Tag: Thoughts

Searching for locations: A long, narrow, winding road to the top of a hill

Or in other words, going up the mountain to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat.

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The road, from the turn off the Greenlee cottages, Is narrow, winding, and not one you can go faster than 40kph. Buses and trucks are restricted to 20kph, but as you get further into the mountains, it’s difficult to see how they can get along the road at all.

It’s difficult enough in a mid-size SUV.

At times the road is so narrow that you wonder how trucks and buses could get between the trees, because the close you get to the guest house, the narrower the road. And, at times, the car has to scrape by the overhanging branches, especially when having to make way for oncoming traffic.

The road in places is definitely not wide enough for two cars, but there are a lot of points where you can pull off to the side to let them pass.

It is tarred, but being in the middle of a dense tropical forest, it’s pitted and rutted, and very uneven. There is not one moment where can relax, or tale your eyes off the road, as some of us do, to take in the surrounding scenery.

But, whilst most of it looks the same, it’s certainly not boring, and every now and then you break out of the darkness into a clearing. And, sometimes a house.

Yes, people do live on the side of a mountain, and, just to be clear, their view, every morning, from the back verandah must be spectacular

At the end of the three quarters of an hour drive we emerge onto a mountain top, and what is O’Reilly’s guest house, though after a more investigative look around, the guests stay in motel like rooms. Those were the rooms we could see, but apparently there are villas that are part of the rainforest, but we did not get to see them.

That would be where I would stay, if I was going to stay up here.

There is an old wooden structure, but if this is the original guest house, it doesn’t look like people stay there any more.

But, it’s not the accommodation the people come here for, it’s the endless bush walks. Of course, there’s other stuff there, but I suspect for most people, it’s more about communing with nature, discovering the wildlife, and taking in the fresh country air.

Oh, and a plane, like one that had crashed nearby, with an interesting story to go with it.

We went into the souvenir story and whilst the prices are higher than I expected, there’s a wide variety of items that are worthy of being a reminder of the place.

We also went into the cafe, a large cavernous space that was a reminder of the chalet style building in alpine areas, made completely of wood. I was expecting it to be older than it was, but certainly, it was more atmospheric than the modern cafes. The food, though expensive, was good, and the coffee excellent.

It was a pity that we could not do more walking that day, but it was a pleasant interlude, and a place I would go back to.

Who do you think you are?

I have seen this television program once or twice, where a television personality digs into their past and sometimes they discover they had famous, or sometimes infamous, relatives.

I don’t think I would be so lucky, or unlucky as the case may be.

But, to be honest I haven’t really been interested in digging into the past.

On the other hand, my older brother has a keen interest in genealogy in general, borne from a desire to find out more about our family tree.

And he has gone back to the 1600s, for the relatives who came out from England, and no, they have no transported convicts, or at least he’s not saying.

Genealogy is a rather fascinating subject, and, I’ve discovered, is taught in university as a degree.  My brother has one now. 

What I didn’t realize is that I’ve been playing with it for years because in writing what might be called sagas you need to create your own set of mythical families, and then trace to forebears back in time.

I have one novel I’m writing that has required a family tree, and recently another for a story that required starting with a character who participated in the Eureka Stockade.  We had to create parents, a migration from England to Australia, and then construct a family tree through to today so we could write a story from the perspective of a fourth-generation girl at school doing a school project.

If that sounds complicated, believe me, it is.  But from my granddaughter who came up with the idea, she is very excited about it.

Much better than sitting in front of a computer playing games or a tv watching cartoons.

But once again I digress…

I have found a lot of genealogy stuff that my mother had been working on, and I’m taking it to my brother, and at the same time, l will get the latest installment on our family.

So far I’ve learned that I come from a combination of British relatives on both my mother and father’s side, the most recent my father’s mother who was born in England, and German from my mother’s side, her surname being Auhl.

No doubt, and with a great deal of irony, my relatives probably fought against each other in two world wars.

I’m sure more will be revealed on Wednesday.

But, the more I learn the more I feel inclined to create a fictionalized history with my family members as characters in the story.  At the moment a biographical account of the family would be reasonably boring since as yet no one notorious had been discovered.

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 38

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

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This is Chester.  We’re back to discussing topics of interest on the internet.

I’m not sure why, because yesterday, after a few minutes he yawned and went to sleep.

Today, it seems, he’s prepared to show more interest.

