Category Archives: Gerard Oosterman

The demise of the Cigar

15 Tuesday Feb 2011

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. Just now, about ten minutes ago, when paying for a bottle of red wine, I noticed behind the cash register a somewhat forbidden looking black wall divided by many compartments.

On closer inspection while getting the change, I noticed that they were actually compartments hiding packets of cigarettes. The names and prices were written in white on this black wall together with the number of cigarettes in each division of those hidden cigarettes. All of a sudden I was becoming somewhat overwhelmed by remembering the cigar.

 In times past, a tobacco shop held an enormous attraction for me. When I was very young back in Holland I started the forbidden pleasure of smoking, perhaps at the age of twelve or so. From hollowed acorns and grass helms, I and friends fashioned a smoking device and smoked. It soon developed in smoking cigarettes.

 At that time the smoke shop was a heaven for scents and pleasures. Those displays of all that, with racks of pipes and boxes of cigars and the fact the kind shop owner used to sell ciggies single, I remember still so fondly.

 The image of my dad, who would on special occasions, got a cigar which he used to prepare with great skill and patience. The cutting of the end and the snipping of the front part with a special knife, a special ritual. The aroma of our house with this cigar heralded an almost festive day coming on. Everything was alright for that day, things were going fine and all were happy.

 All that is gone now, there is now just a black wall and stern signs.

Tow-bars and heli-pads

14 Monday Feb 2011

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This is one for the legal division of the Pig’s Arms. Anyone that has ever driven kids to schools or cubs knows that the preferred method is by mums with very large black coloured cars.

 Well, once (ones, for you Emm) upon a time, a long time ago, an old granddad took it upon him to also drive. Not in a big black one, but in his modest Astra 1600cc grey station wagon. It had recently been fitted with a tow bar and even more recent with the electronic harness. This harness cost more than the car, almost. This drive was to take grandson to his cubs.

 While reversing in a parking spot at the cub’s hall, granddad noticed a menacingly large and black vehicle. It was also being parked. There was, during the parking a slight nudge by Astra’s tow-bar ball to the front of this monstrous black car. It was one of those cars that could easily have had a small pool or heli-pad on the roof or in the boot. I am pretty sure it had an internal staircase or lift-well. Anyway, as big the car as small the lady, all hysterical and shaking with rage.

 “You vely, vely bad dliver” she said. “My car shaking, you damage, you damage”. “Show me license, you hit me.” I somewhat sagely reminded her that nothing much had happened and no damage done. Yes, but you vely bad, vely bad she shouted. She then demanded my license which I, always the well mannered driver, produced, even if just to calm her down. We both delivered the cubs and drove off.

 Her car, as it turned out  a: Holden Lexus RX 450h Sports Luxury 4d Wagon insured for $80k=.

 Nine months later, as always when precautions are not taken. A stern GIO letter demanding $ 1530.00 or” the debt collector with dire consequences will take all your possessions, garnishee your wages”( ha ,ha, ha, from ABC’s income will take 2054 years) The letter assumes I am liable. I never have car insurance, never apart from motor bike accident 50 years ago been involved with any accident.

 Now, the legal eagle from the P/Arms advice por favore:. Should I cough up, seeing I saved thousands not having car insurance? Or……… Should I rear up and subpoena the lady driver to court, (whose address I never took) and take her to task of getting the whole front of her car restored and remodeled at my expense? She obviously used her insurance to get every blemish or fault fixed. I never was involved or informed of any claim.

 I remember Maurice and Blackburn solicitors giving me a handy break on some dodgy share dealings involving GIO and a class action by thousands of other shareholders.

 This is of course a different issue and perhaps to save stress and time off from shit and stuff, should, as Emmjay so aptly put it: bend over and cough up? Much obliged and ta. You can send the bill c/- Hung-One. PO Yo. Pig’s Arms legal Aid.

Going down on Elektra and Downlights

05 Saturday Feb 2011

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Oh, Elektra you fair damsel in distress, whereto my ohms and amps I go?

Is my plight with your volts forever to stay my watt and foe?

After the herculean task of moving from farm to town-house twice within 6 months, we have now finally unpacked and are settled in a new town-house not far from shops, railway-station and cinema.

