Barbecue With Bulls

It was quite a day, even given what a
cold commencement at 7:20 am can
engender, the trees were easy to saw
and load. Money and Podge attended,
working dogs to the last tick although
they expended little sweat in role-play.
By 12:30 with rising heat most of the
dead wood was relocated; piled neat
in a fire place ready for conflagration.

The fire was a great success if I may
be the one to say so, a burgeoning
breeze bathed the scene and flames
quickly gained hold. Some good wood
I observed - she suggested with less
trepidation now it was underway safely
that a barbecue was a possibility - but
maybe later in the day. Jokes about a
Rural Fire Service investigation paled.

Amazingly we had already decided on
sausages for tea, grilled I guess with
potatoes baked in their jackets and a
tropical fruit salad, but its Queensland
where the best meals are by firelight
and there the comparison ends. So we
had a beer in hand while the potatoes
baked and the sausages grilled on the
garden rake over still-glowing coals. 

Then the cattle came. Six bulls, Bos
indicus (Brahman crosses) who grazed
the paddock, attended to add dignity
to the gathering. 'Gidday', Money, a
Boxer said while Podge, Jack Russell,
had to express his fear that the gate
crasher bastards didn't bring any beer
with 'em and therefore shouldn't be
welcome; but they stayed anyway.

And thus the evening ended. The bulls
played congenial hosts around a BBQ
fire-place in the field with an aplomb
way in excess of party animals they
had contagious capacity to be. And it
did leave me wondering as th' Sheilah
'n me walked back to the house. They
were great company weren't they, I
observed - and she heartily agreed.
© 18 August 2010, I. D. Carswell

Hung Parliament

Polling ceased last Saturday but
not all bless'd rants, electioneering
rages still, a plague, a bastardy
that never-ends or so it seems
and a hung parliament looms a
legacy of unrepentant lunacy
for all to pay

Nobody won, that's evident but
listening to their manic shrieks
lays claim the others lost hands
down because 'the people' didn't
take the proffered bait of lies all
nicely spiced, or failed to see a
case of obvious duplicity

Hung parliament thus is where
politicians dangle in a noose; it
isn't a fancy idea or an excuse
for independents to abjure their
responsibility of humanely hanging
members of both major political
parties, commencing immediately
© 24 August 2010, I. D. Carswell

Podger On The Job

'Podger', not his name but then it sounds
much better than the lame and grievous
slander deemed of being but a podgy dog

I'm Podge he says – a terrier by name &
creed and what you see is what you get;
I make restrained apology for being that

A hairy wee intransigent our Podger has
uncanny ways of taking the 'mickey' out
of manners staid with intense discourtesy

He makes slander sound cute with an
evasive logic predisposed by a scurrilous
woof and tentative paw congenially placed

You can't beat Podge at his game, whether
intense voyeuristic habits ingrained by
hiding under bedclothes expectantly

Or being in place to further debate on
freedoms he imagines were always his
to claim as rewards for canine diligence
© 31 July 2010, I. D. Carswell