe one Anglo-Nubian and one Saanen?  Hmmm...

Niecey took a pic of me bonding with my favorite girl.

Sunday, we did some garden chores, I did some baking (GF raspberry, apple and white chocolate muffins and they are TOO good) and then I spent time meditating and making music in the paddock, where some ravens came to join in.  It's mostly black because I turned my phone over to get the sound better.   Rosie was panting over it at the start too, but I think you can hear the ravens and how it matched with my singing.   

And then Jen rang to say come and see a horse she is thinking of buying.  So I did, and I had a ride too!   Second ride in six years, if you don't count hopping on Mahlee bareback to go and shut the front gate before letting her go for Jen on Saturday.

He is a grey Australian Stockhorse, name of Bandit, and he is totally adorable.  Such a people-person and so kind.

I even jumped him over a few small jumps, which luckily Andrew did NOT capture on video!  I like  seeing my grin afterwards, though!

And no I didn't go and jump the bigger jump.   I decided that lumping an unfit me over the smaller ones was quite enough for Bandit to do, though he was very kind about it.  He likes to jump.

This cantering pic is a funny one.  It looks like we're floating, frozen in time and space.  (I guess that's what photos are, but you know what I mean.)

This one too.  Like everything is rotating around me and I am still.

I'm not sure if Jen will buy him or not, but he has my vote!

My niecey has forgotten the tune of this song we wrote a while back, so I uploaded the little bit of video Andrew got of us playing it as we worked it out, to help her remember.  I figured you'd like to see it too.  She took to song-writing like a duck to water.  I wasn't needed at all by this stage.

It's easy to forget a newly-written tune if you don't record it. I have a cool recording app on my phone so I can do just that while I work out stuff.  Otherwise the next time you go to play it, it's gone!  (Unless you are one of those clever people who can write and read music!)

 


     
         



            

Tree Tapping and Cat Napping

Well, not really tree tapping, but it looks a bit like it.  The nice fellas from Dieback Treatment Services were back to treat our Jarrah, Persoonia and Banksia trees for that evil fungus, Dieback.  I think it was the fifth time they have come out, and they come every three years, so you can see we've been at it for a while.  We did lose one big Jarrah two summers ago, and we've lost a couple of Persoonias too, which was more likely related to the shrinking water table, but otherwise so far the trees seem to appreciate a bit of help to beat down the fungus, which can not be cured but can be held back.

For one day, nearly every tree on the place suddenly sprouts with strange white and pink protuberances, as the injectors do their work of pushing the antifungal into the cambium layer of the trees.

It's always nice to chat to Glenn and his guys.  They are as passionate about trees as I am!

I hit the 40 000 word mark in my latest book this week. I've been writing in some interesting places. 

But, apparently I'm boring.

"Yes, you bloody are!"

        
"Might as well go back to the bed!  At least that's snuggly."

It's not easy being the feline owner of a pet author!   

Spooooky!

It's all spooky here at the mo.  With Halloween coming in the Northern Hemisphere, and half-arsedly being done Downunder too, plus me currently writing my scary sequel to Chicken Soup for Satan, I've found myself talking ghost stories with people a bit.

Like a lot of people, I've had my moments with the unexplained.  My most teeth-chattering moments have happened when I was still quite young. First there was a haunted house we were doing up to move into because the rent was cheap, but it told us it didn't want us in no uncertain terms.

I'll never forget having to creep back in by day to get something I'd left behind in our rapid exit, after a whole roomful of us had been scared out of our wits by a window suddenly moving back and forth incredibly fast with no wind to drive it.  By then we were well primed by the coldness, the creepy feel, and by the way lights kept going off and on every time you turned your back.  The window was the last straw.  It took a lot of courage to go back in, but my boom box (yes I'm that old) had been left behind and money was tight.  In I went all alone just at sunset, and out I came like a sprinter!  Brrr!

After that came a share house down near the beach.  An old two-story that we called the doll's house because it was just an up-and-down box.   It was the party house for all of our friends (and not so friends) because we were the first people our age to move out of home.  Nearly every night the lounge-room floor was littered with drunk and/or stoned people who didn't want to go home.  I was riding racehorses at the time, starting stupidly early, so I got the reputation for being a bit of dragon because I'd get up and come raging downstairs and kick them all out if they kept me awake for too long.

This night, though, all was peaceful downstairs as I crept down to go for a wee in the only toilet at the rear of the house.  The moon shone in lines through the front horizontal blinds in the big window that fronted the lounge-room.  There were the usual silent sleeping figures on couches and even floor, looking colourless in the stripes of moonlight.  All was still.   I tiptoed my way past them, and began to turn the corner to go to the rear of the house, and came to a sudden stop.  In the opening that led from the front to back half of house, hanging from a beam, was another grey figure. It was sort of misty, shining in the moonlight, and it was very obviously a hanged person.

It was super scary, and I hightailed it back upstairs and never risked coming downstairs at night again.   Later, what struck me was the strangeness of how the humans in the room were not aware of the ghost, and the ghost seemed equally unaware of the humans, as if it was just going through the motions, night after night, of replaying its own death.

It goes along with that theory I've heard that some ghosts are aware and some are merely memories of a traumatic event.  The first was very aware of us.  The second seemed oblivious.

Do you have a scary experience to tell?  I'd love to hear it!