Storm Goletti.The storm named after an Italian Cockerel was scheduled to strut around our Peninsular from mid-afternoon.
My grandad kept Italian Bantams at his smallholding attached to his pub. They were very opinionated little hens with fancy feet and extravagant plumes of fancy feathers. Tsthe hens very much liked to sit on eggs, not necessarily their own. The pub guard- geese were very much working women who left their over-large eggs in the tender care of the fussy little bantams. Several bantams sharing the care of one goose egg. The Italian Bantam Cockerel went on guard duty with the geese. He almost certainly thought he was in charge. He just fussed around at their feet, occasionally attempting a more sexual liaison with no chance of success.
Storm Goletti was nothing like a Bantam but everything like an arrogant Cockerel in our neighbourhood. Noisy, all over the place . It knocked down our bins and scattered and picked over our rubbish. We got off lightly.
But I did put the sensation of the storm to good use and painted a stormy version of my beloved sea pool at Coogee.
Storm over Coogee
I was even giddy enough to use hand made paper. What else could I do when confined to the house after a government Red Warning for winds and flying debris. But there is nothing quite like painting a storm while in a storm.
Just 3 bobbers , braved a bouncy sea yesterday. 15 degrees in the water and 10 degrees out, made for an enjoyable swim but a very chilly chattering session afterwards. I was unintentionally glam having showered and washed my hair just before the bob.
Glam or not it is not every day that we get to swim with a submarine.
Some people travel thousands of miles to swim with dolphins. Swimming with submarines has less of a cache, but in 2025 we have had both experiences in our little bay.
NRP Tridente
The Portuguese submarine was much easier to catch on camera. No need for arrows to point out the dark shape in this photograph.
I woke up cold this morning. The first time for many months. I also have a planned dip in the sea. Now I accept that I am fully in the Autumn Zone.
When my bed feels snug and the thought of a cold swim feels like madness.
Sunrise has yet to occur, although not a deal breaker, some sunshine would be most welcome.
Yesterday the sun made a most welcome visit to my morning dip.
Which was all very energising for the day ahead. Which is the point where reality steps in. Yesterday’s dip was timed to fit in perfectly with the day’s chores. The first of which was a Vermin survey at a tennis club that I help to run.
The club overlooks all my swimming zones. Proximity to the sea means this could be perfect Real Estate for rats. However we have a very diligent and effective Rat detective who ensures we have no long tailed members using the club on a regular basis.
A stormy day yesterday provided the perfect illustration of a safe harbour. 100 yards and less than five minutes walk divided these two photographs yesterday. The difference is almost unbelievable.
The storm and some commitments kept me out of the water yesterday. But my short walk along Admiralty Road on a stormy day gave me some lovely hugs as I met fellow Stonehouse friends also making the journey from storm to safe harbour.
I’ve been a lone bobber more often this year than any other. A good summer and warm water calls me when the tide is high.
Lone bobbing and group bobbing are two completely different experiences. Group Bobbing is a life-affirming experience that jiggles my soul and gives me plenty to reflect on.
My Private stairway to watery heaven.
Lone bobbing is all about quiet reflection . Just bobbing about in the water pleasurably reflecting on life.
Group bobbing is the most restorative of the two submersions. The weight of the world can float off my shoulders when I am bobbing with the bobbers. My grumpies/worries really do get reframed by social bobbing. I don’t believe I would go for a lone bob if I was cross with life or people. Maybe I should try it sometime.
Then to finish off, live music from the Barracks. Who wouldn’t want to listen to a tribute band playing The Killers and Kings of Leon and any other band of that genre and era until 1:30 am. It was too hot to sleep, so roll with it in a comfy chair with a cup of tea. I have had worse experiences at actual festivals.
All punctuated with swimming in the sea. Very cool.
My mother, who was in most ways a very pragmatic person, had a guilty secret. She loved a romantic novel.
I have inherited her pragmatism but not her taste in books. Romance books are not my thing unless the romance is just one facet of an engaging narrative. Romancing, romantic gestures etc, just feel a little icky and coersive in specifically romantic novels. There is nearly always a power imbalance or jeopardy involved in the interactions between the people involved, there would be no story without such things.
