Lesley Truffle's Blog, page 11

My Life as a Nightclub Cocktail Girl

 

My Life as a Nightclub Cocktail Girl

 

When I was a child, my mother used to play vintage movie songs and the lyrics to Gigi were:

The night they invented champagne

It’s plain as it can be

They thought of you and me

The night they invented champagne

They absolutely knew

That all we’d want to do is

Fly to the sky on champagne …

At the time, it seemed to me that becoming an adult must be a marvelous thing, because it would involve a lot of champagne and a considerable amount of hilarity. So by the time I could legally drink,  I’d already developed a predisposition to fine champagne.

At university most of my friends didn’t have the loot for French imported champagnes – such as Perrier-Jouët or Veuve Clicquot – so we made do with Australian sparkling wines. Many were first-rate but others were dodgy and tasted suspiciously of aerated fruit syrups. But when I found summer vacation work as a nightclub cocktail girl, I diligently applied myself to learning all about fine French champagnes and premium cocktails.

My favourite after work cocktail was a Golden Dream: Galliano, cream, Cointreau and freshly squeezed orange juice. Made by one of my heavy-handed bar buddies, it shot out of the shaker resembling an orange milkshake. Served in a ritzy cocktail glass, it hit my bloodstream at a gallop. I wasn’t a seasoned drinker and usually hadn’t eaten for hours, so after a couple of Golden Dreams, I’d get home in a daze and fall asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow.

Après work drinks with the barmen, led me to obtaining a master’s degree in top-shelf alcohol. A couple of the barmen had developed a taste for amphetamines, which meant as the night wore on there would inevitably be cock-ups in the drinks orders. One barman in particular sometimes lost control of his cocktail shaker when he flipped it up into the air and failed to catch it again.

The manager turned a blind eye to such infrequent mishaps because his charming, handsome employee was catnip to our female clientele. These young ladies hunted in packs and they arrived wearing lovely evening dresses and stiletto heels. They expected and indeed demanded the barman’s mind-paralyzing cocktails and cheeky wit. Subsequently, our man was never short of a late night ‘date’. It was an open secret that the ladies were usually the initiators in these arrangements.

I was in heaven when I was promoted to creating the cocktails, instead of having to walk the floor armed only with a flimsy tray, fending off the advances of inebriated males.  Working alongside the barmen and having a metre width of polished oak between me and the clientele changed the game. Under the dim lights and the glittering backlit liqueur bottles, with a silver cocktail shaker firmly in hand – I felt like I’d finally attained adulthood. Boy, did I get that wrong.

Spring is heading our way and the first of the warmer spring days will shortly arrive. But the pandemic has meant my friends’ thoughts are no longer lightly turning to the Christmas holidays.

Instead we are concerned with how much longer stage four COVID-19 restrictions will last and when the eight o’clock curfew might end. Deviant thinking given even if there was no curfew – where the hell would we go? After all, our favourite haunts are all temporarily closed.

No matter, this too shall pass. And the case numbers are falling rapidly. We count ourselves lucky that we live in a country where the government is actively pursuing measures to minimize the effect of a global crisis.

However, one can still fantasize about better times and summer holidays of sun, surf and sand. If a holiday was at all possible would I choose a trekking, sweating, getting lost, overseas sort of holiday? Or perhaps it would it be more fun to slink off somewhere with a lovely aqua blue outdoor pool, cabana service and Resort Hour champagne cocktails?

I guess these are the sort of sly thoughts that adults indulge themselves with.

by Lesley Truffle

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The Problem With Henry

The Problem With Henry

 

                                     ‘I swear again, I would not be a queen  For all the world.’

                   Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife.

                                          Shakespeare, The Life of King Henry the Eighth.

 

King Henry VIII has been receiving bad press for centuries. Shakespeare, along with later writers and playwrights, got in on the act. Henry’s life fascinated everybody. He married six wives and distinguished himself by divorcing or annulling two wives and cruelly executing another two. His first wife died in childbirth and the last managed to outlive him. Who knows what would have happened to clever Catherine Parr if Henry had lived long enough to tire of her.

