Jumping Crocodiles

The water was brown and murky. The banks were overgrown with trees and bushes.

I was on a boat, moving down the Alligator River in the Northern Territory. While the river looked peaceful, beneath the brown surface moved deadly predators.

Crocodiles.

Salties.

They’re such amazing animals. Their huge teeth never stop growing.

Those teeth could rip into my flesh and tear it from my bones. Inside the crocodile’s strong mouth, my bones would snap like twigs.

I can’t help but be fascinated!

Back on the boat, a man holds a long pole and reaches across the water. Dangling from the pole is a slab of beef, tied to string. The beef dips briefly into the water before being yanked back up. The surface of the water suddenly breaks and the snout of a crocodile moves into view.

We’re here to watch the crocodiles leap

from the water to grab the meat.

The crocodile is made to jump. The first crocodile leap is amazing.

The snout and front half of the crocodile jump from the water,

into the air.

But it’s not good enough... the crocodile is not given the food. With an extra wriggle, and a sudden flick of the strong tail, the crocodile leaps further out of the water. Its front and back legs clear the surface. The meat is torn from the pole and the crocodile vanishes back into the water.

It all happens in a moment... a great moment. I can’t help but imagine that I am in a tree overhanging the water, legs folded up, with an angry crocodile leaping up and snatching at my toes.

Imagine...

2 Minute Challenge

Go and get yourself a stopwatch...

or your 'phone...

or the microwave (OK, you may have to go to the microwave!).

Ready?

At Toastmasters tonight, we had a lot of Table Topics and no speeches. A table topic is an impromptu speech. You are given a topic and are asked to speak about the topic for two minutes. If you speak for one minute, that's inside the allowed time and you can feel joy in your success! If you speak for a second over two and a half minutes, you can be disqualified from competitions. The most important thing to remember with table topics - is... Lie. Weave a tall story... Exaggerate... but pretend that you are being serious! Your challenge is to attempt the table topics which I asked my fellow Toastmasters to attempt. Stopwatch ready??? (A genie has been granting wishes. I am a little confused however, at the wishes which you have been asking for. Could you please explain why you made your wish?? 1. You wished for wings. 2. You wished to be sent to Antarctica for the winter. 3. You wished to be a chicken. 4. You wished for a hook to be placed at the end of your hand. 5. You wished for a never-ending supply of pumpkins. 6. You wished for the ability to see in the dark.

Museum of Gore

After visiting countless museums showing a huge range of items, I have to admit that I am not cultured enough to enjoy museums. This is a fact I accepted after I read some very wise advice, scribbled on the wall of a youth hostel in Florence.

It suggested that people who don’t like museums should get out of the queue – making the lines shorter for the people who really want to go to them.

There is one museum though...

One slightly different to the normal...

It has stuck with me and I can recall most of the things I saw.

I visited the museum in the morning and was walking out the doors by lunchtime... but I didn’t eat lunch that day.

There were a group of us. We all skipped lunch.

The museum is in Bangkok. It’s the Museum of Forensic Medicine, hidden at the back of the Siriraj Hospital. It’s become a strange, macabre and brutally honest museum.

The craziest section is placed in the centre of the main room.

It takes pride of place and looks like a telephone booth.

Inside, propped against the side of the booth, leans a man.

His skin has a brown, leathery look. He stands on a drip tray. He’s long since dead. This man was a serial killer (or was he a rapist?). Whichever he was, I couldn’t help but stare.

There is a head – sawn in half.

You look at one side and see the man’s

hair and face, ears and skin.

Next to that half of his head is the other half –

turned around so that you see brain and skull.

There are foetuses, Siamese twins, body parts twisted apart from home-made bombs. There are skulls – cracked and gunshot. There are murder weapons and

blood-stained clothing.

And all around you lingers the smell of formaldehyde.

There are so many things to look at - to stare at in wonder and morbid fascination. There are so many sights that linger still – years and years and years after I saw them.

View from Above

For a glorious month I lived in Banff,

a town snuggled against the side of the Rockies.

I worked as a waitress, rebuilding my cash supplies

before I headed off to other places unknown.

The huge castle-looking building in the bottom of the picture is the Banff Springs Hotel. I didn't stay there.

Instead, I spent most of the month living in a tent

in somene's backyard. My life in Banff was simple...

I headed off to work the morning shift in one of the cafes.

My afternoons were spent hiking and

exploring the beautiful area.

I hiked along the river, watching the elk graze amonst the golfballs. I sat on the edge of the falls, listening to the deafening roar of the water against the rocks. I hiked the mountains, gasping for breath and gazing in wonder at the natural beauty of the area. I rode on the back of a motorbike, following the bending roads which wrapped around the Rockies. My feet moved to the highest possible position on the bike as I watched bears grazing metres from the motorbike. I ate late lunches at the edge of the lake.

I ate dinners under the midnight sunsets.

Life in Banff was easy, but as the first fakes of snow landed

on the mountains, I knew it was time to move on.

The Scotsman

About two weeks ago, my Scottish Toastmaster friend was diagnosed with Mesothelioma. (That’s the asbestos cancer.)

When Dan discovered he had mesothelioma, he accepted the news with as much positivity as he could. He expressed gratitude for his long and generally healthy life. Dan thought he must have started developing this cancer over 40 years ago. As is generally the case with this cancer, he was given less than a year to live. By the end of that first week, Dan had his things in order and was using an oxygen machine all of the time.

Dan’s final hope was that he would not wake up again...

The first time I heard Dan speak, I had to listen through his Scottish accent, but then I fell into his gentle rhythms and learned about the wee black birds, which migrate across the world. It was through these birds that Dan marked the seasons.

They were his passion.

I had no understanding of mesothelioma, so I looked it up.

This is what I found:

Mesothelioma is a rare cancer, caused by asbestos. Currently there is no cure for mesothelioma. The cancer cells develop in the protective sac that covers most of the body’s internal organs. Mesothelioma generally starts in the outer membrane of the lungs. Mesothelioma usually develops in only one lung, but the tumour grows across the lung until the entire organ is encased. Mesothelioma is almost always caused by exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma can take as long as 40 years to develop. The symptoms of mesothelioma include: breathlessness, dry cough and pain. The symptoms in the later stages of the disease include: sudden and unexplained weight loss, spitting up sputum, spitting up blood, swallowing problems and hoarseness.

On the 5^th of July, Dan closed his eyes... and didn’t wake up again.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Sites-Types/mesothelioma

Wee Black Birds

May the wee black birds

carry you on their wings...

Breathe easy, Dan.

Winter Sunset

As the winter sun sets over the mountains,

the Three Sisters change colour.

They move through shades of yellows and golds,

standing vibrantly against the deep blue

of the distant mountains.

The air is crisp with the wintery air. My nose is cold - even though I'm layered

up in coats, scarves and a beanie.

The colours are worth every shiver of cold.