Thursday, August 1

I don't have a very big desk and a lot of the available room is taken up with extraneous stuff.  There's a wooden box with several shelves where I shove stuff I don't want to lose, a framed picture of a coat of arms of one of the houses at Giant Steps, a small desk lamp, a tin which once contained butterscotch and now has a few mints in it, a leather-coverted cylinder with a few useful implements, like a paper-knife, scissors, pencils and so on.  For some reason, there's a camera, a pair of sunglasses in a case, a 5m tape measure and a new 2024 diary, unused.

I'm sure I would be much more productive if I had a pristine desk, clear of junk, but that's a pipe dream.  It is what it is and I just have to live with it.

Today's plan is to write another story for my collection.  I haven't looked at my list of 'prompts' yet but, mo doubt, something will catch my interest.

Wednesday, July 31

Marilyn heard that Archie would be left home alone today and decided that it wasn't fair for a little dog to be lonely.  Nothwithstanding that it is bitterly cold at the moment, that there is frost on the road and that I sometimes enjoy a lie-in, it was agreed that I would drop all that I planned and drive over to pick him up.  He was delighted to see me and is now spread on our couch, electric blanket underneath him, enjoying all that life has to offer.  It's a dog's life.

In reality, I don't have much planned for today.  In a couple of weeks' time I have to do a presentation to our Probus Club on our various trips to the Philippines.  I've put together a powerpoint presentation and am just missing a couple of photographs, which Jamie will provide.  Our first trip was 2006 and the last in, I think 2015, so there's a lot of memories to work with.  I just hope they are interested.

We haven't turned on the TV yet to watch what's happening at the Olympics. I think that underlies just how uninterested we are. There seems to a lot of skateboarding and surfing on at the moment and those are certainly not spectator sports (if they're sports at all!).   Who suggested that it might a good idea to include them?  Maybe things will pick up when the Athletics start.

Tuesday, July 30

The weather is particularly cold here at the moment and it is tempting to spend a bit more time in bed in the morning.  Still, we're programmed to be out of bed before 7 o'clock and, even if the snow is up to the door, we follow our usual pattern. Marilyn meets with a group of friends on Tuesdays so she's getting ready for that.  They usually meet at the RSL Club, do a bit of craft and play some bingo but today they're trying out a new venue.  It's just down the road.  In fact, everything is 'just down the road' in Longford.

While she's away I'll spend time on the computer, maybe writing a story or something.  I have an idea that I should have another look at my biography that I wrote years ago.  Not a lot has happened in that time but it might be worth looking at bringing it up to date.  

We have a new neighbour.  Abby from Unit 4, just over our back fence has moved on and, apparently, the unit has been bought by a woman who will bring her daughter with her (age unknown) and a greyhound dog.  Can't wait.  Abby had a Labrador and Archie used to love snuffling through the back fence at him.  We'll see how he deals with a greyhound.

Jen in Unit 1 is also on the move.  She's moved in with her boyfriend and we're waiting to see who will become our new neighbours.  We share a driveway so it's important to have the right people.

Monday, 29 July

We had decided that we needed a small round table and a couple of chairs to complete our re-organisation.  I had measured the space and thought that the table should be no more than 80cm in diameter so I checked the local Buy, Swap and Sell to see what might be available. Apparently, you can buy furniture though Temu and I found just what we needed from a company in Brisbane. Jamie wasn't happy and said at the price it would be total rubbish; we'd be better to go to a local furniture shop and pay a bit extra.

That phrase, 'pay a bit extra', always bothers me so we were at a stalemate.  Jamie took out the big guns and  brought Nera into the equation. She was unequivocal.  "You don't want a round one at all, you need a small rectangular table with a couple of chairs that will sit against the wall there." She checked the internet and found one that would suffice, rang them up, negotiated a price and convinced them to deliver it for an extra $20. 

A nice young couple arrived an hour later with the table and four chairs.  It has a glass top and curved chrome legs, the chairs are black and Marilyn is ecstatic.  So the re-organisation is complete and the room looks better than we could have hoped.

I've plucked todays's story at random and it's not one of my best.

 

BLIND DATE                                                                                                             July 28, 2023

 

I didn’t think I was particularly unattractive but I didn’t ever have a girlfriend when I was at school.  It didn’t really bother me because at that time we tended to go out as a group of boys and girls together and I didn’t stand out as a misfit.  However, when I finally left school, and got a job, I didn’t have a regular group around me to protect me and my lack of a girl-friend started to become glaringly obvious.  My friend, Paul, who always had girls lining up to be his special friend, tried to advise me.

 

“It’s the smell,” he said.

“What smell?” I asked.  “I don’t smell.”  

“Oh, it’s the smell of fear.  You won’t notice it but girls can sense it a mile off.  They know that you’re frightened of them and that turns them off.”

 

Well, I can tell you that I was flabbergasted but had to see that there might be truth in what he said.  Girls were a puzzle to me and I was just a little in awe of the sense of mystery that seemed to surround them; they spoke in code, and giggled at the oddest times.  I worried that they were making fun of me.

 

Paul interrupted my reverie and announced that he was going to take me in hand.  He had arranged a blind date for me the following Saturday night and, to make sure nothing went wrong, he and his current girlfriend would be there with us.  The girl, he promised, would not make fun of me, or snigger, and everything would be fine.

 

Saturday night came around and I made a special effort to look as good as I could.  I borrowed some of Dad’s Brut deodorant and put on a clean shirt.  My sneakers were a bit scruffy, I noticed, but that couldn’t be helped; I would just need to keep them out of sight.

 

We were to meet at the coffee shop in town and then move on to a movie which was the latest Burt Lancaster thriller.  My mind flirted with the possibilities of being in a darkened movie theatre with an attractive young woman but Paul had warned me not to expect too much too soon.  “Be cool, man!” he said.  I thought that sounded like something he might have heard on a TV show from the Sixties but decided not to say anything; he was only trying to help.

 

The girls were waiting for us. Paul’s regular girl-friend looked very nice but I couldn’t take my eyes off the young woman who stood shyly beside her.  My first impression was of dark hair in a ponytail, and the current girls’ uniform of skirt with lots of petticoats, short sleeved top and tiny cardigan.  She was very pretty and it took me a moment to realise that I knew her.  Yes, it was her and I had thought I would never see her again.

