Peave Av Project

The Pitt Family Property Empire is expanding. The current project in Peace Av, Warragul sees me laying pavers, shovelling soil and breaking concrete like a convict. I've not been this muddy since I was in primary school. Even the dog gets involved.

A future career as a bricklayer is looming...

Muckin' About

So what does an engineer do when he's unemployed and bored?
Starts pulling something apart, of course.
You may all think this is way too geeky to blog about, but I'm excited, and that's what counts.

Anyone who's visited Hazel Dell in the last six months would have tripped over the rusty trailer (frame only) parked out the front. Well now it's "up on blocks" and some serious work is planned.

I've scored a pair of chunky HQ wheels and hubs (thanks geoff), and with a little welding, a lick of paint and alotta elbow grease this baby is going to be seriously mean. And green, I think. Still deciding on the colour.
Stay tuned for updates...

The Dark Shape

I was surfing off Fairhaven last week at dusk, the light was getting bad but the waves were great so I kept at it. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I noticed a dark shape breach the surface briefly about 50m further out to sea. By the time I turned my head it was gone. Trick of the imagination, I figured.

Then I thought I saw it again.

A little spooked, I decided I'd had enough for the day and caught the next wave in.

Last night I was out at the same spot, same time, when I saw it again. This time MUCH CLOSER - like about 15m off my RHS.

One of the surfers nearby had caught my attention and pointed, saying: "Hey check it out, a dolphin..."

Phew.

How romantic

What is it about sunsets and sunrises that keeps me ranting on about them?
This morning at first light the view across the bay was superb: Arthur's seat and the Mornington Penisular clearly silhouetted against the orange sky - but once the sun had risen they were obscured by the haze.


Tonight, I was admiring the view as I sat on my board off Fairhaven, waiting for the next roller. Eastwards, the Split Point lighthouse was bathed in golden light with a backdrop of pure pink. West, towards Lorne the sun caught the undersides of the clouds and turned them orange. The cold but clean surf was a deep greeny-blue and out to sea the sky had turned twilight purple. What a magnificent setting - why the hell would I ever go back to the city?

Tough Life

So I'm back, and June finds me with a book sitting by this fire...
looking out over this view...

contemplating whether life gets any better than this. Honestly.

Oh, 'cept that I'm broke and unemployed, but who needs money these days anyway?

A is for Apple

A is for Apple
B is for Bowel
C is for Cost
D is for Days, and Departure
E is for Everything
F is for Friday, and Fruit
G is for Goodness
H is for Harry, and Hovel
I is for India
J is for Judo
K is for Kingchrome
L is for Last, and Loose
M is for Maximum, Meal and Movement
N is for Nevermind, and Noose
O is for Orangutan
P is for Prophecy
Q is for Quintessential
R is for Rampage, and Roaring
S is for Since
T is for Temperature
U is for Underneath, and Ugly
V is for Violent
W is for Wishful
X is for Xenophobic
Y is for Yes, and Yellow
Z is for Zero

Life

Wow. Two months really flies.

I spent a hour or so last night at the 'Gateway to India': British built monument here in Mumbai that is traditionally where you enter India (if travelling by boat from the motherland, that is...) It was fittingly where I started my trip, and just as appropriately where I've finished; it was also the gateway through which the british Quit India in 1947.

India is not like any other country I've travelled to. (which is a few - last count over 40). There's something about the place that has taken me a while to put my finger on, something that makes the place so intriguing, so appealing, so fustrating, so insane.
With over a billion people and such a mix of religions in close promixity it's amazing this place hasn't gone up in smoke (the 1947 massacres and Kashmir excluded). But what is perhaps most confronting for someone from a western background is the absence of privacy, particularly for the poor. Back home in Australia, where everyone has their 1/4 acre block and their own backyard, they tend to stick to it - you spend most of your life behind closed doors, in the privacy of your own home.
But here, it's all out on the street and shared with those around you. People eat/sleep/talk/shiver/laugh/shit/play/sweat/cry/wash/die/live right in front of you - it's all there to be seen. It must take an incredible amount of tolerance to be able to live your life when every facet of it is open to observation by your neighbours, and complete strangers.

I admire them. I don't know how they do it. I consider myself pretty well travelled, and a reasonably cool character who can handle pretty oppressive circumstances, but here in India I've had not one but THREE instances where I thought I might actually go insane: I had to close my eyes, take a deep breath and make a beeline for an airconditioned luxury hotel or restaurant to recover.

Maybe it's that I try to paste my western Ideals and lifestyle over an Indian substrate - with varying success (as did the British some centuries ago), or maybe it's just that they're bred tougher out here.

Who knows. What is true about India, though, is that life, all aspects of it, are very much visible.

Icing on the cake

So I fly home friday - the trip has been than I hoped for. To top it off, the most serene monument ever built for love: The Taj Mahal.
Ignoring my heat stroke, I was first into the grounds, meaning I have some tourist free snaps. Woo hoo!






The news this morning said that the monsoon has arrived in Mumbai - thank god. I'll be able to get out of this heat, this inescapable, debilitating heat...

STATS:
========
LBM: 9
VBM: 2
MT: 47
DSD: 60
LMC: 0.12

Certified

I didn't realise this was something to be that proud of...