Silly After Action Report - Pride and Joy

Maggiore Sonni de Bono was lingering over the fifth course of breakfast when his adjutant interrupted his leisurely perusal of his mistress.

"Sir, the men need you."

de Bono blinked, "What men?"

"Your men, the soldiers under your command."

"Oh them, what's their problem?"

"I think you'd better see for yourself sir."

Ever the professional soldier de Bono departed for the front lines as soon as his breakfast was finished.  He even rushed the coffee. On arrival he noticed a bunch of figures in tattered Summer uniforms cringing in the snow.  Good, his men were still in position.  Just yesterday he had given them a rousing speech pointing out the hopelessness of their position, the inevitability of Greek vengeance and the need for all of them to die for the greater glory of Rome.  They had been so inspired that not all of them had deserted.  At least they hadn't when he had left them to have dinner and catch an opera performance in Tirana.  Now, however, those remaining stared towards the front with fear in their eyes.  de Bono peered in that direction and ice settled over his soul.

It wasn't the masses of Greek horsemen plodding through the snow that chilled him nor the wagons very slowly hauling artillery pieces forward.  There, on the right were not one, not two but three small, boxy shapes clattering and groaning through the slush.  de Bono stared in horror, surely they couldn't be...

"L3s!"  It was a dismal howl from one of the soldiers.  "The Greeks have L3s, our cause is doomed."

This was the moment when an officer proves his worth.  Covering his own terror de Bono spoke, soothing the fears of his men.

"Stand fast brave soldiers of Italy!  Yes they have L3s but fear not for our reinforcements are coming."  Hastily de Bono searched his memory, he had sent that memo hadn't he?  He was pretty sure he had.

"That's right boys, reinforcements are on their way and they're bringing, wait for it, another 45mm mortar.  That means we have two and can laugh the Greeks to scorn.  To your foxholes, fight hard in the certainty of victory and let me know how you get on."

With his men thus encouraged de Bono flagged down a passing taxi; it was almost time for brunch.

So this is ASL Scenario 90 - Pride and Joy.  Here I shall command a somewhat desperate bunch of Italians huddled in possibly the only Greek village they managed to capture as a combination of cavalry, wagon hauled artillery and, yes, imported L3s spearhead the Greek attempts to explain why invading their country was a really stupid idea.  

Mike Sexton's Greeks have to hold more buildings than the Italians and also make sure that no good order Italian troops are on or adjacent to only road leading out of this one horse burg.  Mike has twenty four squads (sixteen elite) mounted on horses and commanded by no fewer than five officers a couple of whom are reasonably good.  Packed into their saddle bags are a heavy machine gun, two medium machine guns, three light machine guns and an antitank rifle (the Greeks are the only ones with armour in this scenario but whatever).  Struggling slowly through the snow are wagons hauling three 75mm guns which may or may not turn up in time to cause a difference and rolling on in support are three L3 light tanks.  The L3s might not be a triumph of Italian industry but persuading the Greeks to buy them was certainly a triumph of Italian salesmanship.

Determined that this little corner of Greece remain forever Italian are my noble troops.  I have sixteen squads split evenly between elite and bersaglieri.  They are guided by four officers one of whom as at the upper end of mediocre and one of whom is at the bottom end of useless.  Support is not lacking as I have a heavy machine gun, two medium machine guns, four light machine guns, a fearsome 45mm mortar and a somewhat better quality antitank rifle than the crap the Greeks are stuck with.  Providing a little extra punch is a single 65mm artillery piece.  Between them sixteen squads have managed to dig eight foxholes.  In case this seems inadequate on turn five another seven first line squads turn up with a couple of officers, a pair of machine guns and another 45mm mortar.

 It's all about delay and making rational decisions as to what parts of your force are expendable.  I decided my bersaglieri were expendable and set them up forward guarding the hilltops that loomed over Mike's entry area.  I hoped I might be able to shoot a few Greeks off their horses and generally slow down forward movement for a couple of turns.  To help this forlorn hope survive the first shots they got most of the foxholes.  The only support weapons I wasted on them were a pair of light machine guns one for each squad on the far flanks.  While the others were to die in place it was my hope that these guys might be able to make a fighting withdrawal delaying Mike further.  In the centre were the remainder of my bersaglieri and a couple of elite squads manning useful looking buildings and hoping to get machine gun or atr shots at his tanks.  All of this was intended to delay the time it took Mike's forces to get the village proper which I stuffed full of elite squads, an mmg, the hmg and the only officer who could get his men's attention.  The 65mm gun was hidden in some woods just out the front.  This was my last stand position in as far as I hoped by the time Mike had captured it my reinforcements would hold the road and he would be out of time to drive them off.

  The first couple of turns would be good for me.  Men riding horses around in the snow proved to be a target even Italian soldiers can hit and Mike lost a full squad and a half killed while the others pulled hard on the reins and tried to find slightly less exposed paths forward.  Of course when I say "good for me" I'm speaking holistically.  It certainly wasn't good for the hapless bersaglieri who, having shot a few Greeks now found themselves ground zero for an immense number of furious men and largely disinterested horses.  Two turns was all it took for my front line to be slaughtered but it was two turns Mike wouldn't get back.  On the flanks my lmg teams did indeed manage to sneak away from the carnage heading towards the rear.  Meanwhile three sledges hauling guns inched slowly forward behind Mike's line to derisive comments from both Italians and Greeks.

