A little illusion.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures. Oscar Wilde.I enjoy the sort of art that teases the mind. Not the sort that moves & hurts the eyes but the sort that sees reality in 2 different ways. It amuses me.

I think it's very clever.

I enjoy the shift in reality; the point at which a thing becomes something else.

Or in looking at one thing something hidden is suddenly revealed.

I have trouble with geometrics but I can always find faces. They're good, aren't they?

Wherein I ramble about this & that...

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water. ~Carl Reiner

Early this morning, before the sun was properly up, the boys were breathing down my neck to get the weather radar up in the vain hopes that enough rain was on the way that they could head off fishing for the day instead of to an early morning boat & a long day of working in the wind & cold. They were out of luck ~ but not for want of trying.

It hasn't been a pleasant day. Miserable in fact. Issi hogged a doona all for himself & refused to budge & the poor old heater has barely taken the edge of the chilly air. I am about to turn the oven on & do a Shepherd's Pie for dinner. Ditz will just have to not be vegetarian tonight.

Poor old Ditz hasn't really had much of a break. The weather has been simply appalling all holidays & it is back to schoolwork on Monday. Term time of course means all the music is back under way again & there is another MBC afternoon first up ~ with drinks & canapes after! Really! I am appalled. I mean, I pretty much have to go & this is one snooty, snooty school. I really shouldn't go dressed like the rag lady but I have yet to figure out how to stay warm & be stylish. Actually I've never figured out how to be stylish. Clothes & I don't have much to say to each other & so long as I'm decently covered, comfortable & warm I don't worry too much ~ an attitude that appalls my mother who always looks wonderfully put together. Mind you, I don't usually have much call to be dressed up to the nines.

I've hardly stuck my head outside at all these hols. I've been avoiding the shop. Kids everywhere & they will get under the covered area where it's nice & echo~ey & screech like banshees while their fond parents look on indulgently. Whatever...but my poor head can't handle the noise. Then there's the packs wandering down the middle of the road who move for nothing & nobody. Hello? The road is for cars! OK, so it's not just kids that do that. There's one old dear who drags her trolley right down the middle of the road too & she will do it in the middle of the night all dressed in black. Gave Dearest a very nasty fright.

I could really do with a dose of blue skies & sunny warmth right about now. It might improve my frame of mind. Just as well I don't live somewhere the sun don't shine for 6 months of the year. I would be perfectly miserable & no~one could bear me. Hrumph! I do NOT have attitude ~ just a little hiccup in the works.

A little dialogue on Quakerism for the Princess.

You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from God? George Fox

Princess, because mummy asked...

I love the Lord & I love to talk about the Lord & I really enjoy sharing what I believe but history, & especially theological history, can seem very dull sometimes. So you must remember that history is about people; what they thought, what they did, how they acted.

I sometimes quip that Quakers were the first modern charismatics because Quakers is not what Quakers called themselves. They called themselves Friends & their Meeting the Society of Friends. Nowadays Quakers are mostly pacifists but when it all began, back in 17th century England, it wasn't quite like that. Quakers were a zealous bunch & people like George Fox tended to get quite heated about certain things ~ paid ministers, sacred buildings, priests coming between people & God. The early Quakers were fiercely persecuted & brought to trial would often condemn the very people trying them. In their zeal they would often *quake* & if they weren't quaking they were exhorting people to tremble at the word of the Lord~ hence the nickname. It stuck.

England at that time was caught on the twin prongs of the Church of England & Puritanism under Cromwell. The less said about Cromwell the better but he was an important & powerful man. The rise of Quakerism threatened both of these church views in important & profound ways. Firstly, & most importantly, Quakerism stressed that the Holy Spirit was directly accessible by everyone. If you actually believe that then certain other things flow logically from that belief. If you believe the Holy Spirit can & does speak directly to individuals then ordained priests aren't necessary. If you believe that then the biblical argument that we are all priests [1Peter2:9]takes on a new meaning. If you believe that then you believe you can hear from God yourself. If you are convinced you are doing as God tells you you will act according to conscience, not according to church law. You can see how such thinking would upset some people.

