I'm really hanging out for the bell in the last of twelve rounds in 2012. With three days to go I reckon I'll have a narrow loss on points if I can stay on my feet for this last bit. It has been a rugged contest, I didn't flinch, but I'm quite spent and demoralised.
I met a lady today in the Beenak cemetery. I was returning from Yarra Junction, where I visited Graeme. Graeme rang me on Thursday, he had some some seedlings and seeds for me still, I could come and get them if I wanted. He'd told me a month ago he'd bring them to Gembrook when he next delivered to the IGA and he'd ring me when, but he didn't ring. He told me he had complications with the stomach ulcer that had stopped him coming some weeks earlier, and had to go to hospital again. They found cancer and took most of his stomach out. He showed me the big three week old scar right down his gut. He and his son Dave loaded me up with tomato, onion and capsicum seedlings they would otherwise throw out.
On the way home I took the turn down the dirt road, following the finger board that said 'Beenak Cemetery'. It was a few k's in, I was surprised at the volume of traffic coming out, causing much dust and detracting from the remoteness of it all, as I slowly drove past a winery, a kiwi orchard, then stringbark bush. There was once a town at Beenak, a mill town which followed the gold prospecting of yet earlier time. I expected the remnants only of the cemetery and perhaps a few very old headstones, and solitude, which I want badly. Need badly.
There were a lot of cars outside the cemetery, a funeral service had just finished. I found a car park in one of the gaps created by the cars I had passed and strolled in to have a look around. The grass was freshly mowed, there were perhaps four or five dozen graves scattered about, none of them looking old. I stayed away from the gathering of people and the hearse at the burial site and wandered amongst the other graves. A blonde lady sat alone in the shade inside the fence on a bench seat. The graves I inspected were all recent burials, say from 1980 to the present, migrant people, still born baby, two year old from the same family, young men with photos, probably car accidents.
I remember Meredith telling me she and her boyfriend Ray Hudson were walking in the bush near Beenak cemetery in the 1970's when they saw a Thylacine, quite close, crossing the track in front of them, unmistakably a Tasmanian tiger. Meredith is the sort of person you believe.
I was surprised the cemetery had recent graves only. I walked back towards the van, passing close to the lady wearing sunglasses. I said hello, and voiced my surprise at the lack of old graves seeing that Beenak was once a town. She could not shed any light on it, she said she was here with the funeral group, but did not know the deceased personally, who was a lifelong friend of her mother. She was down from Queensland, visiting her mother who was in her eighties.
I told her I was on my way back from Yarra Junction and followed the sign to the cemetery out of curiosity. The weather was balmy as we looked down the slope at the gathering chatting quite happily with tall stringybarks behind them. I commented that death is not really a sad thing if a person is in their eighties, in fact it's a beautiful thing, the completion of a life and quite natural, and perhaps renewal in some way none of knows about with certainty.
She agreed, but said when death comes to someone in their forties as it did to her husband, by means of cancer, it's a proper bastard. She and her three children were devastated. She said she now lives at Maleny, in from the Sunshine Coast, and she loves it. Her new partner and her have a hundred acres or so and he works with timber and makes furniture etc and she loves it up there where she does a lot of fishing, in the sea as well as rivers and dams. She manages a farmers' co op. Her children are grown up, one in the thirties, and she's now a grandmother.
Another lady came over and began talking to her so I said, "Goodbye, I'll have a look around Maleny one day." She smiled and said I really should.
It has been a tough year. I haven't got the grass cut at the farm yet and I haven't got to extracting honey. I told the florists I was not picking foliage for them between Xmas and New Year. I've had a house full of people for Xmas. As good as it all was, today was the first bit of quiet I had.
That's why I lost on points. I want most of all peace and quiet, I do not have it, not in 2012 anyway.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Monday, December 24, 2012
Merry Christmas My Friends
I'm not much of a one for sending Christmas cards, although I do send a few to my old friends who regularly send me one first. I'm fortunate that I have many friends. Some read this blog. To those I extend my love and best wishes to you. I write for you, and it gives me great pleasure. I hope that Christmas brings you all the love from family and friends that I feel it does for me.
Merry Christmas my friends.
