Greenbackyard

Twitter Entropy

Our good friend Andrew sent me the following email yesterday, following a short but entertaining exchange we had on Twitter. I thought I would reproduce it here as I like it too!

Hi Bruno, Just for fun… I thought our Twitter banter over entropy was entertaining. [...] What was rather poetic and circular in this entropy thread was how you returned to a state of control “Planning”… neat!

twitter entropy exchange

Making friends in a new place

When we we were thinking about moving  we knew that we were moving into a community where we didn’t have a huge circle friends, like we do in Sydney. We told each other that it would be a priority to us to make the effort, to get to know people, to establish new connections. Then when we moved, we seemed to be inundated with just the onrush of life – work, babysitting, shopping, sleeping, talking, mowing, – arrrg it just came on like a river. I wondered sometimes when we’d ever get the chance to do what we promised ourselves we’d do. I actually wondered if we’d lost the knack – can you make new friends – do you grow out of the ability to make a new connection? Ask yourself, when was the last time you made a new friend? If you are established in one place, the answer is likely to be a bit further back than you can easily recall…

We’ve had quite a few visitors from Sydney, which has been wonderful. I’m asking people to help us dream the place into being something. We’ve got a rule with visiting friends – they have to cook us one meal, and buy us one decent bottle of red, and tell us stories as we eat and cook and dance in the kitchen. So far we’ve been lucky to have some great friends come over – and they haven’t even tumbled to our not so secret agenda to work them like slaves on the land, then make them cook us dinner ! My mum even came up (- we made her work harder than the rest of them, seeing as she’s old we need to get the best out of her while we can. Unfortunately she responded by napping frequently on the couch.)

But somehow, despite our rather poor attempts at keeping the resolution to make new friends, we’ve been meeting new people. Really different people. By chance mostly. The first people I met were the people on whose land I was trespassing. It was a baking hot day and I had been told there was a swimming spot just down the road, right past the old church. So… wandered on over to the church, wandered past it, and was happily plodding off to the river with my baby when I noticed the 3 luminous people watching me from their porch, about 2 metres away from me. Oh and a 2 year old boy, scampering after grasshoppers. How’s that for awkward introductions – “Hi I’m your neighbour – say am I trespassing? Golly? Really? I’ll just be on my way then…” We had a chat next time I came past on the way back and that was a beginning of something. Mind you, since our introductions were so odd, I wasn’t sure exactly how the three of them were related, and I couldn’t quite figure out who was the father of one of the very pregnant and beautiful women who met me on the porch. My active mind got to thinking of unusual marriage arrangements – like polygamy in the wild woods – and somehow I kinda hoped that was what was happening since for the most part, my generation is so boring in that regards.

And we’ve met other people. The postman is awesome. His name is Jim, he’s an ex-Kings Cross policeman and if you invite him in for a cuppa tea he has some very entertaining stories about the place. He delivers letter and he delivers gossip, bargain. He told me that he went over to the church one time way back because a friend of his had discovered an underground bunker full of marjuana plants 3 meters high. Apparently someone was getting enterprising with an  old underground bomb shelter. They burned it.

Also, we’ve now met our neighbours from right next door – and they are inspiring people. We went over for an afternoon beer on Australia day, and sat at an old table, watching some rather magnificent horses run in the sunlight, and lorrikeets swoop down and frolic in a nearby bird bath. Our neighbours are garlic farmers, they sit at this table every morning and peel their home grown garlic, ready for shipment to their wholesaler. That afternoon we talked about farm things – sheep, raising chickens, the postman, and frost, and they kept us laughing the entire time. These guys do things properly – they have two chest freezers, and a walk in freezer, because they freeze the produce from their land to use throughout the year. They are the real deal … and yet… as we talked it emerged that they made the same sort of journey we are making, 16 years ago. They came from the advertising world and they threw it all in, looking for something different. Their whole amazing story isn’t mine to tell, nor do i think I know enough to do it justice, but I found it comforting to think that our closest neighbours also made a journey like ours many years ago. We aren’t so isolated after all.