I like this quote from Quakersonline: Thus if the Holy Spirit speaks to us personally our highest duty is to listen & our immediate obligation to act in accordance with His will.

Listening. Listening is the Heart of Quakerism. If one is noisy or busy doing one can't really listen so Quaker meetings were held in silence, broken only occasionally if someone felt moved to share what the Holy Spirit had laid upon their heart. This probably sounds very dull. My Ditz certainly thinks it is & I can't speak for those Quakers who aren't Christians or who belong to more programmed Meetings. There are quite a few of those these days but speaking as a Conservative Christian Quaker entering in to the silence is a deeply profound experience. It is like going to meet a good friend. There is a sense of expectation as you wait. Your thoughts might skitter about all over the place but you wait. Eventually your mind settles & grows still & then the Lord Jesus comes & sits with you. Sometimes we just sit together. Sometimes He's got something he wants to say to me. How do I know it's Jesus & not some figment of my overactive imagination you might well ask? Good question, one the early Quakers asked too & set certain guidelines in place as checks. Those checks include things like checking scriptures or having other Friends go to the Lord. There is always agreement when something is fully of God. Over time, as you get to know Jesus better & better it is easier to tell what's what.

Quakerism is experiential. It's whole aim was to bring people into a living, vital confrontation with God where they could know God was true for themselves. We believe something of God resides in everyone. Out of that basic assumption a great social concern arose out of Quakerism. Quakers were among the first to address the issue of slavery & the physical & spiritual needs of prisoners. It is meant to be a faith lived with holiness, that sees other people through God's eyes & each day as sacred as a witness of the love God has for us.

Now, Princess, I may not have answered some questions you may have. I may not have given you enough history ~ like the whole Cromwell thing [but I don't like the man, so I didn't] so feel free to ask ~ either here or by e~mail & I will do my best to answer. One or two other Quakers also read here ocassionally & might be better able to answer your questions so even if I don't know someone is bound to. Your Friend, with boundless joy, Ganeida.

Tuesday's Trivia.

At 20 years of age the will reigns; at 30 the wit; and at 40 the judgment.- Ben Franklin

Some people are just very, very clever. I won't tell you what would happen if I tried something like this but it's impressive, don't you think?

Anyway, seeing as birthdays are in the offering today, today's trivia is birthday trivia.

Not surprisingly birthday celebrations have their roots in paganism. All those lovely prezzies? ~ To ward off evil spirits. The cake aglow with candles? A gift to the Greek goddess Artemis. Cards? Well, the ancient Egyptians & Chinese used to send greetings on papyrus rolls to special loved ones then a century ago, when it was common in England to offer personal well wishes to the birthday person, people who couldn't do that sent their apology with a *birthday card*.

Later on today, when our boys get home, we will sing Happy Birthday to You. This song didn't start life as a birthday song at all & the famous bit that is now sung all over the world is actually the chorus. It was written by 2 sisters, Mildred J. & Dr Patti Smith Hill in 1893 & first published in 1935 so it's not even all that old. It is, however, famous for other reasons. Marilyn Monroe notoriously sang this to John F. Kennedy while he was president & it is the first song ever sung in outer space. On March 8th, 1969, the Apollo IX astronauts sang it, out there, so to speak. Despite being the most recognisable song in the English language it does not belong in the public domain & is still copyrighted, so you know, personal use only or you're up for about $10, 000.

Worldwide more people are born in August than any other month [Should I tell Ditz she's common?☺] but in the States October 5th is the most common birthday. Bit of a worry that. Conception would be New Year's Eve!

And to finish off: you only celebrate your birthday once every seven years. The other 6 days you actually celebrate your birth date! Not worth quibbling about really. Now who's for cake?

Monday Memories.

