Wednesday 27 April 2011

In Lightning Ridge

I'm at the neighbourhood centre, they have an internet cafe here. Whew! I was really getting major net withdrawals. The computers are good, much better than my little notebook PC, and the connection is fast.


Had an uneventful trip out. The train was roomy and the bus comfortable. The driver was a bit strange though. Had this major problem with people taking bags on the bus. Said nothing more than handbags. There was no way I was going to put my little carry on bag underneath in the luggage, it had my PC, camera, pills, everything in it. Anyway it's about the size of a handbag, just of those shoulder bags that us city blokes use when getting around Sydney. So the gestapo driver was fine with it. No food on the bus either, but he did say you could take a bottle of water if you had diabetes. I nearly piped up that I had HIV and did that count? But I thought I'd likely end up being the only one traveling on the bus if I did! Hmmm, maybe that woudn't have been a bad idea.


The bus trip was a long one too. From about 2pm until about 7pm. I took this picture through the bus window as we were nearing Lightning Ridge as the sun was setting:


I know it's a bit cliche, but it seemed a very red sunset and typical of inland Australia. The land is very flat out here. Lightning Ridge was cut off for over a month during the recent floods up in Queensland. The water slowly came down and inundated the surrounding areas, all flat land. Simon was saying that from the air Lightning Ridge looked like an Island surrounded by water. That was back earlier this year when he was in Sydney looking after me. He had to wait a couple of weeks longer than he would have otherwise to get back as the roads were cut for weeks.


It's a very isolated place. It's been more about being with Simon though than being in the Ridge. We have been very close during the last few days. Have felt almost like one person when making love. I just can't imagine being without him at the moment. I'd be able to deal with time apart OK, as that's just how things are for us. But it would be terrible if he was for some reason no longer a part of my life. Sleeping with him and holding each other close, knowing that I'm with someone who really cares about me. You just don't come across that sort of thing every day.


It was a busy place over the Easter break here. Lots of people came into town for the Easter show. So it wasn't the usual sort of Ridge crowd out and about. A lot of farmers and their families. Was school holidays as well. But that laa ended with the finish of the Easter weekend and now the place is back to being quiet. It only has one supermarket too, and we made the mistake of going into it during the busiest time. Fuck it was worse than Sydney the day before Christmas! Chockers with people, all the bread was sold out by 1pm, WTF? Simon was annoyed as he reckoned they should know that over Easter there's always a big influx of people, and being the only supermarket in town they should've planned better for it.


The weather has been perfect. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Unlike Sydney with constant rain and cold. It was pouring rain when I left on the train from Sydney, but slowly got clearer the further inland I got. Been texting daughter in Sydney and she's had the heater on because it's cold and wet outside. Here I've been dressing in only t-shirt and shorts. They haven't had any real rain for a couple of months now out here. In fact I wasn't very impressed either with the farmland we went past on the train on the way here. The farms seemed quite dry, and the fields all had heaps of weeds in amongst dry grass. It doesn't seem that long ago they were all flooding with heavy rain.

I'm off now. Simon is looking after a local art gallery for his neighbour. Sort of paintings and unusual things that you wouldn't buy elsewhere. So I'm off to there for a couple of hours. Back to Sydney this Sat coming.

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