Henry earned his place on the long list of, Men Behaving Badly. And when twentieth century Hollywood took up his tale, he became a famous barbarian with swinish manners.

In the 1933 British film, The Private Life of Henry, he was played by actor Charles Laughton, a big-bellied chap who bellowed most of his lines.  The film is a plush, sixteenth century costume comedy-drama.

The actors emote in posh English voices and the genre of the film is a satirical bedroom farce. In the opening scenes, a beautiful Lady of the Chamber suggestively strokes Henry’s sheets and bemoans the fact that she hasn’t been bedded by the King. This ensures that the viewers know that they aren’t about to be bored with historical fact.

Henry the Eighth is portrayed as an obese glutton who delights in hurling chicken bones at his courtiers and splattering them with gobfuls of food and wine. In one scene, while dining with the nobility, Henry smashes a greasy chicken with his chubby fist, crams a huge chicken drumstick into his gob and speaks with his mouth full. Courtiers have to duck his spittle.

Innuendo and lasciviousness are laid on with a spade and Henry doesn’t sit – he sprawls, displaying his manly assets. It’s been documented that Henry shamelessly helped himself to many ladies of his court and these lovers and mistresses feature in the film.

Henry became a King before he was eighteen. In his youth he was considered to be the most handsome prince in the whole of Europe. He was also a writer of poems, love letters, political tracts and a composer. Tall at over six foot, lean and fit with the obsessions of a competitive jock, there was nothing to suggest he would suffer ill health or become obese.

Exotic foodstuffs whispered of high status. The variety of food at Henry’s court was gobsmacking: citrus fruits, almonds, Mediterranean olive oil, sugar from Cyprus and spices from India all made their way into Henry’s private kitchen.

Up to 800 courtiers usually accompanied Henry and they all had to be fed. Bread, pastries, sweet desserts, oxen, deer, calves, venison, pigs and wild boar were featured on the menu. Chickens, pigeons, sparrows, swans, larks, cocks and plovers were also immensely popular. The nobility had a thing for roast peacocks and Henry indulged himself at every given opportunity.

Only the King had the privilege of eating with a fork and that was mainly so that he could get stuck into his favourite sweet preserves. Although Henry was a first-rate glutton, contemporary witnesses wrote that he dined in an elegant manner and washed his hands before and during his feasts.

Once he was no longer burning up the calories jousting, dancing, brawling, hunting and fornicating, Henry’s dietary habits ensured he became more than just robust. Historians have revealed that although he ended his days with a 52 inch waist, in his youth he was an Adonis.

by Lesley Truffle

 

 

 

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There Goes the Neighbourhood Dogs

 

There Goes the Neighbourhood Dogs

 

‘A lover tries to stand in well with the pet dog of the house.’

Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) French playwright, actor & poet.

 

In my bayside suburb dogs are everywhere you go. There may well be a pandemic rampaging across the globe but for our local dogs, it’s still business as usual.

You can catch mongrels on the hoof or standing outside The Guilty Moose or The Pineapple. Calmly waiting for their humans to get their morning coffee fix.

After the coffees have been sorted, the dogs can be seen sporting on the beach. Completely disregarding social distancing and sniffing everything in sight. Dogs have unmentionable habits that somehow fail to diminish their endearing charms.

Inner city Melbourne is going through a second COVID-19 shutdown. Face masks are mandatory and café  life is back to being take-out coffees and limited menus. I’m nostalgic for the days when we could dine at outdoor cafés, sit in the sun and watch the neighbourhood’s dog antics.

Café dogs are highly socialized, even the ones that make trouble: the yappers, howlers, sneaks and leapers. I recall sitting outside my favourite café, about to plunge into a delicious Sunday breakfast, when a big Labrador head appeared from under the table and thrust itself into my lap.

