Yeah.. I'm enthused and writing again! It's taken me a while to get started, but these last few weeks I have resurrected my book, and it has once more undergone a major transformation and morphed into something different again..

I've decided to focus more on my own life now.. it being so entwined with the philosophical thoughts I otherwise harbor and which will also feature in the book..

I generally sit and write for a couple of hours each morning.. Which perhaps sounds like I'm speeding through it, but isn't actually the case.. Much of the time is always spent rereading through stuff I've already written and rearranging things, adding stuff that I've forgotten, and taking brief notes of things I need to get down..

I no longer have any idea how many pages I've written, as I'm using a straight forward text editor to get my thoughts down, which just shows me one great big long page..

Once I'm done with a first draft, whenever that'll be, I'll cut and paste it all into a word processor, and start formatting it as I read through and decide what to and what not to include.. I would guess though that I'm pushing a 150 pages or so..

I think you'll find the book interesting, even if it is me saying so.. my life has been incredibly complicated, with all manner of bizarre and unusual occurances that I'm hoping will both enthrall and entertain.. from my daring escape of military conscription, to a year spent in the australian bush.. but, oh my, i'm giving the plot away.. Not to worry, that's just a tiny snippet..

Otherwise, Kveta and I are enjoying our lives, swimming regularly in the Barron river, eating plenty of fruit, and occasionally visiting Fruitopia where often interesting wwoofers pass through..

More another when..
Mango.

It's my 49th Birthday today.. We've just gotten back from the Tolga market..

After leaving the market, we noticed that the car was just turning over to 400,000 kilometers, so we pulled over to take a picure..

400,000 kilometers

The car's a 1990 (or '91 ?) white toyota camry station wagon.. Kveta bought it a couple of years before I arrived on the scene, and it's served us mightily well so far... seeing us safely relocated from sydney to the tropics, plus supplied with fruit regularly..

The markets, see, are held in a different town each weekend.. dependent on which weekend of the month it is.. the 1st sunday of the month it's in Tolga, just less than 30kms away.. The 2nd saturday of each month it's in Mareeba, our home town. the 3rd Saturday, it's in Malanda, probably 50kms away, the 4th, it's in Yungaburra, about the same distance as Malanda, and the 5th Saturday (if there is one), it's back in Mareeba again..

Black sapote/chocolate pudding fruit, from a local
Papua new Guinean womans garden..

The month just gone was pretty unusual in that there were 5 saturdays, and the 1st of this month, today, happens to also be the 1st sunday.. thus, we've just had 2 markets one after each other, and next weekend, no market at all.. unless we go to the atherton market on the coming saturday (a market we generally skip as it's not as good as the others)..

Anyhow, we've found that the markets are pretty much one of the better ways to stock up on food for the week. They're also a way to meet and get to know local growers.. We already have contact details of a couple of families that grow local fruits spray free, and have been welcomed to get out and visit them and buy directly from their land.. Something we've been lazy about doing as the markets normally see us reasonably well stocked for the week..

Our kitchen stocked up with fruit.. (Also, not visible, Avos,
cucumbers, black sapote, pumpkin, passion fruit & more

This morning, at Tolga, we were given a box of pawpaw for free, which is the main reason we drove out there, as we had already been to the mareeba markets yesterday and were otherwise wellstocked..

In our little garden at the moment, we are still regularly eating our home grown tomatoes, and visited frequently by a little local couple of birds.. One woman we know called them "little willy wagtails", but we're not exactly sure what species they belong to.. they like to sit nearby and watch us, and I'm sure sometimes they play a game to see just how close they might get to us without actually touching.. Swooping down and nearly landing on our feet our head, but then flitting off elsewhere, and when we sit down, they come and sit quietly and watch us..

Local little willy wagtail watching me garden

Here's another photo with Kveta holding up a bowl of freshly picked tomatoes to one of our little friend who's probably not that impressed with them, as they seem to prefer fluttering little insects..

Wagtail watching kveta with bowl of tomatoes

Yesterday I was calling him from the house.. trying to mimic their song, and from somewhere out back, one of them was answering my call.. kveta was in the kitchen laughing about it..

Once I'd stopped calling, one of them came around to the front of the house, sat on the window sill, sang really loud and cheerfully, and then flew off..

Kveta with fresh picked tomatoes

On another less cheerful note.. we had a short interview with our bank manager during the week.. We wanted to find out what the chances were that we might be able to somehow borrow money to buy ourselves our much desired piece of paradise.. To be honest, I think we naively entered the bank optimistically thinking that we would at least be able to borrow a couple of hundred thousand, possibly more ..

It turned out that in their eyes, our financial situation and incomes are too low for them to be able to lend us any money.. So the bubble, that was one potential escape route to our future home and garden was burst..

A good place for a swim - at Fruitopia - click to enlarge

We left the bank pretty saddened, but still optimistic that somehow or another the universe will manifest for us a corner of the earth that's rural and next to water with privacy, for much desired naturism practise, and space for untethered fruit tree planting.. Some place with a nice swimming hole, like the one pictured both above and below:

me at the fruitopia swimming hole a couple of days ago..