Men Don't Dance Anymore

There is a great Beccy Cole song called Men Don't Dance Anymore.... I can't find a video clip of it unfortunately but I found this poster and liked the humour

Well bless my soul what's wrong with you all crowded round the bar
The girls are on the dance floor while you brag about your cars
You don't have to move like Elvis to get out on the floor
'Cause men Don't Dance Anymore

Well you shake my nerves and rattle my brain but you just don't docey doe
You're all standing still while the play every song I know
Don't you know what those RM Williams boots are really for
Men Don't Dance Anymore

Let me show you something that will drive the girls insane
Every woman in this place will want to know your name
Clap your hands, shake your hips, turn around like this
But Men Don't Dance Anymore

Bop Bop A Lula a wap bam boo I think you're almost there
The girls are going crazy but you ain't no Fred Astaire
And now the boys are in a conga line and heading for the door
Men Don't Dance Anymore

Couples on the dance floor that's how it's supposed to be
If you don't know what to do..boys just follow me
Step right, step left, pelvic thrust, shake your head
But Men Don't Dance Anymore
Oh No Men Don't Dance Anymore

Faces of a French Market

WALLS, WINDOWS and DETAILS

I have put together a series of photos depicting the interesting and quirky details of village buildings in south west France. Ranging from windows only as wide as a hand, to beautiful street signs and from wooden beams to door knockers. Coming from a modern country like Australia with no buildings dating back further than the 18oo's, I found it fascinating to wander the ancient streets of France and imagine the lives lived during the history of these buildings, most dating from the 1300's.

These are streets and buildings still functioning today as towns, homes and businesses. Despite the ancient exterior appearance, inside is modern, clean and functional. Rooves are often fitted with TV aerials and satellite dishes but advertising of any sort is rare and finding a particular shop or business can be extraordinarily difficult as addresses are vague and signage almost non-existent.

Market days bring crowds and the streets are bustling but the rest of the week is quiet and perfect for photography. Everything closes for lunch and siesta between 12 and 2 or 3 or even 4 and the villages become ghost-like, with only the restaurants showing any signs of life at all. Pots of plants are everywhere and indicate that people do actually live inside. During winter there was not a lot of colourful plantings but come spring, doorsteps will be edged in pots of geraniums and window boxes will overflow with colour.

Luckily for the visitor, French people have kept their beautiful, old buildings and not demolished them in the name of progress. To their way of thinking it does not matter what a building looks like on the outside, it is what is inside that counts. Renovations are only carried out to stop complete collapse of the walls. So they remain living history; a rare and wonderful thing in this era of cheap and nasty architecture.

Long live the French village.

A STORY OF THE WIND

It was time to start reading a new book. I have finished and enjoyed "The Private Patient" by P.D.James and also a wonderful book that I found in a second hand shop in Moonta, called "Spice Travels" by Ian Hemphill. He is a spice merchant from Sydney whose passion for spices has led him all over the world in pursuit of knowledge about the growing and processing of every spice on earth. So, I had 2 choices left, both recommendations from son Alex. First "The Ancestor's Tale", nearly 700 pages of Richard Dawkin's fascinating and beautifully written book on evolution. Second, "A Short History of Myth" by Karen Armstrong.

I have read about half of the introduction of each....and here I am thinking about humans being meaning-seeking creatures who conversely also have an imagination that allows us to think of things that have no existence. It is going to take me a long time to digest both of these books at this rate! As I gaze out of the shack window, while my mind considers facts and myths, the fact that is most noticeable is that the wind is coming up yet again while Roger imagines the feats he could achieve windsurfing, now that Langmuire has arrived.

The wind wriggles into life in some most interesting ways. Some of them are universal, some local. Some are obvious, some only observed by crazy people like me who seek both the real and the myth. Some beneficial, some not, but all a very real part of existence for every living thing on earth. So, who is Langmuire?

As the wind strengthens, it has various universally understood effects on the water beginning with ripples and waves and progressing to what we call white-caps (or white horses) from about 10 knots and then white foam forming in lines directly downwind at about 15 knots. I cannot explain the scientific reason for these white lines but I do know they are called Langmuire's Circulations, after a Mr. Langmuire. In my photo at left the white line cuts across the sea just below the writing.

 

In the photo at right you can see that the lines extend downwind of the reef.

This is the point at which Roger goes windsurfing as he knows there is enough wind and he can see the direction, without even going outside.....thanks Mr Langmuire! 

 

Before Mr Langmuire visits, though, other things happen..... the horizon turns from a soft blue, blending perfectly with the sky, to a sharp, dark line heralding the arrival of the afternoon sea breeze. If I am walking on this beach on a still day, before the sea breeze arrives, it is totally silent, as where I walk is very shallow and there is not even a ripple on the shore sometimes. There are no roads for many miles and rarely any people.... just the pure, pristine sea, and me. As the wind begins to rise, I can hear it far out at sea. It is quite beautiful and unreal to hear the wind in the distance but it be completely still where I am standing. As the first tiny flutters of breeze erratically approach the shore, the movement of the surface of the crystal clear water reflects on the sand below and makes delicate patterns, like light glistening through thousands of pieces of glass. It is quite breath-taking.

