easter momentous

I have a history of eventful stuff happening over Easter. Easters of yore have variously been occasioned by relationship evolution/dissolution, the Cruising Division title in the Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race, gadding around Moreton Bay on a boat, and a towtruck ride into South Melbourne after breaking down in the city-bound middle lane of the Westgate Bridge at about 5pm on return-to-town Monday.

This Easter has so far been very un-momentous.

I had much-lusted plans to go camping with friends at Boonoo Boonoo National Park. My hairdresser - who skips to the beat of her own drummer - had told me about a trip there. Big waterfalls. Rockpools. Granite outcrops. Bush. No screaming kidlings. I called the NSW parks peeps. 15 campsites, no bookings required. “We’ve never turned anyone away.” Then friends discover a tragic double booking with a very expensive theatre performance. Gah! They assure their commitment to camping and try to sell tickets. In vain. Which is probably, in some mysterious realm not yet evident to me, for the best, since it has rained on and off the whole long weekend and looks set to continue thus.

In fact, the weather is very un-momentous too. It's that kind of still, grey, dove-warbling, nothing-much-happening-here weather. If there were tumbleweeds here, I'm sure one would roll by.

So instead of drinking wine beside a campfire under the stars in pleased exhaustion, I somehow got passively coerced at the last minute into driving all the way across town to check on a cat (the one who let me stay over while his mum was in Europe for six weeks over xmas) so his mum could spend four days in Byron with Ben Harper. Which no doubt has been planned since Blues and Roots tickets went on sale. Though it took her until THURSDAY to ask me.

Oh, and I also found out that my beloved local market has just been pimped to a fly-in/fly-out Sydney consortium which will glamourise them into just another expensive foodie market for stupid bourgeois Baby Boomers.

So. Instead of camping, instead of channelling Jesus and feeling the love (or whatever it is you're supposed to do at Easter), I battled traffic, seethed, scooped cat poo, and generally resented humankind.

The one very excellent thing that has happened this weekend was I finally worked out how to tweak the tv aerial to get full and unfettered reception for SBS. For the first time since plugging in the teev at its Gertrude St home. WOO! I am now complete.

turning circles

Was highly amused today by colleague’s description of current machinery-of-government changes: “government agencies have the turning circle of a large aircraft carrier”. Well. I thought it was hilarious. Maybe I’m just a wee bit over-invested in work. Hardly surprising I guess given my daily remit to turn tepid horse poo into something highly desirable. On the turning circle of a gnat. With the reflexes of a reef fish.

Humph.

You know when you exclude something from your life for a higher cause (like chocolate, though that’s just stupid) it automatically appears all around you like an evil cherry to tempt you from your commitment?

An adventuring friend emailed last week enquiring my interest in

"Diving in the caves of Mexico
Walking across the Pyrenees from Atlantic to Mediterranean.
Ride around Ireland. I think it would be neat to then ride around northern France.
Annapurna crt or even an Island/Mera peak trip in Nepal.
And something still tugs at me to go back to NZ and paddle around Marlborough sounds and hike some of the classic areas in the south.
And I keep coming back to the idea of a trip into Northern India."

Money in the bank. Money in the bank. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH can’t hear you can’t hear you not listening WHAT?

The trips in bold are my picks. I will covet and store these away, to be dusted off when I've grown the acorn stash a bit bigger. And meanwhile content myself with curry-from-scratch, the ABC’s India and Ravi Shankar's back catalogue.

I love my little pad. I love walking to and from work (pity about the intervening hours). And yoga. And having stuff. Like a garden and a sandwich press and proximity to friends. But as you can see from my capacity to be disproportionately amused by inconsequential tripe (above), sometimes life at desk just doesn’t cut the ghee…