Killing Time in Covid Times

Our blue eyed boy Bingo

It’s Winter already, though we’ve had plenty of time to get used to it with late May being quite chilly.

That’s not to say I’m looking forward to the next few months of cold weather in this icebox of a house, and being obliged to stay home with the pandemic still limiting movement.

I must admit that even I am getting a bit stir crazy, having not gone anywhere interesting for months; my weekly shopping trips to Victoria Market being the only outdoor diversion I’ve undertaken.

However, I have been keeping occupied with computer games and books, and tinkering with a new design for the Nu Country website.

After finishing the final book in Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell trilogy, an extraordinary literary masterpiece, I’ve been binge reading a series of detective novels by Alan Bradley, which feature 11 year old Flavia De Luce.

I am grateful to the friend who introduced me to the Flavia books, as I certainly would not have stumbled on them by myself.  He gave me the first book in the series as a present and I  enjoyed it enormously.

There are  eleven Flavia De Luce novels, I was pleased to note after reading The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, so I’ve stocked up my Kindle with several to keep me tided over with entertaining reading matter, and have become addicted to Flavia’s small village world of the 1950s.

Described as a cross between Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle and the Addams Family, the novels are set in the fictional English village of Bishop’s Lacey where Flavia and her family inhabit  the large manor house Buckshaw.

Flavia is the youngest of three sisters, the others being Ophelia and Daphne, her arch enemies, against whom she tests her knowledge of poisonous chemicals.  For Flavia, as well as being an unusual detective, is also a master chemist having inherited her Great Uncle Tarquin’s fully equipped laboratory in the east wing of Buckshaw.

Full of eccentric characters that include family retainers Dogger and Mrs Mullet, the Flavia de Luce novels are tremendous fun and a great escape from the real world which only seems to be getting worse.

Curiously, one of the computer games I’ve recently played also features a feisty schoolgirl detective called Jenny Le Clue, a fictional creation of successful (fictional) author Arthur Finkelstein.

This is a charming game with wonderful graphics, great characters and a long involved story. Jenny and her friends and family live in the fictional town of Arthurton and Jenny is the heroine of a series of soft boiled detective novels by Arthur J Finkelstein, solving cases such as missing eyeglasses and test papers. Jenny longs for a real case to solve and soon enough in the game the Dean of Arthurton’s Gumbold University  dies mysteriously and Jenny’s mother is framed for his murder.

The game follows Jenny’s adventures in pursuing the investigation into the Dean’s death to clear her mother and unearthing in the process the many secrets hidden in Arthurton.  It is one of the best and cleverest computer games I’ve played of late.

I also played two rather interesting and creepy supernatural mysteries set in Cornwall – Barrow Hill: Curse of the Ancient Circle and Barrow Hill: The Dark Path.

On the home front nothing much has changed, with only Bingo the cat recently giving us some worry with his behaviour.  Earlier this week he would disappear for hours and efforts to find his whereabouts were in vain. He also was suffering from a  sore back foot with a wound around the claw area. Heaven knows how he came by it, but it didn’t seem like a cat fight injury.  Happily he has returned to normal over the last few days and his foot is on the mend. Perhaps he was avoiding us in fear of being taken to the Vet, but really who knows what goes through the feline mind.

As public venues slowly open up again I’ve been itching for a change of scene, so have booked to go to the Zoo later this month to see the new Snow Leopard cubs.  My reasoning was that with a limit of 2000 people a day, the Zoo will be sparsely populated, occupying as it does a wide expanse of real estate, so it will be ideal for photography practice and of course viewing the wildlife.

Speaking of photography practice it will be some time before the general public will be admitted to the horse racing - the only sport that continued over the course of the lockdown. Naturally I’m looking forward to the Spring Racing Carnival in whatever format it takes, but hope to be there in person for some meetings.

Boxed In

Book Boxes

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been busy packing belongings into boxes. The most mammoth task for me was boxing my private library which ended up using 37 boxes. Books were shelved everywhere in the house and in the studio as well, so I made sure to number and keep note of the contents of each box.

The last time we moved – 31 years ago – one box of books went missing, and I still wonder what books were contained within it. Perhaps there were some books I could have sworn I owned but failed to locate, in that lost box.

The obligatory cat photo – Bingo on top of a box.

Today, as a break from packing, I crawled out from the rubble and went to the current feature exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in Federation Square titled Brave New World: Australia 1930s.

Poster by Percy Trompf

If you haven’t been to this exhibition I highly recommend that you take time to visit as it is simply splendid, covering as it does a very interesting (and stylish) period of Australian history.

Brave New World: Australia 1930s encompasses the multitude of artistic styles, both advanced and conservative, which were practised during the 1930s. Included are commercial art, architecture, fashion, industrial design, film and dance to present a complete picture of this dynamic time

I must admit many of the works on display were by artists I have never heard of, but images by  the famous photographer Max Dupain were prominent including the iconic image below...

The Sun Bather by Max Dupain

…and the provocative Brave New World, originally banned in the 1930s, which reminded me of Fritz Lang’s wonderful film Metropolis, released in 1927.

Brave New World – Max Dupain

I regretted not taking my camera to the exhibition as there were several paintings and sculptures that I would like to have a photographed, one of which I found online. It’s a portrait by Sybil Craig of fellow artist Peggy Crombie.

Peggy by Sybil Craig

The exhibition was comprehensive and covered photography, painting, costume, furniture and ceramics, depicting a diverse range of topics – utopia & dystopia, indiginous art including piaintings by Albert Namatjira.

I could go on, but don’t want to spoil the surprise of seeing this wonderful exhibition for anyone else.

