Princess Theatre .....

I thought the next few weeks would fall into an easy pattern: a quick trip to the hospital each morning and the rest of the day to do something interesting. Well, I should have known that it would not be as easy as that.

On my first visit to the hospital I was given the schedule of all future appointments. They’re all over the place! The first few are at 9 o’clock in the morning, then there’s an 8.36 an 8.00am, followed by a 9.12. The earliest I have is 7.30am and the latest is 12.30pm. It means that I’ll have to keep track of which day it is and that’s not always easy when you’re retired.

At least I now know that my last appointment will be August 19th , so we can start checking flights for our trip to the Philippines - can’t wait! We might fly direct with Philippine Airlines, or maybe via Singapore which will give us the chance to try out the A380. There aren’t any cheap deals around at the moment so we won’t rush in to a booking.

Jamie rang yesterday afternoon to say he had spare tickets for the Princess Theatre in Launceston for that night. The play was Halpern and Johnson, featuring Gary MacDonald and Henri Szeps who played together in Mother and Son, which was a favourite TV series about 20 years ago. It’s the story of two elderly men sharing their memories of the deceased wife of one of them. Henri plays a Jewish manufacturer of cardboard boxes, and Gary is a retired accountant. It all takes place on a park bench in the cemetery.

The play was a delight - warm and witty, and the characters were wonderful. Sometimes, a last-minute opportunity can be very rewarding.

Of course, it’s encouraged us to look at what else is coming up in the next few weeks, and the offerings range from Are You Being Served to La Traviata. We could find something interesting every week. And what a terrific way to take advantage of the fact that we’re stuck in Northern Tasmania until the end of August.

As we suffer the trials of a Tasmanian winter, we’re surprised at the number of travellers who come in to the caravan park for a few days and then head off to somewhere else in Tasmania. There have probably been ten different vans in the past few days and clearly there is still some life in the tourist industry during winter, despite what the tourist operators say. Currently, we have Trev and Pat from Western Australia camped beside us; they intend to stay three days.