Blowing Hot and Cold

I have diagnosed a bi-polar disorder in the world's climates! SBS TV spent a long time last reporting snowfalls all over Britain, showing among other things a poor commuter exiting Waterloo station on his bum, skating vehicles, and white cloaked landscapes. The problem, I gather, is nationwide and just about to get worse.

Somewhere in the Antipodes, about 18,000 km away things couldn't be more different, but I doubt if UK TV has informed its viewers about 45 degrees C in Adelaide and Melbourne, much less Armidale's unusually hot summer. We've been sitting on 30-32 degrees for quite a while (32C = 90F)and today is not exception. Fortunately, it's not humid and I'm still waiting to see my first cloud for the day. In fact, I'm thinking of going home and sitting in the garden shaded by large trees and a big umbrella, and downing a few iced drinks. The problem is getting home on my bike from my UNE office where I'm typing this.

AS

Work

It is with some sadness that this is the first time in over 25 years I haven't played in the Armidale pairs bridge tournament, which is on this weekend. My name occurs on the shield more than anyone else apart from my regular partner, Barbara Gates. However, she was unavailable this weekend and I doubted my ability to survive 17 hours of play.

So, instead, I turned to some academic work. Tomorrow, Monday, I'm presenting a seminar on housing affordability and I have to prepare the powerpoint presentation. Immediately afterwards I'm attending a planning meeting for a new Professional Doctorate degree for which I am preparing some of the documentation. Then it's on to writing two articles, one of them commissioned with a deadline of next Friday and refereeing a manuscript I received yesterday.

Dot is freaking out, warning me not to go so hard! It doesn't help her that I keep bumping into colleagues who ask after me and commenting that I look really well.

AS

Country Music Festival

Given a choice between listening to country music and purgatory, I would normally choose the latter! I know like-minded people in Tamworth, a nearby city, who happily leave town for two weeks in January and let their homes to country music fanatics from all over Australia and overseas. However, Emily has been visiting for the last two weeks or so and yesterday she expressed a wish to visit Tamworth for the event. My arguments in favour of walking in a National Park were over-ruled and I reluctantly joined the party of four for the 110 km trip south.

Well, Tamworth had several things in its favour. At least it was warm: Armidale has a cool and wet summer and has rarely exceeded about 25 degrees (C). Secondly, it turned out to be an interesting sociological investigationn - I was asking myself who might be tempted to like twangy guitars, lyrics (if that is the right word) about the dreadfully commonplace, and mournful sounds that would not be out of place at a funeral. Well, I adopted participant observation as my research methodology and was also encouraged by the pleasant rythms and sounds of two Andean flute groups and a group of gyrating belly dancers with music that seemed to be a cross from Lebanon and Morocco. We heard something similar last year at an Andalusian Festival in Chefchouen in Morocco's Rif Mountains.

Better still we spent an hour opposite the belly dancers at a pavement cafe having lunch. This was an ideal vantage point for the start of my investigations because we (I) could size up the passing traffic at leisure. Later on we promenaded the main street paying close attention to the other visitors and who, among the many busking individuals and groups, attracted their attention.

Well, it was a snap-shot of middle Australia: elderly farmers and their portly and/or matronly wives in tow; young families with strollers; bikies and heavily tattooed men or women; teenagers of both sexes generally wearing very little; but very few from an immigrant background. It's possible to make a lot of money from performing country music and several sub-15 performers were being pushed by their parents into performing on the foot-paths and I had to admit that one 12 yo girl was particularly good.

Yesterday was also Australia Day, so many of the crowd were adorned with flags of all sizes and materials. They were also bouyed by yet further evidence of the centrality of country music in the national landscape by the selection of Lee Kernaghan (OAM) as Australian of the Year, not my first choice. OA, by the way, stands for Order of Australia - our system of gongs.

Anyway, Emily, Dot - and her friend Jane, who was in our party had a great time and my research confirmed my suspicions! I attach a few pictures giving some of the local atmosphere.

AS

Second Coming

Well, I'm back home after an addendum to my recently reported health problems.

After only one day back in Armidale, I experienced a large number of heart spasms. Each, only 5 minutes or less, was accompanied by strong chest pains which gradually disappeared. Alarmed, I went down to the out-patients department of the local hospital and I was promptly put in intensive care. After reading case notes, the presiding doctor sent me back to Newcastle by air ambulance and straight to the Lake Macquarie Private Hospital where my procedure occurred the previous week.

After scans, tests, and a review of the evidence, my doctor put me on several drugs. I did not have another chest pain after departing for Newcastle and the medicos concluded that I had plaque un an artery that was flaking and that drugs, rather than a stent or by-pass was the way to go. They gave me a stress test on Thursday, which went brilliantly, and I was allowed home immediately.

Dot, who has been at my side the whole time here and in Newcastle drove me home. The whole episode must have cost a fortune, but we are privately insured and the part of the bill we'll see is mininal.

Near Death Experience

For the record, I had a Cardiac Arrest a week before your message and I’d appreciate it if you let people know who might be interested. The events run as follows:

Monday 19th: arrive home c. 4.00pm by bike to go a do some campaign work for Tony Windsor (MHR, New England). By very good luck, my wife, Dot was close by as I collapsed in the garage, and she called an ambulance immediately. The second stroke of luck was that 3 ambulances arrived in 5 minutes. Had I been out of town on a property and the arrival time was 10 to 15 minutes, some of you would have already attended my funeral.