I dropped my fork and the dog’s owner yanked on the leash. He was mortified. ‘I’m so terribly sorry. It only happened once. A café patron slipped her a whole piece of bacon and she’s never forgotten it.’

I laughed as the dog was still slyly eyeing my mushroom and cheese omelette. Subtly indicating that the absence of bacon had been noted but a piece of toast would be acceptable. Labradors are slaves to their stomachs and this one had a truly wicked grin. I patted her and she was friendly but her eyes kept drifting back to my plate.

Among my favourite local dogs were The Hounds of Hell. They used to make their appearance when the local news-agency first opened and they’d wake up the whole damned street. The first time I heard them I was stunned, it sounded like they were being brutalized. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I rushed around the corner and there they were – two chubby, long haired Cocker Spaniels. Heads up, venting ear-splitting, blood curdling howls. When one dog ran out of steam, the other took over. Why?

The newsagent told me it was a daily ritual. The owner tied his dogs’ leashes to the bicycle rack and the minute he stepped into the news-agency, the dogs started. And they kept it up until he reappeared and told them off. Every single morning at precisely 7.05 am.

Then there were the magnificently spoilt dogs. They frequented the stylish cafés where water was supplied in posh, chromed-up dog bowls. These dogs travelled with their own exclusive small rugs. It meant they didn’t have to park their arses on the cold pavement outside the cafés in winter.

It’s not the dogs fault. Imagine you were a shivering whippet – would you turn down the offer of a snug, pastel-blue bunny rug?

The funniest dogs were the ones who still thought they were cute pups. Indulged to the hilt, they’d sit on top of their owners and share the Vegemite toast. It was especially comedic when a fully grown beast was draped across its owner’s knees, legs dangling and big boofhead resting on the tabletop.

But my absolute favourite of all time, was the plump pug who’d be seated opposite his owner, on his own chair. The owner would then proffer tasty morsels from his own fork. Backwards and forwards went the fork. And when the plate was empty, the owner would lean across the table and plant a big kiss on the grunting pug’s head.

I miss the pug.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph: Max by Lesley Truffle.

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Shakespeare’s Lascivious Lutes

 

Shakespeare’s Lascivious Lutes

 

  ‘Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.’

         Richard III by William Shakespeare.

 

I went to a girl’s high school in Melbourne and was lucky to have a wonderful literature teacher in my final year. She was an intellectual who really knew how to lever Shakespeare off the page and into our devilish imaginations.

I well remember the night the whole Literature class went into the city to see a brilliant international cast perform Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’. Oh my God, the swooning that went down when wicked, wicked Edmund was physically bound to the wheel of fortune. The wheel was a huge wooden prop that had already been used as both bed and table.

So there we had the very evil Edmund – the ‘bastard son of Gloucester’ – sweaty, shirtless, with muscular biceps and skimpy tights barely concealing his pronounced assets. We schoolgirls all morphed into Shakespeare groupies that night.

The actor playing Edmund  – like the rest of the cast – was classically trained and he ripped through Shakespeare’s rich prose, bringing it to life and effortlessly defying the shonky acoustics of the grand old theatre.

I was not the only young lady present who promptly shifted her loyalty to Edmund and dumped his kind, nice brother Edgar. We didn’t give a damn that Edmund had already had his way with the cruel and capricious sisters, Goneril and Regan. Nor did we care that Edmund was playing them one off against the other. For having been introduced to Emily Bronte’s, Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights) a few of us had already developed a taste for bad boys.

Back in the 1600’s Shakespeare had to please royalty, gentry, trade folk, the bourgeoisie and the groundlings; those who filled the standing room front of stage. While the upper classes expected to be stimulated intellectually by universal truths and allusions to historical events, the groundlings just wanted to have fun and be entertained. Romance and bawdy sexual references cut it with all factions and love, revenge and tragedy became dominant themes in Shakespeare’s plays.

