What's been going on…

Themes: Personal

We’ve been up to all sorts of things lately:

Christmas – we travelled down to Crookwell, where my parents and Emma and I own a little property. We have tenants in the house at the moment so for the first few days we stayed in the Shearers Quarters on a sheep station 15kms out of Crookwell. The whole family was there for Christmas, sleeping in tin shacks. It was completely beautiful. Rolling hills, wind, no people. We went trout fishing most afternoons in the Pejar Dam – caught 2, one decent size. A few days out there and I never want to come back. The property is called Gundowringa – I recommend it for a quiet place to get away. It also has a fascinating history in the development of agriculture in Australia. At least, I found it interesting.

After Gundowringa we moved into town for a couple of nights in more comfortable surrounds. We stayed at Pinn Cottage, a local Crookwell B&B. It’s another beautiful spot. They’ve used Bluestone in the construction, a feature of lots of older houses in Crookwell. It’s really nice that there are still some places in the world where the local pattern of life still reflects a connection to the land and locally available resources. Houses in Crookwell were made of bluestone because that’s the kind of stone that lives there. Life in the country still has a sense of particularity which contrasts with the mass produced cityscape.
We walked around the town, went to the local cafe (Lynham’s), swum in the pool. One day Em and I drove out to Wombeyan Caves. It’s about 70kms from Crookwell but most of the road is dirt (our car – no stranger to dirt roads – has been making a strange sound ever since). We’ve driven that way once before, right through to Mittagong. Be warned, the road between Wombeyan and Mittagong is very exciting to drive. Not for the faint-hearted. This was the first time that I’d actually been into the caves. It’s definitely worth it.
We went on the self-guided walk. You head out through the bush for a while, come down a hill, and there’s a little steel door in the side of the hill. It’s like something out of a fairy tale. You go inside and it closes with a very satisfactory crash. Inside the cave system was spectacular. People always compare caves with cathedrals but you really can’t help it. Maybe the early Christian experience of the Catacombs left indelible marks. Yes, it was like a Cathedral. We couldn’t help talking in whispers, even though we were completely alone.
The other powerful impression was of everything flowing, melting, passing away. In these Limestone (Karst) cave systems the rock looks like wax. Something that your experience has always told you was hard and permanent is clearly revealed as impotent before time. Perhaps that is why people feel a sense of the sublime in caves, they overpower and unsettle us.
You touch the walls and they are rock, hard, immortal. But your eyes tell you that even rocks can perish.

The following day I got up at 4:30am, left Emma fast asleep, and drove to Sydney to preach. My text was ‘store up your treasure in heaven’. I talked about change.

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Catching Breath

Themes: Personal

Here I am again,
Mouth wide open and plunging into the Fire-hydrant of Data known to the Elderly and Infirm as the Interweb. Bless their befuddled bottoms.

I’m currently sitting in the foyer of the National Museum in Canberra, taking a small mental health break away from the South Pacific Regional Training Event (SPRTE), (Formerly known as NTE).
“What exactly is a ‘Training Event’?” You ask.
“What ever you would like it to be” I answer. That’s why it’s got a name that doesn’t tell you anything.
(It’s a Po-Mo thing, you’re probably too old/young to get it).

In the past two weeks I’ve had exams at College, we’ve moved house, I’ve had another minor drama about which Church to attend next year, and Emma’s been made redundant, all in no particular ordure. As they say in South Africa, “Hectic, mi’china”.

I’m looking forward to the next couple of days, having a break from what we conventionally designate ‘real life’ and focusing on teaching, talking, and seeing how God is at work in people’s lives around the country and our region. I had a great time at lunch chatting with Bernard, a young guy from PNG who has just finished Yr 12 and is heading to Uni. He was so excited to be here (although really tired from spending the night in Brisbane Airport) and I know that the things he learns this week will reshape the way he thinks about the Bible, God, the world, and himself. He’ll take that back to PNG and use it to change others.
For the next few days Canberra will host a splash from which ripples will spread out around the pond…

The foyer of the National Museum is a great place to sit and stare. It has cool curvy couches that look like wicket-keeping gloves that you sit deep inside. The angles of the ceiling were created using this über-cool mathemetical formula based on the negative space of a complicated knot. No two lines are the same, yet the whole thing has a symmetry.
At this point it’s tempting to say, ‘just like life’. But that has the stench of a very particular ordure. (It’s lies)
Don’t you think it’s more likely that we appreciate symmetry because it keeps the absolute assymetry of the Universe at bay?
Justification by Faith vs Parabolic Idolatry.

