​When on November 2, I realised I'd taken a step too far and broken my ankle, it became a right here, right now moment.   Two months ago I was casting around the subject for this month and suddenly it had caught me by the throat as it were.
 
I was chain sawing and removing a heavy limb that had fallen in sheep yards on a Lima South farm. I was aware that there was some Hingejoint fencing lying on the bottom of the yard part hidden in grass and that I might get my feet tangled in it.
 
But I let my guard slip and as I carried a heavy piece of wood out of the yard, my foot caught, I slipped sideways and as I fell I heard a bone crack. My “limb” was too heavy apparently.
 
I am an optimist and my immediate reaction was to sit there and convince myself it was just a sprained ankle. And because I wasn't in a lot of pain, I continued working for the next hour and a half.
 
That evening I continued to convince myself it was just a sprain and applied a washing soda bandage to get the swelling down.
 
But my ex wife in NZ, bless her, convinced me to see a doctor who the next day confirmed I had broken my right ankle.
 
A couple of hours later at the Benalla hospital he set it in plaster and from then on mobility became a major concern.
 
The hospital sold me a smart pair of adjustable crutches for $30 and in short order my sister set me up for meals on wheels every day and a wheelie stroller thing with a seat and a small freight compartment. Do these things have a proper name?
 
Life slowed right down. Now breakfast of toast and coffee consumed in bed, takes about half an hour to prepare and trundle back to the other end of the house. I quickly worked out that I had to put the toast in a container and the coffee in an old jam jar with lid, to prevent spillage.
 
In fact moving anything demands careful planning, particularly when on crutches; a long handled cotton bag I can loop around my neck has proved most useful.
 
While I have no argument with the design of the crutches - they are adjustable for different body types - the wheelie stroller thing has a flat, smooth liftable lid which doubles for a seat. But there is little grip when I sit on it and propel myself along with my good foot. Why does it not have a seat contoured to the average bottom, like those old steel seats that were common on tractors and farm implements years ago?
 
I’ve now discovered a sticker on the stroller which says it should not be propelled while sitting on it, even though it has a 100kg weight limit. Pretty weird really.
 
Well I'm nearly four weeks into a less mobile life and have almost come to grips with it. With any luck the polyester cast will come off on December 8 and I will have a moon boot substituted for another couple of weeks.
 
That will certainly be a right here right now moment too, as will the retirement of the moon boot, early in the new year. I think I'll now be able to deal with very few similar right here right now moments after that, or will it be easier?
 
 
David Palmer
November 2017 

'Vibrational Big City Move'

An OED definition of vibration is to say it is like a pendulum swinging to and fro. To quote, “Vibration – from the Latin vibrare, move rapidly to and fro, brandish, shake, etc. Of a pendulum to swing to and fro, to oscillate 1667. To quiver, shake, tremble, to move or oscillate between two extreme conditions, opinions.
 
In that vein in the early 1990s I was living here in Benalla, but my marriage had broken up and I was looking for a new job in journalism. I was interviewed in Melbourne by a Sydney publisher and in due course he told me I had won the job.
 
Indeed this was a swing of the pendulum and one I enjoyed in various roles for 15 years. The job was at Birkenhead Point in the inner west suburbs on the Harbour. So that was a quite significant swing from landlocked Benalla.
 
But not surprisingly, the lifestyle was quite different. I re-established contact with an old girl friend and thanks to her friends and knowledge of Sydney we were able to enjoy and suffer what the city had to offer on many levels.
 
In terms of suffering and harking back to that pendulum again, Anabel and I had three friends whose sons or brothers suffered so badly from schizophrenia that they committed suicide by jumping from the Gap, just round on the steep rocky seaward side of South Head.
 
That was just so out there for me and I know it was for the surviving relations too of course.
 
On a less sad level, my friend Anabel owned a beautiful small farm on the south coast near Kiama and we often went there at weekends, not least to fight rapidly encroaching lantana.  It is a nice, contained garden flower here, but in that warmer more humid climate, it simply takes off and dominates bush land in many areas on the coast.
 
So we sprayed and slashed and burned, seemingly sometimes to little effect. At the same time I had to deal with sand flies. They are difficult to see but leave wounds that particularly on your legs, seemingly need scratching for a week or more at a time.
Eventually I concocted a brew which when applied to my legs, kept them at bay.
 
On a cultural level too, Anabel took me to plays - Alan Bennet's History Boys and Lady in the Van stand out - and my Canberra based sister took me to operas at the opera house.
Hardly missed an art gallery, museum or any other exhibition either. Living in Paddington - John Olsen's gallery was just round the corner - I didn't miss much in the art world anyway.
 
We also hiked some amazing walks around the harbour and in one case I remember an angry landowner shouting that we were walking across his Harbourside land. We even undertook the old colonial road walk towards Newcastle. Never got that far though.
 
Well the pendulum has swung back to Benalla and while I have some regrets, I love this town and the people and what it has to offer too. Good vibrations on all levels.