According to historians, if the groundlings got bored and out of hand, the actors would be given a verbal bollocking or else get pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables. Apparently the polite reverential clapping, common to contemporary Shakespearean theatre, was largely absent.

Shakespeare’s plays have been successfully adapted to suit different audiences all over the world. The Bard was a prolific playwright and has been credited with 37 plays, numerous collaborations on other plays and about 154 sonnets. It’s an astonishing feat that more than four hundred years later, Shakespeare’s plays are still in demand.

Mind you, some historians dispute not only the number of works but whether the Bard actually wrote them. Various other playwrights have been put forward as contenders. But can the mystery ever be solved? And in the scheme of things, does it really matter?

Vive William Shakespeare!

by Lesley Truffle

image: the Bard of Avon himself – William Shakespeare.  Cover from ‘The Unkindest Cut: Shakespeare in Exile 2015’ by American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

The portrait is after Martin Droeshout’s engraving from the Johnson/Steevens 1787 2nd edition of Shakespeare’s plays.

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La Dolce Vita

 

La Dolce Vita

 

Italy is easing back on restrictions in line with its COVID-19 emergency plans. Border controls are changing and gyms, swimming pools and sports centres recently reopened. Theatres and cinemas are reopening. In a country dedicated to the fine arts this is important. After all, Italians understand style and the art of living (arte di vivere) as do the French.

Italian film directors produce diverse and wonderful films. Paolo Sorrentino is one of my favourite directors. Sometimes I watch the exuberant party scene from La Grande Bellezza/ The Great Beauty when I’m feeling sad and need to recalibrate.

Fellini’s,  La Dolce Vita is a magnificent film.  Released in 1960, set in Rome and starring Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni it has many layers of meanings.  The film lends itself to repeated viewings. La Dolce Vita has a wonderful lightness and wit that’s often missing in many contemporary films.

I have a thing for Italian Fiats. I once owned a second-hand Fiat Sports that been driven to the brink of ruin. The previous owner was a nurse with a taste for speed and a strong belief in amateur car repairs.

Subsequently the wiring under the bonnet was strapped up with flimsy tape or rusty wire and the engine’s parts were decrepit. I tried not to peer under the hood too often as it didn’t inspire confidence.

I loved my Fiat Sports but quickly discovered that the only thing that worked was the premium sound system. This proved quite useful, because I was forever sitting in the damned car waiting for a road service repair guy to arrive and get me going.

The consultation usually involved triage. The repair guy had to consider all manner of mechanical problems and then try to determine the most likely suspect. This usually occurred during torrential rain.

But you should have seen the Fiat Sport’s interior! It was all red leather, dashing 007 style dials, racy steering wheel and elegant trim.

However, my favourite Fiat remains the Fiat 500. Years ago I owned a semi restored original. Marketed as the Bambino or the Cinquecento, the original Fiat 500 is famous for its ‘utilitarian and compact design’. A publicist’s way of saying it was rather on the small size.

My current Fiat 500 is a recent model. Marcello is a handsome beast with a black soft top that folds all the way back. I named him, Marcello, in honour of the late, great Marcello Mastroianni.

When I asked the Fiat dealer why my new Cinquecento had a strange looking pair of racing gear paddles attached to the steering column, Roberto murmured, ‘Because we Italians like to drive fast.’

We grinned sideways at each other, because nobody could ever accuse the cheeky Fiat 500 of presenting itself as a muscle car.

However, I soon discovered that the contemporary version of the Fiat 500 is a gutsy animal. It has a loud, rude horn and a fast take off speed that can be quite disconcerting.

The loud horn is useful when dealing with road bullies. They frequently fail to give way, cut me off at roundabouts and freeways and seem hell bent on crushing Marcello beneath their big fat tyres.

The earlier model Bambinos only had 499cc of power. The heater was an open hole that could be uncovered, providing warmth and fumes from the engine. And the sunroof had to be manually unclipped and folded backwards.

The open sunroof provided an invitation for truck drivers to lean down from their mountain beasts, peer through the Bambino’s open roof and make witty and flirtatious remarks.

