The skirl of the pipes woke me ANZAC morning.
I would have thought that they would have done their practising at home, instead of leaving it until the last minute before they were due to march...and while they were some way from my window, their skirl was not.
I never knew Mad Harry, no reason why I should really. He died in a car accident in 1966.
During the first world war though, he won the Victoria cross, the highest of all the British armies decorations, and but for a line of barbwire that he couldn't get through, came within a whisker of winning another. Winning instead two distinguished service orders..or D.S.O. and bar to use the correct vernacular. The French gave him the Croix De Geurre.
It was the skirl of the pipes that reminded me of him.
The pipes are to comemorate the fallen, and the returned, soldiers of the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.
My Grandmothers brother Harry was one of them. He enlisted in the New Zealand army, and became what was known as a Mainbody man, which meant he was one of the first of the idiots to arrive on Gallipoli.In his favour however, they did tell him that it would be like going on holiday and that he would be back home by Christmas...He got there in April of 1915. Mad Harry was another.He was a shiftless wastrel from Tasmania, who to get out of working in a logging camp, enlisted in the Australian army.His life so sorely lacked purpose that he thought Gallipoli was an upwards career move.
So, there they were, both Harry's fighting for the Empire against the Turks, over a god forsaken stretch of dunes that you would have trouble raising spit over.
It is, however, perhaps one of those ironic quirks of fate that one Harry's sister ended up raising the other Harry's son.
See, Mad Harry, despite all his medals for bravery, was actually a coward.
After the war Mad Harry got married, nothing wrong with that, (except perhaps the shonky alliteration.) Then his wifes neice came to stay, nothing wrong with that either. It was the tupping of her that caused all the ensuing problems.
"What steps are you going to take?" said his wife. "Big bastards" said Mad Harry and promptly left the country,pregnant neice dutifully in tow. Wife got the cattle station, and stayed silent.
It was the other Harry's sister who answered the add in the paper to adopt Mad Harry's bastard.
Mad Harry for his part, married the, by now, ex wifes neice, and went home, sans child, to a life of reflected glory, considerable fortune and two more children. (legitimate ones of course)
For a time there was word that he would even be made Prime Minister of Australia. It was probably this story,stored away in the skeleton closet, which caused him to turn down the offer.
His son, for his part, never fell far from his fathers tree, and dutifully spent his life spreading his genetic pool as far afield as he possibly could. He unfortunately did not have a Gallipoli to redeem him, and he died of Emphysema a matter of days before the cancer would have got him.
I checked Mad Harry's six pages of biography on Wikipedia, and read the book about him. Not one mention was made of the abandoned son...who, incidentally,for better or worse, came to share my name.
The other Harry too managed to survive the carnage of Gallipoli and cheat the death trenches of France. He even managed not to get hit by any bullets or bombs, which was more than Mad Harry could do.
No, in a somewhat ironic paradox he managed to get to within a month of the end of the war only to be bitten by a mosquito while drinking warm beer in a downtown bar in Cairo. The resultant Malaria then killed him.
The moral here, I geuss, is to always check what they tell you about the holiday destinations that they are sending you to.
He is buried in the grassy calm haven of the War Memorial Cemetary in Cairo.
Cairo, a pox of a place, where even today you can still get a reasonable choice of pain filled death from Malaria, Typhoid or Cholera,caught while drinking warm beer in a downtown bar.
The day before ANZAC Day my god kid was competing in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Triathlon...Lord, where was that little fat kid,who couldn't jump off the ground. She swam, Biked and ran alongside the best athletes in the country and she never gave them an inch all day...and who I have since watch grow up into such a delightful young lady. To come within a heartbeat of taking a medal was all that I could have asked of her. I was so proud I had to turn away and pretend I had dust in my eyes.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
and the moon shone magical.
Power mainfests itself in many different ways, and power exchange I find just as quirky.
She txts me Saturday morning and suggests we meet that night.
It's not a complete surprise to me, her marriage is in trouble, and so I guess she is dipping her toe in the first pools of psychological freedom, even though she hasn't reached that point legally...either that or it's because the moon is new.
