Saturday, August 18th .....

As I drive into Launceston, there’s a farm dam on the right, not far from the road and very popular with black swans.  During the summer there was a thick growth of reeds in the middle of the dam but they have all but died off with the cold weather.  Over the past week or so, pairs of swans have been building their nests in the shallow water; there were four when I last looked but that number could increase to ten or more by the end of next month.

I checked Wikipedia to see whether the nest were floating or built up from the bottom and discovered some extraordinary information about swans’ mating habits.  They mate for life (I knew that) but about a quarter of all pairings are homosexual.  Apparently, the gay couple acquire eggs by forming a relationship with a female and then chasing her away when she produces the eggs.  Alternatively, the two males will drive off a female sitting on her eggs and take them over.  Do the chicks from that ménage suffer in later life?  The Christian lobby tell us that children need both a mother and father.  Does that apply to birds as well?

In Tasmania, the government is talking about allowing gay marriage.  I wonder if they should take evidence from an ornithologist before they draft the legislation.

I’m reading a book at the moment written by Charles Todd, one of a series. It’s in the tradition of Agatha Christie mysteries with the hero a Detective Inspector who has just returned from WW1, suffering from shell shock.  He’s a psychological mess and carries around with him, in the back of his mind, the voice of his platoon sergeant, Hamish, who had been summarily executed on the battlefield for so-called cowardice.

There’s lot to like about the books.  Charles Todd is, in fact, a mother and son writing team, one of whom lives in Oregon and the other somewhere else.  Their descriptions of English life in the 1920s are excellent and they capture the nuances of country villages very well.  Hamish is, as you would expect, Scottish and the way they capture his accent is outstanding.  Just occasionally, an Americanism slips in: putting sugar and cream in tea, and a load of lumber being delivered to the cart-maker.  However, I suppose they are writing for an American audience and we all know that Americans can’t cope with anything except their own narrow perceptions on the world.

This time next week we will be joining the ship.  Our previous cruises have been on ships like the Diamond Princess and the Volendam, marketed for the mature traveller who enjoys some of the finer things in life without necessarily having the wherewithal to pay for it.  The Pacific Dawn is aimed at younger people and families.  We’re more likely to get a chicken schnitzel for dinner than an escallope of veal, but no doubt we will cope.  The ship was designed by Enzo Piano and built in the early-1990s but a major refit in the past couple of years has given it a new lease on life.