How nice it was to get through to end of last week and get home Friday evening with a weekend ahead with no picking. The customers bowled a bouncer or two but we managed.
During the week Gord had told me he may go to Fountain Gate shopping centre on Saturday and I toyed with the idea of going with him on the bus to do a bit of Christmas shopping. I bought two Myki tickets a few years ago and have never used them so when I was in the newsagents in Emerald on Friday to buy my weekly Tattslotto tickets I asked the delightful Mary to check the Myki cards. She said yes they were still valid until April and they had $20 on them.
So I went with Gord, we caught the 10.57am from Gembrook. Including us there were only four people on it. Another two got on at Cockatoo and then four young girls at Emerald. Two of these sat behind Gord and I and one of them spoke loudly and continuously all the way, every second sentence contained the word "like" and alternately, "fucking". She was about fifteen I guess. It was the only downer to an otherwise very pleasant trip as I was enjoying not having to drive and the scenery offered by the more elevated position from the bus as opposed to a car driver's seat.
When it comes to bad language I'm not usually offended as it is used often in everyday situations and in movies. It is I think an accepted part of today's society but it is usually used with some context to a situation or in emphasis to a point someone is making. This girl just used it constantly as part of her sentence formation. I could only think how terrible it would make me feel if a child of mine spoke like that in a public arena let alone in a more private setting. I can honestly say I have never heard my sons use that word and they are 30 and 29 years old.
I was so glad not to have driven, the car park was packed out and the traffic crawling around looking for spaces was heavy. As we went over the bridge over the freeway it was banked up as far as you could see and static or crawling. Motor City madness.
After Gord showed me where JB HIFI was and I bought two new charge connecting cables for the mobile phones (Lib's no longer worked and she needed to use mine to charge her phone and her Ipad as her cable for that was damaged too), we went our separate shopping ways with plans to be at bustop at 3.10pm to go home. I headed to Myers to look for perfume for Lib first then a bookshop and various stores for odds and sods including socks and underwear which I now have a good stock of new.
A Morrocan lamb burger at 'Grilled' before meeting Gord at the bustop and a relaxed trip got us home at 4pm. The young couple who got on at Cockatoo on the morning trip were also on the return trip. They were quiet and reserved and after they alighted I watched them walk across McBride St hand in hand and I thought of the juxtaposition with the foul mouthed trollop from Emerald. I'd say she'd have bright future in management....of a brothel.
I watched the last few races at Flemington and was happy to see My Survivor get up paying $61 the win $9 the place which gave me a nice profit for the day.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Thursday, December 08, 2016
A Friend in Need
It's raining enough to wash out my planned job this morning at my friends Pat and Mal's place. Pat has had some bad luck lately, the worst of it being a broken foot, two breaks in main bones and foot in plaster to seriously curtail her normal busy gardening.
The rain will clear but I have to move to foliage picking for three customers who come Friday afternoon and Saturday. I went to the post office and found in our mail a letter and Xmas card from my old friend Nicki Bridges at Moyhu. Our friendship goes back nearly forty years to when I lived at Moyhu renting a house on a neighbouring farm.Nick and John showed me considerable kindness often inviting me for a meal or to share a social gathering with them. Nick even had a couple of tries at matchmaking me with local ladies and all in all I have to say it was a very happy time for me the 18 months or so I lived out there.
I went to the post office to post a letter I'd written last night to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. This hand written letter followed a meeting in the Gembrook Community Hall last night between Gembrook residents concerned at the impact the Puffing Billy Masterplan will have on the community, and Puffing Billy CEO John Robinson.
I was home early enough to have a quick bath and put on clean clothes and be up there at 7pm. The meeting slowly progressed with most of the talk being a monologue by the CEO on the virtues of Puffing Billy and its enormous value and potential, and about his own personal history with the organisation. On and on he went, I had to ask the chairperson could he be interrupted so that we could ask a question. My turn came; his answer was that there would be no change to the number of PB events held in Gembrook in the completed Masterplan. This despite his earlier comments that everyone's submission had been considered - I made a submission in early October - no reply as yet - and that as a result of submissions there would be a flow on resulting from the strengthening of the document in the nearly completed final master plan.
