the blathering

(July 30, 2019 to April 1, 2020)

July 30, 2019

I know I am supposed to eat small meals and not eat for many hours before bedtime, but I thought sharing one entree and one main with some rice and half a piece of roti at 6pm should be okay. But no, I guess because it was Indian food (and I did have one glass of red wine). I suffered last week after we went to Abhi’s, but I expected that. However I didn’t expect I would be sick for 24 hours after last night’s meal, although that’s exactly what’s happened. Can’t be food poisoning as John is fine so I might just have to do what I’m told for a bit. I’ve made pumpkin soup for dinner tonight and have eaten very little else today. As a result of all that I’ve been nowhere and done nuffin, apart from reading wrapped in a blanket. Luckily I decided to donate books for the charity dinner tonight and not actually go to it, good forward thinking two weeks out. 

July 31, 2019 

We decided to go on the new Metro today but went west instead of east to avoid a long period in the tunnel, as it goes above ground from Bella Vista onwards. The design of the stations is very attractive and the train has all the bells and whistles, but all the seats are along the sides so I needed to stand to avoid the motion causing problems. We enjoyed the run but I wouldn’t go all the way to Chatswood on it, a bit too claustro for me. Got back to Castle Hill just in time to see The White Crow, about Rudolph Nureyev. Ralph Fiennes directed it and also acts, he is such a master who looks and acts differently in every role, unlike some who carry themselves from movie to movie. I wish I had held on to all the Nureyev books I had as a teenager, I was besotted with him and Margot Fonteyn despite never doing ballet. Oleg Ivenko is just stunning as a dancer and pretty easy on the eye as well. 

August 1, 2019 

How the hell can it be August? Three years ago today I closed the shop and we were flat out packing everything to go to auction. Now that the local Sallies has closed down, I have finally decided that ebay may be the only way to get rid of some of the stuff in the storeroom, something Tim has been urging me to do for those 3 years. I tried giving a few bits from the first box to friends but got rid of exactly zero. I don’t really want to get into the bigtime ebay selling I have sometimes done, but I think I will just put a few things on each week and see how it goes. Since I had even forgotten my password, it took me a while to get it happening, but now I’ve downloaded the app onto my phone I should be able to list more easily, selling them of course is quite another matter. Pleased to see a big gap in the street library today, with a few including a large Jonathan Franzen gone (it was only in there because I have it on the shelf already). The latest donation of 7 or 8 bags of books seems to be very much in the populist line, large forgettable books churned out like sausages, but as long as people are reading, it doesn’t much bother me that the quality is somewhat questionable, I don’t want to be a book dictator. 

August 2, 2019 

Still August, so it wasn’t a mistake. Very excited about Greg and Luke’s wedding tomorrow, their joy is infectious. Their Facebook posts have included Greg’s suit, secretly hanging inside a dust cover, the horse paddock mown and ready for guests and yesterday even photos of them going through the checkout at Woolies buying food for the wedding. This morning I baked 3 kinds of biscuits to make up a platter for tomorrow. John has come here with his wedding clothes, but now he’s up getting a haircut and then going to see The Lion King. I declined as I was so amazed by the stage show that I don’t want the movie to take the gloss off the memory. No bites on my eBays but anything that doesn’t sell is headed to a charity shop. However I know how itchy St. Vinnies are to toss things so I will have to drive to a Sallie Anne’s to ensure that they don’t get junked. Waste makes me literally feel ill and I’ve always had a special dislike for people who casually ditch usable goods, a dislike I could never fully hide in the shop when people said ‘if you don’t buy this, I’ll throw it in the bin’. I always wanted to say ‘Vinnies are across the road you lazy cow’ but I had to be nice, though my views are always written on my face. 

August 3, 2019 

Had a good run of an hour and 3/4 to get to Hidden Valley for Greg and Luke’s wedding. Gorgeous warm day as ordered, though the sun goes over the cliffs at 3pm after which they lit the huge bonfire. The boys were wandering around in jeans and t-shirts for the first hour, in what was a very informal day, and then they raced in to tog up for the ceremony. Tents held all the savoury food at one location and sweets at another and it was remarkable how much trouble people had gone to, including topping cupcakes with photos of the boys. I was reminded that Luke comes from Halifax UK and he knows the actual street where my brother lives. He was a corporate type till he met Greg exactly 10 years ago, but he has adjusted to Greg’s rural lifestyle surprisingly well, earning his living now as a massage therapist and by selling his paintings of wildlife, particularly birds, which are seriously good. We left in time to get to First Saturday, which was given by Nirjala on the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) which she will be joining soon. I am awed by her commitment and bravery, but I think it would be very difficult to see all of the things that are happening over there and still remain only an observer, which of course they are meant to do, reporting but not in any way becoming a player. 

August 4, 2019 

John stayed over so we watched Insiders together before he moved a painting that we both agreed needed to go a little higher and slightly left, we always seem to agree on this sort of stuff but without him I might just put up with small errors. He went home while I went to the nursery to buy a couple of gardening bits and bobs, including spray for black spot on my one lonely rose. I have never had luck with roses but I am persevering with this one because it was a gift, actually the gift was a pair, but one bit the dust very early on, I suspect they were both greenhouse bred and the shock of the open air nearly killed them. I wish now I had pinched some of the horse poo lying around at the farm yesterday, it would have been great for the garden but tricky to conjure away in one’s wedding clothes. 

August 5, 2019 

Mondays tend to be the days I ask myself who I need to visit this week and all were in Windsor or on the way there, so I went to see Brian and Fay, a customer and friend of at least 25 years who has now joined him in the same nursing home. Her husband died just after I closed the shop so I wasn’t up with her new circumstances. Caught up with Tim whose family problems have not eased. Last week he gave me a painting he had done, in fact he gave me a choice of four different ones, but his current issues have made it impossible for him even to countenance lifting a brush. Saw Bob as well and got scripts for drugs to take on the plane so it was a friend visiting day from go to whoa. Spring feels as if it’s well and truly sprung so I’m fertilising and watering a bit each day and crossing my fingers that Chris is still coming to help me with the heavy stuff on Saturday. 

August 6, 2019 

No word from Chris, so I’m still not sure about Saturday. John is off to Gerringong to discuss his concept for the extension to Peppercorn Cottage which the owners like in theory. It remains to be seen whether the heritage architect is happy, but that is further down the track. Called in to Heather’s briefly and was impressed by the care she gives her little dog, a whippet or small greyhound? It has severe arthritis and can only just walk, regularly falling over and unable to get back up. I was scared to walk too close in case that alone was enough to make it fall. Reminded me of the residents at the nursing home yesterday. Somehow our species, and dogs too, have a long old age, slowly sinking into decrepitude and occupying the resources of the middle aged to look after them whereas birds or fish just die when they lose the ability to fly or swim. Perhaps one day there will be so many on the planet that once you can’t cross the road on your own you’re out, but nah climate change will have defused the population bomb before then. 

August 7, 2019 

Oh Happy Day! Had a good mag to Deborah in the morning before going to Dural Library for a change, two books borrowed and three put on reserve, so a successful jaunt. I was in Dural to meet up with Heather as we had decided to go to The Wild Pear cafe for lunch, reminded of its existence when the very young daughter of the owner won Masterchef a week or two ago. We got a lovely verandah table and though the property is unprepossessing at first blush, it proved pleasant as the sun poured in with a slight breeze and we looked out over the nursery grounds. The meal was sensational, barramundi and prawns for me followed by Turkish Delight Pavlova, a traditional pav with strawberries but with rosewater, turkish delight pieces and a topping of rose Persian fairy floss, it is totally worth sacrificing a few weeks on the verandah of the nursing home for this dessert. Did I mention the glass of moscato? Something I don’t usually drink but it was so good that I intend to ring them to get the name, a perfect summery drop for this meal. 

