Palm valley

The outback , first time since my arrival in the land of Oz i was going bush. We had to upgrade a fuel storage at the rangers station. Truck was loaded and we hit the road. After a few K’s the tyers were bouncing on the dirt again, the steel on the tray of the truck was bouncing in every direction. What a great feeling. Seeing the dirt road stretch for miles, nothing else to see as wild nature and wildlife. So much to see while the truck was leaving a red dust cloud behind him.

We arrived at palm valley , after a drive of a few hours. The ranger station , a few houses , generator surrounded by ranges. And most important thing , a night bar . A place to have a drink , build bit by bit during years by rangers who came and went. Unbelievable how big the imagination and creativity of people are in places where there are no ikea’s, bunnings or k-mark’s. Chairs made out of car parts taken out of the burned cars of the locals, tables out of parts left over from contractors who did a job there. Interior decoration left behind by nature. The place just felt alive, you could feel the ranger hitting his dumb while trying to nail the door parts together. you could feel the ranger cursing that the door he made didn’t fit in the portal. you could feel the ranger hitting his other dumb trying to force the door into the frame. 

At night , after a days work, the first thing you notice is the silence, no mechanical disturbance during night hours. No cars doing wheelies , no neighbour testing his new bought stereo installation, no guy struggling with his midlife crises testing his new exhaust of his Harley. But the strange thing is after the silence , noises are coming all around you. The gentle breeze trough the bushes, almost like the leaves telling you a secret story. Hidden little creatures singing their love story to you. At distances further away bigger animals occasionally warn there surroundings to shut up , telling them they are sick of hearing the secrets and love stories ,time and time over again.It’s a shame my photographic talents are not so developed , that i can’t share this magnificent view with you. A  view that makes you silent, a view that brings your spiritual side out. 

When you look up in bush at night time, the sky is alive. A living canvas of stars , meteorites, shooting stars and satellites . You can’t stop looking, dreaming , searching for something, maybe a place or life where things were different, maybe a world where violence doesn’t exist. maybe a world where you drive around in a Lamborghini on a highway with unlimited speed, maybe a place where politicians get the same pay as you do and where stealing is really considered as a crime, or maybe , just maybe you are looking for that flying object full of female extra-terrestrials that abduct you and gonna make all your dreams real.

But we had a job to do, the fuel storage had to be upgraded, that’s what we are here for. Not to day or night dream about my fantasies. This is the real world.

The chapel

Work, work, work.
I didn't had the time to acclimatise , Straight to the first big project. Starting to erect the steelwork of a new chapel in Alice. 
It was nice the temperatures were not above the thirties or forties. So i could easily get used to the working hours and the tools again. The first vertical ups and overheads were a disaster . My welding skills definitely needed some practise again. So did my Australian slang. 

And because the change of my physical appearance during the years , i definitely needed some protection against he sun. The top of my head , caused by the absence of my young long blond hair was starting to have a red shiny colour. But being in the land of oz , i had enough choice between different means to protect parts of the body against the burning sun. Hard hats, the old fashion cyclist hats, straw hats who are very useful when you are welding to get rid of the few precious hair spots and of course the real true Australian Akubra hat. My choice was easy , i’m now a proud owner , like many of my aussie compagnions, of a beautiful everlasting ringer hat. 

The hours and days just follow each other up. Waiting till i can move in my unit. But it’s the NT, not today ,not tomorrow ,not tuesdy and not thursdy. I have to say , the days were long and hard, so i didn’t had much time to think about a previous life, to miss my little farm .  But certain things don’t go away no matter how hard you work. The financial pressure is slowly loosing his grip on me, but not seeing my godchild doing the things they do when they start to explore there surroundings and the big world, the meals on a sunday night prepared by my mom after a days labour at the farm together with my dad, the regular meetings with my sis while having a good chat with a few drinks. Those are the things that are engraved in the back of your mind and pop up in your mind in moments when you are standing still. 

So i just keep walking till i fall a sleep. 

Return to Alice

Wauw, time is running double speed.
I returned to Alice a few months back now and i still didn’t had the time to tell a story.
So here we go.

Once upon a time there was a traveller sitting in a plane , waiting till the wheels of the plane touches ground. Waiting to start a different life style , a life style he already experienced before. 
But it was first time to have a break , a time out , a breather. Just having nothing on his mind then the beauty of the landscape and company of an old dear friend. 
It were precious times, walking , laying, drinking , talking and admiring the surroundings and not having the constant pressure of financial and personal thoughts . But he knew those times always come to an end.