"If you think I'm cute you should see my identical twin."

Tomorrow the boys turn 22. That is just a little scary. That's my life walking around somewhere out there.

Thing is I can remember the day they were born clearer than I can remember what I ate for dinner last night & it seems just a second ago I was popping that chocolate cake in the oven while telling Dearest over the phone that there was no point rushing home, the cake would take at least 40 minutes to cook & I was going nowhere until it was out & iced. My man was not impressed. He came home anyway & had a small meltdown of his own at finding his heavily pregnant & in labour wife up to her elbows in laundry & baking. WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

What I was thinking is that I don't do boredom well & much of labour, especially in the early stages, is boring so I was occupying my time while using gravity to move things along. Besides I don't like hospitals & I wasn't sick & my obstetrician & I did not see eye to eye on how high risk I was. I did not consider twins high risk; he did. Mind you by the time Ditz came along I was considered an older mother & an even higher risk but seeing I have a major aversion to needles no~one was sticking one of those whopping great things into my unborn baby. Besides, what did they think I was going to do if they thought something was wrong; Abort her? Was never going to happen so a completely pointless exercise.

I can be a leetle stubborn at times & I don't necessarily think dr knows best & Dearest had been told he was to back me up & keep the pariahs at bay OR ELSE! This from a woman who had been flat on her back in hospital for 2 weeks not so long ago because the lads were in the process of arriving waaay too early, early enough to have everyone concerned in a major flap all round. I had a toddler at home who needed me so I was hardly the most restful of patients & I couldn't wait to get out of the place. Going back was not something I was overly keen on doing. Not until I had too but I like to keep the peace where possible so seeing Dearest was getting more than a little worried I rang my doctor ~ who had a complete neurotic meltdown of his own & told me to get my butt in to the hospital. *sigh*

Now in my defense my contractions were barely noticeable & my waters hadn't broken so if you've had a baby you know as well as I do that I was a long way from actually giving birth. However there was a tear in the sac which was making movement interesting & infection was the biggest concern so I allowed myself to be bundled out to the car. Dearest had another flap when he realised I hadn't brought my bag but I seriously expected to be sent back home again though as Dearest pointed out acidly that was never going to happen.

Now my doctor was lovely really. It's why he was my doctor but dealing with a woman high on twin pregnancy hormones was not his forte. He wanted to do a nice safe Caesar. I about had a psychotic meltdown of my own. I am not a carcass to be cut up just because some doctor is a little squeamish about getting sued. Poor Dearest was obligated to back me up but the last thing he wanted was to find he was a single dad. We compromised. The staff broke the waters completely & hooked both boys up to monitors ~ which meant not only was I bored out of my brain I couldn't move either. Theo promptly kicked himself free of the monitor & went & hid. You wouldn't think it was possible in there at fully 9 months gestation but somehow he managed it & the midwife had great fun chasing him all round utero ~ which should have told her he was just dandy, thank you very much!

Now I'm not sure what everyone was thinking at this point. We did all eventually expect 2 babies to arrive but seeing as I had rejected the drip to speed labour along everyone must have thought things were going to take some time & the doctor toddled along to another hospital to perform a Caesar on another hapless woman while I was left to twiddle my thumbs & inwardly curse the medical profession. Even Dearest abandoned me for a much needed cup of coffee. I think he thought he'd need his strength up for the long haul. Trust me, I was not a happy woman.

It never happened. One three ring circus coming up! Within minutes the first contraction hit. It came through like the Edinburgh Flyer & zoomed right off the charts. I took a breath & hit the highest note! The entire obstetrics ward arrived in a flurry. The Matron took one look & was screaming for someone to ring my doctor & the specialist. Dearest counted 30 nurses crammed into the tiny birth room, not one of whom had ever seen a woman give birth naturally to twins before. Those boys were a'comin' & they were a'comin' fast!

