The Berra Circular XXVI: Among the gum trees

Give me a home among the gum trees, with lots of plum trees,
a sheep or two and a kangaroo
– John Williamson, 1975

Bugger me. It’s about 10 past 10 at night, I was just on the verandah out the front doing a little night carpentry (don’t ask), and three kangaroos hopped down my street.

I shit you not. Right there on the bitumen, heading towards town.

The Berra is known as the Bush Capital, but really, this is ridiculous. I live in an inner area, less than 5 minutes’ drive from the CBD. My well-established older suburb has traffic, apartment complexes, rowdy share houses, joggers, pet dogs, and even stolen car action (that was last weekend). There are no gum trees on the nature strip, just the introduced deciduous species that look pretty in autumn. It’s not a bloody wildlife sanctuary.

Never in six years in Tamworse did this happen, and Tamworse really is the country.

Alas, I didn’t have the camera handy. And now the Bald Man thinks I’m on drugs.

I wish.

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Berra Circular X: Misunderstood

Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

– Nina Simone, 1964 (The Animals, 1965)

One of my guilty interweb pleasures is the LOLcats site I Can Has Cheezeburger. Nothing like a dose of goofy to help one’s day through the lumpy bits.

If you like LOLcats, maybe you’ll like The Guardian‘s LOLBush. Here’s two of my favourites:

Dubya is doubtless a man who thinks himself misunderstood.

I just have trouble understanding myself. Like, why did I drive 1300km at the weekend, to play croquet? Well actually, that one’s easy. It was my dear friend Miss Penny’s birthday and I’m never one to pass up several tumblers of Pimms & dry on a Saturday afternoon with old friends, even if it is a bit further to the esky than the next block. It’s been a better season out there on the Breeza Plains, if the road kill is anything to go by. The dead roos by the side of the road were monsterous. I was in a sweat as I drove through the dusk.

There’s other things I haven’t understood in the past week though. For example: why does the Qantarse Club force one to use plastic knives, when all the other cutlery is stainless steel? Damned things don’t even cut the cheese they serve. It’s not logical. I’m sure I could inflict more personal damage with a fork than a rounded butter knife, if I was so inclined. Or indeed with one of the glasses or wine bottles available at the bar. What a stupid over-reaction to the so-called terrorism threat. (This whole line of thought just goes to show how long the delays are at Quantarse these days. Two hours seems standard. There’s going to be a mass exodus of customers before long.)

And if I have trouble with comprehension, then so apparantly does the giant Salvos at Fyshwick, where they have an entire rack for donations they can’t quite get their head around. The heading should probably have read “Be Afraid” rather than “Be Surprised”. I looked, and amongst the masses of 80s tat there were indeed a couple of inexplicable items, including a dress consisting of a beautiful floor-length burgundy velvet skirt, attached to a hideous high-necked and long-sleeved red-and-green tartan bodice, complete with stiff ruffles. It was the sort of garment that might only be countenanced by certain religious minorities. Wheels turn, though, and I’m convinced that there will be something of interest there one day, so I’ll keep an eye out.

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