NOMAD'S PEA & HAM SOUP

I was talking with my son about stew the other day. Where he is, spring is just starting after a long, wet Australian winter, and here in America we're starting to see Autumn...I can't recall if I've mentioned it, but I like the Autumn here, the sting gone out of the sun, long enough days and pleasant evenings, just before the leaves start to turn...then we get a real winter, snow and all...comfort food season...

Anyway, I like stews...sometimes they started off as soups, they might officially be called soups, but really what I cook are all probably more like stews, given my own criteria that if it has more lumps than juice, it's stew....I started making them way back in the dark ages (before microwave ovens ) when I'd be home alone on school holidays mid year and needed something simple, cheap and easy but good for you.....no, it would be too obvious...

As the years have passed, I developed a few favourites that have stood the test of time...my philosophy from the word go has always been that nothing should take longer to prepare (ie, peeling and chopping) than it does to eat...I clean as I go, I love being able to see something all the way to "Simmer for a really long time" and have a clean kitchen...time to sit on your arse with a pint and smell the food cooking....

My young bloke asked me to send him the recipe for my pea and ham soup, which was an after-rugby Saturday lunchtime staple...for 6 or 7 years I took him to junior rugby on Saturday mornings all season, and then it was home to my place for a hot shower and a bowl of stew...always served with a buttered crusty roll, with real butter...and pints of Guinness, if that's to your taste...red wine goes well too, a nice heavy shiraz or a cab sav that you can chew and then spit out the skins....but I like it with Guinness best...

Meals can be something special. A lot of my best memories are based around food, with good wine and good friends...and it's been nice while I type this out for a son who's all the way around the world, to find myself smiling and thinking about all those Saturdays standing in the sun and the wind and the rain, steam on our breath, waiting all match for that one blindside pass to the wing and the winning try in the corner....then home and hot showers, rolls, Guinness and a couple of bowls of steaming pea and ham soup....life doesn't get much better than that, so I thought I'd share.

Good eatin'

NOMAD'S PEA AND HAM SOUP

Ingredients:

500 - 750g 'boiling bacon', diced or 1 - 2 bacon hocks or a bag of bacon bones

1 bag dry green boiling peas or split peas

3 - 4 medium potatoes, white or yellow brushed, diced big

1 large sweet yellow onion, diced big enough

3 - 4 cloves garlic peeled & crushed, or equivalent...the stuff in jars is alright and it keeps forever. Avoid the powder.

1 tsp salt

Worcestershire sauce to taste

Tabasco to taste

4 - 5 litres water

Method:

Put all ingredients in large pot.

Bring to boil.

Reduce heat to low.

Simmer for 3 -4 hours until it tastes good

Tip: If using bacon hocks, take out the skin once it peels away from the bone. Otherwise, it's like leaving the teabag in the cup. Except it's fat. Throw it away.

RETIREMENT ISN'T WORKING

"The work is hard
The pay is small
So take your time
And sod them all"
- engraved on a china plate on my father's wall

Work was pretty much always a means to an end for me. That end was generally money, although I've been known to take jobs because of their location, to get experience at something so I could get a job doing something else and, on rare occasions, because I enjoyed the work. But mostly it was money and what money could buy, and work was the unpleasant crap you had to do to get the money. If you were lucky enough to be bright or talented, you could make more money for each hour, but I never really could think of a job that sounded like it would be better than sitting on a tropical beach somewhere, with blond chicks in bikinis bringing me champagne on ice......sorry, where was I?

I remember dreaming of retirement when I was still in high school. I read stories of men who started out selling oranges from a barrow at 13 and ended up being billionaire owners of supermarket chains...I heard of people retiring at 35, of people becoming millionaires in their twenties.

I was pretty good at mental arithmetic as a kid. I knew how much a million dollars was. In cash, it's a thousand dollars a week for twenty years. And they say you can't retire on that? Try me...

Success seemed like a natural progression for me. I'd known I was smarter than the average bear from an early age. I didn't feel particularly gifted, and I was crap at anything that involved hand-eye co-ordination or any activity associated with the generation of sweat. But I can't recall a time in my early years when I didn't take it for granted that I would attend University and roll into some very well paid job that allowed me to live the life of luxury to which I'd quickly become accustomed. The dreams of an eleven year old kid...the downside was that no-one - at least no-one I was prepared to listen to - wised me up that work was involved. I knew I had talent. I knew I was bright. The education systems in two different English-speaking countries taught me to be brilliant at passing exams. Once, on a good day, I scored 148 on an official IQ test. Ask me to catch a fish or change the tube on a bicycle and I'd have floundered.

