Bogongs rule OK

I’m becoming a bit of a gardener at least to the extent that watching, Gardening Australia with Peter Cundall, when I get home from work on Saturday evening, makes me so. I’m finding that watching others probing wet earth and worms, crawling about and pruning overgrown plants very relaxing at the weeks end. Touring large and beautiful Hunter Valley and Southern Highland estates that must require the dedication of two or more full time curators, without ever swatting at a fly or mozzie is also very satisfying. Add the shows half hour duration to this equation and you have what I call the perfect gardening experience.

The problem is that lulled by this pastoral and aided by couple of glasses of cardboard, it’s very difficult to stay awake till nine twenty for the wonderful Side Show or the equally delicious RocKwiz. Usually I must content myself with experiencing whichever is tuned in, as interruption or quasi direction to whatever dreams I may be having before finding enough consciousness, fueled by bladder pressure, to drag myself off the couch, via the bathroom, to bed. My Saturday Night Fever you might call it, has to be measured with a thermometer as there are no other observable signs, and even this will probably register a slight lowering of temperature.

At least I woke early today and in good form to vac up the bogongs. Haven’t those buggers provided us with some entertainment this year. Bunnings has done a roaring trade in fly mesh with folk desperate to keep them out. Good luck I tell them, those bogos will find a way in. My car is full of them. On Wednesday night when I started the engine to come home they swarmed about the cabin, which they had mistaken for a cave, until they calmed down. The next day I chanced to open the passenger door and a bunch of them enjoying the warmth and darkness of the door seal, quivered, drew their wings across their eyes and complained; “turn off the bloody light” Whilst I’m not one who, like some I know, can turn apoplectic in the presence of small strange fast moving insects, I don’t encourage them and there will be some who will say that the poisons I have commissioned to be spread throughout residences I have occupied places me firmly in the anti insect camp. However there is something strangely friendly about these soft furry fellows that makes me feel that if enough of them formed a large enough clump I might keep them as a pet. Is it only me? I guess so. Of course there is a dark side to this once important source of protein to mountain dwelling aborigines and that is that they now transport arsenic from Southern Queensland and South Australia where they spend their formative years (as miners no doubt, hence the arsenic) to the Snowy Mountains (or my car) where it leaches from their dead bodies into the pristine soil giving it a taste of the future when these mountains themselves will be turned into mines.

I went to THE CITY Ta! Ta! today partially to research lanes for Clover’s Mini Bar scheme and partly to find a wedding present for Alice. Unfortunately I found nothing good enough for Alice, see photo


And no lanes suitable for Clover though I did find a movie set lane which was so uninspiring, see lack of photo


(not a photo to be seen)


It wasn’t a waste of time though. I did find this handsome man made cave at 9 Clarence Street and so had the Bogongs, in their plentitude. Sorry about the shake, I over estimated the control I thought I would get from those two glasses of wine with lunch. These guys are thirty odd meters up, all trying to get through the cracks between the ceiling tiles to the, must be a cave, beyond. I wish I’d had a big bass drum or amplified guitar. Bogongs must be very sensitive to vibration I think, and sound can provide that. I’ll never forget when Alice and I were at The Eagles Nest, a venue at the top of the chair lift at Thredbo, for an eleven AM gig at the Blues Festival there. When Who’s Muddy Shoes, the band, struck their first chord, the whole room was filled with disturbed moths. Most of us could just keep our mouths shut and put our hands over our drinks but I did feel sorry for the singer.






This isn’t anything to do with Bogongs you’ll be relieved, It’s a corner of an exhibition room at the MCA


Here’s another corner.


The room had four corners, bet your sorry you missed it

These youngsters are just auditioning for the Opera (house)


Oh yes. You were there too Kell.