The plane touches the ground another time, Alice, home base . With one bag and swag on the back, heading to the work office . A good thing he knew things in Alice always have a way to turn out unexpected. The unit wasn’t ready yet. His home base for the next years was still in process of developing . First things first, a place to sleep, was the priority for the day. A phone call and i could stay at a friends place , bunking with the swag till i could move in the unit . It was nice to catch up again. In a way time has stood still, sitting back on an old wooden table slurping my favourite drink, but time did had an impact on life. Things weren't the same anymore, broken relations, friends were gone and friends were back . It was the same world but with an different interface.
The week just went by, subscriptions everywhere, but all done in a few days , not as in previous experiences in a previous country that it can take up to months and a lot of k’s driving to get official paperwork organized. I forgot that it can be so easy to get the administration of a life official and all done in a few days.

It was good to be back, and it was almost as nature wanted to acclimatise my return. The weather was the same as when i stepped on the plane a few days before. Rainy , grey and chilly only the view of the surroundings was different. A stretch of 500 k’s of pure and untouched nature around you, the company of wildlife during day and night time .
The first weeks were just a period of organizing and moving from one temporally place to another. I was gonna bunk in the garage shed with private facilities at the place from an old bush work comrade , the first bush job that i ever did with, ten years ago. Amazing , the first time i set foot in Australia is been ten years ago. And so much is happened and changed during this decade of my life.

You start wondering if the next decade will have the same unexpected changes as the one before. 

Eve’s Garden Anno 2016

What would Eve think about my garden in the summer of 2016 ?

Now i digged a hole in the ground to come out at the other side of the globe.  It’s a shame there is no Potter’s fireplace to just have a quick stroll in the garden.

The driveway is just a long stretch of yearlings. They trying  to get there first roots in the ground and to establish a good base to become fierce bushes waving and guarding the openings way to Euralia in red colors, summers and winters. Trying to drive away the view of a big corn field.

The first resting area close to all kind of tools that opens spiritual and other doors of the mind and body. This place starts to have there two years old habitants driving a green border trough neighbours and privacy, to protect an island surrounded by water and small living underwater creatures. It’s still in process to become a water world for there bigger brothers. From there on there is a possibility to stroll further away from the noise of mechanical disturbers trying to gain precious minutes that they can use sitting before a coloured screen. 

The stroll would bring Eve to another place with still visible little , which i call “think corners”. Its a small accidented landscape with a path you could walk forever and see the ever changes of seasons if you walk slow enough. Two different levels like tee zones of a golf course, its probably a view i have in my own mind because when you get closer you still see patches of open dirt . One of the tee areas is flanked again by one year old fierce red bushes as a protection for curious neighbours and the invading wind that blows trough the fields behind it. The other tee digs itself into the ground as a nice sheltered area but still the open view of a horse running wildly in the field. The tee will be overviewed by something i still like to be a secret. They would call it the final touch of a painting. 

The living cathedral of nine trees is the highlight of the garden, or will become it. Three trees combined placed on three spots are the fundation pillars . Two portals will grow in time, windows will appear and new unknown structures of branches will grow . They still overlooking  a growing pit.  A handmade pit surrounded by all kinds of unwanted natural flora invaders. The pit would become a bacon for the last survivals of wildlife in the neighbourhood , anyway that’s what i’m hoping for. a rest place for my friends who daily struggling to survive there mechanical, chemical and human attackers.

 

So i hope , one day, Eve will be walking there as she used to in ancient histories and i ‘ll be watching smiling in one of my “think-corners” how she grabs an apple of my growing apple tree, or maybe decide to go for the cherries or pears.

Dear Madame, (part two)

But dear Madame, there are still positive things in live, before i scare you away of reading this open hearted letter. 

I even had the chance to experience your splendid performance. Thanks to a treat of my sis , we went with the carriage to London. More specific the “two” carriage as to the confusion of the conductor. We saw and experienced the horror of a london dungeon , not the kind of dungeon i like, but still very entertaining with a surprising ending in an Australian way.And as highlight we went to see your performance were i managed to miss your most beautiful aria in the history of music. So please , do forgive me, i really don’t know how this happened . I even had a sleepless night over it.

I also would like to take the occasion to talk about signs or changing points in life, if i may, dear Madame. The road i was struggling on is only heading to a dead end.  So i had to take the risk. Heading back was not an option to a half Australian as my self who believes in the icons of Oz, the emu and kangaroo who can’t walk backwards. I’m gonna step out my toyota car , step of the road to nowhere straight into the bush and find myself another track that’s gonna lead me somewhere. It’s been a hard decision, leaving everything behind again, especially my close family , sis and godchild. But since i made that decision , and those are the signs i’m talking about , things are looking more brighter, once and a while the sun is breaking trough the clouds. 