I tell her what to wear, because I like doing that, and she does so because likes to acquiesce.
We meet in the carpark of a bar midway between between where each of us lives, and we park in a space next to each other.
She has on a short black dress, with a zip that runs down the length of it. It is tempting not to strip her naked in the dark recesses of the carpark.
She has on sheer stockings, but no bra and no panties..I know this because I check.
I don't even speak to her, before grabbing a handful of her hair and bending her head backwards so that my breath enters her mouth. Then I run my tongue down her neck, and bite the hollow point where the muscles of her neck join her shoulder...she groans with pleasure, as I take ownership of her and power from her.
I don't hold her hand as we walk, I hold her wrist...it gives her comfort but not intimacy, and is a reminder that her power is being slowly removed.
Inside the bar, the music is so loud, that the resonance vibrates through my heart and rattles off my ribcage..all the band wear ear plugs, but none of the crowd...
The lead singer has a great smile and a level of showmanship that makes up for his lack of ability. It's not that he can't sing, it's just that he has to fake his way through some of the high notes.
I make her sit on a high stool, facing the room, it makes her skirt ride up, so that the top of her stockings show. The men ogle her unashamedly. She squirms when I tell her to spread her legs. She does so behind the protection of her cardigan. She gulps a glass of Chardonnay like it was the last one in the bar.
We talk easily for two hours, a lot of it revolving around sex and me telling what I am going to do to her later. I talk dirty to her, and when I hit a raw spot she makes a noise in the back of her throat like a growl...it is so visceral that she doesn't even know that she is doing it...and it thrills me inwardly to know that I have this power over her.
In the carpark later I am busily reducing her to a puddle, when a man comes over and asks if I want to make 50 bucks... I am so deeply into the moment that I think that he wants what I am having.
I have to shake myself back to reality and ask him what he has in mind. It's almost dissapointing to find that he and his mates are from out of town and that all they want is a ride back to where they are staying.
I say "no problem" and collect $65 bucks off them before their drunken minds register that they have parted with the money.
Once we are underway they immediately start a drunken sexual patter aimed towards her, she loves the attention...I lean towards her and suggest that I give her to them, and she again emits that visceral groan of pleasure, and her hands unconciously move between her legs. I check as well, and she has an absolute puddle down there.
I find where they are staying and there are fervent invitations to come inside...or more to the point for her to come inside...I laugh them off, and say that I will rent her to them but that selling her is not an option, and that anyway I have to get her home to her husband...she is by now gurgling with salacious sexual anticipation about what I am going to have her do next.
My plans however do not include sharing her with a bunch of drunks, although taking the rest of their money, I have to admit, is a passing and tempting thought.
I stop in a deserted industrial carpark , and in the backseat of her van...I bite her shoulders, neck and cheeks, not caring that she has to take the marks home.
I push her skirt up around her waist, and tell her what a dirty little whore she is for wanting all those men to use her....and when I thrust into her, I tell her that as a punishment she is not allowed to come until I tell her that she can...she acquiesces and then grunts with the effort of trying to obey. I have one hand around her throat, one on the seat for balance, while all the while I am pouring a torrent of sexual vissicitude into her ear.
She starts to sweat with the effort of trying not to come, while all the while emitting the gurgles and growls from deep in her throat that tells me she is not too far from losing conciousness.
With several deep thrusts I ejaculate into her, and then in my deepest stenorian voice I tell her to come...Bloody hell, It was like releasing a bronco...she just howled... gutteral, visceral and deeply primeval. Her face contorted purple, her shoulders hunched while the rest of her writhed and twitched as the waves of orgasm engulfed her... she comes again and again and again.
..and all the while the moon shone magical over her.
She txts me Saturday morning and suggests we meet that night.
It's not a complete surprise to me, her marriage is in trouble, and so I guess she is dipping her toe in the first pools of psychological freedom, even though she hasn't reached that point legally...either that or it's because the moon is new.
I tell her what to wear, because I like doing that, and she does so because likes to acquiesce.