Then I went to the loo. Admittedly one doesn’t normally think of any sort of excitement happening in the loo. But as I was leaving, the other lady there asked if I were Maureen. Puzzled, because I couldn’t remember her face, I replied in the affirmative and to my great surprise she told me that she follows my blog. But I don’t have a photo on it I replied, but she said she had looked me up on Facebook, seen the somewhat dated photo there and recognised me. But how did you know whose Facebook to look up? I asked. It turned out that I had mentioned one Michelle Cavanagh at some point and Michelle’s page being public she had been able to find a photo of us together and hence recognised me. She should be a private eye, not an accountant. Hugs ensued and since I got home I have received a friend request from Tania and discovered that we live less than 5 kilometres apart so I’m sure we will catch up again soon. As I said Oh Happy Day!

August 8, 2019 

Idly musing, something I do a lot of, on what career I should have taken up, with the benefit of hindsight of course. Nursing and police work were of interest, though the latter pales when one thinks of the things government asks/allows police to do. I remember well my friend Colin going to the corrective services academy at Eastwood and graduating, keen to put his theory into action, only to last a week at Long Bay after being told on day one how to upturn the dinner tray of people in solitary confinement and then to give them a penalty for making a mess in their cells. He was of the view that most of the officers he came across there were on the wrong side of the bars so I can’t see myself fitting into that milieu. Law interests me, but only criminal law, and I don’t have the right temperament at all for the job. 

Medicine has always been my major interest, though I did once apply to be an ambo, encouraged by a friend in the service. That was scuppered when they told me I had to do a defensive driving course, eek, I was a very nervous and defensive driver already so that gave me the collywobbles and I pulled out before they made a decision. Thinking back I don’t believe I had, or have, the physical capabilities to abseil down cliffs, crawl into narrow spaces and do much of the work that ambos are required to do so luckily the driving issue pushed me in the right direction. Although I was attracted to general medicine by the science along with the personal interaction, I also love pathology which formed a big part of the electives I chose in the Biological Sciences Diploma I studied while working for Sydney University. So pathology and particularly forensic science still dominate my retrospective wishlist. I studied with a woman who worked in forensic science at the morgue and coroner’s court and told her it was my dream job, so she suggested I apply and offered to put it a good word. Then I excitedly told my mother, who was horrified by the thought of my digging around in the bowels of dead folk and told me so in no uncertain words. I was, despite being in my mid twenties, still unaware that one’s parents can’t dictate every aspect of their child’s life, so I told my acquaintance that I would withdraw from the plan. The story of my life it seems. I well remember my friend Diana telling me in my 30s that she had never known anyone so polite and deferential to their parents and it was a shock: wasn’t that what was expected, presumed in fact? No, apparently not, but it came as a huge surprise to me and by it was too late, the pattern of submissiveness was too well ingrained by then. So back to the dream job, perhaps that congruence of medicine and detective work involved in forensic science is right up there. Next life, for sure. 

August 9, 2019 

Had Martha and Phil over for morning tea and a chat, she bearing some lobelia seedlings  for my garden and I was able to hand over a bag full of empty pots for her use. She suggested we both take her book out to Brian in a few weeks, though whether he will even remember doing the interview is another story. Had a long talk to my neighbour Arvind who is not only politically aware and interested, but exceedingly knowledgeable about any country you care to name, always a pleasure to talk to him. John came over in the afternoon and while he watched the football at night I finished The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundati Roy. It was a big, baggy novel where I sometimes lost the plot about the characters, but in all of that there was a wonderful sense of messy, contradictory, but always exciting India. Her focus on Kashmir went a (little) way to my understanding that sad and seemingly intractable conflict. 

August 10, 2019 

John was off early to Gerringong to see his new clients about their extension and renovation. Their son is the builder and John’s first choice of plan was least favoured by the son as not being the best value per square metre. John disagrees and will still draw up the three options in the hope they will come around. However he coped with the drive well and was back here at 5 pm ready for the fish chowder to be finished. It was a good choice for a meal that can happen at any time as you cook up the stock and spices with the coconut milk then add potato and corn and just drop in the fish pieces 3 minutes prior to sit down, yum it was too. I was musing about the fact that each winter when it snows in the Blue Mountains I get so excited and promise myself that next time it is forecast I will just go up and stay, hang the expense and hang whatever else I needed do. It was forecast (and came in spades) this weekend yet I stayed here and did what was planned. Sometimes I am just a dope. 

August 11, 2019 

Off to Erskineville to see Millie and co, meeting up with Louis after he ran in the City to Surf race. Millie refused to use toilet paper after a wee and when asked why said ‘I don’t like it’ but then when offered wetwipes she said again ‘I don’t like it’. Reasoning was a waste of time but you have to smile when she announces loudly: ‘I don’t like it EVERYTHING!’ Though what she doesn’t like varies constantly and can’t be assumed from day to day. Certainly not shy of opinion, I can’t imagine my disagreeing with anything as a child, although I was sneaky enough to secretly pour the dreaded whooping cough medicine into my mother’s 21st birthday wooden candlesticks every day and thereby ruin them. But opposing taking the medicine, or anything else, would never have occurred to me. My father used to sit at the table and read the Daily Mirror from cover to cover waiting for me to eat the small meal I was served yet I struggled a tiny spoonful at a time till it was gone. Davina and I struggled to remove a half dead bougainvillea from their little courtyard garden this afternoon and succeeded in getting it all out, feeling it quite an achievement. 

August 12, 2019 

Spent just half a day in court due to it being closed to hear argument for a name suppression order, then closed again to hear the media appeal for publication, so we spent more time out of court than in. One interested family group (not accused of anything, more sinned against than sinning one suspects) in their joggers and bad hair dye jobs were care-worn, wearing signs of entrenched disadvantage, western suburbs written all over them. In the long break I chatted to Peter, one of the solicitors representing a ‘person of interest’, and it occurred to me once again that both defending and sentencing people are the prerogative of the privileged. Most of the judges I see are fair to the nth degree but occasionally I cringe at one who is so out of touch with the real world that I fear for the accused if that judge (it’s usually a he) is making the decision without a jury. In this case though there is no such issue, she is one of the good ones. We need to remember Goethe’s words: There is no crime of which I do not deem myself capable, more colloquially put in the idea of walking a mile in another’s moccasins. 

August 13, 2019 

Spent another half day in court, this afternoon being given over to evidence from the man for whom the police successfully applied to have the court closed while he gives evidence. The Channel 9/SMH/Age lawyer continued to fight the order today but was overruled. During the breaks I attacked my current read A Spy Among Friends about Kim Philby. It focuses on how easy it was to get into the British spy service with virtually no checking, you just needed to be part of the upper classes, preferably with parents who were in the colonial service (especially in India), the military, one of the top universities or the church. Once you’d jumped that hurdle your past didn’t really interfere, Philby was a known communist supporter at Cambridge yet his pedigree was such that this was seen as a youthful indiscretion. He once said that the best asset for a spy was to be easily liked, but I imagine being able to compartmentalise one’s life would be right up there. It is not something I have ever been able to do yet my brother does it easily, slipping assuredly from one situation to another, never letting his real feelings or opinons be known. I still smile at his exchange of views with Sue, explaining to her patiently that smoking was actually beneficial to health. 

August 14, 2019 

John went to see his haematologist Nada at St Vincent’s today and she said he was in the best health that he’s been in the three years she’s been seeing him. ‘You were rubbish the first time I saw you’ she rightly but quaintly put it. She says he is ‘one of my success stories’. We then took in a movie at Roseville, Palm Beach, the story of a bunch of flawed middle aged characters having a reunion at the home of one well-heeled couple who live at the fabled beach. Speaking to a man on the way out I discovered that he hadn’t seen a movie in 10 years but came because he lives in Mona Vale and wanted to see it because it was filmed near(ish) to his home. I treated myself to some sushi on the way home for an easy dinner tonight. 