A couple of turns in.  Mike has overrun my forward defenders and look on the left.  The L3s approach

Over the course of the next couple of turns Mike swarmed forward with a jingle of harness and crunching of hooves.  He was helped in this by the fact that I wasn't really trying to stop him too much.  My men waited, crouching beneath their concealment counters for the horsemen to get close.  Having had to disperse his men to take out my initial defenders on the hilltops Mike now found difficulty in concentrating them again.  Greek soldiers were spread all over the map.  Mike was a little concerned about this even though the general trend was forward.  Despite the lack of concentration Mike was definitely covering ground and on the right he pushed through my exiguous defences to threaten a serious flanking movement.

On the left Mike's L3s threaded their way through obstacles and rolled forward to dominate the open ground in front of the village.  Horsemen dismounted behind hedges and started assembling support weapons.  I was starting to get seriously concerned, it looked like my sacrificial bersaglieri might have died in vain.  My centre though decided to stand firm (apart from the mortar squad who broke without firing a shot).  Mike knew things were getting serious when an lmg team on the left immobilised an L3 leaving him with two runners (walkers really) while on the right a pair of Italian squads in buildings were about to cover themselves in glory.  Meanwhile, far to the rear, the gun sledges slowly struggled upwards through the snow.

The Greeks are coming.  Can my Italians hold?

By the end of turn four both Mike and I were starting to get seriously worried.  Mike was concerned about the number of turns remaining to achieve his objectives and I was concerned about whether I would be able to hold out at all.  Half my at start force were dead and on the right at least Mike was manoeuvring around the trees in what seemed like a menacing fashion.  My 65mm gun popped up, took a shot at one of his squads and was promptly broken by his hmg team.  That gun wouldn't fire another round all game.

Then time slowed down, or the game did at any rate.  The pair of elite squads I had on the right held their positions against an increasing number of Greeks (admittedly one of the squads did have a medium machine gun) while on the left my troops managed to sneak away from the Greeks trying to encircle them.  In the centre Mike had a pair of machine gun teams set up but no infantry conveniently placed to take advantage of any results they scored.  Things didn't improve for Mike when my mmg heroes managed to vapourise a squad foolishly moving in the open.  Meanwhile the gun sledges have pretty much reached the top of the hill and their teams are gasping purple faced from the effort.

Things have slowed down a little

With, as he felt, the clock against him Mike marshalled his forces.  He sent a squad on a long trip towards the end of the board, in anticipation of my reinforcements.  Such was my confidence that I disdained to drop concealment by firing on him.  Well it was either confidence or inattention.  But Mike wasn't finished.  In his hour of need he turned to his L3s and rolled them forward to menace the rear of my centre holdouts.  There was no escape, the writing was on the wall and the only choice was to sell their lives as dearly as possible.  On the left Mike was pushing forwards through the trees delayed only by a dummy stack while my real troops heading for the stone buildings as fast as their little legs could carry them.  Up on the hill the gun sledges were still in the process of arriving, unloading, defibrillating and positioning.

The centre is doomed

With my machine gun team in the centre doomed beyond all hope of redemption I decided to take matters into my own hands and charged them into close combat with some conveniently adjacent Greeks.  We both survived to be locked in melee.  Since, despite his losses, Mike had a considerably larger surviving force than I did I will leave it to you to judge how effective that was.  The next turn Mike reinforced the melee but I survived again so Mike fired into it.  My boys shrugged off the morale check but one of his squads and an 8-0 broke.  A wounded 8-0 would limp away from the battlefield but honesty compels me to admit that his surviving squad finally took my heroes down.  Over on the right my other centre holdout had been exchanging fire with three Greek squads for several turns for no result to either of us but it couldn't last and finally the last Italian defenders went down.

But Holy Mussolini's Ghost, by the time Mike was ready to assault the village my reinforcements had arrived.  I didn't try anything heroic with them, they found the most defensible terrain they could as close to their entrance hex as possible and challenged Mike to throw them out.  Except for one squad with an atr which charged forwards through the snow to reinforce the village.  Mike promptly put a 75mm shell over their heads as they approached.  It didn't hit them but suffice it to say that it wasn't only snow soaking their trousers when they arrived.

Mike was ready now and naturally at this moment of decision it all fell to the L3s.  Forward they clattered, snow falling from their tracks, and as they turned my mmg managed to stun both of them.  Terrified they fled yelping for the exit.  Mike may have screamed in agony or I may have screamed in triumph, there was definitely screaming.  

Goodbye little L3s, you won't be missed

Mike's artillery had started to find the range now and despite the loss of his armour he pressed forward against the village.  He tried to put on a brave face but his head was hanging low.  We were playing on line so I couldn't see it but the lowness of his head made its way through the internet none the less.  He did manage to fight his way in to the village but time was running out and my surviving troops clung to the remaining buildings for dear life.  Eventually with one turn to go and my reinforcements barely touched he conceded.

