Wednesday, February 1

Being bored, I thought I would look back on my blog to see what we were doing ten years ago. That's the beauty of keeping a diary: the past is always accessible.  On Friday, February 1, 2013, we were on a ship, the Diamond Princess, sailing into Milford Sound, New Zealand.  Yesterday, we had been in Port Chalmers where we had visited Caroline, an old friend from Chakola.

I remember the ship then set sail for the next port, Hobart, and tragically, on the way across the Tasman Sea, ran out of Sauvignon Blanc in the Dining Room. You might have expected them to stock up when they were in the country that makes the best Sav. Blanc in the world.  However, the maitre d' asked us to buy a couple of bottles when we reached Hobart and he would make sure they were only available to us.

Great days!

Tuesday, January 31

We had a gardener in yesterday to do a bit of tidying up before my birthday party.   I keep up with the watering and the tiny bit of lawn-mowing but draw the line at trimming the bushes and anything more adventurous. Marilyn found a young fellow who has the franchise for Jim's Mowing in the area.  As she said, we know he will have insurance and we have someone we can complain to if anything goes wrong.

In fact, he was terrific and the garden is looking 100%.

It's a big expense setting yourself up for running a gardening business.  He had a big 4-wheel drive and monstrous trailer with every conceivable bit of gardening equipment. I suppose he never knows what to expect so he has to carry everything with him, just in case.  He's coming back in a couple of days to take away an old barbecue we no longer use and some garden chairs which have been rusting in the corner since we moved in.  Apparently, it's all part of the service.

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.

Thursday, January 12

 Eric Bogle used to sing, 

                                       'Theres's no drought or starving stock,

                                        On a sewered suburban block."

Well, we have a sewered suburban block but, unfortunately, we also have some livestock just next door.  Either the bloke next door to us hasn't heard of Eric Bogle or believes the sentiments don't apply to him because he has decided that his life will only be complete when he has some chooks.

It's a big block, one of the originals in the area, and the bloke in question looks like one of the original inhabitants.  I can see over the fence and there are signs of old flower beds, and evidence that it was once a  lot more cultivated than it is now.  It's a country town and there has always been the sound of chooks in the distance but this current development means that a rooster now lives just about 20 feet from my lounge room chair.  There's at least one hen as well but I suspect more will follow.

Something has to change!  I wonder what the Council thinks so I go to the website and it's obviously not kept up to date.  I type 'chooks' in an appropriate place. but nothing happens.  Anyway, a country town Council is likely to be comfortable with the occasional chook.  If I wanted city living, I should have chosen a city.

I check the dangers to my ears of frequent cock-a-doodle-doos and find that a rooster's crow can reach 145 decibels while a rock band only reaches 110.  If I complained to the Council about a rock band living next door, I suspect they would do something but I reckon a complaint about chooks would be laughed away.

Marilyn says I should go round and offer to give him a dozen eggs a week if he gets rid of the rooster but I'm sure it's not about the eggs; it's something much more elemental, a link, perhaps, with a more pastoral past.

I'll just have to grin and bear it and, in the meantime, I'll continue to wear the ear muffs.

Tuesday, January 10

It's a month until my birthday and it's been decided that it is to be celebrated.  80 is a significant number and a milestone like that can't be overlooked, no matter how much I would like it to be.  Our friend, Robyn, has booked to visit us during that week and Jamie and Nera are flying back from NSW for the weekend.  We'll have lunch out on the Saturday, 11th, and some of our friends from Probus and elsewhere will be coming for afternoon tea on the Sunday.

I have to confess that I'm looking forward to it.  I usually don't like a fuss but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

Monday, January 9

We ended up at the Country Club Hotel for lunch.  We've intended to go there at some time but haven't managed it until now.  The pub builds its reputation on the history of car racing in the town.  For years, there was a car race around the streets and it attracted all the big names.  There's a Triumph racing car in a glass box set into the wall at the front of the hotel, which always attracts attention.

The walls of the dining room are lined with posters of the various races, with the last one being in 1968.  I had a look at the poster for 1966 (the year we were married) and I noted that the winner of the big race was Jackie Stewart, 2nd was Graham Hill with Jack Brabham 3rd.  Famous names, indeed!

1968 was the last race and it was decided it was becoming too dangerous to continue.  Tannery Straight need to be re-sealed, there were a couple of dangerous humps which needed attention and the Scenery Preservation Board still denied the organisers permission to put advertising posters around the country roads.  Bloody greenies, even in those days!