My own belief in my ability was sufficiently confirmed by secondary education, however, and I had that mental picture of the hammock on the beach and the champagne....I would have taken up smoking just so I could light a cigar with a $50 note...

School was mundane, I was smart enough to be able to cruise and still get decent grades...through high school, I had a different dream every week of what I wanted to do when I finished school for good...travelling loomed large as an idea, but what to do to pay for it was a blank wall...when I'd started high school, guys leaving the senior years were still getting drafted to go to Vietnam; by 1975 and my senior years, the war was over, conscription was over, the best of the hippie era was still hanging around, the sexual revolution had switched from free love to porn and swinging in the suburbs, and pot and acid were making way for speed and coke.....there was a darker edge to the world after the innocence and naivete of the 60s, and Life was just starting to open up for a kid in his mid-teens....ambition? ask me later....a lot later.....to cut a long story short, I cruised all the way to a bare fall-over-the-line pass in my University entry exams, gave away the whole idea of higher education as a bad one, and took a job loading clay sewer pipes on and off trucks... I learned to drive a car, a motorbike, forklift and four ton truck within a year and a half...for over 30 years now, I've looked back on that time, that job, as a watershed... one of those Sliding Doors moments when the path I could have taken took a sharp turn into a whole different life...by the time came around to try the Uni exams again, I was too used to the freedom and to the money.

Well, for a kid who had always been soft and clumsy I took to manual labour like a man possessed...after 3 months, I took up rugby union and played my first senior game the day before my 18th birthday...on the way out to my first game, I asked a mate what a 'second row forward' was supposed to do - "Do what the older blokes tell ya. And if you see a bloke from the other side with the ball, knock him over and kick shit out of him until he lets it go"...I played two seasons, ended up playing men's A Grade alongside ex-internationals, and that was the only rule I ever knew...

The die was cast...I was born-again blue-collar...I worked semi-skilled physical jobs for another 5 years, until my first child announced her impending arrival a few months hence. I dusted off my brain, and went back to being paid for what I knew rather than for what I did...in what could be seen as synchronicity, I got my old bosses job at the sewer pipe yard....less than a year later, I'd moved to the Big City and got me a collar and tie job, and notched the hamster wheel into 4th gear....

I've changed jobs a lot. Regardless of what field it is, as soon as I reach a level of competence that I think is sufficient, the interest factor starts to plummet...in my experience, we learn 80% of all we need to know pretty damn quick if we put the effort in...and in the vast majority of cases, in my book, 80% is plenty good enough to get the job done.

I've never aimed for 100%, not that I can remember...I recognised a long time ago that if Perfect was my bench mark in life, I'd spend a lot of that life being frustrated, angry and disappointed....at University, a 70% mark on a paper will get you a Distinction; 80% gets you a High Distinction...it's the professorial equivalent of awarding a gold star or an elephant stamp on the back of your hand...for all that I've read that adults and kids learn differently, I disagree - you stick 30 adults in a class room and they will revert to acting like school kids before lunchtime on Day One...I digress...so, if I get a 90% for anything in life, I think I'm doing extra-ordinarily well. To me 90% is more than most of us are capable of achieving on a regular basis, even on an occasional basis to be quite honest; frankly, there are times when you'd be happy if you could get staff to turn up....so, from where I'm sitting, once we have achieved 80% of our ability to do a job perfectly, it will take 4 times more effort from here on in to learn and develop that last 20%, and I often question the opportunity cost of being an expert....being an expert isn't something I think I've ever aspired to (although I guess I've had some expertise thrust upon me....but that's a whole other story...)....bottom line, when I get to 80% of my potential in a particular job, that's as close as I need to be, I'm competent, and from here on in every day is going to be pretty much the same....in other words, it's time to move on to something else I know nothing about, yet...that's just me...

It's only been recently that I've been turning my head to this all over again...after a few decades of personal finances booming and busting and booming again, back a couple of years ago I made The Big Decision, the one where I finally put my money where my mouth was and got off the hamster wheel..my kids were grown, owning my own home again wasn't that important to me...so, for those who came in late, I put everything I needed into a backpack, boxed a few sentimental favourites, sold everything else, gave away what I couldn't sell, and flew away...