The end; too many Italians, not enough time.

The only casualty among my reinforcements was the gallant team who manned the 45mm mortar.  Mike seemed to have a pathological fear of these weapons and went out of his way to kill those manning them at every opportunity.  I felt like telling him not to bother but then I realised while he was doing that he wasn't shoot at more important stuff and I let him have his head.  Much thanks to Mike for the game.  Next time I shall be attacking and it will be my turn to bash my head against his, no doubt, sturdy defences.

Maggiore de Bono stretched and rose slowly from the sunbed.  His mistress was standing there holding a letter.

"Congratulations," she said, "apparently your men fought off the Greek attack and held their ground with great courage."

"That's my boys," said de Bono vaguely, he'd actually forgotten their existence.  Something dropped out of the envelope and his mistress caught it before it hit the floor.

"What's that?" asked de Bono without interest.

"It's for you," she replied, "apparently its the Silver Medal of Valour for your heroic defence."

"Nice, put it with the rest."

Travelling Pathetically - Eastern Suburbs Edition

 The other day I went to Kingsford.  In my defence I didn't know I was going to Kingsford until quite late in the day when it was a little difficult to back out.  Since my puffin still hadn't recovered from its exertions at Salt Pan Creek the previous day I left him behind to deal with the increasingly furious neighbours complaining about our arguments.  I would experience Kingsford by myself.

Ah Kingsford; the very name itself conjures up images of a person desperately googling Kingsford to find anything to say about it.  Named after one our nation's foremost aviators Kingsford's history is rich beyond compare, it was built in the 1920s and its still there now.  It may have been inspired by an aviator but it took nearly a century before it was decided the place needed any sort of transport link other than the occasional road.  Now, however, Sydney's latest stretch of light rail sort of peters out in the general vicinity of the suburb thus bringing public transportation well into the 1890s.

At this point you may be wondering why I went to Kingsford.  You may be wondering that although I suspect you're more likely to be wondering "why am I still reading this crap?" or "why hasn't this clown been committed yet?".  The answer (to the first question, not the other two) is I have friends who live in Kingsford.  On Sunday last they planned a small get together and at the last moment reluctantly decided they should invite me along as well.  I suspect they were expecting me to refuse but when I accepted they were too well mannered to suddenly change their minds.

My friend Tony has apparently spent the last three months tearing concrete and asbestos out of the ground with his teeth.  As a result he looks lean and healthy (and his teeth look like he's embraced cannibalism).  The entire concrete tearing episode has left them with a lawn of lush grass which they can't walk on yet.  Apparently its very young and needs to be coddled.  Giving them the benefit of my puffin rearing skills I pointed out that surgically applied cruelty produces far better results.  They smiled politely and scratched my name off the list of people they would entrust their daughter to (I'm not offended by that but I'm a little pissed off that my puffin is still on the list).

In addition to Tony and his wife Natali two other friends made their appearance, recoiled slightly at the sight of me, and cautiously said hello.  Jason and Idette are modern day gypsies moving from home to home at such a rate that I have completely given up trying to figure out where they're living at any given moment.  Rounding out this rogues gallery were two daughters (one for each married couple) and a cat which made a brief entrance and then vanished.

There was wine, there was conversation and some excellent cheese so that we could fill in the time before dinner by eating.  From time to time an expectant eye was cast skyward.  We were waiting for nightfall.  When it became dark the coloured lights in their pool would come on for our entertainment.  Coloured lights in a pool are an awesome idea if only because there's nothing like an epileptic fit to take your mind off drowning.  Eventually the Sun succumbed to our collective wishes and fled the sky pursued by our impatient cursing.  I sat back with a glass of wine in hand and watched the pool change colours entertained by the joyful sound of ten year olds pushing each other into the water.

With food and wine consumed, pool lights enjoyed and the realisation slowly growing that neither child was actually going to drown the other there was nothing left but to say polite goodbyes and leave.  I'm pretty sure I behaved myself and the psychological damage of my visit was nothing that a severe opioid addiction and a lifetime in therapy couldn't cure.  I'm hoping to be invited back again next year.  If he's good I might bring my puffin.

Silly After Action Report - Thrilla in Manila

 Corporal Horii Kawasaki pulled the fronds from a blasted palm tree a little further over his head.

"Join the navy they said.  See the world they said.  So far all I've seen is a low rent section of Manila."

"Stop whining," muttered his comrade I couldn't be bothered giving a name to.  "at the moment most of the navy is seeing the bottom of Leyte Gulf.  And this is actually a high rent section of Manila."

"You mean there are worse parts?" said Kawasaki in horror.

"Most of it actually.  Now share the palm fronds around we don't want to be hit by artillery fire."

"Isn't it the army's job to defend cities?"

"The army didn't want to, they've buggered off for the hills."

"I should have joined the army."

Kawasaki's companion was about to make a scathing comment about the Imperial Japanese Army in general and the portion of it currently based in the Philippines in particular when a sudden noise caught his attention.  He peered out over the wall and cursed softly.

