Wildlife

Post #120 Sunday 26 January 2020 – The fires

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 26 January 2020

I can’t write much about the fires: the volunteers, climate change, the failure of political leadership and will, the animals, the forests. And it’s beyond me to do an “I will donate X% of my earnings in January” thing (which a lot of generous escorts are announcing on social media), I just don’t have “the spoons” as they say.

I have deep feelings of loss and I can’t say a lot about anything.

Here is a photo of the beautiful spotted gum forest on the South Coast – it will have been incinerated. I don’t think I can get myself to visit again any time soon.

Spotted gum forest on the South Coast with the fern-like burrawang cycads in the understory.

I spent many wonderful holidays on the South Coast where my grandparents bought a hobby farm when they retired. I learnt about horses and how to ride (one of the closest things to paradise I’ve ever experienced). I had the care of a huge flighty palomino with a luminous coat. I learnt to swim, and though I always thought it was my older sister who was the water baby, my father years later said, no, I was the one they could never get out of the water no matter how cold. I am always grateful for the vivid and enriching childhood experiences I had on the South Coast.

Here are links to a couple of small wildlife rescue operations local to my new home, if you would like to donate.

1. Higher Ground Raptor Centre

https://www.highergroundraptors.com/

Peggy McDonald has been has been rehabilitating owls and eagles in the Southern Highlands for more than 40 years. This is her selfie with wedgetail.

2. Southern Cross Wildlife Care

https://www.southerncrosswildlifecare.org.au/

Howard Ralph works at a local hospital as a medical doctor to fund his life operating a volunteer veterinary hospital in Braidwood with his wife Glenda. No plans to retire.

I have been directly affected by the fires too. I’ve been told to evacuate by the local RFS four times now. (I did go promptly the first three times, the fourth time I dragged my feet). We will just have to see how February goes. It’s very dry, hot and windy. There are two fire fronts active close by: one to the South about 12 km away and one to East which has been as close as 5 km when it has been on the move. This is the fire map published on Friday evening:

The hotspots fire map on Friday 24 January 2020

It’s Australia Day though, so it’s barbeque time, and here is one version of the case to change the date (CW: this Youtube video is probably, as they say, entirely “off brand” lol):


A metaphor for unreconciled life in modern Australia – the shared house. For those who have never done it, “you’re not missing anything”*.
*Peter Sellers, The Party

xx MG

Post #118 Monday 28 October 2019 – more on the Whitsundays

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Monday 28 October 2019

Following on from my earlier post about adventures in the Whitsundays, I wanted to add another image. These are the Norfolk Island pines, with their very distinctive geometry, everywhere on the Whitsunday islands. This is the ridge of the cove at Refuge Bay where we anchored overnight.

I managed to find an internet link which gives the back story to how the pines came to be here. I had some ancient recollection they were not native. https://h2g2.com/edited_entry/A7952664

So it was Captain Cook who brought the seeds of the pines to northern Australia wishfully supposing they might provide timber suitable for masts.

I have always found it hard to be on the water in the Pacific and not think of Captain Cook, Joseph Banks and all the great naturalists. For quite a while one of my favourite non fiction books was a book called “Darwin’s Armada” by Iain McCalman. It’s an account of the great sailing voyages of Darwin’s peers. It’s absolutely compelling reading (if that’s your kind of thing). It’s ages since I read it but one of the passages that still stays with me vividly is an account of how the Pacific peoples must have experienced navigating, with only the simplest instruments and no charts – what resources, skills and understanding of the sea they must have had.

But then I am very partial to all things Charles Darwin (and his milieu). The Voyage of the Beagle is so engaging. Here is a favourite passage in which Darwin describes interactions with wild llamas.

Scientific method: “…if a person lies on the ground and plays strange antics, such as throwing up his feet in the air…”

xx MG

Post #117 Saturday 26 October 2019 – Whitsundays

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Saturday 26 October 2019

I am back from lovely holidays sailing with friends in the Whitsundays. I have an excellent tan to show for it. I actually didn’t want to come back. The South African guy at the charter yacht company was no help either, just suggested I read the book with the self explanatory title “Sell up and Sail”.

This was the outlook when anchored overnight in a place called Refuge Bay:

In the evening I could hear a slightly mournful bird call. At first it sounded like a dove but it was too insistent. It turned out to be a couple of pheasant coucals calling to one another. (Don’t ask me how I figured it out, it was intuition confirmed by internet searches.)

The call: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lluJIiLuuFg

Here are some images of the bird itself which I borrowed from Google:

Flying … (this type of feet first flying, good for short distances only)

I put this second image in because it has the fence wire for size. I have actually seen these birds and I can warrant they are concurrently large birds and small dinosaurs.