August 15, 2019 

Keen to go back to the court case I’ve been following but knowing that the court was having some closed sessions I rang first, only to be told to ‘ring back after 9am’, despite the fact that time was long past. So I drove over to find the dreaded ‘closed court’ sign up (is there anything more frustrating than that sign when you are mere feet away from getting in?). The office assured me the phone was working but then checked and apologised profusely as someone had forgotten to turn off the answering machine. So I went home and baked a Walnut and Marmalade Tart with some of the marmalade Heather had made and given me earlier in the week, inviting her over for first slice and sending some home for David. Almost finished the Philby book, amazed at how many household names were his colleagues in the spy service. Peter Ustinov’s father Klop, Ian Fleming of James Bond fame, Graham Greene, Peter Wright were all contemporaries of Philby’s. Spy books have always fascinated me, I guess because their skills are so far out of my toolbox that I have a somewhat grudging fascination with their abilities. And that was even before I actually met one in the flesh, he who was quite bemused by the spy section on my bookshelves. 

August 16, 2019 

Sad to see Virginia Trioli finish up on News Breakfast this morning after 11 years. She is such a decent person and can skewer the politicians better than almost anyone. I shed a tear. Sat up late last night finishing the Philby book and the last chapter, written by John le Carre, who of course was also a contemporary spy whom I’d left out of my list of yesterday, said it all. He had asked a senior MI6 officer why Philby wasn’t arrested and charged after confessing to spying. but allowed, even perhaps encouraged, to flee to the USSR. Others who had also confessed  were gaoled for long periods up to 42 years when their actions, unlike Philby’s, hadn’t caused mass deaths. He replied ‘yes, but they weren’t top league’. As ever, class won out for Philby. Began the novel The Mars Room, dealing with the absolute opposite end of the spectrum, the world of drugs, prostitution, crime and women’s gaol in San Francisco. No martinis and gallons of champagne in this one, just beer and cheap takeaways. 

I had hoped to try out a new gardener tomorrow, a refugee friend of a friend who has gone into business, but he hasn’t answered the phone nor replied to my messages during the week, so once again it’s a letdown. I will get the right one eventually, always on the lookout for people who enjoy what they do as well as the money they earn from it, but it takes time to find them. 

August 17, 2019 

Jane came over in the morning with some Cordylines that her gardener had culled. I made some brown sugar meringues with a few walnuts and some cinnamon to liven them up and they were a success. Not a recipe, just an idea, which proved to be a keeper. We discussed amongst other things the need to make our funeral wishes known, bearing in mind the current illnesses being suffered by her sisters I guess. The discussion prompted me to email Carly with a brief rundown of my wishes: where my will is, burial in Gerringong Cemetery, get David Barsby in to auction all the antiques, give my Aunt Ada’s Salvation Army Commission to the Sallies Headquarters in Sydney, that sort of stuff. I once had a Salvationist officer here for some reason (my father’s funeral perhaps?) and he was astounded that I had hanging on the wall a Captain’s Commission from Mrs Booth in 1909 (despite the fact that she died in 1890, they were still using her name on the Commissions). He asked if I would bequeath it to the Sallies archives as he’d never seen one before. Aunt Ada, my adoptive grandmother’s sister, was a SA Captain in England and as a young woman was sent to Belfast at a time of strikes and rioting, when sectarian animosity was real and visible. She once told me that the police used to ask her to walk with them on patrols, especially at night, so they would not be shot. The Salvation Army was highly regarded by both sides and she did so happily. In 1914 she was summarily sent from there to Lithgow NSW, travelling all the way in a blacked out ship during the war. Getting into a cab at the docks in Sydney, she asked for an address in Lithgow and was told it was a long train journey, so she was taken to Central train station instead and went off alone into the unknown. Quite a woman, I can’t even put up with a narcissistic leader in order to do ‘good works’, I need some of her courage and endurance. 

August 18, 2019 

I dreamed last night that when I got up this morning a middle aged couple were working in my garden and said they had been there since 6.30 am and were nearly finished. It was 6.30 when I woke and I realised then that it had been a dream and no-one but me could plant the Cordylines and do the rest of the gardening, so I had better just get up and do it. I worked from then till Insiders came on at 9 (tea and toast as I watched) and at 10 I went back and did some more till noon. I feel somewhat virtuous and even though I had to give up on some of the digging which proved too difficult, I did achieve much. I finished the book The Mars Room last night and was so impressed with the author resisting the temptation to make the prisoners in the book into innocents wrongly incarcerated. She told their stories with empathy but with clear eyes. They were crooked cops, addicts, thieves, violent offenders and vicious murderers yet in the milieu from which they came their acts were just normal behaviour, fanned by intergenerational poverty and drug addiction. It could be a depressing book in some senses (not one I would ever recommend for my book group) but I enjoyed every word and admired the author for not making at least a couple of her characters into the cliched hungry thief who steals a loaf of bread to survive. We need more realistic, astute and savvy work like this to help in finding solutions for the entrenched problems of crime and new judicial approaches to appropriate penalty. 

August 19, 2019 

Did a Windsor run to visit Brian and now Fay at the nursing home. Brian was still abed at 1 pm when I left, depressed and not wanting to go on. Last week he was chirpy and it seems to go up and down like this, the issue being more about motivation than about health. Looking around the day room I understand totally, it is depressing there in the extreme, despite the fact that he is in a better than average facility. Fay on the other hand was really glad of the visit and confessed to an old anger directed towards me. She had come into the shop when I had gone away for Christmas (a rarity) bearing a gift for me, but I had already left. She saw that I had left gifts for the staff but nothing for her and felt rejected as we had exchanged gifts in the past. Sometimes such things can come between friends without anything being said so I was glad that after years she’d decided to mention it and we were able to laugh about it and put it to bed. The shop was a bit of a lifeline for her and it was common to see her many times every week over more than 20 years so she ended up a friend rather than a client. I also called in to see an old contact who periodically borrows some bucks when his car needs rego or a medical bill comes in. He always pays me back a bit at a time on pension day, promising to pay it as a lump sum if his Lotto gets up. Suggesting that he bank his weekly Lotto investment as rainy day money has never met with enthusiasm for some reason. Back to gardening this afternoon, trying to get things shipshape before Darwin, while simultaneously trying to ignore Darwin and the flight. 

August 20, 2019 

Did the Manly haircut run and discovered as I was leaving that I had misread the clock and it was an hour earlier than I thought, however I decided to go anyway and park by the beach to read for that hour. When we were in India our compatriot Rob was reproached by his partner for sitting reading at sites where there were historical things to see. His reply stuck with me: ‘one of my joys is reading in all sorts of different surroundings, so I will continue to do that’. Full stop. After Manly I headed as usual to Freshwater where I read for half an hour till the wind got to me and then had a magnificent lunch of Cured Salmon with Sweet Potato Fritter, Pickled Beetroot and Ricotta. Did I say magnificent? It is such a wonderful place with food of the same quality as its big brother Pilu next door, but at a much lower price. Made my routine work in the afternoon a pleasure just thinking about it. 

August 21, 2019 

So, I have drunk that piss weak light milk for years and now the Health Department says that newer research shows you are better off with full fat, thanks for nothing guys. At least I didn’t fall for the ‘margarine is better for you than butter’ trick, seeing through that one on the grounds that anything artificially coloured and flavoured can’t be as good for you. Not to mention the fact that the ophthalmologist told me that only butter and olive oil are safe for anyone with a family history of macular degeneration. He showed me slides of vegetable oil build up in the macula of sufferers, ugh, that was enough. 

So Pell is guilty once again. Of course the Bolts and their ilk are crying foul, but my question would be ‘did you actually see the accuser give evidence?’. If not, then none of us are in a position to judge definitively except the jury and the appeal judges. That is why I like to see the evidence given in court in person, the short precis given by the press is often not in keeping with hearing the whole evidence as given, you need to look the witnesses and the accused in the eye. I am surprised he hasn’t come to grief in gaol and hope that situation continues, even protective custody isn’t very protective. 

