A Dress for the Bride

You may recall before my sojourn in the bush, Xavier had given Ariadne an extraordinary ring for their betrothal. It seems my disappearance had a dampening effect on Xavier (who experience teaches us is a mercurial fellow). Now that I have returned his spirits are again buoyant. He says the merfolk of his watery psyche have lifted him from the ocean deeps, where his only companions were eyeless phosphorescent eels, back to balmy shallows teeming with coral and Picasso fish. He and Ariadne are feverishly planning their wedding. On my suggestion Ariadne has turned to Norma Jean for haute couture.
Together we made our way to Norma Jean's place, where she fed us tea with blueberry scones and whipped cream. Magazines were flipped through and red carpet dresses were examined from gala do's the world over. Now Ariadne is such a slender reed of a girl, one could justifiably call her 'stick thin', that a lovely elegant sweep of silk seemed to be gaining favour. Ariadne was positive at first but as page after page was turned her mood changed. She lapsed into quiet contemplation, the pictures strewn across the table before her.
Norma-Jean busied herself with the oven and I watched her pet Axolotyl, Hieronymous, eating a little piece of raw fish (he loves sushi Norma Jean tells me). We intended to give Ariadne a moment to collect herself. Suddenly she swept all the magazines onto the floor and declared
"This is NOT for me". With the intensity of her small frame and the quivering form of her Jack Russell Matilda by her side she commanded our attention.
“ My friends” she declared “I am not such a one as these” she indicated celebrity flesh, “nor these” with a sweep of her hand towards the bridal magazines. “I have an idea...” and grabbing pencil and paper she sketched for us a vision so astonishing we were left speechless. Even Hieronymous seemed surprised.
After another pot of tea conversation resumed and the practical particulars were broached.
Xavier is not happy at being excluded from the surprise but as he plans something no doubt equally startling is keeping quiet about it under his Admiral's plume. I do hope he leaves his Trident at home on the wedding day. Which my friends, is planned for May the 13th.

New Elements

In keeping with my new found enthusiasm I have revived my collecting, or rather it has revivified within me. As you may notice there are two new elements to my page, these being Joker of the Day and Hotel/Motel of the Day. They are fairly self explanatory- I am collecting Jokers and postcards of hotels and motels. I would rather like to stay at the Skyline, it looks charming.

Home Comforts

It is so good to be home!!! I love my rooms (which I have reoccupied), I love the city, I love the autumn chilly air, I love strong coffee, I love goat's cheese souffle, I love the nightly screeching of the flying foxes as they feast on seasonal figs in the trees outside my windows, I love my friends, I love random radio wisdom and music.
My bearded Druid self, that wise and solitary being with a surprising affinity for trees, is reacquiring an urban patina and rediscovering the delights of the city.

I visited with Norma Jean yesterday. Of all my friends she remained strangely aloof when I returned. Thinking perhaps my unkempt state was offensive to her haute couture sensibilities I made an appointment with her. She, you may remember, is my hair replacement specialist, bespoke tailor and psychic advisor.
I arrived at her door with a small posy of forget-me-nots which finally made her smile and she ushered me into her kitchen, a place of home comforts, where we sat at the table and shared a pot of tea and a plate of delightful cakes. In reply to my compliment on their highly edible qualities she regained all her old animation and sprang to the sideboard from whence she retrieved a plastic box. This she set before me and declared
“My loyalties to Constance Spry are not shaken, dear friend, but I have found a most excellent extension to my mystical tool basket.”
This object I was then invited to examine and I found it to contain “Marguerite Patten's Recipe Cards”, a remarkable collection and she promised to give me a reading soon.
“But not today” she said, “today we must recivilize you”. Which is exactly what she did using various clippers, snippers and pluckers.

So I am feeling dapper again, I am putting on my winter fat thanks to cakes (as pictured above, Norma Jean claims I need fattening up after my bush diet) and Norma Jean has forgiven my disappearance, ah life is sweet again...

My Friends!

I have returned.

After so long an absence you may have thought I had dissolved into my component parts and taken the path from found to lost again. But no it is not so and the explanation is this. I have had amnesia!

In a nutshell, on my travels with Norma Jean and Xavier (undertaken as a road trip after Xmas you may remember), I went bush walking by myself in the very early hours of a glorious summer's day and was chased by a wild pig, between whom and her den of piglets I had inadvertently strayed.

This is where all becomes hazy and my miasma began. I gather I crashed blindly through the scrub, heart pounding, with the squeals and shrieking of the monstrous porcine beast at my heels until I flew headlong into a tree and was left senseless on the ground. This apparently was sufficient to satisfy the pig as I woke some time later, unmolested, but totally blank in every aspect as to who I was and where. Having in my panic strayed from the worn track, I was wandering through the bush for the entirety of that day, in a childlike but somewhat bewildered state.

Hunger and thirst soon became strong imperatives and luckily in the cool of the day I came upon a stream and was able to drink from it. Shadows stole across the waterway and the loneliness of my situation began to weigh heavily upon me as I sat upon a rock contemplating the water. That night the tinkle of the stream was my company as I nestled at the feet of a stand of Casurina Pines upon the bed of needles they had so generously provided. It was in this sad state that I awoke the next morning, conscious that I had lost...something...but truly not able to grasp it.
So began my sojourn in the bush, and a tale of remarkable survival they tell me it is too. I will carry forever in me the murmurings and rhythms of that patch of the earth and perhaps it is more home to me now than anywhere before or after. Between the struggle to survive and the growing intimacy with that place, memory, fleeting at first and more insistent later, returned to me, until one day I awoke, myself and aware again, most pressingly of the angst my sudden disappearance would have caused my friends.

And so I emerged from the bush onto the road, a rather startling sight perhaps as you can see, and was rescued by a kind family of Finnish tourists, who I think rather had the impression that this sort of thing happens all the time down under. Needless to say my reappearance caused something of a sensation and Xavier has been persuaded only with much effort on my part not to hunt down the pig and spear it with his Trident (which I report he is still very much attached to) And so I say again, Hello Friends! I am pictured here on my road trip, and after my time in the bush.