Merry Christmas my friends.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Wood Sorrel
We know it as oxalis. It's damnable in that once you have it any quantity it's almost impossible to get rid of it. The problem with it is that it has a root corm that divies up into many little corms that all become a vigorous new plant. It grows in the warmer weather and is then quite visible if the ground has been cultivated. It proliferates with cultivation and I suggest that the infestation I have at the farm in the vegie garden got a good hold in the days when we used a rotary hoe.
Every cloud has silver lining, that's why I love clouds. Today Meredith picked 15 bunches of wood sorrel (oxalis) for the restaurants. It is an edible herb so at this time of year it also is an income source for us. Not that I'd advise eating it in any quantity. I asked Meredith if she knew how they used it and she said she saw in the 'Epicure' section of the paper where the used a leaf to decorate a dish of salmon mornay.
The restaurant trade as well as the florists keep us very busy in the last few weeks before christmas. I felt some pride today as I looked over the 'Herb and Spice Garden' order waiting for pickup. As well as the woodsorrel there was a bag of dandelion leaves, nasturtium leaves and many punnets of pansies and mixed edible flowers. It's an interesting business we have, rewarding when you can give the customer what they want, and frustrating when we don't have it or so little that it's hardly worth the trouble picking.
Demand for many things goes up and down frequently so to grow too much is a mistake, just as is not growing enough. It's always the struggle, deciding what to grow and how much.
Speaking of weeds I'll be picking green holly bunches tomorrow for Christmas orders. Not like the old days when I'd pick hundreds of bunches a week in the weeks before Christmas.
Every cloud has silver lining, that's why I love clouds. Today Meredith picked 15 bunches of wood sorrel (oxalis) for the restaurants. It is an edible herb so at this time of year it also is an income source for us. Not that I'd advise eating it in any quantity. I asked Meredith if she knew how they used it and she said she saw in the 'Epicure' section of the paper where the used a leaf to decorate a dish of salmon mornay.
The restaurant trade as well as the florists keep us very busy in the last few weeks before christmas. I felt some pride today as I looked over the 'Herb and Spice Garden' order waiting for pickup. As well as the woodsorrel there was a bag of dandelion leaves, nasturtium leaves and many punnets of pansies and mixed edible flowers. It's an interesting business we have, rewarding when you can give the customer what they want, and frustrating when we don't have it or so little that it's hardly worth the trouble picking.
Demand for many things goes up and down frequently so to grow too much is a mistake, just as is not growing enough. It's always the struggle, deciding what to grow and how much.
Speaking of weeds I'll be picking green holly bunches tomorrow for Christmas orders. Not like the old days when I'd pick hundreds of bunches a week in the weeks before Christmas.
Love is Disciplined
I love this.
"Because genuine love requires an extension of oneself, vast amounts of energy are required, and, like it or not, the store of our energy is as limited as the hours of our day. We simply cannot love everyone. Genuine love for a few individuals is all that is within our power.
To attempt to exceed the limits of our energy is to offer more than we can deliver, and there is a point of no return beyond which an attempt to love all comers becomes fraudulent and harmful to the very ones we desire to assist. We have to choose whom we are actually to love. This choice is not easy; it may be excruciatingly painful, as the assumption of godlike power often is. But it must be made.
Many factors need to be considered, primarily the capacity of a prospective recipient of our love to respond to that love with spiritual growth. People differ in this capacity. It is unquestionable, however, that there are many whose spirits are locked in unpenetrable armour that even the greatest efforts to nurture the growth of those spirits are doomed to almost certain failure. To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spritual growth is to waste your energy and cast your seed on arid ground."
That is from 'The Road Less Travelled' by M Scott Peck, a psycotherapist who wrote the book based on his many years in practice. I'm reading it at age 60 but wish I had when I was 30 which was about when it was written. I have left out a phrase or two for brevity but it rings huge bells for me, as does most of the book.
In the same chapter, "Freedom and discipline are indeed handmaidens; without the discipline of genuine love, freedom is invariably nonloving and destructive."
Then a little later, "Call it what you will, genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy."
We all need a bit of freedom, we all need discipline. This book is helping me understand myself and so much of what has happened in my life. Not that I want to be self absorbed, but it relates to me and those around me and those I have loved and love.
I have worked long and hard lately and have no energy to write about my activity but talking about this book came enthusiastically to me. I'd recommend everyone to have a read of this book which is subtitled 'The New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth.'
