Blue Kingfisher Blues

The kingfisher perched high on a casuarina branch

Walking along the beach at the sea front

My feet would sink in the soft loose sand

It slows me down

Making  me stop and stand and look around

There perched on the kasuari branch

I have seen many a time

A bird glowing blue shone by the morning sun

Sometimes you appear without a sound

Sometimes your shrieking can reach the ground

I know, you are calling a friend

I hope to meet up with more of your kind

Then you would disappear, flying away at lightning speed

Though doubting your coming back , I would still patiently wait

And as my patience is running thin

There you unexpectedly soon come again

Ah . . . you are back alone without companion

Though you keep calling with your piercing sound
And a mouthful to share to bait attraction

No one seems to pay any attention

It is okey friend

Here I am . . .

The Kingfisher 

Friends

Hi all

Friends are precious. They can be a source of inspiration or they may just be someone who can bring cheer to your day. Or someone we can rely on at trying times. Or someone who can make us feel needed a feeling which is just natural to most.

You have family members to keep you company but friends are in a different kind of relationship with you. Sometimes you can't say all to family members but to a friend you are able to. You can joke with friends and be so hilarious but with family members we need to act appropriately.

Now I have very few friends. We are not really close in the sense that we don't really know each other through and through. We don't meet frequently. We only show up at weddings and kenduri or other social fuctions. There we would group up and talk of nothing serious and tell jokes and making fun while there is time. How I miss the time when you can go stay overnight with friends and talk till the wee hours.

Of course  I also have my small group of tennis friends but we seldom go beyond the the club. Not like before when we used to go out for friendly match and tournaments. Though some are still as active as before most of us now are too preoccupied with our own family life.

I wonder where have all my friends gone. My childhood friends and my old neighbourhood friends. My classmates school mates collegues and all. Fate has scattered us throughout the country. Some have even migrated many years ago.

We have not been in contact once we move on and drifted different ways. Only once in a while you hear about one either it is of good or bad or sad news.

Flowers they don't forever remain attached to the stalk when its time, they fall.

Drawn flowers remain there forever unless you delete it.

Among all the friends as far as I know no one has really made it big. I mean becoming successful or famous and things like that. Neither do I know any becoming notorious thank God.

So we are just ordinary good people I assume.

Surely at this point in time all should have already retired and resigned to quiet life. If all of us were again to gather would there be the noisy chatters of the yesteryears. Someone should initiate a reunion of some kind.

Once my primary and secondary school friend managed to track me. We parted years and years ago. But the memory of our carefree days and adventures like hiking up the Maxwell Hill still fresh in my mind. I was so excited when she called.

We made appointments. Met a few times. There were lots of stories to tell. She, not me because I don't have much stories ha ha. She has a lot of experience working in foreign land. Such a brave person living there all alone in such a patriarchal society. And now when back here she made efforts to connect to old friends.

But she is not a friend that was my friend in our younger days. Of course in our appearance we change who does not?  Though I still value her friendship but in responding to her I was a little awkward. Not me alone though, she too. There was no more that natural laughter and giggles as when we did on the slope of the hill which we were hiking. I guess we need more meetings to catch back the old time normality but I am as always too lazy, too passive.

I was wrong when earlier I said none of my old friends are successful. Actually there are may be I don't know. Well I should not think everybody else is like me just a mediore and plain ordinary. Some have done something outstanding like my sixth form school mate. She was in the arts stream while I was in the science. Why we became quite good friends I don't really remember. May be there were only few girls for that was a boys school. We girls were sent to the boys school for sixth form.

We parted ways when we completed upper six. We never made any contact but her picture taken with a beauty queen crown in her hair is outstanding in my album. She especially gave the photo to me as a token for our friendship. That may be made me to remember her.

I felt so proud of her when I first happened to come across news about her and her success as an artist. She made it big. Had held many solo exhibitions of her great paintings in and outside of the country. Her paintings can fetch thousands and thousands of ringgit.

I used to feel so small when I look at my own paintings and drawings a hobby I took up when I first retired. My paintings and drawings are only fit to be hung on my own wall.  When I feel smaller still they would be taken down and chuck into the store room. 

Once I have wanted to go and meet her when I went back to my home state. I might get inspired and could improve on my arts who knows. It never happened. I was afraid that she might have forgotten me so I hesitated.  Anyway I am too late now for sadly she is no more with us as I found out from a website.

Its true the adage no man is an island. The island usually was part of mainland which got separated by global warming may be. The island gets connected by bridge and ferries and planes you see. Even an island is crying for connections what more we  human beings. Is what I write sounds crazy to you?

My thought is as we journey furthur in life we are dropping off friends along the way. Like a train dropping passengers at different stations. And most of us are not young anymore as to be active connecting through the many apps and sharing news. Excuse, excuse and more excuse like my eyesight is failing me  . . .

