In The Tunnels of Time - Bounce

I’d be pretty pissed off in I lived in Australia and I was unhappy….. being as I just read that the country has just been voted the happiest place to live for the third consecutive year.

I wonder if I would be able to get a rebate on my taxes?

I lived with an Australian once, we didn’t share a bed or anything but we shared the kitchen and toilet.

They didn’t strike me as being any happier than I, but then again they were living in North London at the time and since they returned to Sydney I haven’t hear a peep.

But I WAS pretty impressed by what she could do with her hair each Friday night when she transformed into a Gothic Princess and went clubbing.

Always looked like shit on Saturday afternoon though.

I was in Sydney once; I popped over to have a look and wandered along towards the harbour.

Nice bridge.

I stayed in Australia for a month, imprisoned in Melbourne - which, at the time, was as exciting as the less interesting parts of Croydon, a place I don’t really like so much.

My trip to Australia was eventful in many ways but not in that of a conventional tourist.

I didn’t see Ayres rock, didn’t visit the outback, failed to surf or get rescued on Bonsai beach and sadly missed hanging out in Queensland, exploring the Barrier Reef or any other of the antipodeans’ delights.

So on my one day off in the month I confessed to al those around me – Australian to a man and woman – that I had to see a Kangaroo in liberty before flying home to Kilburn.

“You need to go to the golf course mate.” Said one.

“At sunset”, added another.

I guessed that nothing made an Australian happier than playing the old “kangaroo at the golf course “ joke on a stupid Pom but proceeded to hire a car and drive miles through the suburbs arriving as the sun began to wane.

I parked in the member’s enclosure, opposite the first tee and wandered over to the fairways.

I looked around.

Boy was I a stupid Pom!

“Go to the golf course, go to the golf course” I mimicked. Just wait ‘till they come to Kilburn!

There were a few souls whacking balls into the trees so I wandered over to watch.

It was a nice place.

Golf courses often are, and it would probably have got me thinking about James Ellroy and that book in which the main character is a caddy. 

If I had already read it, which at the time I hadn’t.

I think I was reading Patrick White’s The Vivisector at the time, following a personal mantra of trying to read an author in his/her own country.

I sat down in the sweet smelling grass, this was late summer.

The golfers moved down the fairway and the sun hovered in the eucylyptus trees.

Do you know that moment just before dusk when everything, the world and all that spins with her, stops for a moment?

When a feeling of peace settles on the land?

This was it.

I didn’t hear their coming, I watched their going.

Thirty kangaroos emerged from the trees and crossed the fairway and disappeared into the sunset.

You know what makes me happy?

Watching someone bounce.

hi- it's the editor, just to let you know that this month is Tunnels of Time month, that The Tunnels of Time were stumbled into by Ms Peggy the chief archivist here at Bitsnbobs, that this doesn't mean that i am not taking a sabbatical and that some of this is explained here.