Sunday, January 8

 It's our anniversary today, not a 'special' one like 25th or 50th but our 57th.  I like to call it our 'Heinz Anniversary' because I'm old enough to remember the old Heinz advertisements boasting that they sold '57 Varieties'.  We'll celebrate by heading off to one of the local pubs for lunch.  There's one that has a blackboard outside saying 'Lunch from 12, Tea after 5.30'.  Tea? That's an old-fashioned term I haven't heard for years and, when I see it, I think of Marilyn's mother saying to her husband, 'What would you like for tea, Dad?"

I've neglected the blog over the past few days and have to confess that I'm losing interest again.  I promised myself that I would try to write something every day but sometimes I'm embarrassed with the triviality of what I come up with.  I might be a little more reticent with my comments in the future.

Wednesday, January 5

When I came back from the gym this morning, Marilyn was up and the bed had been stripped.  I felt a sudden shudder of disquiet and waiting for the fateful words: 'It's a nice day so I thought I'd change the sheets'.  I knew that I would soon be faced with the task of re-making the bed with fresh sheets and I had already designated this as my least favourite activity.

I've always had a 'bad back' and, as I get older, I find that the business of bending over to tuck in the corners of the sheets is very uncomfortable.  We've bought a couple of 'mattress lifters' which I push underneath the mattress to make the job easier but there's still a lot of bending to be done to make sure that the corners are neat enough for Marilyn's inspection.

The sheets I was issued this morning are a pair we bought recently: 'Egyptian cotton, luxury feel, generous proportions.'  They are good but the generous proportions mean that they are a couple of feet longer than the cheaper ones, but no wider.  This means I have extra to tuck in at the bottom but only the usual few inches at the sides.  Maybe we have a thicker mattress than usual but it irritates me that I can't get the sheets as neat as I would like.  If only that extra material had been put on the width rather than the length.

We're waiting for the man from Coles to arrive with outr order and then there's a bit more gardening to be done to put the place in order before the first of our visitors arrive.  Marilyn's sister, Anne, will be here from the 12th or 13th.

Tuesday, January 3

I try to avoid the sad and tragic stories in the morning's news but sometimes one slips through and I have to confront the less pleasant side of life in the year 2023.  I skipped over the news of the helicopter crash on the Gold Coast, the war in Ukraine and the appalling story of the airport worker who was 'sucked into an engine' at an airport in Alabama, but I inadvertently clicked on the link to a story about a horse that had died during the running of the Perth Cup on Sunday.

I would have ignored it and gone elsewhere but my eye was caught by the name of the horse: Chili is Hot. Reading on I found that other horses involved were Dom to Shoot and Buster Bash.  What has horse racing come to?  I remember the days of Phar Lap, and Rising Star, Makybe Diva and Black Caviar.  Those were names to admire.  I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the racing industry is struggling in Australia.  If that is, in fact, the case, I would suggest they look no further than the stupid names they give to horses.  How could anyone take seriously an industry that calls a horse Dom to Shoot?

Monday, January 2

We had a message on Facebook yesterday afternoon that the Weather Bureau was predicting severe hailstorms on Monday afternoon which would affect areas in Tasmania's Central North and Hobart.  The Hobart people can look after themselves but we're right in the middle of the Central North.  I hurried to the website to confirm that Launceston, Longford and some other places were right in the eye of the destruction.

We were advised to worry about outdoor furniture, vehicle in the open, and so on.  Marilyn's first thought was for the plants she had just sorted out following our trips to Bunnings.  They were on unprotected shelves and would be ruined by a heavy hailstorm. 

I wondered about Jamie's car which had been left out in his driveway.

The warning suggested that the storm was likely to hit in the afternoon so our plan was to head to Hadspen in the morning, put his car under cover, clear away any outdoor furniture, then come home to carry all the new plants into the garage and store away the outdoor glass table and so on.

The first part worked OK; Jamie's car is now in the garage with anything else vulnerable.  When we got home, I decided to check the BOM website to see the progress of the storm, only to find that the alert has changed and the danger zone is now Scamander on the East Coast.  The warning for Central North is cancelled!  I can't believe it!  

It's now about 5 o'clock and the weather is stunning: bright sun and just a little too hot.  I don't know whether anyone else in Tasmania is huddling under cover to avoid hailstones but we're certainly not.