If you have spent about half a century in North Australia , as has this crusty blogger , you know the symptoms and signs of individuals going troppo. As a result , I did not tell the doctor on my latest visit to him that I had seen several flying walking sticks in the sky as he would have almost certainly have certified me on the spot and men in back to front white coats with trendy brass buttons would have ushered me away to a safe and comfortable place for the festive season .
Just told the doctor I was not sleeping well , looked like Rudolf the Spotty Red-nosed Reindeer because of the ongoing reaction to antibiotics and detailed the assorted hypochondriac aches and pains . Apart from that extensive list , I was a fine example of a man lurching way past three score and 10.
During the trying build up to the wet season many a person succumbs to what is termed Mango Madness. They tend to drink a lot , do irrational things, become irritable . In my case , I have daily been drinking several sydharbs of cordial to flush the kidneys and overcome the impact of the antibiotics which made me look like a leper ; ranted at TV ; cursed plastic (Made in China ) clothespegs which explode and litter the ground with shrapnel, narrowly missing eyes in the process ; hurled to the floor several (Made in China ) cheap biros which refuse to write. Who , I shouted at the Curlews , is checking the quality of imported goods flooding this nation?
Also showing signs of going troppo is Little Darwin's resident frog who lives deep inside a downpipe near our sweaty den . We have had so little rain , he falsely indicates the drought is about to break by croaking hysterically when the sky becomes overcast or the sun is momentarily blotted out by a cloud .
However, on the occasion we did have some rain and the downpipe became a torrent for a short time , he sounded like an ecstatic honeymooner going over Niagara Falls in an unsealed barrel . How he did not drown is puzzling. A mere six spits of rain a moment ago and the frog groaned with frustration .
SECOND OPINION REDEEMS SANITY :
*Thanks to the incredible knowledge of Magnetic Island's Queen of the Jungle this mumbling blogger now feels almost sane , because she confirmed he had actually seen flying walking sticks in the sky-high flying , noisy Channel-Billed Cuckoos. Believe it or not , they are supposed to be an indication of the beginning of the rainy season and have been dubbed Storm Birds, Flood Birds and Rain Birds . Importantly , because they perform a cruciform flight on high, they have been called flying walking sticks. Saved by the cuckoo. It drives other birds mad by laying eggs in the nests of crows , currawongs and butcher birds .