August 22, 2019 

So now I have to face the fact that we are going away, clothes must be packed, tickets must be found, gardens must be watered, panic must be restrained. I wish to be there, I just don’t wish to fly there. I will not get sick this time, I tell myself repeatedly. John has heaps of conference stuff printed up to read and I just have two books, the book group selection and a Tim Winton, that should do me with all the other things available to eat up my time. Speaking of eating I’ve discovered that Darwin has lots of seafood restaurants, though one I saw listed prawns (imported), crab (imported), etc. Nah, I think I might pass on that place, they are sure to have the dreaded basa too, dredged from the bowels of the filthy Mekong, I’d rather eat a stranger’s sock. Tonight though we are having some lovely freshwater trout fillets, served up with a melange of odd veggie bits to clear out John’s fridge. 

August 23, 2019 

All went to plan with the pickup guy a few minutes early but we were waiting outside. A leisurely cuppa at the airport filling in time till departure half an hour late. Takeoff to the west meant the pilot didn’t have to do that awful banking which doesn’t agree with me. Later a delicious feta quiche with potato and beans was a great breakfast. The flight was calm and smooth, Australia as flat and red as always while I pondered what future trips I might take, considering the drugs were working a treat. Reading my book in the sky was quite fun I decided. 

Coming into Darwin for what John says was a ‘perfectly normal landing’ I developed the dreaded photophobia followed quickly by vomiting and vertigo. As a result I had to be wheelchaired off the plane, parked in the terminal in full view of planeloads of passengers, constantly vomiting. Eventually John and a security person got me into a cab to our hotel, but of course no wheelchairs here, so staff held me up in the lift to our apartment with its glorious king size bed, on which I was promptly sick. Poor John’s first meal here was a $25 room service club sandwich because he was afraid to leave me alone. Back to the drawing board on the drug front and another plane trip home to look forward to, sigh. But loving our water view and seeing the bats swooping amongst the palm trees below our seventh floor room, this written the next morning obviously. 

August 24, 2019 

What a difference a day makes. Slept 12 hours and went at 6 am for a walk in the lush waterfront park across the road. Couldn’t convince John to come but I saw the sun rise and the birds waking up. A sign explained that due to the fact that we are so far north, the sun rises from that direction, which it did. I am still trying to get my head around that. Had a wonderful brunch after the walk, home made granola with pannacotta, apple, blueberries and strawberries at Ray’s bakery near the hotel. Now we have done some shopping we have breakfast makings in our apartment. Later we went to Crocosaurus to see, amongst so many others, the giant croc that appeared in the Crocodile Dundee film as well as 750 kg 5 metre long Leo who used to kill and eat cattle before he was captured. Lots more animals  including a reptile exhibition and some fish which spit at flying insects to catch them. As I peered over the tank one got me fair in the face, though luckily I had on my sunglasses. Got to hold a baby croc and learned a bit about the speed and power of these prehistoric looking creatures which can’t fail to fascinate. We are going to look into a day’s car hire to get a taste of the outback, with eyes peeled for crocs. 

August 25, 2019 

Observations: Darwin’s economy isn’t too flash, there are an awful lot of empty shops. Territorians are very noisy people, just walking past a pub or social venue is deafening, especially the men. Singing out to people in the street is at maximum decibels. Looking through a real estate magazine I discovered that although most homes don’t have insect screens (neither does our apartment and we haven’t seen flies or mozzies so far) they mostly have security grilles. Leaving a restaurant tonight the owner told us how to get home via the best lit streets, wishing us ‘stay safe’ as we left. All of this indicates quite a burglary problem to me. There are Aboriginal beggars everywhere. In Sydney when people ask me for change I often reply ‘no, but I will buy you something to eat if you are hungry’. Few take me up on it, but here the response is quite the opposite, we have had three people today want some groceries so we’ve been to Coles buying bread, milk, sugar, chicken, whatever was asked for but the requests were modest. There are so many on the streets here that there’s a limit to what you can do. It’s a tragedy. We spent the day at the Darwin Military Museum, taken by a WWII Studebaker truck as it’s out of town. John discovered a book there which mentions his father who was Commander of the Northern Territory Force from after the Japanese attack till 1946, of course he bought a copy. 

August 26, 2019 

It is late at night and I can’t begin to record all of the mega day we have had. But it included 1. Hiring a car and going bush 2. Seeing three large long black things in the clear shallows of a deserted beach we were walking on and bolting because the signs everywhere say the crocs will run up the beach to get you. 3. On another remote beach a couple of hundred kilometres from Darwin seeing a sign which mentioned Jack Murray, John’s father, heading the Black Watch Aboriginal regiment after the Japanese attack in WWII. So random that we came across that, I can’t believe it. 4. Coming upon a bushfire being attended by water bombers and eventually getting past it and pulling into a mango farm in the sticks for a mango smoothie, but soon the firies rang the farm to evacuate immediately as the fire had jumped. We and the owners took off in our separate cars but John clipped a log and scratched the bumper. 6. Now the car company says we voided our insurance by hitting a stationary object and have to pay for it. It was excitement overload all day. Phew. 

August 27, 2019 

Today was the first day of John’s conference so I’ve been doing a few things on my own. First job was to meet the manager of the car hire company at our hotel at 9 am to discuss the minor damage. He surprised me by saying that because I had rung him and reported the damage instead of sending the car back and hoping they didn’t notice, he would ‘look after’ us. I don’t know if that means charging us the $100 excess or wiping the slate altogether, but in either case we are happy compared to the original decision that we’d have to pay it all. Went to the police station and Aboriginal Justice office enquiring about shelter for the homeless and it seems the Sallies and an Aboriginal aid group have accommodation, whether it is adequate or the people just don’t want to use it remains to be seen, will try to have that conversation with some people tomorrow. John rang tonight to say he was going to the conference dinner so I walked into town and had a lovely meal including a watermelon feta almond and mint salad which was divine and I brought half home for tomorrow. Then had mango and ice cream at home using the mangoes we got at the farm yesterday. We haven’t seen the news since Thursday and it’s a relief not to know what garbage Trump is disgorging. 

August 28, 2019 

John enjoyed the first day of his conference, meeting pals as well as visitors from the UK and US. He said the food at the conference dinner was the usual crap lukewarm chicken, but sadly the dinner tonight at the famed Peewees Restaurant is booked out so he got a ticket to the wrong dinner it seems. I made a momentous decision this morning: I want to stay on and complete my list of must dos. John said I should definitely stay but he has an appointment in Gerringong on Sunday that can’t be put off as the clients are going away soon. So with a bit of juggling I was able to keep our seventh floor unit and change my flight till Tuesday. Yippee! Now I can do a full day in the museum instead of a few hours and also I want to go to the headquarters of Larrakia Nation to talk about possibly organising some bucks for their service. I was lucky enough to see their work with the homeless Aboriginal people around town and was very impressed by their low key approach. They have a van which picks people up off the streets and delivers them home, to a hostel or a dry out place if alcohol is an issue. Also they repatriate people to their home areas, even interstate, just the sort of outfit that’s needed. 

I caught the bus to Cullen Bay (all seniors travel free) and arrived just in time for a cruise on the harbour so I quickly downed some tablets and jumped on, as always it’s a very different view of the place. Paspaley Pearls is a huge outfit here, 17 boats I think and we saw part of the fleet on the cruise. The weather has become more humid and summery than when we arrived and a local commented that ‘it’s turning’. Heaps of American servicemen on the streets today, perhaps newly arrived. 

August 29, 2019 

A huge day, I could write a small book on it. I got a bus out to the burbs and was on the doorstep of Larrakia Nation at 9 am and they turned out to be just the down to earth team of people I was hoping for. As well as the van picking up people from the streets seven days a week, ‘long grass people’ in their parlance, they provide tenancy services such as interest free loans for bonds, help with removals, sourcing furniture and white goods, even have a trailer to help folks clean up their properties and take junk to the tip. Add to this assistance with Centrelink, aged care and disability services and more. I left with the annual report and a pile of reading so hopefully I can turn this into money for them somehow but in the meantime I’ll do a monthly pittance. 