At this point I said I was leaving the meeting, I could see no point in me sitting there listening to the CEO spruik about how wonderful he and Puffing Billy was, and that I wanted it recorded how I deeply resented the intrusion to our quiet little rural town, and that I had heard enough bullshit to last me a life time.
As I walked to my car I could hear loud laughter coming from the meeting room and I assume I had created some mirth in the gathering, which if was at my expense, did not make me feel any happier.
I went home and resisted the desire to open a bottle of serious red and slashed down a few Edenvale no alcohol glasses with my chicken schnitzel. Later I went to Facebook and saw a post about how the Victorian Government was to be the first in Australia to initiate legislation to allow assisted dying.
Now I don't think Daniel Andrews is very popular at the moment, especially with the Herald Sun newspaper and radio 3AW, but above that I have to say I admire the man for his courage, and that was the basis of my letter to him, one of congratulations on being a politician with a bit of spine, a commodity in short supply in Australia. Of course I also vented a little of my frustration with the Puffing Billy bullies and PB's entrenchment with councils and governments.
My opinion, which I will repeat loudly at every opportunity, is that PB is a symbol of the industrial revolution. It manipulates authorities with emphasis on Thomas the Tank Engine and Santa Claus and happy children. A smokescreen, literally and figuratively. If we sit back and rely on Chinese tourists coming we will end up like Greece and Italy on the precipice of bankruptcy. We are in a new age of technology and environment restoration and sustainability. Tourism needs to fit this new criteria. Australia is unique for its flora and fauna and magnificent landscape, not for Thomas the Tank Engine or a bloody steam train hooting its way around the hills spewing coal smoke and cinders. We need new industry, new crops, new forests, new ideas, real work opportunities; not 900 volunteers mucking around with a steam train. Imagine what good use 900 people could do in volunteer work for something useful. You wouldn't have a weed or bit of litter in the district. As it is now the feds are throwing $millions to PB and $millions to dubious weed eradication projects somehow mysteriously (to me) linked to bush fire protection. It's all to catch votes, never mind how effective any of it is.
Anyway, Nicki said in her letter she reads my blog and savours it. That made me feel a lot better, even if she said she feels some dissent with my comments sometimes. This post is for you Nick. Thanks for your friendship over the decades.
It has stopped raining, I'd better get cracking.
The rain will clear but I have to move to foliage picking for three customers who come Friday afternoon and Saturday. I went to the post office and found in our mail a letter and Xmas card from my old friend Nicki Bridges at Moyhu. Our friendship goes back nearly forty years to when I lived at Moyhu renting a house on a neighbouring farm.Nick and John showed me considerable kindness often inviting me for a meal or to share a social gathering with them. Nick even had a couple of tries at matchmaking me with local ladies and all in all I have to say it was a very happy time for me the 18 months or so I lived out there.
I went to the post office to post a letter I'd written last night to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews. This hand written letter followed a meeting in the Gembrook Community Hall last night between Gembrook residents concerned at the impact the Puffing Billy Masterplan will have on the community, and Puffing Billy CEO John Robinson.
I was home early enough to have a quick bath and put on clean clothes and be up there at 7pm. The meeting slowly progressed with most of the talk being a monologue by the CEO on the virtues of Puffing Billy and its enormous value and potential, and about his own personal history with the organisation. On and on he went, I had to ask the chairperson could he be interrupted so that we could ask a question. My turn came; his answer was that there would be no change to the number of PB events held in Gembrook in the completed Masterplan. This despite his earlier comments that everyone's submission had been considered - I made a submission in early October - no reply as yet - and that as a result of submissions there would be a flow on resulting from the strengthening of the document in the nearly completed final master plan.
At this point I said I was leaving the meeting, I could see no point in me sitting there listening to the CEO spruik about how wonderful he and Puffing Billy was, and that I wanted it recorded how I deeply resented the intrusion to our quiet little rural town, and that I had heard enough bullshit to last me a life time.
As I walked to my car I could hear loud laughter coming from the meeting room and I assume I had created some mirth in the gathering, which if was at my expense, did not make me feel any happier.
