Have a cool Yule, y’uall,
The Mott family are about to indulge their old man with a week or more at the farm. They will spend a few days lamenting their lot and the absence of TV, Internet and a decent toilet whilst observing, bemused, as dad and husband leaps into all those activities that sensible people regard as work to be avoided at this time of year, and which are guaranteed to have him completely soaked in sweat by mid morning and moaning like an old dog by dusk.
They will also see a new house that is actually starting to look like one, and begin to envisage life in a new space (before they leave school).
And slowly, almost imperceptibly, they too will slip into the rhythms of the pax rustica and discover that the first dive into the dam is so much more sublime when it follows a good dose of honest toil. They will savour the unrivalled flavour of an “earned meal” and rediscover the coolest downloads of all, those that come from a site called, “campfire”. And they may even conclude that the very best time to contemplate the meaning of life and man’s place in it, is from high on the side of a hill by the full moon.
Along the way their dad might pass the time with one of those old stories of “the glad rags and the handbags that their poor old grandad had to sweat to buy”, that will, at first, bore and embarrass them a little, but leave a lasting fabric of attachment to a place and its people and times.
They will practice the forgotten arts of playful banter over a well rummaged table, the contentment of a snooze under a tree, and may yet discover the importance of having a bee in one’s bonnet.
And their mum and dad will get time to think of all the folks they would have liked to show a lot more appreciation for.
All the best for the season.
Ian Mott
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Good on ya Motty, have a great Christmas break and enjoy that wonderful environment you so well describe!
“…the contentment of a snooze under a tree,”
You mean you have some left?!
Seasons greetings and thank you for the excellent jocular invective during 2006.
I await your blog return !
A MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM SWEDEN TO YA*ALL!
Do you envy me a bit…. White Christmas here!
Thanks all for wonderful discussions( must admit though I kind of got a cultural chock of your discussions style first, but Pixie learned me)LOL!
Have a great time,
Ann
Hi Ann
George has sent me some ‘white christmas’ pics to post … just haven’t found time yet.
If anyone else would like to send me some pictures …
Thanks Ian for your scurrilous posts and poetic language. At times I must admit I held my breath and imagined defamation lawyers’ letters – probably written with a quill pen. Your style reminds me of a rather rougher Laurie Lee. In an Irish pub, he once played Irish music on his fiddle. After a silence, an Irishman said “I forgive you, Englishman”.
Thanks to Cheerful Jennifer, Eloquent Luke, Scorching Pinxi, Smoky Cinders, and even Labyrinthine Schiller, with his strange philosophy. What happened to poor old Phil Done?
I do envy Ann her white northland Yule. I can still remember a silver birch, near Voss in Norway, with ice crystals refracting the full spectrum from a watery sun. The shadows on the snow were purple. We were warned of brown bears in that area.
There, even a pedant can have poetry lurking in his soul.
Merry Christmas to you and your family Ian, enjoy your week on the farm.
I look forward to your posts in 2007.
Hello old friends – how is Louis. Merry Xmas to you all and I hope Santa stuffs your stocking.
I have to go now. Luke is wheeling me back inside.
I can’t do it anymore myself after I lost control of my hands. Luke is typing this for me. He’s such a nice young man too.
Well Ian,
Thank you for your exchanges over the year. It has been interesting and stimulating. I hope you have a nice time with your family in the Australian bush, sounds perfect to me.
Sorry I forgot to mention you, Louis. Have a good one, even if you are de worst since Louis de First.
Phil,
I was very saddened to read of the loss of control of your hands, which utterly explains your latter, wayward meanderings.
Remarkable advances are being made in salvaging motor function from unused brain cells through patterning, but you would have to break free of Luke’s palliative care.
Perhaps the festive season will bring a miraculous restoration to your manual dexterity.
Merry Xmas to you all.
hahah the google adwords on Jennifer’s blog are advertising solar ovens & other greenie products such as ‘end deforestation’ & ‘Help Stop Global Warming – 100g less of CO2 in the atmosphere When you search with sensis.com.au’. I cant wait for the ‘save the whale’ ad to appear.
I wish you all the very warming chrissy you deserve.
Big cheers to emotive Motty the treetugger, Jolly host to the pathogens Jennifer, Loonie lefty Luke, Logical Louis, right-wring rog, game-boy Davey, Old-Bugga Gavin, that nice old nag Boxer, cassowary Neil, surprise package Russell, Elegant Libby, Annimal Anne, & the whale eaters. Enjoy your organic free-range tickled-before-killed turkeys (or tofurkey for the vegies), biodynamic happy hams and solar-cooked fruit mince pies. Be sure to recycle! May Father Chrissy fill your fairtrade knitted hemp toe socks with CO2-neutral eco delights and bullocky’s daughters.
Luke & I will sigh contentedly over our self-fertilised homegrown tree, exchange spliffy handcrafted gifts and then toast your health over our homebrew soya free-range eggnog sprinkled with sustainable cinnamon.
Mistletoe in all yr undies & GHG-free goodies in yr stocking puppets!
What time should I come over Motty? I’ve been practicing my campfire songs. My favourite starts “we wish you a pinky christmas
And a carbon newtral year…”
Merry Christmas all. Hope santa and his reindeer aren’t diced by wind turbines somewhere along the VIC coastline before they make it to your place.
All I want from Santa is a downpour. Am I too old?
Jokes and miracles aside; let’s not treat the family quite the same way we treat each other here on occasions.
Cheers all and thanks for all your considerations but none of this very merry stuff while out and about hey. Finally; don’t sleep it off while relaxing under our midday sun
Seems like everyone is using this thread to wish everyone else a happy Christmas -so…from me to all, a very happy Christmas.
Here in Nigeria it will be a very festive season as both Christmas/New Year and Id al Kabir fall over the same few days.
We will be in the camp here for Christmas as my wife is the duty doctor at the clinic, but its usually quiet, apart from a few self-inflicted wounds among those who have imbibed too much Christmas Cheer.
I am playing guitar and singing in the German mass on christmas eve, did it last year, and it’s quite good fun. Christmas Day we have a BBQ for the various friends still in town.
After Christmas we are off to the Rhoko forest near Calabar to commune with nature and be woken each morning by the magnificent honking of the great blue turaco.
Enjoyed your postings Ian, along with those of Louis and all the others.
Seasons greetings.