A Good Friday (and weekend)

Trip Start Apr 04, 2012
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Trip End Apr 12, 2012


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Where I stayed
Ted's Territory
What I did
Fish fillet master demo

Flag of Australia  , New South Wales,
Saturday, April 14, 2012

In the late 80's and early 90's, I'd spent many very enjoyable Easters and other holidays staying with old friends Paul and Sal at their extended family's holiday house at Tomakin- a bit south of Bateman's Bay. This was the first time in quite a while I'd made it back, and the first time with all four family members. Last time I'd driven across the mountains from Albury after a conference by myself. The time before, I was with Ann and Felix (in nappies then, now nearly nine). On that stay, I'd done and videoed the old tried and tested 'pretend peanut butter is baby poo and eat it in front of friends' kids' trick. I can't understand why Funny Home Videos didn't want it; it's linked below so you be the judge.

The two-storey house sits right next to the beach and looks over some of the most beautiful coastline going. The first morning and the wind had come up, to the extent that an ocean fishing trip was out. Us four boys went up the Tomago River in Paul's tinny, while Ann and Sal went into the Moruya market. We motored up the shallow tract, sucking motor fumes that the seabreeze blew back on us as we stuck to the 4 knot speed limit. Paul didn't catch us any fish but the boys had fund steering a boat for the first time.

Down By The Sea Lyrics - Men At Work

...Yonnies in the wind,
We're ruggin' up for winter
Putting out the bins
In cold and windy weather


Sail me down the river
Till we reach the shore
Diving into the center
Eating out the core

Down on the beach
Saluting Captain Benbow
Always out of reach
It's quiet when the tide's low


Climbing up the cliffs
You can see for miles far
The boat that ran adrift
Is sitting on the sandbar


Laughing at the waves
That storm the river mouth
The ice is on the move now
Creeping north and south


Listen to your heart
Screamin' at the sky
Can't you feel it tremble?
Don't you wonder why?


"Sea-Fever"
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield (1878-1967)





Robert Wyatt: 'Sea Song'

You look different every time you come
from the foam-crested brine
It's your skin shining softly in the moonlight
Partly fish, parly porpoise, partly baby sperm whale
Am I yours? Are you mine to play with?
Joking apart when you're drunk
You're terrific when you're drunk
I like you mostly late at night - you're quite all right

But I can't understand the different you
In the morning when it's time to play
at being human for a while
Please smile!

You'll be different in the spring, I know
You're a seasonal beast
Like the starfish that drifted with the tide, with the tide
So until your blood runs to meet the next full moon
Your madness fits in nicely with my own, with my own
Your lunacy fits neatly with my own - my very own

We're not alone...


The Sea Spirit by Lucy Maud Montgomery
I smile o'er the wrinkled blue­
Lo! the sea is fair,
Smooth as the flow of a maiden's hair;
And the welkin's light shines through
Into mid-sea caverns of beryl hue,
And the little waves laugh and the mermaids sing,
And the sea is a beautiful, sinuous thing!

I scowl in sullen guise­
The sea grows dark and dun,
The swift clouds hide the sun
But not the bale-light in my eyes,
And the frightened wind as it flies
Ruffles the billows with stormy wing,
And the sea is a terrible, treacherous thing!

When moonlight glimmers dim
I pass in the path of the mist,
Like a pale spirit by spirits kissed.
At dawn I chant my own weird hymn,
And I dabble my hair in the sunset's rim,
And I call to the dwellers along the shore
With a voice of gramarye evermore.

And if one for love of me
Gives to my call an ear,
I will woo him and hold him dear,
And teach him the way of the sea,
And my glamor shall ever over him be;
Though he wander afar in the cities of men
He will come at last to my arms again.

The Sea And the Hills by Rudyard Kipling 1902

Who hath desired the Sea? -- the sight of salt wind-hounded --
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber win hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing --
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing --
His Sea in no showing the same his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea? -- the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder --
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder --
His Sea in no wonder the same his Sea and the same through each wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies?
The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?
The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that de clare it --
White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it --
His Sea as his fathers have dared -- his Sea as his children shall dare it:
His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwisc -- hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees -- inland where the slayer may slay him --
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him
His Sea from the first that betrayed -- at the last that shall never betray him:
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise -- so and no otherwise -- hillmen desire their Hills
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