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Saturday, July 31, 2004


Rapid Creek Bridge at sunset 



Bridge over troubled waters! Posted by Hello

// posted by night-rider @ 11:24 pm (0) comments #

Surprise! - it's twins! 


I ran into my neighbour tonight and noticed for the first time that she is pregnant. I spoke to her a week or two ago and thought she might have put on a bit of weight... but tonight, she was very definitely pregnant - so I mentioned the fact.

"Oh didn't I tell you," she said "I'm 40 and pregnant with twins."

Somewhat nonplussed, I begged her pardon and she replied: "I'm 40 years old and I'm going to have 3 children under 2!"... this said while trying to grab the hand of her active, red-haired 14 month old son.

She tells me she was married once and it was discovered that she could not become pregnant; even went through IVF. The 'fault' was supposed to be in her reproductive system, not the husband's.

That marriage broke up and she got together with the current boyfriend, although the relationship was neither full-time, nor exclusive and went through quite a few rocky patches. They lived together for a while and he moved out but they still saw each other and one day, she found herself pregnant. Deciding "I can do this" she told him she didn't want him to move back in and didn't want any support but he was welcome to have as much or as little relationship with the child as he wanted. He already had two grown up children from a previous marriage. "It seemed a miracle, that I was actually pregnant," she said.

Since the child has been born, Dad's become more and more involved but still had his separate home and separate life (he works offshore so is away working for three weeks out of five). Then my neighbour found that, not only was one miracle baby possible, but it seemed a second might not be out of the question.

What she wasn't anticipating when she went for a routine 12 week scan, was that this second baby, coming so soon and so unexpectedly after the first, could turn out to be not one baby but two!

And that's how my 40 year old, totally and hopelessly infertile neighbour will end up having 3 children under the age of 2!

Footnote: Dad's decided they just have to pull together on this and has moved back in. They are going to live together for at least the first year and move interstate to be closer to her mum and get some domestic help a couple of days a week when Dad's away on the job.

They've been able to make mature and realistic plans in the midst of what must have been an incredible shock and disruption to the way they saw their lives progressing. I admire them both and will be sorry to lose them as neighbours.

...and the moral of this story is: never trust a medical diagnosis - maybe God has other plans!

// posted by night-rider @ 10:55 pm (0) comments #

Tuesday, July 27, 2004


Fly with me 


You can fly around the world on my blog and leave your mark wherever you land,  just click on the flashing map to the right!

Gorgeous little bird - spraying water droplets in the air after her morning bath. All alone in paradise! Posted by Hello

// posted by night-rider @ 10:28 pm (0) comments #

Weirdos 


My blog got a google hit yesterday from a charming person in Estonia who searched "sweet very young girls nude photos" - holy hell, what could I have ever written that would return sweet sweat from that search? Oh, I get it, it's the sweet in sweet sweat!  I continue to get searches from various parts of Asia for sweet sweat, which I'm still assuming are looking for a product to ease their body odour.

And on the subject of visitors to my blog... why are you all so mean? How come it's only Tim from New Zealand who is the only unknown reader to pin my map (thanks Tim!).  I want lots of pins and I know you read it, would it hurt you to put a pin on a map? - I don't think so! I won't get your email address or anything, just the pleasure of seeing where my readers come from.  Go on, do it now and make my day!

Had an unexpected phone call last night from a former work colleague - doing the grey nomad thing with her husband and, landing in Darwin, thought she'd look me up.  We're having dinner tomorrow night and even though we were never friends when we worked together, it will be nice to see someone from the Gong.  My family won't come to visit no matter what inducements I offer, including paying their fares, and it sometimes seems very strange to be living in a place for 4 1/2 years with no member of my immediate family ever having seen it.  It's not like I'm inviting them to Siberia. After all, the temperatures here at the moment are a dry and pleasant 18 - 30 degrees whereas Sydney is lucky to get 18 maximum with rain, wind and possible snow!  Must be my winsome personality keeping them at bay!