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Surfing for Australia

Themes: Personal

Emma booked us in for some surfing lessons this morning. We were picked up at 9:30 by a bloke named Terry in a van loaded with random backpackers. It was a rubbish day for surfing, a northerly wind, low-tide, Terry reckoned that you could wash your clothes in it (that’s bad) – so we drove 20mins down the coast to Lennox Head.
After lying on the board on the beach and practising jumping up from a lying position, Terry sent us out. Or rather, for those of us who were absolute beginners, he took turns in pushing us in front of nice-looking waves. He had this little system: getting to your knees, planting the front foot, bringing up the back foot, keeping the knees bent – he would yell out each step. After a few attempts everyone had managed to stand, except your faithful correspondent. ‘Yours Truly’ was still planting his face in God’s blue yonder.
After a bit… longer, Terry, who was beginning to worry about his money-back “we’ll have you standing by the end of the first lesson” guarantee, yelled out, “You just get to your feet anyway you can mate, maybe this system’s not for you. You can do it, you’re an Australian.”
I was touched and inspired by his faith in our glorious sun-kissed nation.
But then doubt set in…
Maybe I’m a freakish reversion back to my Northern Hemisphere genetic heritage? Maybe I still have some miscreant Anglo-saxon DNA? Perhaps the cleansing fires of this wide-brown land have failed to fire me into a suitable vessel for our national sporting prowess.
Goddammit, why have I spent so many hours each summer watching Cricket! I’ve payed my dues.
With that thought, and a nod to the memory of The Don, I felt a great surge of belief.
Maybe that it was that same spirit who whispered in the ear of the Man from Snowy River,
the spirit of Anzac Cove, of Mateship,
the spirit that would lead a man to build his own armor and wade into a future of lead,
or jump into a Billabong singing, ‘you’ll never take me alive’,
for freedom.
Whatever it was, I leapt, and I planted those feet for Australia.

I made it about 10 metres. Terry’s cash was secure. I managed it a couple more times before I threw my back out.

When we got into the van for the ride home we noticed that someone had placed a sticker across the windscreen, right at eye-level, saying ‘Harden the F!@# Up Dog Face (I seek to spare my readers world-weary eyes). Terry pointed out that if they’d really been serious they would have stuck around to check that he got the message. He seemed ready and willing for a spot-check on his Hardness Levels.
Onya Terry.

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Geocaching around Crows Nest, Manly, Dee Why

Themes: Personal

Emma and I did some more geocaching around Sydney with Russ and Naomi yesterday. Russ and Naomi are part of a car-sharing scheme called Go-Get. They booked a Cooper-Mini for the afternoon and we hooned around in that.
Our hunt took us to St Thomas’ Cemetery in Crows Nest – there was an ammo container hidden in a bush, then we walked up into Crows Nest proper, and found our next cache on the top of a multi-storey car park near Woolworths. It was a small cache attached to a metal drainpipe with magnets. All that hard work deserved a gelato and a cold drink so we stopped off at a cafe in the main street. We then headed over to Manly, we drove out to the end of North Head – the entrance to Sydney Harbour. It is a beautiful spot. We found a cache in the bush, a little bit back along the road. Apparently the area is a bandicoot habitat (it is also a tick habitat, as Emma found out today). We finished with some pretty decent hamburgers at the beach in Dee Why.
The photos give the details.

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Geocaching in Manly

Themes: Friends, Personal

On the weekend Anthea came up from Canberra and stayed over with us on Saturday night. We went off to Manly on the ferry with her and Dave, and met Kate and Hamish over there.
Emma is newly involved in the sport of ‘Geocaching‘ which is something like a global treasure hunt using GPS. We went geocaching along the path around the harbour side of Manly. It took us a while to find the cache. I was a little sceptical that we were going to find it at all. But Dave came through with the goods. It’s a pleasant way to get out for a walk. We got a geocoin that has travelled over from Canada. We are planning to take it to South Africa for its next stop.

In the gallery is a photo of Dave finding the cache and Emma retrieving it.
Ah, simple pleasures.
we had fish and chips on the beach with Kate and Hamish,
then caught the ferry back to the city and had a beer at the Belgian beer cafe – beer brewed by Monks who have been doing it for 800 years.
Time well spent I say.

