October 2023 – OZTHOUGHTS

Camping in Australia….. More about this.

We spent the last weekend, well, actually four days, in a splendid camp with a bunch of our friends. This camp site was a Hipcamp, which is a member of the organisation of Hipcamp (https://www.hipcamp.com/en-AU). We went there with a bunch of friends from our walking group, well actually all of them came to this campsite, so we were there with all our friends!We

This was the place and our vehicles are all over the place….

We had great fun here….. And we really enjoyed ourselves totally.

Our pooch, Gizmo, who always accompanied us in all our various camping exhibitions…. Plus the kitchen.

Local wildlife…. A Goana, this one was about 1 meter long…. This was the second Goana we saw.

We made a sort of rough Tent to protect us from the vicious sun!

We needed 4 wheel drive vehicles to get to the camp site, it was a really rough track.

So all in all, we had a REALLY good time there, all with our 4 wheel drive vehicles, in order to get to the camp site. We had an all wheel drive X-Trail – but we also have a Suzuki Vitara – As one does! But that is Lotty’s car, and it is really rough, so we don’t use it on these trips.

Yet more about my time in Greece.

I was not in Greece for a long time, as the famous “Colonels Coup” had happened, and all of the prisoners in camps all over Greece were exchanged for others as the politics changed. This coup (which was organised by the CIA) caused an exchange of prisoners, the original prisoners were changed for a bunch of people who against the “Colonels”. Which included me.

Greece suddenly became a much more fascist state, reflecting the current state of American politics, and so it was really difficult to express yourself about all manner of issues and avoid being bunged into prison. Ah well, all good things end.

For a while, Greece became impossible to visit. Or at least if you were aware of politics. The “normal” tourists still went to Greece, but politically aware ones avoided it like the plague.

After the coup had softened its grip on power, Greece once again became possible to visit, and the Greek nature showed through once again, and the political prisoners once again changed back to the ones that the “Colonels” had imprisoned life became once again possible.

In other words, all changed back to the way things had been before the infamous coup, and Greece once again became Greece!

More about Greece.

Prince Phillip was born in Corfu, in the most unlikely named place, which was in Corfu town, It was called Mon Repos. Yes, really it was! So in fact, he was a Greek and not British. Just felt like saying that…. Not any reason, merely I felt like saying that.

When Greece was anti-British, as Britain was being horrid about Cypress and looked like Greece was about to go to war with Britain over Cypress, I found myself in Greece, to my horror, and I was really nervous about admitting that I was British. And a Greek said a most remarkable thing to me, when I did admit that I was British. He said, or words to that effect, “Their argument was with the British Government, not the British people, and that therefore I was OK”. I was overwhelmed by this……..

As I said in another post the other day, I used to see the women carrying water to the cafe on the beach at Glyfada, when I was on the beach there. These women used to carry water on their heads, not simply a bit of water, but about 50 litres! They used to carry this on their heads as they walked down the hill (the village they lived in was above the beach at Glyfada). Can you imagine the strength of these women, water weighed 50 kilos, and they walked down the hill with it! Amazing!

Corfu…. My time there….

Corfu is an island to the east of Greece, just where Greece joins Albania, where I spent some time. Well, actually rather a lot of time, I tended to rest there after having hitched from England, and it was the first bit of “Greece” I experienced

Corfu……. Near Albania.

I used to camp on a beach on the eastern side of the island, where I had all sorts of experiences, including the first time I smoked Marijuana! The last time I went to Corfu was a real disappointment as that beach I used to camp on, was full of Hotels and snack-bars and the village on top of the hill (where I used to watch the women carting the water to the one cafe which was on the beach. On their heads!) was full of tourists.

This beach was called Glyfada, by the way.

All manner of experiences happened to me, on that beach, apart from smoking my first joint, I was scared rigidly on one occasion as we experienced a thunder storm there, which came onto the beach we were sleeping on… Lightning was hitting the beach…. This was a first for me, lightning was landing about 20 meters from me!!!!!! Which was terrifying! We didn’t know where to go, as lightning was hitting the beach all over!

More about my time on Corfu later……….

My time in Greece…. Donkeys and other things…..

Lots of years ago, I spent a lot of time in Greece, wandering around, and learning how the Greeks did things, and how they lived. This was in the 60’s of the last century….. Long before everyone went to Greece!

A lot of time was spent hitching around Greece. One of my favourite things was the concept of Xenia, not as hatred of foreigners, but of welcoming them to their lives.

The concept of Xenia was to welcome foreigners (which meant anyone from a different place, not foreigners necessarily), but anyone from elsewhere – but not the neighboring villages, they felt about them as anyone in the world did….

That was different to our meaning of that word, which is xenophobia, which means hatred of foreigners, they welcomed them….

In the north of Greece, when I went into a village, everyone ran out the other side of the village, as I looked like a bandit (I had long hair and a beard, which only bandits wore in that time), so I simply sat down in a cafe and waited. The civil war was very fresh in everyone’s memories.

In due time the village priest came back, as he was untouchable for bandits, and sat beside me, to find out who I was. Once he discovered that I was a foreigner, he signaled the rest of the village, and they all came back – well, the men came back, not the women. I never saw any women at all.

