Mittagong Homestead

6 May 2006 Some time in the morning. At least i think it's morning. i took my watch off. it's overcast and i've not yet had breakfast - hope that helps put things in perspective.

Two things I didn't know cows could do:

1. Lick their own arse (fascinating to watch)
2. Sneeze (great puffs of moisture come out)

I was suitably impressed by both.

The first cow has ben licking itself on and off for some time now. believe it may be psychologically damaged in some way.

Am rediscovering the difficulties in trying to outstare a cow. they keep looking at me. lots of them. i'm not making this up. they look, then they moo, then they look again. they might take a quick grass break before a little more looking, but the looking appears to be this morning's primary purpose.

I'm also watching tiny little wren creatures dancing on barbed wire. they look at me too, as if to say "look what i can do and you can't you stupid great lump of a creature."

am considering starting a nation-wide anti-cow-and-wren campaign. teach them to look at me in the (possibly) morning. i'm only just through my first coffee, for goodness sake. i'm in no fit state to be looked at by scornful and possibly psychologically damaged animals. i swear they're doing this on purpose.

the roses did it on purpose too. the deck i'm sitting on is surrounded by roses, all of them dead or dying. i can either choose to believe that they heard of my visit and were trying desperately to hold on for me and didn't make it, or they heard of my visit, went "aaargh" and carked it. prefer former option - choose to believe that.

right. now the important preliminaries are taken care of, i can tell you where i am.

I was exhausted and edgy and fed up with people, so i took myself off to a luxury cottage at Mittagong Homestead. It has a spa and a fireplace and an amazingly comfy bed, and it's just beautiful. well, with the possible exception of the arse-licking cow, which is fascinating, but possibly not "beautiful" in the traditional sense of the word.

i'm still having difficulty just sitting down and being peaceful. last night i found even when i was trying to relax, i had a hard time not finding things to do.

when i was lying in bed last night reading, i noticed my pulse and it was still racing. yes, i know all the dirty comments you could make, and i'm ignoring them all. i was reading a reasonably clean novel. i'm clearly more anxious and wound up then i had recognised, but i'm still not yet sure of the cause.

3:30pm-ish

i did check my watch that time, but only really to tell if it was getting dark yet, and should i light the fire. instead, i'm sitting with a cup of tea and a biscuit, writing. i'm just starting to slow down - well i was until i remembered i had to go home to melbourne tomorrow, and my stress levels jumped up again. anyway, the upshot of the whole thing is that i've booked for another night, and left a message at home to say i'm not coming back. i feel like one more whole day might help me to feel like i'm not going to miss out on things, so i'm more able to chill. well, it also means another night in the spa, and in front of the fireplace, and sleeping in that fantastic bed.

sometime later

fire lit. glass of wine waiting for me when i finish writing this, but i need to write it first.

all this superficial writing is a lot of fun, but it's not why i started writing a journal. I feel like i'm always hiding stuff now to protect other people. well, i need to write honestly even if it only goes to me.

i'm harbouring so much anger and resentment, and it's not like me to keep everything in like this, but i feel like i've talked and talked, but never really been able to say what i mean to the point where i think i've been heard and understood. i'm so angry about so many things, but at the moment the most important thing is the rocky state of liz and my relationship, and the fact that although i've forgiven her, i still haven't found a way to forgive myself for helping lead us both down such a destructive path. i think i've given out a lot of mixed messages, and i don't blame liz for not always understanding where i'm coming from, because it changes - or it used to. right now i think i'm in a much more stable place and my messages are more clear and consistent. for our relationship to survive, we had to separate a lot, and that's been very good for both of us. we've gone back to treating the car as "my" car instead of "our" car, and although it would be nice to feel like it was equally shared, but sharing is about an equal give and take. i know there are a lot of ways to give and in all other respects than financially, i see us as being reasonably equal. hmmn, ok, i probably need to think about that a bit more before making such a grandiose statement, but nothing jumps out at me. but the financial inequality thing is a big problem - or will continue to be unless we become a lot more open and honest with each other about it.

whew, ok. that's a bit better. nasty and painful, but the truth at least. liz, feel free to delete this entry if you want to, nobody needs to read it, i just had to write it.

liv