... where skeletonised corpses lie!

Walking through the Sydney CBD last night (heading to the Star Trek Meetup at Darling Harbour after an almost-two hour car trip), and again today near Paddy's Market, I was stunned to see over 100 tattered remains of storm-ravaged umbrellas, abandoned in garbage bins, on steps of shops, or lying in gutters. Twisted skeletons of metal ribbing and sodden cloth.

Wow! That was some rain we got. As per usual, the garage here at home flooded - it just can't cope when the rain is so heavy and relentless. Luckily almost everything is up on stilts these days. But Australians can't complain about precipitation these days; like everyone, we all hope this turns out to be Week #1 of long-awaited drought-busting relief.

Dull Men's Club

This morning, on Radio MIX 106.5 FM's remix of Sammy Power & Subby Valentine's midweek breakfast show, Sammy promoted the Dull Men's Club website.



The site informs: "Many Dull Men are shy. But with the anonymity of the web, now they are free to tell others what's on their minds -- to share their experiences, strengths, and (tame) desires. If you know of safe excitement -- dull things to do, places to visit, foods, events, books, etc, -- send a message telling us about them."

Now, any time I get stuck for a blog topic, I can turn to this spectacular grey (oh, so grey) cornucopia of virtual sand collections, air sickness bag posters, grey-print-on-grey souvenir T-shirts, finicky guides to airport luggage carousels and complimentary hotel soaps, and even a local view on the current drought in Australia.

And you thought my Rogues' Gallery of Andorians was bizarre, obscure, trivial or... dull?

Nocturnal disturbances

Jack, my Jack Russell terrier, has been "giving me evils", to quote Vicky Pollard, ever since I arrived home this afternoon. He really, really wanted to go-for-a-walk. (I'm sure Jack thinks it's just one word; my Dad's dog used to respond just to "go-for-a", when we purposely eliminated the W A L K word from the McLean family vocabulary.)

It was way too hot at 5 pm to go-for-a-walk but, finally at about 10 pm, the temperature had cooled down sufficiently. When Jack locked eyes with me, for what must have been the hundredth time, I said the magic phrase.

Nothing terribly eventful tonight, but the neighbourhood dogs do have a habit of being overly protective of their yards, and their whole street's privacy, when Jack walks by, no matter what time of day. So we regularly create lots of late-night canine ruckus on our 20 to 30 minute jaunt, and tonight was no different.

I heard yesterday that the drought has brought out the snakes here in Penrith, with several large brown snakes and red-bellied black snakes being spotted in my street. One Jack Russell has succumbed to a poisonous snake bite, I've been told, and - knowing Jack's fondness for seeking out all things scaly and slithery - I'm trying to keep away from the obvious snake havens that we pass along the route.

I encountered a huge red-bellied black snake just beside Penrith railway station two years ago. It must have just emerged from hibernation, and I'd been there with Jack only a matter of minutes earlier. The snake crossed my path while I was retracing my steps on my way to Penrith Plaza. Had I still been with Jack on the lead, he'd have been out in front and would have met the snake long before I'd noticed it. It was a close call; one I'd rather not repeat.

Raindrops are falling on my head

It's very hard to feel too disgruntled by Sydney's heavy rain showers, when our country is so far into a major drought, the dam levels are dwindling, and government ministers are arguing the pros and cons of expensive desalination plants vs the recycling of sewage into drinking water. But try explaining to the dog why he's going to get damp on a toilet break.

The grass in the backyard is loving the relentless downpour, as do the flowers, the potted plants, and the frogs. I guess the translation of their mournful, communal cries is, "Quick, there's a puddle! We must procreate!"

I discovered tonight that the garage has flooded. Ick. That's the third time in six years. Not too bad, I guess, especially since I put everything up onto packing-foam blocks after the first time it happened. Two days of constant heavy rain is about the limit. By the third day, the ground and drains can't hold any more and the water just flows under the bricks, or through the mortar, or comes from somewhere - and across the concrete floor. The previous owners were here about 15 years and reckoned it never flooded in all that time.

It was a bit daunting once when the local newspaper showed a map of the Penrith Valley flood plain a few years ago - and there was a huge lake that theoretically forms, every 100 years or so, between my house and what is now Westfield's Penrith Plaza.

Ah, the dog needs to wee again. He has that look in his eyes. Let me just get the umbrella...

Sweet Williams: surviving the drought and the heat

I wanted to share this photo of my very healthy-looking Sweet Williams display. I took this shot last week on the back balcony, but they are thriving still, despite some scorching days out here in Penrith, on Sydney's western outskirts.