I was ready to push but no~one was ready for me. The matron commanded me to hold on in no uncertain terms. Do you have any idea how hard that is when you have two lusty boys just itching to burst on to the world?! Eventually the doctor arrived. I took one look, said, "Can I push now?" & breathed a sigh of relief. The poor man was still in his bloodstained whites having being pulled unceremoniously from his last case & was stripped & scrubbed & regowned while Dino crowned. He was nearly as horrified as I was & we were still waiting on the paediatrician.

Dearest was really impressed by the paediatrician. I was otherwise occupied & unable to pay attention but Dearest says that man caught Dino as his head emerged & had suctioned his lungs before he fully emerged. Ditto Theo who was tiny & practically fell out. It was so fast the doctors unceremoniously shoved Dino at Dearest to hold. Poor man. Newborns used to spook him out. [He got over it fast.]

The whole thing took less than 2 hours, the actual births less than 5 minutes. I had an armful of babies, a crowded roomful of nurses weeping bucketloads & 2 mighty relieved doctors. It was a rather eventful afternoon. Not the sort you forget in a hurry.

Ryan John 6lb 4oz Luke Vincent 4lb 6oz [yeah, I know. Weird or what? It's a twin thing]~ Happy Birthday Dino & Theo!

Random Thinks.

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality. Max BeerbohmWe are in the depths of winter, not, I admit, an icy northern winter but cold enough by our standards to have us seeking those sunny nooks out of the wind with a hot cuppa & a good book. Which is what I was doing this morning while trying to convince Iss, who had something else entirely in his mind, that he really wanted a nice warm lap when I happened to glance out my window...

Months & months back I purchased this birdbath & it has sat on the verandah where a gum tree is growing through the slats for all those months pointedly ignored by every bird in the vicinity. It is a lovely birdbath with pebbles at the bottom & clean rainwater filling it to the brim but unused for the purpose for which it was acquired. Until today. Today the little brown honeyeaters found it & there was a great fluttering & chirping in & out of the gum tree as the birds took turns to hop in the water, splash about a bit & scoot back into the tree to dry off. I was charmed. Now they have found it it is likely to be in constant use & we will get the daily delight of watching the antics without frightening off our visitors.

This is not our only birdbath but it is the one easiest to watch visitors come & go.

I watch almost no T.V these days. T.V has got to be the greatest annoyance ever invented but few things annoy me more than historical inaccuracy. The exception is mythological inaccuracy. Our t.v screens have been besieged by a new drama ~ Merlin. Now, I will, if I must, tolerate the Arthurian story being transposed into Medieval neverland because most people know some version of Le Mort d'Arthur but I really take umbrage when people change the mythology completely. It removes great chunks of the plot. What's more it removes the more interesting chunks of the plot. Arthur's downfall is implicit in his conception & there are so many layers that suddenly disappear when you meddle with the original storyline I can't believe anyone at all would do it ~ but the creators of Merlin have! Unfortunately the rest of my house adores this show & remain untroubled by the glaring gaps in logic. I can't watch without getting riled because, frankly, Uthur should be dead, not ruling Camelot, & the supposed dragons were under Vortigern's castle in the Welsh marches & symbolic of something else entirely & far more sinister.

Fairy tales, fantasy, is, or was, the stuff of nightmare & far darker than our modern minds allow. Prettied up & sanitised much of their power is denied because the thing with so much fantasy & the reason it has always had such a hold on my imagination is that it is in this realm the bare bones of Christianity are exposed. It is in the mind the war for the soul is waged & won or lost. Fantasy is about choices for good & evil, about the consequences of those choices, about the power of evil & is corrupting influence & about fighting for what is right & good in the face of overpowering odds. Nope, nothing to do with actual reality. When you trivialise something like this you lose so much. There's a reason I like Revelation so much. ☺

I don't like the cold. I particularly don't like being old & cold. My joints are seizing up & I am creaking like a rusty old windmill in a stiff breeze. It has been worse since I got one of those obscure mozzie borne diseases that give you fever & chills & funny aches in the joints. I think twice about paddling round in the yard when the thermometer starts dropping but this afternoon there was a little window of sudden warmth & I rushed outside to deadhead the basil which is raging uncontrollably through the tomatoes & strawberries, sweep the path & rake up the leaves round the firepit before the mercury took a horrified look round & noesedived, plummeting towards zero as fast as possible. It's not fair. We have passed the solstice. The days are growing imperceptibly longer. They should be getting warmer too but they are not. I swear they're not. Brrrr! I do not like winter.