Interestingly enough, truck drivers are unfailingly polite about giving way to Marcello. Recently I was blessed by the driver of a monstrous rubbish truck. He braked noisily on the main road, gave me the sign of the cross and sportingly held up the peak hour traffic, so I could reverse park safely. Nice. He made my day.

My first second-hand Fiat 500, went like the clackers and was as hardy as a mountain goat. Even with three people and a large dog crammed into the tiny seats. When I was acting with a theatre troupe, we’d finish rehearsing, pile into my Fiat and head into the Adelaide hills to visit the fantastic wineries.

It was a golden time – kicking back, sipping young wines and laughing like hyenas about everything that could possibly go wrong on opening night.

La dolce vita indeed.

by Lesley Truffle

Photograph:  screen shot of Anita Ekberg in Frederico Fellini’s masterpiece, ‘La Dolce Vita’ 1960.

 

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Devilish Desires

Dorian Gray’s Devilish Desires

 

‘The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.’

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

 

In Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray the characters throw themselves around dramatically and rarely ever sit quietly. They fling themselves at the furniture with abandon and sigh heavily. They’re frequently drinking something sublime or noshing on delectable morsels that are ferried about on silver platters by obsequious servants.

Emotions are deep and operatic and there’s no long journeys or tedious parties for us to endure. Decors are vibrant and salubrious and you know deep down in your wicked little heart that everybody is going to end up in tears.

Wilde was educated at Trinity College Dublin and also at Oxford. He excelled as a classicist and was fluent in French and German. Even as a youth he was known for his clever wit, outrageous dress sense, bons mots and engaging, brilliant conversation. After university he moved easily among London’s most fashionable and cultural cliques. He collected art objects and fine porcelain and once remarked, ‘I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.’

First published in 1890, Wilde’s only novel created a scandal. It’s principally about Dorian Gray’s moral disintegration and the risks of promiscuous reading. Dorian buys multiple copies of a book – bound in different colours to suit his mood – and it’s this decadent novel that sets him on the primrose path to Hell.

Wilde wrote, ‘Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful.’

Wilde was vilified for what was perceived as his novel’s corrupting influence. This seems bizarre now, given we live in Trumpian times.

In the preface Wilde wrote: ‘Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art … All art is at once surface and symbol … Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril … All art is quite useless.’

Whether Wilde sincerely believed all art is ‘quite useless’ can only ever be conjecture. He spent his life creating wonderful works of literature, journal articles, fairy tales and plays that have endured and been popular for well over a century.

Wilde was  vilified and broken on a wheel while incarcerated in Britain’s Reading Goal 1895-1897. His criminal conviction was for homosexual practices. Had he lived in a different era, this would never have happened. He died destitute in Paris at 46 and was laid to rest in Père Lachaise Cemetery.

In 2017 Wilde and about 50,000 other men were pardoned for homosexual acts that were no longer considered offences under the Policing and Crime Act of 2017.

Back to Wilde’s only novel. While having his portrait painted, young Dorian Gray – a youth of delectable, irresistible beauty, an Adonis, indeed a Narcissus – is seduced by the bohemian ideals of Lord Henry. Basil Hallward is the artist who paints Dorian’s portrait and he senses that something horrific is about to occur.

Henry Wotton is the snake in the garden of Eden who dangles revolutionary ideas in front of Dorian’s nose and seduces him into thinking that libertinism and unchecked hedonism will give him everything he could ever wish for.

Does this work out the way Dorian hopes?

Don’t be silly, of course it doesn’t! But I can’t reveal more because you have to read it for yourself and I don’t want to spoil it for you.

As Oscar Wilde wrote in a letter – ‘Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks of me: Dorian what I would like to be …’

 

Photograph: Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde photographed in a studied pose by Napoleon Sarony in 1882. Wilde liked to be depicted in languid poses but he actually worked exceeding hard.