The unique planter is an Orbital Herb Planta from Go Home Lifestyle Products. I first saw these pots at the Powerhouse Museum when I was there for the Premier's Reading Challenge presentation ceremony, but it was a letter from the Museum's shop just before Christmas, granting me a 20% discount off any purchase, that made me go racing back into the city. I mean, I liked the planter at 40 odd dollars - 20% off made it a bargain! (They'd had a huge stack in the November - and were down to just four left in Christmas week, so it's selling well.)

To plant it out, I literally bought two rectangular punnets of Sweet Williams from Bunnings, broke off clumps and shoved them into each section. No extra soil would fit. The little inner pots stay moist for days because they sit in any extra water without getting sodden. The perfume from the flowers is quite amazing for such small blooms, and the flowers keep replenishing themselves.

Gee, I do have a green thumb, after all.

Anti ants!

You can tell New South Wales is still in drought! The ants are invading the house and making a point of investigating the dog's food bowl every day. Poor Jack always keeps a few morsels for later, but he gets very miffed when the ants swarm over even the tiniest stray piece left in the bottom of the bowl.

I thought I'd outwitted them by placing his food dish into a shallow pan of water. Jack was, at first, rather threatened by seeing his food as an island. But it didn't thwart the ants. Not one bit. They simply marched a few centimetres to the right and took up residence in his bowl of dry dog biscuits!

After several days of racing a swarming mass of insect life and Purina One Lamb & Rice out into the backyard, I decided to buy a much bigger tray - and now both food dishes are jammed against each other and surrounded by water, like some gourmet's bizarre archipeligo.

Jack's reaction to this? He drank the water.

Now I have to keep refilling the tray. I guess the next thing will be like in that awful jungle movie (was it 1977's Empire of the Ants with Joan Collins? Or was it 1954's The Naked Jungle?), where the tricky killer ants get across the river on floating leaves to devour the cast?

Captain's Log: Supplemental. Dammit! More ants! (Because Jack drank the moat again!)

Jack antics

What a week for my Jack Russell.

With the drought and the winter devastating the grass out in the yard - it's really quite fragile at the moment - just the tiniest amount of Jack Russell-like over-enthusiasm in pawing the ground after a wee results in a bare patch. Then poor li'l Jack thinks that I will think he's dug a hole, and he goes straight off to self-imposed exile under the bed for a few hours.

One evening this week, Jack was happily playing with a large rubber chew toy when Chookie, the cockatiel, decided to start flapping his wings and screeching loudly. (Chookie loves the exterior scenes in TV's "Home and Away", as they feature genuine cockatiel chirps in the audio track. I suppose.)

Typically, when the cockatiel starts carrying on just so, Jack runs to Chookie's cage, with the toy still firmly wedged in his mouth, and barks through the hole in the chew toy, while shaking his head rapidly from side to side, thus ragging the toy and telling off Chookie at the same time. We laughed at Jack the first time he did this, about a year ago, and the action has passed into ritual and legend, and is thus oft repeated.

Unfortunately, this time, Jack managed to give his head an almighty thump against the furniture, and he came staggering around from behind the lounge suite, literally seeing stars (and, I guess, little chirping cartoon birds). That's all you need after wacking your head barking at a noisy bird, you know: more *&#!@#% birds! Jack was abnormally subdued... oh, for all of about ten minutes. But that's a long time for a Jack Russell to stay quiet.

We usually say to him, "That's enough, Jack. Don't be mean to your brother." What's really funny, though, is that when Jack wants to hide one of his doggy treats for later, he most often places it carefully under Chookie's cage stand! (And proceeds to bury the precious treat with invisible dirt for at least fifteen minutes.)

Later, Jack took another self-imposed exile under the bed when I pulled out my nail clippers to trim my own fingernails. All it took was one click, and Jack - with a memory better than any elephant - had recalled the one time, five long years ago, when I tried to clip his needle-sharp puppy claws with that same nail clipper.

Then last night, at about 11.30 pm, Jack managed to choke on a faux bacon-flavoured Munchie Treat stick thing. Gobbling it appreciatively, in typical Jack Russell fashion, he managed to get some of it lodged in his throat and, for quite some time, he was unable to breathe properly or settle on his blanket. I started to imagine a late night mercy dash in a taxi to a 24-hour vet. Or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. (Or would that be my mouth to wet-doggie-nose resuscitation?)

Any time I bent down to massage his throat externally, or to attempt to calm him, I got licked all over the face as he tried to plead with me to help him. Thankfully, the stick thing finally dissolved enough for him to swallow it (or he regurgitated it and I just haven't found it yet) and another traumatic moment had passed.

Ah, children...

He's so innocent when he's asleep. (Under my doona.)