Monday, March 29, 2010

A sheepish story...

Weather’s changing and spring is in the air. Went out the other day, no hat, no gloves and no jersey. Okay so I had a jacket on, I’m not completely nuts. But just getting out without having to get dressed up was cool. One of these days I can see that I can do away with shoes and socks and just keep sandals on.
I’ve seen a novel way of keeping the verge grass trimmed. The other day I saw a guy stringing up some wire along the verge and then herding 20 or so Sheep behind the wire. Then he hooked up the wire to an electric box. Every day he came and moved or enlarged the area allowing the Sheep to move along the verge trimming all the grass.
Can imagine that happening in SA…within minutes the Sheep would go missing followed by the wire and anything else lying around and then the Town council would probably have a field day with health bylaws etc, etc, etc.
Not much of a carbon footprint left behind from this way of trimming the grass.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Fear factor.

I have suddenly discovered what fear is and it’s certainly not pretty. I’ve faced it a few times in my life and I’ve ignored it, haven’t realised it or just plain looked it in the eye.
At 10 years old or there about, I took my bicycle across a railway line over a gorge except that the bridge had gone years before and all that survived was the two iron lines…… Got into trouble for that one.
In the early 80s I sailed through the tail end of a cyclone in a 40000ton ship and can remember watching the angle of the roll which touched on 45 degrees…. A consignment of coke bottles was reduced to pretty much nothing.
Mid 80s I was in a helicopter a few hundred meters up when we lost some critical hydraulics…… We used the Mormon church garden as an emergency landing pad.
Late 80s I was scuba diving and just happened to come face to face with a ragged tooth shark…
Been there, done that and I earned my T-shirt.

Miriam took me up the road to another home which has a heated pool. She wanted to get me in water to exercise my limbs and see how I walked in water.
We’ll laugh the walking off. It just doesn’t happen, I manage better on crutches which also doesn’t happen as it’s so tiring.
So it was just exercise mode. Last time I was in a pool I was like a block of wood, stiff and unyielding. This time, pretty much the same but it was difficult to float. Then Miriam held my legs up so I could at least look like I was floating.
Miriam started to manipulate my legs and my centre of gravity shifted and my head went under……
I do not have full use of arms or legs and I couldn’t get my head back up above the water and I started to panic and I took in water. Not a pretty sight.
Throwing my T-shirt away and I don’t know if I’m going to get back in the pool...

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Cabin fever...

Cabin fever, cabin fever, cabin fever……
In the last couple of weeks I haven’t been able to get out and about. The weather has been against me, rain, snow, wind and temperature. The day starts out great but soon turns to sour lemon and the frustration grows. Then a day like Tuesday comes along. Tuesday had a hint of summer, blue skies, clear air and a sprinkling of warmth. Warm enough to not put gloves on, warm enough to leave the jacket open.
A couple of hours outside was just what the doctor ordered and the cabin fever recedes. We’ll see what the rest of the week brings.