The rats are dead

Under the house, and I can smell their corpses rotting. Not nice. I don't know how many there are but the lounge room is putrid and we are sitting in the garden being devoured by mosquitoes.
But on to more pleasant things;
Yesterday I went to Clovelly Beach with Jane P. For the first time I wore a mask and got to see the revelations below the water. Allow me say it was miraculous and enthralling. I am hooked. I have swum there hundreds of times and always seen the snorkelers happily chasing ghosts, but this time I was part of the underwater gazing crowd.
I can see pretty well underwater, without goggles, but not details, just colour and movement. To see the landscape I had swum so often and the fish that live down there was incredible. I'd had no idea about the amazing rocks that form at the mouth of the bay. The beautiful undersea mosses and sea urchin, the textures and grasses, the weeds and shells, let alone the plethora of fish, it was like discovering a new world. I was braver than I have ever been, as I could see my way and went out deeper than ever, although the water got very cold at the mouth.
I sat on some warm rocks and fiddled with the the shells clinging on. I like to pull them and make them stiffen! It is good for their muscles. I can't believe how strong they are, I can't get a single one off. It was 6:30 in the evening and the sun was out and semi-naked people were relaxing all around me and I thought, this is Sydney, this is what it is about.
I got alot of work done before going out, and when I got home I could see the efforts of the day piled up, and felt replete.
One more action with the peach tree, and I heard the branch crack. Shit, it's had it. I've broken the poor branch. Slow and steady? Ha! Goffman weight desperately ripping apart a defenceless tree. I live and learn.
The back yard jungle is so beautiful, and I must find another branch I can work with over the next few months. It was a pleasure to do, and helped me feel connected to Japan, with this minimal act. I loved hearing the cicadas, the birds, the wind, the frogs and the ephemeral sounds that ensue from neighbour's homes. I loved the concentrated effort of doing one thing, wholly and completely. But I was too much for the tree.