Australia.

It is nearly sixty years since I first began a love affair with Australia when I read my first Nevil Shute book. Although I have never actually been there, and probably never will now.This is almost certainly a good thing as I doubt it is the Australia today that I first fell in love with.

It was still a brave, new world in those days. Tough and often dysfunctional families who somehow managed to survive in the outback, with nothing much more than sheep for company.
Most of them managed to make huge amounts of money eventually, which they often didn’t know how to spend.

That was the time when I should have gone there. I guess that I simply didn’t know how.

Stepmother thought about it because her brother had gone, but poor old Daddy nearly had a fit. He had lost his Irish thing by then, and preferred boring, grey old England.
His forte was mathematics, and he would never have made a sheep farmer.

Interestingly, I inherited his love of mathematics, but then I apply it to everything. I would have known how many sheep we had, and how many acres we owned.

In fact, I have probably got more relations in Australia than in Ireland. There aren’t many Mitchells in Ireland these days, not even in Mitchellstown. On the border of Tipperary, if anyone is interested.
The Mitchells are a wandering race. I only managed to get to France before I ran out of money for boat fares. And besides, I like it here anyway.

But this Blog is more about Nevil Shute. What a glorious story teller he was. I have read them all now, and several times, and will no doubt read them all again when I need a lift to my spirit.

Read a Nevil Shute book today. You could start off with, “In The Wet.” I guarantee that you will be hooked.

Circumspection.

Hi All,

Now that is hopeful, if nothing else.  But I only found my way here by route of Bill Sticker.  He’s a laugh and a half if ever I saw one.  And his Blog gives me access to mine. So there you go.  Word Press is incestuous.

But I really did have to talk about the night sky early this morning.  I was actually only up and about at 2am because the rotten little rat bag had been on the piss and left all of the bloody lights on yet again.  And I was worried in case he had fallen down the stairs, and left the lights on.

Oh My.  It was glorious.  Stars that I didn’t even know existed.  Millions of them.  Pitch Black. After I had turned off aforementioned lights.

Sadly, I am entirely incapable of explaining just how glorious it was.  But it is permanently imprinted on my mind’s eye.  I am never going to forget that one ever.  It doesn’t matter if it never happens again.  The first is always the best and only.

Thank You to my particuliar God for such a beautiful thing.