No visitors: No pins - oh woe is me. Think I'll just take off to Broome for a few days at the beach to cheer myself up!

// posted by night-rider @ 10:05 pm (0) comments #

Sunday, July 25, 2004


Reflections and rapids 


Hey, don't forget to pin the map!
View from camp-site in morning light. Posted by Hello


// posted by night-rider @ 10:55 pm (0) comments #



This is Douglas Hot Springs, where the hot meets the cold. Posted by Hello

// posted by night-rider @ 10:51 pm (0) comments #

Douglas Daly 


Today was my birthday which always falls on a long weekend in Darwin because it's the same weekend as the Darwin Show - or alternatively because in the Territory they know what's truly important and they know I need a long weekend to celebrate. 

This year my birthday treat was to camp at Douglas Daly Park, located on the Douglas River about 2.5 hours south of Darwin.  This is my absolutely favourite place in the Territory and there is no better time to camp there than July when the days are guaranteed to be sunny and warm and the nights cold enough to enjoy a campfire and a sleeping bag.

The first time I saw this place, I fell in love. I remember ringing my mum from the pay-phone (there's no mobile coverage there) and telling her "I've just found paradise and think I'll stay here for ever!" - and so it is.

The river that runs through this caravan and camping park reflects the fringing pandanus like a mirror. It flows alternatively along its length smooth with a green, silken gleam, or broken by small waterfalls and white, foaming, thundering rapids.  Between, a series of defined pools allow you to swim and dive, sunbake on white/gold sand, clamber over interesting rock formations or swim between them. For the adventurous, riding the rapids or just being swept along on the fast-flowing water provides plenty of excitement, particularly when you are likely to encounter a small fresh-water crocodile or large snake along the way. 

In the early mornings steam rises from the surface where the sun hits. In the night, giant cherapin (like huge prawns or small lobsters) cut the water with their red, headlight eyes.

One thermal pool is fed by a warm spring, so it's always just a little cooler than blood temperature, specially nice in the cool of the morning or evening.

Then there are the nearby Douglas Hot Springs.  Here the water comes almost boiling from the ground and flows over a sandy bed as a river, gradually cooling as it moves along.  All you need to do is choose a spot where the temperature is right for you, lie back in the sand, or scrub with it for a natural exfoliation.  There's one spot where most people congregate. This is where the hot river meets a cold river so your back can be heating while icy currents swirl around your legs; or climb a sandhill for a temperate swim in a large billabong where the water temperature is so close to body-heat that you feel no change in temperature as you plunge in.

I like to swim in the billabong, wade back through the icy river, then lie in the really hot water (about the same temperature as a sauna) until my body turns pink.  I'd like to say I then plunge back into the icy river, and people do, but I generally just keep that nice, warm glow from the hot springs.

A million dollars would not have bought me a nicer treat for my birthday. It's places like this and weather like this that make the Northern Territory a place you never want to leave. 

If you've read this post - make your mark on the flashing world map - it's fun!


// posted by night-rider @ 10:06 pm (0) comments #

Wednesday, July 21, 2004


I should have 10 pins, flags or people! 


I checked my stats and I know I get on average 10 visitors a day to my blog, sometimes up to 8 or 9 of these are new visitors, not to mention the person who has, at last count, visited 138 times! Now those may not be world-beating numbers, in fact some would find them quite embarrassing but I'm  happy to get 10, 12 or 14 people a day reading my words and some of them coming back time after time.  It gives me a nice warm feeling - I'm not alone in the world - someone is listening!

So I know you are out there and I have a personal request to make:
I really like that cool brave new world map I've just added but it would be so much nicer if there were people on there other than me and the bravenet people - so please readers click on that nice flashy emblem at the top of my links and put yourself on the map.  P L E A S E!! New readers, old readers, young readers, short readers, fat readers, English, Korean, Japanese, Norther American and British readers - one time readers or old friends - all welcome. It only takes 30 seconds.

