I hope you had the time of your life.

There is no good time to break such news, but with conflicting emotions I must announce that ‘the watch’ has beeped it’s last beep. (I must warn you that there will be a number of clock/time references in this post.)

As many of you are aware, on March 10 the watch took an unscheduled swim in the pool resulting in into complete system failure. For the longest time the watch was in ICU being watched closely and treated for its many issues. At the time, I (sarcastically) put the call out to you all for your thoughts and prayers. The watch heard your thoughts and prayers but time was not on it’s side.

As the walrus said….”The time has come”

Considering the history of this classic timepiece (and I use the word classic in jest)….. found by my father abandoned on the streets of Aberfeldie, forced to undure long workshifts in greasy and bloody butcher shops where the hourly beep would remind the staff how many hours were left in their workday and being held at ransom by one demanding grand-daughter and forced to travel Europe, one would have expected that a little swim would have been just another story to tell. “Do you remember the time…..the watch nearly drowned” conversations at every subsequent family gathering.

I know that my devastated father is wishing he could turn back time. Time after time he’s berated himself for not taking the watch off before he jumped into the pool. He loved that bloody watch. The rest of the family hated it.

Is it coincidental that the death announcement is now……at Easter? Some of you, my dad included, may be hoping for a biblical ressurection for the watch. I can assure you, this will not be the case. For 1: it’s a watch. Once they’re dead they’re dead and 2: nobody comes back from the dead.

However, all is not lost for my dad. In response to being found abandoned and injured on the streets of Aberfeldie and needing ‘medical’ assistance, the watch registered as an organ donor and donated it’s band to another timepiece which now resides on my father’s wrist. Fortunately, this newer timepiece doesn’t beep every hour on the hour and ……isn’t bloody ugly.

So while ‘the watch’ may no longer adorn dad’s wrist, part of it still remains and will become the opening sentence of many a future conversation.

RIP ugly Casio watch. My dad will miss you. You have brought us many a laugh and eye-roll and now my brother and your grandsons won’t need to fight over who gets ‘the watch’ when you die.

(PS: None of them wanted it. It was always going to go to the grave with you. LOL!!)

Post-Coronavirus thinking

For months now Melbournians, Victorians, Australians and a large percentage of the world’s population have been under some level of government mandated lock-down because of an insidious virus known as COVID-19 or Coronavirus. This virus has had the power to do something previously unimaginable. It has shut down the global economy.

However, that is not all COVID-19 has done. Not only has it killed more than 200,000 people it has forced millions of people into unemployment, closed tens of thousands of businesses, shut down virtually every facet of the Arts, halted sporting events (Except for horse racing. Don’t quite know how that has been allowed to continue) and shown Australians how truly unprepared we are for the Zombie apocalypse. Americans hoarded guns in the initial panic, Australians hoarded ……..toilet paper. (And were willing to come to blows to defend our loot.)

There has been one interesting, and largely unreported, side-effect of this mandated isolation and that is the phenomenal drop in the cases of colds, flu and gastroenteritis. This is what I would like to focus on today.

Staying home when you are ill stops illness spreading. It’s that simple. However, in most countries, staying home from work when you are sick is penalised. You’re only permitted a few days per year to be away from your workplace when you are unwell or you risk losing part of your income and/or your job.

So what do you do? You turn up to your workplace sick.

“It’s just a cold” you say to yourself ………and to your co-workers, and to the person next to you on the bus/train/tram/plane/ferry, and to that person at the cafe as you stand with a dozen others waiting for your morning caffeine hit, and to the customers you serve during the course of the day, and to the general manager who’s visiting all company sites this week, and to the checkout staff at the supermarket because you simply had to pop in there to get food for tonight (Not food for a week so you would go out in public less. Just tonight).

How many people have you just potentially infected with your ‘cold’? How many people will they now infect because, like you, they think it’s ‘just a cold’? What’s the likelihood that this cold could become something much worse for a person who has an underlying condition?

But, we don’t think of the ‘what ifs’. We get out of bed, dose ourselves up with over-the-counter medications and soldier on sniffing, coughing and spluttering because we have to pay the bills and we only have 7(?) days a year allowed to us to be ill and still receive full wages.

