2019 February 23

Once again the weather is extremely favourable today.

Earlier in the day I went to the Lonsdale St Greek Festival. I had souvlaki and two cups of Greek coffee. Both were very nice. I especially enjoyed the fresh tabbouleh in the souvlaki. I expected the coffee to be thicker. It tasted like a long black.

Not that I read a lot of Henry Lawson, but I already know this is my favourite of his poems:

Up The Country

I am back from up the country—very sorry that I went—
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track,
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
Further out may be the pleasant scenes of which our poets boast,
But I think the country's rather more inviting round the coast.
Anyway, I'll stay at present at a boarding-house in town,
Drinking beer and lemon-squashes, taking baths and cooling down.

'Sunny plains!' Great Scott!—those burning wastes of barren soil and sand
With their everlasting fences stretching out across the land!
Desolation where the crow is! Desert where the eagle flies,
Paddocks where the luny bullock starts and stares with reddened eyes;
Where, in clouds of dust enveloped, roasted bullock-drivers creep
Slowly past the sun-dried shepherd dragged behind his crawling sheep.
Stunted peak of granite gleaming, glaring like a molten mass
Turned from some infernal furnaces in a plain devoid of grass.

Well, anyway, that's all I've read so far but the first line had me laughing because that's exactly how I, a city-slinging fool, feels whenever I have cause to go out west. I laughed again when he talked of drinking "lemon-squashes" in the city because even now you aren't ever going to find any country fucks who order "lemon-squashes."