The third stroke of luck was that they were able to jump-start my heart. Cardiac arrest is potentially more serious than a stroke or heart attack. The latter impair the functioning of the brain, but usually don’t kill it. I was detained in the Armidale and New England Hospital for 1 wee while diagnostics guided the course of action. I cannot remember a single fact about this week or about the subsequent trip in an Air Ambulance to John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. I can recall waking up in JHH and seeing Dot’s apparition, and I suppose this was on about Wednesday 28 November.

This was the fourth stroke of luck. Dot was able to help me though further batteries of tests and the utter boredom of hospital routine, but I must admit that the quality of care at JHH was very good – as I am told it was in ANE.

Then, on Monday this week, I moved to the Lake Macquarie Private Hospital for the ultimate operation. I’d heard of pace-makers, but not the machine I’m now tethered to for the rest of my life. This small all-singing, all-dancing contraption constantly monitors heart performance and can accelerate or depress beat speed AND/OR change the amplitude of the beat AND/OR the pattern of the beat.

I returned home yesterday by road and am now trying to regain normal life. I’ll start riding my bike in a week; bush-walking a little before that. My Newcastle based Psychologist and Speech Therapists found little wrong with my mental processes.

Sorry for rambling on a long time.

Sweeney Todd

Three posts in one day!! Armidale is getting exciting!

We're off shortly to a live performance of the musical Sweeney Todd - the demon barber of Fleet Street. We're not short of culture in the form of theatre, musicals, chamber music, symphony concerts, and the last night of the Proms (creating down under an almost exact replica of the famous Albert Hall event) - not to mention fine art events.

Sweeney Todd is the second musical in town this year, with the other being Joseph and his Multicolour Dreamcoat. The latter was excellent for an amateur rendition and the reviews of tonight's performance have been very good.

We might be 500 km from a large city where such events are common, but it's great to see the locals taking up the challenge. We even have a sort of Glyndebourne nearby! Once a year there members of the Australian Opera turn up to a farm near Inverell (about 130km from here) for "Opera in the Paddock". We've never been, but might go next year to sit under the stars and listen to Mozart and Verdi among others. The event has its own web page: http://www.operainthepaddock.com.au/ , and it's cheap with tickets costing A$50 (a little over 20 GBP).

Postscript:

Sweeney Todd was very well done and enthusiastically received by the large audience. The plot is unbelievably gory, as you'd find out from a quick look at the internet. Stephen Sondheim's music and lyrics are atmospheric and a long way from the schmalz of Andrew LLoyd Webber. The Armidale Playhouse Inc, who do the productions, announced that the next musical will be Titanic. This opened on April 23, 1997 on Broadway and ran for 804 performances. I suppose an on-stage representation of the Titanic's sinking is little different to staging the final Act of Götterdämmerung at Bayreuth. There the Rhine floods and drowns the villain and the Rhinemaidens reclaim the 'ring'.

AS

Shopping Centre

In what must be a first for any town in the world of about 24,000 people, Armidale has just opened its third indoor shopping mall, which houses a very large (by UK standards) Woolworths supermarket, an even larger Big W variety store, and another 23 specialty shops.

The town now has 4 large supermarkets - which is absurd - and the area of the whole shopping centre appears to be about half the size of Plymouth's - which seems ridiculous. We now appear to have a branch of most Australian chain retailers and, to use another metaphor, Armidale is now a temple to consumption.

AS

Chocolate Shop

When one is busy important events slip past unnoticed. Dot and I were walking in town today and entered a part we rarely visit except whizzing by in a car. And there was a 'new' shop selling had-made chocolates and various pates. Well, we discovered it had been there since June.

The place was run by a former Parisian and imported among other Belgian chocolates. So, we splurged out on 12 different pieces at A$1.75 each (or about 77p for the POMS). I suppose Armidale might be attractive for Parisian as the central mall is a bit like the Elysian Fields (Champs Elysees) with all its pavement cafes with umbrellas. The only things missing at either end are something resembling the Arc de Triomphe, which is not likely to be fixed for a while, and the Louvre - although we have arguably the best art gallery in regional Australia.

AS

Ben Lomond Station

Australia has an open gardens scheme and most weekends in Spring see one or two gardens open in any region. New England is no exception, and yesterday we visited an excellent garden at Ben Lomond Station.

Ben Lomond is obviously named after its Scottish counterpart, and indeed there is a Ben Lomond Mountain. It's altogether higher than the original, coming in at 1520m (5000 feet). Although Ben Lomond village has a railway station (disused, but the highest in Australia), the word 'station' means a large grazing property. Originally, Ben Lomond Station was a massive 300,000 acres (136,000 ha.), but now it's smaller.

One other bit of information: the open gardens are not at all like those found at UK's stately homes. Usually they are simply well-maintained and designed gardens around ordinary houses in town or out in the country. Ben Lomond is 60 km north of Armidale in the middle of nowhere, and the house, while nice, was nowhere near a stately home!

The garden was one of the best we've seen. The owners had managed to maintain acres of flawless lawn (easier at Ben Lomond because it has a wet climate and low temperatures (unsurprising even in Australia at nearly 5000 feet). Then owners over the last 150 years had planted lots of grand trees, many from Europe including Oak, Ash, Elms, and Linden. There was also lots of pine trees, including the Monterey Pine.

Scattered among the tall trees were lots of flower beds, including masses of Rhododendrons and interesting ground covers.

AS