I have being notified by the local city council that they recognise the existence of my little farm, euralia and I got my old job back in alice. Things are just working again. The 25 of august , the plane to Oz is awaiting . I got still three more weeks as a Belgian-Australian in Loksbergen, and will be a Belgian-Australian in Oz again. The good thing about going bush again is, that i will be among the native locals. As in there transition between child to man there teeth been knocked out, i will fit in properly. I have to say it’s not up to me if i made it to manhood or not but the physical signs are there. And i’ll have again the native female attraction , not that i yearn for it, but it’s always a nice feeling to be wanted. 

Also the state of my english writing will improve before it really turns to shit. But like i always say the inner meaning is always importer then the external side of it. And i ‘ll have the change to chase after pokemon in the bush.

So it’s not a goodbye , dear madame, it’s a whole new journey.

Dear Madame, (part one)

It’s been a while since we last spoke. It’s been a time of doubts, decisions and self-meditation. But i finally threw the dice on table, and he is still rolling because i don’t know the outcome.

On 25 august i fly direction Alice. Something had to be changing. Slowly i was stepping toward a cliff with no future roads ahead. The hardest thing is getting your roots back after throwing them away by immigrating to the land of Oz. And i have to confess , i still didn’t found them. I’ll never be a Belgium again and i never will be an Australian nether. I belong to a rare race known as the Belgian -Australians.

The last months/year in my little farm in Loksbergen were fucking hard. I reckon this is the second time in my life the ground underneath my feet just fades away. The first time was when this weblog came to existence as a kind of self-help and to put things in perspective. The time i just immigrated to Oz and my (ex) misses decide to run away with a Aussie bloke and leave me behind on my own with a negative bank account and just a car that still had to be payed off in a strange foreign country. I could say that was an earthquake at that moment.Nowadays it was more like a slowly shifting earth movement. Since my return to my birth country things went completely the wrong way. A break up with another misses . The administration to bring my little farm in existence drove my bank account slowly from green to red no matter how hard i worked. 

A periodic time of constant pain and the lost of a few teeth in the upper jaw. My creative children funobjects and loving spermies that i brought to existence were not such success that i hoped for.  All those things drove me in a complete social isolation. I barely dared to speak because woman who occasionally tried to seduce me ran away in horror when i answered there call.

So dear Madame, i hope you’ll forgive me my long absence of my writing and creativity. I’m not asking for your pity . I’m just stating the facts where i’m dealing with at the moment. I know i’m a survivor. Damned , i survived bush fires, snake attacks , an alien abduction , horny devils, managed to piss blind in a toilet without spoiling the toilet seat and even the asbestos hell of a mining site in the outback.

An endless road

They say life is a box of chocolates, you never know witch one you get. the guy that said this is  god or thought he was the biggest joker. The road that i have turned in , is not even on the road map. And i even don’t know when i took that turn. The life that i had in mind when i returned back to Belgium looks like a far away dream i had sometime somewhere. 

The things that i would do, the things that i would achieve, the things i would experience. i think they where someone else's  goal or life. Or maybe this was me , but in another quantum reality. Somewhere i switched realities.It’s been two and a half years now since i took that plane from  Alice. A lot happened , things that i expected and things i never would have imagined. Being single again it’s hard to find your way back in a country you left almost ten years ago. A home country that doesn’t feel like home anymore. A foreign Belgian-Australian in his birth country. My shining smile is gone with a few teeth too. The only time i see my own smile again is if my grandchild laughs to me.  

Yep, i changed quit a bit by coming back , and by the things that happened. I’m wearing reading glasses nowadays and i need to cut my food in little shapes. The only escape i had was working at work, working at the farm, working at funobjects. So those things did take progress. Euralia has a new set of stairs, A lot of parking space , and my two gardens of Eve have there final shape and just need to grow and live there own flora life. funobjects.com is been dressed up in his final shape and the objects managed to get companied by “The loving Sperm’ies”. They all even have there own wardrobe. The funobjects are ready to evolve. But even with all that work i didn’t see any change in my environment. It feels like i’m standing on the edge of a cliff with that damned red light in front of me. Nowhere to go.But i reckon every one would love to live in a different quantum reality. In a world with his true love one and golden chickens who don’t runaway . In a world where the sun shines bright, even on a snowy day.

They always say that you sometimes feel that the weather will be changing. And i reckon i feel that now. The road that i involuntary turned in and where there are no turning points or exits is just stretching out for me. And the only thing i can do , is just to keep driving till i run dry or find some exits or gas station to fill up again.