 

 

 

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Hello Sailor

Hello Sailor

 

As the Water Rat in Wind in the Willows, advises the mole,

‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing –  half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.’

I messed around in boats when I learned to sail on a lake. It was comedic right from the start. We were a flotilla of twelve adult learners – crammed into six child-sized sailing boats. It’s difficult dodging a swinging boon when your knees are wedged up around your goddamn ears.

Choosing our sailing partners reminded me of primary school when the sports teams were chosen. We kids used to pray like mad that we’d be among the first to be picked by the designated captains. Those known to be crap at sport were the last to be picked, and none of us wanted to be publicly humiliated.

So at the boathouse, I was terribly pleased when a competent looking bloke – big shoulders, strong hands, trustworthy smile – boldly stepped up and asked if I’d like to partner up. Hell yes. He looked like he was built to wrangle sail boats. And frankly, I knew that I needed all the help I could get.

Up in the club house we’d all paid attention to the whiteboard and then practiced rigging the sails and mastering a few essentials. The more serious learners took notes. Then we’d toppled into the sailing dinghies and headed straight into a significant head wind. The dinghies promptly capsized and we all ended up in the drink.

Even before we capsized I’d noticed that – let’s call him Jim – was becoming extremely emotional at the prospect of getting wet. He was jumpy, his eyes unfocused and he seemed acutely distressed. Jim grasped the tiller and whipped it around negligently, while barking out nonsensical instructions.

I decided it was best not to get distracted and concentrated on sorting the tangled jib while trying to balance the rocking boat. Our comrades screamed and gestured crazily as we narrowly avoided ramming their boats. It was chaos and I shut my eyes when we nearly took out the instructor’s boat.

When we capsized Jim cursed, yelped and clung to the hull like a drowning man. I had to swim over to his side and coax him into relaxing his grip. Fortunately our instructor intervened and talked Jim down.

Back at the clubhouse Jim admitted to me that he hated all boats, dreaded all pools, seas, lakes and oceans.  And he didn’t know how to swim. I asked him why he’d decided to sail and he confessed that sailing was number one on his list of Primary Fears.

Death by drowning was Jim’s reoccurring nightmare and it haunted him. But he believed if he could conquer his fear, he’d be able to power on down the rest of his list with confidence.

I wanted Jim to succeed, so as we recklessly sailed around the lake, I tried to distract him. We chatted about the novels that were on his list of 100 Books I Must Read. He was big on Hemingway. And other hunting, sailing, fishing, bullfighting macho writers.

I only discovered the joy of sailing when Jim took a few weeks off to regroup. I was paired with a guy whose sailing partner flatly refused to participate in any more sailing.

Sailing with someone who was not paralysed with fear, meant that on the rare occasion we capsized we could quickly right the boat and laugh as we bucketed out the murky water. Nobody knew what lay at the bottom of the lake.  There were rumours of sinister goings on involving criminals and dead folk. It lent a certain thrill to the occasion when the boat capsized in the shallower regions of the lake.

After I’d successfully completed the sailing course, I joined the local yacht club. But somehow I’d lost my enthusiasm to crew competitively in yacht races.

I do like the big boats though – especially those that have a well-stocked bar. It’s splendid being ensconced on the captain’s deck at twilight, with a glass of premium champagne in hand.

The Water Rat was right – messing about with boats is fun.

by Lesley Truffle

 Photo:  Dusk at Phillip Island, pier to shore by Lesley Truffle.

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Beach Dogs

 

Beach Dogs

Bayside Melbourne is dog heaven. During shutdown I’ve been walking the beach promenade every day. It provides a complete brain clean.

Many mongrels and pedigree hounds are out there on the beach before first light. I chat to the owners outside the Guilty Moose café, as I pick up my morning takeout coffee. I know many of the dogs names but can never manage to remember their owners’ names.

I don’t have a dog, so when walking the beach I cunningly solicit contact with other people’s dogs. There’s Ralphie, Sage, Harold – there’s also Hank, Henri, Ned and Bella. And then there’s the new puppies, all wide-eyed and eager.