"What is it?" demanded Kawasaki.

"Get back to the CO and tell him that half the American army is just about to cross the street."

"Why me?"

"I'm busy making bunkers out of palm fronds.  Come on Kawasaki, on your bike."

Kawasaki rolled his eyes, "was that joke really worth all of the build up?"

"Probably not," replied his companion, "but it's too late now.  Help yourself to a palm frond on your way out."

It is 1945 and Manila is about to be liberated MacArthur style ie the place is about to be razed to the ground.  It is possible that Hiroshima was "liberated" less thoroughly than Manila.  It shouldn't have happened like that.  The Japanese army commander in the Philippines suffered from a malady rare in the Japanese army; common sense.  He took one look at the city, realised it would be a deathtrap for any soldiers based there once the Americans brought up their firepower and declared Manila an open city while decamping with his troops for the mountains.  Unfortunately the Japanese navy attempted to compensate for mindless stupidity with more mindless stupidity.  They garrisoned Manila with their own troops and declared the city closed again.

We are playing scenario BFP-60 - Thrilla in Manila.  I shall command the soldiers (sailors?) of the 5th Naval battalion as they attempt to prove that drowning is only one of the mortality options the Japanese navy provided to its recruits.  I have to defend the Bureau of Agriculture and Commerce from the predatory grasp of the American 1st Cavalry division.  Despite the name I would like to assure readers that no horses were harmed in the making of this blog entry.

To defend said building I have thirteen squads ranging from elite (six) through first line (four) to second line (three).  I also have seven crews to man the spectacular plethora of support weapons available.  It has to be admitted the navy did its troops proud when it came to support.  I have a pair of 12.7mm twin barrelled anti aircraft guns, a .50cal machine gun, a heavy machine gun, two medium machine guns, three light machine guns, two demo charges and a 75mm gun.  I also get the option to fortify about half of Metro Manila. In addition to the fortified building locations I have a couple of wire hexes, two pillboxes, twenty four factors of mines and four factors of antitank mines.  Pretty impressive you might think.  You would be wrong.

Commanding the cavalry was Dave Wilson.  Dave has three elite squads and sixteen first line.  These guys have a pair of .50cal machine guns, two medium machine guns, two flamethrowers and four demo charges.  Lest this seem inadequate to the task at hand let us review the support available to our horse fondlers.  Two 155mm artillery pieces, two M4A1 Sherman tanks, two M-10 self propelled guns and a Sherman tank with added flamethrower.  I'm not surprised Manila was destroyed, I am surprised that the entire Philippines didn't sink into the sea.  

It's all about the Agriculture and Commerce Bureau.  Dave wins by controlling the building.  I win if by some miracle he falls short.  Below is the at start positions.  I have fortified the crap out of everything possible and while I have a fair few troops in the victory building I also have some squirreled away in flanking buildings hoping to spring a trap or two.  I left a set DC in the street in the hopes that a tank would drive over it.  Sadly by the time one did its owner was dead.

At start positions

 As can be seen from the above picture Dave didn't exactly go for subtlety.  Instead he just parked his entire force as close to me as humanly possible.  The red circle marks where a pillbox with one of my 12.7mm AA guns sits hidden.  Notice the three huge stacks of US troops hanging around in the open nearby.  Given the possibility for carnage inherent in that particular set up the results were somewhat disappointing for me.  Nevertheless the first turn was definitely my best.  Rate of fire was something that my troops had apparently never heard of but my 12.7mm did chop up a decent amount of Dave's infantry and send them fleeing for the woods.  Elsewhere Dave heaved an immense amount of high explosive and smoke in my direction with mixed results.

End of US turn 1.  Things look deceptively good so far

 

Apparently Dave's tankers and artillery support had doubled down on the HE shells at the price of leaving all of their smoke and WP rounds back in Hawaii.  Some smoke was brought down in that first turn but for the most part Dave was entitled to be disappointed with the results as weapon after weapon turned out to be smoke bereft.

Despite the lack of comforting billows of cover Dave moved forward on the left.  I had a hidden mmg team waiting for him to cross the open ground.  Cross the open ground Dave's troops did whereupon I cut loose with an 8-2 shot that did absolutely nothing.  Dave then advanced in, ambushed the Japanese and wiped them out.  If you want to stop reading now that is pretty much a description of the entire game.

In the centre I had a concealed squad and lmg team lurking in the palm debris behind a wall.  Next to them was a dummy stack sitting on a minefield.  The dummy stack was swept away by fire but the lmg squad was incremented down over a couple of turns, I think it was a conscript halfsquad when it took the fatal shots.

One turn in and I was in trouble on the left but I wasn't too worried as I had a pillbox with the other 12.7mm sighted down the street, a pair of elite squads in the rowhouse behind and a crew and .50cal guided by my best leader nestling in a fortified building location.  All seemed good.  It wasn't.

