It may be that I'm just getting older, but I find the winter this year quite a deal colder than last. I'm not sure that the statistics will bear me out, but the winds seem icier and my capacity to retain heat poorer, all pointing to lower averages. Even now, however, I read that this winter will be drier and warmer than the last, so maybe it is just me.

The old Nectre combustion heater is holding up well, though definitely in need of some maintenance. As mentioned in an earlier post, I began wood fires in late May (which is very early) and have kept them up every second night or so since. My woodpile is gradually diminishing and I'm uncertain whether we will make it to the end of July on the current stock.

Having said all that about the cold, the sunny days are really quite pleasant. Bikes rides require some judiciously assembled layers of clothing, but are certainly doable. The Mountains are beautiful in all seasons and it's exhilarating to whizz by views of distant peaks and valleys of bushland.

Such a nice place to live!

Reports of V. Putin's imminent demise have been prominent for some time since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. He has been variously, incurably ill, at risk of overthrow, of assassination and so forth. Of course, most recently, the shadowy Wagner Group, headed by the eccentric and possibly unstable Yevgeny Prigozhin, made a half-hearted attempt at some kind of coup, the nature and purpose of which is equally shadowy.

Putin does not come out of the coup attempt looking any stronger, rather the opposite, though I expect him to survive. Still, a wounded Putin is a dangerous Putin and the West would do well to take heed, lest the Russian President do something rash to secure his position at the top.

Zelensky will doubtless have a propaganda field day - that's to be expected - but Western leaders should resist poking the Bear.

Resentment is a very caustic thought and emotion, perhaps one of the worst. It is hard to get rid of even after you think you have got rid of it. You can say that you forgive someone a hundred times and think you have got past it, but then something small brings everything up again.

Resentment that comes of personal slights and hurts is often the hardest to erase because the hurt might still be buried deep long after the action or word has taken effect. It's personal nature tends to make it that much more searing or humiliating.

As a Christian, it my duty ( and my desire)  to forgive and give up any resentments. As Paul says in Ephesians 4.31, 

'Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.'

That doesn't leave a lot of room for resentment or envy or jealousy, which are all forms of bitterness or malice. They are a trio that always turn out for the worst.

Prayerful forgiveness and turning the matter over to God are certainly helpful. Surrendering wholly to the Lord gives you a much better chance of 'letting go.'

Being flawed as we are, it is always a work in progress.

In 1912, Thomas Hardy wrote a poem for the Titanic Disaster Fund, a matinee given at Covent Garden following the catastrophic sinking of RMS Titanic a month earlier. The Convergence of the Twain, is written in that slightly bleak, ironic style that Hardy excels in, though not all found the poem satisfactory.  

As the poet imagines it, the ship and the iceberg are created at the same time, as if destined for their ultimate 'convergence.'

    'For as the smart ship grew

    In stature, grace and hue

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.'

It was from Hardy's poem about the Titanic that I got the idea for the poem in the previous post (poor as it is compared to the master) that would reflect upon the demise of the Titan, in the very same spot that iceberg and ship once collided.

Trine is my best guess at three, as twain is for two.

Strange Convergences

Two old friends still meet,

Clenched in a watery frame,

One abruptly unformed,

The other an infinite blend.

A century of fame now

Beyond their intimate reckoning -

Torn steel cannot mend,

Nor same-ice recombine,

That invisible moment,

A voiceless slide,

Like a lissom dance,

Slight touch to foment

And dark waves to hide,

A starless settling.

To the twain who met,

A stranger arrives,

One not yet

On the sunless shore,

Or the shoreless sea,

In the crumpled dark -

Still, an emissary of light,

Of frank curiosity.

'Oh, welcome friend,

Our table's set,

Pull up a chair,

A trine are we.'

A few years ago when I was a volunteer guide at the Australian Maritime Museum, one of the more interesting exhibits was Challenging the Deep, a multi-media introduction to James Cameron's love of exploring the depths of the oceans in small submersible vehicles. It included some excellent modelling of the wreck of the Titanic, period costumes and Cameron's own take on exploring shipwrecks and other far deeper places. Doubtless he is a brave man.

I was thinking about this show this morning when I read of the disappearance of the submarine Titan, a small underwater craft designed to take tourists, amongst other things, to the resting place of the Titanic in the North Atlantic ocean. The surface vessel, the Polar Prince, lost contact with Titan about two hours into its descent. A major rescue operation is currently underway; the Titan has up to 5 days oxygen supply for the 5 submariners on the trip, who with any luck all will be found safe and sound. But it is a fraught situation and everything depends on just what might have gone wrong. Entanglement with wreckage of the Titanic, an electrical fire or hull breach would be deadly, as would sitting powerless on the ocean floor.  Not only that, but the conditions on the high sea, the weather and so forth can all hamper the discovery of the ship and rescue of the crew.

