northbysoutheast

My god, is that the time?? The rain has made my brain a bit soggy. Thank you former cyclone Beni and the promising clouds that still linger over our skies. The first few days of this month brought the 100mm or so of rain that should've come last month and the next few days have brought the same amount again.
So of course I spend Tuesday clearing out over a year's worth of debris from the guttering around my mother's house. She and I in splendid yellow rain gear and silly hats, me scrambling up and down ladders and over rooftops, risking becoming one of the statistical bunch of middle aged men who are hospitalised from falling off ladders. Wet, wet, wet. At least doing this kind of thing in the rain allows you to follow the flow. I am surprised at how builders have honored the gentle angle towards each downpipe. And disappointed at how different muscles again, from the ones discovered last month are so stiff next day. So much so that the unexpected visit from "the young chap who does for me" brought almost as much pain as pleasure!

The rash of altruism that had me volunteering to be a Student Mentor met reality with a thump in the form of a teleconference on wednesday night. In a fit of Harry Potter whimsy, I actually was attracted to being called a DEMentor – the DE standing for Distance Education. Anyway I've now received contacts for my four "Mentees" (sounds like a cross between a peppermint lolly and a Kiplingesque band of villains) and have sent them a suitably toned introductory message. It will be interesting to see how this progresses. Will it contribute to my becoming a more efficient and responsible student myself? Will it turn me into a fulfulled and noble human being? Btw the teleconference was typically awful. Stay tuned.
And more astonishing is this morning's mail congratulating me on my fabulous progress in Sociology and inviting me to consider the Honors program. After my incredibly cavalier attitude to the courses in that discipline and my results that were undeservedly and mystifyingly good I don't know what to make of this.

I post my membership app to join the Greens and the sky clouds over. That's not a bad thing: drizzle started yesterday, continued with the odd shower overnight to the extent of 11mm this morning. Yippee. Double the precip of january and the drizzle continues today.
So no fooling around with the compost heap, just spreading out some of the makings and mulchings to take advantage of the free water falling from the skies. How happy for the gardens!

Don't want to mention the impending war any more until it gets hot and murderous. My naiveté in geopolitics was highlighted this morning by hearing someone like Mr Valder, former Chair of the Libs and a surprise anti-war supporter, remind us all that the decision to mobilise troops on ships and now pilots in fighter aircraft had to have been made many weeks ago – they have to stock up on toilet paper, marmalade, bandaids… bombs, bullets and this stuff doesn't turn up overnight. Of Course. And doesn't this make the PM even more duplicitous.

More cheerfully (actually not) is finishing the first novel on this semester's reading list, thomas Mann's Death in Venice. I had read this a lot of time ago when the Visconti film was reducing Sydney cinemas full of sad queens to heaving sobs. Forgot is was really a rather compact novella. Next up is Joyce's Protrait of the Artist etc which has the dubious reputation in my tiny world as my Most Read Novel. Somewhere in my past it figured as a necessary prequel to Ulysses which figured as one of those Essential Reads. I always seemed to get through the former but never made it to page one of the latter. I still haven't read it despite the emerging popularity of Bloomsday making it seem much more like fun than an obligation to the Art. The rest of the booklist makes it an unlikely event this time around. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing from the convenor of the course and having revealed the rationale behind the selection of the gloomy tomes.