Please excuse my blog while it freaks out

So, I'm having a bit of trouble with the formatting on my blog at the moment. It looks OK on the mobile but the web version is freaking out. I don't know if you've noticed, but some of the images seem to be overlapping my very important and extremely interesting text. Apparently I have a degree in graphic design, but this has proven to be of no practical use whatsoever when it comes to blogger. Has anyone else experienced this with their blog? Maybe my computer has picked up a virus after I was keeping up to date with Kylie Minogue's or Sandra Bullock's latest adventures? (I've heard that their sites have the most viruses.) If anyone has any helpful suggestions I would be greatly appreciative. In the meantime, whilst I try to sort out this technical hitch, here is some waiting music, 'La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la...'

P.S. I also apologise for the cheap Radiohead pun.

These things happened today

These things happened today. Driving in the car this afternoon, we passed a car parked on the side of the road and saw that it was on fire. Yes, in a gentle little suburban scene, whilst people ate lunch in the shopping centre behind the flaming car and as women clutching shopping bags waited at the nearby bus stop, the car burned and burned.

Later, in the park whilst my son ran around excitedly, a happy looking elderly man entered the park wearing a small black radio across his chest, sharing Chinese Er Hu music with us all. He gently nodded to people as he walked past and I nodded in return, feeling slightly intoxicated by the music and curious about his serene demeanor. He continued to calmly walk past me and up a small hill leading to the slides. At the top of one of the slides, he paused, placed his hands on the safety bar, and for a brief moment it felt as if the entire park stopped and waited to see what would happen next. I silently willed him to go down the slide, 'Do it, go on, go down the slide.' His shoulders lowered for just a moment and then - he smoothly turned and walked away as gently as he had entered the scene, with his music tinkling between the trees, the play equipment and the bemused parents.

At home, my son hugged me for no particular reason with his little hands around my neck and his soft cheek against my ear and I felt totally at peace with the world.

These things happened today, and it was a strange and wonderful day.

Cloud break

Sometimes my brain needs a break and so I go and look at clouds. Here are some for you to look at too. If your brain is thirsty for more cloud images, have a look at the Cloud Appreciation Society. Yes, I know, I can’t believe there is actually a society that appreciates clouds. Amazing stuff.

Car park sushi

There it was. Quietly sitting on the ground in the car park next to the trolley bay. Perfectly packaged takeaway sushi. It didn’t look as though it had been dropped. It looked neatly placed. All of the tempting pieces were lined up in well spaced rows.

What was it doing there? Had some starving and harried person placed it there as they were searching for their keys whilst talking on the phone and buckling kids into their seats, eventually driving off without it? Was it a hidden camera trick to see if anyone would pick it up and eat it? Or could it have been a modern art piece, placed by an enthusiastic art student to make comment on the poetic relationship between fish, shopping trolleys and car parks?

I stared as I walked past, I couldn’t take my eyes off it as though I had just witnessed the evidence of a mini suburban tragedy. Why were you in the car park that day, sushi, why?

Not so permanent permafrost

Have you heard? About the permafrost melting? The UN has reported today that with the thawing of frozen soil in the arctic, we are all in deep, deep trouble. Environmentally speaking, that is.

Now I don’t know about you, but this just made me panic with a capital ‘P’. Apparently we’ll start to see the effects of significant global warming as early as 2100. What! 2100? This is worse than the time my grade 2 teacher explained that one day, billions of years from now, the sun is going to explode and then the human race is going to be wiped out. Forever.

I don’t want it to get any hotter than it already is. Tomorrow’s forecast has predicted 38 degrees. 38 degrees in November, in Melbourne is not usual. Or fun. Especially when there’s so much asphalt and bluestone around. I don’t want the sea levels to rise. I like the coastline just as it is, thank you very much. I don’t want our earth to choke in greenhouse gasses. I don’t want people to suffer.

I’ve gotta go and plant some trees now. Right now.

Someone's in the fishtank

Aquarium, fineliner ©jb

Sometimes the strangest things happen and no one blinks an eye. We just get on with things. Or we stop, stand still and wait for something to happen, taking cues from each other before we decide to react.

A siren went off in the shopping centre. Sharp, sickening, the sound filled the air leaving no room for anything else but fear. We all looked to each other for clues. A white haired woman read my face just as I searched hers for answers. What the hell is going on? Is it a fire, a gunman? What should we do, what should we do?

The noise went on and on. I had stopped still near a doorway, pram handles tightly gripped with my little boy looking around apparently unaffected. A female voice spoke through the loudspeakers. This is an emergency, please stand by for further instructions. What? Stupid loudspeaker lady. Give us the instructions now! 

I looked around. Some people were still shopping, walking around like they were in a nightclub, used to the oppressive noise. A woman and her young daughter wandered backwards and forwards nearby and asked me what was happening. I told her that it was best that we stay near the doorway, just in case. But to myself, I wondered if the threat was inside or outside the doors.

So I stood frozen to the spot and waited, prepared to run with my boy if I needed to. The loudspeaker lady spoke again. Attention, the emergency has been resolved, repeat, the emergency has been resolved.

Immediately, as if we'd melted, my fellow frozen shoppers and I moved off our spots, joining the flow of carefree shoppers once again. With no explanation for what had happened, some looked slightly embarrassed, as though they read the situation too seriously. Others, like myself who had children with us gave each other a practical smile as if to say, 'Just doing our job, paying attention and keeping our little ones safe'.

My quiet little fox friend

A fox in the forest, pen and ink ©jb

The last time I saw a fox was a couple of months ago. I was parked in my car in the early hours of the morning. It was dark and so, so very cold. The street light was showing me the shape of the road and the concrete gutters seemed to glow silver against the bitumen black. Everything was still. As if the air had been sucked out of the suburbs. No leaves, branches or blade of grass moved.

And then there he was. Bounding out between two trees like he’d always been there. Sure footed yet with a cautious gaze, it seemed that his amber coat glowed and warmed up the still air around him. He knew he had to careful, that he wasn’t usually greeted with a happy smile. Crossing the road in front of me, he foraged around in a bush or two and then as quickly as he had appeared, he slipped away out of sight.

I started up the engine, it was time to go. My quiet little fox friend had broken the stillness of the morning and I drove away with a smile on my face.