The “sell up and sail” caper is something I like to enjoy vicariously these days by watching youtube channels. My favourite channel is one called Free Range Sailing. It’s a youtube vlog maintained by an Australian couple who are cruising in a very modest yacht, mostly in tropical waters. Apart from the sailing, they do quite a bit of free diving on the reefs, spearfishing and exploring on shore. Pascal is a very good and resourceful cook. She also seems to be the creative lead in making the vlog – which is high quality well edited video. Her partner Troy is an excellent hand at keeping their 30 foot 50 year old yacht on track and in shape. He seems to handle the inevitable breakdowns of gear in good form and has a droll sense of humour. They are of course, “free range” so it all appeals to my tree hugging temperament. You aren’t going to find them zapping around churning up the peace of the natural world on jet skis any time soon. Highly recommend! And here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbU2ulPD3rJ4OZCNH7-gjjQ

xx MG

Post #68 Sunday 7 January 2018 – Rejuvenation grout and the New Year

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 7 January 2018

It’s the New Year and I don’t do resolutions so much as I find myself somehow embarking on various new projects, generally a bit domestic.  This New Year it seems to be Rejuvenation Grout.

Well I have bought the product and I am hoping it will transform the tired tiles of the bathroom into something a bit more, hmmm luminous may be :-), or just a bit whiter would be ok.

It’s been a nice start to the year otherwise.  I had a lovely unexpected visitor on Saturday afternoon.  I don’t often get magpies up on the 12th floor so it was a treat to hear that melodic gargling sort of song so close by.

I drove back from the country on Saturday and listened to the radio on the way – as a lot of you know, I love the radio.  On this trip the ABC was rebroadcasting a feed from the US National Public Radio (NPR) and I had a couple of treats.  One was a show on bluegrass which was an excuse for me to rummage around for favourite modern blues music when I got home.  Here is a link to a performer composer I really like and who is a great blues hero for souls who live rough.  It’s Chris Whitley with his melancholy guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI8ISl7xpg4

Wishing all the best to all of us for the coming year.

MG xx

Post #64 Wednesday 29 November 2017 – November trip to Canberra

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Wednesday 29 November 2017

It was a lovely visit to Canberra this month.  On the morning I was due to leave Canberra it was raining very softly, exactly the way it doesn’t rain in Sydney (where it shamelessly buckets from all directions).  I took a walk near where I was staying and saw many lovely things including this fine sculpture – an enormous sheet of steel unfolding up the hillside.  And this trip, when I walked in the evening, I saw more bunnies on the lush Canberra lawns than I have ever seen anywhere.  It was like walking into a Beatrix Potter story.  The Canberra bunnies were out and about, mostly in pairs, quietly feasting in the dark.  They were so fluffy and almost tame.  Back in my day I think it was a bit of a heavy myxomatosis scene and there just weren’t a lot of bunnies anywhere at all (sigh).  Such a treat to see them abundant and healthy now in a place where there is lots for them to eat.

I am looking forward to my next Canberra visit in December and I will post the date for the January trip as soon as I know what it will be.

from your glamorous aunt
enjoying gentle vertical rain in Canberra from time to time

MG xx

Post #63 Sunday 26 November 2017 – a lorikeet in love

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 26 November 2017

I had the pleasure of looking at some photos just recently, that one of my excellent ostensible nephews had taken of the three parrots he is responsible for – all of them beautiful ringneck parrots.  In discussion about the birds, a consensus emerged, that I should devote a post to my own beautiful native parrots, the lorikeets.  It would be the right thing to do because they are a lively presence in my daily life, and while they have had a little walk on role in a couple of posts, I have never given them their very own post.

I looked through some of my photos and found way more than I need to illustrate my long and lively relationship with  these boisterous little guys.  So I have included just one snap taken about Christmas three years ago.  This pair were right inside the apartment eating at the table.  I posted the photo to facebook and a Czech girlfriend asked me, first, were they real and second, were they dangerous (they being Australian animals people always have to ask – thank you Bill Bryson).   I told her lorikeets could be dangerous to your sleep if you are trying to sleep in lol.

Fortunately the lorikeets who visit me now are a lot less noisy than they used to be.  There was a period when they would arrive just after sunrise in waves of competing pairs to sit on the balcony and yell at one another.  That noisy yelling period passed though.  And now there are fewer pairs who visit.  Some of the territorial arguments must have been resolved.

I usually feed them outside, in their own plates, a mixture of warm water and dissolved honey.  I should feed them just once a day but often I will feed them two or three times – they ask so sweetly with little churring sounds.   They are nectar eaters so the spiky little beak is for tearing flowers and stems more than it is for cracking nuts.  When they feed you can see the nectar gathering tongue working hard –  a feathery but hard looking thing that dabs up the honey mixture.

Every season I see a new crop of baby lorikeets.  They always make a huge racket fluffed up, quivering outstretched wings, demanding to be fed beak to beak.

Every season I also see some courtship rituals.  There is a particular dance which involves craning and arching the neck, bobbing rhythmically and slowly snaking around in front of the target female, punctuated by little sneezings.  This year I seemed to attract some courtship attention myself.    I recorded part of the episode, so you can see for yourself.

With warm regards as always
especially to those of my excellent ostensible nephews who are bird fanciers

your glamorous aunt MG xx

Post #62 Thursday 23 November 2017 – bodega cats

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Thursday 23 November 2017

Social media can teach you things.  For instance I have learned from a Twitter account called @bodegacats that there are such things as bodega cats. For the uninitiated, in parts of the US the corner store is known as a bodega.  These corner stores frequently have resident cats.   Hence bodega cats.