I was then welcomed in the entire village houses…. All of them! Each night I had to stay in another house – and I never saw a woman! As payment, I brought the kids presents, as they would accept no other payment, as being paid went against the concept of Xenia. But I couldn’t take endlessly and felt that I should pay for things, as they were poor, poor, and – relatively, I was rich.

This soon stopped as Hippies abused this concept, and made use of it, and now, if you go to Greece, you will search for Xenia all over the place, but you won’t find it, sadly.

One of the other things I found with hitching around Greece was that I was given rides in the most extraordinary vehicles….. Given lifts on a donkey was not rare. I sat upon the donkey’s back and found myself in endless villages, and in army trucks was not a rare thing. I really enjoyed myself in Greece, and loved the Greeks, particularly the country ones.

My good life….. And other things……

So far I have lived a thoroughly good life! In all respects.

I have reached the age of about 81 without any major problems, and lived a good life generally – not many disappointments along the way, and generally it has been a really great life. I have been in a lot of countries and been busy doing all manner of great things, which I have enjoyed.

I went to Australia soon after the war, and loved it! I also loved the journey out there, as I did on all the various sea journeys that I undertook, well, it was passive as far as I was concerned, but I enjoyed them all. Both the huge journeys and the small ones… I also loved seeing the various places I went to…. The Suez Canal, and the camel that spat on me when I was attempting to come ashore in Aden, Columbo was enchanting as was Singapore (I lived there for about a year later), and Australia was a dream come true!

I learnt to swim in the middle of the Pacific Ocean…. In the boat I was on, the Orcades, it was called. I used to go down to the engine room in that boat, and all the others I travelled on in my various journeys around the world. With the exception of the Dutch one, called the William Reus, in which I travelled from Singapore to Germany, in which we were not permitted to go anywhere apart from our section of the ship.

Arrival in Germany made a HUGE impression on me, it was in about 1952, and we arrived in Hambourg, and saw for ourselves all the damage that had been done on the working class area of the city (not the middle class sections of the city, that was unharmed), the masts sticking out of the water and the damage that had been done on the harbour…… It was an eye-opener to be honest!

England was also a mess…. The war damage was amazing to see. Bombed houses all over the place. I saw it from a new perspective, as I hadn’t seen much of such things in my life.

All in all, it has been a very enjoyable life so far, and I will write about it again, as I was involved in all manner of things in my life…..

Living in Oz…..

I have now lived in Australia for about 11 years, and I can say that I am enjoying it as an experience. Australia is a calm country, unlike some of the countries I have lived in! We have no risk of fascists taking over or becoming a police state, actually life is remarkably calm, life goes on calmly.

We have built our house, and are living in it now……

A Goana…… Huge lizards that they have around here. They are about 3 meters long!

A male Koala that once visited us…. Generally we hear them, but not see them.

A real nuisance, these creatures are everywhere! And destroy everything they see…….. Cockatoos if you are in doubt.

Lotty working away on one of our decks….. this was about 7 meters high!

An army of Cockatoos….. on our deck!

Our son and his children…. On their deck.

Our comfortable home…….

To give an idea of how high our building is……..

The completed house…… All except for the deck on the low side of the house…. This is now completed with a grape plant…. Which gives grapes in the summer, and gives us shade in the summer too.

Tis is how it is now….. The front balcony has grapes on it!

And it offers’ us shelter too.

All in all, we have it damn alright right now……. And are very content living in Australia, and love our house, which we built ourselves, really. And we are enjoying were we live… Actually, all is good in our lives right now

I get cancer!!!!

I was recently diagnosed with Prostate Cancer, by chance, as it happens. I was sent for a scan by a urologist to check on problems with pissing, and what happened is that I was that he discovered a small cancer in my prostate!

Images of the difference between “ordinary” cells and cancer cells

This after the public section of the health system had been mucking about for several years, I went there, I was seen by a nurse, who reported to a doctor, (oh, I took a test piss, filling a bucket with piss) and that was repeated time after time….. So I got fed-up with this routine, so I went to a private Urologist instead.

There were about 5 cancer cells to be found in there, and he ordered another scan to check out how far it was and if it was curable, and this one discovered that there were no others, so it was a case of dealing with 5 cancer cells.

So sent me to a cancer specialist, who took one look at the scan, and decided that I needed to be irradiated at once…. So she set this up, so I had to go for 39 sets of radiations in another hospital – the one I saw her in didn’t have the capacity to deal with this.

This was painless, but boring………..

And entailed loads of driving too, about 70 km per day! But it worked!

In the end I was declared free of cancer cells, and I pissed 2 times a night as opposed to every three quarters of an hour… Which was a great relief. But the only thing was the “hot flushes” that I suffered from, as a result of the hormone injections I had – the idea was to stop the testosterone adding to the cancer, but it was a dreadful thing! I had “hot flushes” every few minutes, which was a real drag!!!!!!! And it went on for about a year as well. And I am still getting it at night, sadly.

But otherwise, I am cured completely, which is GREAT!!!!