"Because genuine love requires an extension of oneself, vast amounts of energy are required, and, like it or not, the store of our energy is as limited as the hours of our day. We simply cannot love everyone. Genuine love for a few individuals is all that is within our power.
To attempt to exceed the limits of our energy is to offer more than we can deliver, and there is a point of no return beyond which an attempt to love all comers becomes fraudulent and harmful to the very ones we desire to assist. We have to choose whom we are actually to love. This choice is not easy; it may be excruciatingly painful, as the assumption of godlike power often is. But it must be made.
Many factors need to be considered, primarily the capacity of a prospective recipient of our love to respond to that love with spiritual growth. People differ in this capacity. It is unquestionable, however, that there are many whose spirits are locked in unpenetrable armour that even the greatest efforts to nurture the growth of those spirits are doomed to almost certain failure. To attempt to love someone who cannot benefit from your love with spritual growth is to waste your energy and cast your seed on arid ground."
That is from 'The Road Less Travelled' by M Scott Peck, a psycotherapist who wrote the book based on his many years in practice. I'm reading it at age 60 but wish I had when I was 30 which was about when it was written. I have left out a phrase or two for brevity but it rings huge bells for me, as does most of the book.
In the same chapter, "Freedom and discipline are indeed handmaidens; without the discipline of genuine love, freedom is invariably nonloving and destructive."
Then a little later, "Call it what you will, genuine love, with all the discipline that it requires, is the only path in this life to substantial joy."
We all need a bit of freedom, we all need discipline. This book is helping me understand myself and so much of what has happened in my life. Not that I want to be self absorbed, but it relates to me and those around me and those I have loved and love.
I have worked long and hard lately and have no energy to write about my activity but talking about this book came enthusiastically to me. I'd recommend everyone to have a read of this book which is subtitled 'The New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth.'
Saturday, December 15, 2012
12/12/12
My friend Leigh arrived at 7.30am with a gentle knock on front door. He came specifically to see me and accompany me on my morning walk, which, I must confess, I have done only spasmodically recently due to pressures of work.
It was an honour that Leigh came to see me. We were teamates in the Greta FC premiership team of 1980. Not only that, we went to the same school in the 1960's, Caulfield Grammar, where we had no personal relationship or contact really, despite being in the same year. It was a big school. He was a year ahead of me in the age group football teams. He ended up vice school captain, I was expelled some time prior to that.
Leigh looked as fit as a trout. A little heavier in the top half perhaps, and white hair like mine, but in good nick. We walked, talked, and exchanged mental energy. We are bloggers, thinkers, seekers of truth, as different as you could be in some ways, (Leigh is vegetarian, does not drink alcohol, is athiest, rides a pushbike for recreation. I love meat, wine, believe in God, and walk rather than ride).
We did not talk football. We have both grown mentally and spiritually, since our time as footballers that brought us together as mates forever. Leigh was at Greta for one year, I for four, it was a lot of things aligning thing that saw us win the premiership that year. Leigh was best and fairest in 1980. He kicked five goals in the Grand Final, and even better, he kicked five goals in the last quarter of the prelim final in an an amazing performance, something akin to Superman, as we clawed our way back from a six or eight goal deficit at half time to overpower Beechworth and win by a street.
Leigh committed to do a blog post for every day of 2012. I have followed his every word. He's delivered, an amazing effort, I speak two weeks shy of the finale, but he would not slip up now. Along the way he has gone from being unemployed, to finding his dream job, losing and regaining his good woman, and searching his soul. He loves his dog Jezza, and even his cat.
Lethal Leigh, you are a legend. I don't think you missed a game in 1980, in which case I think you would have played 21 games including three finals for the year. And I think you wore number 12 on your purple and gold guernsey.
Once things for sure, we won't see the next time 12/12/12 comes round, not walking this familiar Earthly plain anyway.
It was an honour that Leigh came to see me. We were teamates in the Greta FC premiership team of 1980. Not only that, we went to the same school in the 1960's, Caulfield Grammar, where we had no personal relationship or contact really, despite being in the same year. It was a big school. He was a year ahead of me in the age group football teams. He ended up vice school captain, I was expelled some time prior to that.
