January 31st, 2025 -- This Was January: Finding a Rhythm

January 31, 2025

I don’t post very often these days. The reason is simple: there’s nothing to post about (unless I whine and grumble…and I could to plenty of that, but I won’t). By now, most friends and family must be a weary of MND stories, and I don’t blame them. I’m tired of it myself. If I could shrug it off, “go back to normal,” I would! But―here we are, trying determinedly to find a new normal. A new rhythm to carry us through months and years, and do it pleasantly. Life must be pleasant, with a certain sweetness, before you can call it “Life.” Anything else is…existing. Hmm.

So, let’s call this The January Report, which I’m filing as February opens. Here goes.

As I write, the air is smoky, hazy; I have “vampire eyes and smarting sinuses. The fires are not local―they’re over the border in Victoria. My heart goes out to our neighbours. Breathing their smoke is bad enough. Sigh. We’ve welcomed in what, as kids, some of us used to call the February Dragon, from Colin Thiele’s bushfire novel of the same name. February is an oven, and a dangerous one.
Our seasonal dragon inspires the longing for coolness, greenness, misty mornings, rainy evenings, the skirl of the wind in autumn’s bare branches, the crunch of fallen leaves as one walks a woodland trail. Little of this happens in Australia at any time of year, and if you do get close―it’s winter. Yes, I confess: there are times (this is one of them) when I get rather homesick for a land I haven’t even seen for 54 years. It’s strange. Rather painful but at the same time oddly sweet, perhaps because it gives me something to look forward to in a future I still dream about.

The pace of life has slowed, and it can afford to. Dave has just seven shifts left to work, including today’s. His last is March 16, then he’s retired. Actually, he’ll swap one job for another: his new job is himself. Health, strength, fitness, continued survival pending the next drug or gene therapy, the next, and next, till The Cure materializes―

We visited Tim (the GP) two days ago, and I happened to mention how we keep up with the research and see ample reason to be “guardedly optimistic.” No surprise from Tim, who agrees. This is the proverbial medical professional agreeing that re: survival of this lousy disorder, as of now one can afford guarded optimism. If (and it’s a monstrous “if”) one is proactive, gets out of the chair, and invests the work in one’s own survival.

And it is work. Hard work that never ends. It’s about nutrition, supplementation, exercise, meditation. Kriya, Qigong, acupuncture, physiotherapy, and a “magic factor.” The element we can’t quantify or label because it’s different for everyone. Allan Watts described it 50 years ago; everyone from Joe Dispenza (who approaches this from a scientific platform) to Darryl Anka (who packages similar messages in a delicious science fiction wrapper that one either loves or hates: yep, I love it in the same way I adore Stargate. SF. Sweet! Duh). Basically, find whatever makes your heart sing, because when your passion consumes you, you’re “in the zone.” Chi is rising; time stops; brain and heart pull in concert instead of in different directions; you feel great. And in that zone, nothing―not even MND―can touch you. Get in the zone. Stay in it!

For Dave, it’s cycling. His big news is Happy the eBike, which puts him back on the road, swooping down hills, riding country roads with glorious views. Happy is pedal-assist, meaning Dave must work, which translates into exercise, which keeps heart and lungs tip-top, maintaining muscle mass the disorder is trying to destroy. Cycling is therapy―physical, mental, everything. Oh, it works.

No surprise, then: last week, Dave’s neurologist reported no deterioration after three months. Remission. Check. Now, how long can we extend this? I ask myself: how many newly-diagnosed patients hasten their own demise by following doctors’ orders and doing…nothing. Medicine offers no treatment, just support services to keep one comfortable through the long fade to black. Dave’s prognosis was two years. Well, with no deterioration to report, that picture just changed radically. Now, there’s a result!

 
The neurologist ordered bloods to seek genetic markers. They’re in the process of IDing this beast’s genetic triggers. When they’re known, they can be switched off. Months ago, our acupuncturist insisted that all cases (not just some) are genetic. His branch of medicine is endeavouring to use laser acupuncture to switch off those genes. It’s worth noting that literally the day acupuncture began, Dave started to improve. It’s as if he’s on the mend, though the process is long, slow, and dang hard work.

So, life is slow, uneventful. A new show we’re enjoying on Britbox is a major deal (Shakespeare and Hathaway, a fun cosy mystery). Learning how to use meditation to escape into the maze of quantum probabilities―I kid you not!—is huge fun. It’s made me happier than I’ve been in eons. With bushwalking and photography off the menu (for the time being: no negativity allowed here!), my passion has become editing and writing. That’s where I get “into the zone.” Hiking and cameras can return whenever ―there’s no rush. I’ve already returned to pro writing, and will keep you posted when there’s news. That’s absolutely all that’s going on with me, personally.