From there I went to the Museum and Art Gallery, which is out of town on the edge of the harbour. I spent the rest of the day there, learning so much about the geology, wildlife and history of the Northern Territory. I was scribbling in my notebook all afternoon, so many amazing pieces of information. One which beat all others I think was the fact that the aboriginal people have named a remote spot ‘sun walk fire devil rock’ and scientists have discovered that it is the site of a meteorite collision and was obviously named after that event, which occurred 4700 years ago! This name has been handed down over all that time, a fact that blows me away. We went to Mindil Beach at night to watch the sunset and ate at the market stalls there, tempura veggies and crispy chilli anchovies for moi. I had to bring half the anchovies home, too hot to eat all at once. My night was then taken up trying to confirm John’s flight. I tried online and it wouldn’t work so I rang Qantas and the wait was announced as 2 and a half hours, but what choice did I have? At 11.30 they answered and it turned out that when they split me off the ticket they gave him a new number but thank goodness his flight was correct, phew. 

August 30, 2019 

Haven’t been watching the teev since we got here but happened to see the news on my phone that the Biloela Four were being deported from Melbourne to Sri Lanka overnight when a court order restrained Border Force from continuing and they landed in Darwin. The government is always trying to get people to live in the country right? So I decided a trip to the airport was in order to try to point that out. Trying to find where they were I went to the terminal and two airport hotels, asking two Federal Police on the way who had ‘never heard of them’, lying buggers. Anyway by this time a further order had stayed the deportation till next Wednesday and I discovered they had been moved. Later intelligence is that they are at Larrakeyah Naval Base, close by and in my line of view from the balcony. Tomorrow I am away all day but I may pay them a visit on Sunday. Got an airport bus back and bought a hat for tomorrow from the Red Cross, walking home via the foreshore beach in my hat and two very under the weather Aboriginal people said ‘are you 55 sister?’ and when I said almost 72 they said ‘oh nana sit down with us , you need to be sitting down’, so I did and they told me all about the worms that can get into your feet in wet season and ‘eat you up from the inside’. They warned me to always wear thongs in the wet season and not to sleep on the ground without a blanket. Kenneth told me a similar story about Africa when he was there, you couldn’t swim in the rivers because of the worms that entered through your feet. 

August 31, 2019 

I am too tired to type but don’t want to forget anything. Picked up at the hotel in a small bus and lucky enough to be the first so I got the best seat, next to the driver with a great view from the windscreen. Down the Stuart Highway then left onto the Arnhem Highway through tropical savannah forest with some kapok trees and Kakadu plum to Humpty Doo and eventually across the Adelaide River, stopping at Corroboree for a drink break. On to the Billabong near Mary River and part of it in the wet season. Here there are four ‘seasons’, wet over the summer, dry over the winter, breakout  during October when it is very hot and 100% humidity and runoff in April when the monsoon wet drains away. Apparently breakout is the worst with a rise in crime and suicides. There have been two letters in the NT News this week complaining about the COLD weather we are having here, dropping to 18 degrees some nights to the horror of the writers. 

I was somewhat taken aback by the boat, a flat bottomed low job from which one could drag a hand on the water, but strongly advised not to. There were life jackets but our guide suggested it was madness to struggle to put a life jacket on in a croc infested waterway. Better to swim to shore, run away from the water and climb a tree he helpfully suggested. Yikes. Anyway before long I was so captivated by the wildlife that I ceased panicking. We saw wild buffalo, agile wallabies (too far north for kangaroos) before getting into the wetlands and once in the boat the bird life was stunning. It included jabirus, brolgas, brown and whistling kites, sea eagles, spoonbills, lapwings, egrets of three types, ibis, azure kingfishers, barn owls, a Nankeen night heron and one of my favourites, the comb crested japanas which have huge feet to walk on the lotus leaves. Lots more besides but I’ve forgotten the names. 

Then there were the crocs, omg the crocs. I discovered that the advantage of our boat over the weekend cruiser looking jobbies was that we could sight an animal and immediately go right up to it so when we saw a bird, or a croc, our guide had us alongside in seconds. If I’d stretched my arm out further I could have patted one on the nose, but I’m kind of attached to my left hand so I desisted. We ate out packed lunch on board sitting right alongside a four metre one and I kept my eye on him just in case he leapt across to those having cut meat with their salad, though I think the eater would have been more of interest. Occasionally he looked over and that eye just freezes you. They are perfectly evolved, outliving the dinosaurs they so resemble. It was an amazing trip and the three hours of animal hunting on the billabong will remain in my memory. 

September 1, 2019 

Three years ago today we were packing up the shop with the auctioneer today. Started the day with a walk to the Waterfront complex where a P and O ship was sitting at anchor. Intended to go to the WWII Japanese attack exhibition there but discovered it was virtual reality, so I withdrew my $22 faster than the best thief, my head and virtual reality are certainly not friends. Then to what passes for a beach in Darwin, a pool at the waterfront with an artificial wave machine, which was great fun and a bargain at $5 including a life guard (who minded my gear), flotation rings and boards. Lunched right royally in the aircon at Snapper Rocks, right at the beach, reef fish croquettes with cole slaw and chili which was more than delicious and a bargain at $17 with the aircon and iced water thrown in. Spent the afternoon in the adjacent waterway, no waves, but plenty of sand, slippery dips and other fun stuff in the water and no chance of sharks, box jellyfish, or more importantly, crocs. However I discovered that the barrier is inadequate to keep out sea lice, which got me around both ankles. Walked home tired but happy, regretting I didn’t ask Mr Qantas to extend for a week instead of just four days. Darwin isn’t dessert paradise but has fabulous savoury food, so I’ve worked out a plan: go to Ray’s for a lemon meringue tart and a pot of tea in the morning and then eat savoury for the rest of the day. Yesterday after my restaurant lunch I just ate watermelon for dinner. Trying to stick to one meal a day supplemented by fruit, of which there is plenty. Had a call from one of the rangers at Larrakia Nation wondering if I were still in town and saying he might give me a ring to go for a coffee before I go. Big surprise in the evening when I got a Facebook friend request from Ram, the manager of the small guest house on the beach in Kerala where we spent a couple of week about 10 years ago. He had joined Facebook and found me accidentally, I am not sure who was more excited, but I’ve had quite a few messages overnight including a video call which I slept through at 2.38 this morning. We have corresponded by letter and talked on the phone a few times, language difficulties exist as he speaks mainly Malayalam, but the short messages of Facebook better suit our circumstances. He offered last night to try to teach me Malayalam but languages were never my forte, we will stick to basic English I think. Perhaps I will see him again after all, I badly need a brush up on his instructions on how to wrap my sari, unworn since he wound me into it 10 years ago. 

September 2, 2019 

Funny start to the day when I decided to get a massage, choosing one about 1 and a half kilometres away. When I had walked there in the heat I discovered it was a unit block not a shopfront. Mmm, a bit sus perhaps, so I rang them and they said they wouldn’t be ready for me for 15 minutes which gave me thinking time and I decided it was definitely iffy, no signage, no nothing. So I texted them saying I was expecting a street front business and was having second thoughts, no reply which pretty much confirmed my suspicions. The window cleaner who had overheard my first call commented ‘if it’s unit 609, lot of men go there’. Okay thank you my friend. 

Spent the morning in the local court, witnessing justice NT style. The magistrate freed a man from gaol for stealing a banana from a small shop and abusing police when they were arresting him. A banana, value $1, but the point of the story is that it happened on May 24, over three months ago. A prize of one banana for anyone guessing his ethnicity….. 

I have avoided knocking about the streets alone at night after dark but on the last night I threw caution to the winds and I’m so glad I did. Walked to the waterfront for dinner and on the way I noticed that a lady who had been doing a painting since late Sunday had nearly finished it. On my way home she said ‘it will be finished in half an hour grandma ‘ so I sat and watched. I bought the painting and carried it home by the corners of the dry section. Then she pulled out some old pillows and a blanket from behind a bush and bedded down. What a place of contrasts this is. 

