MORE GUFF FROM THE GODS’ OWN ISLAND SUNDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER 2021

Anything worthy of note? Well, today is my father’s birthday: N.W.F. Mason – North West Frontier Mason – would be one hundred and eighteen years old this very day; and I retain his British Indian Passport, issued at Peshawar on March 17th 1926, by order of the Viceroy and Governor-General of India. So whaddya know?

Wednesday was an important Balinese holiday – Hari Pagerwesi. What does Pagerwesi mean or imply? No one can tell me, but it is a day of thanksgiving and universal temple festivals to honour Sanghyang Paramesti Guru, one of the manifestations of Siwa and Sanghyang Widhi – the Supreme God – as World Teacher. Yagoddit?

Tomorrow will be Kajeng Kliwon – not again! – and Tilem (night of the black moon), so everyone had better be on their very best behaviour; while yesterday was zilch – NO HASH RUN – and another week down the drain. Another month …

Shall I go on? Is there nowt of import to relate? I have been scanning the sky of late – nothing better to do – and between the hours of half four and five fifteen I behold hundreds of Green Pigeons in waves – thousands maybe – whizzing by, heading north to forest roost. I reckon they would be winging it at 80 mph in level flight. Numbers pause momently to rest in the tall acacia and a lovely lemony green they look in the late afternoon light.

According to Su, many roost in the giant ficus at Pura Dalem just up the road. One bird I haven’t heard for two or three weeks now is the Drongo Cuckoo – too preoccupied to practise its scales? – though Plaintive Cuckoo still chimes in daily. The new rambutan crop is coming along famously and the bats are feasting on them and dropping the kernels all over the show: soon we expect an incursion of hungry monks. Meanwhile abundance of Red Admirals, Small Tortoiseshells and Gatekeepers reported from North Devon – but no fritillaries. Wonderful.

BALI STILL IN LOCKDOWN & STILL NO HASH RUN

SATURDAY AUGUST 14TH

Actually it’s the 15th today. Been getting quite a lot of feedback of late and, having nothing better to do, devoted most of yesterday to scribbling. Apparently my bletherings appeal to some if not all. We’re now on volume II I’m told by someone who has has the thing printed out and bound.

So what?

Coming up to Hari Proklamasi Kemerdekaan RI day after tomorrow and end an end of current lockdown one hears. Freedom, but not from Covid-19 I fear. Still, relatively unimpeded here, and presently I shall potter off to the pub for a puff and a pils, trying not to forget removing in the event my mask.

In this age of dislocation and discomposure and disconnection, one welcomes the odd anomaly. A friend in Norfolk reveals that the letter I posted to him on May 12th was received but four days ago – three months in transit. Snail mail or what? Better late than never I suppose, and considering that I don’t normally get Christmas cards before February, not so far beyond par for the course. But here comes the anomaly. & friend in London posted a large white envelope on July 20th which found its way to my PO Bokus on July 29th.

How to account for that, given especially that there are no longer direct flights to Bali?

No one can explain it – not even the sender – so let the mystery remain. Life would be still more boring than it is if every thing had a rational explanation. Not a sound except Doctor Suntri polishing off her lunch. Nothing else to report, so off to the pub for refreshment.

Heavenly day.

How lucky we are,

ononononononononononon

 

DISPATCH FROM THE ISLAND OF THE GODS

SATURDAY JULY 31ST 2021

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Heavenly day, breezy, scattered cloud, sunshine; one might be on the South Downs with a warm south-westerly blowing, striding over the Long Man at Wilmington, down to the Sussex Ox in the fields by Alfriston. Lovely neighbourly grass-widow informed me that it was nineteen degrees C couple of nights ago. Unaccustomed as I am to C, you know the old trick, multiply by 9 over 5 and add 32, and you have 66 degrees Fahrenheit or near as dammit, which is cool in this island, where the temperature averages around 80 degrees the whole year round. Mind you, if you really wish to freeze your balls off, go and spend a night in Bedugul, preferably in front of a roaring log fire. Once, when I overnighted on top of Agung, the thermometer read three C. Figure that out.

