Sea Fever

Sea-Fever

by John Masefield

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life.

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

***

Quite apart desperately feeling the need to heed the call of the running tide, I so covet a beach house like our dear friends' fabulous one right on the ocean front. Sadly, our nearest water views are of the Civic, Tuggeranong or AIS pools.  We've been doing a lot of swimming of late in preparation for the South Canberra inter-school swimming carnival.  Alas, public pools are, I have grimly concluded, by and large, ugly and smelly places.  That Civic pool in particular attracts an especially diverse and eccentric crowd I've noted. Quite a wacky place to people watch. Not unlike a popular beach in summer time -- all shapes and sizes and uninhibited displays of flesh minus the sunbathing and beachcombing.  We've also witnessed the extraordinary spectacle of an underwater hockey match during one of our recent pool excursions.  Now that IS a farsical water sport, proving my theory that living too far from the sea induces madness.  

Poet laureate of Great Britain from 1930 until his death, John Masefield was only 22 years old when he wrote the simple and moving lines in his poem 'Sea Fever'.

Seasons

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Ascribed to King Solomon (King James Version, 1611)

 

 

To every thing there is a season,

and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

Where I live: Old Parliament House



To Autumn

~ John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Images: Taken during the annual Canberra Festival Balloon Spectacular held to mark Canberra Day which celebrates the official naming of Canberra.  Canberra was named at a ceremony on 12 March 1913 by Lady Denman, the wife of the then Governor-General Lord Denman.  Just to clarify. I don't actually live in Old Parliament House.  But it's on my beat.

Photo credit: National Archives of Australia: Item 11399703

See also some terrific video footage of the event from the National Film and Sound Archives.

{this moment} Magna Carta Place

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Canberra Festival, March 2011

Off key

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me.
You would play upon me;
you would seem to know my stops;
you would pluck out the heart of my mystery;
you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass;
and there is much music,
excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.
'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe?
Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Work is a bit tiresome at the moment and I have no stamina to deal with office politics and contain the domestic whirlwind which is associated with being a family of five.  If I had a long commute to work, I would be at breaking point.  I take my hat off to those big city-dwelling parents who have to battle public transport and school drop-offs every morning.  The effort required to compress a multitude of commitments into one day is intense enough without hours spent on a train or in a traffic jam, or worse, a bus queue.   I'm lucky I don't have to, but still the pressure is enormous and there is not enough space in the day to breathe out.  We are playing on taut strings.

Image: Sculpture Garden, National Gallery of Australia

Verse: William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2

Peak hour sameness

AUSTRALIA

~ A. D. Hope

A nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey

In the field uniform of modern wars,

Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws

If Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.

They call her a young country, but they lie:

She is the last of lands, the emptiest,

A woman beyond her change of life, a breast

Still tender but within the womb is dry.

Without songs, architecture, history:

The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,

Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,

The river of her immense stupidity

Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.

In them at last the ultimate men arrive

Whose boast is not: "we live" but "we survive",

A type who will inhabit the dying earth.

And her five cities, like five teeming sores,

Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state

Where second hand Europeans pullulate

Timidly on the edge of alien shores.

Yet there are some like me turn gladly home

From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find

The Arabian desert of the human mind,

Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,

Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare

Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes

The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes

Which is called civilization over there.

Same old routine today.  Except for Charly, who goes on a school camp for three days and two nights.  Up late packing and doing a final check of the bags this morning.  Made lemonade scones and boiled eggs for school lunches, as well as breakfast for five.  It's like peak hour in a city youth hostel around here.  But still the same routine.

Image: Jerrilderee, New South Wales

Crept upon us

Loves Calling

~ John Shaw Neilsen

Quietly as rosebuds

Talk to thin air,

Love came so lightly

I knew not he was there.

Quietly as lovers

Creep at the middle noon,

Softly as players tremble

In the tears of a tune;

Quietly as lilies

Their faint vows declare,

Came the shy pilgrim:

I knew not he was there.

Quietly as tears fall

On a warm sin,

Softly as griefs call

In a violin;

Without hail or tempest,

Blue sword or flame,

Love came so lightly

I knew not that he came.

