Tikkun Olam

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Paranoia

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, February 05, 2012

Recently, we've been staying with our special friends - the ones who give us a home when we've got a hole in our housesitting "dancecard". I've spoken about them before. Their house was the first place we looked after when we started our nomadic adventure.

You'll remember the episode of the dead cat (see Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Disaster Strikes). That occurred in these people's house. Since then we've stayed there a couple of times and each time we seem to be a party to some trauma.

Last time we were here a friend of the owners turned up needing somewhere to stay as she and her husband were having a difficult time and she'd moved out. That ended kind of OK as she went back to her husband shortly after (much to the relief of our friends).

This time our friend's sister moved in for a few days, again in the process of leaving her partner. Not only that but the cat (the one left after the above-mentioned episode) has been quite ill, the husband had a minor operation which turned into a big issue with major infections (if you want to stay healthy avoid hospitals) and the wife has just resigned her very high-powered job.

Just a note about the cat. We came home one day and couldn't find him. Being mindful of our previous episode we became quite anxious and went searching for him with no luck. While this was going on the owners arrived home and joined the search - anxiety escalating all around! Eventually, the cat was found asleep (or hiding) in the wardrobe - phew!!

Is this something we're doing??? We're starting to get a bit paranoid; every time we stay here something goes haywire.

In a couple of months they're going away and we're booked in to look after the house. There'll also be a nephew staying who's visiting from overseas, can't drive here, it's his first time away from home, has never looked after himself and our friends are a little concerned for his welfare (and the household's). Stay tuned for "interesting" news.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Fence Wars

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, January 29, 2012

It's always dangerous coming between neighbours when there's a boundary dispute. Thanks to Danita's excellent negotiation skills we managed to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

The house we'd been staying in had a brick fence at the back of the yard. One morning we woke up to a man laying bricks on top of the existing fence. We assumed this was all authorised although the owner of "our" house hadn't mentioned anything about it.

Danita (being the curious one in our relationship) went out and had a chat with the builder. He was a nice guy and explained that the neighbours were extending their garage. Again we assumed the owners of "our" house were aware of this. So far so good.

After a few layers of new bricks however, it became apparent there could possibly be a problem. The existing fence was constructed of what were originally white bricks (after 20 or so years the original colour was somewhat open to discussion). What was of concern was that the new layers were rather pink thus creating an "interesting" feature. By the end of the day he'd completed the addition to the wall - an extra 60cm. This was definitely something that needed some enquiry.

We contacted the owners (who were in Europe at the time) asking if they were aware of what was happening and mentioned that the additional layers were more pink than white. This resulted in some rather concerned emails leading to "discussions" with the neighbours (to which we were fortunately not a party). Next day the builder was back, very carefully removing the extra layers.

Some time later it all started again - this time with white bricks. While they didn't quite match the original (they did have 20 years of "growth") it was a distinct improvement on the pink option.

On the owners' return we received a very grateful email thanking us for letting them know what was happening. Had it not been for housesitters they would have returned to a multi-coloured back wall clearly visible from the rear half of the house. Now he just has a large wall to deal with - but that's another story.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - A Few Days Away

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, January 22, 2012

One of the challenges of being an urban nomad/housesitter is when you need to take time out. As you'll recall Danita & I attended a family wedding in Bali a couple of weeks ago (Welcome to Bali). For that we were lucky to find houseowners who were willing to put their dog into a doggy resort as well as make arrangements for the fish and guinea pigs to be looked after while we needed to be away.

This week we're in a similar situation - we are in Melbourne to attend another family wedding. Firstly, I have to wonder what my sister did to deserve this - two sons getting married within a month of each other. My sister seems such a nice girl - but I digress.

On Friday we left our Rose Bay housesit and moved into a friend's house. Fortunately, these friends have a large house with a reasonably self contained area upstairs which we've been able to use on the occasions when we are sans bookings. (See On The Road Again). Every housesitter needs at least one of these friends (or family) as there will invariably be times when the bookings do not align.

Sunday we drove to Melbourne, leaving Sancho to enjoy a relaxing time with his good friend Zoe.

Once again, the Universe has fitted in nicely around our plans. We needed to go to Melbourne for a few days. This was the day after the previous owners returned from their month away and a few days before we move into our next place - back to the country. So we remain in awe and grateful for how things seem to work out so well.