Leigh looked as fit as a trout. A little heavier in the top half perhaps, and white hair like mine, but in good nick. We walked, talked, and exchanged mental energy. We are bloggers, thinkers, seekers of truth, as different as you could be in some ways, (Leigh is vegetarian, does not drink alcohol, is athiest, rides a pushbike for recreation. I love meat, wine, believe in God, and walk rather than ride).
We did not talk football. We have both grown mentally and spiritually, since our time as footballers that brought us together as mates forever. Leigh was at Greta for one year, I for four, it was a lot of things aligning thing that saw us win the premiership that year. Leigh was best and fairest in 1980. He kicked five goals in the Grand Final, and even better, he kicked five goals in the last quarter of the prelim final in an an amazing performance, something akin to Superman, as we clawed our way back from a six or eight goal deficit at half time to overpower Beechworth and win by a street.
Leigh committed to do a blog post for every day of 2012. I have followed his every word. He's delivered, an amazing effort, I speak two weeks shy of the finale, but he would not slip up now. Along the way he has gone from being unemployed, to finding his dream job, losing and regaining his good woman, and searching his soul. He loves his dog Jezza, and even his cat.
Lethal Leigh, you are a legend. I don't think you missed a game in 1980, in which case I think you would have played 21 games including three finals for the year. And I think you wore number 12 on your purple and gold guernsey.
Once things for sure, we won't see the next time 12/12/12 comes round, not walking this familiar Earthly plain anyway.
Friday, December 07, 2012
Nice One Cyril
Today while trimming copper beech I'd picked, busily working away to bunch it by 5.00pm when the first wholesaler was scheduled to pick up, I was feeling a little annoyed at my workload which kept me right under the pump till knock off time on Friday. Long gone are my days in the public service when Fridays were a wind down when nothing much was done as you eased into the weekend. Some desk tidying, a few phone calls, long tea breaks, conversations.
This week was tough. The beech picking kept me going all week. Monday night was the last of my computer class for the year. Tuesday evening was the trip to Nunawading to meet the removalist, Wednesday after work the fruitless trip to the mobile blood donor service, Thursday the squeezed in trip to Dandenong for the tap cartridges and meeting with arborist in NHP and resultant late home, and here I was Friday hammering away still.
Through all that I slipped up only once. I took some stock out of the freezer on Tuesday to make a soup, did so on Wednesday morning, a quick favourite of mine, red lentils with carrots, celery, onions and little bacon and acouple of tins of crushed tomatos, putting it in the crockpot to slow cook all day. On my way home on Wednesday I picked a bunch of parsley at Hanna's where I grow stuff and added it, leaving the crockpot on intending to turn it off after my bath. Well I forgot about it and it cooked for another 24 hours till Lib found it and turned it off. It tastes a bit burnt, I think I'll end up throwing it out.
So. Why Nice One Cyril? About 4.00pm, there I was busily trimming and bunching, Meredith came out and said Herb and Spice Garden had rung up. H+S picked up a herb and flower order on Wednesday. I had picked them some broad beans from my garden at Hanna's after those sent on Monday, picked on Sunday, were well received. I just grow broad beans for us to eat, but had a surplus. I was rushed and late but picked the broadies on Wednesday rather than see them get too old and waste, and we sent them with the H+S order.
The message from H+S was that the Chef from the restaurant that received the broadies had rung to say that the the broad beans were the best he'd had for years. We are only talking twenty kilos or so but it just gives me a buzz, to know what I do is appreciated.
Why Cyril? A few years ago we went to a Melbourne/Hawthorn game with Phil, Lib's sister Marg's husband, a keen Hawthorn supporter. During the game as Hawthorn ran away on the scoreboard and Cyril Riolli mesmerized his opponents and the crowd, Phil was heard to comment "Nice one Cyril" on numerous occasion. This of course irritated big time, however the phrase became a bit of a saying in our household when something good happened. Mind you, it also had a good work out in a perverse way when Sydney beat Hawthorn in the GF this year.
Nice one Cyril!
This week was tough. The beech picking kept me going all week. Monday night was the last of my computer class for the year. Tuesday evening was the trip to Nunawading to meet the removalist, Wednesday after work the fruitless trip to the mobile blood donor service, Thursday the squeezed in trip to Dandenong for the tap cartridges and meeting with arborist in NHP and resultant late home, and here I was Friday hammering away still.