There seems, I said, a lot of discussion around writer’s block.

You mean, those lumps of wood you keep putting on the fire, he says.  And, while we’re at it, why haven’t you got one going today.  It’s cold.

I thought we were on the same page, injured elbow, can’t use the axe.

A slight shake of the head, as if to say, I can’t remember everything you say.

OK, moving on.  Writer’s block is not about wood.

Come to think of it, haven’t we got a shed full of wood, you cut it up last year.

Enough with the wood already.  Writer’s block.  The only block I can see that’s preventing me from writing is you.

Yawn.

Yep, conversation over.

Time to make some tea.  He doesn’t like that.  I wonder if the makers of the tea would want to know it makes an excellent cat repellant?

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modeled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I image back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.

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Searching for locations: An old country homestead, Canungra, Australia

Or to be more precise, the homestead at what is now O’Reilly’s vineyard, where there is a pleasant lawn out back running down to the river for picnics, an alpaca farm next door, and the homestead plays host to functions, and wine tastings.

My interest was that we had assumed there was a restaraunt, and we were going to have lunch. There might be one, but not the day we visited, it was just cafe food or a picnic available.

I was more interested in the old homestead, because it was a fine example of the homesteads built in the ‘outback’.

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Today we are having lunch in the Platypus room, in the O’Reilly’s vineyard farmhouse, which, if you close your eyes and let your imagination run free, could see it as the master bedroom of a homestead.

Certainly the building is old, made completely of timber, inside and out, with the traditional high ceilings to keep the heat at bay.

At one end, a large bay window, which would be ideal to sir and view the outside, past the sweeping verandah.  There is a small lawn and a rotunda, but beyond that what might have been extended gardens, is the vineyard.

The homestead is in an ideal position midway between the main road and the river, has the traditional surrounding verandah, and shows signs of being extended on almost all sides.

On the other side of the wide corridor that leads you to the bar, and, coincidentally, down the centre of the house, is a smaller bedroom, also used as a dining room, and ubiquitously named the library.

It may be small but it does have a fireplace.  Which the assumed master bedroom does not, but now I’m thinking that room might have been the morning room.

Behind the room we’re in is another bedroom, or perhaps this might be the master, because it does have a fireplace and is quite large.  And a name, the Ambassador room.  Now it serves as the pick up place for picnic baskets.

There is another room on the opposite side of the corridor called the Drawing Room, but is not open to the public.  But, going into the room with the fireplace adjacent to it, you can sell the aroma of pizzas, so it’s probably an extension of the kitchen, and, walking around the outside that side of the house proves it to be case.

After all, they do catering for weddings and need a very large food preparation area which I discovered runs down the whole of that side of the house.

At the end of the corridor I’d the bar and spare space, and running off that and behind that is where there is a large dining area, perhaps prior to COVID, the restaurant.

It’s not hard to imagine that area as a very large entertaining area, either for very large dinner parties, or dancing.

As for the food, it’s either a picnic basket, or pizzas.  We chose the latter, not realising the bases were not home made, but bought in.  

The toppings however were both plentiful and tasty.  It could have been hotter, because it was a cold day, and it was cold in the room.

As for something to do other than taste the wine, and buy a few bottles, you can get up close to the vines, which, at this time of the year gave been pruned back and look quite dead, look at or walk an alpaca, even feed it, or all of them, or go down to the river and see if you can spot a Platypus.

Perhaps next time we’ll have a picnic down by the river.

Urban decay

It was one of those beautiful Autumn mornings, blue sky with a smattering of clouds but a sunny day all the same.  It’s Sunday so there is not as much traffic on the road.

Anyone with any sense would be going to eat their favorite coffee place and settling down to your choice of coffee and perhaps a toaster or muffin to accompany the conversation.

This is what’s happening at the cafe we go for coffee.  9:00 in the morning it is packed.  But great coffee is hard to find, and this is great coffee.

It’s that in-between time before it gets windy, cold and wet, with the sort of chill you can feel in your bones, rather it’s the time when you have a barbeque in the mid-afternoon and get home before the cold sets in, or take the kids to the park for some healthy exercise.

Today I have to take a drive from one side of suburbia to the other, taking as a network of main roads with rather anonymous names such as North and South

We travel through the older suburbs, those with a collection of red or white bricks and timber dating back to the fifties and sixties.  They are not, for the most part, in a good state of repair, and rather than looking ramshackle, it’s more like they are slowly decaying.