We meet in the carpark of a bar midway between between where each of us lives, and we park in a space next to each other.
She has on a short black dress, with a zip that runs down the length of it. It is tempting not to strip her naked in the dark recesses of the carpark.
She has on sheer stockings, but no bra and no panties..I know this because I check.
I don't even speak to her, before grabbing a handful of her hair and bending her head backwards so that my breath enters her mouth. Then I run my tongue down her neck, and bite the hollow point where the muscles of her neck join her shoulder...she groans with pleasure, as I take ownership of her and power from her.
I don't hold her hand as we walk, I hold her wrist...it gives her comfort but not intimacy, and is a reminder that her power is being slowly removed.
Inside the bar, the music is so loud, that the resonance vibrates through my heart and rattles off my ribcage..all the band wear ear plugs, but none of the crowd...
The lead singer has a great smile and a level of showmanship that makes up for his lack of ability. It's not that he can't sing, it's just that he has to fake his way through some of the high notes.
I make her sit on a high stool, facing the room, it makes her skirt ride up, so that the top of her stockings show. The men ogle her unashamedly. She squirms when I tell her to spread her legs. She does so behind the protection of her cardigan. She gulps a glass of Chardonnay like it was the last one in the bar.
We talk easily for two hours, a lot of it revolving around sex and me telling what I am going to do to her later. I talk dirty to her, and when I hit a raw spot she makes a noise in the back of her throat like a growl...it is so visceral that she doesn't even know that she is doing it...and it thrills me inwardly to know that I have this power over her.
In the carpark later I am busily reducing her to a puddle, when a man comes over and asks if I want to make 50 bucks... I am so deeply into the moment that I think that he wants what I am having.
I have to shake myself back to reality and ask him what he has in mind. It's almost dissapointing to find that he and his mates are from out of town and that all they want is a ride back to where they are staying.
I say "no problem" and collect $65 bucks off them before their drunken minds register that they have parted with the money.
Once we are underway they immediately start a drunken sexual patter aimed towards her, she loves the attention...I lean towards her and suggest that I give her to them, and she again emits that visceral groan of pleasure, and her hands unconciously move between her legs. I check as well, and she has an absolute puddle down there.
I find where they are staying and there are fervent invitations to come inside...or more to the point for her to come inside...I laugh them off, and say that I will rent her to them but that selling her is not an option, and that anyway I have to get her home to her husband...she is by now gurgling with salacious sexual anticipation about what I am going to have her do next.
My plans however do not include sharing her with a bunch of drunks, although taking the rest of their money, I have to admit, is a passing and tempting thought.
I stop in a deserted industrial carpark , and in the backseat of her van...I bite her shoulders, neck and cheeks, not caring that she has to take the marks home.
I push her skirt up around her waist, and tell her what a dirty little whore she is for wanting all those men to use her....and when I thrust into her, I tell her that as a punishment she is not allowed to come until I tell her that she can...she acquiesces and then grunts with the effort of trying to obey. I have one hand around her throat, one on the seat for balance, while all the while I am pouring a torrent of sexual vissicitude into her ear.
She starts to sweat with the effort of trying not to come, while all the while emitting the gurgles and growls from deep in her throat that tells me she is not too far from losing conciousness.
With several deep thrusts I ejaculate into her, and then in my deepest stenorian voice I tell her to come...Bloody hell, It was like releasing a bronco...she just howled... gutteral, visceral and deeply primeval. Her face contorted purple, her shoulders hunched while the rest of her writhed and twitched as the waves of orgasm engulfed her... she comes again and again and again.
..and all the while the moon shone magical over her.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Happy Birthday Pop.
My sister was living in Hobbiton long before they put a statue of Gollum in the main street.
Today we sat in a cafe across the street from the statue and watched the tourists take photo's of each other. Their delight was infectious, but it didn't stop us quietly taking the piss out of them.
My sister told me that the movie producers didn't like the shape of the apple trees at Hobbiton, so they got some plum trees, stripped the leaves off the apple trees, and reattached them to the plum trees...she didn't know what happened to the plum leaves.
