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366 unusual things: days 39-43

8th Feb – A neighbour working on an old Jag removed the muffler and took it for a test drive.  He roared it round a corner where a woman was pushing a pram.  She jumped back a few feet.

9th Feb – I drove in a storm today for the first time in years.  Doesn’t rain much here.

10th Feb – A friend who does no gardening, not even pot plants, showed me four full buckets of peaches from trees in her back yard.

11th Feb – Driving from Queanbeyan to the coast, there’s a strip of several kilometres where people nail teddy bears and other stuffed toys to trees.  It’s hard to stop for photos because it’s a highway, but I did capture one crucified teddy:

12th Feb – My son who has no cameras who is engaged to a photographer with many cameras gave me for my birthday a disposable camera.

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366 unusual things: days 34- 38

3rd Feb:  My son and his fiancée just ordered their wedding rings from a country in the other hemisphere.  The new way of shopping.  I’m still getting my head around this.

4th Feb:  When leaving to walk the dog, the couple in the Housing flats called out:  ‘How are ya?’ This is the first time any of the tenants have voluntarily spoken to me.

5th Feb:  Bought an antique chair for my son’s fiancée.  I saw swirls etched into the seat, but she showed me they were hearts.

6th Feb:  I just bought fabric from a country in the other hemisphere.  Never say never.

7th Feb:  Translating a passage about a dying abbot, I paused for a moment to search for a song online for background music, and found several covers done by Amy Winehouse. I wouldn’t have let her into my personal space, but when I played her version of Billie Holiday’s ‘There is no greater love’ all the grimness of the abbot’s death was forgotten.  I never learn to never say never.

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366 unusual things: days 29-33

29th Jan – My son and his fiancée showed us a circle of firs in a park, a green cathedral, where they will get married.  If it doesn’t rain.

30th Jan – Tonight, just after falling asleep, I woke screaming. A large heavy painting had fallen off the wall behind my bed and slipped down behind a chair.

31st Jan – A woman in the Housing flats opposite my window just bought one heaped-up ice-cream cone from the Mr Whippy van.  She’s holding it out for 5 children from the neighbourhood who take licks in turns.

1st Feb – I crossed the line today to congratulate another couple in the flats on the birth of their baby.  They were gracious, grateful and clean-mouthed.

2nd Feb – A short walk from my house, in a small university run by the Dominican Order, monastic buildings enclose a round cloister and a garden, in which I found rose beds and a sign:  No Smoking in the Rose Garden.

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366 unusual things: days 24-28

24th Jan – A visitor arrived at the Housing flats but, before getting out of his car, was assailed by a tenant spewing the loudest tirade of abuse yet heard in this street.  It was about money paid as maintenance for her 2 granddaughters – $50 a week.  Her vocabulary was quickly exhausted, so for about 10 minutes she repeated two obscene words several times in each sentence.

25th Jan – I noticed when I knock on a door gently to wake someone, only the knuckle of my middle finger does the knocking.

26th Jan – A manuscript appraiser suggested I break up my translated text using a dinkus.

It’s a tiny design dividing otherwise undivided text.  I like this one.

And below, here’s one in place.

Dinkus in  ‘Almost French’ by Sarah Turnbull

27th Jan – My breakfast-on-the-deck was better than usual:  I saw a possum curled up in a corner of the roof guttering.  Turned out she was hiding something…

A possum hiding something...
And then there were two!
Possums uncurled and stacked

28th Jan – As I drove onto the bridge to cross the lake, I had to slow for 15 horses and riders and a black and white sheepdog in my lane.

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366 unusual things: days 19-23

19th Jan – A 19 year-old girl, just returned from 6 months abroad, told me her best moment was arriving in Istanbul at night and going into Hagia Sofia.  I thought of the unlikelihood of me knowing what this was, except I’ve studied art history.

20th Jan – A metallic violet Police ute drifted past me;  number plate:  RAPID 3.  Its black and white checked stripe followed the lines of the ute, the back end of the stripe dissipating in the wind speed.

21st Jan – A very British architect interviewed on radio said you have to tickle the boxes.  For 3 seconds I imagined how I would tickle a box, before I understood he’d said tick all like tick’ll.