A Little Bit of Excitement.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming. ~John Steinbeck

Dino is a bit of a nutter. He likes to fish. In all weathers. What's more he likes his girls to fish with him ~ at least sometimes. More girls have fallen at this Waterloo than I can remember. "Will you come fishing with me?" is the big, important question. The answer determines the future course of the relationship. Non~fishers don't last long.

Fishing defines Dino. It is who & what he is at his core & his family, who are not bound by these arbitrary rules, have derived much amusement from watching an assortment of girls squeamishly take their first tentative venture into the macho world of the fishing rod & the crab pot because, loath as I am to admit it, my sons are good looking & much chased after. Personally I don't think that's been a good thing but I am not responsible for the gaggles of girls intent on man hunting.

Theo has a sweet young lady whom we all like very much but Dino has been conspicuously single for some time ~ years in fact. Months away at sea is not conducive to long term relationships & back on shore he was too busy catching up with old mates to be overly concerned with girls. That has now changed & although I have met the young lady concerned I don't know her very well. She struck me as modern & very, very competent & quite a bit taller than my boy, whose not so obvious Spanish genes leave him a little on the short side.

So last night Theo took Dino's boat over to the mainland for him so Dino, with girl in tow, could go fishing early this morning ~ like before the sun was up. Last night was bitter. It went down to just 3 or 4 degrees before the wind chill factor. It was so cold that I stayed in bed & slept this morning rather than braving the elements as I usually do.

What woke me was the phone. I heard Liddy moving around so waited. The phone cut out then began again so I got up. I glanced at the clock. 5.30! It was early & it was cold & it was Dino on the other end of the phone with a reverse charge call.

Early morning calls are not generally a good thing, especially reverse charge calls. Nor was Dino's opening line.

"It's all right, mum, I'm not in the lock~up." Now why would I think that? Where he was was at the mainland jetty sopping wet, girl sopping wet, wallet, phone & car keys at the bottom of the bay! Only Dino. Getting into the boat they'd tangled in the fishing line with an unenviable result. As my first instinct had been, Oh no! He's put his shoulder out again! I was more than a little relieved to find it was just a case of a little water in the wrong place.

Would I, out of the kindness of my heart, ring his house mate & get him to come pick them up because, mummy dear, we are freezing out here?! I rang. I know the house mate rather well. He practically lived here as a child so I was not fazed to be answered with, "What the...?" I identified myself & after a shocked silence in which house mate came to terms with the fact it wasn't one of his horrible mates but one of his horrible mates' mothers I explained the situation. Amidst gales of laughter he agreed to brave the bitter morning to collect the bedraggled ones.

By this time Liddy & I were beside ourselves with laughter but it was less funny when Dino rang back to ensure help was on the way. I could hear the girl in the background sounding rather hysterical & apparently she was having a genuine meltdown. Dino sounded rather frazzled & obviously had his hands full & is now facing the sort of day that makes you wish you'd never got out of bed in the first place. I'm so glad it's not me dealing with the fallout from this one. Oh my! From sad experience he is unlikely to be able to recover anything from the bay & today, being Sunday, everywhere he needs is going to be shut. Do you think the girls is impressed?

Down With Homeschooling!