A long week-end in Canberra. So timely.  It sort of crept up on me though... like love and birthdays and weight gain and star jasmine.  I didn't really notice until it was almost here.

It was games night in the Gull's nest with the cousins visiting for a BBQ and a few rounds of Taboo - our latest board game acquisition - thanks to a seductive comment about this word guessing party game by Joanna Goddard (I'm a sucker for whatever she recommends!) "Obsessed", she said she was, and I believed her.  So up went Hasbro shares as I picked up a box at a Target toy sale.

It's meant to be for ages 12 and up, but we played in teams with a mix of adults and children.  A struggle at first, but once we warmed up, we got into the flow.  Fuzzy heads had to become a bit sharper.  Imaginations were sparked.  This is a great game for teaching children to think and speak on their feet.  We'll be firing on all cylinders next time we play.

Images: Cave Gardens, a lovely rose garden above a sinkhole in the city centre of Mt. Gambier, South Australia

Borderline

There was an old man on the Border,
Who lived in the utmost disorder;
He danced with the cat, and made tea in his hat,
Which vexed all the folks on the Border.

The cricket season ended today.  All the children went to watch Ro-Ro play and I was to go later to watch the final overs and collect Wanna for her ballet lesson.  However.  I couldn't find the pitch.  I drove to every oval in South Canberra.  Then, when I finally tracked them down, I couldn't find the girls.  They were absolutely nowhere to be seen.  For about twenty minutes, another father and I wandered all around the borders of the oval (while play continued with the Strong Silent One umpiring), checking behind dubious sheds and in the pavilion, around the bushes and along the footpath.  I was getting a little anxious and we were running late.  After - much to do - involving frantic pacing and calling out names, we found them.  There they were all along under an improvised shade cloth with a school friend they had found watching another match with her family -- right adjacent to our game on the very same oval.  About 25 metres away.

Borderline madness!

Limerick by Edward Lear
Image: near the Victorian and South Australian borders.

{this moment} the end of another swimming lesson

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.

Wind on the Hill

Wind On The Hill

~ A. A. Milne

No one can tell me,

Nobody knows,

Where the wind comes from,

Where the wind goes.

It's flying from somewhere

As fast as it can,

I couldn't keep up with it,

Not if I ran.

But if I stopped holding

The string of my kite,

It would blow with the wind

For a day and a night.

And then when I found it,

Wherever it blew,

I should know that the wind

Had been going there too.

So then I could tell them

Where the wind goes…

But where the wind comes from

Nobody knows.

What did you think about Julia Gillard's speech to the US Congress?

What did they make of her accent?

She grew up in Adelaide with this view.

Image 1: Port Adelaide from the lighthouse

Image 2: Adelaide from Mt Lofty

Granite Island SA

After the ice creams at Victor Harbour, we walked to Granite Island over a quaint timber bridge that pedstrians share with a horse-drawn tram.

Only 3850 miles to the South Pole.  We could drive there.

Sugar Hit

The Sugar-Plum Tree

~  Eugene Field

HAVE you ever heard of the Sugar-Plum Tree?

'Tis a marvel of great renown!

It blooms on the shore of the Lollypop Sea

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town;

The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet

(As those who have tasted it say)

That good little children have only to eat

Of that fruit to be happy next day.

When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time

To capture the fruit which I sing;

The tree is so tall that no person could climb

To the boughs where the sugar-plums swing!

But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat,

And a ginger bread dog prowls below-

And this is the way you contrive to get at

Those sugar-plums tempting you so:

You say but the word to that gingerbread dog

And he barks with such a terrible zest

That the chocolate cat is at once all agog,

As her swelling proportions attest.

And the chocolate cat goes covorting around

From this leafy limb unto that,

And the sugar-plums tumble, of course, to the ground-

Hurray for that chocolate cat!

There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes

With striping of scarlet and gold,

And you carry away of the treasure that rains,

As much as your apron can hold!

So come, little child, cuddle closer to me

In your dainty white nightcap and gown,

And I'll rock you away to the Sugar-Plum Tree

In the garden of Shut-Eye Town.

This was taken in lovely Victor Harbour, South Australia.  Wendy's ice cream and the smell of sea air. Bliss.

I do wish I lived beside the seaside.

