Sim Sim Sal A Bim

The other day when I picked up the mail at the post office there was a notice in the p.o.box telling me there was a parcel to be picked up at the desk. There's always a few moments of expectation and curiosity before you find out who it's for and what it is. This time it was a parcel for Gordon which I later found out was a DVD he'd purchased on ebay.
As Glenda handed it to me it to me and I saw Gordon's name I asked her could she wave her magic wand and turn it into a carton of red wine addressed to me. She laughed and said "Sim Sim Sal A Bim, done."
On my morning walks I call in at the post office/ newsagency and say hello to whoever is doing the early shift, which Glenda does three days a week. I asked her what was that she said the other day when she gave me the parcel because it rang a big bell for me somewhere in the memory bank. She said there was a magician on the Tarax show or The Happy Hammond show on TV when she was a kid, Bernard The Magician, who used to say it as he did a magic trick. I remembered it then, and for some reason, like two old fools suddenly realizing that the idiotic antics of after school TV in the early days of the then new medium probably screwed up a whole generation of Australians, we both cracked up laughing. I couldn't stop. It all flooded back, especially the less than subtle marketing of Zig and Zag and Happy Hammond getting kids to stuff themselves with softdrink and Peter's icecream, 'the health food of a nation'. We should sue.
Well yesterday, after a phone call from the hospital, as I put down the phone, I had to say out loud, "SIM SIM SAL A BIM".
Let me give you the whole story. I recovered from the outburst of pent up emotion that overcame me while listening to the old songs yesterday and got about my work. I was not totally enamoured with the world, possibly because of the bill I got in the mail for $350 from the psychologist whom I'd gone with Gordon to see to get a letter of support for his court case. I offered to pay him cash on the day but he said not to worry about it, and Gord and I took it that he wasn't going to charge under the circumstances.
While picking some green pitto I could hear bees buzzing in a nearby native prostranthra, or Victorian christmas bush. They were working it hard, as they were the flowering cotoneasters I'd noticed earlier. I had a quick look into each hive and saw they were heavy with honey. Another extracting weekend ahead. That will cover the psychologist. I was going to get a billy of honey and a couple of bottles of wine to him before Christmas. At least I won't have that worry now. Easier to send a cheque, and he can pay his tax on it.
On my way to the farm I wondered when the social worker would ring. After unloading I asked Elvie had the hospital rang and she said they had and that Lyle had been assessed as in need of high care but that they'd like him to come home if she thought she could manage him. Elvie was adamant that she couldn't, so they agreed it would be necessary then to find nursing home accomodation for him. Selling the farm was not practical as there were four owners and too many people relied on it for their livelihood. We felt relieved, not only because Lyle would have the round the clock care which he needs, but because it looked like we were right all along and we had worked through a difficult situation. Elvie and I made tentative plans to follow up with nursing home research over the next two days and to visit Lyle and console him with the bare reality.
I picked some rowan berries for the wholesaler then went inside to work out the wages cash check while I waited for the agent to come to see us about a valuation for the farm, postponed from the other day. We are going ahead with the valuation, it can't hurt to have knowledge of such things as I may have to borrow money soon, for Lyle's care, or for water tanks. The phone rang. It was a doctor from the hospital. They had done a CT scan on Lyle as he was showing short term memory loss and they'd found bleeding in his brain. It looked like it had happened a few weeks ago and maybe he'd had a fall and knocked his head, which caused it. They were taking him to Monash hospital where they had a brain surgeon and he would be operated on tomorrow to remove the blood. It could well be that his mobility would be much improved and this area of the brain is also directly involved with incontinence.
SIM SAL A BIM. Halleleuyah!. Knock me down with a feather and stone the bloody crows! All that time they were trying to send him home or have him agree to sell his assets, he'd actually had a stroke that was the reason for his rapid deterioration and our inability to cope.
It's a strange feeling when you know you were right all along to have others discover the same thing, and we'll be happy to have Lyle back at the farm if his mobility and balance are imprroved by a successful operation. Touch wood! We'll know in a few weeks.
The agent didn't turn up again. He said he'd had a car accident, but he'd sealed three sales this week to Perth people cashing in on the boom over there, selling up and moving to Melbourne with a big profit. First it was Sydney, he said, now Perth.