There’s a new med for the saliva issue (thanks for the tip, Anna), and the last bloods showed that Dave’s liver has adapted to the Riluzole and returned to normal. So, oh yes, we’re doing this. Tangible results. As I said―optimistic. She says, smiling.

The Year of the January Green

 

Something so extraordinary happened (I should think it's finishes now, with the onset of real summer heat) that it's worth stirring from my recent torpor and blogging about it...

This ... Never ... Happens. I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I've been ransacking my memory for any other year in which the South Australian landscape was green as County Cork in January, ten days after the summer solstice ... and I can't remember any other time. There was a year (1971 or 72, I can't quite recall) when it drizzled until shortly before Christmas, but by New Year the hills were baked brown and the catchments were half empty, as usual. This year? Well --

 

This never happens. Except, apparently, in an El Nino year with some weird dipole values and a heck of a lot of monsoonal activity in the north and east. Put it all together, and you get a cool, sometimes misty, and rather wet summer for us, which translates directly into ... green. And I have to say, I like it. A lot. The climate could settle into this pattern and stay right there, if it were up to me...

These images were all captured after New Year, and as far apart as Victor Harbor and the Flinders Ranges, by way of Clare Valley, the McLaren Vale region, Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, Nangawooka, and Brodie Road wetlands, which are in our own backyard. I'll say it again: Green!!!

Hasn't the weather been strange?!

 

Well, obviously you've seen the lake at St Francis Winery like this before --

-- in June or July or August. In winter, yes? But --

But this isn't winter. This is tickling the middle of December, two weeks from the height of the Christmas season. And after a cool, muggy, wet spring, we're now having a wet, stormy -- and intermittently bloody hot -- summer, which is far from what we expected when El Nino was announced, following three La Nina years. 

But ... well, apparently, this is the first time there's been a positive (or is it negative??) Indian Ocean Dipole at the same time. The Indian and Pacific Oceans are both warm (too warm!) at the same time, there's no place for the usual heat exchange to take place -- which is what causes the hot dry, burning conditions of the normal El Nino summer. And according to what I've read lately, no one really knows how this will play out in the real world, in real time.

Can we say "Climate change" yet? So...

As we go into our Christmas shopping, the whole region is on on flood alert! I find myself stretching my memory back over more than fifty years to think of the last time it rained until Christmas, and yes, I do remember this. 

In 1972, the weather settled in and it rained, and rained, and the rained some more. We were living at Glenelg at the time, and I recall slogging to and from school in endless drizzle and occasional downpours, right through the school year, which ended just as the Christmas season began. So, let's immortalize this moment ...

... with a screenshot from the BOM which tells all, and what it doesn't tell is encapsulated here, in the continuing forecast through to December 15:

And there's really no answer to that, is there? So we're just going to settle in and make Christmas preparations. The tree is up, presents are wrapped, 75% of the shopping is done. There's just the menu to arrange, then we're settled in for the season, such as it is. Dave has to work through Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, same as always ... one learns to adapt. And anyway, Christmas is a time for home. 

Just as well, because this isn't the weather to be going anywhere! And as for the tree -- pretty as always. But we might get a new one next year...

Punchbowl Lookout ... and WHAT is going on with this February weather?!

Taking my shiny new camera for another walk -- this time to Punchbowl Lookout, which is an easy hike, a kilometer in, same out on the same trail, albeit uphill ... and I could have wished for beautiful weather to road-test the aforementioned camera. The conditions at Onkaparinga Gorge were so dark, the camera popped the auto-flash, in broad daylight, at ten o'clock in the morning! Not only that, it was chilly and blustery. February?!

(Fair enough ... we'll be back up to 30C+ in a few days, with some modest heat for about 72 hours before we dip back into the 20s; but this ain't February weather, folks. Not even close. Back in November, when the heat began, the long-range forecasters warned about a long, super-hot summer. We got colossal temperatures in January (and the fires I woll never forget as long as I live). Then this. And although I have to say I'm completely relieved to not have to contend with 40 degree heat for week after week, I also have to note that this February weather is atypical. Abnormal. Not right. Something is ... wrong. Weather reports from Antarctica last week recorded 20C temperatures one day. It was as warm there as here. Say, what now???)