But right now I'm dragging myself off to fight for a car park and wrestle paper beasts in the office with only a tuna sandwich and a nectarine for sustenance.

Junior Monopoly: Time and the Board Game

Sweet Silence After Bells

~ Christopher Brennan

Sweet silence after bells!

deep in the enamour'd ear

soft incantation dwells.

Filling the rapt still sphere

a liquid crystal swims,

precarious yet clear.

Those metal quiring hymns

shaped ether so succinct:

a while, or it dislimns,

the silence, wanly prinkt

with forms of lingering notes,

inhabits, close. distinct;

and night, the angel, floats

on wings of blessing spread

o'er all the gather'd cotes

where meditation, wed

with love, in gold-lit cells,

absorbs the heaven that shed

sweet silence after bells.

Yesterday was huge logistically-speaking.  Ferrying three children around to a range of different venues from sleep-overs, circket/ballet commitments and a party.  The boys went to see the Brumbies play the Queensland Reds (I thought they said - I pay little attention to rugby, and if I did it, would be meaningless anyway).  An appalling game by all accounts, but to Ro-Ro it signifies a special night out with Dad and a chance to eat hot chips, so no matter what the outcome it was a great match.   

Meantime, the girls stayed home and watched YouTube clips of Glee song videos (we so love Glee songs, we do) and played Junior Monopoly.  It was a ruthless game. Little Wanna hasn't quite grasped the importance of abiding by rules and losing gracefully, so there were some shrill moments.  She whispered to the dice for a "Six, six", reluctantly paid her bills and wanted to keep one colour of each play money note. 

It was a simple game and still there were disputes.  It was a relief when it ended.  I'm exhausted.

Little Wanna won 61 to 57.

{this moment} Chain Stitch

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soule Mama.


Image: We try running stitch and chain stitch on a calico sampler with assistance from Made by Me: A book of lovely things to make, by Jane Bull.

Large lobsters and foreigners

Goody for Our Side and Your Side Too

~ Ogden Nash

Foreigners are people somewhere else,

Natives are people at home;

If the place you’re at

Is your habitat,

You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.

But the scales of Justice balance true,

And tit leads into tat,

So the man who’s at home

When he stays in Rome

Is abroad when he’s where you’re at.

When we leave the limits of the land in which

Our birth certificates sat us,

It does not mean

Just a change of scene,

But also a change of status.

The Frenchman with his fetching beard,

The Scot with his kilt and sporran,

One moment he

May a native be,

And the next may find him foreign.

There’s many a difference quickly found

Between the different races,

But the only essential

Differential

Is living different places.

Yet such is the pride of prideful man,

From Austrians to Australians,

That wherever he is,

He regards as his,

And the natives there, as aliens.

Oh, I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,

The foreigner tells the native,

And we’ll work together for our common ends

Like a preposition and a dative.

If our common ends seem mostly mine,

Why not, you ignorant foreigner?

And the native replies

Contrariwise;

And hence, my dears, the coroner.

So mind your manners when a native, please,

And doubly when you visit

And between us all

A rapport may fall

Ecstatically exquisite.

One simple thought, if you have it pat,

Will eliminate the coroner:

You may be a native in your habitat,

But to foreigners you’re just a foreigner.

I know I'm running with the wrong tribe in this blogging game.  Here I am, obsessed with craft and SAHM sites, when I neither quilt nor home-school.  I swoon over design, shelter and interior blogs but can't work out furniture placement or window dressing in my own house and I find restoration projects a complete and utter drag.  I have no time to write or research eloquent and informative pieces on history or emerging technology, or to reflect on my meetings with fascinating people.  I have no useful information to impart. I don't sell anything.  I'm not passionate about organic produce.  I don't grow things, except guerilla parsley in the front garden that no-one eats.  I suspect I have an embarassingly large carbon foot-print (but I'm too scared to look down and measure it).  I'm not fond of second-hand books, clothes, bric a brac or furniture.

In short, I'm really an imposter. 

A foreigner in the virtual land I inhabit. 

Sticking out like a giant lobster on the Princes Highway. 

I do try to mind my manners though.  I appreciate the diversity.  I have learnt plenty from reading about others niche interests.  I bought some Danish Oil the other day and I've started wearing bangles.