Through all that I slipped up only once. I took some stock out of the freezer on Tuesday to make a soup, did so on Wednesday morning, a quick favourite of mine, red lentils with carrots, celery, onions and little bacon and acouple of tins of crushed tomatos, putting it in the crockpot to slow cook all day. On my way home on Wednesday I picked a bunch of parsley at Hanna's where I grow stuff and added it, leaving the crockpot on intending to turn it off after my bath. Well I forgot about it and it cooked for another 24 hours till Lib found it and turned it off. It tastes a bit burnt, I think I'll end up throwing it out.
So. Why Nice One Cyril? About 4.00pm, there I was busily trimming and bunching, Meredith came out and said Herb and Spice Garden had rung up. H+S picked up a herb and flower order on Wednesday. I had picked them some broad beans from my garden at Hanna's after those sent on Monday, picked on Sunday, were well received. I just grow broad beans for us to eat, but had a surplus. I was rushed and late but picked the broadies on Wednesday rather than see them get too old and waste, and we sent them with the H+S order.
The message from H+S was that the Chef from the restaurant that received the broadies had rung to say that the the broad beans were the best he'd had for years. We are only talking twenty kilos or so but it just gives me a buzz, to know what I do is appreciated.
Why Cyril? A few years ago we went to a Melbourne/Hawthorn game with Phil, Lib's sister Marg's husband, a keen Hawthorn supporter. During the game as Hawthorn ran away on the scoreboard and Cyril Riolli mesmerized his opponents and the crowd, Phil was heard to comment "Nice one Cyril" on numerous occasion. This of course irritated big time, however the phrase became a bit of a saying in our household when something good happened. Mind you, it also had a good work out in a perverse way when Sydney beat Hawthorn in the GF this year.
Nice one Cyril!
Thursday, December 06, 2012
No Blood Today
They wouldn't take my blood today. They asked me many questions. I filled out the questionaire, much of it relating to my sexual activity. Mine was straight line of ticks down the 'No' column. We were all set to go, I had the prelim juice box was asked to lie down and get fitted up. This was a different lady.
I'd explained to the previous one that I hadn't been to the doctor for routine health check for a few years. She seemed alarmed at this, admonishing me that I should have my blood checked every year for various things. She checked my blood pressure, it was a little high 157 over 87. I told her that when I used to go to the doctor, for cholesterol monitoring, my blood pressure was high when the doctor checked it, but it seemed alright when I checked it at home. I told her that at that time the doctor said my iron levels were high but not high enough for concern. Someone else had told me that if you have high iron levels you can reduce it by donating blood regularly, that was partly why donating blood had been on my list, but I'd never been able to travel to a blood bank. I went on to say that I don't go to the doctor anymore because doctor always wanted me to take medications for blood pressure and high cholesterol, and I didnt want to, as the statins raised my liver function readings to outside normal, and that my blood pressure readings were the result of white coat fever as it is called. I told her that I had chosen to take a quarter of a soluble asprin tablet every day and walk frequently and eat fruit and abstain from alcohol for half the week as a self help health plan rather than go to the doctor and take prescription medications at considerable cost to me. I think she thought I was bit nutty but to this point I still qualified to donate. She explained that people who donate blood to reduce high iron levels do so with written request from doctor so I should go to the doctor and have my iron checked before the next donation so that it would be within the usual procedure.
The next lady went over a few of the same questions after asking me which arm I wanted the blood taken from and asking me to roll up my sleeve. She said "When did you last have a blood test," or, "When did you last go to the doctor," I can't remember which, so I began telling her the saga last year when I went to the doctor, a different doctor not my usual, with strong pain in my ear and the resultant blood tests of that day showing abnormality in blood cell count, causing me to be summoned by phone call to hospital at nearly midnight and be administered cortisone in case I had temporal arteritis. I explained that subsequent biopsy of arteries and visits to specialist revealed I didn't have TA and follow up blood tests showed I was fine. The whole exercise cost me about $1000, one full missed day for biopsy, and maybe half a dozen trips to Dandenong to visit specialists.
"Is it any wonder I avoid going to the doctor?" I asked.
This lady was on the phone in a flash to head office and before long was telling me that they couldn't take my blood today until I had clearance from my doctor that it was OK for me to donate blood. I politely left explaining that I would go the doctor one of these days for a psa or general health check and if my readings were all good I'd try to donate again in future if I felt moved and had time.
