Rogues Yarn with 'Arry Driftwood - Cold and car-less at Concord


“When money’s tight and hard to get, And your horse has ‘also ran’. When all you have is a heap of debt, Johnny Walker is your man!”
Mmm? That used to work but with ageing, I dunno what I’ll do when I get old with arthritis, diabetes and general detumescence and wiggly woggliness. I canna take more than a double without crashing into tears and regrets. How are you going anyway?
That’s Black Label o’ course, as I would only use Red Label for me kero lamps. I would! Sometimes the thought of Eternal Peace is a comfort but I ain’t taking my Black Dog with me when She calls, but, as you know, ’Arry Breckinridge is a sailor no God may possess, except on his own terms. Goes without saying ’Arry!
Aaah! The ABC pleasing me with some joyous Bach instead of screeching violins going nowhere or dreary, dreary religious muck. Yair, I have told ’em to cut it out many times but they are recalcitrant androids and continue to irritate me. You know I am not allowed to be upset. The Brandenburg thingummy.
Another thing I hate is saucer drips. I usually place a pretty paper serviette in the saucer to blot ’em up, as I did when I went across to refill my water tanks last week and forgot the wee demitasse saucer on the bridge deck, where, of course, I trod on it and it responded by shattering … which did seem a bit uncalled for.
The Salvos and Saint Vinnies didn’t have a suitable replacement, but at the Rozelle flea market emporium I did spot a lovely saucer and a wee matching bowl. The very attractive mature mother of two tried to win onto me, but I told her I was happily married and to cut it out as a lot of people were after me. She said, “Yair, and I’ll bet they have blue uniforms and Glocks on their hips.”
Cheeky cow! But I warmed to her feminine softness and bought the pair for ten bucks and came away well satisfied … financially, that is. Have I said before that coffee tastes better in a demitasse? Probably. Wait one while I turn off the managed news.
Although we hauled out at River Quays in May, my prop has picked up something nasty and without David Coulter and his team I wouldn’t have got to the dock for water anyway. As I peruse David’s business card I am struck by his attainments, ie, commercial clearance diver Level III, commercial clearance diving supervisor, advanced diploma occupational diving, Master V, MED II. Phew! The best I can muster on my “Hello, I am ’Arry” cards are University of Queen’s Land (failed).
Here’s a bit of drollery from The New Yorker: when you are on your mobile (cellphone to them), you are “Out to lunch!” … unless you are actually out to lunch, in which case if you are on the phone you aren’t really at lunch anymore but you are in your mind’s unintentionally blind eye, somewhere else, and a study shows that email is more corrosive to your IQ than pot. I believe that, I do. But then I ain’t got email.
Despite the slings ’n arrows of outrageous misfortune I am a lucky olde bugger in some ways and try hard to keep my balance. A sou’easter of about 20 knots, blue skies and a mild sun pouring amps into my battery bank. The pile-drivers from that ghastly bridge atrocity momentarily silent and the big jets on their flight path entertaining me in trying to identify types that are like peas in a pod, the big new Airbus 380 rather majestic and queenly and quieter than the brutal old Jumbo. A two-bus trip to Concord Hospital later doesn’t seem too arduous.
Bus trip? Yairs my Mitzi ‘blew up’ on the way back from Brissie and I am now car-less. I am shattered as we loved each other and I feel somehow it was my fault. Frenz are now looking for another suitable motorcar for ’Arry, at a modest cost of about fourpence ’appenny, which is the depth of my resources. Chance can be cruel.
Not so easy now to flip down to the library or get gas refills or paint and turps or dhobying with a simple push-bike, like I used to a few years ago … nowadays the local garage doesn’t sell bulk kero or refill gas bottles; except for those expensive damned exchange deals. And my tired old bones moan at the pain and effort.
The local library now less convenient, I am thrown back to my own library of classics and just finished re-reading Bill Tillman’s Mischief to Greenland, signed by the great bloke himself. Such a droll well-written account of his journeys to the distant mountains. He said a voyage should have a purpose, and he was a mountain climber, and led a British attempt on Everest before the Great Patriotic War.
I think his dear sister had a lot to do with the editing and actual writing of his books? He never married. Some mystery there. Straight from College into the mincing machine that was France and The Great War. Same as my old Da.
A time when an education meant a good grounding in classics, Gods (Greek), poets and manners. What a dear sweet brutal world it all was and I just sampled the last of it. Better start thinking of the Concord Hospital bus trip … I hope they can save me.