Since I've already been out to dinner tonight and have a long morning ahead tomorrow staffing the Darwin show stand (put it all up this afternoon and was exhausted afterwards!) - I'm hitting the hay now.  Look forward to checking sweetsweat tomorrow and seeing your cheery faces on the map!!!!

// posted by night-rider @ 11:20 pm (2) comments #

Tuesday, July 20, 2004


Blogger's guilt 


Looks like I've got the new menu thingy that allows me to change fonts, colours etc on my blog whether I wanted it or not!  Thing is, I liked being able to 'bold' the headline - and now I can't - not with the 'b' function nor with the suggested "cntrl B"...and I seem to be able to change fonts, but unfortunately can't remember which font I had chosen for my blog originally.  I'm going with Arial today as it is one I often choose.
 
I didn't have much to say anyway but was accosted by blogger's guilt.  I've been so busy chatting to FLM correspondents that I seem to get rid of all my urge to chat and have nothing left for blogging.
 
Thanks to BitchinNY who sent me directions to where I can download that cute blogger's map. I'm going to attempt to place it on my blog later today but make no guarantees as to whether I will be able to work out how to do it.  If I do, you'll have the option to place a pin on the map of the world to show me where my readers live - please do it!
 
Something strange has happened to me since I became single.  People have started talking to me.  They don't usually, at least not virtual strangers - friends have always been few, close and confiding - but I now find myself the beneficiary of long chats and invitations to coffee from the neighbours with whom I've shared no more than a nod and a smile for 4 years.  This of course comes with its own set of problems.  A neighbour couple who are very nice but with whom I have the greatest difficulty finding any real point of connection, have invited me for coffee twice in a week because they think I must be lonely.  Now they have borrowed money from me! -only a small amount and they said they were stuck, some long and involved story about leaving the wallet on top of a soft-drink machine, but I think I may have been better off when we knew each other less well.
 
A second couple, around my age are real talkers - their life stories in half hour bursts - hmmm!
 
But it's the 'confiding' strangers that are most unusual.  The senior work connection who confided to me in an hour and a half-long chat the other day all his work-related problems. The woman who doesn't work in my organisation but is a business connection, confiding her terrible personal troubles... I'm flattered by their confidences and they are right in believing I won't pass them on but it feels quite strange - maybe I've grown a less-forbidding aspect lately. 

I've always enjoyed sharing people's real thoughts, feelings, problems, rather than social small-talk, and have a number of more intimate connections where this kind of communication is our norm...but it's strange to pick up two new intimates in one week...strange for me anyway, it usually takes me quite a while to get to know someone that well.




// posted by night-rider @ 5:12 pm (0) comments #

Thursday, July 15, 2004


Racism 


What an insidious thing racism is.

Yesterday, while attending a management course, the facilitator was talking about a national survey their group did in 2000, 2001, 2003 and again this year. He was explaining trends in results and mentioned that there was a big shift in attitudes between 2001 and 2003 which could be explained by world events - "such as September 11," he said. Then he said they didn't expect such a big swing this year because no such serious world events had occurred in the interim - "Oh, there was the war in Iraq, of course," he said "but nothing on the scale of September 11!" - Excuse me - am I missing something here? I would have thought casualties as a result of the Iraq war were somewhat higher than September 11, but as one pissed off left-wing friend said -"yes but if they are yellow or brown they don't count in western thinking." I'm afraid she is right.

Another disappointment came in the form of a disgusting forwarded email from a dear friend who once upon a time would have known better and ranted against anyone who passed on such blatant racist tripe.

Then today a work-mate told me how he'd watched a local shop-keeper putting toy guns on display. The shop-keeper had casually remarked that he had to get something in for the local muslim kids!

F A R O U T!!!!! What happened to the spirit embodied in the words of that great patriotic song:
We are one,
but we are many,
and from all the lands on earth we come,
we share a dream, and sing with one voice,
I am, you are, we are Australian!


