Monday, January 30

When I left the gym yesterday morning, I passed a house which had what looked like police tape around the front.  I only gave it a quick glance but it seemed to have been abandoned.  It surprised me because we pass this house all the time and had never noticed anything untoward.

We passed it again in the afternoon and Marilyn commented that it had been burned out.  It's only 100m from our place and we'd heard nothing: no fire engines, no excited bystanders, no smell of smoke.  They say that the world passes you by when you get older and that might be right.

Sunday, January 29

It's raining today and we have no plans so it looks like a day at home for us.  It's not hard to fill in the time, with good books and Netflix but we're always reluctant to turn on the TV in the daytime.  Still, we decided a while ago that we really needed to start watching movies more regularly and the only way to do that is to have more time in front of the box.  We're inundated with stories about the latest films and most of them we haven't seen, mainly because we don't go to the movies and can't get ourselves organised to look them up elsewhere.

I made a particular effort over the last few days to identify what was available: scouring the internet for suggestions of the 'best movies of 2022', narrowing it down to the best of British or the best of Australian, and so on.  We looked for movies that had favourite actors, like Helen Mirren or Bill Nighy.  Narrowing it down further to get rid of the the ones that were too violent, or too obscene was more difficult but I eventually ended up with a list of 30 or so we thought might be worth an hour or two of our time.  Some of them are on Netflix and others I find elsewhere.

We decided we would make it a priority to watch a movie a night.

We've been doing this for a week now and it's working pretty well.  We've re-visited Ladies in Black, and The Dry, Blithe Spirit and Spooks, The Good Liar and Honest Thief.  Last night we watched a movie called Bellbird, which I assumed was Australian but turned out to be set in New Zealand, about a farmer who was considering retiring but unsure whether his son could take on the farm.  

I'm now looking forward to seeing Baz Luhrmann's 'Elvis', maybe tonight.  I hope it's like Moulin Rouge or Romeo and Juliet.  

Monday, January 23

There hasn't been an overwhelming interest in my new game, Mammals in Soup. Jamie rang to suggest Chicken Stock offered two answers in one: chicken, of course, and a farmer's cattle.  I explain, patiently, that chicken is a bird and he suggested we re-name the game 'Warm-blooded Creatures in Soup' but it doesn't have the same ring.

At the chemist this morning the lady behind the counter asked me whether we might get rain.  I said that I hoped so to save me watering and she commented that a customer earlier had 'poured out 7mm'.  I didn't know how to respond to that.  I assumed he had poured it out of his rain gauge but is 7mm a lot, or a little?  Sometimes I think I'll never get the hang of living in the country.

Thursday, January 19

For lunch yesterday, we booked at the Basin Cafe in the Launceston Gorge.  It's accessed by a zig zag of footpaths or a long and winding ramp so it's very difficult for oldies.  So, a few years ago the Launceston Council put in an 'Inclinator', a mechanical device which travelled down a rail and deposited its infirm passengers at the door of the restaurant.

We parked and presented ourselves at the Inclinator Upper Station to find a sign telling us that it was 'Out of Order'.  What a blow!  Marilyn rang the cafe to tell them we were unable to come and were told that it had been out of order for about a year.  It was having a terrible effect on their business because it was the older age group who were the ones who 'did lunch'.  She asked Marilyn to ring the council and complain.

Woebegone, we walked back to our car and drove to the Silos Hotel where we knew we would have no trouble getting in.

Wednesday, January 18

 I woke up this morning with a brilliant idea for a new game. I'm calling it  Mammals in Soup.  The idea is to look at the name of a particular soup and try to find an animal's name in the letters.  Immediately, I noticed APE in the letters of Pea and Ham, and MOOSE in Consomme.  It will need some work but could be a winner.

Tuesday, January 17

The busy whirl of our social life continues. On Sunday we had Roast Lamb at a local hotel and, yesterday, we drove down to the Raspberry Farm at Elizabeth Town near Deloraine for lunch and today we are back to the Deloraine area for the annual Probus Garden Party.  I know that it sounds posh but it just means that we meet in a particular garden where we have a shared lunch.  One of our members has a very large block, with a lake, at Golden Valley in the foothills of Quamby Bluff and that's become our regular venue.

Marilyn's making chicken sandwiches and I've put together a fruit platter: small bunches of green grapes, strawberries, halved apricots, cherries, hand-picked boysenberries and a handful of Darrel Lee Liquorice Allsorts.  I reckon it's a masterpiece but it will only take a few seconds for clumsy hands to muck it up.

The weather doesn't look great and we might all get wet so I hope the President has a Plan B.

Saturday, January 14

Marilyn's sister, Anne arrived very early yesterday morning, with her son, Gavin and grandson, Austin.  Gavin and Austin were booked to do the Overland Track so it was good for Anne to take the opportunity of coming on the plane with them.  We all went to Seaport for breakfast, then I dropped the two trekkers off to their transport and brought Anne back to Longford.

Dinner last night was at Stickybeaks and we're having a very quiet day at home today.  I took a quick trip to the berry farm this morning for some boysenberries but, other than that, nothing much is happening.