The other major exhibition at NGV is of Hokusai which I plan to visit next week.

Finally, my efforts to escape the humdrum last Saturday at the races at Caulfield were cut short, when they were  cancelled shortly after I arrived at the course, due to the severe winds. So the Bletchingly Stakes will  now be run at Sandown next Sunday.

Distractions

Bingo at 7 months now collared & tagged

It’s all topsy turvy at the Cat Politics domicile with big changes in the offing, not to mention the continuing distraction of raising a crazy Siamese kitten.

Since his misadventure a month ago, Bingo has stayed close to home and mostly prefers to be inside pestering his human slaves and causing chaos than roaming the streets, unlike his predecessor Willy who, at the same age, tore around the neighbourhood with his kitten friend Pickle.

Siamese cats are known for their devotion to their humans and take an interest in everything that the said humans are engaged in, particularly cooking. I’ve never known such a naughty recalcitrant cat as Bingo, who refuses to learn the meaning of NO.

He’s grown big enough to jump on the kitchen bench and has to be locked in the bedroom if you are cooking anything. I’ve had to wrestle with him over a block of cheese, which he stole while my back was turned for a second, and he has such a keen appetite that he also has to be locked away to eat, as he’ll try and steal Talya’s dinner after he’s finished his own.

He still likes to play fetch with whatever is to hand, in fact he’s addicted to it, and my hands have become a mass of scratches as he tries to snatch the toy back after dropping it at your feet.

As I write, he’s up on the antique dresser rummaging in a old teapot filled with five cent pieces, flipping the coins out with his paw.

Bingo atop the range hood

Speaking of Talya, she has taken to tearing her fur out again. The poor dear is stressed by Bingo’s antics, particularly when they involve her, even though he’s just playing.

She’ll be even more stressed in a couple of months when Cat Politics moves to a new location in another suburb.

Talya on patio table – nice pic with bokeh

This all happened very fast, when B took a fancy to a house in Ivanhoe and practically purchased it on the spot. Then he sold the current house off market in no time flat, at least saving us the inconvenience of the real estate hoop lah of keeping the house spotless and enduring inspections, if he’d gone to auction.

I’m still rattled by this as I like where we live at present, public transport heaven for a person who doesn’t drive a car and likes to be independent.  There are two train lines, two tram lines and three buses all within easy walking distance, which will take you anywhere in Melbourne.

We’ve been here for almost 31 years, so it will be a big change for me as I’m not familiar with Ivanhoe at all and doubt the public transport situation will be as convenient.

However, the house itself is very nice and much bigger than the current residence,  with stacks of storage space, which has always been lacking where we now are. The house dates from the 1920s so is quite Art Deco inside, and it even has picture rails among its other charms.

All this has been very distracting, and along with the wintry weather, leaves me feeling quite saturnine – gloomy and unenthused by the usual things I find amusing.

I’m  looking forward to the Spring racing season, with fairly interesting  build up races scheduled fairly soon, though the first of the Group 1 races will not occur until early September.

Boys with Toys

B took possession of a new car on Monday. He traded in his conservative Honda sedan for a Mercedes sports coupe. I must admit it is a thing of beauty, a sleek silver machine with all mod cons or wankeries as I call them, like satellite navigation, automatic everything. Admittedly I am not a petrol head and have never learned to drive, so cars are not something I take very seriously and I normally can’t tell the difference between one car or another.

However, for B it is the attainment of an earthly desire. He’s been lusting for an expensive sports car for years and finally selected a Mercedes, based on several factors, like anti theft protection, seating etc. I had a ride in it last night, and I must admit it was comfy.

It’s a bit late for me, in terms of the song The Ballad of Lucy Jordan, to ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in my hair. After all, I’m way past the age of thirty-seven. But at the age of sixty I can at least ride through Melbourne, or the Paris end of Collins Street, with the warm wind in my hair. Somehow that doesn’t quite capture the desperate romance of the original song.

Back in the days of my foolish twenties, boys with sports cars had a certain charm, and I did get to ride with a few of them.

One had a little red MG with fur lined doors and I remember my brother had a Citroen . The most memorable ride was after a wedding, where a fellow wedding guest and I took off after the celebrations in his red sports car - another MG - and went on a wild drive around Melbourne University, including the underground car park which was featured as a setting in the original Mad Max movie - then through the city to St Kilda Road. We swam in a fountain (pictured above) outside the Shrine of Remembrance, swigging Cointreau, before damply collapsing back in my little room in Parkville. In those days people did drink and drive as matter of course. It’s amazing we survived, though come to think of it, some didn’t.

Other stuff, cats included…

Yesterday we had an evaporative cooling system installed to combat the extreme heat of some of Melbourne’s summer days and nights. One of the workmen brought his dog with him – a large Labrador called Douglas. This of course alarmed the cats no end. Douglas chased Willy over the road and back again, Willy eventually taking refuge elsewhere. Lizzie took one look – eek! dog! - jumped the fence to next door and refused to come back home even when the dog had gone, maintaining a stubborn vigil on a shelf on the next door neighbour’s fence. The neighbour actually built the shelf for her some time ago as he doesn’t mind visits from our cats and provides handy fence jumping aids along the party fence. Timmy, on the other hand, held his ground and spent the day under a table, hissing if Douglas came near.

The three cats are getting on well these days, though Willy still maintains a wary distance from Timmy, unless, as was the case this morning, when he is very hungry he will barge in on Timmy’s plate and push him aside fearlessly. Lizzie has no problem with Timmy and these two elderly cats sit companionably together as if they were the best of friends.