Amateur shoppers

There is an art, perhaps it's a craft, to shopping well.  We do not posses it (whatever "it" may be).  The plan was simple but like the best laid schemes o' Mice and Men ... you know the rest.

We were in search of an eclectic mix: a Saturday-special bargain, garden mulcher from our local ALDI; breakfast; fuel for the car plus the tyres inflated; a table (maybe) from the Resource Management Centre, Mugga Lane (better known as the local tip)  then finally, groceries.  As events turned out, had it been the Eurovision Song Contest we'd have gone close to scoring nul points.

We were late making it to the local ALDI store at Chisholm to try to buy our Saturday-special, $199 garden waste mulcher.  We arrived about an hour after the store opened so that would be ... nae chance!  An ALDI store on a Saturday morning is a sight to behold.  It's a bit like watching the ants teeming back and forth across the brick paving outside our front door.  Pause to catch your breath and you'll be trampled beneath the many feet of shoppers and bargain hunters who know from experience that the Normandy landings are but a template for a truly effective sortie into the land of cheap garden equipment. 

Is that a spider I see before me?  Pic: Look and Learn

I can be a stubborn beast however - inspired (as are all Scottish boys of my generation) by the story of Robert the Bruce, the cave and the spider.  Never say never.  If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.  

So we drove to an ALDI store in a suburb called Conder (sold out of mulchers) then the ALDI store in Tuggeranong (likewise bereft of mulchers).  It's not that we gave up.  It's simply that we ran out of ALDI stores.  And all of them had run out of bargain mulchers.

Breakfast then: My first suggestion - a very pleasant cafe in Chifley with good food named A Bite To Eat - turned out to be closed until Tuesday, which explained the ease with which we parked.  My second thought - Idelic in Kingston - was exactly the same; Fachado ... as we learned to say last year in Brazil.  Two other Kingston favourites - Penny Univesity and Two For Joy - were teeming, infested in an ant-like manner with diners who had reached the tables first and may have clambered over others to claim a seat.  Spike found us a cafe on the Kingston foreshore that we'd not died at before - 38 Espresso - with a limited menu on offer because of the Easter holiday.  But the smashed eggs on toast were very welcome and tasty, the chai was well-brewed and Spike's cappuccino looked rather marvellous.  So ... not entirely unsuccessful.

Fuel, we more or less managed.  We had to use a Caltex filling station because I was paying with fuel cards I'd received in lieu of cash reimbursement for my travel costs for a meeting last month up in Sydney.  The service station counter guy was less than wholly helpful, which Spike (on the verge of tears) told me on her return from paying with the fuel card whose mysterious ways of transacting business neither of us had encountered before.  Maybe the guy had been having a difficult Saturday.  Maybe he too had failed in his endeavours to snaffle a bargain mulcher or chain saw from his local ALDI.  But that's no reason to be a dick and / or shouty.

Air for the tyres was beyond us.  There was no nozzle on the end of the hose down which the pressurised air should flow when one pushed the lever on the aforementioned nozzle.  Like many service stations, I imagine, the necessary but absent part of the apparatus was kept behind the counter inside the shop.  The prospect of re-engaging with Mr Angry / Disappointed-Shopper was not one I wished upon Spike so we skedaddled.  The tyres can wait.  No pressure.  I exaggerate, of course.  There's enough pressure for us to survive.

Spike brings her own door to the party

Second-hand furniture shopping at the local tip - the excellent Green Shed on Mugga Lane - we could manage.  Spike is always in her element here.  I wander around like Bilbo Baggins in Smaug's lair under the Misty Mountain.  So much treasure my eyes bug out - but to be honest there are only so many upright pianos, thermo-nuclear barbecues and 90's style three piece suites a man can take home.  None is the exact number given Spike is in charge of purchasing decisions.  We bought a door that's now a work bench in Spike's sewing room; one of what I suspect was once a set of five or six nested tables from a primary school to use as a reading desk in our book case alcove (library is way to big a word to describe half a dozen Billy shelf units from IKEA) and a small bedside cabinet that'll be fine once Spike deals with the womb-coloured coat of paint.  I''m assuming wombs are a shade of pale pink.  But I'm guessing.  All in all then I'd say 'Mission Accomplished' when it came to recycled goods.

As for groceries.  Well that was easy.  I sat in the car because there were no spaces free in the car park that would give me room to deploy the ramp.  Spike could, therefore, enjoy the tranquility that is a Coles supermarket on a Saturday afternoon without the benefit of my helpful advice.

Sometimes it's hard being as hip, happening and groovy as this Saturday suggests we may be.  We shall need a rest tomorrow (at least I shall).  Thank goodness it's Easter Sunday.

Spike and the bean stalks

Planting beans in our garden's soil ...

... can be hard work

So today's speech seems to have worked ...

 ... at least for one participant.

Hearing Dougie Herd from @EveryAustralian hilariously sum up the #ndsconference Sign up to the campaign now! pic.twitter.com/6CaxLCmOG7
— NDIS MI Way (@NDIS_MI_Way) March 31, 2015

But who is that tired old man up on the Convention Centre screen?

Let the train take the strain

I sing of the joys of integrated, accessible public transport (with apologies to Walt Whitman).