All the ceilings have down-lights. They are all the rage now and are 12 volt halogen powered. The reduction from 240 volts to 12 volts gets done by an equal portion of increase in heat. There is nothing like Einstein’s theory of relativity being proven. While we live now in a new dwelling-town-house and the roof is insulated by a thermal blanket, we thought of insulating the ceilings as well. There is nothing like feeling snug and warm in winter and cool during heat. We feel, like so many, that our ecological footprint ought to be kept as modest as possible without compromising in comfort.

When the insulating expert quoted us, he explained that every one of those down-lights would have to be covered up, as well as each accompanying transformer, and kept away from those fire resistant polyester insulating batts, the argument knocked me for six. Those down-lights can achieve a temperature of over 370 Celsius, he enthused.  Yes, he continued “they are a bit like having toasters in your ceilings”.

Even though the down-lights are twelve volts they still burn 50 watts each and another 10 watts for each transformer. This is a very expensive way to light up your house.

 “Heaps of houses have burned down, especially after the covering up by heat resistant thermal batts.” The insulating man was rocking on his heels now, not unlike the Shires weed inspector triumphantly spotting a nasty Paterson’s curse back on the farm. I got really warmed up to the subject now.

 Needless to say, we decided to install the insulation but only after covering those hotwired halogen down lights with special covers to which the insulating batts can be snugged-up to. The next step will be to replace all the halogen down- lights with fluorescent down- lights, doing away with the danger all together and catching two flies in one swat, ‘lowering heat and danger and being friendlier to the environment with less coal fired use of electricity. Save on electricity bills.

We have an amazing 32 of these halogen 370celcius heat giving down-lights in our modestly sized town house, including 12 of these in our lounge cum dining-kitchen area alone.  We have 2 of those in the fume extractor above the gas stove, fatally focussed on the fried bacon and eggs. Can you believe it?  The extractor catches the fat, ideal to burn the house down while cooking chips!

Have a break with this, Una Furtiva Lagrima; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Funp7JTWp2A

Needless to say, after our discovery of all those potential fire bugs cum-toasters hidden in our ceilings we hardly turn them on now and will get them replaced pronto, at least as soon as the electrician will spare the time. In the meantime we have plugged in reading lights and creep around with torches. You would have to be mad using those fire bugs of lights. Just imagine after a night of celebrating with a particular nice bottle of Shiraz, falling asleep with the down-lights sizzling away above the marital bed’s ceiling?

Is this another one of those ‘asbestos’ like dramas ready to blow up in the future? Tens of thousands of homes have those dangerous lights and tens of thousands more will no doubt be built in the future. How on earth was this form of lighting ever allowed to happen? How did this pass the building regulations? The resulting fires after the government subsidized insulation schemes are partly or perhaps mainly to blame on those 370 C heat giving concealed fire hazards inside ceiling cavities. This might well have been avoided if those lights would never have been approved in the first place.

 But, there is more.

Another amazing bit of Aussi architecture is those much-loved black roofs. . Has anyone ever measured the difference in temperature between black and light coloured surfaces exposed to sun and light? Black roof surfaces together with those 370celsius down-lights would have to create the most perfect combustible area between ceiling and roof imaginable.  We are supposed to clear debris around the house, rake leaves, clean gutters during the bush fire period but it might be even more prudent to look at those dodgy lights. Of course, anyone ever having ventured through a manhole into the roof would have noticed a possible built up of debris, dry leaves, old storage of papers, rats nests etc. I shudder to think of the nightmare what the halogen light in contact with that debris could result in

It is easy to blame the insulating contractors, but there is something fishy here. We love to rely on an economy that includes our love of home ownership and home building. Nothing must stand in its way. I suspect that the need to keep propping up housing industry might include a rather lax ‘laissez faire’ attitude to a whole host of regulations. One of them might be allowing housing to be built badly insulated in the first place, with black roofs and those potential halogen furnaces. No matter how you look at it. To have anything fastened onto a ceiling capable of such enormous heat is stupid and very dangerous.

It’s not hard to find the evidence of the danger of halogen down-lights:

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/07/21/1184560109174.html

In Victoria there were 57 house fires caused by halogen down lights in 18 months. The fire begins in the roof as the insulation is ignited by the 300 plus degrees Celsius temperatures produced by the light fitting. As the fire is in the roof it often goes undetected by smoke alarms, and residents can be unaware of the fire until it crashes through the roof.