But where, oh where, are the other blogging mothers in full-time paid employment dealing with BIG issues who enjoy silly and sober poetry, take amateur photos on a compact camera  and spend  ALL their limited free time keeping house, shopping in big supermarkets, cooking standard nursery meals and driving children about between parties, playdates and clubs?  Where are yoooouu fellow lobsters?



Image: The big (17 metre) lobster at Kingston, South Australia.  The great Summer 2010-11 road trip.

Outdoor Adventures

Adventures Of Isabel

~ Ogden Nash

Isabel met an enormous bear,

Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;

The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,

The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.

The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,

How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!

Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.

Isabel didn't scream or scurry.

She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,

Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.

Once in a night as black as pitch

Isabel met a wicked old witch.

the witch's face was cross and wrinkled,

The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled.

Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,

I'll turn you into an ugly toad!

Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,

Isabel didn't scream or scurry,

She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,

But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.

Isabel met a hideous giant,

Isabel continued self reliant.

The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,

He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.

Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,

I'll grind your bones to make my bread.

Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,

Isabel didn't scream or scurry.

She nibbled the zwieback that she always fed off,

And when it was gone, she cut the giant's head off.

Isabel met a troublesome doctor,

He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.

The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills

And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.

The doctor said unto Isabel,

Swallow this, it will make you well.

Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,

Isabel didn't scream or scurry.

She took those pills from the pill concocter,

And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.

Blissful early afternoon departure from the office to collect the children today.  Thanks to a leadership vacuum, things are imploding on the work front so I'm glad to be out of there.  A quick whirl around the supermarket to collect some provisions and here we are on the deck eating home-made lemon icy poles and Anzac biscuits.  Magic.

On these days, we like to indulge in what I call 'extreme shopping' with a dangerous edge.  The challenge is to park in a five minute zone and charge, with three children in tow, into the shops, fill one or two baskets with fresh provisions for the next two days, possibly taste-test a cheese scroll at Baker's Delight on the way out, and get back before the parking inspector does his rounds.   I rarely see them and they are highly visible in bright vests, so it is a calculated risk.  If I did meet one, however, like Isabel, I would chew his ear off and contest the fine.  Sadly, this is the nearest I get to outdoor adventures these days.  In my urbanised world, parking inspectors are the equivalent of grizzly bears.

Image: Even Cleveland

March already

The Autumn

~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,

And turn your eyes around,

Where waving woods and waters wild

Do hymn an autumn sound.

The summer sun is faint on them --

The summer flowers depart --

Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,

Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,

May yet be in your mind;

And how you heard the green woods sing

Beneath the freshening wind.

Though the same wind now blows around,

You would its blast recall;

For every breath that stirs the trees,

Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth

That flesh and dust impart:

We cannot bear its visitings,

When change is on the heart.

Gay words and jests may make us smile,

When Sorrow is asleep;

But other things must make us smile,

When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --

Their presence may be o'er;

The dearest voice that meets our ear,

That tone may come no more!

Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,

Which once refresh'd our mind,

Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,

The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;

Look out o'er vale and hill-

In spring, the sky encircled them --

The sky is round them still.

Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --

Come change -- and human fate!

Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,

Can ne'er be desolate.

First days of Autumn in Canberra, the Bush Capital, where open spaces are crossed with dirt tracks and five storey buildings emerge from the long grass. 

Windy today with a slight chill in the air at dusk. Back home there are possums on the roof and two grasshoppers have sneaked inside. 

We are reading Lemony Snickett and Biggles, and revising the Rainbow Fish and Mr McGee series.  Never seem to have enough bookmarks or hours in the day to satisfy our appetite for stories.

It was a late night at Guides and Daddy arrived home from a business trip to Adelaide just as everyone, ten and under, was firmly tucked in bed.  It took a while to settle the troops again. We are all dog-tired. 

I'm going to crawl to the light switch and get some much-needed shut-eye.  I am enjoying rough cotton sheets over sateen ones but still struggle with the European pillows. Love them in display bedrooms, but I just can't seem to get the angle right for reading.  The old 'boomerang' nursing pillow was the best.  We must review the pillow situation on the weekend.  But honestly six pillows on a queen sized bed is way enough whatever the season.