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

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.