Unless tougher regulations on the use and installation of halogen down lights are introduced, it is only a matter of time before someone is killed; the Metropolitan Fire brigade has told The Sunday Age. Two young children almost died in separate blazes when roofs crashed onto their beds while they were sleeping, brigade investigation and analysis unit officer Rod East said.

Strange doings about Electra.

04 Friday Feb 2011

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O Electra, daughter of Agamemnon, to thy rustic cot I come!

  for a messenger hath arrived, a highlander from Bowral, one who gets milked by the complexities of modern life, not least by Elektra the thief of my delecta electra milk, announcing that many companies now lurk amongst nubile dark skinned Amazonians  from Lesbos, (even with both still intact).  Who knock on my temple’s Corinthian plywood door to change elektrikity accounts.

Seriously, what the f#%ck is happening with getting door knocks to change over my power accounts?  Doesn’t all electricity flow through the same cables and power poles? So what’s this with Energy Australia, AGL, Red Energy et all, all knocking and trying to sweet talk me into changing my account. They come resplendent with charts and kilowatts savings on this and that, promise free channel TV. I always thought everyone pays the same for electricty usage.

In my earlier days, electricity and phone were all supplied and all paid for by usage. Are we to be forever to be pursued by dodgy merchants? How on earth is it possible to now, at my latter years, to worry about competing elektrasity prices and kilowatts?

Answers bitte!

The revenge of the Scottish Lawnmower Man

01 Tuesday Feb 2011

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The revenge of a lawnmower man.

Where we live gardens are of the most importance. Even the name of ‘Southern-Highlands’ seems to evoke gardens. Possibly gardens from Scotland. Indeed, there is a yearly event here whereby the ruddy Scots and their descendents celebrate a festival. Many then wear kilts and play bagpipes. There are also shops that sell stuff related to far away Highlands.

There are items reminiscing of all things England as well. Lots of those interior shops with knots of lavender flowers, lavender sachets, lavender soap, lavender curtains, lavender make up, posies of Queen Anne lace with Babies Breath. All artificial of course but looking real enough for me to touch them, just to make sure. There are endless wreaths which makes me wonder if wreaths serve other celebrations apart from funerals? Some of those are made from twigs cleverly intertwined and very bleached looking. I believe people hang those at the back of bedroom doors. Perhaps a reminder that the party doesn’t go on forever! “Stop mucking around and go to sleep,” the wreath seems to be saying late at night, just when hubby might get a late twinge.

As always there are exceptions to those lush gardens. I noticed an exception on my twice daily walk around the block with Milo. There is one 1950’s free standing solid brick house with just a lawn. Just a lawn and nothing else, no trees, do shrubs, but not a blade of grass out of place, and at dusk the house in totally darkness from the outside. Not even light escaping underneath the front door nor a shimmer through the blinds and curtains. The whole aura of that house is one of ‘spick and span.’

Yet, I know it is occupied. The lawn gets mowed every few days. A solid ruddy looking man in short shorts and with a sloppy hat pushes a lawnmower. He pushes as if his very life depends on it. He greets me with a nod, so there is an ongoing form of communication and I am hoping I’ll pass him just when the mower has run out of petrol or when he is just finished to try and get a bit of his story. I have also noticed in my much earlier Revesby days, that there are gardens that are well kept but the ‘well kept of it’ is just the lawn.  There were no trees, no shrubs, no flowers, just a beaten down lawn.

It’s not just the well kept lawn but also the well kept concrete footpaths. The grass is cut to the path with some tool called an edger that cuts through the grass, roots and all and give the edges an almost crew-cut appearance, the concrete path being the ears whereby the grass has been trimmed around.

I can understand an overgrown garden with neglect clearly the culprit. What I find harder to reconcile is that some go through extremes to not have anything growing but also to beat down the growing grass so relentlessly. Is it some kind of revenge? Is it a revenge of the Scot?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sAitY3y9mY

Those curves, those lovely curves

21 Friday Jan 2011

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After having taken Milo for his twice daily walk I have come to notice that many large blocks of land in our neighbourhood have been converted to multi dwelling town house developments. The original houses are still there but the gardens are now occupying those strata titled town-houses. Most have between 3 or 8 townhouses depending on the size of the original block or the size of the town houses.

In deciding the one we would finally live in was not easy. It is rare that simplicity is maintained and with most of those developments a kind of faux Edwardian or some other English past era is emulated in the ‘style’ of the architecture.