 

I took an involuntary step backwards as my mind reeled with memories:  of a holiday at Devonport with my family when I was about 12 years old, and the tent we had pitched beside the beach.  I recalled the carnival which had been set up just along from us and how it was like a magnet for all the children in the campsite.  Even though it only opened in the evenings, all the kids spent their days wandering among the rides and carnival tents, waiting for the hours to pass until the lights were switched on and the exciting music started to play.

 

Among the crowd of children on the beach that summer was one girl of about my age.  Her family, I think, were in a tent further along the beach and she always walked around with a couple of other children, younger than her.  I assumed it was her job to look after them.

 

We spoke only once when I shyly went up to her and asked her some inane question. “ Where are you from?” maybe.  I’m sorry to say that she looked at me as if I were a worm and then ignored me.  My twelve-year old self esteem was bruised that day and I suspect it never quite recovered.  I saw her around the beach again, of course, but was never brave enough to talk to her again.  The holiday came to an end eventually and I returned home with my family, nursing memories which have never left me.

 

I realised that this vision from my past was talking to me and I struggled to make sense of the words.

 

“Hi, have we met before?  You look familiar.”

 

Immediately, all my old insecurities flooded back and, bizarrely, all I could think about was whether she could smell how frightened I was. I don’t know what I said in reply but I hope it wasn’t too stupid.  However, against all the odds, things turned out for the best and we celebrate our 50^th wedding anniversary next month.

Sunday, July 28

It's all about the Olympics this weekend and Marilyn turned it back on as soon as she appeared this morning.  We find ourselves watching sports we have no interest in like canoeing, waiting for another gripping battle in the pool or on the track.  It's disappointing that we have to listen to self-appointed experts like Karl commenting but we just turn down the sound.

Because we have nothing else planned for the weekend, I suspect the TV will not be switched off.  I suppose there are worse ways to spend our time.

Saturday, July 27

So, the Olympics is back.  We love the competition and the excitement of the events but the hype and banality of the commentators is very hard to take.  We didn't stay up to watch the opening ceremony knowing that it would be played ad nauseam in the days after and we were right.  The TV was turned on when I got up and with a bit of dial-turning we found where it was being shown.  It's been on now for nearly three hours and the same 20 minute of vision is being shown, over and over and over ....

We're not great fans of live TV and, especially, of commercial channels so we're finding it hard to deal with the harsh language of the over-excited ex-sportsmen, and the incessant commercials  Commentating is a profession like any other and only the best exponents should be chosen.  The best commentators need to have a knowledge of the sport they're talking about but also a pleasant speaking voice, a good manner and some idea of how to impart their message.  But, if they had all those attributes, they would never be employed by Channel 9.

And Lady Gaga, it's time to retire!

Friday, July 26

 

We're waiting for the cleaner to arrive; it could be anytime between 8 and 12 o'clock but we have nothing else planned for today.  I would, normally, be heading off to my 'classes' at the School for Seniors but I'm not doing that anymore.  I'll probably sit at my desk while the cleaner is here to keep out of her way.  One thing we always have to do on Friday morning is strip the bed, bundle all the linen into the laundry to be washed, shake and turn around the padded under thing and remake the bed when the cleaner has put on fresh sheets.  It's not my favourite day of the week.

One thing I have to do is browse the Marketplace on Facebook to see if anyone is selling a little round table and a couple of chairs.  Harvey Norman want an arm and a leg for something that would suffice but I suspect I can do better in the second-hand market.

I wrote this story in 2022 when the celebrations for the anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge were underway.  I was interested in the fact that the stone for the bridge supports was all cut from a quarry at Moruya by workers imported from Aberdeen, known in Scotland as the Granite City.  One of the newspapers published a photograph of students at the Moruya Primary School and I was intrigued by one young fellow who seemed better dressed than the others, so I made him the subject of the story.

GRANITE TOWN FACES                                                                               APRIL 1, 2022

 

When his father came in from work with the familiar smell of granite-dust on his clothes and in his hair and said, “We’re going home”, Andrew Ritchie’s heart sank.   His father went on,

 

”They’ve told us the last pieces have been cut and it’s just a matter of cleaning up the site and then we’ll be back to Sydney and on to a ship for home.”

 

“Aren’t we going to stay until the opening of the bridge?” Andrew’s mother asked.

 

“There’s no need; we’re not invited and there will be thousands of people there all trying to get a good look.  I never want to see another piece of Moruya Granite.  I’ve spoken to Mr Gilmore and he said we can leave with the first group to go.”

 

Andrew wondered what it would be like to go back to Aberdeen.  When he thought about it, he realised he missed living in a town where they had paved streets, and street-lights and a library.  Yes, a library!  That’s what I miss most about Aberdeen.  

 

He couldn’t sleep that night, his head spinning with thoughts of what his life would be like.  He would be fourteen in a few months and his father had already told him he had lined up an apprenticeship for him at the Rubislaw Quarry.  Was that to be his life?  Slaving in a granite quarry for ten hours a day and then dying an early death from silicosis.  “Not bloody likely!” he said to himself.  He had read that phrase in a book his teacher had lent him: it was a play, in fact - Pygmalion. By George Bernard Shaw. 

 

Andrew woke early and joined his parents in the kitchen where his father was having his porridge before going to work.

 

“I’m not going,” Andrew announced.

 

“You’re not going where?” asked his mother.

 

“I’m not going back to Aberdeen.  I’m not going to become a stone mason, and I’m not going back to the cold weather.  I want to stay in Australia.  I’ll be fourteen soon so I can get a job and look after myself.”

 

“Don’t be daft,” said his father. “You’ll do what I tell you and that’s the end of the matter.”

 

Andrew waited until his father had gone to work and he could talk to his mother without his father’s bullying.  His mother was sympathetic and said, “This is what we’ll do.  We’ll talk to Mr Gilmore and get his advice.  He’s the only man your father will listen to and whose advice he will accept.”

 

John Gilmore was the manager of the Moruya Granite Quarry and had earned the respect of all his men.  He was a fair man and a good manager and was happy to make time to talk to Mrs Ritchie and help her with her problem.  After listening to the story and asking some questions, he said,

 

“Andrew seems to be a very intelligent and studious young man.  Some might say that he will be wasted as a labourer in a stone quarry.  I have some good contacts in Sydney and I’d be happy to see what I can do.  It might mean, Andrew, that you will have to break away from your family and you may not see them again for many years.  Would you be happy about that arrangement?  And what would you say about staying at school a bit longer and getting a better education? Yes?  Well, leave it with me.”