However, as a woman whose glass is habitually half-full there must be a huge dose of my mothers love of romance residing in my soul, because life is sometimes shitty and yet I always try to find something positive in whatever situation.
Noon
The tidal pool was my destination for the morning dog walk and later I swam from the beach beside it.
For both visits it was rather a seaweedy experience.
8 a.m and noon.
But my glass-half-full, romantic head will only ever remember a beautiful morning walk and a delicious lunchtime swim, not the weed that made the pool unusable and stuck on my skin. Romance is seeing beyond irritation, embracing the moment and finding the golden nuggets in every experience. However mad that seems.
Not paying too much attention to the seaweed of life.
Reality of a good day.Romance of a good day.
Harold S Kushner* emphasized the importance of finding good in every situation, stating, “If you concentrate on finding whatever is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul,”.
*
Soul nurturing, that is pretty romantic in my opinion.
This blog could go one of two ways or it could just celebrate the first Passion Flower of the season. Passion flower plants were a gift from our builder last May. He gave us three leggy plants to trail over the trellis he had just installed on the top of our wall. They put on a bit of growth last summer and were repotted this Spring. A flower and later in the season edible Passion Fruits is on our wish list.
Not on our wish list was a domestic fatburg. When you buy an old house things like drains are a bit of a dark art. With no warning our kitchen drain failed spectacularly this week. The first sign was when the dishwasher suffered from reflux and bleated pathetically. We did not recognise this as an early symptom of an apocolypse. Dynarod were booked but not for several days. In a very busy week I had planned myself a day of domestica yesterday.
The blocked drain was a bit of a head scratcher. We do not have the modern luxury of an inspection cover or any means of identifying the direction of flow or indeed stasis in our case.
This being an Edwardian house I attempted an Edwardian solution. Boiling water/ Bicarbonate of Soda/ white vinegar. A lava like eruption of gunge bubbled away at the access point of the drain. Probing with a stick revealed standing water to a depth of almost 3 feet, a metre even.
Armed only with a pair of surgical gloves for human examination* and a plunger more serious intervention was required.
What I needed was veterinary gauntlets for Cow Gynaecology.
Laying on my belly I plunged my arm and plunger into the depths and achieved a very good attatchment to something. My plunger resolutely hung on to whatever unseen object I had chanced upon. One hand in the supersoft and slippy water was not enough so another hand had to go in. This is taking moments to write but it was easily two hours of time as I pondered and considered each next move.
After several awkward pulls on my plunger there was a sudden movement and a giant domestic fatburg was delivered at face level. Not a pleasant experience. Dirty water gurgled and then settled, only at a slightly lower water level. I waited a bit, hoping for a miracle but none was forthcoming. So I repeated the plunger experiment. This time things were a little easier. One more two handed pull and a second fatburg was delivered and with that the grungy water disappeared with hollow glugs and the sound of a minor victory.
Dynarod cancelled.
And so back to the Passion Flower, and there is a connection. Firstly the passion flower cheered me up on my many trips back into the house, once to receive a parcel, for a neighbour, that required photo evidence. Not a bit of me was a photo opportunity yesterday.
The colours of the fatburg were very similar to the Passion Flower. Mostly creamy with evidence of culinary adventures with turmeric, chilli, tomato, beetroot and inexplicably a blueberry colour.
Twin fatburgs and a plunger and a Passion Flower. Quite the Day.
Except in this village in a city, the pavements are littered with quotes from the Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle. This one is entirely appropriate.
P.s On one of the sites where my blog appears Meta offer an analysis. A case of Metapondering perhaps?
Since I transitioned from a career in Medical Imaging that could never have been a balanced work/life experience to the life of a work from home artist, a state of equilibrium exists most of the time. Our move to a seaside suburb of a city was a deliberate attempt at making life more balanced.To throw a little spice into the mix I also do admin for a tennis club. Prior to that I did admin for a large group of Artists. That involved far too much driving and artists can be very slippery fish to manage. The tennis club is just a short walk away and the view of the office is enchanting.
As it happens some slippery fish also play tennis but not in quite the same proportions as the art group. Beyond the unpredictable admin of a tennis club my work/ life balance pivots on a fulcrum of domestic admin v creativity. The balance changes on a daily basis.
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