22nd Jan – I was standing alone on the beach at 8.30 pm, the light almost gone.  An adolescent boy rolled onto the sand in an electric wheelchair.  For a few moments it was just him and me and the vast ocean.  He did a u-turn and went back to the park behind the beach.

23rd Jan – A distant relative rang after 9 years of silence and within seconds was asking me for help with French pronunciation.

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366 unusual things: days 14-18

14th Jan – I tried to tear up some poorly framed photos I’d had printed for 10 cents each.  How disappointed I was to feel the photos resist my cranky hands. The Kodak XtraLife II paper has a top layer of plastic that won’t be torn.  To destroy it, I had to go in search of a pair of scissors and then cut, cut, cut.  Where’s the satisfaction in that?  Tearing up a photo, especially of an unpleasant face, is one of the great pleasures in life.

15th Jan – Watched Gone with the Wind for the first time in 30 odd years.  In the hospital scene, some long dark shadows cast onto a wall didn’t move exactly as their owners did.  The shadows seemed to have been filmed and attached afterwards.

16th Jan – My husband uses an old wardrobe in the shed for tool storage, and the possum uses it as a hideaway:

Possum in the tool cupboard

Jan 17 – I received a letter from Germany in an envelope made from a paled scan of a letter I’d written myself.

Jan 18 – My lady butcher’s hands are red, like she’s had them deep inside an animal’s flesh.  But they are that colour even when clean.  I said, ‘Your hands have been working hard,’ and she said ‘Yes, I have ugly hands.’

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366 unusual things: days 8-12

8th Jan – Tonight I found the very first comment on my blog.  It took 8 days.

9th Jan – I was having coffee in the far back corner of a café when a short European man dumped a heavy cardboard box on my table.  I jumped.  When he went off to speak to the manageress I took a peek and saw 8 plastic boxes full of honeycomb.

10th Jan – I saw a bike chained to a rack, its front wheel twisted by vandals. But something about its melted form was worth remembering.

11th Jan – The Housing tenants are sweeping their path, hosing the gutter, picking up rubbish and putting away the seven chairs they usually gather on to smoke and drink and abuse passers-by.  A 9-year-old girl picks up debris while her corpulent grandmother holds open a large plastic bag, a cigarette dangling from her lips.  The authorities have visited.

12th Jan – A Swiss friend made une tresse, a plaited bread roll, for me.

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366 unusual things, days 6 & 7

6th Jan:  I put out seed for wild rosellas and a rat came to nibble on the leftovers.

7th Jan:  Outside the most expensive shoe shop in Canberra, an old Chinese lady sits behind two Styrofoam boxes, one holding large bouquets of hydrangeas, pink, purple and blue;  the other holds herb bunches.  She counts her cash, moving her toothless jaw in and out.

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366 unusual things: days 1 – 5

Every day I see or hear at least one thing that makes me look, or listen, twice, because it’s not something I was expecting.  Here are the unusual things I’ve seen so far this year, this leap year, when there will be 366 days.  A bonus unusual thing.

1st Jan:  The housing tenants across the street welcomed the new year with coprolalia.

2nd Jan:  A thin dirty woman in a mini-skirt, ankle socks slipping into her clogs, was walking past the video store, hugging the glass wall.  She stopped to pick up a dead half-cigarette, pulled out a lighter, lit the cigarette and smoked it.

3rd Jan:  Neighbour no. 1 phoned and neighbour no. 2 emailed to tell us that neighbour no. 3  is a police informer with a gun.

4th Jan:  My son’s new employer, a jeans shop owner, wants him to wear their $300 jeans.  They’re made with special bacteria and can’t be washed.  The bacteria eats the dirt.

5th Jan:  A pretty twentyish blonde girl serving me at the car repair place bent over to write down my details.  I saw ‘Joshie’ tattooed in beautiful black copperplate across her left breast.

Fertile Ground:  In a long crack in a short concrete wall, a Johnny-jump-up grows, unwatered and ignored until now.  Years ago they grew  in a pot plant near the little wall, a very poor specimen which I abandoned.  Hope reigns.