Remembering Mom

Remembering Mom, on the day of her passing ... it's five years today. On the one hand, that seems like a lifetime; on the other, it seems like yesterday. So I spent some time going over the few photos I have of her, when she was young; working them though the software to fix them and colourize them. This year, let me celebrate her life, not her passing, with images of the young girl with every possibility before her. 

In the scene on Lake Windermere (or Ullswater, perhaps Coniston, am not absolutely sure, but I think it's Windermere), she's about 26; in the portrait shot, she's about 17. I wish I'd known her, as a young woman. I try to remember the woman she was, when I was very young, and not to dwell too much on her last years, which were not great. 

Mike, Dave and I did everything we possibly could to make her time good, but there's only so much you can do. I ask myself constantly, what could I have done better? Yes, I made mistakes: I see them now, though I didn't see them at the time. But, none of them were dire mistakes, with far-reaching consequences. So, could I have made a difference, if I'd done something better? Dave and Mike say no. I ... wonder.

I miss her still; I always will. If anyone is interested to meet this amazing woman through the lens of biography, I told her story here: https://jen-downes-writes.blogspot.com/2021/12/biography-my-mothers-life.html

Autumn comes to SA ... normality returns at home!

It would be fair and accurate to say that normality has been restored literally as I write this. Dave is fully fit, healed, well, after the crash; his long pre-booked March holiday is up today, and he's on his way in for his first shift back after seven weeks. So life returns to normal; now, if I can only find my equilibrium, and somehow track down my errant muse, find out where she's disappeared to, and get back to what we'll -- smilingly -- call work. (Occasionally I get paid; in fact, I do believe I'm overdue for a pay check.)

So I thought, why not start with photos? We covered a lot of ground in March, though the much mooted road trip to Mount Gambier wasn't going to happen. The truth is, by halfway through the month, Dave actually could have handled it, but --

-- by the mid-point of March, the impact of the appalling war in Ukraine was starting to bite hard even in SA. The price of fuel was waaay past the point where a driving holiday looked realistic. It wouldn't even have been tasteful, with so many people putting away the car and taking the bus! On top of which, there's always the risk of Covid.

Now, we're all triple-vaccinated -- but. Even triple vaxed, you can catch Omicron; about forty thousand people a day do, nationally. And even though the chances of actually perishing with it are vanishingly small for triple-vaxed people who're not yet entirely geriatric (ouch), the risk of Long Covid is rather alarming. Averaged across the population as a whole, Long Covid attacks about 10% of people; but in certain age groups, the percentage is far higher. Wouldn't you know it? No one in this house is young enough to laugh off the threat. Truth? Long Covid would finish me off, and I've only just begun to clamber back to my feet! So --

Soooo ... we stuck close to home, stayed out of hotels, kept to the outdoor dining areas on the occasions when we went to cafes as diverse as Long Shot at Old Noarlunga, Flower Cellar at McLaren Vale, and The Aldinga Aerodrome. We did just two day trips, using less than a tank of fuel each time -- budgeted for, at over $2 a litre (which will sounds absurd to my ears, though I've seen the news from Western Sydney, where they're paying $2.30, and from the Top End of this poor country, where they're paying well over $3). 

In fact, it's been a great month. Barossa in the rain, the Coorong, the Adelaide Hills, parks and gardens, a few nice cafes, a lot of quality time spent chilling and relaxing. I read some good books, binged some great TV, and come home with a lot of very good photos. Going through them will be fun. I'll post more in the coming days and weeks.

Now, what the heck happened to my muse? Why can't I seem to put fingers to keyboard and actually write something ... like a story, or even a poem? I don't even seem to be able to glimpse an image that inspires me to create art. So, for a while let's blog, play with photographs, and see what happens.

Life goes on. One watches the stories of war with disbelief; one worries about the future of this country, and its people, who're struggling in the teeth of an economy gone bonkers. The 2022/23 budget was handed down last night, at Federal level ... to my eyes it looks like a lousy joke. The kind of budget that will bankrupt small business, land thousands of families on the street, with nary a rental available anywhere ... mind you, the country apparently can afford about sixty billion for defence spending, while the mega-rich don't appear to pay tax at all. Argh. The plight of people in Ukraine is haunting; our own east coast is being blitzed by Mother Nature; and Covid is on the rampage. Sigh.

In light of all this, when I look at our own lives -- living where we do, as safe as we are -- it occurs to me that one needs to take stock a little, count one's blessings, just settle down and wait this situation out. Because nothing is as sure as the fact this will end. Even the Second World War ended, though its death throes didn't come one day sooner through grumbling, complaining, or impatience.

So here I am, settling down, courting patience and setting out on a quest to find my muse. Autumn has come to South Australia, and Dave ... is off to work! 

Happy Birthday, Your Majesty -- now we are eight!

