It’s possible that having the run so close to the house might have been a strategic error. Coping with the 5am wake-up just outside the bedroom window call every-single-morning has been quite the little challenge to come to grips with. Clearly memories fade after a decade of no chickens or some slightly different choices might have been made when planning this little lot. Fortunately, I’m an early riser and an even earlier lie-awake-and-ponderer so at least I don’t suffer an unduly startling wake-up call. Himself, however, has had to hone his capacity for ignoring extraneous noises to a whole new level. As of yesterday, I think the chickens are probably winning, given the grumbling!
Since my last post, we have renamed Braveheart. Her seemingly unlimited capacity for standing in the middle of the run and SHOUTING at the world is to blame for this. She’s particularly vocal when Chicken-little clucks off into the nesting box to snuggle down in the straw to lay an egg. So much so that, if no response is forthcoming, she’ll stomp up the little ramp into the nesting box and CHASE her sister out into the run! This seems to be because being all aloooooooone with a couple of (apparently) marauding pigeons who’ve fluttered in to snack on the leftover grain is very dangerous when she’s all on her own! Chicken-little eventually caves under the pressure – and chivvying – and scuttles out to see what’s up. She wanders around for a while, looking confused because the pigeons are gone and there’s clearly nothing noteworthy, then goes back to her disturbed egg-laying.
With all this in play, Braveheart somehow no longer seems to fit the bill! Coincidentally, I came across a tiktok-snippet in which a rooster is crowing very enthusiastically and his noise been voiced-over to sound like he’s shouting EliZ-zabeth(!). The name seems to suit her personality and I must confess that it’s easier to sound exasperated muttering EliZ-zabeth(!) as I head out to the run to save the neighbours – and my own – ears.
I reassure her (only somewhat impatiently…) that all is well and that the pigeons pose little risk. I go on to suggest that she quietens RIGHT DOWN about now ‘cos the number of her days remaining on this planet is probably more at risk from me than any imagined alternative! She’s less than impressed, but does settle down for a bit after that. Since having the wireless on when I’m out seems to comfort our little fox, I’ve also taken to leaving one on in my craft room all day, tuned to ABC Radio National. It seems that the chitchat of various podcasts and news broadcasts provides the chooks with the illusion of company and some sense of security. They both seem more settled, although they’ve taken to standing at the edge of the run at various times and staring in through the window. It’s disconcerting, but moderately quiet – so I’ll cope.
Anyhow, about a week ago, EliZ-zabeth(!) laid a shell-less egg. This, in addition to her previous two offerings looking rather like thin papier-mâché, was a decided worry. My on-call chicken whisperer’s comment was, ‘She’s fine. It happens sometimes. If you’re worried, cook up a ration of oats and mix in some grit to make sure she eats it (the grit).’ So, bright and early the next day, there I was cooking up oats porridge for the ladies! When it was cool enough, I duly mixed in a couple of tablespoons of shell grit and served it – still warm – with some mushroom and sweet potato leftovers. Gourmet chook food apparently, compared to the grain I put out at the same time. That they left for the pigeons!
Of course the next egg EliZzabeth(!) produced was of a good size and looked (mostly) normal. So, there you go – Chicken-whisperer knows her stuff!
Fortunately, Chicken-little has caused less stress and has consistently laid medium-large eggs, all with good shells. She’s also shown no sign of any need for creative artistry in their production or started to indulge in pronouncements of the sky being about to fall or the pigeons invading. She even copes with being bullied. Small mercies.
We’re averaging 9 eggs a week, which is pretty good, and I’m starting to give some of them away now. Not too sure that the eggs make up for the noise and fuss, but at least the rodents haven’t been eating my zucchini, tomatoes, etc., so I’m hopeful that the primary reason for getting the ladies has – possibly, probably – paid off.
The Covid-rollercoaster continues to find new ways to make life fun for all. On that uncertain landscape, disrupted holiday plans are really a comparatively minor glitch. Even so, the past week turned out to a bit more of a challenge than we expected as we navigated our very own version of Covid-glitchiness.
To be fair, we’ve been remarkably fortunate here in Western Australia so far. Unlike Victoria, New South Wales and (recently) the ACT, where Covid-consequences have been rife, people within WA have (mostly) been free to wander-out-yonder in their ‘backyards.’ And, with no adverse border conditions in place between WA, the Northern Territory and South Australia, we decided that it seemed like a reasonably safe bet to plan a trip that included travel through all of them.