Greeting every stranger with an abundance of trust. Rolling on their backs and exposing their plump bellies.

Running, sniffing, barking, diving into the icy sea, rolling in fetid rubbish and dead birds, chasing balls, Frisbees or anything else that moves, including slow seagulls.

Even the old dogs still get on by; being coaxed along or getting wheeled along the sea promenade in fancy dog wheelies or clapped out kid’s prams. These dogs are the old salts with grey muzzles and patient eyes.

One of the old salts is a tiny mongrel who accompanies his petite elderly owner along the promenade well before sunrise. No matter the season, she’s always dressed top to toe in black. And in summer when she breaks out the faded black shorts, you can see how much dog and owner resemble each other. For they both have sturdy bowlegs and the most marvellous rollicking motion when they promenade.

These two blithely ignore the unspoken rule that you have to stick to the left side of the footpath. After all, you don’t want to get mown down by sweaty blokes in mantights, running behind baby three wheelers, or short fused mothers shoving child pushers the size of small cars.

But nobody gives the lady in black any stick, so she and her mongrel own the footpath. They plough on in a straight line, forcing the belligerent and impatient to go around them. Seeing them always makes me smile. They are true anarchists.

Another old salt was the handsome golden Labrador who used to swim straight across the water, keeping in line with his owner walking along the water’s edge. The Labrador got slower and slower and then one morning he simply didn’t appear on the beach, but his owner continued to show up. And so it goes.

I always look for the red-haired dog owner leading a posse of three small, unkempt terriers across the road. They’re often there before the first light of morning.

When they get to the sea wall the terriers immediately head for the same beach ramp and line up. No kidding, those three dogs behave as though they’re queuing for the gents’ toilet at a football match.

Politely waiting in line for the mongrel in front to lift his leg and piss on the bluestone. And only when the first dog has finished his business does the next one take his turn.

The seawall stretches several kilometres from St Kilda beach to Port Melbourne and beyond – but those three dogs only ever want to piss in one place. The exact same spot, every day, without fail.

Then when they’ve had their designated time running amuck on the beach, their owner leads them back across the busy main road and they disappear around the corner. Still in single file.

by Lesley Truffle

Photo by Les Truffle. A local waiting patiently for his owners to get themselves fully caffeinated. Then he can run with the other beach dogs.

 

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Forest Bathing

 

Forest Bathing

 

My mind keeps wandering to the empty spaces and forests that will still be there when the pandemic retreats. Dreams of whispering trees and rustlings in the grass.

When I was living and working near Tokyo a few years ago, I got to know a Japanese bullet train driver. Roshi is a witty joker, a rabid opera lover and a layback kind of guy. He drives trains on the Tōhoku Shinkansen line. Back then the speeds were probably around 320km/h to 443km/h. However, speeds on the Shinkansen line have greatly increased with Japan’s magnetic levitation trains.

Roshi’s job carries a lot of responsibility and daily stress. When I asked him how he manages to retain his cool, he told me that he and his buddies regularly head off to a forest region that features natural hot springs and set up camp.

Deep in the forest they get naked, dig a hole big enough to contain them all and sit there late into the night, drinking iced beer and talking shite as the hot springs work their magic. Roshi laughingly told me that getting rat-faced on premium beer was crucial to the cure – it facilitated communication not just with his buddies, but with Mother Nature herself.

Later I learnt about Shinrin-Yoku – forest bathing. The idea is simply to walk into a forest, relax and let go. It seems that beer and hot springs are not mandatory. Apparently, many folk around the world believe that consciously breathing in or taking in the forest atmosphere can lead to feelings of well-being, reduced stress and nourishing rejuvenating benefits.

When I visited Dorrigo National Park some time ago I thought a lot about Shinrin-Yoku. The rainforest is situated about 60 kilometres south-west of Coffs Harbour, in the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area.