If you are into geocaching and you don’t want spoilers, don’t look at the photos

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Crookwell II

Themes: Crookwell, Personal

Whenever we go to stay with Emma’s parents (who have Foxtel) I always find myself watching British house-renovation programmes – mainly because Emma has a serious addiction to the LifeStyle channel. For a little while recently, it felt like we were in one.
It had all the elements – a run-down house in the country, family, drama, doubt, resolution.

If you haven’t caught the news, Emma and I went halves with my parents in a country cottage with some land in the village of Crookwell, half an hour North-West of Goulburn.
The property is going to be let out to tenants but before that would be possible it needed some serious affection.
So my whole family – parents, 4 kids, 3 spouses – went to work. Mum and Dad and I stayed there for during the second week of January, the others came and went during the week as they were able. Since then, Emma and I have made another overnight trip to finish some things off.

It’s hard to know where to begin.
Probably with the moment that Dad started sugar-soaping the ceiling in the main lounge in order to prepare it for painting. Up til that moment we’d been under the impression that the ceiling was painted yellow. When the first wipe over brought down a stream of brown water, we realised it was white, with 20 years of cigarette smoke…
there was much cleaning to do.

Later in the week, Sam (my brother) was poking around in the attic, in the old part of the house. He found an old-skool rabbit trap, with the nasty metal jaws, and a foot. A bit later he found a possum skeleton covered with the last few bits of fur, and without a foot.
Yes, someone had once trapped a possum in the roof, and it had rotted there while they lived with the smell. Probably somehow related to the cigarette smoke.

There were a number of odd-jobs that still needed to be done after the week of painting and cleaning. Most importantly, the old electric stove needed to be replaced, so Emma and I went to work on ebay. I lost 4 auctions before we got what we were after – a good quality, 2nd hand replacement. The pickup was from Mt Colah (about an hour north of us in Sydney). I press-ganged my mate Dave into helping me load the stove into our Toyota Echo (small) in the middle of the pouring rain. We wedged it in, then I dropped off Dave, picked up Emma, and drove with it straight to Crookwell. The next morning, I decided to have a go at installing the new stove (normally you’d get an electrician, but hey, I used to do Dick Smith electronic kits…). I found out that I’d left all my tools in Sydney, but I keep a pocket knife in the car.
I was pulling out the old stove and undoing the wiring when I found what I thought was a nest in the wires. I pulled it out with the knife and realised it was a mouse. It had fried itself across the two live terminals. Not real good for the oven, probably lucky it hadn’t burnt the house down.

So many highlights…

The week of painting was aching, hard work. One afternoon I spent 3-4 hours straight, just painting ceilings. Painful.
The result is worth it. The house now has a consistent colour scheme. It is fit for human habitation.
My brother Sam worked out how to cement-render, and rendered up the chimney in the main lounge.
Emma went to Ikea and bought funky light shades, and cool, wooden fittings for the bathrooms.
Russ went berserk with a brushcutter (at 7:00 in the morning), clearing thistles and weeds, wearing Naomi’s jeans under his shorts for protection. Probably just as well because one of the sections he went to work on turned out to be full of snakes. (and one monitor lizard who died needlessly because he looked like a very fat snake).
Mum and Naomi painted the front fence white – it now has a ‘white picket fence’ – an important marketing feature.
Dad hacked out annoying trees, and managed to find quite a lot of viable plants still in the garden.
Min did all the detailing around the fire-places and mirrors – using our special colour ‘twiggy’ – bought from Shane at the Hardware store, who might be interested in renting…
Mick really finished it all off, he came back when we’d all had to leave, to put on the last door handles, replace the toilet cisterns, did the handy-man stuff.

And on the Friday night of that crazy week, we roasted a lamb and a chook on the Barbie, fashioned some seating from ladders and painting trestles, and entertained our first guests for dinner, my Aunt and Uncle from Bowral. Later that night, my wilder relations kicked on at the ‘Horse and Hound’ otherwise known as ‘The Bottom Pub’ over the other side of the creek from us.
I went to bed. But I heard quite a number of wild country yells.

Video: Work in Progress

Pictures
(click for slideshow)

Work in Progress

Basically Finished

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