I went home and resisted the desire to open a bottle of serious red and slashed down a few Edenvale no alcohol glasses with my chicken schnitzel. Later I went to Facebook and saw a post about how the Victorian Government was to be the first in Australia to initiate legislation to allow assisted dying.
Now I don't think Daniel Andrews is very popular at the moment, especially with the Herald Sun newspaper and radio 3AW, but above that I have to say I admire the man for his courage, and that was the basis of my letter to him, one of congratulations on being a politician with a bit of spine, a commodity in short supply in Australia. Of course I also vented a little of my frustration with the Puffing Billy bullies and PB's entrenchment with councils and governments.
My opinion, which I will repeat loudly at every opportunity, is that PB is a symbol of the industrial revolution. It manipulates authorities with emphasis on Thomas the Tank Engine and Santa Claus and happy children. A smokescreen, literally and figuratively. If we sit back and rely on Chinese tourists coming we will end up like Greece and Italy on the precipice of bankruptcy. We are in a new age of technology and environment restoration and sustainability. Tourism needs to fit this new criteria. Australia is unique for its flora and fauna and magnificent landscape, not for Thomas the Tank Engine or a bloody steam train hooting its way around the hills spewing coal smoke and cinders. We need new industry, new crops, new forests, new ideas, real work opportunities; not 900 volunteers mucking around with a steam train. Imagine what good use 900 people could do in volunteer work for something useful. You wouldn't have a weed or bit of litter in the district. As it is now the feds are throwing $millions to PB and $millions to dubious weed eradication projects somehow mysteriously (to me) linked to bush fire protection. It's all to catch votes, never mind how effective any of it is.
Anyway, Nicki said in her letter she reads my blog and savours it. That made me feel a lot better, even if she said she feels some dissent with my comments sometimes. This post is for you Nick. Thanks for your friendship over the decades.
It has stopped raining, I'd better get cracking.
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Good Progress
My friend Vilma rang on Saturday and asked me if I could cut the long grass at the back of her property which was four feet high and thick. My friend Josef has been doing the grass at Vilma's for the last year or so, since he sold his house two doors down and moved in to the separate flat vacated by Vilma's son when he became too ill for Vilma to look after.
She asked if I could also do her lawns as they were long too and she was concerned it was a bit too much for Josef as he has had some health issues of his own lately. Gord came with me and did the lawns while I took to the long rough stuff at the back with the whipper. It was a warm day but Gord and I enjoyed the work and it was nice to see Vilma looking so well and in good spirit. Josef came home while we were finishing and it was good to see him. He and Vilma look after each other and seem to be getting on well. Josef's wife died of leukemia not long before he returned to Gembrook.
While talking to Vilma I looked across to a big green beech tree in the garden of Josef's old house. I had picked foliage from it for a number of years while Josef owned the house, and while he had a tenant renting it while he and his wife managed a motel on Phillip Island. I didn't pick there last season, I didn't want to annoy the new owner by intruding to ask if I could. Vilma told me a young couple with a baby were renting it and she suggested I ask them if I could have some beech foliage.
So on Sunday before going out to Marguerita's to tidy up the broadies I called in and met the young couple who told me yes to come and pick some when I needed it. At Maguerita's I pulled the stakes out that I had put in to tie up the rows and rolled up all the twine onto a reel so I can use it again. That was slow and fiddly but I hated the thought of it going to waste. Marguerita was home and she and I planted spuds in a section of the garden where brocolli had been and finished.
As it happened the phone rang Monday morning and one of my customers wanted 30 bunches of green beech so it was sort of good karma that I could go down the road to Josef's old house and pick the most beautiful lush green beech quickly and easily as the tree was not picked last year so it had plenty on it. They wanted copper beech too and I picked that quickly from another tree I do in Gembrook each year. It was fortunate in that I had a specialist's appointment in Dandenong at 3.30pm so I dropped off my bunches at the farm on the way, after a delay and detour near Emerald with disruption to traffic by what looked like a bad accident. As the road was blocked off at the Monbulk Road corner there was a traffic jam there also and I ended up ten minutes late for the appointment which didn't matter because I still had to wait 20 minutes to see doctor as he was running behind time.
