My morning surprise. I froze and Derrick froze. I took a photo and he moved slightly. Put the phone down slowly and then I did it. I reached in and grabbed the little bugger. I near lost him the first grab as he was slippery, but I got him in a better grip and held tight.
So glad the wee man is out and about now. I think he has been in the pipes for quite a while. Life would have been lonely in the pipes, but he did have the biggest mating call echoing throughout the place. Let’s hope he finds the girl.
Living in the country, you have to live with a few things, particularly the ever-growing number of green frogs around our home in the last seven months. In my veggie patch, I have them hiding out in the silverbeet and the artichokes. They even have been in the house, where I have almost squashed standing on and doesn’t it make you know you are alive when your feet touch them!
The last couple of weeks there has been a big green frog in my loo and no matter what, I cannot get him out! I noticed him the first time and it was too late to do anything for him, floating amongst the debris, to put it mildly. Every time now I check to see if he is about, see a tiny leg sticking out down the bottom of the water and then it slips away. I have to clean it eventually, but I am scared the vinegar and bicarb will hurt him. I am also afraid that without thinking, I place my derriere on the seat and then suddenly feel this cold little sucker touching my skin. I like frogs, but touching like that is a no go zone!
So it will look like I will have to do a mercy snatch and grab and without gloves. I haven’t a pair in the house and we shop once a month and neighbours are far and some not likely to have them.
I can see it now, dipping into the cold water and trying to reach up and under and feeling for a little leg. Jeeze Lousie, I just hope that I don’t come out with just that. I will be devastated, not to mention the poor frog.
So I will get back to you on the progress of my plight because it has to be a shitty thing to see from a frogs point of view the actual scene he is witnessing. I know I would be.
I was driving from Brisbane to the Hunter Valley for business a few weeks back when the Sydney Writers festival was on. Radio National, my favourite radio in the world to travel with, introduced this young girl Kate Tempest from London. I just happened to pull up to road works in the middle of the sticks, when they bought Kate on reciting Brand New Ancients.
The first line caught me, hook, line and sinker. The emotions in me welled over and she begins to fill my whole being with her words that resonate a truth in me. Her cockney voice, with a slight sassy sarcastic note, stained with a hint of pleading so to hear her words were reverberating through me, in me, around me. I was sucked into a vortex losing all sense and time.
In front of the Stop-Go Man, I was crying, wiping the tears and trying to pull myself together by shoving liquorice in my mouth to stop me sobbing. It’s either sob or choke! Poor bloke was looking over at me and I smiled at him and then we have this awkwardness because then I realised I most probably had black teeth!
Anyway, I have never found a poem that meant so much to me, that had meaning that I could connect with and believe that we are the Brand New Ancients! If you look on YouTube you will find the Lovely Kate bellowing out this and more of her exceptional works.
