Pinknian Motion and sheep in wellies

You've all heard of Brownian motion? The apparently random movement of particles in a liquid? Well, Pinknian Motion is similar but more random (there is nothing predictable about it). And it is a decidely weaker phenomenon... I discovered it today.

My day began - after the normal preliminaries of coffee and porridge and e-mail (I try not to confuse them too much, but much depends on the coffee) with a visit to have my blood taken for my cholesterol check (I was a little high - under the 'alarums and excursions' level by one point... ergo I was not part of the 50% of the population whose levels are supposedly too high. Otherwise, other than terminal stupidity I am supposed to be OK.) Unfortunately the terminal stupidity kicked in this morning and the fact that 6 months ago it had been a starving blood (blood that goes out looking for something to eat, hence saving the use of syringes. Or failing that, blood taken from some poor soul who hasn't eaten or drunk for 12 hours.) So Dr Sonya and I were able to discuss the evils of Brussel sprouts (a fiendish warning about the EU - Look what Brussels means by 'green shoots') and the best way to enjoy broccoli (according to me, broccoli is one of the veg which needs to be cooked within 20 minutes of picking. At this point it is still delicate and sweet. After that it gradually converts those sugars and leaves you with sulpherous guck best diguised with lots of cheese.) And so on Monday at 9, lacking coffee (which is hard when you get up at 5) we will have to try again.

After lunch we headed off to Cameron's inlet, as prelude to getting some more firewood. It's a well-known spot on the island - a vast (well 8 so Kilometres long by 3 wide I think) lagoon which occassionally opens to the sea. It is salty, and mostly flat and one may not net there. It is famous for bird-watching. I have a problem bird watching as I tend to wonder how like chicken they taste. Anyway, we hadn't been there and I had wondered whether I was selling short something I hadn't seen, on the grounds that the road looked a little iffy on the map. The road is perfectly good (Flinders roads are actually pretty good) even if all the sheep in the half flooded paddocks were wearing wellies.



The white spots are pelicans. The black ones with red beaks are black swans (I believe publishers are looking for these. So here is a closer attempt (my camera does not do zoom well) with little grey fluffbal cygnets going for Friday paddle to the mall.

I promise I hardly thought about the flavour of cygnet. We did however catch a few token galiaxas/anchovies-to-be, by the fine art of getting into a narrow little inlet and chasing them. They swam determinedly for the next pool up a thin film of water, where it was possible to pick them up. They all appear to be males, in ripe-running state, so either spawning is due (which suggest they think the larvae will shortly be washed out sea,) or we broke up a stag-party. They are now in salt. Might be called adding in-salt to injury...

So we cut some wood and B tripped and fell flat on her back and winded herself - on dead flat ground without a chainsaw in hand, for which I was very grateful. I was not grateful for her being sore and a bit mizzy.

We still went to Patriarchs - the tide was still too high, but I did get some clams which I turned into our dinner - with pasta, and FRESH brocolli. We'd taken rods in the expectation of the water being a lot higher, but as it was out quite a long way, and I had no wetsuit with me, I stripped off to a pair of shorts and wetsuit-booties and took the trownet out. I got a small flounder and a hardyhead (tiny fish) in the first throw. Should have gone home, because according to Dave's theory of fish, this means you think it is easy, and fishing having lulled you will now produce nothing. And it did.

Well, nearly nothing. It did with being in and out of water in shorts, with a wind off the snow in Tassie, make for the pink (and some blue) knees, which as I determindely tried to fling a net with numb hands resulted in Pinknian motions (which are like Brownkneean Motion, but less suntanned). Which were distinctly random, and involved a lot of uncontrollable shivering, and the kind of throws a great great granny in a wheelchair would have been ashamed of. Ah well. The clams were at least one feed, and the do-it-yourself anchovies may be part of another.

And so we came home, my knees returned to a more normal shade, and B had a nice long hot bath and felt a better, while I offloaded the wood and packed the net. You can do it alone. It's just a PITA, stoop labour.
And now to bed.

All together now...

We're all here. B is quite sore but back home. We won't know the results for some time but the haematologist was competent and re-assuring. I was underslept with zero focus (surprise) and the lads jetlagged so we took a long walk.



All the way to the little river that comes in next to airport, and past some very tasty looking turkeys (I love fish. Love seafood. but I want a little more bird and meat in our diet. B and I have been talking about the need for some form of firearm, because it seems that they are not really jumping into the cooking-pot all by themselves. In SOuth Africa that involved a million hurdles, and there really was little opportunity unless you were rich or well-connected or a large landowner... none of which described us too well. So we never bothered. Here it is different. I'm a forager. I will do what is necessary. I thought we'd probably trade stuff 9as we did back in SA - It's early days yet of course, and we're still building networks of people to swap things with.)

Then we went down to the point where the black swans were gliding on the water. See those dirty marks on the lens? Those are elegant swans on the calm sea. I really need a slightly better camera to get those sort of pics - on that list of things we need someday. Ah well. We got this far.



And then we walked back with strange grinding noises - aka Paddy's back-bone and belly-button rubbing on each other. The pic of the boys in a windcut arch on the sandy track next to the beach, where we saw the oystercatchers (I am trying to teach Pads all the few birds I know so that if a certain august personage gets here he can point knowledgably at birds and say 'Green swan. Black rosella. Oystercatcher pie...')



Paddy spent the afternoon writing a programme to calculate the minimum number of moves 'Knights'(a little chess-type logic boardgame) can be done in. Other people might just try and do it in the fewest and count moves... (the programme is fiendishly complex, and James crashed and snoozed, and I spent the intervening time trying to stay awake and work, to fetch B when she flew in, failing, and then racing the plane to the airfield.
I won.
Just.