The Heavens are Hungry

Yes. Heaven is watering our garden today. The waves on the beaches are thrashing the shore. Huge, very dramatic four meter waves pound the sand clawing back the sand beyond the thrashing whitewash edge of the Tasman Sea, which is what it is where I live in Sydney.

Slightly inland, where I live it is simply raining.

When I am writing these days in Coward's Castle there is a lovely spot outside where I set up my laptop and listen to the birds. One of the birds is Qantas since we are ever so slightly affected with traffic coming into land from far flung places. I love aeroplanes. I have since I was a kid. For me they spell exotique. They can take me places where I join my imagination.

Places I'd love to go:

1. New York. The big apple. Things happen here. People happen. I get a buzz. I think it's an either hate or love place - you do or you don't. I'm a do.

2. London. Was there twice in 07. Love to do a duo again. My son lives there. He loves it. Jump on a train over the canal and you can get to:

3. Paris. Different. Walkable. Eye Candy. Daughter loved NY, then London, then decided she'd do a Liza Doolittle there, open a corner bloom shop and live a dream. Me? I'd rather New York. But then there's...

4. Switzerland. We went there often in aroundabout the seventies, when I lived in Nigeria. Yes I did live in Nigeria. What was it like? It was strictly love/hate. I hated the robbers. They were scary. I loved drives in the country where we met the people. They are gorgeous. I want to go back but I don't. I don't want to spoil my memories of what I had back in those days because I suspect they are long gone. Not the lovely people in the country, they will never change. It's the cities that change. The cities which drag the innocent in to lose their innocence. Where the robbers get hungry for the spoils of theft. But at the moment it's Switzerland I talk of. That place where on-time means just that. Where the whiteness of mountains full of pines, where - oh just go there if you can. It's picture postcard. Which reminds me that I often went to:

5. Italy. I love Italy. The scooters hooting and tooting their way through the paved streets. I love the chaos that it is. So if you meet a long lost cousin in the street in your cars, you stop, have a chat. Horns toot, other Italians who don't know how long it is since you met cannot get through but Hay! Mama Mia! I haven't seen Gianni in two weeks! Wait! Wait! Mama Mia! Just for your screaming and tooting and the time I'm wasting telling you crazies to waste I have to spend longer cos you're interrupting me... hay hay...

6. Hong Kong. We lived here for a year. Well Hewhoshouldbeobeyed Lord Muck lived here for a year. I wafted in and out like Lady Muck backing and forthing between here and Sydney, while my children created havoc on their own at home 'alone'. There is a magic about Hong Kong. Indefinable. We lived in Mosque Street, near the escalators on the mainland. Not too far away from the Governor General's house and near where one took the cable train to the lookout. There was a bird in the tree across the road that I called the whoopee bird. I have no idea what it was but it was annoying. It did something like...

Whoop -> higher Whoop -> Higher WHOOP -> Even HIGHER WHOOP and then it'd wait. Or you'd wait, wait, wait, wait, come on you darn bird do it! Do it! Come on bird go go go <- <- <- <- <- then the whistle would go down the scales like a Nazi bomb just buzzing over wartime London.

7. Los Angeles. You are probably wondering why I've included this when I could go for places such as Amsterdam, or Antwerp. Wait. Los Angeles. I just like it. I can't explain. And also:

8. San Francisco. Ahhhhh. The Presidio. For some reason I have latched onto this treasure. It sings to me. Right under the armpit of the wonderful red bridge is this old army barracks/base. I can hear the beat of the music of that place of soldiers living their days, of the big bands of the era with the likes of Frank Sinatras singing big band songs, of those lives lived and lost at infancy of later teenagehood and early twenties...

9. Amsterdam. Only been there once but it was great. We did a bike trip. I discoverd that my bottom had feelings and that feeling it at the end of a day-trip through those streets out into the country kept me standing for at least two days afterwards.

10. New York. Did I say that already... Mmmm well... New Orleans. Oh my God is it hot in New Orleans. WE were there before the big storm. I loved it and I am sad for it. I'm not sure I want to see it in case it's lost some of that magic that was it. Day time, night time... fun time. Boy but was it hot there.

11. Solomon Islands. Now I have a memory of this place. A certain little island there that we stayed on by default. A no room at the Inn situation. The owner gave us the hut on the island owned by him a mile away by speed boat. We'd spent the day with people who reminisced about the Japanese soldiers left behind - never to surrender - after WWII and the battles of the Guada Canal. I was fascinated by the stories of how they'd put up speakers about the various islands and try to entice the soldiers out, telling them that the war was over. That was until the generator's one hour supply stopped and we were alone in the hut on our own island in the Pacific, just the two of us and oh no! How many Japanese soldiers?????? My husband reassured me. "Never mind we just shove our camera out the window and scream 'Mitzubishi, Toyota, Samsung, Canon!' We woke up in one piece in the morning and walked the silver shores completely alone in the world the next morning, at early dawn. Magic, absolute magic.

12. Israel. Jerusalem. Tel Aviv. Haifa. It's one of those places, which, like Switzerland lives up to your wildest imagination.

13. Here I am at thirteen and only starting. Two days ago I went on a trip to the Hunter Valley, the wine growing area. On the bus were people from all over the world and one couple from the US base in Okinawa. So I thought I must include Japan. It is wonder. Again I've only been there once and that was a long time ago. The people were so lovely. Welcoming and friendly.

And I will stop here because I'm making this my Thursday 13, late as usual.

I need to do a wash. It's not raining at the moment. It hasn't all morning. I just know if I hang a wash out it's going to open up the Heavens and make them hungry all over again.

Or I will write.

That's one of the reasons why it's nice to be an author. You always always always have an excuse.