We rose from bed at a ridiculous hour - not yet four o'clock.  There was a plane to catch at 6:20 a.m. to take us to Brisbane where I shall be the closing speaker tomorrow at the Queensland conference of National Disability Services.  (As usual, I'm far from sure what I'm gong to say).  To make that flight I need to start early - with Spike's help of course.  Folk like me always have to add on 'quad-time'. 

You work backwards from the deadline:

• The flight departs at 6:20 a.m.
• I have to check-in at least one hour before departure time because I'm a wheelchair user requiring assistance (in contrast to other passengers who may check-in with only 30 minutes to go).  So that means be at the check-in desk by 5:20 a.m.
• That means be turning the ignition key in the car no later than 4:45 a.m. (Transfer into the driver's seat - drive for 20 or so minutes, maybe half an hour - transfer into my wheelchair - push from the car park to the check-in lounge).
• Start getting out of bed at 4:00 a.m.
• Start 15 minutes before that just to be safe.

We made it to the airport by five, as it turned out (Canberra has very little traffic at half-past four in the morning) so we had a pleasant short stay in the QANTAS Club.  Chai latte and pancakes for breakfast.  Spike took coffee.  There are worse ways to start a working day.

After an effortless flight - effortless on our part, that is - we arrived in Brisbane shortly after seven, local time.  Queensland sees no need for daylight saving so we gained an hour or lost one depending on your preference for sleep at the other end of a day.

Spike, sketching on the Brisbane SkyTrain

We took the AirTrain service from Brisbane airport directly to the street on which the Convention Centre and our hotel are located.  How blissfully normal it was. What a shame Canberra airport has no accessible public transport connection of any sort! 

But how far we've come in my 30 years as a wheelchair user.  The airline's staff has been trained to assist people like me who can neither walk nor transfer independently.  The airport is fully accessible which means my route of travel was the same as that of other passengers.  I can't recall the number of times elsewhere - and in the past - I've been required to take a different route through the behind-the-scenes twists and turns of the hidden interiors of buildings like airports.  We took a lift and ramp up to the train station, paid for our ticket at the wheelchair-friendly counter, boarded the roomy train via the platform ramp and forty minutes later were wandering along the wheelchair accessible paths through the slightly surreal South Bank precinct - with its lawns, playgrounds, urban beach, cafes and empty performance spaces - adjacent to the Brisbane River.

One day most journeys, most transport services, most of the built environment will be this way; integrated and accessible.  Then we'll only have life to deal with - well or not so well - like everyone else.

The cat that keeps on giving

Me?  But I'm so cute.

Butter would not melt in the mouth of our relaxed little cat, Thistle.  But she does like to catch, kill and sometimes eat rodents, lizards and small birds.  Large birds she leaves to their own devices.  Thistle is, when all's said and done, a small cat.

The cat often brings her prey to show us with what I cannot help but think is pride.  The parade of the captive animal often occurs at night, maybe three a.m. when we are asleep.  Spike has to rise from bed, chase the cat around the room or house, liberate the shocked, dead or dying small beast from the jaws of its captor then make the sometimes hard, sometimes easy decision.  Dead prey is easy.  In the bin.  Similarly easy are the decisions about traumatised but uninjured little creatures - released back into the wild that is our back garden.  More difficult is the decision about seriously injured, possibly fatally wounded creatures.  On at least one occasion the coup de gace was delivered with a spade.

Tell that to the rat.

Today's assuredly dead rodent - stiffer than a good gin - was not delivered to us.  Now and then Thistle the cat deposits and / or hides her prey around the house.  Does she store them for later or simply forget?  We'll never know.  Spike stumbled across this decent sized dead rat in our spare bedroom.  It was removed but there has been no indication the killer cat remembers it enough to be aggrieved that it's gone missing.

Who would have thought our cute little fur ball could be such a dedicated predator?  But now I think on that question the answer is obvious.  

Anyone Douglas.  

Our cute little cat's a predator.  They kill.

And today's word is ...

DUMPLING

As in, I am one.

Clootie Dumpling ... from Texas, apparently

I submitted two poems as entries to the Fish Publishing poetry competition 2015.  The poems are Come Take The King's Shilling and Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre.  I've been working on the former - which started its life as Blackstrap Molasses - for months.  Throughout that period I have pondered the title as much as anything.

So you can imagine how silly I felt when I received the automatically generated e.mail telling me that my poem Come Take The King's Silling had been received by the organisers.  Silling?  It's not even a word!  Of course, one can't edit an entry after it has been paid for and submitted.  

Precision of language?  I can't even type properly.

Fool.

My Old Lady

I rented the movie My Old Lady from iTunes because it has Kevin Kline, Dame Maggie Smith and the immeasurably talented Kristen Scott Thomas. And it's set in Paris.  So what could go wrong?  Well nothing really but it left me thinking, "ho hum".  Spike gave up after half an hour or so; bored I think.

Paris was, of course, sparkling.  As Kevin Kline wandered around Le Marais, sang opera with a total stranger on the banks of La Seine and crossed Pont des Arts I just wanted to jump on the Internet to book a flight. One way.  The three principals gave us solid performances, good performances but I'm not sure the story warranted a movie.  It was written and directed by Israel Horovitz, an American playwright and author.  It shows its stagey origins.  No doubt it would stand up well as a Broadway three-hander but I'm afraid I found it's whimsical melancholia all a bit too tedious.