 

John Gilmore spoke first to Andrew’s teacher and then contacted a good friend who was the chairman of the Scots College Old Boys’ Association in Sydney.  He outlined the situation and his friend said, “Oh, we can certainly help.  We’ve been looking for a way to get involved in something to do with the opening of the bridge and this fits the bill perfectly – here’s a Scottish boy with a connection to the building of the Bridge. We certainly have enough funds to offer a bursary, the Uniform Shop can fit him out and I’ll, personally, offer him a reasonable living allowance.  An ex-teacher from the school, Mr Bill Nimmo, now has his own Prep. School in Randwick and he and his wife offer accommodation to country boys who attend his school and Scots so Andrew will be well looked after.  The Association will pick up those expenses too.  With a few years at Scots, University for Andrew would not be out of the question.”

 

When John Gilmore reported back to Mrs Ritchie, she could not believe what she was hearing.  There were some details which needed sorting out and it would be hard on all the family but it was a wonderful opportunity for Andrew.  Now all she had to do was convince Andrew’s father to agree.  

 

Thursday, July 25

I had to go out this morning to visit the Secretary of our Probus Club.  We had a bill to pay and the recipient didn't like cheques.  Direct deposits are easy nowadays and it's just a matter of two signatories being in the same place at the same time to authorise it.  I took over the job in March and it's taken me this long to put the infrastructure in place to be able to pay anyone.  The Commonwealth Bank hasn't helped.  

The day I was elected, I went to the bank and asked how I could register my signature and so on.  They told me what I needed to do and I set that up for the next meeting.  We only meet once a month so a month later I took the details to the bank.  It wasn't what they needed.

A month later I took the new information to them and confirmed that I could now pay by direct deposit.  Oh, no, that's something else again.  Now I need to register for net banking which is a new set of details.  Of course, when I tried to log in, it told me my user number had expired.  I needed it today so, at 7 o'clock this morning I rang the Helpline and was assisted by a young man with a very camp voice.  "User names don't expire," he said. "You will need to log in on a different browser."

I've never heard that one before but, luckily I have two computers set up on my desk.  I had been using my MacBook but I switched to the HP desktop and it sailed through.  I'm getting too old for this.

Wednesday, July 24

Bertine, who loves in Number 5 unit called in yesterday to see how our de-possession was going and I think she was appalled that we had barely a chair to sit on.  She mentioned that her sister is visiting so Marilyn invited them both around for coffee.  I'm doing the sums: we have three seating spaces and, if we have two visitors, we will need four .. unless I sit on my desk chair and pretend to be working.  All good.

However, Jamie offered to bring over two tub chairs from his place to make ours look a bit more furnished.  They fit in perfectly and we hope that he and Nera will decide to leave them with us.  That will save a shopping trip to Harvey Norman.

I'm pleased that my announcement yesterday that I'm going to ration my stories has not caused an outcry.  One part of me hoped that someone (anyone?) would express disappointment but you have all been very stoic.  Well done!

Tuesday, July 23

I've been digging around on the computer to find stories that I've written over the years and I'm pleased to say that several have been uncovered that I had forgotten about.  However, no matter how many I find I'll never be able to continue posting one every day.  I can't write a new one every day so the supply will, inevitably, dry up.  The new plan is that I will only post stories on Monday and Friday and, on the other days, I will post only if I can think of something to say.  So there!

It's overcast here but Marilyn has decided that she is going to wash the sheets.  I'm beastly careless.  If I have to peg them out, so be it, and if I have to bring them in when the rain starts, I'll do that too.

We're certainly enjoying the new set-up of our lounge room.  One of the neighbours popped in yesterday and was gobsmacked to see that we only have one easy chair and one two-seater.  "Where will visitors sit?" she asked.  We thought of some snarky replies but said nothing.  However, we'll keep our options open; you never know what we might decide.

Monday, July 22

As expected, the Coles order arrived yesterday morning as did the person who was buying our table and chairs.  While we were waiting for her husband to back his trailer into our narrow driveway, she told me that they were moving into a new house and needed some extra furniture. She had answered an ad for a lounge and the fellow had said that other people were interested and, if she wanted it, she had better transfer the money to him straight away.  It was a scam, of course, and she had 'done her dough'.  She also mentioned that she has four children, all of whom have some kind of disability.  One has autism

When she left, Marilyn and I had a chat. We have an old leather 3-seater lounge and decided that she needed it more than we do so we rang her and they came back to pick it up, and we didn't take any money for it.  Our good deed for the day,

Standing back to review, we now have lots of elbow room.  My desk has moved to the front part of the living room which gives me more space (and it's away from the air conditioner!).  For lounge seating, we have a two seater sofa and a single recliner chair, both of which we bought when we moved in here.  That's plenty for our needs, if we don't have more than one visitor.  Perhaps we need to add to that, but that's a decision for another time.

I've decided we need a poem today:

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT

 

There was always great excitement when the circus came to town

The brightly-coloured posters told the tale

Of wonders and delights that would take your breath away

And early discount tickets were on sale.

 

On Saturday, to tease the crowd, a Grand Parade was planned

The circus folk would show what they could do

And everyone with time to spare would be there, standing by

The Mayor and the City Council too.

 

Football games were cancelled and meetings re-arranged

No-one was prepared to miss the treat

It wasn’t every day that the pubs were emptied out

While hardened drinkers cluttered up the street.

 

First there came the Ringmaster, resplendent to behold

Striped trousers, fancy hat and jaunty walk.

He knew he drew attention from the ladies in the crowd

Whose husbands had to watch them like a hawk.

 

Who came next? The acrobats – nobility of the ring

Their costumes were, perhaps, a little tight

They strutted, proud as peacocks, down the shabby little street,

Already making plans for opening night.

 

Behind them came the elephants, no longer in their youth

They live to be a hundred, so they say.

This pair were Senior Citizens and should have been retired

But had to earn a living every day.

 

What happened next, it’s hard to say, but an elephant was certainly involved

Some think he’d finally had enough

A steaming pile of dung engulfed the mayor’s shoes

And left His Honour standing in the stuff.

