Free Range Chickster

CRUEL MISTRESS

Oh Dunedin, what a beautiful cruel willful one she is.  I had been here five days before I saw the sky – but then yesterday, a benign low-lying sun changed everything. It was like falling in love with someone in a passing car, fleeting but a shot to the heart.

I can’t remember Dunedin. I’ve been here before, many times before, but those memories seemed to be deleted and now it is all new. I had a fantasy that it would be filled with exciting people, artists and reprobates with interesting lives and artful merino scarves, who stay up late and drink red wine and practice being intellectual. But so far I see only scruffy students in tramping boots and gangs of lithe girls talking earnestly to each other and walking round in totally unwise light clothing. I’m sure their mothers would have a fit if they knew; although today I did see a girl in a polar fleece dress – now she is on to it!

It’s strange being totally alone in a place where you should know, but don’t really know, what’s going on – after all I speak the language. I’ve been alone in lots of cities before where I don’t speak the language and don’t understand the culture too well either, so you’d think this would be a cinch. But somehow it feels even more foreign - maybe it’s the weather or maybe it’s because it feels like being new in an enormous secondary school where you can’t find your classroom.

Anyway, eventually I walked in the sun and felt grateful to be alive and the cruel mistress showed her beautiful open face. 

I promised not to bore you with all my jottings but feel on fire with ideas, and writing my head off is so much fun. But why oh why, won’t my fucking printer go!! So here’s one for fun.  L

THE GUN

There was a man

He had a car and a gun,

Although I never saw the gun.

But he said he had one.

And he said he knew another man

And he had a car and a gun too.

He said they specialised in dealing with cheating lovers

He said he had done heaps.

“Women are always looking for a man with a car and a gun”, he said.

He said he was discreet.

And that he used tried and true methods.

But I never knew what they were.

I prefer to do my own dirty work.