Knucklehead diary entry

It's coming down outside; A steady rain, the sort that just keeps on coming. It's not heavy, just constant, relentless. The sky is uniformly grey, no cloud definition and no breaks...A blanket of grey water-filled clouds. Suits my mood really.

Today started with our ANZAC DAY commemoration which was conducted in my front yard rather than at the dawn service in the city where thousands would usually gather for Australia's most important commemorative day. You can read about it in this post.

Because of the virus we all celebrated in isolation.

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Faith and I arose at 0530 (5:30am) and at 0600 my wife and I were standing at the front of our house with the Last Post blaring from my bluetooth speaker next to us.

The sounds of a lone bugle filled the silent, still and dark morning, with the haunting sound of the Last Post as the sky slowly began to stain red with the hint of the first light like a glowing ember, or maybe red-stained to signify the blood of so many Australian servicemen who stormed the beaches of Gallipoli at 0429 April 25 1915, and who have paid the ultimate price in all wars since.

I stood with tears in my eyes in remembrance of all, but with a special thought for those mates of mine who I've lost to war both during and post-war through PTSD. It is always a deeply emotional time for me...Today it seemed more so as Faith and I were alone, not surrounded by thousands of others.

I'll be honest...No one else in my street was up and standing in the cold morning air in darkness and remembrance...And that makes me very angry. It's disrespectful, to those who served and to those who died serving this country...But my bluetooth speaker is incredibly loud so I'm sure they appreciated the abrupt wake up call at 6am. I feel good...Helping those lazy bastards to commemorate from their beds. (Assholes.)

We were planning a long hike today and work in the garden Sunday however switched our plans after a look at the weather over breakfast. We ended up getting the gardening gear on and getting busy. The work and toil would be a good way to shed my pent up emotions and silently remember my mates anyway right?

Today we top-dressed the lawn with soil designed for exactly that purpose. It's a mix of soil and nutrients that can be used as a base for lawns and as a top-dressing.

We have a section where no grass grows as our gardener kept mowing it too low...I've fired him now and do it myself so am looking to fill gaps in the lawn over time. We ended up turning it all over with a garden fork then mixing in the top-dressing soil and a sprinkling of gypsum which is a very fine sand perfect for breaking up clay-based soil. After raking it out, tamping it all down and filling some other small holes here and there, plus a little more top-dressing here and there, it was ready for the new seed.

My front lawn is kikuyu grass which hails from East Africa I believe. Pennisetum clandestinum is the species name and it's a tropical grass that is rapid-growing and quite aggressive. It sends runners out so spreads quite nicely and is very hardy, the exact reason I like it.

I spread the seed using one of those seed spreader things so it covered evenly then got onto the fun part...Watering it all in.

I have pop up sprinklers in the front so used them but also deep-watered the patches I'd filled and had spread the seeds. I was about 80% done when the skies opened up as they'd been threatening and so I turned off the sprinklers and let nature take over. That was two hours ago, around 1530 (3:30pm) and that nice steady soaking rain hasn't stopped yet. Lovely.

We were in the garden for about 6 hours with a journey to the hardware store included...So probably just over 5 hours of actual toil. I'm a little sore (I have scoliosis and ankylosing spondylitis in my back) which is painful at rest but after I work...It hurts a lot. I feel good though as we got the job done perfectly in time to capture the rainfall and the hard work will pay dividends.

Tonight we'll watch some shows, Westworld series two, and relax a bit as we're both tired after an early morning wake up, drained form the emotional strain of ANZAC Day and fatigued from the toil in the garden...Nice trifecta huh?

I'm sorry this post isn't very good...More a diary entry I suppose. I'm a little flat I suppose. I've been thinking about my mate RB, an SF operator who took his own life a couple years ago after a long battle with PTSD...I never got to say goodbye and that bothers me...I miss him a lot, but mostly on ANZAC Day. I called his wife earlier, as always, and had a chat...She was distraught as you might imagine. Still, it was the least I could do.

Anyway, I hope you guys have had, or are having, a great Saturday. I just got a 5 minute video from my brother @tarazkp which is of my niece @smallsteps reading a story book...She's so funny and cute and the video made me smile, and tear up again of course. I miss her so much, but the video was a nice surprise, and very welcome. Just what I needed really.