The idea of living close to shops and a place that is not tizzy with a feel of something approaching simplicity and honesty in a dwelling is not as easy as it may sound. We did finally find something that had all those attributes and at an affordable price. But what might have clinched our choice perhaps more than anything was that the driveway into the complex had curves. Now, this for me might well be a throw-back to Dutch Vermeer’s lovely curving, poplar lined country-laneways of the past but both of us seem to be drawn to curves more than straight lines.

 Our previous stay in Moss Vale’s complex of many town house also had a  curved look about it with the different dwellings being somewhat staggered making for the eyes a rather pleasing type of village vista.

Anyway, on my walk with Milo I noticed that many of those town-house developments have rather regimented gardens with ram-rod straight driveways which for us are immediately off putting.

 But, does the curved line hold up to being more pleasing than a straight line? After all, the beauty of a woman is also part curvaceously determined, is it not?.

But what about a man though. He is rather Eckish  ‘rectanglish’ is he not? Is he less attractive? Could it be the curves in his mind that makes him alluring to the female?

Still, a woman’s mind is often very full of curves and round a-bouts as well. How does one explain that then?

As always, there are so many more questions? Where are the answers?

Dinner for Two at the Back of St.Jude’s

15 Saturday Jan 2011

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Finally the weather had settled into a benign dryness, even a promise of sun lurking behind the clouds. The Brisbane floods were receding with Insurance companies licking their wounds, and the ABC news back to normal and the cricket.  Here in Bowral the last of the grandkids, sated from helmeted Razor skating and vanilla ice cream with Milo chocolate topping were returned to their homes. Thank you kindly and a glorious return to freedom!

The idea fermented over a few days was to have a nice outdoor dinner for two. You know the kind to restore post Christmas madness and a rekindling of marital glow with the need for some restoration. Time to take scaffolding down, remove the smelly ham bone, clean the fridge and book the car for a pink slip.

Sticking to the dinner for two though, I bought fresh salmon, Dutch carrots and some firm potatoes. This was going to be a simple yet delicious dinner. We already had the wasabi, the soy sauce but not an adequate wine to justify this momentous occasion of marital rejuvenation for 2011 and a surging revival in conjugal bliss with the eventual sharing of sweetness and goodness trickling down throughout the entire community of villas and townhouses here in Bowral.

“Dan Murphy.” This, as always, the last stop to a totally trustworthy agent of at least able to supply the necessary imbibing ingredients for any event, let alone the dinner for two at the back of St Jude’s at Bowral with fresh salmon and firm potatoes.

Like always we are inexorably drawn to the Dan Murphy’s bins of specials. The specials are often euphemistically called ‘bin- ends’ or line –ends.  Whatever, they give a hint of bargains to be had, even though through bitter experience, the bargain might often be a bottle that has peaked, just as inexorably. Never the less, a Dutch gene that seeks to save and find magical bargains is often embedded forever in those born and tainted with ‘The House of Oranje.’ J’ai maintiendrai ‘is our motto engraved on coats of arms and the guilder.

 So, both Helvi and I now deeply bent over the many bins of specials, featuring mouth-watering discounts. We finally, and with a resurgence of patriotism, perhaps  linked to those suffering from floods in Queensland where everybody is now ‘shoulder to shoulder’ and to ‘the last man’ working to clean the mud, decided on a bottle of ‘Billabong’.  A true Aussi oy, oy, oy number.

Reduced from $18.90 to $9.99 and a nice little 2009 date to boot. A red with ‘light oak characters to be served with roast beef and vegetables,’ it said on the back and at the bottom. We were delighted if not reckless as well. A red wine with salmon is a bit brave, but what the heck. This was all for rejuvenations and re-kindling, remember? I should have continued reading.

Anyway, the carrots with greenery hanging out over the sauce pan were boiled to perfection. The potatoes micro-waved for 13 minutes. The fish grilled for 7 minutes in total with its flesh a roseate pre-pubescent pink.  Helvi glazed the Dutch carrots with some Mimosa honey. I had uncapped the wine an hour before but with metal screw caps now omitted to get a sniff of the cork. No wonder Portugal is up the spout now that cork is gone and screw caps are in.

Helvi had set the table outside with a colourful table cloth; there was a hint of perfumed evening air, cicadas giving a free concert. All was ready for the resurgence and rejuvenations. We clicked our glasses and gazed into each other’s eyes. It was all getting very French and we both took a deep and meaningful sip.