And we spread our germs.

In the space of a week we have gone from one person with a cold to the entire office/workplace in varying stages of illness. Not to mention all the other people we interacted with.

What happens to productivity when this occurs. In a matter of days an entire workforce is at 25% productivity because no-one functions at 100% when they are not well or staff have been forced to take time off because, for them, it became more than ‘just a cold’.

COVID-19 has a lot of the population hyper-vigilant about illness and the spreading of germs right now.  One doesn’t touch a supermarket trolley before wiping it down with sanitiser. Religiously washing one’s hands for a minimum of 20 seconds at every opportunity has become the new normal. We have started to realise how quickly illness can spread and how simple it is to halt that spread.

But what will we do when life returns to ‘normal’?

Employers and businesses are very nervous about the easing of current restrictions and staff returning to work. They will be lightning fast to send any staff member home who shows the slightest hint of ill health, but they will be insisting that the staff member use their sick leave entitlements.

We will be returning to work under the current rules written into employment contracts because these rules will not, and have not, had the time to evolve with our new thinking and experiences in relation to sickness and enforced ‘quarantine for the greater good of the community’. We will revert to going to work when we are unwell because we have to. We may not want to, but we will have to. As a matter of fact, we’ve never wanted to go to work when we’ve been ill, but many of us have had to.

So I’m going to ask the/a question.

Would it not be more cost effective to remove the limit on sick days and permit a staff member to stay home and isolate themselves, on full pay, when unwell rather than, effectively, forcing them to attend work and potentially have most of your workforce become unwell and/or unable to come to work due to the inevitable spread of the illness? (That is a really long sentence)

I’m doing the maths here in my head and, admittedly, maths is not my strongest suit, but it seems to make sense to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end it was all too much.

So ……….my sister died yesterday.

She was only 46 years old. Married for 25 years. Two grown children.

Too young really.

Ironically, it wasn’t the Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (stage 4) she was diagnosed with late last year that took her life. Nope. According to the scans she went through last week, there was no sign of cancer. She’d beaten that sucker. It was multiple organ failure.

You know when you’re about to undergo a tiny procedure and the doctor tell you all the things that could possibly go wrong but are a one in a million chance of occurring? My sister was that one in a million patient. If it was going to be an unusual reaction to a drug or treatment ……. she had it. The poor doctors and nurses at the Peter Mac have been left scratching their heads in bewilderment at what became an unending parade of unexpected and ultimately fatal complications.

Amber went into hospital nine weeks ago for what was supposed to be the final step in her cancer treatment. She never left.

It has been a long and terrible nine weeks for her husband and children. It has been a harrowing nine weeks for her parents, my mum and dad, who have been with her every day of this final journey. It has been a nightmarish nine weeks for my mum who spent weeks at the Peter Mac and the Royal Melbourne Hospitals last year as my dad faced, and survived, his own cancer battle only to be back there again watching her youngest child slowly fade away.

Like a cat with its nine lives, Amber had run out of lives. She suffered from severe Crohns disease that hospitalised her on a regular basis, was lucky to survive a brain aneurysm a few years ago, she had chronic migraines and she had to cope with seizures. I think that her body simply wasn’t strong enough to handle the horrors of chemotherapy on top of everything else.

And I think she’d had enough.

On Thursday afternoon her husband and my parents had to make the heartbreaking decision to discontinue treatment as Amber’s liver was failing, as were her kidneys. The only thing left was to keep her comfortable and wait. We’d run out of miracles.

Amber chose to leave us Sunday morning. Not Friday as that was her best friend’s birthday, and not today which is her daughter’s birthday. Her husband was with her as she took her final breath and the rest of us were there shortly thereafter to grieve and spend those last hours with her now that her struggle was over.

Amber pretty much missed the entire COVID-19 situation. I don’t think she was ever well enough in the last nine weeks to watch television, listen to the radio or read the newspaper. We told her about it as we sat with her on a visit, but it had no impact on her situation. She wasn’t going anywhere. It impacts her now as we decide how best to say farewell in the more formal sense of the word.