On the left Dave managed to sneak concealed troops up next to my pillbox.  Even with a concealed target a pointblank shot was a 12+2 or, to put it another way, not good enough.  I can't recall whether Dave blew up the crew with a DC or killed them in close combat but it has to be said they contributed nothing to the Japanese defence. My .50cal revealed itself, apparently for the specific purpose of demonstrating how useless a .50cal machine gun is under the direction of a 10-1 leader.  In the course of the game they fired three shots the lowest of which was an eight and one of which was boxcars.  Eventually Dave got tired of laughing at them and hit them with a critical hit from an M-10.

Things are bad and about to get worse

Things were slower in the centre and on the right as Dave needed to rally the troops mangled in the first turn which took a couple of turns.  The pillbox he dealt with by firing first a 75mm round through the entrance and following that up with a flamethrower attack.  The crew manning that gun gave up life's weary burden and my outer defences were gone.  Then he built up and rallied his forces.  I lost my other hmg when it unwisely fired on an American squad dashing across the street.  I say unwisely because with its presence revealed Dave parked his flamethrowing Sherman next to it and incinerated everything in the hex.

This was pretty much standard for the remainder of the game.  If I shot at anything Dave would simply retaliate with enough fire to wipe me out.  During slow periods his guns and tanks resumed their pounding of the victory building slowly but eventually getting the results that striped and then killed the occupants.  By the time turn four rolled around the only Japanese troops that survived were those that hadn't done anything yet and Dave's forces were monstering me on all sides.  

Things are not looking good

 

Rather to my surprise my 75mm gun did manage to immobilise a Sherman while it was in bypass in my hex, sadly the crew didn't abandon the tank with the result that my gun couldn't shoot at anything else.I really had a choice, I could hide under concealment counters and at least force Dave to go through the slow process of pounding me to nothing or I could shoot at the Americans and be killed instantly.  Dave knew the end was near and started moving his forces forward without fear.  I unveiled my last mmg and took a 4-3 shot at some Americans troops in the open.  I rolled an eleven and conceded on the spot.  This game is rated 9-7 to the Japanese on ROAR, I can only assume the people who took the Japanese were somewhat more skilled than I am (in fairness not difficult to imagine).  Dave quite literally dismantled me in about four turns.  The only Japanese left at the end were those who had spent the entire game under concealment counters.  Congratulations to Dave on the win, he went hard and early and it paid off big time.

The end, I have precisely three squads and two crews left

 

Corporal Kawasaki pushed a palm frond out of his eyes and looked around.  There didn't appear to be anyone left alive.  Correction, he thought.  There didn't appear to be any Japanese left alive.  Burrowing down amongst the rubble Kawasaki fished a recruiting poster out of his pocket.  The air force was looking for keen young men and you didn't even have to fly too well.  That was the life decided Kawasaki; smart uniform, beautiful women, stationed behind the front lines, perfect.  He hastily filled out the application and looked around for a post box.  As he did so he wondered vaguely why they'd decided to call the new air units Kamikaze.

Travelling Pathetically - Puffin Expedition Edition

 I was regaling my co-workers with tales of my adventures along a poisoned canal and through our city's smallest suburb (it was technically a work video conference so they couldn't just walk away) when one of them asked why I hadn't taken my puffin along for the journey.  Guilt crushed my mind.  I was a neglectful partner who had left my puffin behind (chained to the wall on one occasion) while I went out and enjoyed myself.  There and then I resolved to be a better companion and to take a small stuffed imitation seabird on my next journey out into the world.

The next journey out into the world as it so happened was informed by a previous journey out into the world.  On my journey out to Englorie Park I had noticed an unexpected smear of green as the train rumbled through an industrialised portion of the city's southwest.  A little research (hello wikipedia) informed me that this was Salt Pan Creek so called because despite all the talents possessed by our colonial forebears original and creative naming conventions didn't rate a mention.

Salt Pan Creek is a seven kilometre long stretch of water which rises to the west of some suburb I've never heard of and heads roughly southward.  Before it can really come into its own as a waterway it collides with the Georges River and is never heard from again.  Said collision happens at Riverwood a suburb formerly known as Herne Bay.  The name was changed in the fifties to removed the stigma associated with living in such a poor, wretched, crime riddled location as Herne Bay.  Apparently this worked, all people now have to do is overcome the stigma associated with living in Riverwood.

Despite flowing through a heavily urbanised environment Salt Pan Creek has a area of mangrove bedecked wetlands for the usual reasons such things remain in heavily urbanised environments; it was difficult to build on and it gave the locals (both residents and industry) somewhere to dump their rubbish.  Efforts have been made in recent times to spruce up the wetlands or at least increase the mangrove to rubbish ratio and it is known to be the home of no fewer than three endangered ecological communities of various plants and stuff.  You know; trees, plants, insects the usual things that make up an ecological community.  This was the green smear I had seen poking its head shyly from among the factories and motorways on my previous journey.

Since this was our first outing together I went the whole hog.  My puffin and I enjoyed a coffee at a local cafe before boarding the first of three trains necessary to transport us the twelve kilometres from Dulwich Hill to Riverwood.

Coffee is better with a puffin

Speaking of trains there was some difficulty with these for various reasons it would take too long to go into although my puffin insists it was simple incompetence on my part.  Nevertheless after a certain amount of time consuming back and forth I found myself strolling down a suburban street.  There were trees in peoples yards and suddenly there were more trees and no yards, plus rubbish.  We had arrived.