 

When life returned to normal in that sleepy little town

And the circus had moved on to pastures new

The Mayor had had to set aside his thoughts of greater glory

As stories of his adventure grew and grew.

Sunday, July 20

We're waiting for two visitors this morning, both of whom have promised to be here between 10 and 11 o'clock.  The first is the lady (it's usually a female) from Coles with our order and the second is someone who wants to buy our dining room table.  I have no doubts that Coles will be here but who knows about the others.  If they do come, they'll be getting a bargain.  The table is made of solid Malaysian hardwood and has 6 chairs.  It's a very impressive bit of furniture.

I wrote todays little bit of rubbish as an exercise: 'Write about a protagonist who has a disability'. I decided mine would have a lisp.

CYNTHIA SIMPSON

Cynthia had a lot going for her.  She had been born into a well-to-do Sydney family who lived near the beach on the beautiful North Shore.  She was a pretty child with one glaring flaw: she lisped, rather badly so always stumbled when asked what her name was … ‘Thynthia’ might sound amusing but lacks dignity.  When asked her name, she always said, ‘Thynthia, Thyn for thyort.

 

Cynthia grew into a statuesque woman, slim with long blonde hair.  She studied hard, graduated as a lawyer and took a position as a barrister with one of Sydney’s leading law firms, where she advanced rapidly into a senior position.  It was difficult for her when she was asked to represent a notorious criminal, Simon Sebastian Smith, but she ignored the sniggers and open laughter of the people in the courtroom, and won the case although the judge found it hard to hide his smile when he was giving the verdict.

 

She also had a secret.  Her parents ran one of Australia’s biggest drug gangs and her father had pushed her into law so she could help in the business.  One time, when he asked her to represent one of his employees who had been charged, she burst out.

 

Don’t be thilly, Dad.  I’m not intere-th-ted in thatisfying your thilly demands.  In thpite of all you have done for me, I’m thure you won’t ex-th-pect me to thtand up in court and make myself look thtupid.

 

Saturday, July 20

When we had our aged-care assessments recently, it was suggested we look at the 'passage-ways' in the house to make sure that we had enough room to walk around comfortably.  As we get older, we were told, we'll be more clumsy and likely to bump into things.  The trouble is, all our furniture is for a bigger house, most of it bought when we had the large place in Deloraine.  If we were starting again, we'd go back to double beds, and a small round table and so on.  But we have too much invested in queen-sized infrastructure, doonas, linen etc. 

One thing we can work on is the table.  It's 6 foot long with 6 heavy chairs and the last time anyone sat at it was at my eightieth birthday all those months ago.  It has to go!  Nera advertised it for us on Buy, Swap and Sell and we had an immediate reaction.  The first buyer didn't turn up but another is coming tomorrow afternoon.  With the proceeds, we'll get a nice, little round job with a couple of chairs and then look at reorganising the room.  I hope to be able to move my desk which is currently right underneath the air conditioner.  Happy days!

Today's story goes back to 2020. It's called .....

SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW

 

His name was Billy Winter.  I met him one summer weekend in 1974, shared no more than a few words with him, and never saw him again after that weekend but I have never forgotten him, and I often wonder how it was that his life followed the path that it had.

 

With a group of friends, I had walked in to a remote area on the Shoalhaven River called Louise Reach where we planned a few days of camping.  At the last minute, one of our party had pulled out but the rest of us were looking forward to a break from our busy lives in the city and the chance to see a different aspect of the Australian bush.  The member of our group who had suggested the walk had visited this spot a few months before and told us we were in for a surprise.

 

We suspected we were being set up to be surprised by the beauty of the surroundings but none of us anticipated that we would find someone living in this out-of-the-way place.  There was the smell of wood smoke in the air as we came down the track but we knew that this part of the river was popular with canoeists, and we expected we would not be alone.  But the person who met us as we came to the river flat was not a canoeist.  He was a short, nuggety man, skin burned brown by the sun, and wearing shabby clothes.  My first thought was this man is not young but he’s not finished with life yet.  Many men in their 70s adopt an aura of helplessness: a sense of ‘I’m getting on a buit so any help you can offer will be appreciated’.  Not so with Billy Winter.  This was a man at peace with himself and confident in his environment.

 

Yes, we confirmed, he was living there, in a house he had built for himself out of timber collected from the river bank and covered with heavy plastic he had carried in.  he caught fish and eels in the river, gathered blackberries in season and grew some vegetables.  Once a fortnight, he walked out to Marulan, the nearest town, to get his pension and buy some supplies.  He had made friends with some members of the local canoe club who kept an eye on him and brought in anything he needed; he had a standing request that anyone who came to visit should bring a gift of cheese.

 

On the first morning, as we relaxed over a cup of tea, we heard a shout from the river.  In my imagination, there is a mist on the water and we can barely see a small boat coming towards us.  It’s Billy, and the final member of our party who had managed to get away to join us.  Billy had offered to bring him over the river to out campsite in his home-made boat.  The Ancient Britons might have called it a coracle, made of woven willow stems in a basket shape and covered with plastic, it gave Billy access to both sides of the river and a wider range for his foraging.

 

Over the next few days, we hardly saw him as he got about his business but we pieced together something of a life story.  He was German and had lived and worked most of his life in New Guinea, working in construction – roads and the like.  His wife had died soon after his retirement and Billy decided to come to the NSW Southern Highlands to be closer to his family.  We gather that he became tired of their constant requests for money and didn’t much like the wives his sons had married, so he made the decision to divide his remaining money among his relatives and move to this spot on the river to live as a hermit.  He had been there for a couple of years and looked forward to many more.

 

I took another group of friends back to Louise Reach the following year with a selection of cheeses in my backpack but Billy was no longer there.  There had been a flood a few months previously, Billy’s house had been washed away and he had been evacuated.  His health had deteriorated and he was now living in a nursing home in Goulburn.  I don’t know how he got on in that environment but I hope his family treated him with the respect he deserved and I hope they found time to visit him in his final days.

Friday, July 19

I'm writing this a little earlier today as Marilyn's cleaning lady has arrived, spot on 8 o'clock.  I was in the shower and have now been told to sit at my desk and keep out of the way.  Breakfast is on hold although I could probably get a cup of coffee if I sulked enough.  