These first breaths bring pockets of air from who knows how far away. Some are hot, some cool and eventually they mix to form a  breeze uniformly cooled by its drifting across the sea. Even on a hot day, the air doesn't need to travel far across the sea to cool down or far across the land to heat up. Just sitting in the shallows instead of further up the beach makes a hell of a hot day into a pleasant one.

Just before Mr Langmuire arrives though, sand and seaweed start to blow along the beach, the windows start whistling, it becomes a challenge to sit outside and read without losing your hat and the local gulls start playing in the wind.They flap upwind for a while then turn like an acrobatic plane and shoot down the beach at break neck speed, without so much as one flap of their wings. They do this over and over on windy days, especially the larger, darker gulls, who also use the wind to hover as if in a windless cage, just outside our window, even in what seems like a gale, showing us just what nature can do, unaided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nature does very well when left alone..... here are a couple of recent examples.

THE GAME OF 6 BILLION PEGS

What chance is there of ever finding the right peg for the right hole? Sometimes it seems like a perfect fit but after a bit of of travelling, the edges rub and gaps enlarge and by part way through the journey it is obvious the two just are not compatible after all. 

Some say never mind, better the devil you know than one you don't.

Some argue about which is the wrong piece.

Some try to smooth corners and fill gaps to help ease the wounds.

Some find that the wounds begin to fester and so cover themselves in armour for protection.

Some blame themselves and try to change to better fit the other.

Some hide behind a cheery face.

Some fail to see the train heading straight towards them.

Some spend half a lifetime doing all of the above and then, just when all seems lost, the right peg arrives, quite unexpectedly.

They both know it is right instictively.

They share a common thread but need no strings.

They laugh and love and look and talk in harmony.

They jump hurdles, climb mountains and swim through floods to stay in touch.

They dream of being together.... some day some how.

They know and understand about the pain it will cause the other pegs in their lives.

But they only get one turn around the park..... one chance at life.

Take a leap and always trust your cape.

STORIES FROM THE AIR

Over the 6 weeks of my travels I passed through 11 airports and so caught 11 planes......and one thing is for sure airports ain't airports and planes ain't planes and airlines ain't airlines....and as the ad on TV used to say "Oils ain't oils!"

Sometimes I just sat in the airport, waiting for a connection, and watched the crowds....and crowds there were, compared to Australian airports. At the Washington Dulles Airport the-man-at-the-podium made announcements about flights coming and going from gate 24, every few minutes, and each was like a 30 second act from a live comedy festival. He had that barely comprehendible accent (to me!) of some black Americans and I had to really concentrate to understand the fast speech, in case it was something I needed to know about my flight. The gate lounge was full of Americans.....I could tell because of their size and the volume of their conversations...and I suddenly felt very alien, so was glad of the entertainment coming from the podium.

One of his announcements was...."Ladies and gentlemen, if your name is Margaret or John Cameron, for flight 365 to Dallas, Texas then I am here to inform you that you have missed your plane and there ain't nothin' you can do 'cause that's it taxi-ing past the window! You are too late and shouldn't have had that last drink at the bar!" And another..."If you are waiting for flight 987 to New York then get over here to gate 24A, door 3.....not door 2.....that's for folk headin' to Alabama...why they'd wanna go there who knows .....so I reckon you better make sure you go to door 3 unless you want to get fried 'cause its hot in Alabama today!" He seemed to have lots of reasons why you wouldn't want to go to various American cities. Mostly they had bad weather or he had some relative there that you wouldn't want to meet!

Then there was an announcement I didn't believe until someone explained it to me later...."Anyone want a free trip to Miami for the weekend? Over at the podium at gate 26 they are looking for 2 people who wanna go tomorrow and come back Sunday....free hotel and all flights.... go see the man waving over there". Well, would you have believed that? Evidently they need a certain number of passengers or they have to cancel the flights and this one needed 2 more.....but all the people in this part of the airport were already going somewhere....still, I suppose they could have rung a friend and told them or something....seems to me they should have been advertising it out in the public area!

Twice on short legs, I ended up in the very back seat of the plane. This has its ups and downs...so to speak. Once, in America, it was horrendously noisy...and I wrote a post while on that flight, stating how dreadful it was. But, although the rest of the plane was full, I had the 2 seats to myself and the stewardess sat on a little fold-down seat and chatted (or rather, shouted) to me,  telling me about her flight schedules and how often she gets home etc, which was nice. The other time was the flight from Sydney to Melbourne and I was in seat 57F.....the last seat on the plane. The Steward was chatting up the 3 young women in front of me who were off to Melbourne for a weekend of shopping..... and he gave them extra drinks and sandwiches for lunch the next day! But the bonus for me was that he started by serving me first.....and I was starving....when actually he was supposed to start at the front. He had been an electrician but changed careers only 6 months before...... I couldn't hear why..... and he was enjoying it so far......anyway, the flight was very turbulent .....I mean VERY, especially as we approached Melbourne and it was bad enough not being able to see out a window, but then when we landed, albeit very roughly, those who could see, actually clapped.....at least I was sitting beside an emergency exit! I have never been on such a rough flight and with the plane swaying around after landing, like in a show ride! Probably best I was in a seat with no outside view, just happily eating my lunch!