Fences are rotting or falling over, extensions like they have been glued on rather than added by an architect, and paint either fading or missing.

Some have been bulldozed and replaced, blocks are cleared awaiting new development, others are being renovated.  Any way you look at them they are still worth a great deal of money being in the close to the city part of suburbia.

It’s a location we could never afford.  Because we were not affluent we were pushed out to the less expensive outer suburbs.  This was of course 50 years ago, and now those outer suburbs are now the new medium suburbs and people are buying 20 km further out in the new estates.  When I was young these suburbs were farms and open land.

It also surprises me that people would want to live on the main road because with traffic as it is heading into the city, it would be difficult to leave or return by car.  At least for these people, public transport is better than it is in the outer suburbs.

Because it’s Sunday my trip takes a lot less time, except for those unpredictable traffic lights, some of which I missed and took a while to cycle through the other traffic before it was our time to move.

Time enough for reflection, and realize that nothing stands still and that everything was always in a constant state of change.

Next time I come this way, I doubt anything will be the same, except perhaps, the traffic lights

“One Last Look”, nothing is what it seems

A single event can have enormous consequences.

A single event driven by fate, after Ben told his wife Charlotte he would be late home one night, he left early, and by chance discovers his wife having dinner in their favourite restaurant with another man.

A single event where it could be said Ben was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Who was this man? Why was she having dinner with him?

A simple truth to explain the single event was all Ben required. Instead, Charlotte told him a lie.

A single event that forces Ben to question everything he thought he knew about his wife, and the people who are around her.

After a near-death experience and forced retirement into a world he is unfamiliar with, Ben finds himself once again drawn back into that life of lies, violence, and intrigue.

From London to a small village in Tuscany, little by little Ben discovers who the woman he married is, and the real reason why fate had brought them together.

It is available on Amazon here:  http://amzn.to/2CqUBcz

Memories of the conversations with my cat – 37

As some may be aware, but many not, Chester, my faithful writing assistant, mice catcher, and general pain in the neck, passed away some months ago.

Recently I was running a series based on his adventures, under the title of Past Conversations with my cat.

For those who have not had the chance to read about all of his exploits I will run the series again from Episode 1

These are the memories of our time together…

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This is Chester.  He’s miffed that I didn’t tell him about China.

Sorry, already had this discussion a month ago, and I’m beginning to think he’s losing his marbles.  Perhaps he didn’t remember me saying I hadn’t run into any of his relatives on the Chinese side.  Dodging cars and scooters, you know…

The blank look says it all.  Oh, well, if we must…

So…

This morning he decided to jump up on the desk and sit beside the keyboard.  He was going to sit on it, but a stern look from me deterred him.

Or am I deluding myself, and we’re playing a game.

But I get it.  China.  The gossip, now.

Well, Beijing airport is the same as anywhere else in the world, except I had to battle the fingerprint machines.

A look tells me that any fool can get a paw, well, fingers, on the glass plate.   Next time I go, I tell him, he’s coming and I’d like to see his efforts.  It’s not as easy as it looks, and I wasn’t the only one.

After exiting the airport, a train ride to the baggage belt then out to find our guide, it takes about an hour and a half just to get to the bus, then another hour in the bus to our hotel.

He looks at the cup of tea I’ve made, attention span coming to an end.  Tea leaves from China, I say.  Good for you.  Saw it dissolve iodine right before my eyes.

Of course, the retort is, what idiot drinks iodine?

Just in case, I say.  You can never be too prepared, can you?

He takes a sniff, turns up his nose, and jumps down.  Enough of ‘travels without my cat’ for today.

I just shake my head and get back to work.

 

Searching for locations: Salzburg, the setting for spies and musicals, depending on your genre

Along with My Fair Lady, another of my favorite musicals was Sound of Music and having seen it a number of times over the years, it had conjured up a number of images of Salzburg in my mind, and with them a desire to go there.  We had been to Salzburg once before, an overnight train stop between Vienna and Innsbruck, an afterthought, but what we saw then was reason enough to come back later and spend several days.

A pity then the day we arrived, and for much of our stay, it rained.  But, like hardened travelers, very little stops us from doing anything, and particularly sightseeing.

We stayed at the Crowne Plaza – The Pitter in a very well appointed room.  Breakfast included, it was a great way to start the day.