Bless me, what *do* they teach them at these schools? - CS Lewis
Now that I have your attention:
Germany is pretty notorious in Homeschooling circles. There they cart you off to jail & take your children away for homeschooling. One has only to hear a German teenager rant against homeschooling to be sadly aware of how thoroughly indoctrinated they have been by the State. The peer group is their most important social group & I can think of little in social situations that would scare me more than being condemned to the company of my peers. I didn't like it even when I was forced to endure it. Age has not improved my opinion. I like variety: big people, little people & all sorts of people in between.

OK, so it's not fair to pick on Germany & in all fairness Germany is not the only European country to be anti~homeschooling. Belgium doesn't think much of it either & there your little ones begin school at just 3 years old so they can be trained to fit in with society, not rock any boats in this tiny country & learn to be a good citizen. I don't know about jailing you if you don't conform but they're a Teutonic people, like the Germans, & well, I'm a Celt & I just don't see things in black & white that way. Like how many shades of grey are there?

Then in my e~mail box this morning I get this: SWEDEN: The Govt is trying to make Home schooling illegal Sweden? Sweden! That most socially egalitarian of countries? This equal opportunity, socially enlightened country? This is not good news. Really it's not. Britain is fighting new homeschool legislation. Oz has got proposed changes in the works & the States seem to constantly fight a state by state battle. I'm not normally politically active but if you would like to sign their petition, they have an English version for us, then please visit & weigh in against government control of our children. Besides, I thought you should know just because. Our world is growing darker every day.

Shop till you drop.

“When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It's a whole different way of thinking.” Elayne BooslerYesterday we got on a boat, not as early as we wanted, & went to Australia ~ which is what islanders say when they want to be funny & sarcastic & let you know how much they hate the mainland. Yeah, well, we've been here a long time & if shopping was something I actually enjoyed I'd live closer to the shops now, wouldn't I?

I do not like shopping. I particularly hate shopping for food but the natives insist on being fed so you know, it's something I do ~ every week. Shopping for clothing doesn't rate much better no matter who I am shopping with. This is not a bonding activity in our house. Rather it makes for murderous intent. Liddy will shop till she drops, try on everything in the store then decide she likes nothing. Painful. Ditz likes nothing, won't try on anything & would rather go naked than be forced to buy new clothing. It may happen yet! As for me, there is so little in the shops I actually like that I prefer to ignore the whole question of attire & sloth around in baggy daggies [tracksuit sweats] & multiple layers of jumpers ~ our jumpers, not yours. Ditz however is parting company in the middle again, mostly because the child is in denial about being built like Marilyn Monroe rather than Twiggy, which is unfair of the universe when mummy & Liddy got built like Twiggy.

Consequentially Ditz has been buying size 14 T~s when really she needed a size 16 just to accommodate her chest. This time she actually chose 2 nice things: a bone & black plaid dress shirt ~ very nice but it had to be size 16 despite her protests or it just wouldn't fit you know where! ~ & a blue & bone plaid dress with a drop waist ~ also size 16 because size 14 just wouldn't stretch across her hips ~ not if she wanted it to do up!

When Ditz is looking for an excuse not to buy something she looks at the price tags & then declares that it is too much money so she's no longer allowed to look at price tags. I will tell her if I think something is too much money [which it always is if I don't approve of it! ☺], otherwise she has to decide if she likes it. As what she liked was both acceptable & on sale we did particularly well.

End of season sales are now on so we were all looking, not just Ditz. I like plain things in unusual colours so I expected to go home empty handed, as per usual. I just can't stand fuss in clothing & it must be comfortable above all other considerations & if it touches my skin a natural fibre, preferably cotton. Against all odds I came away with one of those funny shirts that has white collar & cuffs & coloured body, turquoise in this instance, & the last on the rack, which just happened to be in my size & on sale. Hm. I dithered though. Went for a walk. Thought about it. Looked again. Seriously, I don't have much call for good clothing. I 'm helping build a house & do lots of yard work & I ruin clothing faster than you can shake a lamb's tail at but I did buy it ~ along with a moss green jacket. My mum has one I admired while we were up there. Different style & slightly different colour but very similar & I'm a jacket girl. I like being able to zip to just the right place for maximum warmth or coolness, deep pockets to stuff things in yadda, yadda.

