Sunday, November 21

 We woke up to a blackout this morning.  It's not a frequent occurrence but certainly a pain; for one thing, there's only one way to boil a kettle in our house so coffee is out of the question.  When I notified Marilyn that her morning coffee was on hold she said, "Then I'll have to drink champagne." (And she wonders why I call her Marie Antoinette.)

I noticed there was a message on my 'phone from Tas Networks saying that there was an outage in Burleigh Street and they were investigating.  How did they know it was just in Burleigh Street and were we the only ones to get the message? They must have an impressive setup for them to be so specific.  Then I notice another message: 'Caused by a vehicle accident.'  I had read that once before so I suspect it was a leftover from a previous incident but, nevertheless, I hurried outside to look up and down the street, in case I was missing some human drama..

There was nothing to be seen, apart from the fact that the street was deserted. There were no other onlookers, no people on their morning walk, and not a moving vehicle in sight.  I went back inside for breakfast (coffee-less) and the lights came back on.  Just another day in Paradise!

Tuesday, November 18

I note that my last post was a few days ago; I've clearly had nothing to say since last week and that's not surprising since our lives have become much narrower since passing our eightieth birthdays.  I was up this morning at my usual time of about 7 o'clock but I have nothing planned until 2 o'clock this afternoon.   I fill that time by reading, watching Youtube videos and drinking cups of coffee.  It's not very productive but that's just how it is.

We've been watching a UK TV show called Escape to the Country where people living in UK cities go through the process of uprooting themselves, seeking happiness in a rural setting.  In most cases they go to Dorset or Devon where there are still relatively wide-open spaces and not so much hustle and bustle.

Last night's escapees, for a change, wanted to move to Lanarkshire in Scotland and, of course, Lanarkshire is where I lived when I was younger.  I wouldn't have thought it was 'country' but it turned out there were isolated areas where you could easily escape the madding crowd.  One of the properties the couple was shown was in Motherwell where my father was born but they opted for a more rural farmhouse.  It intrigues me that none of the couples in the show give any credence to modern comforts.  They'd rather have 'period features' no matter how uncomfortable they are.  I suppose there is a touch of nostalgia in all of us but my feeling is that modern house-building techniques are what they are for very good reasons.  Nostalgia won't keep you warm

Thursday, November 13

 We went to bed a little earlier last night; Marilyn put her head down but I reached for my Kobo reader intending to finish a chapter or to before lying down.. The reader was flat!  I had intended to charge it during nthe afternoon but forgot.  Luckily, I had my little tablet there and I knew I had a couple of books downloaded on that.

I found a story called The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion.  He's a New Zealand-born Australian author and his best-known books are about Don Tilman who has Aspergers Syndrome.  He marries Rosie and the books explore the complications of living with this disorder while being married to someone wo is neuro-typical.  They are very funny but quite poignant.  I've read them before but they're definitely worth a re-visit.

Wednesday, November 12

 I had a very slow start this morning: up at the usual time but I had to have a shower and get dressed to get to my Probus meeting for the 10 o'clock start, and I found myself rushing.  We have more than twenty members but there were only 11 there; even the President wasn't in attendance.  I wonder sometimes how we can survive into the future but I suppose having a target group of retired men is against us.  Probus stands for 'Professional and Business' and that's too small a cohort in a Tasmanian country town to allow for easy recruitment.

The guest speaker was a bloke who, with his wife, volunteers to look after remote lighthouses while the regular keeper is having a break.  There are several remote lighthouses around Tasmania and he seems to have worked at most of them at one time or another.  I suppose it's not particularly exciting work but when he thought it necessary to put up a list of the exotic weeds he had to deal with at Maatsuyker Island, I wondered when he would get to the interesting part.

Looking out the window, I see that it is clouding over but that's not a problem.  Marilyn and I have no plans for heading out today so the weather can do its worst and it won't affect us.

Tuesday, November 11

 There was a bit of a hiccup in my morning routine today:  I made the coffee and sat down to watch Youtube  but found, to my horror, that I couldn't access it.  What to do!  Marilyn came through to see what was the matter and suggested I needed to look elsewhere for something to watch.

I finally checked ABC iView and found a program we used to watch twenty years ago: Spicks and Specks.  It was the same old faces and 'old' was certainly the right word.  Myf, Adam and Alan are more mature, of course, but the format was the same, which is reassuring, and I still l couldn't answer any of the questions.

I'll have to remember to look for this again when I'm feeling nostalgic and want the reassurance that the world is not leaving me behind.

Anyway, Youtube finally appeared and I found a program about railways in the UK, with Michael Portillo who is pompous and insufferable but I can overlook that.  Today;s program was about railways in the north-wets of Scotland.  Good stuff!

Monday, November 10

 Planning for this coming week is pretty simple.  I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with Specsavers and my Probus meeting is on Wednesday.  Ostensibly, the Specsavers' appointment id for an inspection of my eyes to make sure there is no deterioration since my last appointment.  The real reason, however, is that Specsavers has identified that they are eligible to claim a fee from the government for providing me with a check-up.  The fact that I have not noticed any deterioration in my eyesight and would not have thought there is any need for me to spend an hour of my life peering through lenses is irrelevant.  Never get between a medical provider and a government subsidy.