Nera's nephew, Brendan, is coming around later this morning with Jamie and will detail both our cars, for a fee.  He starts his coutse on Monday and is desperate to find ways to earn a quid.  He has put in applications in various places and we'll just have to see how it works out.  At least he seems willing.

I like today's story because it is true and mentions fishing boats from Gourdon, a village on the East Coast of Scotland.  During the time mentioned in the story, several of my ancestors were fisherman from that town so could well have been involved in the incident.  Mr McGonagall's poetry is a bonus.

WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN                                                            APRIL 9, 2021

 

In 1965, everyone from Bob Dylan to the Clancy Brothers was singing When the Ship Comes In and,  even though I thought it was a great song, I couldn’t get out of my mind that the words were wrong.  To me, it should have been  ‘When the Boat Comes In’, preferably said with a strong Geordie accent.  These were familiar words from my childhood, from a song my mother used to sing:

“Thou shall have a fishy

On a little dishy 

Thou shall have a haddock

When the boat comes in.”

 

It became a common saying in my family and every time my brother or I asked for something, Like “When are we going to get that record player you promised?” the reply would come “When the boat comes in.”

In our minds, ‘when the boat comes in’ came to mean ‘some time, never’.  And, in any case, if all your dreams depend on a fishing boat bringing it to you, you’re sure to be disappointed.  But who is to say that a fishing boat might not be capable of bringing home something much more exciting than a fishy on a dishy?

 

In the year 1883, some fishermen from the port of Dundee in Scotland seized on an opportunity which might only arise once in a lifetime.  They heard the news that a humpback whale had been sighted in the Tay River close to the town.  Without any thought of what might come of it, they grabbed harpoons and set sail in their little wooden fishing boats, determined to capture the beast.  A local poet, William McGonagall, now widely regarded as the worst poet in the English language, was on hand to record the event.

 

‘Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883,

That a monster whale came to Dundee,

Resolved for a few days to sport and play

And devour the small fishes in the silvery Tay.

 

Then the people together in crowds did run,

Resolved to capture the whale and to have some fun!

So small boats were launched on the silvery Tay,

While the monster of the deep did sport and play.

 

Oh! It was a most fearful and beautiful sight,

To see it lashing the water with its tail all its might,

And making the water ascend like a shower of hail,

With one lash of its ugly and mighty tail.

 

Then the water did descend on the men in the boats,

Which wet their trousers and also their coats;

But it only made them the more determined to catch the whale,

But the whale shook at them his tail.

 

Heading for the open sea, the whale finally succumbed to its injuries and was sighted, floating on the surface, by two fishing boats from the nearby village of Gourdon.  Tying ropes to the monster’s tail, they towed it to shore at Stonehaven.  People watching from the shore would have had no idea what they would see when those two boats came in.

 

Mr McGonagall’s poem brings the saga to its conclusion:

 

And my opinion is that God sent the whale in time of need,

No matter what other people may think or what is their creed;

I know fishermen in general are often very poor,

And God in His Goodness sent it to drive poverty from their door.

 

So Mr John Wood has bought it for two hundred and twenty-six pound,

And has brought it to Dundee all safe and all sound;

Which measures 40 feet in length from the snout to the tail,

So I advise the people far and near to see it without fail.

 

Then hurrah!  For the mighty monster whale,

Which has got 17 feet 4 inches from tip to tip of a tail!

Which can be seen for a sixpence or a shilling,

That is to say, if the people are willing.

Thursday, July 18

 I had to buy a new 'phone earlier this year and go through the process of adding all the apps which I use on a daily basis.   The biggest problem was with my bank.  I do all my banking through the app but adding it to the new 'phone was a total pain.  I eventually had to go into the branch in Launceston and get one of the staff to talk me through it.

Yesterday, I had a message from them that they were updating the app.  Fair enough,  but now I have to go through the whole process of setting it up again.  The problem is that I can't remember passwords and, if I write them down, I can't remember where I left them.  And I can never remember which of the passwords I have written down is the most recent.

I've heard of things called Password Managers.  I assume they are programs rather than people but, if I installed one of these, would I have to password-protect it?  If so, I'm no better off.

I wrote the following little story yesterday as an exercise.  The first sentence (in italics) is the prompt.

There is an urban legend floating around about a taxi that doesn’t take you where you want to go, but rather where you need to go.  Write about a character that gets into this taxi.

 

Jeremy thought it was just a joke. He couldn’t believe there could be any truth in the story that there was a taxi in town which wouldn’t take you where you wanted to go.  Instead, it would take you where you needed to go.  Not only was it a joke, he decided, it was a zen joke.  He could imagine a bald monk in a robe, nodding wisely and saying, “There are things, brother, over which we have no control and a wise man accepts that wisdom. None of us is so clever that he knows everything.”

 

Anyway, thought Jeremy, what’s the difference?  If you tell the driver that you want to go to a certain spot, surely that’s where you need to go.  

 

“Oh, how naïve you can be, sometimes, Jeremy.”  The voice of the bald monk seemed to echo in Jeremy’s head.

 

It was rare for Jeremy to catch a taxi nowadays but, every now and again, if he planned to have a drink or two, it was sensible to leave his car at home and ring a cab.  In fact, today was Saturday; this evening he was meeting his friends at a Steakhouse for dinner, and he had heard there was a 2 for 1 drinks special on at the moment.  He didn’t intend to get drunk, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

 

The taxi arrived promptly.  The driver was someone Jeremy had not met before.  He was bald and looked Asian, perhaps from Thailand or Myanmar.  Often Asian immigrants gravitated to jobs like taxi-driving, thought Jeremy.   I hope he knows his way around the city; I don’t want to have to give him directions.

 

“I want to go to the Aussie Steakhouse,” he told the driver, who didn’t acknowledge, but simply drove forward as soon as the door was closed.

 

“You should have taken that turn.” Jeremy didn’t usually tell taxi drivers which way to go but this fellow seemed all at sea.  He was driving too fast, as well, and was hunched forward over the steering wheel as if he was anxious to get to his destination.  

 

“Slow down, man!” shouted Jeremy, starting to become a little worried about his safety.

 

“Sorry, sir,” apologised the taxi driver. “This is my first day on the job and I’m a little nervous.”

