“Singing the Blues”

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Well again, was whizzing along, down the phosphate on Monday morning in the darkness of the early morning wondering just where the weekend had gone.

As the day broke the weather looked pretty black in the direction I was going, but as I turned right towards North West Point, at the road junction, I looked towards the heavens and in the distance was a big patch of blue.

I thought just another 10 minutes, if the rain can just hold off I will be at work and no drama’s I wound the throttle wide open, and focused on the road.

Flying along I felt little drops of rain on my face, and it started, and in a flash I was absolutely wring wet, I could feel water running off the helmet, across my shoulders and down my arms, pooling at my elbows, where my arms crooked towards the handle bars.

My whole time on Christmas Island I have worn, shorts, oh except once last Friday when we went to the companies 1st anniversary Barbeque when I had longs on, my legs were soaked, my socks were, in fact all of me, I pulled up at my office which is at the far end of the facility, pulled the scooter on to its stand and squelched off inside.

I undressed down to my under crackers, and was sitting at my desk trying to dry my cloths, with my AC unit switched to heat, not cooling.

Any one coming in to see me would have thought they had entered widow twanky’s laundry.

Our Operations manager came in, and gathered, by the pool of water that was dripping off my fleece on to the floor, that I had got soaked on my journey in..

We keep spare cloths in the cabinet for various reasons, that I won’t bore you with, and Wayne said , here put these on, and gave me another pair off shorts and a T shirt.

How I was going to attend my 09.30 senior managers meeting looking like this.

I think It was Tuesday when my room mate, Shane said to me, as I was watching something on the TV, are you coming over to the Poon Saan, Markets, as its Territory Week, na, I’m not really interested in Markets, not really my thing, people just selling junk, I don’t want or need.

Any way where are they !! I exclaimed, down by the shops he said, its not markets but live music and stuff.

Ok, I;m in and slipped my thongs on, and off we went.

As we just to where the steps were to the venue, a Chinese dragon, was just climbing the steps in time to a drum and a cymbal, this dragon was awesome, white and gold with a great look.

The guys inside were really good.

I reached inside my pocket for my camera and realised that I had left it back at the flat..

Let me just tell you a bit about Territory week, 24th Sept to 4th October and celebrated when Christmas Island became part of Australia in 1958.

It is a celebration of the Islands Culture, that has established itself on this small, Isolate part of the world.

The celebrations culminate on Monday the 4th October, Cove day, when flying fish cove, acts as a back drop to the spectacular shenanigans, where there is a raft race, food stalls, treasure hunt, face painting, air guitar competition and fishing competition.

This day is a public holiday, for the Island.

Anyway, back to the live music, the dragon did its thing and everyone loved it, and it finished to rapturous applause.

Next up was a guy from Afghanistan, who I think is one of our interpreters, who played the sitar, and was dressed head to toe in his national costume.

This guy was good, he had a backing beat, that was electronically generated and if you listened to it, it was really hypnotic, he really was excellent, possibly the Afghani version of Jimmy Hendrix, though he did not resort to playing the Sitar with his teeth or setting it on fire.

Did you know Sitars, have 19 strings, no I didn’t either, but they do.

Next we had some Chinese dancers who were pretty good in a girly type of way, followed by Malay dancers who were just as good.

Now I had seen someone I new there, who was a musician, he was a guy, called Brett Island, who comes from the Northern Territories, Darwin to be exact, boy could this bloke could play the Guitar and Harmonica.

Brett is doing works for us, down in my part of the complex and this is how I got to know him, I had already been to one of his impromptu gigs and enjoyed his music.

Well Brett was waiting to go on stage, but there was one more act/band to go on.

It was the islands local doctor and a few women that sang with him.

I have to say they were shocking, the key board player, (The doctor) kept hitting the wrong notes and non of the girls could sing lead , they only sang harmony, so they could not project there sound.

This is not just my opinion, the whole place emptied of a good 300 or so people in about 2 minutes flat and I had to do the same as I could not submit my delicate little ears to such torture.

I felt bad not staying around for NT raw to be on stage, but I knew Brett was off the Island on Thursday and would be playing his last gig at the Tracks bar on Wednesday, so would try to put an gang together to send them off.

I wandered home and hit the hay.

