It's June already. Even halfway through. Shortest day of the year next week, winter solstice.
A Kris Kristofferson song is running through my head repeatedly.
This old world keeps right on turning for the better or the worse,
and if all I ever get is older and around.
from the rocking of the cradle to the rolling of the hearse,
the going up was worth the coming down.
Something close to that, I don't recall the song title. I had a memory flash that 2 June was Annette Traghard's birthday. It may well not be so. Memory flashes are unreliable. She became Annette Welsh sometime in the '70's. 5 June was World Environment Day, the theme being let's rid the oceans of plastic. I did my bit for the environment in the afternoon that day, weeding on the river reserve, as I do every other day when I can. 6 June I was in the dentist chair with Ah Ling and Trylock peering into my mouth, offering suggestions as to future crowning and possible implant where I lost a tooth extracted 3 days before our move interstate in 2021. With the bad timing of the toothache, and no time for root canal option before we moved, I opted "Take it out." ($4500 for the implant- no thanks) My next dentist appt is 19 June for a filling where a rear molar is cracked.
6 June was also DDay, the anniversary of the Allies invasion of France in WW11. That event reminds me that it is also Ann Harry's birthday. Ann used to run the Gembrook PO agency when we lived there, a delightful lady, I had sent her a greeting in the mail, and thought of her while I was mouth open in the dentist chair. She and her husband Greg have since sold the agency.
7 June was a working bee for the Hindmarsh River Estuary Friends Group9. Lib came with me. The group planted over 100 native trees, shrubs and grasses in areas where weeds had been previously removed. Great stuff. 9 June was the anniversary of my old friend Blossom's birthday in 1937. I think Bloss died in 2014, as it is in my head she died aged 77. I didn't think she'd make that age; she was a big woman with history of illness. 10 June rings a bell, but I can't recall why. 16 June is my friend Amanda's birthday. She lived in Gembrook when we were there, in our street for some of it, and had kids at school with ours. Divorced, she lives in Melbourne now. I sent her birthday greeting also, she probably got it today. Nice to think of her getting the mail. My niece Rosie has her 42nd birthday next week. I remember she was delivered in the cab of the Toyota Land Cruiser tray ute outside the Dandenond hospital. They didn't quite make it inside. Lib and I were in the throes of moving from Wang to Gembrook and were in Emerald at the time.
As I write this, I recall that I was frustrated totally on the morning of 5 June, having been on the phone to Centrelink for nearly 3 hours. Abbreviated, the story is that some weeks previous we applied for a Seniors Health Care card for Lib, as she had reached the enabling age in March. I already have one. She already had a Low Income Health Care Card, which we had both successfully reapplied for in January (it doesn't renew automatically each year). Due to some confusion over Clink wanting to see our 2022 tax returns which don't exist as we earned no taxable income that year, it was required we had to ring them. That meant a wait time on the phone listening to music for a couple of hours, then a lengthy discussion sorting out. We are self-funded retirees receiving no part pension so I couldn't understand why it was so hard when Lib already could claim pharmaceuticals at subsidized rate on her Low Income Card. We were told Lib would get the card but I don't hold my breath. I want her to get it because the Low Income one has to be applied for every year, quite a rigmarole, and if I drop off the perch at least she'll have the Senior's Health Card, automatically renewed, if she chooses not to bother with the annual reapplication for the LI card, as I suspect she wouldn't. I do it, because if you have that one, you get a concession from the SA government off rates and water bills, which the straight Senior's HC card doesn't give you, unless you receive a government pension. That is how I understand it and I don't know why it is all so complicated.
While I was frustrated angry waiting on the line to talk to CLink, I rummaged through hard files to make sure I had what they might want in terms of Lib's retirement from work. I found an invoice from Tower Fire Arms in Doncaster Melbourne for a shotgun that Tower was to sell on consignment for me. In a hurry when we migrated to SA I couldn't organize sale of this gun, or interstate gun license in time, so I left it with Tower as a solution. Not ideal, because it really was Gord's gun, given to him by Lib's dad Bill when Gord was a boy, following the introduction of the new gun laws in the 1990's. It was a Cashmore double barrelled 12 gauge stamped on the barrell second prize 1888 Melbourne Show, with a leather case. It was a family heirloom handed down from Bill's grandfather ending up with Gord, which made it my problem. I'd had to jump through hoops to get a gun license and invest in storage lock up safe. I renewed this license a number of times over the years and eventually as we were moving interstate Gord agreed to overcome his sentimental attachment and try to sell it as the best option at the time of our move. I rang Roland at Tower numerous times to see if he'd sold the gun. He always had some reason why he hadn't, Covid, his wife had a stroke, was always vague about the gun as if he couldn't remember it. Rather than stress about I'd concluded we'd never see a dollar for the gun, there was nought I could do.
Bored and angry waiting on the line for CLink on landline, I rang Roland at Tower on the mobile and had to remind him of the gun and the paperwork I had in my hand about sale on consignment. He said he'd try to find out what happened to the gun and said he'd ring me back in a day or two. He'd said that before, but never did. When I came out of the dentist's on 6 June, Gord was not at the car, having wandered off somewhere. He had the keys. I looked at used cars across the road, the prices were staggering. My mobile buzzed. Bugger me it was Roland. Said he'd sold the gun some weeks ago and would send me a money order for $400 tomorrow. He asked me for my full name and address, which didn't say a lot about his record keeping.
I still doubted the money order would arrive and said so to Gord. I forgot about it. It came in yesterday's mail, a pleasant surprise. Gord and I went to the PO and cashed it, and Gord got his money. If I hadn't got stirred up over CLink I probably never would have rang Roland again as I'd given up on it. God knows how much the gun was really worth, might have been '000's. I'm just happy it's no longer unresolved.