The Dorrigo Rainforest is known for being the habitat of rare and threatened species. There are numerous ground dwelling birds, including lyrebirds. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to see any but I was chuffed to hear that there are red-necked pademelons, and coloured wompoo fruit-dove hiding out in the forest.

As we walked through the undergrowth, I read the discreet signs that the rangers had put up – warning walkers about cunning plants that might spike us and all the voracious insects eager to chomp into our flesh.

The forest is home to plants such as strangler figs, giant stinging trees and prickly ash. Such exotica adds a certain frisson to the desire to commune with nature. After a while my imagination seized control and the benign rustling noises became venomous snakes slithering through the fallen leaves.

So, did I manage to breathe in the forest and achieve a state of Zen relaxation? Hell no, I didn’t – but I loved being in the presence of 600-year-old trees, breathing in the pristine air and listening to the native birds chortling, whistling and carrying on.

Just remembering those trees can bring on a meditative state of calm. But it only works if I close my eyes and totally focus on slow deep breathing. Five slow counts of breath in … hold for slow three counts … exhale … repeat … again & again …

by Lesley Truffle

Image above: (Public Domain)  is part of a photograph taken in 1911 by an unknown photographer. There is an Australian tradition of beer being essential to the enjoyment of nature. Here we see railway workers pushing 300 barrels of beer along the Cairns to Kuranda railway lines, after a rock fall landslide blocked one of the tunnels.

Image digitized by State Library of Queensland.

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Strange Days

 

Strange Days

‘andrà tutto bene – everything will be fine.’

 

The Italians are living in the European COVID-19 epicentre and Italy is currently under emergency quarantine measures. To date there are more than 24,700 people with the disease and more than 1800 have died. Italy has a world class health system but it has been stretched beyond capacity.

But despite domestic isolation and deprivations, the optimistic saying, andrà tutto bene, has appeared on flags, children’s paintings and the social media.

Journalists have verified that there’s solidarity among Italy’s citizens. From Northern to Southern Italy, apartment windows and balconies are draped in Italian flags.

And despite the fact they can’t meet with friends for a tipple in a bar, the fine tradition of aperitivo – a pre-meal drink to stimulate your appetite – is being retained.

Italians have been photographed out on their small balconies, wineglasses in hand and toasting their neighbours. Alternately, via video chats they indulge in a shared ‘virtual aperitivo’.

Meantime in Milan, opera singers and confident amateurs sing out their windows in an effort to raise everyone’s spirits.

I once lived in an apartment next door to a professionally trained opera singer. The decaying Deco building had a lightwell between my apartment and Marguerite’s.

I often heard her melodic voice, drifting out her bathroom window and into mine, as I reclined in the bathtub. The plumbing was ghastly – taps dripped and pipes rattled – but at those times I didn’t give a rat’s arse. I felt optimistic.

During Australia’s recent bushfires there was a spirit of altruism and genuine caring about those who were suffering. Folk rallied to help both financially and practically and there were many stories of heroism in the face of destruction.

At Mogo Wildlife Park on the NSW coast, about sixteen staff refused to abandon their animals as the fires swept into town. Many were large animals who couldn’t be quickly moved. Unaided and equipped with only the zoo’s resources, the animal carers fought the flames and saved 200 exotic animals. These included: giraffes, gorillas, lions, marmosets, rhinos and boa constrictors. Not one animal died, they were all safe and cared for.

When the sky darkened as the fire came down, the giraffes panicked briefly and galloped as a herd. But essentially the animals remained calm and cooperative. Probably because they’d built trust relationships with their human keepers.

With the impending shutdown in Melbourne there’s been a lot of panic buying and product hoarding. Hopefully this will ease off. And with any luck folk will calm down and we’ll all start making better decisions.

And then, andrà tutto bene – everything will be fine.

by Lesley Truffle

Image: Opera singer, Laura Baldassari sings out her window in a bid to raise spirits in Milan. AP photo The AGE.

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