Anyway -- Punchbowl Lookout, in dismal conditions:

The awful conditions at least gave me a chance to work hard with the camera, make it produce images that could be "rescued" in the computer later. These have all been heavily tweaked to make it look as if the sun came out; but if you look at any shot on which the sky shows, you'll see that Mister Blue was well and truly in hiding. Took a lot of work in the computer to get these images up to speed, and I must go back to Punchbowl with the Lumix, when the sun is shining.

A feasting echidna ... how lucky is this!

How lucky is this! My new camera arrived in the late morning yesterday, so after putting the battery on charge over lunchtime, we braved the weird, weird February weather (chill, windy, overcast and spritzing with rain -- like late April, not at all like summer) and "took the camera for a walk" around Playford Lake, at Belair NP.

While strolling, on the lookout for likely subjects, I noticed something that looked, from a distance, like a crocheted bag ... then it moved, gorblimey, and I realized what I was looking at! These guys are normally shy, you don't see them very often. This is only the fourth time I've seen one in Belair, and only the second time up close. But this guy was so intent on his ants' nest, in an old log, he ignored me. So --

I shot loads, because I'm still learning this Lumix TZ90, and was pretty sure I was doing something majorly wrong for the first dozen shots. Yep, I was. Soon as I caught up with myself, adjusted one of the settings, it was plain sailing. I am very impressed indeed with this camera -- I'll be doing a "Happy New Camera!" post tomorrow, but for now, this little guy is worth a post all on his own.

A feasting echidna! How cute is this?!

A walk in the woods, in a welcome break from the January heat

Unexpected and very welcome rain in January brought the Sturt River alive, and Coromandel Valley's beautiful Linear Park was a pleasure to walk. I hadn't intended to take photos yesterday, because I've photographed every meter of the park so many times, in every season, every lighting condition. In fact, I wound up taking over a hundred shots, of which these are the pick.

I'll always remember this walk (and the next, a couple of hours later, when we arrived at Belair NP and walked the "back trail" from The Oaks to the Railway Dam and back), as an an oasis of green in the midst of a blistering summer, three years into a catastrophic, nationwide drought, on a continent that's seemed to be on fire and gradually turning itself to ash.

Of all the bushfire photos and videos -- and there have been hundreds, if not thousands, this one is the one that's haunted me:


I don't believe I've ever seen anything, ever, to compare with this. Turn up the sound, and invest twelve minutes in this. Then salute our fire crews.

On the Railway Dam walk, I took many more photos, and I'll post again in a few days, when I've had a chance to sort them.

Yuletide 2019 was like this...

Christmas Eve lunch: sushi, potato salad, coleslaw, prawn chips

Christmas Day lunch: reset the table for dessert

Christmas Day Brekkie, while we opened pressies

It's not all about food, honestly ... but sometimes you'd think it might be! We didn't actually get to Christmas Day lunch. Dave made himself a platter, but Mike and I were satiated after breakfast and decided to just slide on into the afternoon! The Christmas tree was pillaged...

...and Zolie had a fine time "helping" to open presents. DVDs, Blu-Rays and books, tropical shirts and cycling apparel, plus bike bits for Dave; cosmetics and a harddrive for self; a harddrive and a Tomcat model kit for Mike ... and of course a day playing with the real gift this season, which has been in place and playing for a few weeks now. We got a 65" 4K TV with Dolby Atmos. And I am sooo impressed. We spent lunchtime watching the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Eve Concert from last year, streamed in HD. Wow. The picture is so amazing, I couldn't resist grabbing a shot with the phone to see what was doable --

This, from a streaming wildlife wallpaper video:

Having such a nice time in this part of the globe right now, one is almost guilty. There's so much pain and suffering, with the on-going fires, that the crisis is never far from your mind, even when the sky is bright (as it is today) rather than brown with smoke, as it was for days.

On December 18th I was inspired to post to facebook, a message to family and friends, to not be concerned for us specifically, because we weren't in the danger zone, and then just a few days later I had to amend that post with another major message -- because we had our own local crisis in this area! Dang...



...there really is no answer to that, so we won't even try to find one. The mercury is heading due north again, we'll be back to 105 F in a few days. *Sigh* so...

If I had to describe my mind-space to you right now, it would be this:

If I had one wish, it would be for summer 2019-2020 to be cool and wet, and for the fire danger to be over already. Alas, there's about 14 - 16 weeks of danger left, minimum. We can only hope.

To friends and family everywhere, Merry Christmas!