We were celebrating my fathers 80th birthday today, and even though he died 7 years ago we still toasted his good health.
Today I got papers from city hall approving the new Indian restaurant for Anna from Bangladesh.
I am excited for her...and I am so looking forward to having to walk the 17 seconds overland to get my butter chicken...now that is what I call convenience food.
This evening I managed to get out for a jog on the golfcourse, but darkness is now falling so quickly that I have to step lightly to get out of its way.
The leaves of the Planes trees that border the old race course, crackle underfoot but by the time I run over the top of them it is too dark to see.
Today we sat in a cafe across the street from the statue and watched the tourists take photo's of each other. Their delight was infectious, but it didn't stop us quietly taking the piss out of them.
My sister told me that the movie producers didn't like the shape of the apple trees at Hobbiton, so they got some plum trees, stripped the leaves off the apple trees, and reattached them to the plum trees...she didn't know what happened to the plum leaves.
We were celebrating my fathers 80th birthday today, and even though he died 7 years ago we still toasted his good health.
Today I got papers from city hall approving the new Indian restaurant for Anna from Bangladesh.
I am excited for her...and I am so looking forward to having to walk the 17 seconds overland to get my butter chicken...now that is what I call convenience food.
This evening I managed to get out for a jog on the golfcourse, but darkness is now falling so quickly that I have to step lightly to get out of its way.
The leaves of the Planes trees that border the old race course, crackle underfoot but by the time I run over the top of them it is too dark to see.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Never try to shop during Easter
Easter holidays are one way of finding out who the disorganised are...I should know, I'm one of them.
After running out of bread on Good Friday I got to the dairy to find someone slightly less disorganised than I standing there with the last two packets of buns...the bread, of course, being long gone.
There was only one thing left to do...yep...go bludge off friends. The first lot however were away, so I carried on to the second lot. They were more disorganised than I was.
He chopped up potatoes and fried them with butter and salt, while she made scones, so heavy on the flour you could have used them as ship anchors...the potatoes I have to say were delicious, the scones rather less so, although they did stay with me for quite some time.
The conversation, as always was pithy and peppered, as he attempted to put a windowsill into place immediately after she had judiciously swept up an important little peice of specially shaped wood and put it down the waste disposal.
We still dine out on the time he was painting the roof, and to keep his balance had tied one end of a rope around his waist, and the other end to the bumper of the car.
She of course decided to go to town.
The first he knew of this was when she dragged him screaming up one side of the roof.
He did manage to get himself untied while going down the other side, but not before he tumbled off the edge.
The guttering did however catch his new jersey in time to prevent him plummeting to the ground, and then slowly bent downwards as it lowered him serenely.
It did not however stop him flinging a tirade of obscenities towards his long disappeared spouse, and which he continued unabated for a good week or more.
OR the time they again ran out of bread, so he decided to cook some rice...he boiled the bejeezuz out of it, but it was still as hard as hell when he ate it...when she got home he complained long and bitter and loud, until she pointed out that it was grass seed he was eating.
After running out of bread on Good Friday I got to the dairy to find someone slightly less disorganised than I standing there with the last two packets of buns...the bread, of course, being long gone.
There was only one thing left to do...yep...go bludge off friends. The first lot however were away, so I carried on to the second lot. They were more disorganised than I was.
He chopped up potatoes and fried them with butter and salt, while she made scones, so heavy on the flour you could have used them as ship anchors...the potatoes I have to say were delicious, the scones rather less so, although they did stay with me for quite some time.
The conversation, as always was pithy and peppered, as he attempted to put a windowsill into place immediately after she had judiciously swept up an important little peice of specially shaped wood and put it down the waste disposal.
We still dine out on the time he was painting the roof, and to keep his balance had tied one end of a rope around his waist, and the other end to the bumper of the car.
She of course decided to go to town.
The first he knew of this was when she dragged him screaming up one side of the roof.
He did manage to get himself untied while going down the other side, but not before he tumbled off the edge.
The guttering did however catch his new jersey in time to prevent him plummeting to the ground, and then slowly bent downwards as it lowered him serenely.