A pleasant surprise greeted me on arrival.  The "walking path" was actually a raised platform made necessary by the fact that we were walking through (technically, just above) a wetland.  Wetlands are vital ecological areas that strongly resemble overgrown slime pits and would be murder to walk through unless you are provided with a convenient walkway.  I stepped onto the walkway and away from the city into something that varied between wretchedly overgrown nature strip and genuine (albeit soggy) bushland.  The first thing we encountered were a pair of ducks that were risking their lives by disporting themselves in one of the creeklets (storm drains) that ran into Salt Pan Creek.  Puffins are of course seabirds but my puffin showed no desire to encounter this particular piece of water.

Our adventure begins

Patiently putting up with my desire for a visual record of our journey my puffin posed obediently looking over the ducks.  If the ducks felt threatened by the presence of a North American seabird they didn't show it.  They were too busy disturbing the contaminated sediment at the bottom of the creeklet, possibly looking for food and possibly in the hopes of poisoning the surrounding locals.

My puffin is keen to stay as far away from this particular water as possible

The beginning of the journey was rather low key but it rapidly got better as we left civilisation behind (about fifty metres behind but behind nonetheless) and struck out across the wetlands.  If one looked to the left one could see backyards, houses and on one occasion some discarded venetian blinds.  On the right was an expanse of marsh, grass and mangroves that looked like it had never heard of human habitation.  There was a stillness which I've noticed before when wandering through such areas.  It wasn't silent, quite apart from the fact that the area is surrounded by houses and industrial estates, a railway line and a major motorway pass over the creek.  Silent is not the term to use, very noisy is the term to use but it seemed muffled as though being filtered through (for example) an improbably surviving area of natural wetland.

The untamed wilderness was so exciting for my puffin I had to grab him to stop him flying away

I spent the next two and a half hours crossing and crisscrossing Salt Pan Creek, passing wetlands, mangroves, electricity towers and occasionally stumbling on to more disciplined patches of green where people were playing soccer, picnicking and, in the case of one young lady, enthusiastically straddling what I hope was her boyfriend and not a relative.  I shielded my puffin's eyes and hurried past.

Salt Pan Creek itself was actually quite an impressive piece of water and I was rather sorry that it got swallowed up by the Georges River before it really got a chance to make a name for itself.  Waterbirds carved majestic wakes through the water and in some of the lower rent mangrove areas I was astonished to find ibis stalking through the mud hunting for food in an area completely devoid of rubbish bins.  I honestly didn't think they still knew how to do this.  I tried to take a photo but the ibis were obviously concerned that if I documented this act of self sufficiency people would be less keen to let them raid garbage bins and they shied away from the camera.

Salt Pan Creek (or possibly the Georges River), there are ibis lurking in the background refusing to be photographed

I wasn't the only person out and about on this day.  Quite apart from the various park denizens I passed by a number of others on the walkway not one of whom said anything like, "excuse me, you seem to be carrying a stuffed puffin around." which I thought was very polite of them.  

When there is only one path to take it is very difficult to get lost and I suppose I didn't really although once I was a little way into the wetlands I had no idea of where I was. I just had to hope that the path would eventually spit me out somewhere not a million miles from civilisation.  As if to reassure me on this point I blundered under a vast expanse of heavily graffitied concrete which was gainfully employed stopping the M5 motorway from sinking into the swamp.  The creek, or some variant of it, trickled somewhat reluctantly under it while cars and trucks roared over our heads.  Of course my puffin couldn't let the graffiti go past without adding his own contribution.

I managed to get him away before anybody caught us

And on we went sometimes close enough to the outside world to enjoy the sight of lorries and carparks and sometimes surrounded as far as the eye can see by trees and wetlands.  Fairness forces me to point out that when you're surrounded by trees the eye can't actually see very far.  Incidentally I used the term "some variant of it" when referring to the creek in the previous paragraph.  This is the thing about wetlands, they're wet.  This makes it a little difficult to tell whether what you're looking at is open ground with a high water table. an overgrown creek or some variant of the two.  Suffice it to say that if you tried hard enough you could probably drown in most of it.

A puffin and a post to rest him on.  What more do I need?

 

From time to time there was an explicit stream but for the most part there was grass and trees and a distinct impression that if you got off the walking path you might sink and never be seen again.  I did point out one highly specific piece of water to my puffin in case he wanted to go for a swim but he preferred water that looked as though it had a lower urine content.

Definitely not going swimming

After a couple of hours of blundering about the wetlands I blundered out of them into a large park.  The council had put up a sign listing all of the things that you couldn't do in the park.  They could have saved some money if they had simply put up a sign saying "Would everybody please just piss off!"  The park paralleled the wetlands for a while and I wandered along it because according to my keen reading of google maps if I followed it I would return to my starting point.  Along the way I took a photo of a galah because my companion is building a highly disturbing website that he won't let me look at and insisted that I take photos of every bird we encountered.

