owlrigh

It's magpie season again, and unfortunately this time I can't avoid the two magpies who have it in for me. They're right on the Pacific Highway, and there's no way of getting around them; they take turns at bombdiving. Hardly has one been waved off before the other comes in from a different trajectory.

A couple of weeks ago Ben and I went for a ride into town, the first time that these birds decided to do the double-up attack. He pedalled up on ahead and stopped once he was out of their range, laughing at my continued assault.

"Hey, I don't have to ride too fast -- just fast enough that you're behind me, because then they'll go for you!"

That they did, and that they did again on the way home.

They continued to get me after that, whenever I was by myself, and then I caved in and stopped riding to town. I couldn't bear the fact I couldn't even try to avoid these birds; there was no escaping them.

I was discussing these birds with a lady at work one evening.

"You should try going along the highway!" she said. "Try that route instead. Get off your bicycle when it comes and walk, because that way it won't see you as a threat."

One afternoon I began with the first of these things, and it was then the magpie nest location became clear -- in the big tree at the very corner I used to turn. Also right under the new path along the highway, and it went for me with a thirst for blood in its ghoulish little eyes.

It was off the bicycle for me, and I tried to walk it along while keeping an eye on the magpie. The creature of evil then ran along beside me as I tried to walk, but mostly ended up getting tangled in my bicycle and falling over.

There had to be a solution!

( My Brilliant Idea. )

On another bicycle note, a comfortable, nice, totally uplifting one: I got myself a women's saddle seeing as my old one was dying, and this women's saddle is the best thing in the world. A Terry Butterly Ti women's specific saddle, shorter in the nose and with a blissful channel in the middle.

I never quite realised how annoying my old one was. At least now I can avoid the magpies in comfort.

( New and old bicycle saddle. )

It's taken nearly two decades for me to see the birth of baby turtles scurrying down the beach to the ocean. We saw eggs being laid back in the mid-80s when in the Red Sea, and we didn't stick around long enough to see them hatched back then.

Not too many people in the world have eaten turtle eggs. I'm one of them. How we managed to spot and sneak up on the turtles as they lay their eggs back then is now a mystery; I just recall holding the torch upon my father's hand as he put it under the turtle and gathered eggs as she lay them. Thick goo comes out with the eggs, and the things themselves have soft shells.

It's so funny how timid the turtles are when they're about to lay. If there's light on shore, or movement, she'll not come and lay; once she begins, however, she doesn't give a toss what goes on an merrily lays away.

When the opportunity came up at the hostel to go see hatchlings I took it up happily. And so we were bundled into a bus yesterday and trucked off to the Mon Repos turtle observatory and research centre. Take mosquito repellent, we were told, which I ... did not.

( Babies! )

Late last month my brother's telephone rang late at night, and yet when he answered it the call was not for him.

"Here, it's for you," he said. "It's a granny."

"Hello? Is this owlrigh?"

I wondered who this could be, for not only did she sound old, but very few among those in my acquaintance have Damien's number.

"Did you have a cat? Tortoiseshell?"

And so, with those words, all of my questions as to what happened to the family cat were answered. Signing your pet up with the National Pet Register apparently works, even if the phone call came a year later than I'd expected, long after I'd moved and changed telephone number a few times.

The strangest thing of it all turned out that she was the grandmother of someone who'd gone to school with my brother. Who remembered me, although his name didn't click until Damien gave me a description of the boy. She knew all about me, apparently.

The cat stayed with them another few weeks, the duration of which I had asked her to find the cat a home. I'd telephone almost everyone I knew to see if they knew of anyone wanting a cat, but no. She's an aging cat, and few people want any form of feline not a kitten. She'd have to go with the catamaran.

Damien made his way back down to Brisbane for the New Year's to spend with his friends. While there arrangements were made to fly her back up, the cost of which surpassed Damien's fare south and then back.

It was odd to hold the cat again. I'd forgotten how soft she was, how delicate; even my boys exclaimed upon feeling her. Perhaps her resemblance something to a rag doll had a lot to do with nervousness at a new place, since I last recalled her being clingy and daft as I tried to move her to the flat -- which she ran away from. How different things would be if she had stayed!

We were curious to see how she'd react to the dog, and how the dog would react to the cat. He loves everybody, and so his reaction was to attempt to get close and lick her. He runs down into the cabins to seek her out, and her in her nonchalance sits there until he gets close.

Click, click, click goes his nails as he runs along the wood.

Hiss.

Smack.

"Woowoowoowoof!" he barks, just out of reach of a paw, and yet trying to get back again for another lick.

I was worried initially that Damien would go back to his cat-harassing days, when he would throw her about because she was so aloof and disliked him so intensely. I thought he would kink her tail, throw her down, kick her. Now I think otherwise -- not because he has grown up any, no, but he can throw the dog around and otherwise do things probably not good for him and the mutt comes back.

It's a glad thing, however, that the cat was found. Over a year after she disappeared! They would not answer, however many times I asked, to tell me how long she'd been with them. "She'd been hanging around some time," was all they would say. Perhaps it just took them this long to track me down. I'm glad of it. She'll be a surprise for my mother upon her return.