Keeping up with the older set

Most of my new friends here are quite bit older than me, in some cases many decades older. I guess that's what comes with mixing in booky, crafty, textile art circles and living in this particular neighbourhood in this particular city. These women are as sharp as tacks, involved in everything, voracious readers and take some keeping up with.

But there is one grand dame I have given up trying to keep up with. Her real name is Tammy but Australians like to give things nicknames so in following local custom we now call her "The Tamster". (My son, the chief dogwalker, is known as The Tamstermeister.) Her owner scored her from the dog rescue place so isn't exactly sure of her age, but she is at least thirteen human years old.  Nobody believes us when we say how old she is.  This summer was so long and hot that she ended up having to have two haircuts (she usually only has one a year) which made her look even younger. 

Before we met her Tammy hadn't been for regular walks for quite some time.  At first we took her for shortish walks around the neighbourhood, then longer and longer ones.  Now she has decided that what she really wanted is runs.  Now I love walking, but running, not so much.  That is a job I leave for the now quite tall people I used to call TheShortFolk.

But the most fun we have with The Tamster is when we take her in the car to the beach.  Last time we went was a beautiful evening and she sprinted down the beach then leapt around in circles like a great big puppy.  In the car on the way home she kept slobbering on my neck as I was trying to drive which is apparently how she says thank you.

She has so much energy and such a zest for life that it is like she is taking some kind of youth serum.  When I'm her age I hope I'm just like her.  Only I hope I can resist any urges to roll in piles of rotting seaweed.  And maybe not so slobbery.  And definitely not so hairy.

Rapture in Harvey

Great excitement this weekend as of course Saturday was not just any old Saturday; this Saturday was Rapture Day!  By 6pm I had the dishes done and the house nice and tidy just in case.  6pm came and went and nothing happened.  I sat down and watched Dr Who with the children instead, which was nice. 

On Sunday morning I wondered whether it was actually supposed to happen at 6pm Saturday in Mr Camping's hometown.  This would give us a few more hours of normalcy; what a shame to spend those hours doing laundry and going to Open Homes. This might be our last chance to get out and explore this fascinating part of the world.  An outing was obviously in order, but where to go?

Today I grabbed my folder labelled "Harvey - not the boy".  There are a lot of Harvies around these parts. Harvey is a town, a food bowl farming region, a river, an estuary, a dairy company, an orange juice company, a cheese factory and many more things besides.  In my folder I'd stashed maps, brochures and clippings about that town and region and today we set off on a Rapture Day Sunday drive to Harvey.
 
I believe there is a real art to concocting the perfect Sunday drive.  According to me, they must:
- not involve too much driving and preferably be a loop route,
- be to places that are actually worth getting off the couch to see,
- include a variety of sights and activities of interest to all participants,
- cater to the individual requirements of all participants (e.g. constantly hungry, require scenic car-sickness stops), and
- cater to the differing abilities of all participants (can't walk, can't walk far, dream of walking fast for two hours without stopping).  
According to my father Sunday drives also had to include a stop at at least one major feat of engineering.  According to my mother they also had to include an enormous Tupperware container of carsandwiches. (I'm not mocking.  I love carsandwiches.)

Harvey township is only 77 picturesque kms from Mandurah and the journey is through countryside filled with farms, vineyards and orchards.
 

 
Our first stop was The Big Orange at Harvey River Bridge Estate winery.  How could we resist?
 

 
Then off to Harvey Dam;  my father would be proud.  A damned fine dam it is too with a lovely picnic area, a superscenic walk to the top of the dam, the cutest little amphitheatre in the South West and the tidiest public toilets I've ever seen.
 

 

 

 

 
Next stop was the tourist precinct.  There we saw some beautifully maintained historic buildings, various tributes to May Gibbs who lived in Harvey for a couple of years, some pretty gardens and a shop selling a huge assortment of cow ornaments.  The member of our party who is allergic to tweeness did a top job of keeping it seemly. 
 

 
Finally we headed out into the wopwops for the main reason we went to this neck of the woods and the reason we'll go back; this time of the year is perfect for bush walking. 
 

 
The bushland we walked through was blackened from a fire but full of plants that have a "yeah, yeah, whatever" attitude to fire.  Fresh green foliage was bursting through the blackened trunks.

 
The more I see of the Australian bush the more I love it.  The plants and colours and textures are beautiful. 
 

 

 

 
By the end of our walk none of our party had rapturously disappeared though by now some felt in danger of fading away through hunger.  We drove back towards Mandurah via a different route and at 3.40pm stopped for lunch in the town of Waroona.  I figured that what with Rapture and the Apocalyse coming we could lay off our usual lentils and chickpeas and eat whatever we liked.  Delish burgers at Dizzy's Diner hit the spot.
 