It did not however stop him flinging a tirade of obscenities towards his long disappeared spouse, and which he continued unabated for a good week or more.
OR the time they again ran out of bread, so he decided to cook some rice...he boiled the bejeezuz out of it, but it was still as hard as hell when he ate it...when she got home he complained long and bitter and loud, until she pointed out that it was grass seed he was eating.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Lettuce, forkhoists and brand new shoes.
Coffee and Baileys is a great way to finish the day...well the upright part of it anyway. I read where the Baileys company uses the milk from 40,000 cows to make their liquor. That's a lot of cows, and that's 200,000 gallons of milk a day that they make into their fine product..
The days are growing shorter and colder, and for the first time in my life I find that I am grieving the loss of summer.
The recession is treating me well though, I am having to take on more workers, and the days are filled with work. The workers are all Tongan, courtesy of 'free firty ona pus'.. I came back to the factory this afternoon to find my forkhoist in peices on the floor and a Tongan, who I have never seen before, polishing its innards...they all have varying degrees of ignorance of the mother tongue, but they toil with a will, and they are thankful to be employed in their new country. I am equally as thankful to have them here.
My kid came over tonight, we piled our plates with whole leaves of lettuce, halved tomatoes, boiled eggs, big chunks of colby cheese, big cold crisp carrots that snapped with a spit of juice when you bit into them, tart green olives (although the kid doesn't like these) savory sausages fried till they split open...it was a feast fit for a king...she's having a growth spurt, so is hungry as a horse all the day.
The share market coughed me up 12k of profit the other day, the same day as I got a five page letter from the IRD....the auditor, he sounded a delightful little chap, and I can barely wait for him to violate my privacy...actually I shouldn't really be too antsy, it has been 20 years since they last paid me a visit.
I took my god kid out this afternoon and bought her some new running shoes, bought myself some too. After thrashing me on Saturday she said in a quiet voice "my feet are a bit sore". She had blisters covering half the balls of both her feet. Second hand shoes that are two sizes too big will do that to you....Tough kid..Lord help me this Saturday.
The days are growing shorter and colder, and for the first time in my life I find that I am grieving the loss of summer.
The recession is treating me well though, I am having to take on more workers, and the days are filled with work. The workers are all Tongan, courtesy of 'free firty ona pus'.. I came back to the factory this afternoon to find my forkhoist in peices on the floor and a Tongan, who I have never seen before, polishing its innards...they all have varying degrees of ignorance of the mother tongue, but they toil with a will, and they are thankful to be employed in their new country. I am equally as thankful to have them here.
My kid came over tonight, we piled our plates with whole leaves of lettuce, halved tomatoes, boiled eggs, big chunks of colby cheese, big cold crisp carrots that snapped with a spit of juice when you bit into them, tart green olives (although the kid doesn't like these) savory sausages fried till they split open...it was a feast fit for a king...she's having a growth spurt, so is hungry as a horse all the day.
The share market coughed me up 12k of profit the other day, the same day as I got a five page letter from the IRD....the auditor, he sounded a delightful little chap, and I can barely wait for him to violate my privacy...actually I shouldn't really be too antsy, it has been 20 years since they last paid me a visit.
I took my god kid out this afternoon and bought her some new running shoes, bought myself some too. After thrashing me on Saturday she said in a quiet voice "my feet are a bit sore". She had blisters covering half the balls of both her feet. Second hand shoes that are two sizes too big will do that to you....Tough kid..Lord help me this Saturday.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
A taste of Ferric.
Libby and I did 1 k's today..that no mans land of purple lipped grimace. 1k's... a distance handed down to us by the French, and which is a one 40 thousandth part of the circumference of the earth, and lies partway between a half mile and a mile...
Libby is my Goddaughter, the eldest child of my friends who were borrowing when they should have been repaying, and as her parents continue to sink into a morass of financial distress, so I have been requested to take over her triathlon training.
