Monday, September 23

Marilyn and Robyn went off to the pictures this morning to see Downton Abbey while I stayed home to catch up with my on-line study course.  They suggest I allocate three hours each week to the course but it takes more than that just to read the comments of the other students, many of which are just random thoughts which they seem to think are worth sharing (something like this blog, in fact).

The movie started late and was quite long so we ended up with a late lunch.  With nothing else arranged, I chose another movie to watch - The Green Book.  I knew it had won the Academy Award but had mixed reviews.  No matter, we enjoyed it.

Marilyn said she wanted to watch a movie with Helen Mirren and we found Collateral Beauty.  It also had Will Smith, Keira Knightley and Kate Winslett so there were lots of familiar faces., which is always reassuring. And we enjoyed that one too.

Not a very productive day, but enjoyable, nevertheless.

I had a look at the Step Count app on my phone to see how much ground I had covered on Monday - 10327!  That's the highest it's been for a long time and compares with the 3540 I did on Saturday.  The count is not always a realistic figure because I don't carry the phone all the time so most of my daily wandering go unnoticed.  Yesterday was a good example of that.  It was a fairly normal day with usual trips between rooms and a brief sojourn outside but my count was only 25.  I've decided I'll only acknowledge counts over 3000 and put the lower figures down to counting errors.

Thursday, September 19

The flight from Tasmania arrived around lunch-time yesterday, so Marilyn invited Anne and Alan to meet  us at Central Station for a bite to eat and a chance to catch up.  Robyn and her friend, Pam joined us as well.  On her last trip, Marilyn had been to new eatery in the station and decided it was suitably up-market for our group.  Sad to say, it was a bit disappointing: the food was OK, although a bit limited, but the service was pretty ordinary and the staff were in need of some serious training in hospitality.  Getting a glass of flat champagne in the wrong type of glass was the last straw and Marilyn demanded a replacement.

Today we have nothing organised.  We wandered across to the shopping centre this morning to get a few necessities.  First, we bought a few bargains at Aldi and I was left on a bench to look after that stuff while Marilyn and Robyn went into Woolies.  I hadn't realised it was the Oldies Bench and there was a procession of elderly, movement-impaired men and women who came to sit for a few minutes to catch their breath before heading for the car park, or the Disability Taxi.  I happen to be using a walking stick at the moment; the doctors insisted I get into the habit of carrying one, frightened that a combination of wonky knee and aftermath of stroke made me liable to fall.  The stick identified me as a fellow oldie so I was drawn into conversation about ailments and what a bugger it is getting old.

It was certainly a new experience for me and I gather that I'll be expected to become more social in my old age.  I had always imagined I'd be a grumpy old man but that ambition might not be realised.

Sunday, 22nd September

We've had two good days out this weekend. On Saturday, we met up with friends, Jim and Di, in Kiama.  In conversation, we decided that Jim and I first met in 1966 so I think it counts as a long-term friendship.  He and his wife, Di, live in Kangaroo Valley so we don't see each other very often.

We walked out to the wharf and had a fishy lunch at the Fish Restaurant, then wandered up to the blowhole to enjoy the spectacle.  The wind was quite strong so the horde of spectators was treated to a great show.

Today we decided to get on the train and spend some time in Sydney.  We thought the trip would be quiet , being a weekend, but there was hardly  a spare seat on the train.  Getting out and enjoying life seems to be the norm in NSW and this was confirmed by the crowds at Town Hall,Station and Circular Quay.  We took the ferry to Watsons Bay where, again, there was no room to move.

Coming from the Anglo-Saxon outpost that is Launceston, multi-cultural Sydney is a revelation.  We live in a different country to the one I remember growing up in and I wonder whether our almost all-male, white, Anglo-Saxon, Christian government has the sensitivity and intelligence to steer us through this transition.

We're going to have to accept the reality of a dramatic change in our day-to-day circumstances if we are to progress. Sydney is an Asian city now and that's just the beginning.  Let's hope we can turn this to our advantage.  As the Borgs in Star Wars said, Resistance is futile.

Wednesday, September 18

I’m on a Jetstar flight to Sydney for what I like to think is a well-deserved holiday.  I checked back and this is my first time on a plane since May 8th, 2016 when Marilyn and I flew back to Launceston after our cruise to PNG. Flying is so common nowadays that, for a retired gentleman, a period of 40 months without a flight seems unthinkable.

Things haven’t changed much in that time.  Jetstar still mucked up our booking.  We always pay the fee to select our seats so that we can both have an aisle seat, opposite each other.  When we got to the airport, they said they were doing a manual boarding, whatever that is, and re-printed our passes.  Somewhere in that process, we were shifted.  And we didn’t notice.

So Marilyn is up front in aisle 7, while I’m jammed in a window seat in aisle 16.  I hate window seats on domestic flights.  I think I read somewhere that the reclining mechanism on these seats has been disabled, and I hope that’s true; my knees are already jammed in the small space and any intrusion into that space will be intolerable.

Not happy, Jan, and somebody will hear about it.  Probably just the few people who read this blog. Life’s too short to get into a barney with Jetstar (and life’s getting shorter each day!)

