Water Of Life

 Last night I stayed up late and drank two kinds of spirits: whisky and whiskey. For those who don't know the difference (i.e. 99.99 % of the population of the world), the first one is Scottish, is double distilled and is spelled with a /y/, the second one is Irish, is triple distilled and is spelled with a /ey/. Both are derived from the Irish/Gaelic uisce beatha, which means, appropriately, "water of life". It's certainly got the power to wake up the dead.

   I slept in because it was supposed to be northerly wind, and therefore no surf, and instead of surfing I did crunches, pushups, squats, pull-ups and calf raises, and then rode my mountainbike through the bush to the beach. On the beach I performed Sky Sea, the Homegrown Australian Slow Movement Routine. Halfway through the fourth movement, known as the Grievously Irritated Dolphin, which involved wild, erratic and violent windmilling of arms and crotch-tearing leg-twists, two people approached from the south side of the beach. They stopped 20 m away from me, one of them, a bloke, performed a few pretend stretches, and then they turned around and headed back. I was slightly bemused, but didn't complain because I like my privacy, and thought it was good riddance of bad rubbish. I thought no more of it until, from the northern side of the beach, two other people came closer, until, as if by arrangement, they came to within 20 m of me, looked at me apprehensively, and turned around and started walking back in the direction they'd come. I couldn't help but notice, and it became clear that this was no coincidence: no one wanted to come any closer to me. I think this is great. It's gratifying that people are so scared of me that they turn around and run away. It does wonders for my privacy, if not for my social life.

   After finishing my routine I ran into the ocean, jumped a couple of waves, dived over another one, and caught the next one back in again. Then, as soon as I hit the sand, which hit back a lot harder, I jumped up and started running, heading north. I ran for five minutes, after which I dropped onto the sand, did crunches and push-ups, then sprinted into the ocean, jumped one wave, dived over the second one, and caught the third one in. As soon as I had land underfoot I set off running again. I did this for 45 mins, and had an absolute ball.
At the end of my run I jumped on my bike, and headed into the bush, through sand and gravel, past swamps and paperbarks, up two steep hills and back down again, and through a creek. It was fantastic.

   I've just come back from the windblown, bleak and desolate deserts of WA, and on this one run and ride, both going for about 45 mins, I saw more wildlife than I have for four months in WA. There was a brahminy kite on the wing, flying over my head, another one perched in a tree, an osprey, grey, moody and brooding, sitting in another tree, pied oyster catchers picking at the sand for food, bush turkeys, darting in out of the bush and dashing across the tracks, and, particularly noteworthy, a chick in a skimpy leopard skin bikini. Most of all there was a yellowbelly black snake on the track right in front of me, as I came flying down a hillside.

   I saw it just in time, and slammed the brakes on. My rear wheel lifted up, and for a bit I hung suspended in the air, pitched forward over my front tyre, until it dropped back down again hard. At the exact same time the snake gave a start, reared up from the ground, hissed at me and gave me an evil death-stare. I stared back. We remained locked into a mutual standoff for a frozen moment in time, neither of us backing down, and I found myself trying to outstare a snake. Good luck with that.

   Eventually he decided to give a confrontation a miss, wiggled his arse in disgust and vanished into the bush.

   In addition to yellowbelly black snake they're also commonly known as, variously, a black snake, a green snake, a grass snake or a tree snake. Clearly we've got serious issues with making up our minds about where it lives, what it does, and what it actually looks like. There's a better than average chance that the naming process of this particular reptile went through a committee, possibly featuring the Country Cupcake Association, the Retired Bored Old Farts Foundation, and the Society For Progressive Regress. It's venomous, but, as far as snakes go, it's not a real bad one. It only kills you a little bit.

   I rode home and went and lifted weights. It's amazing what a bit of Water Of Life can make you do.

 


 

 

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