It doesn't seem possible, but here we are again ... celebrating Zolie's year in photos. It's been quite a year for her ladyship ... a year of good health, being the lady and mistress of all she surveys, and certainly the head of staff in this establishment! It's been a year of  .industrial-grade naps (with and without the laser eyes of two different colours) --

And a year of being involved with absolutely everything in the house, carport, garden ... presents, Christmas tree, bikes, making beds, summiting on cat trees, you name it, Zolie was into it:

Then again it was also a year of pocket-size adventures (which were no less grand for being pocket-sized). There were trees to climb, butterflies to chase, patches of dust to roll in ... and the responsibility of  being left to guard the citadel when the hoomans went to the park for the morning, and kitty cats couldn't come aloge (because them's the rules!) ...

But it was also a year of  NAPS. Big ones, small ones, epic naps, catnaps, every kind, in every place. Soooo many places to nap ... an embarrassment of kitty cat riches. Beds, chairs, rugs, and of course the box at the very top of the two-metre cat tree...

But wait, there's more! It was a year of desserts ... of bowls of cream, juuust the right size, set out when the hoomies are having their dessert! A certain look (a needle-claw in the knee...) and one just knows that Her Majesty would like her dessert too, if you don't mind --

After all, she's royalty. Empress of the Universe What's that, you don't believe me? Empress of The Universe, you say? Why, yes. They made a movie about it: Zolie Rescues Flash Gordon. In Technicolor, and Surround Sound, and Super Panavision 70. What, you didn't see it? Well, here's the proof!

There you are ... it was the year when Her Majesty became a big movie star!

And... that's all, folks!

Crash. Seriously. CRASH.

It was going to be a marvellous day. With a total fire ban announced for Mount Bold, Dave changed plans and took his brand new mountain bike, "Groo the Wanderer" to Sellicks Hills, to play off-road as he's wanted to for ages. And the day did start out wonderfully --

Everything was great ... the weather, the bike, Dave's riding legs; not a problem in sight. But, as so often happens, there's a small element called luck. And when luck decides to run against you, there's no way to predict what will happen; certainly no way to prepare for it. If you could, you would, but the inevitable is highly likely to jump up and bite you, when you're not looking.

This, at left, is almost the last photo Dave took before it happened. Not just a crash, but a crash of epic proportions (he never does anything by halves), at 48kph, halfway down a two kilometre mountain road. There's no clue as to what caused the crash ... everything was fine ... but the next moment he's flat on the rocks, and the damage is dire.

Fortunately, he didn't break his phone; and it's one of those shockproof, waterproof jobs that could take an impact and still work. He was riding alone (thank you, Covid!), so the first thing you do is post to Facebook and see if anyone is "on," and can they help. Luck was still on Dave's side, because loads of people were on, and he could indeed make contact with a riding friend Tony, who was able to pick him up at the gate at the top of the hill ...

Now comes the amazing part. He managed to get up on his feet and climb up a kilometre, at 10% gradient, in order to meet Tony at the top. That's a major enough achievement, when you've just come off a bike, but it became more and more astonishing as hours went by, and the Emergency Department at Noarlunga scanned him, and began to reveal the injuries.

Eight broken ribs, two of which are broken in several places each. A broken hip, and the shoulder socket is cracked. And then there's the knee, which has had surgery to clean and stitch it, and which may need further surgery. And with these injuries, he was able to walk out, up at 10% incline, on a lousy road.

Part of me is amazed; part of me is proud, yes ... and another part of me is appalled. There's no way to prepare for this, no way to guard against it. Nothing you can do, but ride to the best of your ability, aim the bike downhill, let gravity take its course, and trust to luck. Maybe it's just me, but that last part, the "luck" factor, is the one that freaks me out.

This was Groo the Wanderer's maiden flight down a mountainside. Three days later, staff at Flinders Medical Centre are still monitoring Dave for signs of collapsed lung, pneumonia, infection, though the risk of neural damage has been discounted. He has two neural blocks in his backs -- tubes delivering industrial-grade drugs direct to the ribcage...

Despite all this, he's in good spirits, expecting to make a full recovery, though it will take quite some time; and yes, looking forward to getting back on the bike.

So, maybe it's just me? Because at this moment I have to say that the prospect terrifies me. It's not bikes that scare me: he's always ridden, since before we were married. It's not riding on gavel roads -- he's been doing that on Groot for a couple of years now, without incident. No, it's mountain bike riding. It's bombing down hills at 50kph, were a foot-high boulder could be right in front of your front wheel at any moment, and at those speeds you can't see it coming soon enough to do anything about it.

I do understand how it's a major thrill. I really do. But I ask myself, how much risk can I live with? How much insurance should the rider carry, to cover a long, long recovery after a crash like this? What about permanent disability? What about death? 

And here's the bottom line. Sure, Dave will walk away from this -- eventually, after physiotherapy and months of healing and help from a whole support crew. But if the crash had been 2% worse, he wouldn't have walked away, not with all his limbs functional, not to mention his brain ... and I have the stone-cold feeling that he should be dead right now. He dodged the proverbial bullet this time.

Next time? That's what worries me. 

And at this moment, there's no answer to this.

He'll be in FMC for another week or so, till they can taper off the drugs, take the neural blocks out of his back, get him up on his feet well enough to move under his own steam. Then the recovery process can begin; and obviously I'll do everything I possibly can to help, make it happen. But what about next time? I can't get that thought out of my mind.