It is not likely. I've had enough of the medical profession and feel happy to live my life out in its natural course. Every day I can walk and work is a blessing.
Other news for the day was that the two new cartridges to fix the leaking mixer taps in our new bathrooms which arrived in the post yesterday are the wrong ones, so plumber found when he tried to fit them. I have to try and squeeze in a trip to Dandenong tomorrow to return them and get the right ones.
And Lib left this morning to go to management meeting in Essendon, missed the turn off just out of the Burnley tunnel to the airport and got lost. She gave up trying to get to Essendon and returned to work at Upper Beacy, ringing to explain how three hours of her day were wasted.
Why is it that everything is so complicated? Oh for a simple life.
I'd explained to the previous one that I hadn't been to the doctor for routine health check for a few years. She seemed alarmed at this, admonishing me that I should have my blood checked every year for various things. She checked my blood pressure, it was a little high 157 over 87. I told her that when I used to go to the doctor, for cholesterol monitoring, my blood pressure was high when the doctor checked it, but it seemed alright when I checked it at home. I told her that at that time the doctor said my iron levels were high but not high enough for concern. Someone else had told me that if you have high iron levels you can reduce it by donating blood regularly, that was partly why donating blood had been on my list, but I'd never been able to travel to a blood bank. I went on to say that I don't go to the doctor anymore because doctor always wanted me to take medications for blood pressure and high cholesterol, and I didnt want to, as the statins raised my liver function readings to outside normal, and that my blood pressure readings were the result of white coat fever as it is called. I told her that I had chosen to take a quarter of a soluble asprin tablet every day and walk frequently and eat fruit and abstain from alcohol for half the week as a self help health plan rather than go to the doctor and take prescription medications at considerable cost to me. I think she thought I was bit nutty but to this point I still qualified to donate. She explained that people who donate blood to reduce high iron levels do so with written request from doctor so I should go to the doctor and have my iron checked before the next donation so that it would be within the usual procedure.
The next lady went over a few of the same questions after asking me which arm I wanted the blood taken from and asking me to roll up my sleeve. She said "When did you last have a blood test," or, "When did you last go to the doctor," I can't remember which, so I began telling her the saga last year when I went to the doctor, a different doctor not my usual, with strong pain in my ear and the resultant blood tests of that day showing abnormality in blood cell count, causing me to be summoned by phone call to hospital at nearly midnight and be administered cortisone in case I had temporal arteritis. I explained that subsequent biopsy of arteries and visits to specialist revealed I didn't have TA and follow up blood tests showed I was fine. The whole exercise cost me about $1000, one full missed day for biopsy, and maybe half a dozen trips to Dandenong to visit specialists.
"Is it any wonder I avoid going to the doctor?" I asked.
This lady was on the phone in a flash to head office and before long was telling me that they couldn't take my blood today until I had clearance from my doctor that it was OK for me to donate blood. I politely left explaining that I would go the doctor one of these days for a psa or general health check and if my readings were all good I'd try to donate again in future if I felt moved and had time.
It is not likely. I've had enough of the medical profession and feel happy to live my life out in its natural course. Every day I can walk and work is a blessing.
Other news for the day was that the two new cartridges to fix the leaking mixer taps in our new bathrooms which arrived in the post yesterday are the wrong ones, so plumber found when he tried to fit them. I have to try and squeeze in a trip to Dandenong tomorrow to return them and get the right ones.
And Lib left this morning to go to management meeting in Essendon, missed the turn off just out of the Burnley tunnel to the airport and got lost. She gave up trying to get to Essendon and returned to work at Upper Beacy, ringing to explain how three hours of her day were wasted.
Why is it that everything is so complicated? Oh for a simple life.
Wednesday, December 05, 2012
Head Cold
Four weeks ago a sore throat at the back of the nose developed and I've had a head cold ever since. At times in the first week I felt quite lacklustre and unenergetic. Since then I've felt OK but for the voluminous quantities of mucous and phlegm produced at the back of the nose and I do much blowing out of great gobs of gluey muck. I'm tiring of it. I can't recall ever having a head cold last four weeks before.
Since my fruitless trip to Nunawading last Wednesday to meet the removalist who didn't show I've carried my mobile phone everywhere, not normal for me, waiting for them to call. The call came at 3.30pm today (yesterday) and I was there at 5.00 to open the door. I'm so glad that's off my case.