Nera's sister has arrived from the Philippines for a visit so we're looking forward to seeing her and hearing the news of the family.  Marilyn and I have many good memories of our time in that country and since Jamie and Nera have married we feel a strong link.  

Sunday, November 9

 One of the regulars I watch on Youtube is a fellow called Ken.  His channel is titled Ken Abroad and he seems to focus on Asian countries and is usually alone, although we've seen his Mum a couple of times and rare appearances from a girl-friend. I was a bit tired of the sameness of his exploits so haven't seen him for a couple of months.

This morning, though, I noted he was in Tokyo so I switched it on to see if I recognised any places.  I was amazed at the nostalgic feeling which swept over me as I watched him navigating the confusion of the Tokyo Railway Station.  I don't think of myself as being particularly emotional but perhaps as I get older I am developing a more sensitive side.

I'm trying to think how many times I've been to Japan.  I had at least three trips when I was Principal at Gib Gate, visiting our sister-school in Kanazawa.  Marilyn and I had three or four trips, including a time when we took our grand-daughter, Madeleine for her birthday, visiting Tokyo Disneyland, Disney Sea and Universal Studios.

Perhaps our best trip was the time we booked a unit in Osaka through our Timeshare program and, at the end of that, joined a cruise ship in Yokohama for a cruise north which included visits to ports in Hokkaido, Vladivostok in Russia, Korea and ending up in China,

Of all the places we've visited, it would be Japan I would choose as my favourite destination in the world so it's no wonder I'm a little nostalgic.  Now that I've finished this post, I'll go back and see what else Youtube can show me about this remarkable country.

Friday, November 7

 I'm reading a book at the moment, written by Tony Black.  I've read one or two of his before and enjoyed them.  They're pretty standard detective stories, set in Edinburgh so I assumed he was Scottish.  However, it turns out that he is, in fact, Australian who spent much of his life in Scotland and Ireland.  Moving from Australia to Scotland?  It's usually the other way around.

This novel is called Paying For It and it's not like the others I've read.  It's almost like an American hard-boiled detective novel, with that glib, tough-guy speech which doesn't ring true and I can't imagine it going down well on the streets of Edinburgh.  In this novel, the author even slipped into an American usage which drives me mad.  Talking about a character who had fallen on hard times, the detective, Gus Dury, says, 'I could care less!'

It's "I couldn't care less!", you cretin.  'I could care less' doesn't make sense in the context in which it was used.  If you wanted to show that you had no sympathy for the character's difficulty and that she deserved all she gets, you would want to say that you don't care at all: that 'you could not care less.'

I wondered whether this was a novel aimed at the US market and written accordingly but I note that it was his first published work.  I suspect if I had come across this novel first, I wouldn't have bothered with any of the others.

Thursday, November 6

 After our exercise class on Tuesday we wandered into the local supermarket for a couple of things: six slices of corned beef from the deli, a loaf of bread, four cooking apples ... and in the fruit and veg department I picked up a bag of green grapes, probably from Nicaragua or somewhere.  At the checkout, the young girl, probably on work experience said to Marilyn, 

'Did you realise this bag of grapes is $29?'

Marilyn recoiled in horror. "Take them, back,' she ordered, 'and get the red ones.  They'll be cheaper.'

'Yes, dear,' I muttered.  

It seems we've reached a stage in our lives when members of the public believe we need looking after and I'm not sure what I think about that.

Wednesday, November 5

 I'm writing this on my tablet because my desktop computer refused to start this morning.  I have poked and prodded it, pulled out the plug and replaced it, even muttered some threatening words to it, but to no avail.

Jamie will call by later and he might have more success.

I haven't had it long so I would not be happy if I had to replace it

UPDATE: Everything is working as it should.  I worried, of course, about the worst-case scenario and checked the Officeworks website to see how much it would cost to replace the computer,  The beast must have sensed this because, when I tried to boot it again, it did so with no complaint.

Monday, November 3

When you pass the 80-year old mark, life becomes quite narrow.  In our previous life we worked hard and kept up an active social life but, nowadays, when we are retired and getting on in years, our program is much narrower.  Looking at our diary for this week, for example, we only have two items listed: activity classes on Tuesday and Friday at Toosey.  In the past, Marilyn might have gone to her Craft Group on Tuesday but the Activity Class has superseded that.  Later this month we'll have our Probus meetings and, no doubt, there will be a hair appointment and something medical, but they're not yet on the horizon.

On my desk is a reminder from Specsavers that I'm due a check-up on my eyes and I have a half memory of receiving something similar about my hearing but I'm not treating those as urgent.  I'm happy with my current spectacles and haven't worn my hearing aids in months so I can leave those appointments on the back-burner for the time being.

In the meantime, I'll fill my days in the usual way: reading, fiddling with my tablet, checking Youtube and drinking coffee. It's not a bad life.