These days, I have everything I need and I don't need much...I have enough put away so I don't have to sit in the dark eating dog food when I'm in my 80s, but that's a few years off yet....my home renovation skills allow me a roof over my head and all the food I need....but I could do with some pocket money, you know? And there's the rub - after so many years of resenting work as an intrusion on my time, looking forward to an early retirement or at least semi-retirement, and being able to do a lot more of what I want, more often - I'm finding that I enjoy life more when I've got something to do, a reason to get out of bed every so often, a challenge to put myself to and maybe learn something, something new...

I find that I enjoy making things more than I used to....I take my time more, and try and do it right the first time...it's for me now, and I have the time....I've never enjoyed gardening so much...I've never enjoyed gardening, really....and after years of believing that I had the mechanical aptitude of a goldfish, I am actually cultivating the ability to take things apart, fix or replace the broken bits, and put them back together again...I've been riding motorbikes since the mid 70s, mostly Hondas and Kawasakis....I would have been happy to learn how to fix them, but they just never really broke down....hmm...well, last year I bought a Harley Davidson, and things have changed a bit...I've done more motorcycle mechanics in the last 14 or 15 months than in the previous 35 years put together. And I love it. "Sportsters - turning riders into mechanics since 1957" Harleys are very simple to work on. They have to be.

It's something special to take a broken motorcycle, work out what's wrong with it, take it apart and put it back together - and then demonstrate your confidence in your work by taking it down the street for a ride that's fast enough to kill you if you forgot to tighten up something important....it's been a late addition to my enjoyment of motorcycling, but not too late to be put to good measure...

You'll see that at the time of posting, I'm currently wading through 'Shop Class As Soulcraft' by Matt Crawford...his writing style isn't grabbing me, but he and I are on the same wavelength - life is about more than just what's in your mind. There are few things more deeply satisfying than the physical creation of something, whether it be a quilt, a basket full of fresh vegetables, or an armchair...it's a feeling that our high paid desk jobs lack....there's a lot of things I could turn my hand to right now, and I'm as sure as I can be that I could go back to my old life and pretty much pick up where I left off....but I can't think of any good reasons to do that....give me a job that doesn't take up all my time, and pays me enough to pay for gas and put a bit aside for parts, coffee and hotel rooms....preferably a job that, at the end of the day, I can look at something and think "I made that".

Yes, that would do nicely.

FORREST'S FEATHER, A NERVOUS NOMAD AND THE RESURRECTION OF A WORK ETHIC

People ask me how on earth I ended up here, in the big timber country of North America. My son, who is living in New York, has the same experience, he can't understand why people ask "What the hell are you doing in Brooklyn?" Locations that he and I find incredibly exotic, foreign and interesting are seen by many locals as a place for coming from rather than going to...we had a 3-way 'conversation' on instant messenger the other night, he, his brother and me...across a 15 hour time difference, it was a lot of fun...and significant for me to see how well they'd learned from some of my mistakes at their age...I was in my forties before I was as well travelled as they are in their early twenties....all of which has had me thinking over the last few days, how different my life is now in every way from where I came from, from where I was five years ago....how grateful I am to have stepped out of the mainstream, where I had never really felt very comfortable, and made a life of being a wandering sage....if I could only play the lute, I'd have it made...

It's about five years since I stopped planning and started throwing the dice. In 2004 I had a remarkable job for a while, one of those rare jobs where you looked forward to getting to work every day...conducting a review of emergency preparedness for a major metropolitan area...it was fascinating, and I spent my days interviewing emergency service managers and local heads of government and industry, attending local planning sessions and an interesting anti-terrorist exercise at an abandoned factory complex...not many people get to see that kind of thing...and I realised quite suddenly that this job had fallen completely unheralded into my lap...the position hadn't previously existed, and I barely knew that the field existed...and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that the best things that had happened to me over the previous year or two had all just fallen from the sky - often in spite of my planning rather than because of it...I have generally been against the whole idea of Fate and Destiny most of my life, but I started reading more about astrology, synchronicity, Wicca, chance, witchcraft, chaos, spirit guides, shamanism and Norse mythology, to name a few...anything that had a take on what, if anything, effects the path we end up on - and whether or not we can or should try and influence what the Universe has in mind...assuming it does...it's an argument that's easy to get lost in...I think...

I moved from the city to the Australian Outback for a while....after 35 years living in Australia, I got to see for the first time remote Aboriginal Communities across the Top End, from Broome to the Rock....very few white Australians have or will ever see a desert Community, and few want to... to a big-city white boy like me, it was like landing on Mars...I fell in love with the country and a whole new world started opening up....the money was pretty good too, and there was nothing much to spend it on...the idea of stepping further out into the void was becoming more attractive...