It hasn't been an been an especially smooth road. For Libby, I held no consequence. Just an old fat man who showed up occaisionally, drank tea with her folks and then left again. Then one day Ant and I took her out for a bike ride, we did 55 miles through the hills, it took every ounce of what she possessed to stay with us... the scales fell from her eyes.
The Ironman followed, and while it crucified me, and made my feet bleed...I didn't let it cow me, and it showed Libby that I could walk the walk. Her demeanour towards me changed completely. I was no longer someone who merely wrote a schedule and told her to hurt herself. I was someone who could hurt as she did, and who could metaphorically bleed and suffer as she did.
So today, for the first time in some 15 years I did 1 k's. Three of them and Lord did they hurt. My hamstrings were twanging like a string orchestra at the Phil. Libby was 12, 8 and 6 seconds ahead...and with a few more of them under my belt I think that I could beat her..meantime, while she has all the growing pains and tongue tied angst of a typical teenager..she expresses herself beautifully when she runs... and she gives no quarter.. asked, nor given, between us ...she is as determined to put me to the sword as I am of her.
So there she was, my god daughter, running hard and fast...running like a guy, pony tail bobbing away in front of me...and I couldn't keep with her.
She is only 15, but mark my words, one day she will win the Ironman.
Just after this weekend in far off New York, Lisa turns 28.
I continue to vicariously watch her life unfold with the fascination of a slowmotion train wreck. She obsessively writes, for which I am grateful And I find myself as much fascinated by the cafes that she frequents and food that she eats, the tastes that she descibes, as I am by the carnage of her somewhat frequent romances.
One day in New York perhaps I will have the good fortune to meet her...even if only to drink bubble tea, meantime though, I am being flayed alive by a 15 year old kid with a grim and dour set to her. I admire that immensely.
Tonight it is with some sadness that I bid adieu to summertime...I am not a great fan of winter, it depresses me and makes my shrinking pineal squeel with anguish. A month wandering New York would not be such a bad thing I'm sure.
Libby is my Goddaughter, the eldest child of my friends who were borrowing when they should have been repaying, and as her parents continue to sink into a morass of financial distress, so I have been requested to take over her triathlon training.
It hasn't been an been an especially smooth road. For Libby, I held no consequence. Just an old fat man who showed up occaisionally, drank tea with her folks and then left again. Then one day Ant and I took her out for a bike ride, we did 55 miles through the hills, it took every ounce of what she possessed to stay with us... the scales fell from her eyes.
The Ironman followed, and while it crucified me, and made my feet bleed...I didn't let it cow me, and it showed Libby that I could walk the walk. Her demeanour towards me changed completely. I was no longer someone who merely wrote a schedule and told her to hurt herself. I was someone who could hurt as she did, and who could metaphorically bleed and suffer as she did.
So today, for the first time in some 15 years I did 1 k's. Three of them and Lord did they hurt. My hamstrings were twanging like a string orchestra at the Phil. Libby was 12, 8 and 6 seconds ahead...and with a few more of them under my belt I think that I could beat her..meantime, while she has all the growing pains and tongue tied angst of a typical teenager..she expresses herself beautifully when she runs... and she gives no quarter.. asked, nor given, between us ...she is as determined to put me to the sword as I am of her.
So there she was, my god daughter, running hard and fast...running like a guy, pony tail bobbing away in front of me...and I couldn't keep with her.
She is only 15, but mark my words, one day she will win the Ironman.
Just after this weekend in far off New York, Lisa turns 28.
I continue to vicariously watch her life unfold with the fascination of a slowmotion train wreck. She obsessively writes, for which I am grateful And I find myself as much fascinated by the cafes that she frequents and food that she eats, the tastes that she descibes, as I am by the carnage of her somewhat frequent romances.
One day in New York perhaps I will have the good fortune to meet her...even if only to drink bubble tea, meantime though, I am being flayed alive by a 15 year old kid with a grim and dour set to her. I admire that immensely.
Tonight it is with some sadness that I bid adieu to summertime...I am not a great fan of winter, it depresses me and makes my shrinking pineal squeel with anguish. A month wandering New York would not be such a bad thing I'm sure.
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