Tuessday - Saturday December 16 - 20, 2008 (diary)

I have not felt well these last few day, staying in bed with a light temperature. I will start writing again when I feel a bit better.

Sunday - Tuesday December 21 - 23, 2008 (diary)

Yes, I am still alive, but hardly "kicking" as the saying goes. If I tell you that flossing my teeth this morning felt like climbing Mount Everest, you will get a fair idea of my present condition. One does not want to rush off to a doctor every time, but after sweating it out in bed for four days and not getting any better, Doug took me to the Doctor yesterday morning.
The latter only needed to glance at my urine sample to diagnose infection. So I am on antibiotics, and if I trust the signs from my body, covered in sweat most of the time I would say the battle between the goodies and the badies is really heating up.
I think I will improve rapidly from here. My first main concern is to get my taste for food back, as Christmas Eve we are planning to have Sashimi for dinner and I don't want to miss out of that, that's for sure.

Wednesday & Thursday December 24 & 25, 2008 (diary)

Although nowhere near fully fit, I am capable today to drive around for a few chores, like getting a hair cut, a repeat prescription from the chemist, buying some sake and various food items. I arrive back home exhausted and rest for the afternoon, while Babette and Doug are having a walk along the beach as part of their diet exercises.
We have no Christmas tree this year, instead Babette has placed candles all over the place which looks nice. After a quiet drink we have a delicious sashimi dinner, then watch a movie. I am early in bed after that.
We have some rain overnight, but the morning is sunny, with the occasional clouds. Babette and Doug are off on their beach walk routine again.

Let me leave you with a statement of Brian Greene in his 'Fabric of the Cosmos' (p.5) :

Ever since I was a young boy I have felt that the secrets of life and my existence in it were written in nature rather than by "wise old men" thousands of years ago, who's "learned" religious texts have long shown to be naive and incompatible with what we know and understand of life, the world and universe today.
I have never wavered from my path and now, with Greene and many many others, I feel at peace, and in a state of tranquility and infinite wonder.

Friday & Saturday December 26 & 27, 2008 (diary)

Christmas Day, with all Clubs and Pubs closed in Australia I always find a most boring day. But on Boxing Day (tweede Kerstdag) everything springs into action. The traditional Boxing Day cricket test, this year Australia against South Africa, starts at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and Sydney, not to be outdone, have their start for the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
For the first time in over a week I head towards Mooloolaba. The place is busy, but nowhere near as full as usual this time each year and I easily find a convenient parking spot. After some noodles for lunch at Brisbane Junction, I go onto the Surf Club to watch a spot of the cricket.

Last night we watched a DVD of the film Love in the Time of Cholera. It is a most beautiful film, adapted from the book by the Columbian Nobel prize winner (1982) Gabriel Garcia Márquez. I am so enchanted with the story that after the cricket I drive on to the Maroochydore 'Sunshine Plaza' shopping centre to find a copy of the book. I am in luck, they do have one. As I return home and open the book I am enthralled from the very first page. No way I can stop reading.

Sunday & Monday December 28 & 29, 2008 (diary)

Sunday is overcast all day. Babette, Doug and I decide for an early morning walk on the beach and then have the Surf Club's all you can eat buffet breakfast. The breakfast is, as always, quite magnificent, but I am pleased I restrain myself with no too much food. The buffet has all hot foods you can think of plus fruit salads, corn flakes, juices as well as some lovely croissants and pastries.

Monday is a lovely sunny day and pleasantly warm. Babette has picked up a bit of a cold though and stays in bed.
I go to the beach and watch cricket at the Surf Club. The Australians are being slaughtered by the South Africans. Several of the Australian bowlers are injured and not at their best. It looks like a changing of the guard. Australia has dominated world cricket for man years now, but the South Africans, World's number 2, are clearly taking over that role. A time of renewal has started for the Aussie team, which is in many ways good.

Tuesday December 30, 2008 (diary)

After a heavy rain and thunderstorm last night, the morning starts fresh, sunny and with a clear blue sky that lasts all day. After shooting the breeze with my daughter Babette on the front deck for a while I climb into my swimmers and head off to the beach for my first swim in 10 days.

