Too many crystals and not enough deoderant

We've just had a week in the country, visiting the in-laws about 6 hours south-west of Sydney. A normal drive would be six hours, but we took to the backroads shortly after Yass and stuck our nose into all the little country towns along the way. The highway lets you see little but a selection of McDonalds and KFC and advertisements for truck insurance. It's nice if you are in a hurry to get anywhere, but who is ever in a hurry to visit the in-laws?

Just off the turnoff to Harden is a little town called Bowning. It is only about 2 kms off the Hume, and I have been through it many times before on work trips. I normally zip through it at the speed limit as there never seemed to be anything worth stopping for. On the way down, we did pass something worth stopping at - a gallery called "Bigsky", but I was so shocked at seeing something we should stop for, I forgot to hit the brakes and next thing you know, we were out of town. Made a mental note to stop on the way back.

Which we did. The gallery is owned by a yank called Troi. No, I have not mustyped Troy - all his stuff was signed Troi. It's like "Tiffany" with 3 "i's" and 2 "n's". He was a well-inked individual - both his arms were totally covered in tattoos, as was one leg down to his ankle. He seemed like a very relaxed kind of bloke - nothing Hell's Angel about him. The artwork was nice - no skulls with dripping candles perched on them etc. Some of it looked quite Japanese. Interesting.

We ended up buying a vase to replace one that I broke recently. The big selling point for me was that it had a very heavy base, meaning that it is very hard to tip over. I'm sure the colours are nice too.

Next to the vases was a bit of blurb about the artist. I read one paragraph and that was enough for me. It said that he learnt how to paint vases whilst in residence in an artists colony at Uki or Oki in the 1970's. Got no idea where that is - I thought Oki was a brand of printer.

A few words stuck though - "1970's" and "artists colony". A nice phrase for "hippy commune". As Jeremy Clarkson would say, "wierd beards".

J put it nicely - "too many crystals and not enough deoderant".