No galahs were hurt during the taking of this photo but I did smack the puffin about a bit

Following the park did not actually return me to my starting point but it got me close enough so that I could hail it as a triumph of navigation.  The puffin who had noted how many times I started walking in one direction only to turn around and retrace my steps rolled his eyes and said nothing.  Once back at my starting point short of doing it all again there was little to do but go home.  Along the way my puffin asked if this was really what I got up to while he wasn't around.  I acknowledged that it was.  He offered to send me some links to self help sites which he think I might find useful.

Plague Update #37 - Gaslighting Edition

 Apparently we are to have a gas led economic recovery.  That's the latest exciting news that was husked from behind the face mask of either our prime minister or a random stranger making a practical joke.  The government is encouraging private enterprise to build gas fired power stations on every street corner and has suggested that if private enterprise should be so shortsighted and foolish as to miss this brilliant opportunity then the government may well do it themselves.  Private enterprise will probably welcome this as it frees them from the expense and difficulty of building the thing and they'll be able to buy it anyway the next time the government conducts an asset sale.

I'm glad to hear that our economy is going to leap from its COVID induced slumber and start burning gas like its going out of fashion.  It's strange that this economic miracle wasn't thought of before given that the gas has been there for several million years at last count.  The government also promised to "hold energy companies to account" to ensure that the benefits of a gas well in every house are passed on to consumers.  I have to admit I laughed a little at that one but I do realise its the sort of thing that governments feel obliged to say.

Back in the Land of Disease (officially known as Victoria although possibly not for much longer) things are brightening up.  People in the less civilised parts of the state will be permitted within fifty metres of each other under strict (but long distance) supervision and as soon as the citizens of Melbourne agree to have a tracking chip embedded in their skulls they too will be allowed to enjoy the heady rush of freedom that comes with being able to tell their children to play outside without risking a visit from the police. 

Tragic news emanated from Queensland (a sentence you could probably use every day of the week if you wanted to) where their premier was forced to "work" from home due to a lost voice.  Losing one's voice is a terrible blow.  For a politician to be unable to speak is like a hagfish being unable to exude mucus (in fact the parallels are almost identical).  In addition to what was definitely not a COVID related case of throat huskiness someone also threatened to kill her.  And the state's Chief Medical Officer.  Fortunately they must have left their home address on the correspondence because the police have already arrested them.

Meanwhile the premier of my state fresh from her triumph in the Koala Revolution has attempted to sound understanding and responsible while simultaneously giving her northern colleague a serve for still refusing to let citizens from my undeniably magnificent state into Queensland.  Strangely there do appear to be a large number of people who want to go there.  COVID cases are cropping up from time to time in New South Wales but so far we seem to have avoided the citizens dropping in the streets levels that affected Victoria.  It's difficult not to feel smug even as one waits nervously for the other shoe to drop. 

Plague Update #36 - Now With Added Koalas

 Relief surges through me like a tide.  All the signs are pointing to an improvement in the COVID-19 pandemic.  Well, not necessarily the medical signs; they're still pretty grim but the political and social signs are getting more positive.  Firstly the disturbing unanimity shown by our political leaders is starting to collapse as various levels of government bitch at each other.  State leaders are settling back into their normal routines of slagging off their counterparts and people are starting to query whether or not the grim death tolls in various areas can be at least partly traced back to incompetence on the part of the political leaders responsible for dealing with them.  Speaking as someone who found the sight of our nation's various governments working in harmony deeply disturbing I must say I'm pleased we're back on track.

Further evidence of business as usual can be found, strangely, in Victoria parts of which are still under lockdown and a curfew.  It turns out nobody will admit to having asked for a curfew and there are doubts as to whether it might even be legal.  The general public are assisting in the return to normality by gathering to protest about the fact that currently they're not allowed to gather to protest.

Good news aside the principal takeaway from this pandemic is that we're becoming a nation of home cooking alcoholics.  The alcoholic part was pretty obvious but I was a little surprised to learn that a large number of my fellow citizens are whiling away their hangover hours by preparing delicious food.  The next season of Masterchef should be amazing assuming our livers last that long.

On a personal note I should mention that my own cooking and drinking habits have not been affected by the pandemic which is why the major meal of my day consists of washing down dry weetbix with neat vodka while my stuffed puffin looks on disapprovingly.  It may upset him a little but if I don't have breakfast I'm useless for the remainder of the day.  The fact that I'm useless for the remainder of the day anyway is a total irrelevance.

I tried contacting my correspondents in Melbourne to see they're enjoying the police state but I didn't get very far.  One of them (the one without children) was busy setting traps in the backyard so the neighbourhood cats could add a little protein to his diet while the one with children was weeping hysterically into a soup bowl full of gin at 10 o'clock in the morning.  There was no evidence of the delicious meal media reports insist she should have prepared to go with the gin.

In my home state things have got so far back to normal that our government managed to have a koala induced political crisis.  Yes, koalas, the cute furry things that we store chlamydia in.  You may recall that the major bushfires we had which were our pre-COVID disaster burnt a lot of the trees in NSW which is unfortunate for koalas as they live in them.  Koala numbers were already under pressure due to habitat fragmentation and that entire chlamydia business.  Everybody loves koalas, they're cute and sleepy looking and you don't find out that they're short tempered death machines unless you spend a lot of time in their company which most people don't because we live in the city.  