One of the most annoying things about some airports is the lack of clocks. Can you believe that some airports have no clocks at all. When you are changing time zones and catching connections you need to know the time. No wonder those people in Washington missed the plane! I would check my luggage in and they would say....your flight boards at gate 51 at 3pm......and I would have to ask what the time is now because my watch would have some other time from a previous day.....and every so often have to ask someone what time it is or, do as I did in Washington, just go to the gate and wait until they called my flight for boarding....crazy and stupid and a terrible oversight not to have clocks in all airports.

Some airports have huge distances to walk and it seemed I always needed to board at the gate furthest from where I checked in my luggage. Some have those horizontal escalators that you walk on.....I thought they were great because if you were tired you could just stand there and if you wanted the exercise you could walk....and walk.....and walk. In Seattle, there is an underground electric train that goes every 2 minutes and whisks you off to somewhere near where you need to end up. In Singapore, there is natural light coming in from above and a wall of indoor tropical plants along the corridors so it is very beautiful and I would have missed my flight looking at all the colourful foliage and flowers if I had stopped to look at it all....  Heathrow (London) could do with a long look at the Singapore airport! Actually, everywhere should take a look at Singapore, where they focus on the amenity for the people, first.

One thing Terminal 1 at Heathrow does better than all the rest is coffee lounges, with comfortable couches, coffee tables and a nice, quiet atmosphere especially compared to the noisy, plastic, American airports I visited. There was even a powerpoint for my laptop....a nice touch....

The strangest and cheapest flight I went on was from Bergerac Airport in France to the Midlands Airport, in the UK. The only charge was for the taxes which amounted to something like AU$20....but there was catch! From the minute you boarded the plane until the moment you left the plane you were bombarded with sales talk and special deals on ......anything.....from holidays to watches.....and there were raffles and scratchy tickets and chances to spend, and to win, non-stop.... RyanAir.....very cheap but don't fly with them if you need peace and quiet! AU$20 is an incredibly cheap way to get across the channel, though.

I was very surprised when I approached the plane, across the tarmac, to take me from Seattle to Vancouver.....it had propellers....and only 50 seats. We bounced our way across the clouds to Vancouver, at quite a low altitude but arrived safely, in 45 minutes but it took over an hour to make my way through immigration..... mine was not the only flight arriving at this time.

The best planes I went on were invariably owned by Canada Air and the most comfortable and quietest was a Boeing 777, with a powerpoint for my laptop....luckily I had it with me in my hand luggage this time....and also luckily the plane was only 1/3 full so I had 3, second to front row seats to myself. Nice, especially when I was hungry and because I was at the front I didn't have to wait for a hundred or so other people to be served first! Tip....always take an apple and some nuts....it is embarrassing to have to ask for food in the middle of the night!

WILD RICE IN CANADA

I wanted to write a thing about special foods of the areas I visited but I had forgotten until this moment.....now I hope I can remember what I discovered!

I was reminded of this idea while just now reading the October/ November edition of Sumptuous (a magazine all about South Australian food and wine) where there is a thing about black rice which reminded me of wild rice.....

I was staying in Agassiz, an hour or so east of Vancouver, with Kathy-from-my-garden-group's parents. Agassiz is in the Fraser Valley, a food growing area for Vancouver and beyond. Rosemary and Garth took me to a house that simply had a sign outside saying .....Coffee Roasting and Pottery..... sounded interesting! Inside was a woman sitting at a potting wheel, who barely spoke at first, while we followed the signs about the coffee roasting going on behind the glass screen. She heard my accent and, as we were leaving, asked me what I was doing there, in a little town like Agassiz. We got talking and she was so wonderfully interesting I would like to have stayed longer, and written a whole thing about her.....but we were heading for the airport as it was my last day. I have her email address somewhere in my as yet not-completely-unpacked suitcase.....I must write to her.

Anyway, the gist of the whole wild rice thing is that she has a friend who is from an Indian tribe further north in Canada, where wild rice grows.....wild....it is native to Canada.....I didn't know that! Anyway, only the Indians from that area are allowed to go out and collect the wild rice, and she had some for sale in her coffee, pottery and now wild rice house/shop! Rosemary bought some of the wild rice, which is not rice at all actually, and I must ask her how she got on cooking it, but as I couldn't bring it into Australia I had to leave it for next time! It is so lovely to come across such stories quite by chance, rather than by taking some touristy trap....I mean .... trip! She also talked about her chooks and her vegetables garden and how there is an annual bike ride that takes in her place and other local growers and crafts-people during summer. She has a daughter in Japan.... and so the links went on and on.....until we just had to go. As I have written before..... the earth connects so many of us.