Put my thoughts in a blog? Hey its infectious!

Friends come and go.

A friend in the real world is still in need . . .indeed . . .

 

Thanks for reading.

Bye . . .

The Kingfisher and The Monitor Lizard

Hello everyone

Nice and cool to be sitting here in the house typing as the outside weather is not that hot. I hope the weather will remain like this for the rest of the day as I plan to have a game of tennis in the evening. Nowadays the sun is still strong at 5 pm.

I must make a point to go early hoping I could also play for a second game so as not to leave the other three without a fourth person. (Sad . . . I can't stay back till very late a ha). Now we are getting less players on weekdays I wonder why since most of us are retirees we should be free on most days.

When we meet up we are not all the time talking about the game. Of course we talk and shout and sometimes scream and shriek during the game but outside the court we do have time to chit chat while we wait for a free court or waiting for a foursome.

Usually its all the ladies talk about life niceties but the other day a friend mentioned about iguana. She was late for the game because as she was about to leave her husband needed her to help him do away with the iguana. It has been a nuisance in their compound.

That big lizard?

If thats what she meant. It is nothing unusual in my area. One day I almost stepped on the creature. It was on a morning after the night rain. When the sun was out I went to the usual spot to see if I could take photos of birds of course because I feel birds were coming out to expose themselves to the sun after being wet.

Haa just right there ! I was startled. It was so near me. I could only manage to get this picture.

It was so close

What if it attacked me?

What if it was a snake? God forbid.

There was one day when I heard the shrill shriek of the kingfisher which broke the quietness of the afternoon. By the way now I can recognise their calls.  Went out to check I saw two birds flying here and there and hovering over the ground. Wondered what was the matter which alarmed them.

Ahh there . . . that big lizard again .

The bird made a swoop towards the monitor lizard. I was quite surprised to see that considering the size of the lizard was so many times larger than the bird. But then the bird has such a powerful looking beak.

If I were the kingfisher I would be disappointed . Couldn't even touch the lizard. It moved too fast and disappeared.

Can't get the bird in the photo properly at the moment of the swoop

Looks clumsy but can move very fast when threatened

Powerful beak and sharp eyes 

Well thats something to ponder the small wants to attack the big.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.

Bye . . .

The Plane The Plane

Hi Everyone

Not much words but the pictures will say . . .

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Have a beautiful day . . .

Bye . . .

#Kingfisher On the Wire

Hello everybody

As I mentioned in my much earlier post the place where I stay is semi rural. Not so backward and definitely not advanced. As a resident of this area I am still quite satisfied with the basics.

There is no more electricity blackouts like it used to .

The water pressure is good except on weekends and holidays when people swarm all over the district. Ours is a popular holiday destination.

The road is quite ok no more flooding when it rains.

The rubbish collection is regular. The resident themselves actually should be more disciplined.

But sometimes groups of monkeys cross over to this area and raid the garbage bins leaving the rubbish scattered all over.

They destroy mangoes and bananas and whatever trees which are fruiting. They also try to enter the houses.

I have seen them carrying away gardenias. Not flower. Its bread. They must have aquired the taste and like it. Once I lost a loaf of bread to them. And they always want to come for another.

They are so daring. They can even open the slightly opened window wider if you are not careful. The small ones can squeeze through the grill.

Really a nuisance.

Try to chase them away they stare back at you.

And as you enter the road to our group of houses you can see a sign board printed on it sekolah tanpa wire. Don't know what it means but I guess it must be about the internet and broad band and communication connection availability.

No wire. The word is wireless. Wireless. Whatever lah  . . . borrowing my grand kid's words.

The paradox is as you come into the area you will see overhead wires and cables everywhere, all wired up here ha ha.

Sure got a lot of wires here

There is also a communication tower nearby. In my own compound there is a telephone overhead cable running across. The pole is right there beside the gaharu tree which my spouse planted along the fence.

I don't like these cables and wires and I suppose most other people too. They mar the landscape. But then we have come to acccept that as these wires and cables are necessities to our everyday life. Until there comes a time when we can become more advanced to have all these hidden away we got to put up with it for now. I wish at least it could be made neater so as not to be such an eyesore.

But an eyesore or not I have been living here for nearly thirty years. My house is about one kilometre inland from the beach. When driving out from the area approaching the main road you will face the sea and when it is high tide on a sunny day the view is just magnificent.

So never mind the wires. Monkeys and squirrels and birds too would not mind these cables and wires and poles and tower.

Just like this kingfisher . . .

A bird suddently appeared

Trying to ballance on the wire

Looking at the photographer below?

Now comfortably perched

And happily making a call

I hope you like the pictures above. The colors of the plumage blue, turquoise also the colors of the shimmering sea under the afternoon sun. Beautiful.