Sensing easy publicity (or possibly genuinely concerned about our cutest native animal) the state government introduced new environmental laws which were supposed to help koala numbers bounce back from the bushfires and return to their previous rate of terminal decline.  This actually happened some months ago but suddenly farmers woke up to the fact that if there were koalas on their property they might not be able to shoot them or cut down all of the trees.  Fairness forces me to point out that farmers didn't necessarily want to go around committing koalacide on their properties.  They just wanted to keep the option open.

The political party supposedly representing said farmers waxed wroth.  Unfortunately this political party was part of the government that passed the "try not to actively kill koalas" regulations in the first place.  Despite this they threatened to stomp off and no longer involve themselves in the government thus removing said government's majority.  Our premier basically said "don't let the door hit your arse on the way out".  At which point the party that represents farmers decided that representing farmers wasn't quite as important as keeping their own jobs.  I'm prepared to bet that neither farmers nor koalas have been particularly impressed but it has given the urban population of the state something to laugh about in between day drinking and food preparation.

Travelling Pathetically - Scraping the Absolute Bottom of the Barrel Edition

 With another day's leave hovering over me like a vulture over some carcass on the Serengeti I wondered what I could do to improve on the previous day's Englorie Park triumph. I decided to go to work.  That's right, for a trip on my day off I went in to the office.  The reason was simple.  On the theory that no good disaster should be wasted my employers have taken advantage of the plague induced desertion of their offices to rearrange, rationalise and generally cut down on what must be a pretty impressive rent bill.  To facilitate that they cordially invited their employees to reenter the offices and (I'm paraphrasing here) "get rid of all of your shit!"

Since we had originally fled the building so swiftly that some of us had left children behind you can appreciate that there was a fair bit to get rid of.  At least I didn't have any infant skeletons to sweep up.  There was one slight issue, the central business district of Sydney had recently been identified as a coronavirus hotspot.  However the firm's redecorations brooked no delay.  China Syndrome levels of decontamination were promised (or threatened) to encourage a thin stream of terrified wage slaves to slink into the building, toss their personal possessions into the nearest garbage bin and then flee while simultaneous smearing hand sanitiser over every exposed body part.

Oddly I was somewhat looking forward to it and not just for hand sanitiser smearing reasons.  For starters it would mean I would get out of the flat without having to come up with half baked blog entry reasons and I would also get to visit my orchid that I hadn't seen for several months.  I must give a special thanks to Anoma who has been grimly risking disease every day to come into the office, she has been tending to my orchid since I abandoned it in my haste to leave the plague zone and it looks quite healthy.  It certainly looks quite healthy by comparison with me.

In response to my state government's urgings I have acquired some face masks and popped one on as I hopped onto the train.  They are really quite annoying but I sat there gasping quietly while the other passengers moved as far away from me as possible.  I've noted before how much more efficient our public transport service is now that almost nobody is using it.  Everything is on time, clean (or cleanish) and the number of raving lunatics has decreased to almost tolerable levels.  Unfortunately one of the remaining lunatics happened to be the train guard who insisted on trying to be funny.  Unsuccessfully.

I was whisked with uncharacteristic efficiency through the inner suburbs of Sydney until the metal tube spat me out somewhere near Circular Quay (although not close enough to get wet) and I struck out for the Temple of Mammon that houses the high priests of my particular cult.  Normally entry is a simple affair of a blood sacrifice and promising the eternal servitude of your first born but now I had to follow a piece of winding tape plastered to the floor which took me on a scenic tour of the foyer before dumping me outside the lift bay.  Sanitiser was applied, my skin was scoured with acid (that wasn't mandatory, I requested it) and fingernail clippings were taken for placing in the family shrine in case I didn't survive the visit.

Fifty six levels above the decontamination zone I was greeted with more sanitiser and an invitation to sign a (no doubt thoroughly disinfected) clipboard confirming my presence of my own free will.  That done I was permitted to proceed to my desk.  For the first time in months I came face to face with one of my colleagues.  She screamed and threw things at me until I backed off to what she considered a safe distance.  Even so her body language indicated she would have been more comfortable if I had gone out the window.

With the pleasantries taken care of I set to work.  After working for a while trying to sort the wheat from the chaff I just got a recycling bin and essentially shook my desk over it until it stopped rattling.  Then I secured a handful of things I actually wanted to keep (vodka, nail polish remover and a small bust of a skull in a pilots hat, you know; the essentials) and tossed them into the nearest plastic container that didn't look as though it was destined for the next garbage skip out of town.  Duty completed I bade farewell to my colleague but she was whimpering under her desk and didn't hear me.

The post script to this little sojourn into my workplace came a few days later when our partner in charge informed us that one of the people in the office that day had been in contact with someone suffering from COVID-19 and was currently undergoing testing.  The office was to undergo a deep clean and the suggestion was that we might like to follow suit.  Fortunately the person in question turned out to be free of disease so the only consequence was a widespread outbreak of hyperventilation on the part of those who had been present.