 

To Jeremy’s horror, the driver turned around to look at him and Jeremy saw his eyes widen as he caught sight of a car coming up quickly on their left.  Frantically, the terrified driver threw his steering wheel to the right and Jeremy found himself hurtling forward, striking his head on the rear vision mirror.

 

By good fortune, the cars did not collide but Jeremy felt a hot rush of blood from his forehead running down his face.  The driver looked aghast and started to accelerate down the street.

 

“What are doing, you fool,” shouted Jeremy. “This is not the way to the restaurant.”

 

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” the driver shouted. “You need to have your head looked at.”

 

It was only later that Jeremy realised that, instead of the taxi driver taking him to where he wanted to go, he took him to where he needed to go.  Jeremy, in his imagination, could see a tall, bald, monk nodding his head wisely.

 

Wednesday, July 17

Today is going to be a great day.  The sun is shining, we have nothing demanding to be done and we're expecting a parcel from Temu.  I worry that I'm becoming addicted to Temu; we've already bought quite a bit from them, I spend quite a bit of time browsing and if Marilyn ever makes any off-hand remark that she could use something, I'm straight on to it.  Today's parcel has some new sheets and a couple of those things you attach to the bottom of toothpaste tubes to make sure you get every last drop.  Can't wait!

I wrote this next story in 2023 and I must have been feeling unusually sentimental.  I've called it ....

DEAR JOHN                                                                                                0CTOBER 8, 2023

 

My wife is not often short-tempered with me but this morning I could hear an edge to her voice as she called me from the garage.

 

“I’ve just found your old briefcase in this store cupboard and I thought we had agreed that it was time to get rid of it.  You know we’re short of space in this unit and we can’t afford to hold on to rubbish.”

 

It was a fair comment but I couldn’t help thinking that we could easily find more space if she would agree to donate more of her old clothes to the City Mission.  That’s a conversation for another day if I were ever brave enough.”

 

“Sorry, sweetheart,” I called out.  “I’ll come and get it.”

 

The briefcase had sentimental value; it had been given to me when I started work at my first job in November, 1965. I had been employed as a Trainee Accountant and I remember I turned up on the first morning, wearing a business shirt and tie I had borrowed from my father, so I would look the part.  I was also carrying the briefcase which I thought was an important part of the image although, on that first morning, it contained not much more than a clean handkerchief and a sandwich for my lunch.

 

I retrieved the briefcase from the resentful hands of my long-suffering wife, gave her a rueful grin and shuffled off to my study to see what it contained.  It wasn’t a very large briefcase and I wondered why we couldn’t find room in this reasonably spacious unit for such a tiny chunk of my history.

 

The catch had become a little rusty but clicked open after a bit of effort.  At first I thought it was empty, but digging a little deeper, I found that it contained just one small envelope.  The once-white paper was discoloured now and the glue had deteriorated. Inside the envelope was a single sheet of writing paper folded three times.  I was curious and opened it.

 

“Dear John,” I read, and memories came flooding back into my, now, middle-aged brain.  I remembered I had written this letter on my eighteenth birthday.  I must have been suffering from an attack of some teenage angst, perhaps influenced by The Beatles and George’s obsession with Indian philosophies.  Somehow, I had thought it a good idea to write my future self a letter.  I remember thinking that I ought to write on the cover NOT TO BE OPENED UNTIL 2015.  Why 2015?  Because that. was 50 years on and my pessimistic self could not imagine that I would still be around.  In any case, it didn’t matter.  I had almost forgotten that I had even written the letter.

 

I waited until I arrived home after work before reading more deeply into the note.  The house was quiet so I poured myself a glass of wine and settled down, not knowing what to expect.  What did my 18 year-old self feel moved to write to his future persona?

 

“Dear John”, it began.  “I’m writing this letter on the occasion of my 18^th birthday and hope I have the strength of will to leave it unopened until at least 2017.  Still, knowing how forgetful I am, I’ll likely not remember that I’ve even written it and some future descendant will find it in a hundred years and chuck it in the rubbish”.

 

“Anyway, I hope that everything is well with you (me!).  Our politicians tell us that the world is heading for disaster and the catch-cry is Mutually Assured Destruction.  I don’t know whether to believe them but I thought I should write this letter in the hope that I’ll still be around in 50 years time.  If I do happen to find it some time in the new century, I wonder whether I will open it, or will I just throw it into the bin.”

 

“As you can see, you were pretty mixed up.  On one hand, you were looking forward to the future.  You started your first job recently and were excited about it, but you will already know that and will also know how that worked out.  You were wondering whether you will marry.  You’ll remember that you didn’t have a steady girlfriend but you lived in hope.  You couldn’t think beyond that”.

 

“You’ll remember, too, that you were really interested in music so I want to finish this note with a few words from your favourite band.  I hope they are still remembered into the future and I suspect they will be”.

 

“All you need is love”.

 

I took my eyes from the page and was surprised to find myself wiping away a tear.  Bloody Beatles!  I knew they would have had something to do with it.

 

 

Tuesday, July 16

Winter is really upon us in this southern state and one of the worst things is that I run out of the summer fruit I enjoy on my cereal in the morning.  I get blackberries from the local farm, rhubarb from my garden and strawberries from the supermarket.  Of course, I freeze what I can but there is usually not much left by  the middle of July. I finished the last of the raspberries yesterday and all I could find tn the freezer this morning was a solitary bag of blueberries which Nera and Jamie had picked a year or two ago.  I'm not fond of blueberries. I think they have a nasty chemical taste but, if all else fails, I have to hold my nose and suffer it.  Maybe I'll have to invest in a bag of frozen imported blackberries from the supermarket.

I found this story, Old Bill, which isn't dated (although I wrote it in 2022) and doesn't seem to have an ending - just a stream of consciousness.  Doesn't matter!

 

OLD BILL

 

Old Bill was always up and about by 7 o’clock in the morning.  He’d read about other old codgers who never stayed in bed after 6 but he thought 7 was a reasonable hour and it fitted in with the pattern he’d established in his working life.  He had always worked what he called ‘office hours’, starting at around 9 and working until 5: ‘civilised hours’ he liked to say.

 

His father had worked as a mechanic and followed ‘tradesman’s hours’, maybe starting as early as 7 o’clock if he was on the dayshift, which meant he would get up around 5.30.  When he retired, Bill’s Dad kept to the same pattern and used to say it was ‘against his religion’ to still be in bed after 6.  Like many of his generation, Bill’s dad didn’t live long in retirement.  He was gone before his 75^th birthday and Bill used to say that he only lived long enough to spend his paltry retirement money and that didn’t take long.