Speak up readers -Comment against racism here!

// posted by night-rider @ 11:35 pm (1) comments #

Tuesday, July 13, 2004


Internet discourse 


I intended to entitle this post internet intercourse but decided it just wasn't worth the hits from those looking for another kind of intercourse entirely!

Having limited time for internet intercourse, I'd been putting it into blogging and personal emails. Then I discovered FLM . FLM has turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment to me. People ask me to be their FLM friend, often just using the form supplied rather than adding any personal comments. I reply - then nothing! If they don't want to email new people, why are they on this site? Anyway I've met a few nice people and had a small amount of correspondence, but I've met one new correspondent who is taking up all my former blogging time. We are having a real, two way dialogue, getting to know each other. He's a very intelligent and interesting man and it's such fun to get to know a new person this way. Somehow it cuts out all the social niceties and small talk and you get down to the interesting stuff like real opinions and lifestyle choices in an instant. So in a way I'm glad most of the other FLMers turned out to be uninterested in becoming regular cyber-pals, otherwise I might have to give up my day job.

On that subject, I was reading an interesting article being promoted on the blogger home page about blogger burnout that I'm sure every blogger can relate to - even if you are not in the mega site league.

That's it for tonight. My new glasses are still giving me trouble but don't even start me on my failed attempt to switch to contact lenses and having to call the optometrist to my home at 8.30 on Sunday night to get the lense out of my eye!

// posted by night-rider @ 11:56 pm (1) comments #

Wednesday, July 07, 2004




Another thing I learnt is that friends of mine make their own cheeses. Back is ashed goat cheese, the left is a camembert and the right is a soft washed rind. How cool is that!
 Posted by Hello

// posted by night-rider @ 11:24 pm (0) comments #

Wednesday wanderings 


Today I had a day off work. I love days like today when I don't have to leave the house. I didn't even get dressed till 5.30 when it was time for my walk. Slobbed around all day, read snatches of the fairly crummy novel I'm currently reading, did a bit of washing, made a few phone calls, trawled a few blogs, wrote a few emails, made a big pot of soup, and put in three hours on the dreaded middle management course. Still, I'm one lesson ahead of the game now and only one more to go. Yay...I might take up an interesting course when this torture is over.

While I was doing all these things I was thinking of lots of little tidbits I wanted to share on the blog and you know what, I don't think I can remember any of them now.

One thing I did do was attempt to join up to 'Women Bloggers' for which I'd found a link on someone else's blog. Can't share it with you now because I've lost it. I spent 1.5 hours there, managed to join the basic group, but was informed I needed to put a piece of code into my template - at least that's what I think they were saying. I found it all very confusing. Anyway they gave me the code which I duly copied, went to my template to enter it and it wouldn't paste. I spent all the rest of the 1.5 hours trying to find that piece of code again on the women bloggers website. It kept directing me to a link I swear didn't exist. In the end I got totally fed up with the whole thing and deleted my details from the site. What a waste of time.

New things I've learned this week are: kangaroo meat contains many times more of some good cholesterol-fighting fat than either beef or lamb which were the only two previously known sources of it. The Ghan and The Indian Pacific trains each have a smoking room which I'm assured is bigger than a toilet and has lounge chairs in it. Nobody answers the phone at our local alternative theatre when you want to book tickets. Citibank still offers one for one transfer of award points into frequent flyer points (put that in your pipe CBA). When I walk I don't get leg cramps at night...and men don't find those bare midriff styles attractive when they are sported by what one correspondent called 'a teenage body that looked like a melting ice cream cone'.

My eyes are killing me from wearing new glasses for four days. I hope I'm going to get used to them soon. I have a cough that won't go away and the only thing that keeps it under control is having another smoke... hmmm something faulty about that statement I fear!