Goodbye sis. It’s a shame we never had a close sisterly bond. I can’t apologise for that, nor can I be filled with regret for it. We are/were two different people with two different paths to tread. But you are still my little sister and you’re not here anymore. And it hurts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Goodbye Riley.

Today was the day I had to make the hardest decision a pet owner has to make and I said one final goodbye to my amazing dog, Riley. I knew this day was coming as he was now 13 and he had health issues, but he had been going so well. I had hoped that he would get to his ‘adoption’ anniversary at the end of the month but his body knew different and my hand was forced by circumstance.

You’ve heard it all before from other grieving pet owners, but I can honestly say that no pet has ever had such an impact in my life than that of Riley. From the moment I saw his face in the online advertisement I knew he was mine. I just didn’t comprehend how deeply his presence would change me from the person I was when I bought him.

Riley, through his own personality, taught me to be confident, brave and unafraid.

You see……. Riley was a dude.

Riley was a little dog with a big personality but he was not arrogant or cocky. Everybody who met him loved and admired him.

No collar and lead for this man. He didn’t need it and as a matter of fact, when he was required to be on lead his whole persona was different. Riley walked the streets like he owned them. Just a couple of feet ahead of me, but never afraid of what was ahead of him and never intimidated by any dog he met on his walk. Without my even being aware of it, this is precisely what I needed to learn about life and myself.

Riley was never a clingy “Hold me! Pat me!” dog but he was always by my side. Sitting on the couch, he had to be beside me. Not ON me, beside me. Having a shower, he’d be waiting outside the shower screen, on the bath mat, for me to exit. Going to the toilet he’d be propped at my feet. Bedtime, sleeping right next to me from the first day he arrived. If I was sad or unwell his solid presence was something I could always rely on.

The number of times I’ve turned around and nearly fallen flat on my face because he was right behind me. And I tell you, now that I’m in my fifties I have often wondered if I’d be one of those women who breaks her hip tripping over her dog. Writing this now, without his body pressed against my feet and his snores vibrating the computer desk is breaking my heart. The lack of him is achingly present.

Fortunately, I still have Almond. I know she senses that something is not right. Matthew and I went out today with her buddy Riley but he didn’t come home with us. And Riley wasn’t there when she had dinner. But Almond brought me a perfect dose of reality as she waded through a deep, muddy puddle this afternoon. Nothing like being required to bath a muddy, smelly dog to make you know you’re alive.

The next few days are going to be hard and I’ll probably cry a lot, but never, for a single moment, would I ever consider NOT owning a dog or having a pet because of the likelihood of having to experience this absolute sense of loss again.

Loss is part of love and I loved my boy Riley with all my heart. For eleven years he has been my main man.

And now he’s gone.

And there’s a big hole in my heart.

Goodbye my Riley dog.

I miss you.

We miss you.

 

The story of the watch

The watch. One of the UGLIEST watches on the planet. My father’s pride and joy.

A few years ago, dad found the Casio timepiece in the street. The band was broken, which probably explains why it was on the street, but it still worked. Never one to let something pass him by, he took it home and gave it a new band from some cheap, old watch that he had in a drawer which had seen better days. However, it was not any old band that he repaired the watch with. Goodness no!  Never mind the fact that the original band was black and plastic, the watch would look so much better with a gold band.

The new-band-replacement surgery is a story unto itself as I learned last night. Did you know that it took four rivets that had to be cut and drilled out to make the new pins for the band to fit? You do now. Do you know what a rivet is? I had that explained to me as well.

The newly remodelled Casio was now ready for the world. It became dad’s day watch. Dad would have been more than happy for the watch to be the ALL-day (including evening wear) watch, but there are some things my mother will not let him do.

The biggest selling point about this watch is the hourly beep. Yes, you guessed it, every hour on the hour this watch beeps. Just the once, a short double-beep……… for 21 of the 24 hours. However, at 6pm you get two beeps and at 7pm and 8pm you get ten! These are the alarms that my dad managed to set for whatever reason at the time he needed to set the alarms for. The problem is these alarms were supposed to go off at 6AM , 7AM and 8AM. Today I discovered the reason they beep in the PM. The watch is in 24 hour time mode and I’m taking a wild stab in the dark here and guessing that my darling father set the time on the watch in the afternoon, not realising this little factor.  Hahahahahahaha!!!!!!! (Which has me wondering what he thought the time was when he looked at his watch in the mornings, if he even looked at the watch at all.)

