The month that started with Ken's passing ended with an emotionally charged evening with the girls in the presence of the articles of Tash's existence before she left to go traveling. In between I left the flat in Newtown and my brave attempt at a life in Sydney with nothing to show for my efforts other than a car, and as beautiful as Silvio, my gleaming Ford Falcon station wagon is, he is not the companion I had hoped for. But on the bright side, has a larger luggage capacity. As Tash's birthday came and went and I began to understand that this is a day that will forever be a difficult one to bear. In the midst, Pauline, Tash's Knitting friend appeared, she was home for a bit, we got to hang out and together visited the cemetery and stood graveside. Pauline also met the girls, it was fitting that she was the first of the London crowd to do so, as a local she has many connections to this group already in place.

Seeing them all together, the girls, that night, was very difficult. I have to admit to feeling very homesick at the moment and this environment reinforced my wish for a time and place that no longer exists, consequently the ebb and flow of the weeks past took their toll and my particular evening ended quietly with tears and wine on the veranda.

The following morning commenced not only with the predictable signs of a hangover, but also that of a severe depressive episode, all tunnel vision and thoughts of suicide, my own particular brand of self hate. There are now two things I need to state; this happens to me rarely because the trigger is an inability to process emotion, something that I am clearly equipped to do well and it takes a particular set of circumstances for this to happen. In this case I allowed this situation to arise because the second important statement is that for some of us, the negative is a massive agent of change. So started a period of reflection,learning and acceptance.

....So then, I turned the key in Silvio and made my way out to find some truth in the great blue yonder of Australia under the metaphor of a road trip, a better reason than to simply admit that I was battered and bruised in need of escape.

Silvio had yet to prove himself, my history with motor vehicles is checkered at best, so my general nervousness and left eye focused on the temperature gauge continued as the road surface turned from black to dirt red for the 40 kilometre drive through the countryside from what I continued to consider to be the last vestiges of civilisation. Glen Davies is at the far end of the Capertee valley, which is both convenient and beautiful, as the escarpments either side of the valley are not that tall, more dwarf cliffs actually, the approach then is very picturesque. Glen Davies however, is not. The town was once a bustling industrial settlement housing the workforce for the shale mine, but since it closed in the 1950's the town has slipped into neglect and for the most part disappeared. This is not to say that it is a shit box place, actually even considering the abandonment, the random collection of houses and barns have a shabby charm and a strong celluloid quality, even though I'll admit to humming the duelling banjo's tune from deliverance more than once as I walked around. however it is not a place to visit for a romantic getaway.

So staying there was not such an option, romantic or otherwise and Silvio had his first chance to reveal his heritage taking the country track to a campsite further up the valley. Thankfully his large wheels and grunty engine managed to ford the river I found without becoming stuck, not the wisest move in retrospect, because getting stuck meant a 10 kilometre walk back to Stabby town and even then I had not detected any sign of life. My joy at this immediate success was quickly blunted as the slippery mud track continued through the forest undergrowth accompanyed by mental replays of the written warnings I remembered seeing on some maps before leaving "only to be transversed by 4 wheel drive vehicles". The river of course had to be traversed again in the morning, but this time I am pleased to report, Silvio leaped across the submerged stones like a 2 ton steel gazelle. My first night under metal was a noisy and cold affair, the campsite as large as it was and as remote as it was, had company. With one dude at the entrance with his radio tuned to "DOOFF DOOFF FM" and a 4 wheel drive retiree camping train at the other keeping up the loud joviality way past bedtime.

Before the light disappeared altogether I sat in the car gazing blindly, as is my want at the moment, up at the sun golden coloured cliffs around the campsite, noting that in this country the trees have no fear or vertigo. They organise themselves along any precipice as a continuous defensive line. I have not seen this in any other country, the english tree sits reservedly way to far back from any danger, as does the French and German and the Italian forests sit proud and peacock like on top of hills, never pushing so closely up to the edge.

From Glen Davies, came Mudgee and wine country, but not much fun if you are on your own in the wet and cold winter, so I kept driving. Then Wellington and Orange, which isn't, but as representative of most country towns in this area is a very attractive Colonial distraction, particularly when bathed in the mid winter sunshine as I saw them pass by.

Canberra is a favourite place, the wide open space, quietness and the lack of bustle that I find so difficult to contend with in Sydney makes for a contemplative visit. I have been to the city before, about ten years ago and in fact it was to my considerable surprise that I recognised the area the kindly woman in the Tourist information kiosk had booked me into. I was last in Kingston at night, it was a memorable evening (I use the term loosely) we enjoyed (I use this term even more loosely) an interlude with Tash's cousin at an interesting little pub called the Dalston. He roundly berated me all evening for being English, apparently he did not enjoy his time in my home country and wanted to let me know. We reached this place at high speed in the dark belted into the back of his girlfriends Subaru driven like we were in a rally stage. You tend not to forget things like that.

