We enjoyed the delights of having all our grandsons staying for a few days. The tent was put up in the back yard with stretchers and blow-up bed duly installed inside. A torch was suspended from inside the roof of the tent in case of an emergency. Max said he would provide emergency food rationings which we thought would be of some most dubious nutritional value, seeing he had been spotted at the Bowral ‘Lolly’ shop earlier on the day. Max and lollies are often one and in total sympathy with each other. We did not say anything about his stash of ‘food’ inside the tent. The boys are on holidays. So much for inherited genes. We both love vegetables thrive on just about anything that grows out of the soil.

The tent we had for some years. It is design whereby inter-lockable short pieces of spring loaded rods fit together and arranged through a series of loops sewed on the tent, then arch themselves around the outside of the tent and help to hold the whole structure of the tent up nice and taut. A simple design but what a genius who finally managed to get it right. There is so much in the design of good tents. Have you seen those small light-weight tents wherein the Himalayan climbers huddle in during freezing nights on their quest to conquer Mount Everest? They are small and weigh almost nothing. I remember seeing a movie made in the early fifties on those that climbed that mountain first. (Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay) They were lugging heavy canvas structures up that mountain. Now-a-days, hundreds climb it almost daily. The whole mountain littered with disbanded tents, oxygen bottles, toilets, and other debris and equipment with some horribly grimaced in their frozen death throes climbers as well.

H and I have long given up our plan to climb the Himalayans and are now just happy to take brisk daily walks through the church Yard and cemetery of St Judes. Milo, our incorrigible Jack Russell, forces us to go through the cemetery because, even though the church is in central Bowral, he knows there are rabbits around. A couple of weeks ago he found a frightened rabbit kitten and killed it instantly, merciless Milo is. Milo has beseeching eyes but don’t be fooled. He is a killer when it comes to rabbits and ducks. Bad boy Milo, good boy Milo.

St Judes’ church does its best to keep its ageing congregation and has many concerts, musical soirees and fund raisers. Parts of many churches are the collection bins near the gates where people can give and donate their unwanted goods to the less well off. Well, in Bowral it seems that many use those bins, in the dark of the night, to just jettison their rubbish. Too stingy to pay for tip fees, they use the bins to get rid of rubbish without having to pay. Broken TV’s, three legged chairs and wheel-less prams, smashed computers, broken Macy’s furniture, headless teddy bears, stained pre-loved mattresses, settees with springs poking through, bottomless suitcases, hose less vacuum cleaners. Week in week out the same story. Who dumps all that stuff and why?

Just read on the ABC ‘Just in’ News. The world throws out 50% of food. I reckon there must also be a steady stream of people who not only throw out massive amounts of food but also consume and chuck out, consume and chuck out goods. A kind of joyless life, the 2 minute thrill of buying unneeded stuff, spending money and then chuck it out, broken before even having used it. In between, jaws masticating just as joylessly unwanted food while driving (in the dark of the night) with a trailer and chuck it at St Judes.

Inside the church the congregation is enjoying a Johann Sebastian Bach recital.