Back to the hourly beeps and the other, often told, tale of the wonders of the Casio timepiece. According to my father, the fellas at the butcher shop where he worked would get excited each time the beeps sounded because it meant that they were another hour closer to knock-off time and it would spur them on to work that bit faster.

Why am I telling you about this watch? Make yourself comfortable, get yourself a cup of tea and I will tell you.

You see……… dad lost the watch, I found it and I am using this contraption as leverage against him.

Back in early April my father was cleaning my mum’s car and was concerned for the paint finish on the roof, so decided the best thing to do was to remove the watch. The most convenient place to seconder the precious timepiece was inside said car and put it in the car for safekeeping he did. However, he forgot about the watch and moved the car, pottered around the house and did other stuff before realising that the watch was not on his wrist. Upon returning to mum’s car the watch could not be found. (I know…..GASP!!)

The car was searched, the footpath was searched, the road was searched, footsteps were retraced, clothing was searched, pockets were gone through but alas, the watch was nowhere to be found. Father was quite devastated. His watch. His pride and joy…….gone.

A few days afterwards dad came down with pneumonia and was subsequently diagnosed with lung cancer when the persistent illness required hospitalisation, further tests and x-rays to see what was going on.

My dad has been hospitalised a few times since April and I can tell you that it has been more than a few times in the past few months that we have heard the story of the lost watch. Whilst visiting my dad on one of his stints in the Peter Mac my mother happened to mention that she thought she heard the watch beep when she was driving home from a hospital visit. More car searching from mum failed to uncover the coveted Casio and thoughts turned to the idea that it was mum’s mind playing tricks on her with the stress of dad’s ill health and near-death scare.

Last Friday I was at my family home visiting mum and dad when I heard a faint beep and I asked dad if he had found his watch. The answer was no, but that was enough for me. I had to look for myself.

To a chorus of “We’ve looked!” “We’ve searched that car so many times……….” “It’s not there.” “You won’t find it, it’s gone.”……I grabbed my phone (for the torch in it) and marched down the stairs to the garage to carry out my own search and rescue mission.

It took me less than two minutes to locate the watch.

Thoughts of blackmail raced through my brain as I ascended the staircase to present my prize.

The look on my dad’s face when I held up the watch was priceless.

“How much is this watch worth to you?” I teased. I wasn’t really teasing. I was wondering how much money would be his first offer.

Dad was like a crack addict. He was twitching. Desperate to get his hands on his fix. This was GOLD.

And then came my moment of pure brilliance.

I had changed all my long-service leave plans when dad nearly died. The shit hit the fan the day before I was meant to board a plane to Ireland and I did the only thing I could do……… I immediately cancelled the first four weeks of my leave. I had no firm plans for those first 4 weeks away, I could do it some other year. Four weeks would also have been enough time for what we all thought would be a funeral and whatever other shit had to happen. A new flight was scheduled for the 31st of August and I would be able to travel on the tour that had been booked months previously and the Mykonos stay that would round off the trip. Dad just needs to stay well so that this can happen.

My moment of brilliance?

I told my dad that if he wants his watch back he is not allowed to get sick again until I return from my holiday. The watch is going to Europe! It is going to have its photo taken in London, Amsterdam, Rome, Venice, Paris and Mykonos.

With a shake of hands the deal was sealed.

Although it clearly pained him to not hold it lovingly in his hands and stroke the ridiculous calculator buttons with his fingertips, the joy in his face knowing that his precious watch was alive and well was incredible to witness. He had been feeling and looking pretty flat but now his cheeks were flushed with colour and his eyes twinkled with excitement.

I am now in possession of ‘the watch’ and dad is not allowed to get sick or die until I get back from my holiday. We have a deal and I have the prize.

 

 

PS: For those of you wondering WHERE in the car I located the watch. I found it down the side of the front passenger seat between the seat and the centre console.