When I was a guide on the submarine HMAS Onslow at the AMM, I would often talk visitors through the rescue procedures available to such a craft in the 1990's based upon the manuals and reports I had read. The chances of survival were not considered great. Conditions had to be right for rescue or escape to occur. The Onslow is a vastly more capable boat in every respect to the Titan, which was described by one media outlet as 'little more than a mini-van-sized, pressurized viewing platform.' (The Guardian)

I am not a brave man when it comes to exploration in dangerous places. Not for me a Martian expedition or a trip to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. But I do wish the searchers well and hope, against what I know are lengthening odds, that they succeed in their mission.

Courtesy the Sydney Morning Herald and OceanGate Expeditions.

Chatting with my mum today, I was reminded that tomorrow is the anniversary of her arrival in Australia on the venerable SS Ranchi. On the 12th June, 1949, the reconverted former troop ship sailed into Sydney Harbour and tied up at Woolloomooloo. It was raining and cold and my grandmother (for she was also on board) remarked that they had been told that Australia was always warm and sunny. It being my grandmother's birthday, she probably felt that the elements should have been kinder that day.

These kind of journeys are invariable fateful, in the sense that something of the old way of life will have been changed forever as a result of those pair of tickets bought for a one-way trip to the other side of the world. Life in Australia, as similar as it may have seemed to life in England, meant, however, an entirely different universe of relationships, jobs, children, events and so forth which would inevitably follow. It is a journey that can rarely be 'untaken.' 

The SS Ranchi also had a colourful career.. Built as a liner by P&O in the 1920's, she sailed a scheduled route between England and Bombay, then later to the 'Far East.' She was requisitioned by the Royal Navy in 1939 and served as an armed merchant cruiser, then later as a troop ship. P&O finally got her back in 1947 where she was pressed into service as an 'emigrant ship' between the UK and Australia between 1948 and 1952. Her career ended when she was scrapped in 1953. Quite a career, don't you think?

SS Ranchi in her last iteration, as my mother would have seen her.

Photo courtesy State Library of  Victoria

One of the challenges of living in a national park in the vicinity of major tourist attractions is the insane amount of traffic that any holiday period or long weekend will produce. This being the June long weekend of the King's Birthday (That change will take some getting used to!), cars on the ascent to Katoomba are currently piled back two kilometres from the local traffic lights at Hazelbrook.

Since the Great Western Hwy is essentially the only road from east to west through the string of Mountain's towns and villages, locals have no choice but to stay at home or run the gauntlet of when and where traffic snarls and queues may occur. The GWH is that key artery in and out of this side of the Blue Mountains, so you can probably see my point.

It's almost enough to make one sympathize with what Parisians have to put up with. Parts of their city effectively cease to be their own. And yet, the tourist dollars that come in largely keep the place running. Getting the balance right is very difficult.

The passing of Rale Rasic is a sad moment for both his family and the football(soccer) community in Australia. If you don't know who Rasic is, picture this scenario.

Australian soccer in the early 1970's. Semi-professional (footballers always had 'other jobs'), divided heavily by ethnic loyalties, the also-ran amongst the football codes (League, Union and AFL), hampered by media prejudice and chronic underexposure. The Socceroos had never qualified for a World Cup.

Along comes a new coach, Rale Rasic, and guides this team of almost amateurs to the 1974 World Cup in Germany, a world cup comprising only 16 teams. We finished with a solitary point from a draw with Chile, having lost to the two Germany's in the early games. No disgrace, only honour and thousands of new fans from around the world.

He was many other things too, but this one supreme achievement places him amongst the greats of Australian sport.

Take a bow, Mr Rasic. And Rest in Peace.

News that a former US defence insider is claiming that the Pentagon, defence contractors, and the like are secretly hording the remains of crashed alien craft and their dead crew members would be very interesting, nay extraordinary news, if even a scintilla of evidence had been produced.

I mean, some alien DNA, a circuit, a piece of a spacecraft, something which conclusively demonstrates that the allegation (which is all it is) is true. I won't be holding my breath!

Imagine this. An alien civilisation, so advanced on us that they can send spacecraft across interstellar space, negotiating all the hazards and technological challenges that that presents, at speeds that we cannot imagine, and preserving the crew on the journey, arrives on Earth only to crash land. Plausible? What do you think?

Because I have been recording programs for 2RPH from home, I have been struck, as you might well imagine, by the sheer amount of ambient noise in the background. I live in a township in the Blue Mountains, a city within a National Park. So you might also expect a greater amount of peace and quiet, relative to our Sydney cousins just down the mountain.

It might the case and if so, then Sydney must be a aural nightmare! From my back garden I can hear all manner of noisy birds (don't get me started on cockatoos!) but they can be mostly screened out of the recording afterwards. Then there are power tools - mowers, edgers, whipper snippers, chain saws, mulchers, leaf blowers, drills, pneumatic hammers and so on. They are a constant almost seven days a week, from 7am in the morning.

What we gained in convenience, we lost in our daily commune with the natural world, which beckons us to listen, beyond the baleful cacophony.