Driving to Melbourne turned out to be an excellent alternative to flying. We had a very pleasant drive - it's now divided road almost all the way. Driving time was about 10 hours and once we'd added in a few stops it took us exactly 12 hours from Gordon to St Kilda. (My parents, on the other hand, were flying in from Perth. Firstly, their flight was delayed and then cancelled. We also had a rather poor experience on our return flight from Bali. Unfortunately, driving from places like Perth & Bali is simply not an option, but flying is becoming less and less of a desirable mode of transport. Again I digress.)

Stay tuned for more "Greenacres" experiences.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Living in the East

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, January 15, 2012

Eastern Suburbs people are really interesting - they see the world in a special way.

Danita and I both grew up in the Eastern Suburbs and for the last few weeks we've been housesitting very close to where we both lived as children. Since we leave here next Friday we decided to do the Eastern Suburbs thing today and be tourists. This involved a visit to Bondi Beach, Watsons Bay, The Gap and driving past houses we lived in.

Now when I say Eastern Suburbs people see things differently I'll share a couple of quick examples. These both involve friends of ours so no names :-)

Firstly, a friend living on the upper North Shore was arranging to get together with a friend of hers from the East. When discussing the venue the Eastern friend said (in all seriousness): "You come to me - it's closer".

Another friend was buying a new car which happened to be a four wheel drive. The salesperson, possibly thinking he knew his clientele well, facetiously remarked: "Going to the top end are you?" To which our customer friend promptly replied: "Oh yes we go to Watson's Bay often."

The Gap is intriguing and probably another good example of Eastern Suburbs thinking. On arrival the first thing you see is a prominent sign telling you to call a friend. No, it's not a ad for "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" but a sign for LifeLife - the crisis support organisation. So The Gap has the unenviable reputation of being Sydney's suicide capital. Now what I found really intriguing is the other sign that's there. There's a fine of $150 if you climb outside the fence and $300 if you have a dog in the area. Given the cost and risk if someone is on the outside of the fence (not only to yourself but others who have to risk their lives if you should "slip") this seems a tab disproportionate but "hey" it's the Eastern Suburbs.

Visiting the place we grew up in has been interesting for us. In many ways we know it well - the streets are familiar and many of the landmarks are the same. And yet, it's somehow disorienting. You meet up with people you haven't seen for a lifetime. There are big gaps in your knowledge of what these people have been doing in the 30-40 years you've been away. So many things have changed and yet so much is the same.

One of the people we remet today is Rebecca. She has a shop at Bondi Beach called So Gorgeous. It has an amazing variety of goods ranging from diamond rings and fancy furniture items to Perfect Pets and a vagina lamp (it's a lamp in the shape of a woman's torso with the globe located as the name suggests). It's a real treasure trove.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Welcome to Bali

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, January 08, 2012

Recently, we spent 8 days in Bali to attend my nephew's wedding.

Prior to leaving Sydney we had arranged to be picked up from the airport and taken to our villa. On our arrival there was no-one to meet us at the airport - not a good start. We managed to call the villa (it was 10pm) who then sent someone to collect us. When we got to the villa we were taken to the wrong room. Here we found the air conditioning didn't work nor did the hot water. So no way to cool the room or to have a decent shower.

The next morning we tried to find someone to help and managed to connect with the owner's partner who made it clear the villa was his wife's business but he'd do what he could. He was a lovely guy who gave us the best piece of advice for our Bali stay - "Welcome to Bali". It's hard to express the tone of voice when he said this. It wasn't "welcome - have a nice time". Rather it said "so things don't work - that's normal". We found out later just how true that is.

On a trip with a local who was showing us around he was telling us about his life. In his village the electricity and water supplies are erratic. In the dry season it's normal for the water to be cut off to the whole village for a couple of days in order to "share" the load when supplies are low. Similarly, with electricity except that's usually for a few hours not days. For the Balinese this is "normal" and so they seem to accept it.

Another example of this incredibly laid-back and relaxed attitude is the driving. For me it was total chaos - traffic lanes are marked but no-one bothers with them. Driving on the footpath or going the wrong way are common. You regularly hear horns tooting but only gently - simply saying "I'm here". In the cities and tourist areas being driven was scary enough, I wouldn't contemplate driving myself. The country areas are different but that's another story.

While we were in Bali we never heard a horn sounded in anger nor saw a single car accident. On our return to Sydney things were quite different. Within 10 minutes of our return to Sydney there was aggressive honking and between the airport and home (less than 30 minutes) we saw two bad car incidents.

Also, on the news there was a report about the bush fires near Adelaide. The power company had turned off the electricity in the area experiencing fires, as a safety precaution, and shop owners were demanding compensation because it was their busiest trading period.