Oh, the wine, that bargain at $ 9.99. In small lettering below Billabong Red and in brackets.

(De- Alcoholised) and lower still, “0.5% Alcohol.”

“ f#@cking hell.” You f@$%c*ng cheapskate.

Tonight we avoided the special bin-ends, walked straight past them.

Raging Rivers

13 Thursday Jan 2011

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Between all the tragedies being played out amongst the floods and raging rivers all over the place, I wonder what, in a panic and totally bewilderment, we would salvage after the dreaded midnight knock by police to evacuate.

On the TV, that horrible medium, not a moment of peoples private miseries or anguish, could be spared from the ever vigilant public stuck in the comfort of their reclining easy chairs. Did you too hear those inane questions from ABC journos; “how do you feel the flooding will affect the people,” it was asked?  Oh, they will be delighted!

There it was, for all to see, people loading up their possessions. Some just carried a suitcase, others loaded up their cars, boats and trailers, with chairs, foam furniture (perhaps from Clark Rubber,) dogs, cats and even a galah. I saw a floating device with what looked like a big fridge on top of a matrass. A couple of men were clear headed enough to load a treasured wine collection with some white wine bottles sticking out. Was it a good sauvignon Blanc or some dreadful heavily oaked chardonnay?

What really took the overall price for a moment of Chekov, amongst all that misery, were a couple of girls wading through the rising waters carrying a huge mirror. ’A mirror,’ now that was really something you would miss.

I don’t know what I would take, perhaps just some old black and white photos that I store in a small box. You know the sort of things that one sometimes peer at and wonder what happened to it all. Did it all pan out? 

 Would I take a passport, banking details? What about some books, my tin toy locomotive?

I don’t know but we had some lovely garlic prawns last night. What else could one have done?

A Pox on Advertising

06 Thursday Jan 2011

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Here in our compound of 8 villas/town-houses there is just one post box which has ‘no-junk’ on it. This is rather surprising because each week now we get a bundle in one package of about 12 different advertising folders. They are colourful brochures singing the praise of many different bargains to be had for the canny shopper. They run the gamut from Big W to The Good Guys and include such mouth-watering shopping venues as Fantastic Furniture, Dick Smith, IGA and even good old Woollies.

Did you know that SUPER IGA this week has, wait for it: Whole Economy Rump for $ 5.99 a kilo and it includes 200% guarantee on freshness & quality. Now, I ask you, how could anyone resist the 200% guarantee? But it gets even better. They have Peters Overload ice cream at $3.99, Minties at $1.99 and a 2 litre tomato sauce and 2 litre Barbeque sauce at both for a mere $3.99. Can you imagine 4 litres for $3.99? The mind boggles. I simply can’t imagine rushing out and get 4 litres of sauce to squeeze over food. I am not going to live that long, neither would you want to suffer that fate.

And that’s just the beginning. Cop this. At Fantastic Furniture, just for you, and as advertised, the magnificent Dallas Chaise in ‘living fabric’ reduced from $ 399.- to $299.- included 5  year structural and 10 years foundation guarantee. It’s all too much. I’ll just have to lay down on my own battered Euro Chaise and rest, rejoice in all those bargains.

Seriously though, who in earth studies those brochures? I must admit I have always felt a terrible bout of weariness coming on when it comes to anything with advertising. I just don’t get it. Do people really look at TV ads or newspaper ads? I must confess to having peeked into a Real Estate window when we were looking for a place to live. Mind you, I probably would look that up on the computer now.

When the kids come over they watch The Simpsons and they now know how to get to that channel.  Apart from SBS we never ever watch a commercial channel. SBS has ads but I never really know what they are advertising because my eyes are on automatic when faced with advertising and just glaze over, and I take a nano nap.

I remember going to Moscow many year ago. It was heaven, not a billboard or ad in sight. No shops either. On SBS’s I love watching global village especially when it features continental Europe.  It’s pure bliss seeing street scapes without those advertising hoardings so familiar here. Do Europeans buy less because advertising is so much more modest? It is all rather puzzling. I do think much man made architecture in Australia could be improved by making advertising subject to some sort of control.

Any trip along Sydney’s Parramatta Rd almost results in the need for a rehab, or a solid bout of counselling. Nothing in the world could possibly get any uglier. How can addicts to alcohol or drugs remain clean when visually assaulted everywhere they go? Trying to get repeat tourism to Australia the best thing would be to get some kind of aesthetics committee up and running and try and introduce standards in public use of advertising space like they do in most countries that are more sensitive to the world of vision. After all, why should we have the freedom to visually insult so many locals, let alone tourists, by imposing ugliness in the form of hoardings and screaming advertisements?

