While Not Working

Over in France, pretty boys roar up and down mountains on bicycles, veins pumped full of red blood cells, testosterone, and goodness knows what else.*  In a fine tradition of watching not doing, I got up early every morning to watch the Tour de France highlights, augmented as they were by breathless commentary.  "He's wearing aerodynamic socks!" gasped the commentator as one of the favourites struggled through the individual time trial. "I don't wear aerodynamic socks!" Exclaimed Roger.  "I didn't know there was such a thing!  Maybe that's why I'm so slow." I didn't have the heart to point out that even if he donned aerodynamic socks while sitting on the couch, he still wouldn't go anywhere. Inspired by the TdF and with a window of sunshine and not very much wind, we hopped on bicycles and went for a ride.  In the tragic absence of aerodynamic socks I donned my thick and woollies instead, ensuring toe warmth in trade for speed. ...

Our new home owner pointed to the trees visible from the kitchen window, fringing wheat fields with beyond them the quiet grey sea. "There's wombats down there. You'll see them on his afternoon walk." I got quite excited. Its close to 40 years since I saw wombats in the wild and even then most of them had been skittled by cars, so they didn't count. But let's start at the beginning. Black Point turned on a fantastic sunset on our final morning.   We left in good time and then, in our usual style, went back to retrieve the breakfast goods which we had left behind in the cupboards. Our new dog greeted us with embarrassing displays of affection, destroying any illusions of guarding his property. Walk me.  Feed me.  You can take the silverware, I don't care. Port Julia boasted a permanent population of 59 scattered amongst its 159 dwellings.  We were surrounded by shuttered and empty houses. Down at the end of the street the gravel track of the Walk The Yorke ...

We hid anything remotely chewable from Junior, put on the collar to prevent Senior self-cannabilising while unsupervised, left the keys on the kitchen bench, and departed McLaren Vale.  We had a few days break before starting another sit at Port Julia on the east coast of the Yorke Peninsula.  In the interests of meeting with the new home owners before the sit started, we found a holiday house at Black Point where a mix of ramshackle old shacks and smart new holiday homes fringed the north-facing beach.  The 2021 census counted 64 people living permanently at Black Point, scattered among 222 dwellings.  And no commercial establishments, not even a pop-up coffee van to be seen, t'was truly going to be a hardship posting. The sea on one side, and wheatfields on the other.   The verandah of our holiday house looked north over the Gulf St Vincent. On the first night the full moon painted silver reflections on the water and the night was silent apart from the slop ...

Junior developed a taste for power cords.  He chowed down on the night light in the hallway and gobbled up charging cords like they were going out of fashion.  When he wasn't seeking electrocution he munched on pieces of gravel from the garden,  seeking a canine/gravel equivalent to a seabird with a belly full of plastic. I kicked him out of my office and shut the door, quietly letting Senior in to lie in the sun as I worked while Roger and Junior waged a war of attrition in the rest of the house.  If the shreds of sticks, gravel and power cords scattered all over the floor when I came out for lunch were anything to go by, Junior was winning. By the time I finished work it was clearly evident that Roger and Junior needed a break from each other.  Or Roger did, anyway.  Junior was entirely unrepentant, full of beans and enough gravel to make it dangerous for him to swim. We put away everything that could possibly be chewable, hopped on our bicycles, and peda...

Our senior fluffy dog got an itch. He scratched and gnwed at his leg until we couldn't ignore it any more and, in consultation with his owners over in Iceland, we diligently applied creams and bandages and inflatable collars to make it harder to reach his feet. Junior helped as best he could: he nipped at Senior's heels, did his best to chew on the bandage by proxy, and bit off the valve of the inflatable collar thereby rendering it useless. Nothing got better. "Its an infected spider bite," said the vet, and gave us medicine which senior devoured in chunks of cheese. Junior ate bits of cheese too, purely in solidarity for Senior's suffering. The vet also provided a more robust Collar of Shame, one which couldn't be chewed up by Junior. The collar presented Senior with certain barriers but he was up to the challenge.     A week went by and Senior healed up and got his graduation from the vet. Junior didn't get to eat complementary chunks of cheese any more...