The High Wood

There are people who complain about train travel. I have done so myself. Yesterday I discovered I owe the trains an apology.We had been up to Gosford to visit my parents. On the way back we suddenly found ourselves in a traffic jam. After inching forwards for about half an hour we finally came to a full stop. Reports indicated that two semi-trailers had been doing the funky gibbon about 10km ahead and there was going to be a delay of two to four hours.

I can recommend not having a five-year-old in the car when this happens. Robert is a great kid and he survived for a while playing with the laptop but he eventually spat the dummy. I had sympathy. I would have liked to spat it myself.

We were seriously considering that Robert and I make a 5km walk to the nearest railway station while Pamela waited to bring the car home. I thought this was going to be a bad idea because Robert would not be in a good state by the end of it. Probably I would have to carry him part of the way. This did not appeal.

Nevertheless we were just about to make the trek when fortunately some traffic police came past and warned us all that the road had been cleared and we would shortly be on our way. Pass the lord and praise the ammunition.

It then cleared fairly quickly. Probably we hadn’t lost more than one and a half hours.

But it wouldn’t have happened on the train.

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Version 0.2 of UDJW is well under way following lots of constructive comments by Pamela. Apart from all the rewriting and new scenes, I am also having to adjust some of the dialog to thieves’ cant appropriate to the period.

This is not as simple as it sounds. In fact, it doesn’t even sound simple.

For example, it’s one thing to claim that you get your balsam on the rattling lay but if you can’t tell a rabbit sucker from a running snobbler then the rum coves will be up to your rigs and, if you don’t pike on the been, you’re in danger of a slug in the quarrum.

I have a canting dictionary I am working through. Its coverage is excellent but unfortunately too large as it goes right up to the early 20th century. Also it has no reverse index.

What I need is Early Georgian Thieves’ Cant for Dummies. Amazingly, no one seems to have written one. I might have to write it myself. There has to be a market out there somewhere.

Anyway, at least I can now tell the rabbit sucker from the running snobbler.  If you ask me nicely, I might even let you in on the secret.

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Bundeena. Not a synonym for Cowabunga but a small place south of Sydney, between the National Park and the sea. It is an odd place. Cronulla is only a twenty minute ferry ride away but to get there by road there is a long drive along windy roads through the National Park. Thus it feels incredibly isolated but is in fact quite close to Sydney. Being on the edge of the park it cannot expand and so retains a village-like feel.

It has been ‘discovered’ fairly recently so we have 2.5 million dollar waterside mansions mixing it with old fibro shacks. Some friends of Pamela own one of the latter and it was available for a week so we took advantage of the opportunity. School holidays made it simple for Robert to be with us.

For anyone in the northern hemisphere it is worth noting that it is the middle of winter here so swimming and sandcastles were right out. Fibro provides a less than perfect insulator as well so the nights were a bit chilly. Fortunately the owners of the place had provided electric blankets. These are usually unnecessary in Sydney but they were very welcome.

The weather was most fine so we had plenty of nice walks in the National Park and visited a few local places of interest. The Symbio animal centre is not, as you might imagine, a place where exotic animal biosynthesis occurs but rather a small zoo where you can get close to the animals.

Robert got to pat a barking owl (again not a biosynthetic dog-bird). I got to stare at some freshwater crocodiles. It was a cold and miserable day so I had some fellow feeling with them. Lying in a warm place and snapping at anyone coming close sounded good to me.
There was no internet. In fact there wasn’t even a phone. Add to that hot water on tap and not going to work and you have civilisation. Of course, mobile phones mean you can never get away completely but you can always turn them off.

I had loaded the laptop up with games. There was a television. We had monopoly with us (almost obligatory when travelling with children) so even on the wet days (Friday and Saturday) we were occupied. Could have taken more of it really.

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