While Bali is chaotic and things don't work we seem to have a lot to learn from the Balinese about attitude.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - What's in a Name?

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, December 18, 2011

The current house we're in has an interesting dog - a poodle shihtzu cross. She's very cute but does some distinctly odd things - especially associated with her toilet habits. To do a wee she does a handstand - standing on her front paws with her rear sticking up in the air. Poohing is done on the move so that when we pick up after her (being good doggy citizens) we have to follow her trail.

Anyway, she got me thinking about the names of dog cross breeds. There's Cavoodles (Cavalier King Charles Spaniel x Poodle), Spoodles (Spaniel x Poodle), Groodles (Golden Retriever x Poodle), Moodles (Maltese x Poodle), Labradoodles (Labrador x Poodle), even Shmoodles (Shihtzu X Maltese x Poodle) and lots more.

So, my big question for this week is: what's a Shihtzu x Poodle called? Using the above examples it's probably a Shioodle. However, it does seem a bit unfair that the poodle part is always at the end. So, in the interest of equality I think it should be a Pooshiht.

What do you think?

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Trapped

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, December 11, 2011

In Jewish tradition rain is called a "siman brakha" - sign of blessing. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

Recently, we had a phone call at 8 o'clock one morning from the owner of the property on which we're staying. She'd had a call from one of the locals saying that if the rain didn't stop by midday we would be flooded in and she was ringing to warn us.

This raised some interesting dilemmas for us.

Firstly, we had a visitor staying over for the weekend and if we were trapped he'd be with us for an indefinite period. That was OK (he's quite a nice guy) but he'd just started a new job and we were a bit concerned about him having to ring his boss and say he wasn't coming in, at very short notice.

There are animals on the farm (horses and cattle) and they needed moving to higher ground. Sancho would be in his element for this as he's become very proficient at herding cattle. Our challenge would be to get him to move them where we wanted.

Did we have enough food and supplies to last?

So we spent a very anxious morning watching as the rain got heavier trying to decide whether to take our guest to the nearest railway station and hopefully get back before the roads were blocked.

I could tell you about how the waters rose and we were out in the rain moving animals and how we ran very low on fresh food and how we had to call clients and move meetings etc. I could, but I won't, because that would be lying (otherwise called "poetic licence").

What happened was that by midday the rain had stopped and the day became quite hot and humid. The river rose almost to the road but that was it. And so an opportunity for a new experience passed us by.

The interesting thing since that happened has been to notice the type of conversations people have around here. In Sydney it usually gets on to house prices. Out here it's about how high the water gets, when the last big one happened (2007) and who'll be stuck.

This week we move to Rose Bay so concerns about flooding will be off the agenda for a while.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Climbing Mount Everest

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, December 04, 2011

Ever since arriving at our current housesit I'd wanted to climb the hills bordering the property. From where we were, it looked like there would be a spectacular view of the valley and our house.

This week I decided it was time to take action. So early one morning (7am) I called Sancho (our 10 year old Lhasa Apso x Maltese) to go for a "walk". Because he's very trusting and enjoys a daily walk he didn't realise what he was getting himself into. Had he known, I'm sure he'd have opted to stay in bed.

We headed out across the open paddocks following a fence which ran up the hill. Very soon the fence stopped and we were on our own. I figured all we needed to do was keep heading upwards and we'd soon reach the top - which from the house didn't seem that far.

Because we were travelling through virgin bush there were no paths and so we were pushing our way through spiky bushes, spider webs, over and under fallen trees and up steep rock faces. After half an hour of climbing and being confronted with another sheer rock wall it occurred to me that I'd ignored the first rule of bush walking - let someone know where you're going! (Danita had spent the night in the city and wasn't around when we left.) I had taken my phone with me but as there's no mobile reception in the area it was for photographic purposes only (I wasn't planning to do this again and so I needed proof). Having realised my stupidity in ignoring the above-mentioned rule I decided to keep going anyway - after all I could see the top and we were very close.

Once we reached the "top" I realised there was still more upward direction to go. Being determined to "get there" I kept going. Sancho was amazing in his ability to run up rock faces, crawl through brambles and leap from tree to tree. I now believe he's got some mountain goat as well as the other parts to his breeding or perhaps it's the Tibetan (Lhasa Apso) influence.

Eventually, we climbed over yet another rock face to find the ground flat before us - WE'D REACHED THE TOP!! I was elated and turned around to take in the spectacular scenery I was expecting. Only one problem - the view was crap - all I could see were trees. It was pretty much the same as it was at the bottom of the hill.