 

It was different nowadays and people retired with pretty significant savings, all

 due to the push by government to encourage superannuation.  The pension wasn’t much but, so long as you had a house, you wouldn’t starve.  Bill worried, of course, about those poor buggers who hadn’t managed to save enough for their retirement and hadn’t managed to buy a house for one reason or another.  Their future, in rented accommodation, without a decent nest egg looked pretty bleak.  He just hoped their health held up.

 

Bill couldn’t understand the people he had met who couldn’t wait to retire so they could get hold of their superannuation and lash out on expensive holidays, new cars and so on.  He’d heard more than one superannuation millionaire say that the government could look after him when the money ran out.  Bill and his wife didn’t stint but were careful not to spend too much on ‘frills’.  One holiday a year is enough and there’s only so many times you can sit on a cruise ship watching the gulls fly by.

 

He often thought about his travels and the wonderful adventures he had had.  He loved to drop the names of favourite places into conversations: When we were in Kathmandhu… Vladivostok was an interesting city … and his friends and family were tolerant of stories they had heard many times before.  In his 80^th year, he thought he was entitled to take up a bit of people’s time to chat about things that interested only him.

 

Bill found that he had too much time on his hands.  He was never keen on the church and had resisted invitations to join the Bowls Club or the Men’s Shed so had to look for other ways to fil his time.  Sheila, his wife, kept herself busy with reading and crosswords and she always seemed to be knitting something.  Bill was unsure what, exactly, was being knitted and assumed the products were being passed on to one charity or another.  There were no little children in the family any more to knit for so someone else’s children would be the beneficiaries, and Sheila seemed happiest when she had something to keep her hands busy.

 

Keeping busy made him think of his garden and how much harder it was becoming to find the energy to keep up with the weeding and the watering, apart from the thousands of other little jobs which kept springing up.  He couldn’t imagine the day when he could no longer look after the garden adequately but he had no doubt that day was coming closer.

 

Was that Sheila calling him in for a cup of tea?  His hearing had been a problem for years and was getting worse.  His new hearing aids were supposed to be the latest model but he still couldn’t hear anything with them.  Still, he didn’t have to pay for them and there was no problem with booking in for a check-up.  He was sure Sheila always accepted the invitations to have the regular check-up because she enjoyed the chat and talking to someone different about their ailments.  She always suggested that Bill was useless and a burden to her, but that was OK; if she wanted to let people know how hard she worked then that was fine, Bill knew he couldn’t do now what he could do years ago and it was better if he didn’t dwell on it.  He knew he was the most fortunate man, to have a wife like Sheila who had stuck with him for over half a century.

 

Some of his mates complained that their wives became crabby and one even told her husband she had had a choice of men when she was young and only realised now that she had made the wrong decision in whom she should marry.  Bill thought that was a terrible thing to say; she had made her bed, for better or worse, and she should lie in it.

 

There was a football match on the TV this afternoon; Rabbitohs v Sharks, apparently.  He could understand why a team might call itself Sharks, or Bears or Jets, they suggest strength and power, but Rabbitohs or Swans?  Might as well call yourself the Marshmallows or the All-Day Suckers.  He started to chuckle at the thought but stopped himself in time.  If Sheila heard him chuckle, she’d want to know what was so funny and wouldn’t let up until he thought of something innocuous to tell her.  She wouldn’t get why the thought of sissy names for football teams tickled his fancy.  That’s another saying you don’t hear nowadays: some people have dirty minds, he supposed.

Monday, July 15

My soup was a great success and I made enough for a week so that has my lunch covered.  I've ordered  some soup-size containers from Temu so that I can store it appropriately but they haven't arrived yet.  Marilyn had a set of three unused containers which would do the trick: three different sizes.  She then commented that I should send some to Jamie and Nera because Nera is always sending me a bowl of whatever soup she is making.  OK, but because they have Nera's nephew, Brendan, staying with them I needed to send three portions.  That's half of my week's supply gone!

Today's story was supposed to be entitled The Hero but I added the word Reluctant to reflect the character of my protagonist.

 THE (RELUCTANT) HERO                                                              OCTOBER 14, 2022

 

In the early-1800s, the birth of a child was not always a welcome event, especially to working-class families, who often struggled to put food on the table. However, Neil and Agnes Livingstone were delighted when their second child was born, on March 19, 1813.  The Livingstone family were deeply religious and every child was a blessing. In any case, it was likely that he would be able to contribute to the family income from about the age of eight. Agnes had seven babies in all, although not every one of them survived into adulthood.

 

This particular baby, born into poverty became one of the most famous missionaries of the 19^th century, credited with bringing Christianity to the Dark Continent and becoming a hero to  generations of Africans.  He is, of course, David Livingstone.

 

I’ve seen the home where he was born and brought up, in the town of Blantyre.  It’s just a single room in Shuttle Row, a white-painted tenement block of similar rooms where whole families lived out their lives while working as spinners and weavers in the local mill for a few coins a day.  The room is about 4m square on the third level of the building.  There is no bedroom nor bathroom, simply a kitchen table and some chairs, a sink and a small fireplace.  There is a cupboard for food and a wooden chest of drawers.  There is also an alcove to the side into which a bed has been built, with another underneath which can be pulled out into the room when needed .  One is for the parents, the other for any children who survive into childhood.  The youngest child might sleep in the bottom drawer of the dresser until he is too big for that space.

 

A kettle for tea can be boiled on the fire and simple meals can be cooked.   It is usual for the women to prepare a week’s supply of porridge which is poured hot into the top drawer of the dresser.  Each morning a slice is cut off for each member of the family and it is eaten, either cold, or quickly heated in a pan over the fire.  Agnes would have bathed her baby in the sink of the shared laundry. The privy is in the yard and accessed by poking a stick through a hole to lift the latch of the door.

 

All the children must earn their keep and work is plentiful, but poorly-paid, in these days when cotton goods manufactured in Scotland are in great demand all around the world.

 

David, worked as a ‘piecer’ at the mill from the age of ten years, while still attending the Blantyre Village School. A piecer re-tied broken threads on to the spinning machines, and it was a job reserved for young children who were nimble and had small fingers.  