September 3, 2019 

I arrived here with a suitcase and a cabin bag and John with a soft zippered carryall. For reasons best known to him (probably thinking I would find the luggage difficult to manoeuvre) he insisted that we swap luggage and that he take my paper souvenirs, 3 children’s books bought on our car trip and all the Larrakia Nation paperwork. All good except that he arrived in Sydney without the bag containing all this. I’ve rung the police, the cab company and soon will check with airport lost property but he has no idea where he left it. He only knows it wasn’t in the overhead locker when the plan arrived, no time to go out to the suburbs and get the Larrakia stuff, great start to that association. 

Hurrah!!! The check-in didn’t know about the bag, neither did security but the airport admin office had it, but hadn’t contacted me despite my name and address being on paperwork inside. Anyway, it matters not, the bag she be safe. Had a good flight, doubled up on the meds, but it was smooth so perhaps I would have been okay anyway. John was up at the door when I came off the plane, expecting a wheelchair I guess. He asked if I were happy to be home and I had to be honest and say another week in Darwin would have been great but I was certainly glad to see him at the exit door. 

September 4, 2019 

John stayed over and then drove me to Artarmon to get the train in to the rally for the Biloela Four. The government is always ralphing on about getting people to live in remote and regional areas so here we are with a family who love it there and the community loves them, voila. Not to even mention the ghastly treatment of Tamils in Sri Lanka. John wants to go to Melbourne for the 90th birthday of his cousin Kevin Murray so today while filling in time at Central I booked us on the train in late September and then into our old faithful Treasury on Collins. Toying with getting a one way car hire on the way back but trying to speak to someone at a car rental company for a quote is nigh on impossible, I left my number with two of them hours ago. The weekend after we come back it is Teresa and Stephen’s wedding in Newcastle so that’s another trip away already booked, I will have to stop bitching about never going anywhere. 

September 5, 2019 

Unpacked, washed, sorted. Had a win on the burglar alarm front. I rang to order the new one I was assured I required before I got the NBN but spoke to a different person this time and she offered me a deal. Sign up for monitoring for three years and they will pay for the conversion of the system, saving me $900. Yes please, where do I sign? So then I was able to get onto Optus and let them know that there is action on the connection front. That $900 bucks pays for my trip to Melbourne pretty much, although the car is still an unknown amount, as a one way hire adds a lot. Emailed Larrakia Nation with some questions arising from reading their annual report, as transparent as a muddy billabong I find financial reports. So a good lots of jobs done today despite fielding two calls and eight texts from a friend who is struggling at the moment. The calls I answered but the texts I let go, bad person that I am, but I needed a break. 

September 6, 2019 

Did my Annangrove/Windsor run, visiting Tim, then Brian and Fay. Tim believes he has acquired an original Grecian bronze and wanted my opinion, despite my repeated attempts to explain that authenticating such an item is an academic specialist’s job, not that of a humble suburban antique dealer. However I went to look at it yet again and it certainly has many design and structural attributes of great age, but original Grecian? I just don’t know, but he is looking at many, many millions if he is right (and he has done a heap of research). Since then I’ve had 10 texts with photos of features I may have missed but after the tenth I replied ‘you are obsessed, leave me alone’ which should work till the morning at least. Brian was still looking unwell but pleased with the visit and Fay was happy to see me, who wouldn’t be happy to see anyone in a nursing home, so I don’t take that too personally. I am cross that my physical weakness meant I may have ruined the cuttings I planted this morning. I have nursed them since spring and got a 5/5 strike rate, but when I tipped the large pots out to plant them they were too heavy for me and I ended up with a pile of soil and roots alongside a rootless cutting, just needed another pair of hands but sadly they weren’t available. Now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t wait for help. 

September 7, 2019 

Woo-hoo, it appears I’ve got myself a gardener! I was advised by a friend of a possible candidate and waited in for him to call today, to see what needed doing. So I bit the bullet and he’s coming Tuesday morning at 8 to make a start. Champagne is in order. (It does annoy me that one can’t just have a glass of champagne and the consumption of a whole bottle is way beyond me, even to celebrate a new gardener). Note to self: bake biscuits before Tuesday. 

This travelling business does discombobulate me. I’ve been waking each night not knowing if I am in Darwin or here and going in the wrong direction to find the loo. Certainly felt a little sad when I realise that Darwin is past tense. However I was able to find a book on crocodiles in the library which focuses on their evolution, so that will help. Currently reading Dirt Music by Tim Winton which, although set just north of Perth, has a character who goes to the top end and lives off the land, or off the ocean more to the point. Just reading about the Pandanus trees, the birds and of course the crocs made me feel right at home. One thing that really disappoints me is finding the perfect organisation to volunteer with, full of people I relate to, and yet it is 4000 kilometres away. Wouldn’t that rot your socks. 

September 8, 2019 

Went to First Saturday last night and saw happy snaps, more truthfully happy video, of a trip by two members to northern Canada. There were polar bears aplenty and it was great to see them up close, but was I jealous of the trip? Not really, the sight of Inuit staff with guns ready to shoot the bears if they attacked would be enough to put me off enjoying the experience. Even if it never happens, it is the potentiality of one being killed just to enable a group of tourists to eyeball them that doesn’t go down well. Spent the day at Erko and we took Millie for a walk to the park, followed by lunch at Foodcraft, which is such a lovely little restaurant. Had pumpkin ravioli with goat cheese and it was delicious, though my difficulty swallowing dinner last night has persisted into today, the ravioli chosen as the easiest thing to slip down, but it proved an inspired choice. Millie got quite jealous when I helped a little boy at the park ‘that’s MY grandma’ she said indignantly and repeatedly. 

September 9, 2019 

Luckily my friendship with Tim is long lasting enough to take my frustrated text to him last week to give me a break from the constant texts, emails and photos in his attempts to convince me that he’s discovered an incredibly rare artwork. I had 24 hours without contact after that. It will make a good story if it turns out he is right, I’ll hit him for a large donation for Larrakia Nation. (Gosh, two texts while I’ve been typing this paragraph, aaagh). Getting ready for the new gardener tomorrow and I discover that my next door neighbour has borrowed and filled my green bin which the gardener will need tomorrow, it had to be this week he took it didn’t it. (Another photo just arrived). A rare trip to KMart this morning and I discovered that it is run now on a skeleton staff, self serving checkouts, no one to ask except security at the door, I’d rather pay more and deal with real people thank you. This is what happens when people are too lazy to join the union and fight for their jobs. (That’s it, I give up, another photo so I’m putting the phone under my pillow to give myself a rest). 

September 10, 2019 

So the gardener and I hit it off big time. He spent 2 and a half hours clearing privet and vines from the back corner and cutting dead fronds out of the palm with a natty little mini chainsaw on a long stick. I would love to get my hands on that little beast to take out some small dead branches in the gum tree, accessible from the deck. I shall keep that idea warm for the future. He only lives a few streets away and will come again next week to continue. Third time lucky I think. 

It is bizarre the way I am dreaming of Darwin every single night, going over every aspect: the landscape, the people I met, the wildlife, not necessarily as it happened but always positively. Made biscuits for the gardener then later a batch of a dozen scones, though when I went to wash up I found the sugar still in the measuring cup. So I had one with goat cheese for lunch and one with strawberry jam later, nothing if not versatile the old scone, they were particularly good despite their lack of sugar. 

September 11, 2019 

Last night on 7.30 Report there was a fellow with the same lymphoma as John, Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphoma, but he hadn’t responded to three different treatment cycles of chemo. It is in his bones, which break easily and he looked pretty done in. He was diagnosed just in April. So here’s the rub: he wants the government to pay for an experimental treatment which is his only chance, two treatments at $250,000 each, with no guarantees of success. What to do? Which will better value society: One human or a bridge in the country? a house for a family who lost theirs in a bush fire? or another cancer researcher’s wages? I don’t know and I’m glad that decision doesn’t fall to me. But it brought back memories of Nada telling John he had weeks to live without chemo, he was obviously one of the lucky ones. She refers to him as ‘one of my success stories’, indicating there are quite a few with that disease who don’t survive. 