Anyway, Coles Beef has No added HORMONES and No added COST to you.

Fantastic, I must rush out, go to IGA for the 4 litres of sauce and 200% fresher Economy Rump then of to Big W to snap up the 5pack of Bonds hipsters.

The Fellatrice and Milo

05 Wednesday Jan 2011

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The Fellatrice and Milo.

In Bowral there is a nice cul-de-sac which is closed to traffic and open to pedestrians. It features a number of cafes, decorator’s shops and a travel agent. One of those shops even sells the very fashionable Marimekko dresses together with a kind of what years ago could be called ‘haute couture’ items, keenly sought after by those on the cusp of advancing years and with comfortable wallets…

Its main feature because of the banning of cars is that it is one of those rare flukes of a successful bit of public space that works extremely well. The council had the foresight of having planted some deciduous plane trees ensuring shady retreats in summer and lovely sun in winter. It also has comfortable seating and even has a sculpture donated by our own artist Bert Flugelman, who lives in Bowral. He is the one who gave us the sculpture in Martin Place Sydney. Apropos, This sculpture, ’The Silver Shish Kebab,’ was heavily criticized by Frank Sartor and has since been moved to Spring Street.

The cafes have been given approval to have seating arrangements at the open space as well as in the actual cafes. Waiters are routinely seen to walk across to serve the many locals and tourists with their chosen fare.  There are those fold up umbrellas to supplement shade and in winter gas heaters ensure outside al fresco dining all year round.

The place just works perfectly and with a bit of imagination one could be in a square at Bolzano or even Paris.  Musicians and a flower stall on most Saturdays give it quite a buzz and finish the picture perfect.

We had just arrived with Milo on a lead when I needed to go to the CBA’s ATM also located there, handily enabling tourists to withdraw cash and hand it over to the shops or cafes. I am always surprised at the magic when the money comes out, unbelievable really, so modern and electronic with receipts and balances print out. I handed Milo to Helvi while pinning in details. She decided to just walk on, possibly to see if Marimekko dresses were visible in the shop. You just never know!

Suddenly, a large and brown dog shot out from somewhere and got stuck into Milo. A terrible killing was just about to happen. I rushed over but remembering my brother’s micro surgery on his hand when stopping a fight between his bull terrier and a German Sheppard, decided not to get my hands anywhere near those ferocious looking jaws of this large brown dog. The fight might not have lasted much more than a few seconds but it seemed much longer. The two dogs were rolling against a pram with a baby. The mother screamed and onlookers were aghast. By this time the large brown dog owner had got up from her table. A young man from one of the shops came out and without further ado picked up Milo, just like that, still on lead and put it in my arms. Almost a gift at the foot of the temple of Zeus, I thought. He had curly hair.

The mother of the baby and the woman with the brown Rottweiler-Labrador were by now facing each other like something out of Quo Vadis. “How dare you have this dog not on a lead the mother shouted? “”With my baby nearly being tipped over” she added furiously. The owner of the dog with deeply rouged lips shouted back with a somewhat fish and chips voice, “My dog never does anything”, “he just wanted to play”. “Play?” “You’re as rough as guts” the mother retorted. I could see some logic to that as the dog-owner had not only those thickly shaped and deeply rouged lips as if in the past she might have practised as an experienced Fellatrice, she also spoke as one. It could well be that the ferocious dog was a remnant of those days, offering protection in case of an unsatisfied and cranky limp customer. Who knows? Perhaps she was a directrice instead, perchance in a very respectable retirement village, maybe called ‘Braeside,’ for retired pilots, of which Bowral seems to house so many.  I might just be unnecessarily cruel and prejudiced.  Even so…Poor Milo.

We then walked on to post a Christmas card to Finland but glancing back, the fight was still going on between the baby’s mother and the owner with the large brown dog and deeply rouged lips. I knew the mother had the backing of the bystanders. It is amazing that dog owners always seem to take the side of ‘their’ dog and that ‘their’ dog could never ever do anything like biting other dogs, let alone capable of killing, even babies. Shit does happen.

Milo walked on as if nothing had happened. Nose to the ground and the lead taut as always.