After all (and with apologies to Dr Seuss), with brains in our heads – and feet in our shoes – we can steer ourselves in any direction we choose. What we came up with in the end was a cunning plan that involved a plane, a train and an automobile: we’d fly to Darwin, hop on The Ghan, adventure through Katherine (enjoying the Nitmiluk Gorge cruise off-train experience) and Alice Springs (with the Mount Gillen helicopter flight add-on, just for the fun of it) in the NT. We’d arrive in Adelaide after 3 days, just in time to pick up a camper van for the next stage of the journey.
This would involve nipping into the Barossa Valley, dropping past Port Augusta, stopping in Kimba (halfway across Australia) to visit its Big Galah, then heading towards the WA border via Ceduna and the Head of Bight (such views, apparently!). After crossing the Nullabor (to ‘baptise’ me as a real West Australian!), we’d head home via Esperance, the new Wellington Dam wall mural and so forth. This sounded nice and flexible and the camper meant we could stop wherever / wherever we felt so inclined. Hi-ho, adventures!
So leave was arranged, pet sitters organised, bookings made, and deposits paid. With every state having its own rules and regs around Covid and border control, we also had to apply for Northern Territory and South Australian border approvals, as well as a G2G pass to get back into WA. The approvals and relevant apps then had to be loaded onto our phones for ease of access. Sorted – or so we thought…
As is the way of these things, however, just days before we were due to leave, two new cases of Covid emerged in Katherine. A collective groan from all and sundry as we heard that the first case was a fully vaccinated person in Katherine (who initially tested negative for Covid, then positive 4 days later), the second a close personal contact, and both were infectious in the community for several days. None of that boded well for our trip.
Every day friends asked us whether we were still going / would the borders stay open / would the trip go ahead / would we lose our deposits – and so on. With no crystal ball readily to hand, no formal mandate from the WA Police regarding border closures and no notification from various hire companies that the trip was cancelled, we just thought good thoughts and pragmatically hoped for the best.
We ensured there was plenty of dog food in the house, had our fabulous pet sitters Jess & Chris round for afternoon tea and a catch up on the latest dog feeding regime etc., paid the balance on each leg of the trip, packed a laptop in case one of us ended up having to work remotely, booked an Uber and, at last, headed for the airport – appropriately masked.
Four hours of Business Class relaxation later (thanks to frequent flyer points) we landed in Darwin, where we turned our phones back to this charming message from the WA Police:
Your G2G Pass application: This means you are not permitted to travel into Western Australia.
Application status:
UNSUCCESSFUL
Reason for unsuccessful application:
Travel from/via Northern Territory
The full implications of this message were unclear, other than that our previously ‘successful’ applications had been revoked and that we’d need to reapply for WA border entry when we got to Adelaide at the end of the week. All we could do was to claim our baggage and, as per advice from authorities, make our (still masked) way directly to our hotel. There we stayed, venturing precisely nowhere until the morning in order to limit any possible exposure – even MenuLogging some pizzas rather than trying to hunt down a nearby restaurant. Many good thoughts were thought and Zen moments attempted as we waited, hoping like crazy that the other shoe wouldn’t fall…
In the morning, we masked up, checked out, hopped into a taxi and headed over to the Hilton – the designated pick up point for The Ghan. As it turned out, the train had had some sort of issue just out of Adelaide and been delayed for many hours, which resulted in it getting in to Darwin later than expected. For us, that meant a few more hours hurry-up-and-wait, so we had a leisurely breakfast at the Hilton, used the facilities and chatted to other Ghan-hopefuls. We were finally bussed out to the rail passenger terminal at midday, about 20km out of Darwin. We were on our way…
But no, another surprise awaited us there: more cases of Covid had come to light in Katherine and the town had gone into a snap lockdown. This meant that our scheduled stop there was cancelled. Instead, we would continue on straight through to Alice Springs, which would actually make up for the late departure and result in us arriving there more or less on time – so there you go: swings and roundabouts!
It was a relief to finally settle into our tiny-weenie, cute-as-can-be cabin (with its equally cute en suite). Dumping our bags, we headed down to the lounge car for drinks and socialising before lunch – and the food and drinks just kept on coming! The train was only at about 1/3 capacity (as a result of NSW and Victoria cancellations) and the group in our section bonded quite quickly. About half the people were from WA, one from Brisbane and the rest from South Australia. Lots of shared stories and laughs and a stunning sunset – a good evening after such a ragged start.
