Uncollected Canterings

That blurry bit there is in fact a picture of me horseback riding. It was taken by one of our pastors, Cheryl (from horseback) at end point of our outing on Sunday, when I was getting rather tired, and the horse knew it. This is of course not too different from the beginning if the ride, when the horse knew I hadn't been glued to a saddle for about 10 years. I actually did have some collected moments in between the beginning and end...

Our pastors Cheryl & Tristan and their daughters all ride, which is a wonderful discovery, and they are willing to share the enjoyment with others. I had great time, and rediscovered my various leg muscles during the course of the next day or so.

Some people are really fortunate. They go through the day, very collected and organised, from beginning to end. Others of us collect ourselves in between the start and end of the day: planning, organising, leaving the planner in the drawer, forgetting the grocery list, coming home with interesting things in our shopping bags, and then forgetting what recipe we were going to use them in. This can lead to spontaneous behaviour, resulting in combustible dinners or gourmet meals. On the other hand, it's a good idea to have the collected folks around, because that can lead to dusty boots on a Sunday afternoon.

Language Barriers

It's amazing what you take for granted in your own country. Or your neck of the woods for that matter. For instance, in the Northeast United States, everyone talks with a fairly similar accent. People from the South and Southwest speak differently. So do Midwesterners and Westerners. But they sound normal, because we expect them to sound that way. The sounds are part of our culture.

Being from the Northeast, we were cosmopolitan enough to live with a multitude of accents and cultures from around the globe. And while some accents were difficult, everyone was trying to master our colloquialisms and our pronunciations, so differences were quaint and we eventually understood what people were saying.

It's quite an eye-opener (ear-opener?) to be the one with the foreign accent. OK, Andrew's done it before, but it's a first for me. Travelling on holiday doesn't prepare you for this. Suddenly, everyone everywhere speaks in a way that doesn't sound anything like you, even though you both are supposedly speaking the same language. I use funny words that people aren't familiar with ("trash"), and pronounce the ones they know in just as amusing a manner ("mo-bil" instead of "mo-bile").

And you notice this, because you're not with a tour group or heading home in a week. Like the chocolate Easter Bunny sans ears, you find yourself asking people to repeat things and hoping they don't think you a total nonner, because you ask this almost daily. Fortunately, no one's started speaking to me LOUDLY and more S...L...O...W...L...Y.

At least, not yet.

We Need More Power, Mr Scotty!

Well, I can't even compare a power outage in Melbourne to the "load shedding" in South Africa, but since it makes a good starting sentence, I guess it's fair to say I just did. Hmmm...

We had some amazing storms here in Victoria two days ago. A cyclone in Western Australia sent incredibly strong winds through the mountain ranges, with trees, fences, building and boats damaged in various areas of the state. Sadly, there were 3 lives lost.

Those of us on the edge of the bush lost power for just about 24 hours, and 20,000 people are still without power two days later. There was a dust storm as well. We only got the edge of it, but there are some amazing photos out there. Of course I can't find them now.

It's amazing how well one can manage. Andrew had bought a small generator, which was sufficient to light some lamps, and the television. And yes... the television stations came in loud & clear.

We discovered that small genny doesn't have the capacity to run even a small fan heater, and we also disovered why the it was on sale -- it doesn't work properly. So, we bought a quality (and also quieter) genny from a reputable vendor, and will hopefully be getting a refund from the other store. With the new genny and a small but excellent camp stove, we'll actually have enough power and coffee to keep ourselves illuminated, warm, entertained -- and awake -- during the next outage.