To start with, I've been crook. Sort of. Well, definitely. Kinda. Despite the fact that my nose has been running like a tap, and I've been coughing my lungs up, I haven't really felt sick at all. In fact, I actually feel pretty damned good. And while I know I'm at risk of sounding like some sort of new-age woo-merchant when it comes to this low-carb + high-vitamin-D + exercise thing—obviously there's something about it that's working for me.
When I got sick as a kid, I used to get really sick. I remember getting these really high temperatures, but instead of feeling hot, I would feel like I was freezing to death. I would lay, curled up on a mattress, wearing only a pair of shorts, shivering violently, my teeth chattering, while my parents sponged me down with ice-packs wrapped in damp wash-cloths, frantically trying to get my temperature to come down.
I also have memories of having really bad lung infections, and having to hang off the end of a bed, coughing up gunk into an ice-cream container, while my family members took turns drumming on my back.
I'd get so weak, and sore, and dizzy, that even going to the toilet was a major effort.
God, I'm glad I'm not going through anything even remotely as bad as that right now.
In any case, I've also spent some time working out bush. And while it's never ideal to travel when you're crook, it was nice to get away from my place while there was an industrial strength dehumidifier sitting in the middle of my lounge-room (actually, I'm kinda wondering if the dehum wasn't the cause of my sudden illness). During my travels, I caught up with an old aunty that I hadn't seen in a while, but I'm saving that for a separate post.
What I will talk about, however, is a little town I stayed in that was undergoing some major roadworks. I asked one of the locals about it, and here's what he told me:
They brought in a bunch of workers when they built the gas wells out here, y'see. The population of the town increased considerably, real-estate prices went up, people got caught up in the delusion that the town was gonna grow into some sort of rural energy hub, or some shit. The council committed to millions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades. But the workers were only ever going to stay out here while there was work; and once they're built, the wells pretty much run themselves. So the workers packed up and moved on, the population's gone back to what it was, real-estate prices are in the shitter, there's vacant houses everywhere, crime rate's through the roof, and yet all of this construction goes on. It's a fuckin' joke, but the money's already been spent y'see. Alla this? It's a gigantic white elephant in the making.
Sounds a bit sad, 'ay?
Oh, and speaking of saying "ay", there's a product they're advertising on telly out there that's just called "A" (it's a pesticide or fertiliser or something, I can't remember exactly), and the ad's just a bunch of different rural stereotypes saying "ay" to each other. It made me laugh anyway.
So, what's been happening while I've been away, 'ay?
