saying goodbye

So I'll say goodbye to you
my love
I'll say goodbye to you,
You've been my love
these 14 years
and Ill say good bye
to you.

Last night my marriage ended. As a result of my stupidity, my darling love of 14 years, my beautiful Nadia, is leaving me. My foolishness, shortsightedness and lack of self-awareness have brought this to bear. I have lost close friends, my choir, my life. I am in disgrace.

And worse yet, my little boy Tom has a split existence between this lovely home I sit in now, and the shabby little box around the corner.

Why have I thrown such a beautiful life away for idle foolishness, for idiotic pranking? What's wrong with me?

I don't know, but my heart is aching and there is nothing I can do about it.

Christmas Eve

Reindeer food: check!
Presents wrapped and stowed: check!
Santa's biscuit and milk: check!
Santa's key on outside latch: check!
Tom sleeping: check!

Good night.

The weather is certainly interfering with our holiday plans. It seems unlikely now that we will go camping at Kangaroo Valley, unless a serious turnaround occurs. Despite the most unusual appearance of the sun this afternoon, we will be in for a summer of coolness and rain. That's the prediction. Nadia and Elaine don't seem keen either, the one being sick and the other injured.

I don't blame anyone for not wanting to sleep in a giant nylon sleeve on soggy turf. Nor having their aquatic activities, of which there are a plenitude at KV, curtailed by poor weather. So we are focussed on Christmas, now only two days away, and the other kinds of things we might do during the end of year break.

Almost all of our Christmas shopping, save vegetables, is done, though very few pressies are wrapped. Not a chore I look forward to.

But I'll try.

light reading

Putting Tom to bed tonight, it became apparent early on that this was another night for big questions. He was curious where negative numbers came from and how they might be used. Then he wanted to know where the universe came from. Not being one to ignore a hit out of left field, I told him that the prevailing view from scientists (massively simplified) was that a singularity occurred about 15 billion years ago in which a tiny, tiny speck expanded very quickly and has been growing ever since. Where did the speck come from, he asked?

For me, that's where theology becomes important. Did God make the speck, he asked? First causes. Straight to the nub of the matter. Well, maybe, I said. It's as reasonable an idea as any others I have heard, and a good deal less complicated.

Those interstices between the scientific and the religious always interest me. They seem to be interesting a five year old boy too.

more rain

instead of whiskers
thin forests of velutinous moss layer
my morning face

Carols

Crowd Around in full cry at Hazelbrook PS Carols last Saturday night.

cupcakes

Tomorrow Tom has his end-of-year school party, and we are allocated the making of cupcakes. A classful of cupcakes. It might have been carrot sticks or party pies or packets of crisps, all of which require a simple purchase from any grocer. But it wasn't to be. Cupcakes is our lot and they will not be from a packet mix. Nadia is sure of that.

Now that's fine really as we like cooking at #9 and little cakes in pretty paper cups are no challenge. But today my wife noticed a little caveat on the blue school request sheet - no nuts and, um, no eggs. Well, nuts I can live with, as every third child seems allergic to them these days. But eggs. How is one to make a cake, or twenty cakes as in our case, without the addition of this central ingredient? (A rhetorical question, dear reader. I know that it's possible.)

So platefuls of jam and white choc chip cakes will be swanned into Hazelbrook PS in the morning, with egg.

I got an exemption.

Since the demise of the Ariaz and the ascent of the ipod, I have been re-engaged with podcasts. Is there anything better than walking in the Mountains whilst listening to a witty discussion of American politics(such as Slate's Political Gabfest) or an eridite exegesis on culture or history, such as BBC 4's In Our Time? Well, yes, of course there is. It's all about personal taste. It's just what I've been doing lately and enjoying immensely.

Last night's Carols went well, being in every sense a community event. The sound system wasn't very good, it was almost impossible to hear announcements, children and adults moved and chatted throughout, and um, my solo was cut short, but, these points actually prove my argument. A lot of work went into the event, but that sense of matters percolating in and out of competent reality persisted. There is a kind of joy in things not being quite right, of things being a little loose at the ends.

Why? I don't know. There is no sense of the phony or pretentious. Nothing is airbrushed or overly scripted. It's really a community thing unmediated by special interests with something to plug.

Something like that.

deck the quad

Tonight we have our annual Christmas Carols, moved from its regular venue at Gloria Park to the local public school. The erratic weather is the principal culprit.
And for the first time Crowd Around will be singing at this event. It's fair to say that carols are not our stock-in-trade (though, back in the mists, we once did some lovely arrangements of Silent Night and Away in a Manger), so we will be singing gospel numbers. At least God gets a respectful mention.
I have a brief and unsought-after solo in the distinctly non-gospel Irish Heartbeat (Van Morrison), a song which has precious little to do with religion, though rather a lot to do with family. I think that makes it a reasonably kosher proposition, especially given the secular audience attending.
As I write, the sun is out and it's just possible that the grass might have dried at Gloria Park. But too late, we are stuck with the asphalt and passing highway traffic, which is just fine. After all, it's the spirit of the thing that counts.

oh, summer is limping
yes, like an old man encrutched
in misty silence

Well, time does move on, doesn't it? Nothing much to show for the last three months on this blog and somewhat at a loss to explain it. Letting things slide is never an excuse, but the fact is that I just haven't felt like writing, perhaps because there have been other things to do.

As mentioned I indulged quite a lot of time in listening to podcasts on my little Philips MP3 player. Walking and listening to broadcasts on politics, society and philosophy (to name but a few) is very agreeable, giving me both an education and some exercise. It saves on quite a lot of reading time too, but, as you might have experienced, where there is a gap, there is a queue.

So now the Christmas tree is up and summer has spluttered into December, with record low temperatures. Our gas heaters are on today, remarkably, and people are done up in winter gear. Right on cue, the Lawson Pool pump has gone rogue and the water temperature was, well, chilly, when I slid in this morning. Reminding myself that the Bondi Icebergs like a winter swim with extra ice in the water, I ploughed on with intrepid though ungainly dexterity.

Two weeks ago, my trusty (and already alluded to) MP3 player gave up the ghost and my kindly wife bought me an early Christmas pressie, an ipod touch. Disinclined as I am to Apple Inc. I have been pleasantly surprised by its capability and just hope that it will be reliable. But the less said of gadgets, the better.

I note with interest the implosion of Herman Cain, whose steadfast denials of moral wrongdoing came apart at the seams as more and more women came forward. It's not possible to deny everything, surely, but Herman gave it his best shot.

And in Australia, the Gillard Gov't appears to have ended the year on a positive note. It's hard to know if its luck will continue into next year. Oh if only those Liberals can get a pasting somehow in 2012!