Earlville, Cairns, is an interesting place to live. I was just at Stockland shops getting 10 metres of pre-packaged bubble wrap (can I have that wrapped, please? No, get out!). I went to the Bottle Shop to get my daily bottle of Guinness (+ 2 on a Sunday, for Christ's sake), and, anyway, there was this giant of a man, giant like a Samoan guy, except white, in the shop wandering about quacking like a duck. Aisle to aisle, quack, quack, quack. I was going to laugh and say hello, as I usually would, and enter into some banter and social intercourse on ducks and how their quack has no echo, as I usually do, but then he started talking to the bottles as if in love..."How do you do, Jack Daniels, how do you today? Hahahaha! Quack Quack Quack..." and he spoke it in a guttural Belfast O'Hooligan dialect, so I thought I best leave him be. Obviously deep in prayer.

curios

a really good album to not do work to: Bob Dylan's Self Portrait...Get you a copper kettle, get you a copper coil, fill it with home made corn mash, and never more we'll toil...we'll just lay there by the juniper whilst the moon is high, watch them jugs a filing' in the pale moon light. My daddy he made whiskey, my grandaddy he did too...we aint paid no whiskey tax since 1792...

one of my favourite quotes from the films ... "I fell for you big time, I fell for you like a blind roof-tiler."

COUNTDOWN: DAY 0+1 We dropped off car the Honda Jazz at the Car Transporters for the haulage from Cairns to Melbourne. Company name: Prixcars. I asked "Do you pronounce that Pre-cars or Pricks-cars? The man with the lazy gaze replied: "Depends who's drivin' it, mate." Mrs Fitz went into an apoplexy when the ancient yet savage looking giant junk-yard dog ceremoniously peed on the car tyres, thus taking total possession of and responsibility for the vehicle. I thought we might have to employ the Jaws of Life to cut through the car to get Mrs Fitz out, but it worked out ok. So, the big removals twuck should come tomorrow, Saturday. Gas, electricity and water is connected to the Melbourne abode. Sunday will be cleaning up here. We have to pick up some of Tianshu's university documents in Townsville en route...so that should mean heading off Monday morning from here 6am. Do-able. Strange how, from an impossible, unlikely situation, it becomes do-able with some effort and some luck and some grace. Still, as noted, if Donald Trump can become the President of the USA, indeed, anything is possible.

COUNTDOWN: DAY 0+1

We dropped off car the Honda Jazz at the Car Transporters for the haulage from Cairns to Melbourne. Company name: Prixcars. I asked "Do you pronounce that Pre-cars or Pricks-cars?

The man with the lazy gaze replied: "Depends who's drivin' it, mate."

Mrs Fitz went into an apoplexy when the ancient yet savage looking giant junk-yard dog ceremoniously peed on the car tyres, thus taking total possession of and responsibility for the vehicle. I thought we might have to employ the Jaws of Life to cut through the car to get Mrs Fitz out, but it worked out ok.

So, the big removals twuck should come tomorrow, Saturday. Gas, electricity and water is connected to the Melbourne abode. Sunday will be cleaning up here.

We have to pick up some of Tianshu's university documents in Townsville en route...so that should mean heading off Monday morning from here 6am. Do-able.

Strange how, from an impossible, unlikely situation, it becomes do-able with some effort and some luck and some grace.

Still, as noted, if Donald Trump can become the President of the USA, indeed, anything is possible.

Opposite building, one floor down...small girl. "Excuse me, I am standing on my balcony now. Will someone please come along and sing to me?"

COUNTDOWN: Day 2-1+1?: SUNSET: Having a break from home moving preparations...having put down the shovel (after tracking down the call centre Indian guy who phoned once to sell us a new telecom system...cutting off his head...and burying him in the Cairns Pavilions compound yard). One bottle of Guinness (It is a cry for help). Good. Now the angina and the cold sores indicative of too much human movement for someone who usually lives on a lounge imitating a walrus, have settled down, I am spending a moment recalling my youth... There we were, at 20 years of age, cold and craven, travelling about Northern Italy. Having fun, being poor. My great platonic friend Maximus de Bono and myself....spending those long beautiful evenings in Tuscany waxing each others chests whilst Caravaggio played flute in the background...the torture of bliss...but...that's another story...we were living just near where George Clooney has his big house there...on the shore of Lake Como...Oh, dear George...but that's another story...