I was given a ticket for a musical show at Chatswood today and was amazed by the crowd contrast inside and outside the theatre. In the streets it was Hong Kong without the tear gas. Every restaurant and food bar is Asian as are 90% of the people, the streets actually smell like Asia with its spices overwhelming even the car exhausts. But in the theatre it was a different demographic altogether: virtually 100% elderly whities, (ahem, myself excluded from the elderly part) with only a few middle-aged, who were accompanying older folk. I wondered if they were bussed in from nursing homes, such was their advanced years. I guess I love diversity, so both situations are less than ideal. 

September 12, 2019 

The burglar alarm man came today and was both on time and efficient. I mentioned that I was unimpressed that the first person I spoke to said I had to pay for a whole new system yet the second said I could have it changed over free if I signed a three year contract. He made the point that the first person was probably younger and didn’t take into account the financial situation of a pensioner, interesting conclusion. Pretty disgusted by the political news today: Sidoti in Sydney accused of using his inside knowledge to buy up land near intended metro stations and Liu in Canberra looking suspiciously like an influence pedlar for the Chinese government. In both cases, if true, it is amazing that they thought they could get away with it. Life is so much easier if you play with a straight bat, but we humans can’t help complicating things once money or politics become part of the equation. 

September 13, 2019 

Back into the Music Festival Deaths Inquiry this week and have heard interesting medical testimony about the adequacy or otherwise of the care given in the medical tents. In 4 out of the 6 deaths it seems the care was as good as could be provided but in the case where two young people became ill at much the same time in Sydney the doctors on duty at the festival were inexperienced and unable to provide some treatments like intubation which could have saved lives. The professor gave evidence that the ambulance paramedics would have had better skills in that sort of emergency. I heard the testimony of each of the doctors some weeks back and felt particularly sorry for one of them who was a GP with no drug experience and clearly out of his depth. I read in a book on emergency medicine recently that a heart attack victim has a better chance of survival in an ambulance than in a hospital emergency department because they  are staffed by the most junior doctors, a rather sobering thought. 

It is funny at this time of the year how people dress for the weather, not yet decided if it is winter or spring. There were all manner of outfits today from bare legs, short skirts and skimpy tops to velvet trousers and heavy jumpers (me). I guess in a few weeks we’ll all be complaining about heat and humidity, we’ll at least I will be. 

September 14, 2019 

Well I survived Black Friday and full moon both occurring last night. No lunatics raging up the quiet streets of Baulkham Hills. Still dreaming of Darwin every night though the images are becoming less real. Still haven’t had a reply from Larrakia which is bloody annoying; the people I met are sympathetic but the people I need to speak to haven’t met me and so I’m just a pesky person asking questions when they’ve got better things to do. 

Spent most of the day at Carol’s working on Christmas cakes for the Wayside Chapel and Exodus. It was a lovely sunny but pleasantly moderate day to be doing it, enjoying the company of Carol, Heather who came along for the first time and two Finnish helpers. A lovely lunch on the deck, along with Jack, was a highlight. I went to the nursery on the way home planning to pick up some Pandanus for the back corner but Kelly talked me out of it because in Darwin they thrive with lots of summer rain which we don’t get. So no Darwin corner for moi, I guess it was a silly idea, but seemed a good one at the time. 

September 15, 2019 

It is so lovely to have a neighbour who just lobs at the door for a chat for no reason. This happened today so Arvind and I sat on the front verandah and in the conversation he mentioned his brother in Melbourne who went broke years ago in a service station and was forced to sell his house to pay his debts. The Sallies dropped off a couple of food parcels to them and he’s never forgotten, now in a successful business he donates $10,000 a year to them. He has investment properties and refuses to claim the negative gearing benefits because he doesn’t believe in them. (Here I’d take a different view, claim any legal money you can from the government and redirect it to where it should rightly be going, but that’s nit-picking). I like the man already and told Arvind ‘when your brother visits, send him in here for a cuppa, I think I like him even more than I like you’. He grinned and assured me he would. 

Began reading Cardinal by Louise Milligan (an Irish Catholic) tonight and it makes for extremely depressing reading. Many events she describes have not been published before to my knowledge and the book is gripping. Even leaving clerical abuse out of the equation Pell is the type of person I want to positively run from. That arrogant overbearing authoritarian manner gives me the shudders. I’ve only come across a few people like that in my life but it gives me goosebumps just thinking about them. But there have been many others with leanings in that direction that I can think of as well, somehow they freeze your feet from running away, even as an adult. I can’t even imagine what a child would feel in their presence, a terror indescribable. I don’t think Pell has any idea whatsoever about the feelings of others and probably sees himself as a victim and martyr. 

September 16, 2019 

The dentist today inspected the massive hole in my tooth and said it wasn’t a filling that had fallen out, but that the tooth had split in half, just leaving the front like one of those awful buildings where only the facade is original. So he remade the inside of the tooth with some sort of white stuff which set in a trice but warned that if it cracked again I was looking at a crown. At my age that seems a terrible waste so I will be careful and gnaw my bison ribs on the other side. Which brings me to my current thinking on meat eating. I have sort of settled on not buying it for home, I live on fish and vegetables, but accepting it if I am eating at someone else’s house or going out for a special meal. I can’t stomach the idea of chicken, too many nightmarish pictures absorbed, but it tastes of cardboard anyway. No one cooks plain chicken any more, it’s either curry or honey or chili or crumbed or anything at all to give it some hint of taste, so what’s the point? I did a plain roasted organic chicken for Carly last year and it was delicious, so perhaps that’s enough. 

As I was driving home from the dentist Michelle rang to say that there was a pile of stuff in her street waiting for council cleanup which included three large plastic boxes of books, so I diverted and came across an interesting assortment of loot. A large trunk with a broken leather handle was very difficult to gutbust into the car but I got it in eventually. Then there was a dropside table which wouldn’t fit in along with the trunk so I went to the door to ask if they could keep it for me till the morning. A fellow emerged from under the shrubbery, keeping his head down to avoid any obligation to help presumably, and was willing to let me deposit the table in the garage till Wednesday. I suspect he has inherited the house, judging by the gear on the kerb and because he made such a specific time that he would meet me there. The books were a mixed bunch, many too large for my street library, WWII books particularly, and the selection indicated an older person’s taste too (I didn’t read Sherlock Holmes for nothing). I couldn’t lift the boxes and my friend wasn’t of a mind to help me so I unloaded many of the books loose into the car and was off. But guilt overcame me and I went back to get the rest of the books to take to the Sallies, only to find to my horror there was just a pristine patch of grass with nary a sign of the goods ever having been there at all. Grief, now I keep thinking of the old bibles, the WWII books in quantity, the travel guides, even the ghastly Dan Brown novels, someone somewhere really wanted all of those but now they are landfill because I was tired and also didn’t want to annoy the selfish coot who couldn’t be bothered to drive up to a charity shop. Stop obsessing Maureen. (Still obsessing). 

September 17, 2019 

I had two things planned to do today: wash all the winter jumpers that have been worn and help the new gardener, both scuppered by the lovely rain. Gardener texted at 8 am to say it was too wet which meant I had got out of my jamies an hour earlier than necessary, but that’s life. Then mid-morning I made passionfruit biscuits and texted a female friend something along the lines of ‘hi darl, djawanna come over for a cuppa, passionfruit biscuits in the oven’. The reply was fast: ‘No sorry, have to see a real estate agent about work, but save me some biscuits’. Odd I thought, as my friend is retired……but then I realised that I had sent it to the new gardener. A hurried explanation was sent to disabuse him of the notion that I was on the make. Très embarrassant! This got me to thinking about working at Sydney University on wheat genetics at the Plant Breeding Institute where almost every academic had come from a farm. They positively scoffed at building workers and others who downed tools during rain or high temperatures. We were expected to work outdoors rain or shine in any temperature, and we did so. I once fainted outside in 40 degrees plus temperatures and someone suggested I be taken to the local doctor. ‘What’s the point of that?’ my boss said, ‘he’ll only tell her to go into the cool.’ They were extremely socially conservative as well as socially inept in many ways. If they were entertaining overseas scientists I was dragooned into serving them morning tea or lunch as although they were brilliant in their fields, they seemed incapable of social smalltalk. 