This had taken us an hour, my shirt was completely covered in sweat and now we had the challenging part - getting back. I started thinking about people who'd climbed Mt Everest only to die on the way down.

One of the big difficulties was that perspective was completely different. When it came to climbing down the rocks I found I couldn't really tell how far it was to the bottom. Coming up I could find footholds and handholds because I was looking up at the "wall". Not so on the way down. At a couple of places I managed to slide down only to find Sancho standing at the top refusing to follow. My plan was to pick him up and carry him down these parts but he had other ideas. As I'd climb back up to get him he'd head off in another direction. Not only was I doing a lot of slipping on the loose leaf litter, I was also very anxious about him. I could readily imagine the conversation with Danita if I had to tell her Sancho had fallen off a cliff.

About half way down my left left stopped working - I couldn't put weight on it. The rest of the way down was limping and sliding with my mind again filled with thoughts about not leaving a note saying where we'd gone and people dying on the return journey.

Eventually, we made it to the bottom and I was excited to see our house in the distance. Getting home was a thrill even if I was bleeding, aching and exhausted. At this point I realised Sancho wasn't with me and didn't come when I called. The last thing I wanted to do was more walking! He'd decided to go home a different way and thankfully did finally turn up.

Every morning since, when we suggest a walk, Sancho has pointedly gone in the other direction!

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Powerless

Laurence Harrould - Wednesday, November 23, 2011

I'm writing this using pen and paper. (Well, clearly not this specifically because it's now on the web. The original was done with ancient technology.) The reason is that there is a power blackout. Apparently, they occur fairly regularly in this part of the world. A tree brought down the powerline. I can just hear the proponents of development saying "you wouldn't have that problem if you cleared all those useless trees".

It's now been hours without electricity and the impact has been quite significant. Firstly, no computers. Not only could I not check email (with the consequent raising of anxiety levels) but all those "important" things I had planned to do today required a computer.

The second impact has been no water. Being in the country, the water supply is pump driven and, of course, the pump is electrically powered. I was able to get one glass of water from the kettle for drinking but that was it. No water for washing and with the toilet you only get one flush (what's held in the cistern). Thankfully, this house has three toilets but still required very judicial use. It's been raining solidly for a few days now so I've resorted to using puddles for handwashing.

On the bright side the telephone works (but only if you use one of those old non-powered handsets - the joy of old technology). Also, being in the country, we have a couple of fireplaces so it's possible to warm the house (and lunch).

For me, this is a good example of why you should have your house set up to use batteries and solar power.

The worst thing about this is the beer getting warm - and that's life threatening!!

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Lawnmower Man

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, November 20, 2011

Last week I visited some friends of ours who live nearby. They had jokingly said I could come up and spend some time on their ride-on mower. As I'd been thinking of doing some mowing at the property we're currently on I decided it would be a good opportunity to get some tips on how to do it properly. My usual approach to things like that is to jump in and if I don't break anything it's gone well. So the chance to actually get a lesson first seemed particularly sensible - a new approach!

So here's what I learned:

1. Wear gloves & earmuffs

2. Go in a direction so the grass cuttings get sprayed across the area you've already cut

3. Avoid the wombat holes. Fortunately, ride-on mowers are light enough to extract from large holes single-handedly.

4. When playing chicken with a chicken, let the chicken win. Spreading fresh blood & bone was not part of the job and so I had to keep going around the chicken who had decided the path of an oncoming lawnmower would be an excellent place to find things to eat.

So, having spent a couple of hours cutting the grass at our friend's place I felt I could take on 'our' place.

The first thing I realised was their mower was a considerably newer model than the one we had. After pumping up the tyres and working out how the starting system worked (it required patience, perseverance and the judicial use of abusive language) we were on our way. Getting the cutting height right was also interesting and there are a couple of grass areas which look like someone has slipped with the clippers while giving someone a hair-cut.

On the positive side it was a lot of fun - a bit like an unlimited dodgem-car ride where you have trees, holes and rocks to avoid rather than idiots trying to break your neck by ramming your car (or is that the point of dodgems?).

So, after 4 hours of arm-muscle building (it's amazing how heavy the steering on a little thing like that can be) I had a couple of acres of "lawn" of which I was very proud. Have you ever noticed how you think having a before-&-after photo would be a really good idea when you've only got the "after" shot available?

Oh - there was one more thing I learned - wear long pants. My knees now look like an English tourist after a couple of days in Queensland. Thankfully there's Aloe Vera.

Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Permalink

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment

Comments

Post a Comment