We woke at about 3am to find the train stopped in the middle of nowhere; I’m guessing the absence of the soothing clickety-clack train sounds is what disturbed us. There we remained until sunrise (about 5am), before carrying on towards Alice. About an hour later there was an announcement: many apologies wrapped around the fact that South Australia had closed its borders in response to the Katherine outbreak and that only SA residents would be permitted to cross the NT/SA border; our border passes had been revoked and all non-SA passengers would have to disembark in Alice and make their way home.
Consternation ensued. More announcements. More apologies. Breakfast. More announcements. Assistance with arrangements, if required, etc. At the end of all that, we a) didn’t get to go on our fabulous helicopter adventure in Alice, b) didn’t get to spend our last day and night on The Ghan, c) missed lunch completely, and d) and had to cancel our camper van pick up in Adelaide. We DID get to a) hurry-up-and-wait a whole lot more, b) let our pet sitters know that we’d be back a whole LOT sooner than planned, c) scurry to find a flight back to Darwin and then on to Perth, d) find a hotel to spend the night in, e) reapply for returning-resident G2G pass back into WA and f) load the WA Police home quarantine tracking app – with facial recognition – onto our phones (!)
Many hours and much anxious waiting in various places later we finally landed back in Perth, went through border control, grabbed a taxi home and entered 14 days mandatory home-quarantine. We’d been gone for 4 days and it felt like the full 14! The longest not-exactly-holiday we’ve ever been on. The dogs were delighted! I’d guess it felt like 14 days to them too 🙂
Checking in with the G2G Now app is now to be part of our daily routine until 4 December. The app info says it’s “quick, fun and easy” and, whilst I agree with the quick and easy part, fun it decidedly is not. Our phones sound a raucous and persistent alarm when the app wants to ‘see’ us – this happens once a day at random times, different times for each of us. We then need to open the app and allow it to take our photo and check our location. Yesterday mine was at 5pm, today 8am – both times causing me to leap to my feet and to go phone-hunting! By the end of 14 days I’ll have even more sympathy for Pavlov’s cat!!
Meantime, we’ve undergone our first Covid tests (nasty!) and received confirmation of negative results. Hurrah! Test #2 will be on Day 12. Until then we hurry-up-and-wait some more, but at least it’s at home and not in hotel quarantine. BoyChilde and his lovely lass dropped off some milk (to the gate), along with chocs, biscotti and fresh cherries yesterday > champs! We have access to grocery deliveries and a well stocked freezer, the pool’s at a very pleasant 30 degrees and the sun’s shining – so our trials and tribulations are minor. AND I’ll be able to get some work done on my ‘round-to-it’ aka my mosaic mural project, which might even be finished by Christmas, thanks to all this!
As Dr Seuss says, “Out there things can happen, and frequently do, to people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, don’t worry, don’t stew. Just go right along, you’ll start happening too!”
Over the weekend I was having a chat with someone who’s been having a bit of a hard time coming to terms with some changes in their life. She spent a fair while telling me in some detail about the negatives, the unhappy-making things, and the things that cause her dissatisfaction. The list was long, with most of the issues carried forward over many years and none of them seeming to have any clear pathway to resolution.
It took me back to my mental first aid training last year. At the time the instructor stressed that, as often as not, people just need someone to hear them. That talking through an issue can make a huge difference in terms of coping and moving forward. So I listened.
When the conversation moved on, I found myself asking what sorts of things make her happy. Just simple, everyday things. Her response was, ‘I’ve never really thought about life that way.’ That made me sad.
But here’s the thing: life’s full of potentially unhappy-making events and experiences. They’re there, right in front of us or lying in wait around unexpected corners or concealed in the strangest of places. Every day. But so arehappy-making things.
Happy-things don’t have to be epic happies, like successfully completing a project, or finding a solution to global warming, or resolving a relationship issue. They can be things as seemingly-trivial as taking a moment’s pleasure in sunshine on your shoulders, or someone smiling at you on the train, or seeing a dog chasing a ball in the park. It can be anything that, in that moment, makes you smile. That smile – that moment when your face softens and your eyes sparkle – that can be your positive for the day. If you let it.