Monday, September 16

Jamie rang late yesterday afternoon to invite us to dinner.  Nera had announced during the afternoon that she felt like having guests so put a general invitation up on Facebook aimed at people who play Bingo with her.  Bingo is a great thing with the filipina community and they meet regularly.  Nera is lucky and wins more often than she loses.  Her mother, who is with them at the moment, is an old-fashioned Christian lady and frowns on any kind of gambling but her grumbling doesn't stop Nera from having the occasional game.  Nera asked Jamie to ring us to make sure that we were aware that the dinner was on.

We had nothing else to do and we accepted.  The weather was reasonable and Nera asked Jamie to put up their portable pool so she could have a splash around but, by the time we arrived at their house, a cold front had hit and the air was freezing.  It was too late to dismantle the pool so it stayed there, reminding everyone how unpredictable Tasmanian weather can be and how unwise it is have expectations.

Nera's bingo friends are mostly Filipina but many are married to Australian men who gather together at these functions to talk about things that really matter - like football.  One fellow last night wanted to have a whinge about Climate Change which he thinks is exaggerated.  He admits he doesn't understand it but that doesn't stop him from having an opinion.

I don't know how many turned up but there were lots of kids and they take up more room than adults. Nera had cooked a large piece of snapper she had in the freezer, lots of kebabs - beef, pork and chicken - and there was the usual rice and salad.  Everyone ate well and there was not much left.

Unfortunately, one family arrived late and Jamie had to make a quick trip to the local shop for a barbecued chicken.  It amazes me that Nera and Jamie make open invitations on-line, nobody accepts but still turn up, they all bring kids and rarely does anybody bring food.  I can't imagine how anyone could be expected to cater in that situation, but it seems to work.

It was a very good night but we found it a bit cold to be sitting around the garden.  Most of the others of our age also retreated to the lounge-room and, of course, all the kids did the same.  Other people's kids are never as well-behaved as your own.

I'm getting through the expectations of my on-line course in Writing Fiction.  There are a couple of hundred people doing it and they are expected to post samples of their writing regularly as well as comments on other people's work.  I'm not sure how I feel about that; I'm a bit precious about my writing and only want people to applaud.  I'm not comfortable with criticism.

Today's exercise was to turn on the radio and write up to 500 words about the first thing that was said.  We had to focus on characters rather than incidents.  Several people turned on the radio and heard a song so some of their characters are a bit odd.  One girl, apparently, is writing about love on an elevator.  I wonder what song that was. Not having a radio, I turned on the TV and heard the news about the bushfires.  My character is Trevor, a reluctant firefighter, who believes that he has the soul of a poet but finds himself in the guise of man of action.  My 500 words came surprisingly easily.

Thursday, September 11

I had to go for a blood test this morning and needed to fast.  That's not usually a problem but, we're without a car at the moment (in reality, our daughter-in-law is without a car and has borrowed ours) so the logistics were interesting. There are only a few buses a day coming through our area and my best option was to catch one at 9.30am with a return at 11.  I would have to ring the bus company to make sure he would watch out for me waiting on the side of the road, and make a detour to drop me off near the doctor's.  

All too hard, so I rang Jamie who picked me up.  While waiting for him, I put some seeds out for our birds.  The galah with the broken wing is a regular and I think he is dependent on us now for his food.  I've been watching him over the past few days and noted that he has four different trees which he uses to perch in between feeds.  I don't know how long he's been in our yard but he seems to have worked out a routine which works for him and, clearly, we're expected to play our part.

Marilyn has already organised for Jamie to take on feeding duties while we're away.  Another interesting anomaly this morning: the usual flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos arrived when they sensed food was around and in among them was something different.  I dragged out my bird book and discovered it was a long-billed corella, native to Victoria.  There are any number of reasons why one might be in Tasmania but it was nice to see a little more variety in our collection.

I started an on-line course in Writing Fiction this week.  All the courses I've done in the past have encouraged contact between the participants, but I've always avoided that; this course, though, is reliant on students commenting on each other's work.  I've already had a couple of not-so-positive remarks and I suppose I'll have to get used to it.

Sunday, September 7

We sat down to watch a movie last night.  We've been binging on TV shows like Harrow and Sherlock and felt it was time for something a little more substantial.  I had downloaded The Greatest Showman and we had heard some of the music somewhere so that was the first choice.  But, it turned out to be in Russian!  I don't how that happened but it was very disconcerting, so we looked for something else.

The Seagull was based on a play by Anton Chekhov (no, thanks!), we had already seen the Snowman so opened the latest Liam Neeson revenge movie, Cold Pursuit.  His Taken series had all been good and we had no doubt this would be in the same vein.  When you find a winning formula, why change it?

It was, in fact, great fun.  Dozens of people died but it was almost cartoonish in how it was presented. It reminded me of the Roadrunner cartoons in many ways.  Not a movie for everyone and you can't take it too seriously but certainly worth a watch.  As a bonus, it is set around Denver, Colorado, the 'Mile High City' and the scenery was spectacular.