CHRISTMAS RETROSPECTIVES

Well it's the wettest Christmas that I can remember. My memory for 
these things is terrible, so that doesn't say much, but whereas 
normally I'm swealtering in the heat, this year I have a jumper on. 
The irony is that the predictions were for an especially hot and 
dry summer, but the puddles outside at the moment make it look more 
like winter. Christmas' hemispherically-biased seasonal traditions 
are almost close to seeming relevent this year.

The rain looks to be continuing on through boxing day today, so 
it's too cold for being naked. Although I did spend most of the 
weekend without clothes, including chopping back the gumtrees that 
regrow too close to the house each year and pose a fire risk. 
Normally Christmas would be way too late for that because fire is 
already a danger by then, but this year it seems early. It sure has 
been a good season for gumtrees though, I filled up a full ute-load 
of leafy koala-chow. Hmmm, a koala, that's what I need...

Diving straight into year's end retrospective mode I also worked 
out my six-monthly average grocery shopping expenditure. $34.32 per 
week, only $0.15 higher than the same time last year, although more 
significantly higher than $31.80 when I started recording it at the 
beginning of 2021. The reports of rocketing prices for some goods 
recently haven't been affecting me much then. But driving to town 
to get them is surely getting more expensive, in terms of tax 
(rego+license) and insurance as well as fuel, not of course 
including the recent spend on new parts for the Jag. Hmm, total 
parts plus tyre fitting & wheel alignment = $2572.44 / $34.32 = ~75 
weeks of grocery expenses. Except I spent that on the vehicle I use 
to pick up those groceries.

I finally settled on another book to start reading since that 
Fusion one I talked about earlier. My trouble is more or less being 
spoilt for choice with books really. But I picked another one that 
I bought back in the town where I grew up, although I'm pretty sure 
I'd moved away before I bought this one, in the market there while 
visiting my mother. It was Ghost Towns of Australia, by George 
Farwell, published in 1965 (the web shows some later years, but 
they must have been reprints). Abandoned places really facinate me, 
about the only still regularly-updated YouTube channel featuring 
new content that I follow is of the childishly-named "Proper 
People", who go exploring abandoned buildings. The book describes 
that eery, sometimes mysterious, presence of the abandoned 
structures themeselves. But it's mainly about the history of the 
people who deliberately or otherwise started the town's formation, 
and what caused it to be left behind to crumble. This is very often 
told by the author retelling the bush stories of the locals in a 
most fluid and engaging style.

In fact there are so many abandoned towns in Australia, most with 
nothing left behind at all (around that blast furance I mentioned 
in my second-last post, for one), that it's hardly comprehensive. 
Some like Wittenoom in WA were still thriving when the book was 
written. Some were built and abandoned all since since then. 
Innaminika in South Australia has since been revived from the 
complete abandonment described in the book, even with most of the 
original buildings gone. Mining is the common thread, and it only 
occasionally encouraged the sort of permanent construction that 
leaves any hope of easily identifying an abandoned settlement 
decades, and now sometimes over a century, later. But the stories 
expose the basic needs, dreams, and desperations, that make or 
break a community. Especially one lodged in the inhospitable 
interior of the country.

But back on a much more personal focus, I decided I might as well 
take my yearly photo a little early, since the forecast didn't 
propose good light and warmth suitable for a naked snapshot of my 
body later in the immediate future. I spent some time comparing 
with the first in 2017, aware now of how others have changed in the 
time period, since the school reunion. Again though, less change 
than I thought. I'm slightly more fit now, perhaps not such that 
anyone would notice. That's mainly from adopting my pre-bed push-up 
routine, I suppose. Maybe also all the more physical jobs I've been 
doing (even on Christmas day, actually pulling bits off a large old 
truck). A physical, and healthy, result of how I'm very slightly 
becoming less interested in computers. The trouble is that my 
physical activities don't actually do much for making money, 
besides some very infrequent farm-hand work, so I'm tied to 
aspiring towards more computer-based projects for the sake of 
business alone. Not that they're all a chore yet, I still like some 
obsessing over computer software development and usage, but that 
passion might not last. I'm meant to be upgrading OpenWrt on my 
router today, then setting up an internet data usage log system on 
it, and I can't really even be bothered with that.

Maybe that's part of why I like abandoned places - nobody to ask 
for money, nobody to ask for money from. Deserted in the middle of 
the Australian desert, also not much hope of a comfortable 
survival, but at least I could wander around one of those towns 
naked and nobody would be there to object.

 - The Free Thinker