 

 

 

 

Plans change.

You’re probably wondering why I have a picture of the inside of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute (The Peter Mac) on a blog post titled “Plans change”. Let me tell you why…………

I had plans. BIG plans. Seven weeks overseas visiting Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Greece. I have had to adjust these plans a little bit.

According to Encyclopedia Google the quote “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” is the modern translation of “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” from Scottish poet Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse.” I always thought it was written by John Steinbeck, but he only pinched a teeny bit of it to use as the title of his famous novel ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Cancer will make you change your plans. My dad has cancer. Lung cancer. He was diagnosed about 2 months ago. This is not his first cancer. It started with the melanomas. Then there was the squamous cell carcinoma on the left side of his neck a few years ago. Every visit to the Peter Mac had the family on edge. What was going to be cut off today? What else had they found?

The relentlessness of a post-cruise bout of pneumonia led to the doctors taking a lung x-ray which revealed the cancerous tumour on the left lung and subsequent testing led to the discovery of the bonus little tumours on the right lung.

Last week things got life-threateningly scary for dad. We were at the pointy end of things and the point was pressing into him pretty hard.

Packing a suitcase and boarding a plane that was going to take me thousands of miles away from my dad and my mum was NOT an option. I knew where I had to be and on a plane to Dublin was not it.

So I changed my plans. A postponement. Nothing a few phone calls and emails couldn’t sort out.

Unbelievably my dad was discharged from the Peter Mac today, a week after we were gathered around his bedside trying to bring him comfort in what we honestly thought were going to be his last hours. The team at the Peter Mac had only one option available and they gambled on it. The gamble paid dividends. But I don’t think they took into account the stubborn nature of my dad. He wasn’t ready to go yet. You don’t fuck with my dad.

He had better keep this fighting spirit going. The new flight is booked for the 31st.

 

 

 

 

 

The waiting game

The waiting game. It’s a game we play all our lives for millions of different reasons and it’s a game when the result can never be predicted.

Trying to get pregnant. The crippled-with-fear-every-second wait until the date of your expected period comes and goes, followed by the agonising two minute wait to see if there are two lines on the pregnancy test purchased in terrified excitement that morning.

Expectant mothers play the waiting game to welcome a new life into the world. The books tell us 280 days or 40 weeks, but head into any maternity hospital in the world and it will show you that it can be anywhere from 21 to 42 weeks. And, if you have been there, who can forget the anxiety as you wait to hear your baby make it’s first sound and hear the medical staff tell you that your child is healthy.

Life is the ultimate waiting game.

We wait for meals, we wait for sunrise, we wait for phone calls, we wait for sunsets, we wait for news, we wait for trains, trams, buses, aeroplanes, friends, family, television programs, heating, cooling, taxis, ubers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, service, coffee, new teeth, loosing teeth, children to take their first step, children to say their first word, people to stop talking, rain to fall, rain to stop, the sun to come out, the heat to be over, the cold weather to arrive, the spring, the roses to bloom, the full moon, the computer to boot up, the light to come on, the shower to be the right temperature, the microwave to beep, the traffic lights to change, the cars to move, the Bulldogs to win a premiership, the first kiss, the first love, the first alcoholic drink, the engagement proposal, the wedding, the honeymoon, the romantic dinners, the fight to be over, the ‘please’, the ‘thank you’, the honesty, the understanding, the lemons to ripen on the tree, the tide to turn, the fish to bite, the fire to catch, the candle to melt, the hurt to pass, the smoke to clear, the exam to be over, the plaster to set, the starting pistol, the wound to heal, the results to be announced, the bleeding to stop, the bad haircut to grow out, the shift to be over, the battery to run out, the weekend, the extra kilo to be gone, the holiday to begin………………….

But the most unpredictable of all the waiting games is our life expectancy. There are those who never get the chance to take a breath in this world and those who continue to breathe until they have breathed longer than everyone they know.

It’s Russian Roulette. One day there is going to be a bullet in the barrel and that’s it…….. your waiting game with life is over. And nobody, not even you, knows when that day will come and what form the bullet will take.

So we play the game. We spin the barrel on the pistol.

