Heat

..the
family when I was a little boy. I think camping’s the present-day manifestation
of men’s need to talk to Nature – and perhaps for Nature to talk
back. It’s safer in this case to have Nature represent God and I think
that most blokes would be comfortable with the communing with Nature metaphor.
‘Going to have a chat with God’ might elicit the odd raised eye-brow,
especially when combined with ‘and shoot a few rabbits’..
Anyway, I can do without camping these days. My favourite thing about camping
as a very young chap were the cups of tea made with condensed milk (and sugar,
of course) served in a chipped enamelled tin cup, which sounds utterly repulsive
now. I also enjoyed the lunches of salads and tinned tongue, which again sounds
far less attractive to me now than it used to.
But what I loved most was fooling around in the Leader river, which guarded
the road into the Mendip Hills homestead that the Rutherfords called home, and
which was where we used to camp. Bro’ Dick and I would bravely wade in
the stream, which was quite shallow at that point as it was a ford in the absence
of a bridge, and try to catch cockabullies*. The water had a particular smell
as it rushed over the smooth river stones that I only smelled again when we
stopped off at a stream on the way back from the Thredbo Blues Festival back
in 2004.**
I should add that Richard and I were devotees of Cuddlepot and Snugglepie and
we imagined that by sticking gum leaves on our backs we would be able to fly
– and round about dusk that seems eminently possible to a very young chap in
the fading light. Who needs God when you have a vivid imagination?
But, hold on, I hear you say. This is the South Island of New Zealand and you’re
talking of Cuddlepot and Snugglepie and gum leaves stuck on your backs. What’s
the story? I have only limited information, but I believe the Rutherfords arrived
in New Zealand after a sojourn in South Australia and they brought some Aussie
keepsakes with them. Consequently, there was a long line of gum trees along
the road leading to the homestead and some more exotic eucalypts right next
to the garage as I recall.
So it’s possible, now that I reflect on it, that my emigrating to Melbourne
back in 1966 was, in a way, a return to my family’s home country.
I was thinking about home and country last night when I attended the Victoria
Police Academy Carols at the Glen Waverley Police Academy. (It’s a long
story). There’s an awful lot about this kind of ritual which is unconvincing,
starting off with the fairly insipid involvement of the several hundred-strong
audience and then just whole Christmas thing, most obviously, that it’s
celebrated at the wrong time of the year here in the southern hemisphere. The
timing of the celebration of the birth of Jesus has been adapted by the Church,
some would say somewhat prosaically, to coincide with the pagan festivals of
renewal that occur on the winter solstice. Well, alright, but why do we then
persist in pretending that it’s winter in the middle of summer? Why haven’t
we similarly adapted the timing of this festival to the realities of living
in this wide brown land at the other end of the earth? I know some thoughtful
people do celebrate Christmas in June or July, but it’s the sort of thing
that should’ve been considered by the founding fathers at the time of
colonisation. It begs the question; if something that basic hasn’t been
sorted by now, what hope has the republic movement got?

*Freshwater Cockabullies, stocky type of fish, each with a rounded tail,
two dorsal fins, and a blunt head. They usually remain on or close to the
river bed and swim in short, swift bursts. They are members of the cockabully
family, Eleotridae, which occupy marine and fresh water in the tropical and
subtropical to temperate regions of the Pacific and South East Asia. However,
in New Zealand the family is represented by species primarily found in fresh
water.
http://waterwondref.blogs-de-voyage.fr/

**Stop
Press 6 – scroll down to the bottom of the page