Wednesday evening came and we had all agreed to me at the tracks bar at 7.00pm and when I got there Brett was already on stage playing a few tunes, just warming up.

Brett’s work mate Phil said, Brett was capable of playing just about anything just from memory.

It was Thai night up at Tracks, I have never been to Thai night, but had ordered Chicken in Coconut milk.

I had heard before, that this pub, well pub is bigging it up a bit, its more of a kiosk with a open air seating area, has a couple of resident Robber crabs that come out and just wander about.

Well as the evening started to swing, sure enough in the bushes to the side of us, very slowly, a Robber Crab emerged and sat in a large flower planter seemingly listening to the music, I’m sure when Brett was playing the Blues, the Robber Crab was tapping his claws, I swear it is true.

They are such bizarre creatures, so very timid and shy, if you just look at them , they just stop and stay perfectly still.

I suppose this is why they get run over as if they feel threatened they just stop and when this is in the middle o the road it can be a problem.

Well we had an excellent evening, I didn’t think much of the food so I may not bother eating there again.

Friday was soon here and it had been a really busy week, the first thing I do is put all my shirts in the washing machine, and get them prepared for the forth coming week.

I woke up at 3.00am Saturday morning, and was in the shower at 4.00am, and by 4.40am I was at my desk.

As I have said before, Saturday’s are such a disjointed day, but Its just the way it is.

You can imagine with being so busy at work, and the only fuel station on the island only being open until 12.00 on Saturday, there is always a queue.

I left work at 11.30 and zipped across the island to fuel up for the week, the bike only takes about $6.00, but I have a petrol can left in one of the cars as my tank is not enough for my weeks mileage, so I have to top up at work.

I got back to my place, I felt like a snooze, I had already done 6 hours work and my flat mate, wasn’t even out of bed.

It was raining when I woke so I just beetled about abit, I had a text from a mate who was coming back to the Island today to do some training, and would I did I want to catch up later for a beer.

Tonight’s movie was Toy Story 3, Caroline and myself really wanted to see this, but never got the chance when I was in Canberra, so I didn’t want to miss it.

At 6.00pm we met in the Skanky Ho, for dinner, Pete had flown over from Brisbane and it was good to see him again, he said that he had been away over 5 weeks, no way.

True to form it started to spit with rain, and as much as I wanted to see the movie, I was not going to sit under the stars getting soaked, no way, Pete said he had a 12 year old bottle of whiskey that needed drinking, but I had to decline, I think it is vile, so we wouldn’t be doing that.

We had another couple of beers and I said I was going to watch some TV, then hit the sack as I was in work tomorrow and didn’t want to be to late.

I woke up Sunday morning to my alarm, (My phone), the strange this was my Wristwatch said 4.00am and my phone said 5.00am.

I text Caroline, and she responded saying the same thing as the clocks in Canberra had gone forwards an hour.

I have checked on the net and daylight savings is applicable to ACT, NSW, SA, TAS & VIC, so why did the phone change, if it was an automated system from ACT where Telstra has an office I can understand, but as Christmas Island is part of Western Australia, who doesn’t participate in Day light saving, then I am confused.

Again just looking on the net for “Time on Christmas Island” there is no change in the time, apparently the time zone abbreviation Is CXT (I assume rightly or wrongly that this refers to Christmas Island Time).

So I am going to end this blog here, its 7.40 am CXT I want to get this published and some pictures taken, as I am off Island on Thursday, 7th October, I have been recalled back to Canberra for other duties, which I can guess what they are, but I will not say, as I make be wrong.

If I am right, it will be quite an adventure.




The good thing is I can see Caroline, I have missed here, and though we don’t hang on each others apron strings, I love being with her.

My flight is Thursday, and Caroline will pick me up on Friday at about 09.30 Canberra time, which reminds me, I need to print off my flight details.

Finally Caroline was rightfully trying to encourage me to take more photo’s of the island that I haven’t seen, Unfortunately that is quite a lot and I have nearly run out of time, but do hope to be back again.

Andy

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Photos

In my flower pot
Front stage flower pot

In my flower pot
just listening to some tunes

Number Plate
Christmas Island plate

Red Crab
The same fines applies if you kill one of these $5500.00
Yes I did type $5500.00

On the move
Possibly