We are the game.

“What drug can I get you?”

A friend of mine recently made a life-changing decision to stop drinking. It was a decision made after consideration of a number of factors that are important and personal to himself, but one of the reasons was the awareness that he had begun to develop an ‘unhealthy reliance’ on alcohol.

This decision of his came a couple of weeks prior to the annual event known as ‘Dry July’ but the timing has probably been beneficial because he can become accustomed to not drinking and not be berated relentlessly by his friends and associates. It’s Dry July. Lots of people are not drinking.

I’m the fly on the wall watching this friend’s ‘light-bulb’ moments. I am a non-drinker, I have been aware of what he is suddenly experiencing socially my whole life. I’m in the VIP seat witnessing epiphanies. I have somehow become his sounding board and his non-judgemental voice of reason.

Dry July is one month, in Australia, every year where people can say ‘I’m not drinking for a month. Please support my decision and donate to my chosen charity.’ Sounds great. It IS great. But….. OH MY GOD ……….. the whingeing and complaining that accompanies this decision is enough to drive a person to drink!!! EVERYONE has to be made aware of the sacrifices Dry Julyers are making because they are not partaking of an alcoholic beverage for an entire 31 days. The social agony of not enjoying a glass of red with their friends at dinner. *GASP!* Invitations to go out will be politely but loudly rejected because the mere idea of not getting hammered with their friends is unacceptable. And really, who wants to be the sober one when everyone else is getting drunk? Drunk people are so unpleasant to be around when you’re not in the same state of inebriation.

There will be many people attempting Dry July because they are aware that they may have an issue that needs addressing and this public event is a safe and non-judgemental way to make a start, however, there are hundreds of people all around Australia who are not doing Dry July for the numerous health benefits. Oh no! Most of the people attempting Dry July are doing it on a dare, to raise money, because someone thought it would be a good idea for someone else in the office to do it………. Come August 1st most of these people will be making up for lost drinking time. The pubs, clubs and bars around the nation are already ordering up big for the return to drinking.

Alcohol permeates our society. Every event that you attend is fuelled by wine, beer, cider, spirits or cocktails. It doesn’t matter if you are attending the football or a baby’s baptism, if there are adults in attendance so is alcohol.

Why?

Alcohol is a drug. It alters one’s consciousness. Alcohol changes a person’s behaviour. It prevents people connecting in a real and meaningful way. Alcohol is the panacea and the excuse for every ailment or wrong-doing known to man.

Feeling sad……..have a drink.

Feeling happy………. have a drink.

Sun is shining……have a drink.

The weather is miserable…….have a drink.

New baby……..have a drink.

Someone died……….have a drink.

Won a major contract………..have a drink.

Lost your job……….have a drink.

On a date………have a drink.

Relationship ended………..have a drink.

Thanks for your help……..let me buy you a drink.

It’s your birthday………let me buy you a drink.

Punched someone……..had been drinking.

Yelled at the kids……….had been drinking.

Blew hundreds of dollars at the casino…….had been drinking.

Crashed the car into a fence………had been drinking.

Behaved irresponsibly………had been drinking.

If you stop for a moment and think about alcohol as a drug then you start to see your friendly bartender as your drug dealer. He will ply you with the substance you crave for as long as the money holds out. You will be enticed with ‘Happy Hour’ where you can get your hit cheaply and once your ability to think rationally has gone then the cost goes up, but you don’t notice because the drug has dulled your senses. Bartender stopped serving you? Get your mate to buy the drinks.

You need this drug to relax you say. No way you could get out on the dance floor without another couple of relaxants. Impossible to start a conversation without a shot of courage. Talk and flirt with someone you find attractive without a shot or two under your belt?Perish the thought!!

A glass or two of your chosen drug makes you feel good.

OF COURSE IT DOES!!! IT’S A DRUG!!! That’s what drugs are designed to do. Whether your drug is cocaine or a Cosmopolitan it is essentially the same thing. The only difference is the social, governmental and legal acceptability of alcohol.

