16 March 2013

Horses



I have had a very pleasant morning so far. I responded to some work emails that had arrived from the English overnight. They were not all that pleasant but they were easy. They were a piece of cake. 

They were child's play. 

I have also had a good bike ride and I have taken my Saturday breakfast and coffee at the Spinellis cafe. I have had a barrage of emails to and from my best mate Berty who lives in Las Vegas. We liaise pretty much every day now. I wish we could do it in person. I have said it before and I will say it again.

I miss him a lot.

Berty told me that he had spoken to his sister Angela this morning. She lives in a country town in NSW and she is a nurse. Angela is like my little sister too. She is the spitting image of her mum Shirley who is also like a Mum to me. I grew up with the Reynolds family around me. We spent a lot of time at their house in Merimbula which is a beautiful beach town. We had long, hot and wonderful summers there for many years. These Summers are ingrained in my memories and the memories of them are very precious to me. 

They are very precious indeed.

I will not mention the fact that Angela took the virginity of my younger brother Richard. She snatched it away when my little bro was only 15. Angela was 17 at the time so she was an older woman.

She was a cougar.

The event happened at the bottom of the school oval in the primary school that was near our house. It happened in a patch of long grass. It was a wonderful thirty or so seconds for the both of them. I won't however mention this occurrence as it might embarrass them. 

I wouldn't want that.

I remember going back to the Reynolds family home when Berty and I were both about 17 years old. We were still at school. Berty's house was in suburban Melbourne. Angela had been given a horse for her birthday. A real horse! It was tied up to a lamp post out the front of their house when Berty and I arrived and Berty's sister Angela was inside. 

She was inside the house - not the horse. 

It surprised both Berty and I to see this horse. We knew it was coming but we didn't expect to see it out the front of the house. I remember with absolute clarity how delighted and excited Berty was to see the horse. He ran up to this very big beast and he untethered it then he jumped straight on to it's back and went galloping down the street. It was a sight to behold and it was hysterical too. I remember rolling around on the footpath with laughter. I was laughing so much that my stomach hurt. 

Those were the days.

They really were. 

Berty and I would spend many a weekend riding Angela's horse in the paddocks where it was agisted. The horse was a bit of a wild one and it loved to jump over things. We took turns riding it and never fell off.

It was very good fun.

There have been some great songs written about horses. Patti Smith's album Horses is an old favourite of mine. At Berty and Dana's wedding they played the Daryl Braithwaite song "Horses" for the wedding waltz. When I hear that song on my iPod it reminds me of their wedding. Daryl used to be the lead singer of a pretty lame band called 'Sherbet' and then he struck out on his own and came of age.

He went solo. 

He sang:

"That's the way it's gonna be little darlin. We'll be riding on the horses yeah. Way up in the sky little darlin -  and if you fall I'll pick you up. I'll pick you up."

I read in the paper this morning that the Singapore government are providing free entry to all museums on the Island to it’s citizens and to Permanent Residents. They will no longer have to pay the entrance fee. The government are also investing an additional $94 million into the Arts over the next 5 years.

I like this. 

Singapore needs a cultural injection.

The paper reported that Acting Minister Lawrence Wong said in Parliament yesterday that Singapore's rapid development and social changes have made it, "difficult to develop strong cultural anchors for our national identity" 

He added that as a result he believed that Singaporeans, "feel disoriented, especially with the increase in population and new immigrants"

I find a couple of things interesting here. "Acting" Minister Lawrence Wong? Acting as in the Arts or in the temporary sense? It would be nice to think that he is actually an actor however I think it is just a temporary position.

He is in a fill-in role. 

The disorientation comment goes part of the way in explaining why Singaporeans often walk around bumping into each other. I had no idea that it was national identity related. 

I thought it was just a spatial awareness thing. 

I feel somewhat enlightened by this news. 

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