It may sound a bit self-help and twee, but I’ve found that outlook makes an enormous difference to coping with all the weird stuff that life throws my way. Actively choosing to be receptive to the joy in the small stuff, making a conscious decision to look for happy things, changed how I looked at the bigger issues as well.
So, perhaps, dear friend, since the big issues are so very big and have no endgame in sight, perhaps try changing how you think about life. See if it helps to make a conscious decision to try to take pleasure each day in the small things, in the everyday things – and let’s catch up again next week and see how you’re travelling.
A little while ago someone came through our doors asking for some help. She looked like she’d been roughed up, but was adamant that she didn’t want us to phone anyone for her or get medical help. All she wanted was to use the bathroom to clean up and, if we had any spare, some cash so that she could catch the bus.
Nothing we offered made a difference. She went to the bathroom, came out looking a little less disheveled, took the cash we offered, thanked us and left.
It freaked me out. A lot.
I felt that I should have been able to offer more, do more, help in some way – but had no idea how. It troubled me for weeks – still does, really. What also troubled me was that I had no tools to deal with how I felt about the event or how other people present at the time did. It was awkward and uncomfortable and I found it difficult to understand why I felt slightly guilty about the whole thing.
So when the opportunity arose for me to sign up for a course that would provide an overview of mental health issues and how a non-mental health professional can respond, I jumped at it.
The course is called Mental Health First Aid and it’s effectively the mental health equivalent of a standard first aid course. It was run over two days by the WA Association of Mental Health (WAAMH), who offered it at a significantly reduced cost – which was also a great incentive.
The course objective is to equip participants with the skills and resources to recognise and respond appropriately to someone experiencing a mental health crisis – at least until professional help arrives!
We covered a lot of ground, including:
Understanding Mental Health, including diagnoses, prevalence and common misconceptions
Symptoms and causes of depression, anxiety, psychosis and substance misuse.
How to provide initial support to adults who are experiencing a mental health crisis.
Crisis First Aid for: suicidal behaviour, panic attacks, aggressive behaviour, self harm, acute psychosis
Responding to the effects of substance misuse
Some of it was heavy going, but it was made very real for all of us by the lived experience stories of people who came in to share those with us. Then there was the added dimension of about 60% of the course participants also having their own lived experiences of mental health issues, many of them still raw and relatively easily triggered. It made for some difficult situations and complicated conversations – but all of those served to inform each of us in different ways about how mental health can and does impact people’s lives.
I hadn’t realised that one in five Australians experience mental health issues, or that anxiety and depression are major players. And yet people don’t talk about it, don’t allow mental health to be just another health issue that can be managed. Why is that?
Perhaps part of it is fear. But if we don’t talk about the size and shape of the black dog (and his friend the elephant in the room), we won’t ever learn how to recognise it and learn how to manage it.
Having completed this very basic mental health first aid course, I feel slightly better equipped to answer some of the questions. I have facts, stats, a manual, an action plan and a certificate. These all make me feel safer. But what really made a difference was talking to people, understanding a little better how to really listen, how best respond, what sort of help to offer, and where to find resources that can make a difference in a crisis situation.
I very much hope that if that young woman came back asking for our help again, I might just be able to do something useful for her without being quite so terrified that I’d be doing the wrong thing. And if she still only wanted to use the bathroom and get some bus fare… well, that’s okay too.
Last week I was presented with the choice of 20+ fridge magnets and an invitation to choose as many as I’d like. The magnets were created by a friend from original photographs that he took, in and around Perth. He combined the images with words to create positive messages for himself – and then decided to share them.
The art work is terrific and part of me wanted to grab all 20 and whack them up all over my fridge. But instead I showed some restraint and spent a bit of time sorting through to see if any of them really leapt out at me and said ‘take me home’.
What I discovered is that, although they’re all lovely, only two of them really resonated with me on that particular day. One because it’s who I am and the other because I need the reminder.
I must have looked at those magnets dozens of times since I put them up. Whenever I open and close the fridge, there they are. They remind me to take a mental step back from rushing around and be present in the moment – and they’ve made me smile. Every time.
So thanks, friend, for sharing your thoughts and smiles. They’re greatly appreciated. Smiles are huge and happy and lovely and can totally make someone’s day – especially if they’re shared.
So here are my smiles, dear tea leaf readers. I hope they work for you too – and that you share them around 🙂
