Camping People - 2022

I'm over camping. Geoff says it's because it rained and I got a shocking cold, and I should stop being such a Debbie Downer. That could be true but dealing with a wet tent and the rest of the crap when you get home does take the edge off the experience. When Geoff said he was taking all the gear back to the storage shed, I suggested he just whack it all on Facebook Marketplace as a job lot. He didn't laugh.

Here's a snippet of the rain. Turn up the volume for the full effect.

Anyway, there were some fabulous moments - check out the scenery!

 

Guaranteed too, that we'll meet some really 'interesting' people. This year's candidate for top place was Dick (not his real name, yet somehow so appropriate). Dick strolled over to our site, apron on and tongs in hand, to lean on a post and lecture those seated, on the benefits of investing in real estate, promising us at least a 40% return on a million dollar investment in the next five years. In fact, Dick announced that he himself had just purchased a property for some $1.4 million. Moving swiftly and seamlessly on to economy, Dick told us that for his mind, he prefers unemployment to be sitting at around 8-9% rather than the current 4% and falling. I couldn't help it - I had to interject and point out that a statistic is merely that, and unemployment is a very personal issue if it's you that can't get a job. Dick was having none of it, purporting than anyone could get a job if they were prepared to work.

'Um, Dick....' I ventured, 'I do a bit of work in the community services space and there are people with disabilities, or non-English speaking, Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander backgrounds, or caring for other people - who do struggle to find employment.' 

Dick, unsurprisingly, wasn't interested and moved on to mental health. Back in the day, according to Dick, you could fire someone and tell them why. But not today. No, you might damage their "mental health". He charged on, ridiculing the very idea of mental health, pointing to himself and then each of us in turn.. "I've got mental health, you've got mental health, you've got mental health.... we've all got mental health!" I started to think Dick didn't really get mental health. I was itching to explain to him that we all have physical health too, but some of us are in much better shape than others. However, as Dick was an older guy with a rather large, protruding tummy, even I thought that might be a bit offensive, so I held off.

I didn't have time to rethink my approach. As is often the case in these situations, Geoff was palpably sensing my fury and likely to explode - so he changed the subject. I can't even recall what to I was so incensed. The other campers who we'd invited to sit around our fire and have a drink, hadn't uttered a word since Dick's arrival - and the kids, thankfully, were all in the tent. 

In wrapping up, Dick assured us that he loves nothing more than camping and... wait for it... hearing other people's stories!! Hilarious.

Only 65 years to go!

Back in one of the many 2020 lockdowns, (they're all a blur - I can't recall which) I had a bit of time on my hands so thought it was an ideal time to start learning a language.

It was one of those regular whims you have but with little intent to ever follow through - but faced with weeks trapped at home, it seemed like a case of now or never. Because I'd toyed with the idea for years, I'd already thought Spanish would be the best choice. Spoken by many countries and latin-based, a quick Google confirmed that it was (allegedly) the easiest language to learn for English speakers.

I've always assumed I didn't have a brain for language - and frankly, I'm yet to dispel that hypothesis! At school, I  struggled through a couple of terms of Indonesian and was tortured with French for a couple more. 

Having settled on Spanish, I signed up to the free version of Duolingo and got started. 

It's quite fun, a bit like a game. You only need to do a minimum of about 15 minutes a day - but here's the catch; to keep your 'streak' you need to do it everyday. Like Christmas, your birthday, holidays - every day. I suspect it's my personality type but I now have an unbroken 677-day streak. Tragically, it did break on an interstate trip when I had patchy internet and it didn't capture my full effort, but thorough research revealed that if I contacted Duo via Twitter and pitched my case they might restore it. And they did. Phew!!

So obsessed am I, that I recruited a Spanish-speaking friend to cover for me while I was hiking on an island in Tasmania. 

How's it going, I hear you ask? Here's the summary they sent me for 2021:

Now you may be familiar with the theory that it takes 10,000 hours to become truly proficient at pretty much anything. So let's do the maths:

• 9006 minutes is 150 hours a year.
• 10,000 hours divided by 150 is 66.66 years - let's call it 67. 
• I'm two years in - so a mere 65 to go....

And can I string a sentence together on demand? No I cannot.

Honestly, there are days I think I should give up but I feel too invested so I'm going to have to keep going.

Adios!!