For this visit the air was fresh in the flatlands of the ACT, frosty in a ski resort kind of way, an understandable chill considering its placement to the snowfields and what did a sophisticated gentleman find to do in the capital of this fair country. Drink coffee at length in the "Paitzza" (sic) every morning after passing by Canberra's number one breakfast destination, with queues out the door. Regarding shades of my former life; had Tash known about this place, we would have had to shoe horn ourselves in for some such breakfast frustration, I found it funny because in the new world the coffee is just as good around the corner. Whilst in Canberra I was very tempted in a Hunter S. Thompson homage, to go into town and buy fireworks, hard core porn, prostitutes and booze (all very legal here, it is the govenmental center after all), but as I suspect my visa has deportation caveats it remains only a fantasy, but if you know the place, the bell tower on Lake Burley Griffin, be there for the 18th March 2021, my 50th birthday, I see no more disgraceful manner to celebrate such a date, oh yes, just remember to bring a gun and Ralph Steadman....

There is a film named after the next town I pointed Silvio's powerful snout too, Jindabyne. As ever with these things, the actual place bore no resemblance to the filmed one, which in this context is no bad thing, it is the gateway to Thredbo and Perisher the major ski resorts of New South Wales. I toyed with both the notion of staying and doing some walking as well as taking the big boy up to the snow, but a brief encounter at the petrol bowser with a BMW X5 owner inexplicably still clad in his fake alien scale skin tight reveal all ski suit (it did, this was not a landscape feature I had expected to encounter), suggested that this is an area, like entering an all male bath houses, that should not be investigated without a considerable amount of prior consideration. My map reading however is not as good as it should be and my intended escape route was hidden in the 1:2500 scale of the road atlas I had brought. This required a quick stop at a shop for directions and from this I discovered the Barry way. The most beautiful of drives, a bit like a Disney land rendition of a donkey track across the Rockies, with trees that cover the hills as they turn into mountains and many different shades of the red earth stretching out onto the road ahead. Silvio earned his reputation as the car that is built for Australia by making short work of the 120 kilometres of unsealed roads and easy work of the steep inclined tracks that made their way up the mountain sides, no roadside barriers to protect if I got it wrong, just downward for a couple of hundred meters.

Between the glorious days driving on the Barry way and Melbourne fell a couple of nights in various motels and cabins, it was still too cold to sleep back in the Falc'. The quaintly named Lakes Entrance, Wallatah beach and Morniton passed under the duvet of the trip, each community promising a charming evening of Chinese food, unexciting fish and chips and RSL gambling, should I want to partake of these small town delights.

Melbourne has always been an inviting proposition and it was nice find the city in find form, not too hot, but cool and breezy. I walked around for hours finding my bearings again in many senses, helped eventually by the discovery of the Belgium Beer Bar. In many ways Belgium Beer Bar is the antitheses of the eponymous Irish pub, there can be no unrestrained drinking around the heady brews that are Trappist ales, so the clientele tend to be more considered, there is no sport as well, the Belgics favouring cycling which is well catered for on SBS and ITV2 and the food, well, I had what was basically Cheese on toast, but coming from such a menu, even the salad was properly seasoned.

The city's aesthetic though, is obviously similar to Sydney in its heritage, but is subtly different perhaps reflecting the more whole nature of the place, Melbourne is Sydney's cooler younger brother, all long hair and groovy pants. Whereas Sydney struggles with its responsibility as the older sibling, carrying the weight of Australia on it's shoulders, Melbourne takes it easy, paints, writes music and hangs out with the chicks, while Sydney toils all day and returns home tired, irritable and expectant of its reward. Here a shabby building frontage is considered urbane and inviting of a cool new cafe, whereas in Sydney it indicates neglect and must be fixed or torn down. The roads are only slightly less busy but this seems to be enough to make drivers here far more courteous. The manner of the city is far more relaxed and as I feel it, more at ease with itself and this makes me happy.

Whilst here I got to meet up with Emma and her husband Ren. Emma was a friend of Tash and I from London, way, way long ago, they invited me to stay in their front room for the week end, which turned out to be fortuitous as I woke up in the hotel that night with a rum old feeling down below which became food poisoning and spent the weekend on their sofa recuperating.

During my stay, which I only intended to be for the weekend, we realised that the Melbourne Film Festival had opened and well, one could not resist. Curiously, considering that the second Transformers film had remained unwatched on my radar for the entire month of it's release, the delights on offer here were far more enticing fruits, so I stayed and enjoyed a week of filmic treats.