After ringing around this morning trying to find out when it was happening, unsuccessfully, I went to my friend Pat's to cut up a large limb that split off a flowering gum a while ago. Pat's husband Mal finished work about last May but he's gone back to help the engineering firm and is currently in Brazil working at a mine somewhere a long way from anywhere.
It rained on and off. It's cold now too. After Pat's I went to Sue Jarvis's place to pick green and copper beech. Sue and husband Ian have a nine acre garden, a veritable arboretum that is stunning to see and looking sensational now. It's amazing what they have created and I must get some photos to post one of these days.
Tomorrow I have booked in to give blood at the Red Cross mobile service at Upwey at 5.10pm. I have felt inclined to give blood for years and finally I rang to enquire after seeing the request in an email receipt for some raffle tickets I bought over the phone. I guess they test my blood first. they asked a lot of questions on the phone. If I feel good about the experience I'll try to donate blood regularly.
I can hear rain on the roof. I'll take my head cold to bed.
Since my fruitless trip to Nunawading last Wednesday to meet the removalist who didn't show I've carried my mobile phone everywhere, not normal for me, waiting for them to call. The call came at 3.30pm today (yesterday) and I was there at 5.00 to open the door. I'm so glad that's off my case.
After ringing around this morning trying to find out when it was happening, unsuccessfully, I went to my friend Pat's to cut up a large limb that split off a flowering gum a while ago. Pat's husband Mal finished work about last May but he's gone back to help the engineering firm and is currently in Brazil working at a mine somewhere a long way from anywhere.
It rained on and off. It's cold now too. After Pat's I went to Sue Jarvis's place to pick green and copper beech. Sue and husband Ian have a nine acre garden, a veritable arboretum that is stunning to see and looking sensational now. It's amazing what they have created and I must get some photos to post one of these days.
Tomorrow I have booked in to give blood at the Red Cross mobile service at Upwey at 5.10pm. I have felt inclined to give blood for years and finally I rang to enquire after seeing the request in an email receipt for some raffle tickets I bought over the phone. I guess they test my blood first. they asked a lot of questions on the phone. If I feel good about the experience I'll try to donate blood regularly.
I can hear rain on the roof. I'll take my head cold to bed.
Monday, December 03, 2012
Back Then
Cut me a bit of slack. I fell asleep in the chair after my dinner of roast chook. It's now after midnight, meaning it's no longer the 2 Dec. That day 40 years ago was when Gough Whitlam and the ALP swept to power. I was twenty, a national serviceman, at Puckapunyal, this day was our march out parade after completing recruit training. Back then, the voting age was 21, so I didn't have a vote.
Back then I was anti Gough. Brainwashed by propoganda and ANZAC bullshit.
I was wrong. Gough was a great man. How I wish politicians of today shared his courage. We are a puppet of the USA. I went out to dinner last night in Berwick. The whole suburban vista is a mirror image of life in America. It stinks, and I leave out the obvious swear word descriptives that spring to my mind in deference to those quality people who read and do not like bad language.
Forty years on. Here I am. It's a hard thing, to realize you were duped, in such a profound way. No effing way it would happen again. Unfortunately Australia is no more than a puppet state of the US.
Just look around. It's sick man. But I'm not part of it. I'm out there growing vegies and clinging to my values and doing what I can.
Gough you are a legend.
Back then I was anti Gough. Brainwashed by propoganda and ANZAC bullshit.
I was wrong. Gough was a great man. How I wish politicians of today shared his courage. We are a puppet of the USA. I went out to dinner last night in Berwick. The whole suburban vista is a mirror image of life in America. It stinks, and I leave out the obvious swear word descriptives that spring to my mind in deference to those quality people who read and do not like bad language.
Forty years on. Here I am. It's a hard thing, to realize you were duped, in such a profound way. No effing way it would happen again. Unfortunately Australia is no more than a puppet state of the US.
Just look around. It's sick man. But I'm not part of it. I'm out there growing vegies and clinging to my values and doing what I can.
Gough you are a legend.
Saturday, December 01, 2012
Summer
Checking my emails just now after coming home from Lib's work Christmas dinner, I realize it's after midnight and in fact now the first day of summer. My father Lyle would have turned 87 on this day if he was still with us. He died in 2007, but the first day of summer will always provoke strong memories.