 

David’s father was a Sunday School teacher and he was a major influence on David’s growing interest in the Christian faith.  At the age of nine, David could recite all 171 verses of Psalm 119.  The family attended the Congregational Church and David became enthused about the number of missionaries who were working at that time in China.  He decided that this was to be his life’s work and he determined that it would be beneficial to his work if he qualified in both theology and medicine so that he could both preach and heal. Of course, he was still working fourteen hours a day so it was difficult for him to find the time for study but, his employer recognised this was a dedicated young man and was happy for David to work for only 6 months of the year, leaving him time to follow his studies at University and Medical School in Glasgow.

 

It was about this time that the London Missionary Society was seeking suitable men to undertake missionary work in Africa.  David’s ambition of working in China had been disturbed by the Opium Wars and he agreed to take up the challenge of a missionary friend, Robert Moffatt, to travel to Africa.  Moffat famously said that he had ‘sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been’.

 

In early-1841, David Livingstone arrived in Capetown after a 3 month journey by ship via Brazil.  But his journey had only begun. He then slowly lumbered five-hundred-miles by ox cart from Port Elizabeth to Robert Moffat’s station at Kuruman.

 

David Livingstone would spend most of the next thirty-two years in Africa, as a missionary and explorer, covering some forty thousand miles on foot, by ox cart, steamer, or canoe through uncharted territory, suffering great hardship and much sickness, including twenty-seven bouts of malaria by one historian’s count. Running through all the years of his life was  “the thread of devotion to Africa woven in with his concern that the continent should be Christianized.”

Sunday, July 14

 We've been getting Meals on Wheels for a couple of weeks now and, in general, they are excellent.  We only ordered main courses and a soup which I got into the habit of eating at lunch time. The soups were pretty good but I realised they were not as good as the one I used to make, based on Mum's method.

There was a time when I used to make a pot of soup almost every week, but habits change and I would lately only make it on rare occasions.  However, the knowledge is still there so I decided we would forego the MoW soups and I would make a big pot of my special every weekend and dole them out during the week.  It started today.

In fact, it started last night when I put some pearl barley and soup mix in bowls to soak overnight.  This morning I put four chicken legs, in the crockpot with grated carrot and chopped turnip, some coriander, parsley and 2 litres of stock (a chicken and a vegetable, because that's what was in the pantry).  I added the soaked barley and soup mix and put on the lid.  It will take a few hours.

I'll check it later for seasoning and chop up the meat from the bones. I reckon it should last me the week if I'm careful.  Happily, Marilyn's not a fan so it's all mine.

I don't know where the motivation came for today's story; probably a book I was reading at the time.

REACHER                                                                                                         AUGUST 11, 2023

 

It was my usual Monday afternoon routine: opening my Writing folder to see what prompts had been given for the story I was expected to produce for the Friday Writing class.  I had made sure that all my chores had been finished so that I wouldn’t be interrupted while I let my brain mull over the ideas.  I had been to the gym, the bed was made, the socks had been pegged on the line, and I had checked that there was nothing else pending for me to do.  There is nothing worse than starting to get down the bones of a story only to have your concentration shattered by an unwelcome interruption.  

 

I looked at the prompts we had been given: ‘Prompt 1: A character with chronic sleepwalking problems’ ….. no, I don’t think so.  Prompt 3: ‘Think of three conflicts’ … Three?  I can’t even think of one.  So, I turn to Option 2.  ‘You are sitting reading a list’ …. And my concentration is interrupted by the ringing of the doorbell.  Oh, I think, maybe it’s the parcel I’m expecting from Amazon, so I hurry to the door.

 

There’s a very large man standing a couple of metres back from the door.  He’s not in uniform and there’s no delivery van parked behind him.  He’s carrying a small bag over his shoulder and I can see what looks like a folding toothbrush poking out of his top pocket.

 

“Are you John?” he asks in a soft American accent.

 

“Yes,” I admit. 

 

The big man smiles.  “My name’s Reacher,” he says. “I’ve been looking for you.”

 

I can’t help myself.  “Jack Reacher?”

 

“Just Reacher,” is the reply.

 

I’m astounded. “Come in.  I’m sure you’d like a coffee.  What are you doing here?”

 

I know I’m stammering but I’m so surprised that I think I must be asleep and dreaming.

 

Reacher waits until I’ve brought his coffee and says, “I got a lift with a truckdriver up from Hobart and he told me that you’d be a good person to contact to help me with a little project that I have on at the moment.”

 

‘I’ll do whatever I can,” I replied.

 

“Well, it’s like this.  I’ve been travelling around the States for years now and I decided that it was time that I looked further afield so I hitched a ride on a yacht leaving San Diego and it brought me to Hobart.  I expected that things would be the same here as they are in the States.  I thought that every time I came to a new town there would be some crime being committed and some crook to deal with.  But everywhere I’ve been in this state, all the people have been nice and nobody has needed my help.  The truckie told me that, if anyone in Tasmania knew where crooks hung out, it would be you.”

 

I can’t imagine where he got that idea, I wondered, while I racked my brains.  I thought we might live in the least criminal place in Australia but I did remember reading about a police raid on a property in Pateena Road a while back.  Apparently, they found drugs there.  And, if all else fails, there is always the bikie hang-out in Invermay.  I’m sure that mob are up to no good.

 

Reacher was anxious to get on his way so I drove him to Pateena Road and waited in the car while he got about his business. There was a bit of noise and one or two young men ran up into the scrub nearby but it didn’t take Reacher long and, before I knew it, we were on our way to Invermay.  I was aware the bikies hung out somewhere near MacDonald’s and we were able to identify the place by the number of Harleys parked outside.  I had a hamburger while I waited and Reacher soon re-appeared dragging a leather-jacket-clad fellow by his ear.

 

“This nice young man has agreed to drive me to Devonport where he says he will show me where there is another bikie hangout.  Thank you for your help, John; I really appreciate it.”

 

I was a little bemused by this whole incident and wondered whether it was just a manifestation of an over-active imagination.   However, next day’s newspapers confirmed what had happened.  The articles finished by saying that police wished to interview a large gentleman with an American accent who had been seen leaving the area.  Thankfully, there was no mention of the elderly, white-haired Australian who had driven him there.