Spooky things happen inside the den . You put something down , turn away for a short time , and it disappears . This causes you to think you are losing your marbles , going troppo , need another change of medication . A lie down in a dark room with a cold compress on the cranium might help .
These frequent disappearances , along with reading glasses , involve books, assorted ephemera , buckling files , old photographs , yellowing newspaper cuttings on every subject under the sun , notebooks galore filled with increasingly hard to read scribbled notes . Adding to the strain are biros which refuse to write and are thrown in anger and abuse into the wastepaper basket , later picked up and found to work ?
This then is the stressful scenario. Adding to the pressure are repeated suggestions, more like commands, on the domestic front, daughters included, to CULL !!!
Without verbal permission , certainly without the usual permit required for entry into the den to rearrange the deckchairs, my wife entered with a broom , a dust tray and brush , a determined look on her face . With gusto , she began cleaning , running her gimlet eyes over the books in the process to detect ones which she felt should be removed , given to an op shop . She only found two copies of the same book by Don Chip who attempted to keep the bastards honest in Canberra .
After a short time , she emerged and announced she had put the brush down and it had DISAPPEARED . It could not be found , further evidence of the dark, mystical force in there that makes things vanish ; the missing brush had clearly been transported to another dimension .
Because of my long time spent in the cluttered den , I led the search party for the brush , without the aid of a sniffer dog . Nowhere could it be found, even with the help of a powerful torch. Puzzling, but typical . Eventually , however, she located it hidden inside a jam-packed wardrobe . There was so much stuffed inside the wardrobe it looked like Dr Who's deceptively spacious Tardis.
The contents included grubby Penguin classics , tapes, DVDs, assorted albums filled with wide ranging ephemera ; a large bundle of material from the long gone Darwin Star independent newspaper containing many of the articles written for it by the American journalist , author and historian , Barbara James ; the yellowing typescript of a taped interview with author Xavier Herbert ; a large portfolio of clippings from various publications dealing with early Russian , American and Spanish ballet dancers , found in Adelaide ; feature articles written about several colourful Northern Territory identities including one who , with a wink, said he wrote verses for nurses , and much , much more .
What's in that large box in one side of the wardrobe ? Nothing but empty boxes of various shapes and sizes , which might be helpful if you wanted to box up things sometime in the future . Meantime gathering dust . Destined to go to the op shop very soon .
All this forced search and discovery prompted me to decide - one day soon - to get my act together and sort out the den , even cull. This intention to act is part due to a Radio National interview with a guy from Juniper Books in America about special libraries he sets up for clients .
It was desirable , he said , for people to occasionally take out their books, dust them down , see if there were ones that could go , be replaced . As a result , I took the vacuum cleaner and a paint brush to the bookcases in my bedroom . I was surprised by the amount of dust and dirt found on the shelves. Must speak to the maid about this .
One of the near forgotten books that stood out was one about Koalas , bought at a garage sale in Townsville, methinks , for a buck , with information about how they had been portrayed by artists such as Norman Lindsay, used in advertising, killed in large numbers , introduced to Magnetic Island and other places .
One of the near forgotten books that stood out was one about Koalas , bought at a garage sale in Townsville, methinks , for a buck , with information about how they had been portrayed by artists such as Norman Lindsay, used in advertising, killed in large numbers , introduced to Magnetic Island and other places .
Delivered the book to Zanita Davies of the Magnetic Island Museum as she is interested in the subject of the island Koalas , various statements about them erroneous . Her husband, Gary , in turn showed me a rare May Gibbs WWl postcard featuring a Koala family delighted to receive a message from a son fighting overseas.