These cats seem to be a pretty common feature, a bit like cellar dogs in Australia.  Some might remember a nice little book published a few years back recording a vineyard tour by each dog resident at the vineyard visited, with suitable portraits of the hounds in their domains.  I checked just now and the book was called Wine Dogs and they even have their own website winedogs.com

So the Twitter account posts only pictures of cats in corner stores, doing cat style things lying around in among the shelves, on the register and so on.  It’s quite endearing.  And now I have my own offering from a little corner store at the Paddington end of Darlinghurst.

Here is the corner store, somewhat run down:

When I crossed the road coming up to the store I glanced up and thought hmmm someone’s dropped their jumper on the steps.

But it wasn’t a jumper at all 🙂

from your glamorous aunt  MG
xx
noticing the small things

Post #60 Monday 6 November 2017 – upate on the black and white cat

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Monday 6 November 2017

Way back in May this year I did a post on the black and white cat of the McElhone stairs, who had been a much beloved local institution.  She was a well looked after street cat and spent most of her days sunning herself on the sandstone outcrop next to the historic Potts Point stairs.  Always up for friendly interactions with passersby over the years, many people became very fond of her.  In May I came to know that she had died, after 17 years living on the McElhone stairs.

There was a subscription held for a memorial and this update is to record the little plaque that was created and put on the sandstone ledge she frequented.  It’s a modest little thing.  Here it is:

Opposite the official memorial, beyond the railing to the stairs, an unofficial sketch of the black and white cat has been painted by who knows whom, and it has a charm all of its own.  It is painted onto the base of the very large ventilation pipe next to the stairs.  Here is a photo through the railing I took at night, so there are a few shadows in the picture which are cast by the support structure around the ventilation pipe:

With fondest memories of spirit animals in the urban world,

MG xx

Post #56 Wednesday 1 November 2017 – Latex, worms and other lives

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Earlier this year I decided to try an experiment on my worms, whose collective nickname is the Miriams (named after a favourite scientist Miriam Rothschild whose ground breaking work related to fleas, and later to butterflies).

The Miriams live in a black plastic two tray shelter (aptly branded the Worm Factory) where they compost my kitchen scraps.  I also give them things they are not reported to process but which I have found they do, namely significant quantities of orange peel, paper (suitably wet), coffee grounds, and odd pieces of cotton  such as old shoe laces.  I also found they ate most (but not all) of an old yoga mat which was made of woven jute on one side and later rubber on the other.

As it happened one of my items of latex clothing, a halter neck dress, perished.  I had not worn it in a while and for one reason or another it has just wasted in key places and could not be saved.  This kind of material fatigue is not uncommon especially if the latex dries out or has not been effectively cleaned.  And latex also simply expires from use over time.  It is an organic thing.

So I decided to experiment with the Miriams by including the latex in their feed, to see whether they would set about decomposing it.

I can report that at last examination the latex has not been touched at all.  Instead it was serving quite well as an impermeable layer in the Worm Factory trapping water and keep the whole thing moist. Here is a photo of that experiment demonstrating the outcome:

I meant to say this latex dress belonged to another life of mine which some of you are aware of.  And that is, I worked for some time, before I started escorting, as a professional Mistress in a BDSM dungeon.

Here is an old photo of me in the latex dress in one of the rooms at the dungeon, my apologies for the cut off head.

MG xx

Post #55 Sunday 29 October 2017 – Rifle range dogs

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 29 October 2017

Even my first post was about a part of the coast on the south side of the harbour bridge.  So here is another post in that same tradition, this time about a favourite surf beach at Maroubra, South Maroubra in particular.

Earlier in the year, about August, I visited this favourite beach and took some snaps of the surf and sky after a spectacular storm and swell.  Here are some of the photos, the first looking to North Maroubra showing the crashing surf on the cliffs there:

This second one is also looking to North Maroubra, but it includes a surfer for scale:

I am also including a photo of the well known rifle range on the headland at the South Maroubra, you can see the series of targets set up in the distance here:

In the scrub on the headland round the rifle range there used to be a tradition of abandoned dogs inhabiting the rough terrain.  They came to be known as the rifle range dogs and were a distinctive type of dog, long legged, low haunches, solid colours, howling as often as barking and making excellent guard dogs.  There was a time apparently when they were relatively common pets in the eastern suburbs.   I only ever got to know one of these rifle range dogs, and it was quite a while ago.  His was a large hound called Bernie and he belonged to a notary public who lived near Bondi Junction.  He had a very distinctive musical yowl which he used more than he did bark.  Once he had determined you were friendly and here to do business he just flung his enormous frame into his bed and relaxed.  So here is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald 1957 addressing the phenomenon of the rifle range dogs, here called the wild dogs of Malabar (as Malabar meets the south headland of Maroubra).

And here are two final gratuitous images of the surf with surfers and the lovely sunset sky at South Maroubra in August.

In praise of all the great things on the local coastline,

MG xx