Of these one stands out, for perhaps not the right reasons. Alphaville, the absolute classic French art nouveau science fiction film, made in black and white in 1965 and is incredibly influential; it's visual ideas appear in many of my favourite movies of the 1970's and 80's. However, at one point a character stated "I do not understand what is happening" and it was all I could do not to loudly agree with him. This is classic film noir, but sadly taken out of historical context becomes a pastiche of itself. And being french most of the dialogue, well what I could read, this is a black and white film with white subtitling so you could only read them two thirds of the time, was well, pompous posturing. "poetry is the ideal love in the universe" and all that jazz. I concluded that the last 10 minutes contained all the plot for the entire film as well as the effects budget, which in 1965 solely included inserting negative frames at random points.

I could have stayed in Melbourne for ever, this might be telling me something. However even when meandering there is a schedule and after breakfast on Sunday Silvio and I made a move downwards out of town, past Geelong and onto the Great Ocean Road. Now, I ruminated on this for a couple of days driving, eventually deciding that despite wanting it to be Great! Ocean Road, the B100 from Torquay to Portland is more Great Ocean, road, with the focus on the road. There are some beautiful vistas as the black hugs the rugged rockiness of the coastline, particularly around Lorne and again along the majesty of the ship wreck coast, but between there is a lot of farmland. There was also the worst pizza I have ever tasted, but the less said to spoil Melbourne's Hampton esque Port Fairy the better.

The "Great Ocean, oh road", continued to distinguish itself in the annals of great misrepresentations with a 85 kilometre stretch at the beginning of the homeward run between Portland and Kensington SE; that would be 85k's of tree lined road, not even deciduous at that, but commercial pine with two brief glimpses of the sea. These glimpses might have been longer had I known that they were about to appear and could have slowed right down. I was rewarded for my tolerance at the end of this distraction with the worst vegetable Focaccia imaginable. Some of us are consistently rewarded for our endeavours, I reasoned, dropping my root vegetable sandwich, made with extra root, into the bin.

After three days driving, though a cold night of Pinnaroo where it would have been warmer if I had slept in the car, but at least I got to experience the leopard skin shower curtain next morning. To Wagga Wagga (You say Wogga, I know two 'A's, but not pronounced the same, I don't understand it either), then Sydney loomed into view and the familiar sights and sounds engulfed me again. P platers (learner drivers, but scarier in a mo'fo gansta rapper way) stretching out along the road undertaking without indicating on a whim and a prayer, articulated trucks bearing down the unfeasibly close 3 lane carriageways seemingly mere centimetres from the side of my head and traffic light sequences that define all but the most chaos based logic.

...And what did I discover on these travels, well nothing that I did not already know, but much that I now accept. The interlude in Newtown was more than an excursion to look for a girlfriend, it has roots in finding if it was possible to take some shortcuts with my own particular arc of bereavement.

My eine Vergangenheitsbewältigungsreise reached its conclusion and then my grieving period for Tash slowly ebbed away, though of course my future will always be gifted with moments where the pain will revisit unannounced like an afternoon stroll through my own personal emotive mine field, but actually that is OK, I find that am left with something less personal but far more powerful and I have been ignoring its reach of late. After much thought in the last three weeks I am have begun to understand part of what ails me. There has been a return to mechanics of loss. It seems that my subconscious has a much better grasp of what is required from this and has been subtly directing my hand in the past 18 months; the pack up, the leave, the arrive, relationships left and stranger ones formed. Though I take responsibility for my actions and their consequences, the truth of the matter is that I have not always been sure of my motives and finally I am now understanding the rest of the plan. Maybe it is best to consider that my conscious self was left alone to deal with the emotional loss of Tash, whilst my stronger survival instinct moved silently behind the scenes directing the wider play for me. Loss is simple, I was connected to someone and now I am not and there is no rational explanation for this that can be applied, no emotional ointment, no ignoring what happened, not even a pleasant distraction will suffice. Loss will stay until I fulfil it's demands and if I do not give it the credence it deserves and appease its appetite, it will continue to be an undercurrent that will eventually destroy all that I build. This has been here for some time, but it has taken this long to finally finish dismantling the carriage containing what was once our existence and I find I am now left with the iron chassis and bogies of a train on tracks to a destination not of my choosing. But happily I recognise that it will take me somewhere new, somewhere I deserve to be and therefore willing surrender myself to this cause. With time this carriage will be rebuilt and though it might contain items from now and before, the honest likelihood is that it will be rebuilt several times and metaphorically speaking I may even find some stations on route, but this will not be over until I have allowed myself to travel to the end of the line.

This is not to be a miserable journey and if you think that I will be living for Tash, then you have misread my comments, it means that I finally understand the remit by which I will be carrying on. It will require some more sacrifices of me though, things I do not want to give up, but will have to, as if the people close to me haven't suffered enough. Though hopefully I have written this in the correct way so that it is understood; if I had a choice the world would have stayed the same, but that was never going to be and I cannot hold on to everything we once had just by the slender threads that I now grasp. The wheels of the universe continue to turn and I will let it take me where it wants me to go.

In the midst of this, my neice got married; congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Morris.