Monday, December 15

 

The story goes that Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the famous poet, woke up one night ‘from a fevered dream’ with a poem fully formed in his head. It is suggested he might have taken opium. The poem was Kubla Khan and it has become one of the best known poems in the world.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure dome decree

Where Alph the sacred river ran

In caverns, measureless to man,

Down to a sunless sea.

 

I had a similar experience this morning, waking early with a poem rattling around in my head and I had nothing stronger than coffee before retiring. I had to get up to write it down before it disappeared.  In fact, one line (that’s 20% of the poem) had disappeared and may never be seen again.

There are some things I need to get at the shop

And some library books I need to swap

And I wish the voices in my head would stop

If there’s whisky in that bottle, I wouldn’t mind a drop.

Saturday, December 13

 Nera has family visiting her at the moment.  Her sister with her husband and baby, and another brother arrived late last night and are driving to Hobart this morning to see the sights of the big city.  Marilyn and I were woken at about 8 o'clock with Jamie dropping off Archie on the way.

I am pondering on the details of that situation: for years I have prided myself on being up and about by 7 o'clock every morning.  You could set your clock by my regularity.  But that proud reputation has fallen in a heap and I have shown myself to be as weak as the next man.  This morning I was still in bed at 8 o'clock!  Disgraceful!  I'm blaming the physiotherapist at the exercise class who worked us too hard in yesterday's class.  Is she expecting too much of her elderly clients?

Tuesday, December 2

 I seem to have become addicted to a website called Quora.  It's a question and answer forum and mostly US-based.  The format is that someone poses a question, and other people offer their responses.  Many of the questions are political like ''Where does Donald Trump get off calling Marjorie Taylor Green a 'rino'?   The questions vary though and this morning I read "Is it ethical to keep cats as indoor pets when some people believe it's wrong to keep animals in captivity?"

It's harmless stuff, mostly, and I find myself being sucked into the nonsense.  Perhaps it's because I secretly enjoy reading how ignorant some people are and that feeds my feeling of superiority.

This morning, I realised there are other people who also share my feeling of cleverness.  One regular subscriber is called Nicholas Stone and he writes about trains in the UK.  I was surprised how many people ask about train travel in the UK until I realised that Nicholas must be writing the questions himself.  He can then show off his knowledge and attach a picture of a ,train with his beaming face in front.

I love the captions to the photographs, something like: A Cross Country XPT in festive livery,  Photograph taken by Nicholas Stone, the author of this article.

I suppose everybody needs a hobby.

Thursday, November 27

 We were half-watching an Escape to the Country episode on Youtube yesterday, set in some obscure village in, maybe, Somerset, when I glimpsed a familiar name on the screen.  The prospective home buyers were visiting a restored cinema and were being shown the elaborate theatre organ which had been restored to its former glory.  I wasn't particularly interested until I deciphered the name carved on the hinged flap where the organist would stand his music; the name was Christie.

Hurrying to the computer, I searched for 'Christie Organ', not knowing what I would find.  What I discovered was that in about 1923 a company called Hill, Norman and Beard was involved in manufacturing large theatre organs and they were in great demand to meet the growing popularity of 'moving pictures'.  Silent movies were always accompanied by an organist.

The company was bought out by a prosperous entrepreneur called John Christie (Yep! Another one!) and the company went from strength to strength.  Mr Christie opened an Australian branch in 1927 and organs were installed in all the major theatres including the Lyceum Theatre in Sydney.  A particularly good example of a Christie organ is in the College of Advanced Education in Brisbane.

Of course, the empire fell apart with the advent of 'talkies'.

Tuesday, November 25

 It's a miserable day and we're not too enthusiastic about leaving our comfortable lounge-room.  Still, there are things to be done and we need to give ourselves a shake.  Matilyn might have gone to her 'Friendship Group' this morning but has given that a miss because we have a couple of appointments this afternoon. At our age, you have to pace yourself.

November 25th ... it's my Dad's birthday (and nephew Simon's as well).  Dad was born in 1918 in the dying days of World War 1.  He grew up in the period when Britain was trying to re-build and married just as World War 2 was getting underway.  With his wife, he made the decision in 1950 to bring his family to Australia in the hope of a better life and he must have been pleased when that hope eventuated.  Sadly, he died before his 69th birthday but I think he would have been chuffed that he succumbed to something as exotic a Legionnaires' Disease.  I can hear him saying, "It you have to go, you might as well go in a blaze of glory."

This post is a bit gloomy, perhaps, but I suppose I can blame the weather.

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