..me over for the holiday weekend until I could arrange for another visit
from the plumber to fix it properly.
That evening I decided to pop down to the local Red Rooster as I’d absolutely
nothing in the fridge. As I arrived home there were lightning flashes as the
predicted change swept over Melbourne, so I wasn’t surprised to hear
the sound of rain clattering onto the carport roof as I ate my Classic Quarter
of chicken and chips.
I watched a couple of games of rugby and tried to finish off the Pith
& Wind essay, which, at that stage, was titled Doctor, doctor..
At midnight I’d done as much as I could, although I still wasn’t
happy about the P&W. I could hear the rain still bucketing down
outside. There was another sound too, now that I listened. It sounded like
one of the toilets was stuck on flush.
I checked. No, they were both fine. Then I had another more alarming thought.
I put on my Ugg boots and rushed outside – to find water spraying at
tremendous pressure from where the hose joined the tap and a pool of water
an inch deep in the carport.
I rushed to the tap, getting thoroughly soaked in the process, and turned
it off. I was overwhelmed with anger and frustration at my idiocy. I told
myself there was nothing much I could do about it at that stage and forced
myself to go to bed as I had volunteered to go to Tullamarine in the morning
and pick up my (other) brother Jeremy, who was arriving from Auckland at 10.20.
My heart rate was, perhaps unsurprisingly, elevated and I barely slept. I
intended to leave at 8.45 to pick up Chris on the way to the airport, but
I couldn’t find my mobile so I checked through the van’s passenger
side window and saw it sitting on the console. I locked up and got into the
van. I looked at my mobile – and just as I realised it was actually
floating in the console I also realised my arse was getting wet.
Because it had been such a balmy night I’d left the passenger side window
open – not a lot, but the force of the water over perhaps three or more
hours had ensured the van’s cabin was as full of water as it possibly
could be.
I don’t want to think about the next water bill, but it’s bound
to be horrendous. Time to change the subject.
I’m popping over to New Zealand for a few days well, ten days to be
precise. I made the decision to go before I discovered I’d been significantly
short-changed in the wash-up of The Morning of the Earth tour, but by then
it was too late. I’m glad I’m going though. I haven’t seen
my mum for over a year and, while she still sounds amazingly vital and together
on the phone, nothing beats being there in person.
Mum lives in Auckland but I’ll be staying with my old friends the Brittendens
in Christchurch for a couple of days beforehand . While I’m there I’ll
visit Trevor Courtney, the Chants’ drummer, who now has a property near
Oxford outside Christchurch where he and his wife Lyndsay Hammond grow saffron
amongst other things, which they should’ve harvested by the time I get
there. I’m also hoping to catch up with Bret de Thier, with whom I went
to Art School and who lives not far from Trevor. I should also really make
time to visit my relatives who live on the shaky side of town and who have
grittily decided to rebuild their shattered home.
I should do all these things, but I’m not a great planner. Never have
been. Planning ahead actually annoys me. Other people planning ahead within
my hearing annoys me even more. I don’t know what it is exactly, but
I suspect it’s an actual character defect and as such I’m perversely
rather proud of it. After all, its probably a big part of why I’m who
I am. And where I am.
Which is a card-carrying Kiwi living in Melbourne, Australia. By which I mean
I still have a New Zealand passport. Well, when I say ‘still’,
I actually got my new one on Thursday from the Dept. of Internal Affairs in
Sydney. New Zealand’s Internal Affairs, of course. Kiwi passports only
last for five years so you have to keep your wuts about you.
I got into trouble ten years ago when I realised that my passport had effectively
expired a couple of days before I was due to leave. Frantic phone calls were
made and much too much money changed hands, but the end result was that I
picked up my new passport at the airport minutes before my flight departed.
The scariest time was when Bill and I first went to the States in the late
‘70s. Your passport has to be valid for at least six months after your
arrival and, as you’d expect, mine wasn’t, so the rather crabby
(I thought) customs guy detained me with every intention of putting me on
the first plane back to Aussie. (That was also my first encounter with an
American toilet – I thought it must’ve been broken).
Somehow I managed to convince them that I would go to the NZ consulate and
put matters right – and, in fact, I did exactly that. My visit to the
NZ consulate in LA was rather reminiscent of an episode of the Flight of the
Conchords, but they expedited a new passport efficiently enough and I went
back to LAX and cleared it with Customs and our visit to the USA was free
of official interference from then on. (Apart from the speeding ticket Bill
copped on the way to Las Vegas).
As a result, you’d think that checking my passport would be the first
thing on my list when going overseas, but almost inevitably I leave it to
the last minute. Even this time, when I thought I was being ultra-efficient,
my new passport arrived the day before Good Friday.
This begs the question as to why the fate of our quaint little musical band
is left in my hands. At which point, I simply change the subject again..
According to Radio National’s Dr Swan, (who sounds a bit like The
Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker (pic) without the spitting
and the epithets), quite a lot of heart patients these days die from preventable
heart attacks because they fail to keep up their prescribed medication regimes.
Actually, I have a suspicion that it’s not always due to carelessness;
perhaps the patient simply yearns for a treatment that doesn’t play
such havoc with his or her daily life.
Things have clearly changed for the worse with the medical profession over
time and you don’t have to think long and hard to determine what the
big problem is. Perhaps a jaundiced view is that your personal relationship
with your doctor doesn’t count for much these days because your doctor
has become a stooge for the giant drug corporations and will dispense you
a prescription for the latest drug, (double blind tested on half a million
poor souls, some of whom actually clung onto life longer than expected), once
he has some cues from you as to what you think is going on with your health,
or lack of it. No wonder some people feel that an exorcist or a witchdoctor
or even your local naturopath might be preferable to a GP, or a specialist
for that matter, because at least they go to some trouble to make you feel
like they're tailoring something just for you.
Which is when you start thinking you should do some investigation of your
own - on the ‘Net. Dr James Feldman, (the Shepparton PC Doctor), advised
me to check with Google if I had any problems with my music program, which
turned out to be sound advice, (somewhat to my initial surprise I must confess),
and consequently it seems quite logical that if I had an ongoing medical problem
and I’m on a particular course of medication, in all probability for
the rest of my life, I should bite the bloody bullet and Google it.
Well, I do - and I did. Mind you, all that’s on hold till I get back
from the Land of the Long White Cloud. I had a blood test (for everything)
the other day, as y’ do at my age, and I think I’ll wait to hear
the results of that before I go crazy on the ‘Net with all the other
crazies..