The afternoon we arrived we went for a short walk to the old city passing through the Mirabelle gardens with the Pegasus Fountain, Rose Garden, and Dwarves Garden.  Later we discovered that the archway had been used in part of the filming of Sound of Music.

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We took the Festungsbahn funicular railway up to the Fortress Hohensalzburg, dating back to 1077, and the largest fortress still standing in Europe.  We spent a pleasant afternoon wandering through the rooms and exhibits and then had lunch at a café, the Salzburg Fortress Café, that overlooked the countryside.  This was where we were introduced to Mozart Gold Chocolate Cream added to our coffee.

It led us to search for the product which we eventually found in a confectionery store, Holzemayr in the Alter Markt.  Not only sis we find the Gold liqueur there was also a dark chocolate variety as well.  We bought a whole box to bring back with us, as well as a number of other chocolates including Victor Schmidt Austrian Mozart Balls, a delicious chocolate and marzipan combination.

With another afternoon to spare we visited the Salzburg Residence which previously housed Salzburg’s ruling prince-archbishops.  We visited the reception rooms and living quarters, as well as the Gallery.  It is as ornate as any of the palaces in Austria, resplendent with furnishings and paintings.  After that, the visit to Mozart’s birthplace was something of an anticlimax.

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But, what we were in Salzburg for, the Sound of music tour, and the places we visited:

The Mirabelle gardens, where Maria sang Do Re Mi in front of the gates to the gardens.  We spent some time here before and after the tour, and also has a look inside the Mirabelle Palace, which is not open to the public as it is the city administrative offices.

Leopoldskron Palace where the boating scene was filmed as well as exteriors.  They were not allowed to film inside the place and were only allowed to use the exterior.  An interesting tidbit of information, one of the children nearly drowned.

Heilbrunn palace is now home to the gazebo where Rolf and Liesl sang their song, ‘16 going on 17’.  The interesting part of this was the fact the Gazebo used to film the scene was much larger than the actual Gazebo on display.

The walkway from the fortress back to the old city passes Nonnberg Abbey where Maria was a novice, and where the opening scenes were filmed.  A number of scenes were filmed here, including the song ‘Maria’ in the courtyard.  The tour only showed the exterior of the Abbey.

Salzburg lake district where panorama and picnic scenes were filmed.  Even on the dullest of days, during which throughout our tour in continually rained, the scenery was still magnificent.

Mondsee church, where the wedding scenes were filmed.  It was surprising just how small the church really is.  It was also a stop to have afternoon tea or some ‘famous’ apple strudel.

Needless to say, we watched Sound of Music straight after the tour and managed to pick out all of the places we had been to.

The only downside to the tour, singing along to the songs.  I’m sorry, but I do not sing, and some of those that were, well, I say no more.

The past creeps back when you least expect it

Over the last few weeks I’ve been lamenting the loss of many things that once existed, once upon a time.

All children have memories of their childhood, but some dissipate over time and become forgotten, almost to the point where it is as if they never existed.

Like my grandmothers house in the country, bulldozed to widen a main highway. I have a lot of difficulty in remembering it even though we had spent many Christmas holidays there.

Other, more insignificant items just simply disappeared into the mists of time, as the manufacturers were slowly bought out by overseas companies and in their desire for globalisation, parochial items made for what seems, to them, to be too small for their economies of scale were no longer made.

No thought is ever given to the consumer. Nor does it matter that the item, made in this country for a hundred years, is especially attuned to the tastes of the people of this country, and therefore have a continuous core market.

Of course, as a child over 60 years ago, most of thise items were confectionary. Names of brands such as Hoadleys and Rowntree have long since disappeared. Products like licorice squares, polly waffles, toscas and crispins have gone too.

Some products like Kit Kats still exist, but are made by new manufacturers like Nestle but with the change no longer taste anything like they used to.

But what started of this lament for the old days was triggered by seeing an old, old favourite called Life Savers, which came in friut flavours, peppermint, and musk. My all time favourite was musk and walking through the supermarket I saw the words Life Savers on a box almost hidden on the bottom shelf and lo and behold they had musk.

The packaging had changed, the manufacturer had changed, but that timeless confectionary had reappeared. Given its shelf location, I don’t think it will be for long.

Now, if only they could bring back Toscas, and Tarax soft drinks in small bottles. Raspberry and cola were my all time favourites.