NO HASH today; our President went on the bokus to pronounce further lock-down till next week. You know why they call him Jokowi, don’t you? because he had a furniture factory and most of his customers happened to be Frogs, and whatever they proposed to him, he would always say – oui, oui, oui. It was the one Frog word with which he was familiar. Thus President Joko wee, wee, wee. Best affirmative. Only major item worth reporting – the anniversary of our house temple on Wednesday. Like all other ritual festivals, it comes every 210 days, the duration of our wuku year. Fantastic show – shrines and statues all tarted up in cloth of gold and white linen undergarments, offsetting flashes of scarlet and magenta parasol – bit garish really – and all the girls in their Sunday bestt NO sooner had the priest’s silver bell begun to tinkle than a screaming Serpent Eagle sailed overhead, and the moment the blessing had been given, a splendid and well-endowed Long-tailed macaque came down and helped itself to the copious offerings. Normally its fare consists of papaya leaves. Field day!

THE EDGE OF A BLACKBIRD’S WING

BHHH II Saturday 17/7

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Glorious picture of a blackbird received yesterday from a Frog correspondent with superimposed arrow and caption reading thus:

bord-d’aile de merle

Be it known that YWGMH is known throughout the Land of the Frog Eaters as Monsieur Bordel de Merde. And, as everyone knows, merle is Frog for blackbird. But, if unfamiliar with the Frog phraseology, ask a goddamned gendarme. Suffice to say that our rosbif puns or homonyms and spoonerisms cannot begin to compare with Frog jeux de mots or contrepeteries: not in the same league.

The night jar is a ridiculous bird

he nicht Crepuscular queer and quaintly absurd

Why you hear it admit It’s a shambles of shit

Not merely a tit or a solitary turd

Far rather a …. whatever the word

Yeah I know, neither one thing nor the other, however spontaneous. And there are other birds I could have mentioned in the absence of anything better to do last week. Like the night-herons that fly over regular as clockwork in the gloaming to forage afield – a few but on a broad front – croaking like (would-you-believe) bullfrogs on heat; not to mention the scops-owl in the orchard sporadically hiccuping to a rival in the graveyard. Both Drongo and Plaintive Cuckoos chiming in irregularly, their utterances rather imperfect. Young’uns perfecting their scales perchance. Then the flocks of munias (Javan ones) – 29 in the temple yesterday, including many immature, all chittering away. Noisy little buggers. Lovely.

oninoninoninoninoninoninonin

 

Bali Hash 2 Hash Trash Run #1501 Beji Guwang Sukawati

BALI HHHII HIDDEN CANYON BEJI GUANG SUKAWATI SATURDAY JUNE 26

 

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The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley’ in other words – never overestimate the intelligence of the pack. There were three hidden canyons actually, and the trail led all the way down to the river wos in one of them. Of course, it was a falsie. Front runner(s) came all the way back up and it’s not down there. Or so they said. I was informed by MONKEY BALLS that they spent at least 15 minutes searching for the continuation. Finally, some adventurous spirit volunteered to descend once more to discover an obvious side trail half way down. Good one. MOOSE GIVES HEAD – principal HARE with THRICE WEEKLY and two virgin layers – told me she had done something like eight recces, and her checks were quite impeccable. So, who was the criminal mis-informer? Should have been shriven. Instead, two most personable HARRIETTES were placed on ice and beholden to YWGMH’s en treaties and objurgations. What a pleasure. WORM and WOODEN EYE did most of the honours – former most nobly I thought considering that he had gone and busted the same bloody arm again and had only just emerged from hospital two days previously. Some Ozzie quack had inserted a steel plate to reinforce the offending limb, which being rigidly unyielding had caused the radius – or was it the ulna? – to sever completely. A highly competent Balinese surgeon removed superfluous plate and reset the bone(s) perfectly, without the aid of splint or plaster. You know how local doctors were always rubbished by bumi and boolai alike – at least by those who could afford to travel overseas for treatment. In fact, Indonesian medics and current facilities are probably unrivalled anywhere, and who in their right mind would want to be anyways else in this confining covid era. Oh, we demolished no fewer than 11 kegs last week – somewhat of a record I believe – and I had my first Bar-winged Prinia in an age behind the pura dalem.