Apparently I’m strange. I’m a bit of a freak. People don’t know how to behave around me. Bartenders don’t know how to handle my request for a raspberry cordial in flat water with no ice, though they have no problem with the request for an extra dry martini, shaken not stirred, with three olives.  Wineries blatantly ignore my request for a glass of water, even though technically I am the designated driver and they should be treating the person who is sober and responsible for the other members of the group with respect.

And let’s not even start with dating! Where am I supposed to meet someone for a drink if I don’t drink? News for you gentlemen. I do drink. I simply don’t drink alcohol. I don’t have a problem with you having a glass of something, I can drink water, I just have a problem if you drink a few glasses or cans of something.

If you are doing Dry July take the time to notice what is happening around you and to you. Has your sleep quality improved? Are you losing weight? Are your eyes clearer? Are your thoughts clearer? How much money are you saving? Are your acquaintances real friends or fellow drug users? How does it feel to remember what you did on Friday night? What is it like to make love to your partner when your are not ‘altered’ by alcohol? Are you more productive at work? How do you feel being in a room of people who are drinking? Is your interaction with your family and friends more connected?

I hope my friend’s decision to give up alcohol is a permanent one. It is a big choice to make and a choice that is not popular among the majority of the population. He will be met with resistance, anger, disbelief, mistrust, coercion, shock, laughter and humiliation. I have my fingers crossed for him.

 

 

 

Made me ponder.

How incredible and terrifying to hear a 22 year old person say that the thing they were most proud of was the fact that they were still alive.

My heart stopped for a moment because I had, just moments before, watched this young person perform in front of a couple of hundred people so confidently and passionately.

This beautiful, passionate, creative, strong, dynamic and captivating being had almost given up on everything numerous times in their short life.

It breaks my heart to think that there are so many people who, after years of inner torment, decide that not ‘being’ is their only choice. Young or old, the agony of living is more than they can cope with.

I don’t know why, who or how the help needed arrived for this individual, I can only be grateful that it did because there were some wonderfully thought-provoking moments during the performance on Thursday night. These were moments that were made to be expressed by this artist. They were hers and hers alone.

Why do we do it every year?

The Queen’s Birthday long weekend is celebrated, in Victoria, over the second weekend of June and for all but one of the last 17(?) years I have been heading to the little Bellarine Penninsula town of Portarlington to attend the National Celtic Festival. I am not Irish, Scottish or Welsh, though my ancestry has strong Irish leanings, however we are talking four generations back, if not further, and nobody in my family has a musical bent.

I only attended my first festival because my boyfriend at the time was a roadie for one of the bands, yet I find myself returning year after year. It is permanently marked on my calendar. I organise my Saturday work shift months in advance so that I am free that weekend and I have been a volunteer for a number of years now.

I’m not the only one who returns to this festival every year. There are dozens of us who, even if it is just for one day, make the annual pilgrimage to Portarlington.

Why do I do it? Why do we do it? Why does this festival have such meaning to so many people?

As I edited a selection of the 1500 photos I took over the weekend (I’m a volunteer and an official photographer) the meaning of the festival became clear.

It means friendship.

It means dancing.

It means fun.

It means music.

It means singing.

It means sore feet and losing your voice.

It means learning that you can attend a festival on your own and not be alone.

It means magical moments such as watching strangers lose themselves in movement.

It means a room full of people of all ages and abilities dancing a jig or a reel with joyous abandon.

It means men in kilts and women in hand knitted beanies.

It means fiddles and bagpipes and guitars and flutes and harps and pianos and banjos…..

It means seeing four generations of the one family enjoying a weekend together.

It means finding your ‘tribe’.

It means hearing ‘Whiskey in the jar’ a dozen times and loving every rendition.

It means discovering new artists from Australia and overseas and becoming fans for life.

It means seeing cultures that seem to have no connection come together in music and love.

It means seeing the same faces from last year and being so delighted that they are there again.

It means having bands you know stop their set mid-song to have you take their photo.

It means watching craftsmen in action, passing on their knowledge of the old arts.

It means watching young musicians flourish and develop.

It means witnessing a room of adults sit in silent weeping as a gifted singer/story-teller hypnotises them with words.

It means knowing that we have history and traditions and stories and songs that mean something.

It means that I will be back there again next June.