I started opening up to the idea that somehow, something had been presenting me with the same sorts of opportunities over and over again...and that although I couldn't see where it might lead, I did have the strong feeling that it had all been, and still is, leading somewhere...and although I don't appear to have any better idea now than I did then, it's an interesting life, notwithstanding that it's not a particularly secure one...in a way akin to quitting smoking, I just decided to forget to worry...so far, it seems to be working...for the most part...

I love the movie 'Forrest Gump', I must have watched it dozens of times....I love the symbology of the white feather, drifting in and out of all sorts of situations, lighter than a duck on a pond, unawed by the immediacy of the moment and unencumbered by plans, present but unaffected....simply, like Forrest himself, floating on the current...it all seemed very Zen to me at the time, and it's become a practice that's served me well...

I look at anchors differently now. I used to imagine a house, in the middle of nowhere, with a verandah all the way around...large Balinese day beds overlooking a body of water - lake, river, even the ocean. I'm not that fussed...peace and quiet and lots of trees...when I think it through, though, as I've said more than once to Fred, if I won the lottery all that would really change for me would be the view...sure, I'd love to see the view from the balcony of a stone cottage overlooking the Mediterranean, but I can guarantee that sooner or later someone would ask "You could live in America, why do you want to live here ?"....hey, don't get me wrong...if you were thinking of naming me in your estate, well, I won't knock it back...but money doesn't always buy you much security, not really....I always feel sorry for the poor buggers who invest their retirement savings in one basket and lose the lot...or those who wait until their sixties to travel and find they're too frail...for five years now, I've spent every penny I've earned....with the exception of my bike, I can still fit everything I need in my backpack, Matilda...yes, I know it's corny and predictable, but it was that or a volleyball called Wilson.... she's a redhead, for the record...

I don't believe in sitting on the couch, bitching about how crap your life is, how no-one could possibly understand how bad you've got it. After the first time - and even then, only if you're buying the drinks - no-one really wants to hear it. I am particularly annoyed by those who see the gate of the cage open before them yet refuse to walk free...I have nothing personal against those more settled, the Cains of the world, to each their own...but, to me, no matter what it is in life, like it, learn from it, learn to like it, or change it...don't whine about what you've chosen...at some level, we have to take responsibility for the particular type of harm of which we choose to put ourselves in the way...

So, this past couple of days I've been getting rattled - I've had a relatively small but clear reminder that, as a direct result of casting in my lot with chance, I'm no longer the master of my own destiny...and it's easy to forget why and how I signed up for this nomadic gig in the first place...a short-term, part-time job that I have been enjoying immensely, has just come to an end, albeit not unexpectedly...a manual arts job that was a great learning experience in a field I want to learn more about...I made a few dollars to buy the odd trinket and I got to make and repair things with my hands, an endeavour I've rarely shown a lot of aptitude for, but to which I'm becoming more and more attached...and it's come to an end, now, and the ground under my feet feels less steady...

I don't need much money these days, I'm cheaper to keep than I've ever been...and the weird thing is, despite my long bouts with ergophobia, I've realised that I actually do enjoy having work to do, regardless of how much I need money...that's something I didn't expect...a great deal of the work I've done in the course of my life has been a means to an end, and I've never had the same job for more than a couple of years...when others around me aspired to promotion, I aspired to win the lottery...and now, all of a sudden, I'm unemployed again, my nest egg is still a few years away, and the cash in my wallet will only last so long....

That lurch in the deck every so often almost always leads to bigger and better things, but it can be scary at the time...the less trodden path means less help, and very little certainty....this morning, the first of September, I sat with my coffee and my treasured old 49ers coffee mug - a favourite portable anchor - looking out my freshly painted window at the gentle sunlight drying this morning's light rain, relishing the onset of Autumn, a season barely noticed in Australia...I have two full northern Autumns behind me now, and I'm more prepared...the house and the garden are better prepared to withstand the cold and wet, and they look like someone cares about them now...there's a different feeling in the air...and I stop and think about my job having ended, and that I'm going to have to be a little more careful with what money I have left...I think about getting into it tomorrow and getting my bike ready for one more long ride before the cold gets crazy.....and I think about an ordinary English kid who lived in Australia for most of his life and wonder how on Earth he ended up here in America, looking forward to the Autumn...and I smile and wonder what's going to happen next...no doubt the Universe really is unfolding as it should...