 
We drove home through low wintry sunshine.  When we got home Harvey the boy walked Tammy the dog, whose owner is very holy but thankfully still here too.  I cooked dinner and drank a glass of Harvey wine.  The children watched Merlin then helped their father with the dishes. 

No rapture today, which was nice.

Good Old Dawesville

I spent four days of last week at home minding sick children. (And every time I tried to use Blogger last week it was busted.  How dare this free programme I use not be available when I want it! What a flipping liberty!)  So I didn't get nearly enough exercise last week and by this week I was quite antsy.  I needed something faster than the usual stopstart stroll with Tammy as she pauses to sniff every bit of footpath grossness.  I needed something more interesting than the familiar sights offered by my local streets.

So yesterday morning, after finally dropping two well children off at school, I headed straight to a spot that I'd been meaning to explore further.

Mandurah is full of suburbs that have an older, established part and a newer, all-built-at-once part.  Some people prefer the old bits of town and some like the new.  Three guesses which parts I like. (I can't tell the houses in the newest areas apart. I have promised the children that if I do succumb and buy us a house in one of the shiny new suburbs, then I will help us find our way home by employing the same technique we use to help us to identify our belongings on baggage carousels: I'll tie a huge red woollen pompom to it.)

The place I headed to yesterday morning was Old Dawesville.  When I arrived there it was only 8.15am.  It was raining and cool and deserted and fabulous.  Due to an unusually high tide it was also somewhat picturesquely flooded.
 

I set off uphill. Old Dawesville has an eclectic assortment of newer homes dotted amongst the remaining original beach shacks.

 

 
Both sorts of homes have glorious views across the estuary and all the way to the hills many miles in the distance. (Yup - saw dolphins.)
 

 

Unlike the scorched-earth look of the new suburbs, Old Dawesville has established native flora and is heaving with wildlife, including a peewee casually pretending to have one leg,
 

 
a butcherbird that made me get a Leonard Cohen song stuck in my head,
 

 
and the biggest spider I've seen outside a museum drawer.
 

 
 I pounded down tree-lined pathways,

past washed up boats,

past the many picnic settings left on the shore - some now draped with flotsam and jetsam,

and some that had been claimed by the flood -

and past more birds.

I got a bad case of the "I could live here"s.

My thighs protested and my face turned the colour of my raincoat (raspberry), as it does. A kindly old chap used the flooding as a conversation-starter.  It turned out that he really just wanted to know whether the startlingly bright colour of my face meant I was likely to soon need the services of ambulance, as kindly old chaps often do.

I noted that not all the locals are so friendly.

But even so, on a soggy, foggy morning I decided that Old Dawesville is good. Very good.   So good I could even see why some people might be sorely tempted to spend several hundred thousand smackeroos more than their entire house-shopping budget to buy an uninhabitable asbestosy hovel there.

Black dog

I love a good walk. When I have too much on my tiny mind, a good walk helps me to sort it all out.  In the past ten years I've had quite a few instances where I've had to deal with shabby shite hitting my fan.  (Show me the grey-haired grown-up who hasn't?)  I'm one of the lucky ones who finds that my most effective coping mechanisms are simply a good walk and a good talk (well OK, there was my Single Malt habit).

Shortly after we moved here yet another bit of shabby shite hit our fan.  My plans for getting an O-job, starting a business and buying a house are on hold until we get this latest health issue sorted.  This time around I haven't found things quite so easy to cope with because like a daft egg I stopped walking as much as I should and I'm here without you lot to talk to (plus those of you in Christchurch are now all dealing with your own rubbish situations).

Well, I love lists and I love a bit of irony.  I made a TO DO list called "Sort yourself out lady lest you should get a black dog".  One of the things on the list was to go around and meet our neighbours.  I did and I met some lovely people, including an elderly lady with ..... a black dog she is unable to take for walks anymore.  Well, my children love dogs and are desperate to get one but sadly they a) live in a no pets rental home and b) know very little about looking after dogs and c) have a mean mother who says they can only ever get a dog if it is either bald or matches our sofa (green).  So now we are fortunate enough to regularly enjoy the company of a gorgeous, big, black, hairy, beautifully-behaved and very grateful dog called Tammy.  We walk around the neighbourhood with her then take her home again. 

And as luck would have it, Tammy is also a very good listener.  Sadly her side of the conversation isn't up to the usual standard I'm used to from you lot (her jokes are rubbish), but we'll keep working on it.