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Follow That Man

Some hospitals have a bit of kit that allows friends and family to track the whereabouts of their loved ones that have been admitted to hospital. I’m not sure whether I like it. For example, when your True Love is in theatre, the app indicates this. However, it doesn’t tell you what is taking so long. Of course, as the anxiety builds and the hours stretch out, the tracker is prone to wondering what happens if the patient (the tracked) dies In Theatre? Fortunately, people come out of theatre sooner or later and when they do, the app indicates that the patient has Exited Theatre. It is left to the tracker to imagine in what condition the patient exited the theatre. When the last update occurs late in the evening, the tracker may have a certain reluctance to call the hospital for information given the hour.

Information provided to families with loved ones in a particular hospital advises that due to the Covid situation, visitors should consider the need to visit and encourages calling loved ones instead. The few times that I have been to hospital to be spliced open to remove wrigglers, I was groggy for days afterward so I do not think it would be at all wise to ring the tracked directly after surgery because clearly that person would be in recovery and not taking calls or back on ward and potentially indisposed, or worse. Having discussed this situation with the wrigglers, we can only presume that someone from the hospital would ring us if the patient was in a bad way or worse. There must be some limits to this app. Surely? Presumably?

All will be revealed. I guess. Tomorrow.

I need a song. I can’t think of a better one than Katie Melua singing If You Were A Sailboat.

I have turned off comments so that I can freak out.

Take care, everyone.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

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Ravenous

Ravenous is a great word, don’t you think? There is something quite primal, urgent and debased about it. Or at least, that was its historical context but, at least outside of the bedroom, it is a word that has now attained some respectability and simply means very hungry. According to Mirriam-Webster, the noun “raven” (black bird) and the verb “raven” (from which the adjective “ravenous” is derived) are unrelated. They are homographs, which is a shame because I have a ravenous raven story. This is your chance, squeamish readers, to skip this story.

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One Way Or Another

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

This week, I had the great pleasure to attend Jo Shevchenko’s launch of her poetry chap book, Journey – A Cancer Story. Jo blogs at http://www.outofthecave.blog. What a talented poet and all round nice person Jo is. Not only did I meet Jo for the first time in person, but I also met her friends and family. They made me feel so welcome. I also want to make mention of one of Jo’s friends who has faced her own journey with cancer. She told me about a seven day, 25 kilometres per day trek she was planning. Awesome.

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It Is Our Turn Now

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you.

Goodness, I almost forgot about Friday song day this week. Is it possible that I haven’t thought about anything this week? I shy away from thoughts of the future these days. What does that make me? Sensible? Foolish? Scared? I can’t control my future but I can vote for the candidate or party that I want to represent me over the next three years.

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Something Fun

I recently decided that I would create a new native garden under my gum tree on the nature strip by the road, so I got to it by planting a multitude of tiny tubestock plants. Unfortunately the seedlings weren’t very easy to see and the kids passing by had a tendency to walk on them. My friends and I joked that I should install some stakes to deter the less observant. Before you all report to me to Child Services, I would like to reassure you that within moments of that thought, I began thinking of what I could put in the garden to make it more fun for the kiddies.

My son was going to throw out a couple of weird looking figurines that his grandmother had given him. Shhh, don’t tell grandma. So I rescued them and stuck them in the garden. Here’s one. I call it Gargoyle felis catus sp. I plopped it in next to a Poa sp. (an alpine grass).

I also found this neglected mosaic butterfly mosaic (not one of mine),
complete with spider egg sac. Further information on spider egg sacs can be found here.

I then found an old dragonfly mosaic (one of mine) lying around so I put it on the other side of the tree until I can organise a stand for it.

It is coming together slowly. Hopefully it will look better when the grasses get a little bigger.

I am quite enjoying this preoccupation. I hope you are keeping busy too.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

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The Changing Seasons – April 2022

Canberra (Australia) – Autumn delivers and April visitors.

I haven’t contributed to The Changing Seasons since December 2021. A lot has happened over the past four months, including health issues, poetry, completion of a major mosaic project and the start of a new front garden. Apart from the health matters, the garden has taken priority because we have to get it in now ahead of the next, inevitable, drought. In the regular garden, we had to abandon the tomatoes and beans to the rodents this year. They have been very hungry (we caught three and Makea, our dog, caught one). Nevertheless, we still managed to harvest three pumpkins from vines we did not plant. The fig tree went bonkers and produced two huge bumper crops. The rodents got stuck into the first crop but we managed to score some figs from the second batch by securing Elizabethan collars around the trunk of the tree to prevent the rats from climbing up the tree. I also collected a small tub of feijoa today, our first ever crop in more than two decades that we have lived at our house in Canberra.

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Hidden In the Rushes

I am posting this again in memory of my mum’s dog, Ashie.  He died today from a serious illness.  There is only one line and photo in this poem-ish photo-essay that relates to him, but it sums up this beautiful dog so well, at least in my opinion.  Farewell, lovely boy.  You will be missed.

***

When our family ventures out to our beautiful natural areas, we go slowly, for it is only then that nature’s hidden treasures are revealed.  We take out, what we carry in.  We tread lightly and with care.  There may be no houses, but we are nevertheless going into someone else’s home.  This is what we taught our children from a very young age.

Let’s see who is home today – in the rushes.

moorhen2

The little family is well camouflaged.  It is a Dusky Moorhen with her chick.  

moorhenchick

The chick leaves the safety of its nest, but mum is not too far away.

swan2

The black swan and her signets weren’t expecting visitors.

swanb

But all is calm, so peace is soon restored.

Ashy

Come out of there, Ash, and leave those ducks alone.  Ash is a farm dog.  He knows to not hurt the wildlife.

No comments necessary.

First published in 2018

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Ho Hum Election Comes

Welcome to my regular Friday song/tune day, ladies and gentlemen, where I pick a piece of music that reflects my mood or the times, to share with you. But first, a poem about the Australian Federal election campaign.

The less I say I about the election campaign,
the better. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi. oi.
Three word slogan, “You’re gonna die.”
That’s four, but who’s countin’?
Stick that up your Pine Gap.

It’s excruciating, ladies and gentlemen, but at least we get to vote and afterwards, whinge about the result. Let’s listen to Flogging Molly performing The Worst Day Since Yesterday. Sing it with me.

Stay well, everyone, and sift your oats from your blarney.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

NaPoWriMo #28
RDP Interlace

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To The Margins

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
To The Margins

Light rain veils the clouds, blanketing shadows, 
Pushing them to the background, to the margins.
Autumn provides context to our marginal existence.
Stuck on the precipice,
Brightly coloured leaves hanging precariously
On the gallows of misspent time.
Time wasted, time lost to inaction, to
Indolence, graft and protectionism.
Protectionism, but not protection.
The latter is too high a price to pay.
Money does not grow on trees, invested
For those rainy days that wash farm to sea
And homes under high water mark until
Light rain veils the clouds, blanketing shadows.

NaPoWriMo #27

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How To Impress Your Boss – A Haibun

Once, in an important work meeting with the senior execs, I opened my notepad and was confronted by a huge, black cockroach that had taken up residence between the pages of my notepad. We all saw it waving its monstrous antennae as it contemplated its next move. I made a hasty exit from the meeting, at which point the cockroach made its own dash for freedom. There may have been screaming. Did the bigwigs help with the dispatch? What do you think? I love my life.

Eyes agog. Cockroach!
One extra makes a quorum.
Best meeting ever.

True story, one which is best told on a weekend when nobody is reading.

I have never regretted being a pesticide-free household.

Kind Regards.
Tracy.

NaPoWriMo #23