I'm not about to go into an deep reflection about Lyle, our relationship or my family history. Those of you who knew my father would remember him fondly. He was an unusual man. He told me that his old football coach said, "Lyle, if you could time your leap with the arrival of the footy you'd be a champion." Something akin anyway. Dad was the perfect build for a footballer when I think of it, close to 6 feet tall, strong, athletic, a good high jumper in his youth. He played ruck rover and his leap enabled him to actually do some ruckwork. In that era anything over six feet was considered tall. He had a long left foot kick on him, drop kicks a specialty, which continually astounded my mates and I when we were kids. When I was about 12 or 13, he nearly forty, he was proudly showing his skills one day when he did a hammy or a quad, I'm not sure now. He carried a lump in his thigh from that day on and often rued it, right up to his last days. His football coach got it pretty right, when I think about it. He had unbounded energy and enthusiasm, he just didn't get the timing right.
Dad loved footy. He strongly disliked many things - alcohol, smoking, horse racing to name a few, but he loved footy, and taking his son, me as a kid, to the footy, and watching his son play footy. Brother Jod couldn't/ wouldn't/ didn't go near a footy so his interest focused on me. Our relationship through my childhood revolved around this. The time we shared together was kicking the footy or playing cricket in the back yard. He had high expectations of me, which I did not fulfill. That's the way of it, often.
My sons didn't play footy, except for one year Gord did at the Gembrook U10's. It's funny you know, when I had two sons I always just assumed they'd play footy like I did, and love it like I did. But they didn't. They follow the AFL and the Demons like I do, but as for playing - no way. Gord has a strong frame which could have developed into a potent weapon, and Rob showed tremendous athletism and skill as a youngster, but it just wasn't on.
I started out with intentions of writing about my activities this last week, which have been arduous and testing, and the disruption to my phsyche by the removalists who are moving Rob's friend Hao's furniture from Adelaide to the flat in Nunawading, which has still not arrived, and has caused me to be on call all week, and a trip to meet them to let them in, a fruitless exercise as they did not turn up.
Hao and Robbie are in Singapore on route to Vietnam, I'm waiting on the next call.
I'm not about to go into an deep reflection about Lyle, our relationship or my family history. Those of you who knew my father would remember him fondly. He was an unusual man. He told me that his old football coach said, "Lyle, if you could time your leap with the arrival of the footy you'd be a champion." Something akin anyway. Dad was the perfect build for a footballer when I think of it, close to 6 feet tall, strong, athletic, a good high jumper in his youth. He played ruck rover and his leap enabled him to actually do some ruckwork. In that era anything over six feet was considered tall. He had a long left foot kick on him, drop kicks a specialty, which continually astounded my mates and I when we were kids. When I was about 12 or 13, he nearly forty, he was proudly showing his skills one day when he did a hammy or a quad, I'm not sure now. He carried a lump in his thigh from that day on and often rued it, right up to his last days. His football coach got it pretty right, when I think about it. He had unbounded energy and enthusiasm, he just didn't get the timing right.
Dad loved footy. He strongly disliked many things - alcohol, smoking, horse racing to name a few, but he loved footy, and taking his son, me as a kid, to the footy, and watching his son play footy. Brother Jod couldn't/ wouldn't/ didn't go near a footy so his interest focused on me. Our relationship through my childhood revolved around this. The time we shared together was kicking the footy or playing cricket in the back yard. He had high expectations of me, which I did not fulfill. That's the way of it, often.
My sons didn't play footy, except for one year Gord did at the Gembrook U10's. It's funny you know, when I had two sons I always just assumed they'd play footy like I did, and love it like I did. But they didn't. They follow the AFL and the Demons like I do, but as for playing - no way. Gord has a strong frame which could have developed into a potent weapon, and Rob showed tremendous athletism and skill as a youngster, but it just wasn't on.
I started out with intentions of writing about my activities this last week, which have been arduous and testing, and the disruption to my phsyche by the removalists who are moving Rob's friend Hao's furniture from Adelaide to the flat in Nunawading, which has still not arrived, and has caused me to be on call all week, and a trip to meet them to let them in, a fruitless exercise as they did not turn up.
Hao and Robbie are in Singapore on route to Vietnam, I'm waiting on the next call.
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