There is a stiff sea breeze, but the water is crystal clear, emerald green and bright blue with white crests on small choppy waves. The water temperature is glorious, well into the 23° C and feels even warmer than that. I splash around in the white foamy waves and feel quite 100% again. After, I walk back to the Surf Club where I have a late lunch (bruchetta) and read 'The Fabric of the Cosmos'. Going through it for the second time, so I get a still better grasp of it all.

Driving on the Mooloolaba motorway this week I read on an overhead digital display :

"Please ????", "Please ??!!. A word not seen on any Queensland (or NSW, orVic., or SA) road sign.
Is the police suddenly getting the right message ? That no matter how aggravated they may be about the road carnage each year it is totally counter productive to direct this sentiment to the general public. You need the Public with you to improve road safety, not against you. When you address them like convicts ("Buckle up or wear the Fine!"   "Rest or R.I.P !"   etc.) they will behave like convicts, become resentful and ignore the rules.

As I have mentioned on several occasions before, only the Northern Territory in Australia is doing the right thing in this regard, matching the sophisticated politeness characteristic on all the French autobahns.
To be fair to the Queensland police they always approach you with great courtesy and politeness, but this positive image is totally obliterated by the crude road signs. Perhaps there is a change in the air ?

Wednesday December 31, 2008 (diary)

New Years Eve. Babette has been warning me for months that she has organised something for this night. We have to go somewhere. I usually hate going out like that, so am not looking forward to it, but of course I will have to comply.
The day starts good, warm, sunny, clear blue sky. I have my swim at the beach, lunch at the Surf Club, then early home to prepare myself for the evening's activity with a brief siesta. Babette has bought 3 dozen oysters, so I grill some Kilpatricks and we have an early dinner with French bubbly.

At 5.30 PM we are off in the car to Brisbane. We arrive outside of town near the airport, along the Brisbane river and what do I see ? Tents, Circus tents ! The Cirque du Soleil !! Unbelievable, I have seen several of their shows on TV, but never live. We have arrived early and find a great parking spot right in front of the Circus.
We enter one of the tents with beverages and merchandise and help ourselves to both. I buy a T-shirt and a great hat, and change into them straight away. Babette also buys two lovely T-shirts, and because she likes my hat I buy her one too for when she is doing her walks on the beach.

The atmosphere in the main tent is magic. Cirque du Soleil is a truly unique concept, briefly it is a circus without animals, but because of that it is more not less. It is a hugely creative multi media event of high quality art. A wonderful celebration of humanity through movement : dance acrobatics, tableaux, augmented by music, singing, lights, effects.
I personally experience it as the highest form of art, compatible with opera, ballet, musical, concert, play. In fact in a way it is even better than that as two restrictive constraints of the other art forms are done away with.

1. Firstly the presentation in a Circus tent with the audience all around the performance makes for a much more intimate informal integration of the audience and the artists. No sharp division with the performers at on side of the line (on stage), and the public on the other.
   
   
2. Secondly although there is a general visual theme, there is no fixed script, no story line which the artists have to adhere too. This too adds to the liberated feeling you get when experiencing Cirque du Soleil.

Cirque du Soleil is a multi-media collage combining Eastern and Western cultures, the past and the future in both space and time.   Almost one hundred years ago Albert Einstein, through his theory of general relativity, defined mathematically and geometrically the intricate interconnectedness of space, time and gravity, which provided "the choreography for an entwined cosmic dance of space, time, matter and energy."

Cirque du Soleil (I believe) is expressing this very "cosmic dance" in the language of art, and by doing so provides a clear lead for new contemporary art forms in this 21st Century.
It is also a hopeful sign for the future. Will this artistic contemporary reflection and awareness of the world now too spread more widely, to a modern awareness of the universe as the past 100 years of discoveries are showing us, so that we will finally leave those ancient outdated incompatible ideas of the world forever behind us ?

Exhilarated we drive home after the show, arriving home at ThreePonds at the stroke of midnight, just in time for a glass of champagne : Happy New Year to you all !