The good news is he was happy with my blood test results, I'm making good progress and was pleased to tell him I have reduced the prednisolone to a quarter of a tablet a day and I'm not relapsing as a result. He said I can drop the pred all together and see how I go, but wants me to stay on the same other medications (methotrexate 2X10mg tabs once a week and weekly Abatacept injection, and he doesn't want to see me till next June but I will have blood test in March and the results will go to him.
Other interest for the weekend was a call from Dave Dickson at Emerald in Qld. He and his wife Jodie are cutting Gumby Gumby foliage as a sideline and drying it and milling it to powder and putting it in capsules and selling it by word of mouth and on the internet. Apparently it's an aboriginal medicine good for many ailments. Sunday morning Lib and I went to Akoona Park market at Berwick as I needed a locksmith to get a key cut for my car as one of mine was worn and wouldn't go in the ignition. We found him and it cost me $90. The market was huge and I was most impressed, I had not been there before although Lib goes now and again. It's on every Sunday I think..
She asked if I could also do her lawns as they were long too and she was concerned it was a bit too much for Josef as he has had some health issues of his own lately. Gord came with me and did the lawns while I took to the long rough stuff at the back with the whipper. It was a warm day but Gord and I enjoyed the work and it was nice to see Vilma looking so well and in good spirit. Josef came home while we were finishing and it was good to see him. He and Vilma look after each other and seem to be getting on well. Josef's wife died of leukemia not long before he returned to Gembrook.
While talking to Vilma I looked across to a big green beech tree in the garden of Josef's old house. I had picked foliage from it for a number of years while Josef owned the house, and while he had a tenant renting it while he and his wife managed a motel on Phillip Island. I didn't pick there last season, I didn't want to annoy the new owner by intruding to ask if I could. Vilma told me a young couple with a baby were renting it and she suggested I ask them if I could have some beech foliage.
So on Sunday before going out to Marguerita's to tidy up the broadies I called in and met the young couple who told me yes to come and pick some when I needed it. At Maguerita's I pulled the stakes out that I had put in to tie up the rows and rolled up all the twine onto a reel so I can use it again. That was slow and fiddly but I hated the thought of it going to waste. Marguerita was home and she and I planted spuds in a section of the garden where brocolli had been and finished.
As it happened the phone rang Monday morning and one of my customers wanted 30 bunches of green beech so it was sort of good karma that I could go down the road to Josef's old house and pick the most beautiful lush green beech quickly and easily as the tree was not picked last year so it had plenty on it. They wanted copper beech too and I picked that quickly from another tree I do in Gembrook each year. It was fortunate in that I had a specialist's appointment in Dandenong at 3.30pm so I dropped off my bunches at the farm on the way, after a delay and detour near Emerald with disruption to traffic by what looked like a bad accident. As the road was blocked off at the Monbulk Road corner there was a traffic jam there also and I ended up ten minutes late for the appointment which didn't matter because I still had to wait 20 minutes to see doctor as he was running behind time.
The good news is he was happy with my blood test results, I'm making good progress and was pleased to tell him I have reduced the prednisolone to a quarter of a tablet a day and I'm not relapsing as a result. He said I can drop the pred all together and see how I go, but wants me to stay on the same other medications (methotrexate 2X10mg tabs once a week and weekly Abatacept injection, and he doesn't want to see me till next June but I will have blood test in March and the results will go to him.
Other interest for the weekend was a call from Dave Dickson at Emerald in Qld. He and his wife Jodie are cutting Gumby Gumby foliage as a sideline and drying it and milling it to powder and putting it in capsules and selling it by word of mouth and on the internet. Apparently it's an aboriginal medicine good for many ailments. Sunday morning Lib and I went to Akoona Park market at Berwick as I needed a locksmith to get a key cut for my car as one of mine was worn and wouldn't go in the ignition. We found him and it cost me $90. The market was huge and I was most impressed, I had not been there before although Lib goes now and again. It's on every Sunday I think..
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