Chapter 25 : Quinces and shopping trolleys

The Derwent laps up the hills of Hobart. Effortlessly turning every piece of lowland into a flooded river bed. The Derwent doesn’t run swiftly. It flows downwards and seawards. It is useless. Nobody drinks it. Nobody washes in it. Nobody goes to work on it. It isn’t beautiful. People sail on it. A few people row on it. It could be said to aid recreation. Occasionally. And Regatta Day attempts to make this river the heart and soul of this city. The River Derwent is the thing that defines our city. It is Hobart.

I’ve been told many things about various things. What about the last post? What has been said to me?

Well I’ve been told, “It’s a good look inside your head. Can see what you’re been thinking.”

Is this the only way I can communicate with people. By writing down my thoughts. Can’t I just speak to them? Go to a pub, have a beer and talk to them.  Or is writing down your thoughts a better less confusing way of communicating.

I’ve also been told, “Best post yet. If you go back to some of your original posts then there is a level of insightfulness.”

This comment is a compliment of one post by comparing it to other posts which were not good. Or another way of saying it is, “the other ones were bad and this one is not as bad.”

I suppose it is normal to compare posts by the same person. To rate them.  All sounds perfectly normal. Best to accept it

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In my back garden the quinces are ripe. They have softly gone from a green to yellow. They are all lumpy, unevenly shaped and contain coddling moths. And people want them. You can give them away. I know how difficult it is too chop them up. They are hard. They are one fruit that must be cooked. Before they can be cooked they must be prepared. This means cutting them up, removing the pips, removing the coddling moth and any remnants of it.  You could say that this is hard work. You could say that quince jelly is tasty. You could say quince jelly is something you can show of with pride. A local aficionado will know how much effort or love you have put into each jar. If somebody is uninterested or blasé about your scones with quince jelly you will know that they have never prepared and cooked quinces. Their dispassionate lack of interest in your jelly will tell everybody that they have never cooked with quinces.

One of my daughters says about my latest post, “It’s not offensive, I found it interesting.”

These comments leave me unsatisfied so I ask her more questions. She backs away and says,” Why are you so interested in what I think?”

I continue my questioning and she retreats signifying that I am taking it too seriously. I want to grab her and shake her until she realizes that I am taking it seriously because I have faced my own mortality. I’ve been to God’s waiting room and was told, “Come back later. We don’t have anybody booked by your name.  We are expecting a guy called ....”

When we arrived in Hobart we thought we were escaping the travails of a big city. The traffic jams, the parking centers, the traffic lights. Not now.  The traffic has followed us here.  The car parks have infiltrated the city. They are breeding and threaten to take over the city. Nowadays the car parks always seem to be full of people and cars behaving badly. For some reason a person in a car seems to think they can behave any way they like. They can’t be seen. In their car they are invisible. They remind me of supermarkets and shopping trolleys. Give some-one a shopping trolley and their behavior will change. Why is that? Who knows?  Perhaps the driver of the trolley thinks other people will look at the trolley not the person steering it.