So friends get unwired ease all tension and be relaxed.

Till next entry,

Bye . . .

Browse The Album When It Rains

Hello 

The hot dry time is really over. Now its wet.

It comes first with the wind wailing.

The rain then poured and look like curtain  falling from the edge of the roof.

The lightning flashed and the thunder from the sky would clap and whip and crack and boom.

They can make things in the hand slip and drop. If it is glass it will shatter into a thousand pieces. Broken and never can be mended. 

The bad weather, dark and threatening and that can bring on anxiety.

Or is it just me easily get scared and timid. Blame it on my childhood experience.

Growing up in the kampung I lived in a wooden house built high on stilts and it was not very strong such that when we played and ran inside the house the floor would rattle and if you jump the house seemed to shake. Its like what you see when children nowadays jump on the wooden bed ha ha. Of course you would get the yelling too.

The house was surrounded by tall coconut trees. We were always told not to play under the trees because ripe coconut can fall on you even if there was no strong wind. My late mother was unlucky and had one coconut fell on her back. In the old days people did not go to the hospital they let time heal their injuries.

It must have affected her spine because as she grew older her back hunched and much later was found that she had an old fracture at the thoraco lumber region. I was only so small when things happened and did not know anything then.

Sorry I digressed.

As I said the house was surrounded by tall coconut trees you can imagine how anxious we were in stormy weather especially at night and in total darkness only intermittently lighted by the lightning flashes.

The trees would be swaying like pendulums. Some coconuts would fall and when it hit the zinc roof the banging would strike fear in us children as we huddled each other and the elders would be reciting prayer words and not just exclaiming OMG.

Now at this age I should be ashamed as to be so anxious about this bad weather. After all the place where I stay is usually not on the path of the real wrath of nature.

Pray let it remain that way.

I must not be whinning and complaining.

It should not matter if there is no tennis due to the bad weather.

When there is nothing much to do just doodle

Exercise the fingers to relax the mind

Birds from nowhere

Bad weather does not allow for gardening so do it in your computer.

Gardening can kill boredom

When its cold and raining outside it is a good time to browse the album. There may be old photos which can bring back beautiful memories and bring a smile and forget the disappointment brought upon by bad weather.

Here are some pictures from my album. . .

Sit in the corner and do nothing

Happy time meeting friends in fine weather

Rare sighting

Got a companion

There are more old photos I intend to upload in future entries.

So till then . . .

Bye . . .

Mother's Day Is A Day For Togetherness.

Hi all

Happy Mother's Day to motherhood and honor to all mothers.

Got the message on the phone otherwise it could pass without me realizing it. But then what is it so important about the day. Not that I don't remember my mother a woman who had sacrificed to raise me and my siblings.

And many must have remembered the day they become mothers. . .

A Time To Remember

Do you remember
your tummy barely touching the steering when you have to drive the car
and friends were making fun of how big you were

Do you remember
being pushed to the room marked labour
soon after there was a little being in the incubator
a kind of feeling welled out in you and you know you were a mother

And you remember

little feet toddling on the floor
and busy hands reaching out for everything everywhere
there were joy and laughter and love filling the air
fun and feelgood in you the mother

In no time in your midst a teenager the manipulator

sapping away your energy while you juggling motherhood and career
but no surrender
ok ok ok
you're the multipurpose mum the good manager
a superwoman after all

And now the little feet has grown large and larger

fitting the shoes size high in number

walking tall walking away to pursue whatever
and you into dreaming the time of past era

-by me a mother

Mothers are always pictured as loving, caring, selfless, a darling. . .

Me as a mother ? I don't know. But there were times when  I received cards or cake or a makan treat around mother's day so I assume I am being appreciated.

Received this card some years back

It is also good that the day is being commercialized making people aware of its coming and cause them to pause to think about and remember their mothers, those still living or those who have passed away a long time ago. Life have been hectic for everybody in this busy world. What is not in the immediate attention will remain at the back of the mind.

Feel guilty? Don't. All mothers understand.

Let only the niceties and happy moments be remembered. Forget and forgive for any misunderstandings and frictions and bitterness once had. We don't have to pretend there's nothing. Relationship with mother can sometimes be rough.

When under pressure mother can be harsh.

When teaching she can be awfully strict.

Sometimes she adamantly wanted her way.

Children too sometimes indescribably stubborn and insensitive.

Mothers and children are only human all have their own idiosyncrasies.

This is how you do ok!!

Sometimes mother left you

And flew away

Let the heart be clear and mind be peaceful.

And celebrate the day with love.

Love love love in three generations

And cheer the day with a mother's meet.

A time to get together in celebration mooD

Say it with carnations

Happy Mothers' Day!!

Happiness to all mothers . . .

Bye . . .