// posted by night-rider @ 10:51 pm (1) comments #

Monday, July 05, 2004


Political comment 


I've just been over to Darren's living room (former home of blogger idol)and checked out a few of the blogs on his lists of 'underbloggers' - blogs that don't get the attention they deserve. There seem to be hundreds of them and I must admit to only sampling a few, but I'm amazed how political most randomly sampled blogs I find seem to be. Especially the American ones. Reams of writing on this Republican Senator or policy or that Democratic nominee or particular political sex scandals (yes it seems Bill's not the only one doing the dirty deed outside the politically acceptable norms). And the ones from Oz mostly seem to have some sort of political comment as well, even if it's sporadic.

But the really interesting thing is that most of them are preaching to the converted - everybody wants George Bush out of the White House and nearly everybody wants John Howard out of the Lodge in Australia (except for those who are afraid the alternatives might be just as bad or even worse). It's like being on a merry-go-round or trapped in a revolving door sometimes, reading all these erudite remarks basically saying the same things.

For some (not so light) relief I found a gay/Christian/Academic blog, which was a novel concept, especially the prayer for the queer community (his words not mine - I wouldn't dare!).

...and what's happened to blogger idol anyway - I loved that segment, it gave me at least one interesting topic to write about each week!


// posted by night-rider @ 10:54 pm (0) comments #

Sunday, July 04, 2004


Sunday blues 


Ah Sundays! A day off from work, a day to relax and enjoy the company of friends and family! Because of my changed situation, and the fact that all my old friends and family are so far away, I now find Sundays very long indeed - would that week-days were as long.

Today I did the markets and the new Crazy Clarks (a discount or $2 shop), washed the car (still haven't got as low as spending the day at home to wash the hair), chatted to the neighbours, did the ironing and went for a walk along the foreshore - woo hoo! pretty exciting day eh?

Anyway, having slow days gives me time for reflection (not always a good thing) and today, I reflected on the differing nature of men and women and the differing ways society perceives them. I'm reflecting here only on the mature man or woman because youth has it's own mores and they couldn't be more different.

A presentable older man is perceived as a 'catch' by the numerous single women from 30 to death who inhabit this country in increasing numbers. Generalising shamelessly here, but I believe this is mainly because mature (and mature-ish) women want nothing in their life more than a committed relationship; that one special person with whom they can share their life, their successes, failures and just their down-time from the world. These women have another problem as well (increasing with age)it is not really acceptable for them to go out alone (to places where they might meet people).

No, a mature man dining alone, sitting at a bar having a beer, is percieved as a man in control of his life, a man who may be on a business trip, whose wife may be home looking after the grandchildren while he has a quiet beer, a man who prefers for this time to be alone.

A woman has no such place to hide. Other old women will talk to her, but nobody else is the least bit interested. She is a figure of scorn. This woman is alone because nobody wants her, because she has no friends. She is a pariah!

Where can she go with impunity? She can go shopping or to the markets, she can marginally go for a walk; but can she sit in a bar and enjoy the music or dine in a restaurant without feeling as though she is on display and out of place?

Another thing men seem not to mind is going for a drive, seeing a new place alone. I've tried it; believe me, you get there tired from the long drive, you look around, feel like everyone else in the world has a friend except you and nothing is much fun if you have no-one to talk to about it; no-one to discuss that movie, no-one to remark on that amusing incident or that beautiful view.

Coming home I watched the Einstein Factor, a quiz show that airs on Sunday afternoons and the good news is that apart from the specialist categories, I got almost all the answers correct - maybe my mind has started to improve and develop new pathways now that I have to be totally responsible for myself.

The specialist categories are something else entirely. Each contestant chooses a category. Today one young woman chose pop music - she answered every question! Another guy chose world war II aeroplanes - he got almost every question. I can't believe there are people out there who have such a vast - even encyclopaedic- knowledge of such narrow fields. Either they are very smart or very weird, and I'm not sure which.


// posted by night-rider @ 7:32 pm (1) comments #

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