Liddy bought a couple of jumpers. That child has more clothing than she knows what to do with & Ditz can no longer fit into it so can't borrow. Sad, sad, sad.

Then I hit the linen sales at Pillow Talk chasing their single doonas. My older blankets & things seem to have been borrowed by the boys for camping trips & not necessarily come home again so I needed some extra things but perhaps the bargain of the day was Ditz's.

Ditz has wanted one of these big canvas bags for ages. For choir. To hold her music things. So she can be trendy & not look such a dork with her sister's borrowed knapsack. I priced the things & nearly had a meltdown but was sort of promising one for her birthday ~maybe. If the price was reasonable. Sale on. 20% off the sale price. More than reasonable so I bought her one. A choice of camouflage or grey. I am so over the whole camouflage look! Who wants the whole world looking like dad's army? So we opted for grey. Ditz is delighted.

This is the sort of stuff we don't have time to do in term time. It just takes too much time & wears everyone out. There's a reason I live on coffee.

And here comes Migaloo!

“Consider the whale: It never gets into trouble until it comes up and starts spouting.”

It's that time of year again ~ the humpbacks are migrating north to warmer tropical waters to mate & breed. And each year the boats go out with loads of tourists because Humpbacks are the whales to see. They're the acrobatic clowns of the whale family, breaching with twists & turns, slapping the water with their fins, whacking it with their tails & making a spectacular array of sounds with a recognizable sequence.

Hunted to the point of extinction a whaling moratorium in 1966 has seen a partial recovery in numbers. This is good news because Humpbacks are pretty interesting. They are the noisiest & most imaginative of whales, the males singing long, eerie, complex songs that repeat for hours. The songs were originally thought to be part of the mating ritual, which at least makes sense, but seeing all the songs ever attracted were other males scientists have had to reconsider this theory & have no other really good ideas. Science seems to have to do this a lot.

Humpbacks are baleen whales slurping their krill & plankton through their baleen along with 500 gallons of water. The baleen acts as a sieve & the whales can open their mouths wider than 90 degrees, which is pretty impressive! They eat twice a day consuming somewhere between 2000 & 9000 pounds of krill but can't swallow anything larger than a baseball, so whatever the big fish was that swallowed Jonah it is unlikely to have been a Humpback whale! Actually the only whale anatomically capable of swallowing something as large as a human is the Sperm whale.

These guys invented the *bubble feed* where the pod forms a 10 ~ 100 foot circle 50 feet below the surface then swims in a spiral while blowing bubbles. The bubbles force food to the surface in a concentrated mass. Given each whale has two lungs each the size of a small car that's some bubbles!

Humpback pods are fairly loose & stagger their migration over a 5 month period. As always the young are the most vulnerable to predators ~ sharks & orcas. Their risk is minimised by riding in their mother's slipstream so that they can keep up with the adults with 75% less effort. Smart bubs.

So even without Migaloo Humpback whales are pretty amazing. Migaloo is the cherry on top. He, [someone, naturally, found out his sex] is a rare albino whale & quite the easiest identifiable whale of all those that regularly travel along Australia's eastern seaboard. What's more humpbacks prefer shallow water so hug the coastline meaning any stray tourist stands a good chance of spotting Migaloo. The media tracks his progress & while, on the whole, the whales have grown comfortable with tourist vessels there is a restriction on getting closer than 500m to Migaloo because of the sheer numbers trailing him.

Migaloo has been a part of our lives since 1991 when he was first spotted on the annual migration. His name, ironically, means *white fella* in one of the Aboriginal dialects. As Humpback whales generally live 45 ~ 50 years Migaloo should be around for another few decades but sadly he is already showing signs of skin cancers & his days may already be numbered.