September 18, 2019 

Today I had to pick up the table put aside for me on Monday and decided I couldn’t resist talking to the donor about waste! So I explained that I had come back to rescue what I could from his council cleanup to take to a charity shop but had sadly arrived too late. Charity shop? he said somewhat confused, you mean like Lifeline or something? Yes I said, I am still smarting about the waste of all those books. Oh he said do they take old glasses and stuff? Yes they certainly do I replied, after which he lugged out a huge box full of stuff which he put into my car saying that it was all going out in the next cleanup. Of course I decided to sort and wash the stuff and pack into manageable containers and I now have some bits for the charity shop but also a number of boxes of cups and saucers, vases, ornaments and glasses packed and ready to take to auction. Larrakia Nation will do well from that little haul, so thankyou Michelle for the original tip off. My new friend didn’t take offence at my remarks and took my phone number in case he comes up with more ‘junk’, he’s got the bug perhaps. 

September 19, 2019 

Managed to get on to the chief financial officer at Larrakia and he answered some of the questions I had, but he will need to speak to someone else, perhaps the CEO, to get answers for a couple of things. However on one issue his answer and the annual report are at odds, so I need clarification on that. Managed to get all the jumpers washed so need a dry day to finish them then it can pour for as long as it likes. Had a call around lunchtime from the lady I met in a cafe a while back who reads the blog, she had some free time as her work computer was down and wanted to catch up. Amazingly it turns out that we share an old friend, in my case back to my teens, a fact we stumbled on taking about a totally unrelated topic. 

Got a receipt by email today for the full price of our accommodation in Melbourne so I rang them immediately to see what was going on. It turns out that being grand final weekend for the AFL there is no cancellation ability such as usually applies and the tariff is charged in full 7 days before arrival. I knew it was finals weekend and we were paying a lot more than usual, but had no idea about paying in advance. Who puts on a party on that weekend, I ask myself. Anyway while I was happy to pass on the party altogether, John was keen to go in case he bumps into distant rellies there, which is fair enough so we are going despite the cost. 

September 20, 2019 

Late last evening Kirk the gardener called to see if he could come today after being rained out earlier in the week. Of course I was delighted and at 10 to 8 we were hucking out the overgrown almost herbless herb garden. By 10 it looked a treat with a pile of fishbone fern and weeds you couldn’t jump over. Now it is up to me to replant it after we get back from Melbourne. We gel, thankyou gods. Then I loaded up the wagon with stuff for auction and dropped it at Bargain Hunt, sitting down with the owner Mark for a chat and reminiscence over old times. It was great handing stuff over with no real concern about what it brings, seeing most of it cost me nothing. Then off to Erko for Millie’s Special Person’s Day, necessary because mother’s day and father’s day can get a bit tricky around that area. There was an Aboriginal man there to do a smoking ceremony and I got to thinking about the fact that Aboriginal people didn’t once get a guernsey in my education, apart from cameo roles as people on the headlands looking out at Captain Cook et al. The fact that the preschool is German owned probably helps their attitudes as I think often foreign born people, particularly the Germans and Dutch, have a more respectful view of our past than those of us brought up here and never taught a scrap about the real history of Australia. Later we all, including Carly who came up to be a special person, went to Foodcraft for dinner. It is such a lovely local bistro of the type we rarely see, not in a shopping precinct, just on a street corner, where everyone coming in, including Millie, greets the owner by name and he often returns the favour. 

September 21, 2019 

Thinking during the night about the Aboriginal man from yesterday who told us he was separated from his mother at birth in 1971 and never found his family again. In 1971 I was still a member of the Foundation for Aboriginal Affairs, having joined about 1965/6, trying to get some action on what we now call the Stolen Generation. The idea behind it was that if black children were separated out and brought up white they would assimilate and the blacks would eventually die out. Charles Perkins, that wonderful angry young man, was at our head and I can remember a particular meeting at Parramatta Town Hall (in a crumby little room out the back) at which we had an invited public servant come from Canberra to address us oh so politely about the justification of what the government was doing. I was too young then to give an important person any stick but at the end of his talk an old lady there asked a question: ‘Are you the person who drags screaming children onto the trains to bring them to Sydney, leaving their mothers collapsed hysterical on the platform?’ ‘Uh, no’ he answered, ‘that’s not my job, I’ve never seen that’. ‘Well in that case’ she said, ‘send us the person who does, because I have seen it and I want to look that person in the eye’. He skulked to the door and left red-faced. I’ve never forgotten it, it was an inspiration in how to speak truth to power. But unfortunately those thousands of Aboriginal children suffered, and this man was clearly still suffering, despite a handful of people in a back room. Today I have felt so powerless in a world that can’t even begin to see how wrong we were, and are, on so many issues. I think we are at a low ebb as a planet and I certainly am today as one single impotent part of it. 

September 22, 2019 

Reading an interesting novel, Dinner with the Dissidents, set both in Moscow in the 70s and Canberra in the present. It got me to thinking about the morality of the whistle-blower versus those who stay loyal to the regime of the moment. Perhaps reading about a whistle-blower is just what I need to put a positive spin on my thinking at the moment, but let’s see how it ends. Shopped and cooked today for visitors coming for lunch on Tuesday and as I was dropping unbeaten eggs into the good old Kenwood Chef a yolk came flying out of the bowl and hit me mid chest, bursting and then slowly dripping down my top. That was my excitement of the day, but now I see why a recipe always says to lightly beat the eggs before adding them, took 60 odd years of cooking to get the flying yolk though. 

September 23, 2019 

Tuesday will be quieter than expected as I got a text just after I finished making food for the lunch tomorrow that my guests are unable to come, leaving me with more food than I can possibly eat before we go away. I have texted Heather asking if she can come and collect the products of a fridge huck out on Wednesday afternoon. It’s nobody’s fault but it fits the pattern of the last few days. 

So, they have made a movie of The Goldfinch, one of my top 10 books. It hasn’t had good reviews but I will still give it a look. It is such an epic story that it would be very hard to cram into movie length without needing to leave out considerable parts of it, so perhaps that’s where the criticism lies? I am currently reading a book which has a character whose reactions are so like mine that it is creepy. It begs the question of whether we are unique individuals or really fall into archetypes as Jung proposed. I can identify so totally with this woman’s thinking that I can forecast what she will do next in the book, just by anticipating what I would do in the same circumstance and I am often saying nooo, don’t go there, but of course she does because that’s how she is wired. 

September 24, 2019 

Had a call from Brendan and it lasted an hour and 35 minutes, realising how long you’ve been on a phone call is sometimes a shock, followed by annoyance, but not in this case. H. called in and I started hauling all the salads out of the fridge for lunch but she is on a water diet so that blew that one out of the water so to speak. We are trying to work out how to come back from Melbourne: train? one way car hire? hot air balloon? The cost of a one way car hire has stopped us doing that in the past, but a ring around proved interesting, the price varying by more than a factor of two depending on the company, Thrifty being the most expensive funnily enough, thrifty by name but not by nature. The discussion continues. 

September 25, 2019 

Poor H. came to grief on her water cleanse, vomiting all night and looking awful today when she came around to pick up the food, which at least she can eat now. Spoke to Deborah, Sue, Brian, texted with Stephen and Tim and generally cleared the decks. Today has been a political junkie’s dream, you just don’t know where to look, Trump impeached, Johnson overruled by the Supreme Court, no wonder I’ve had a better day. I seem to have come up out of the murky depths to which I have been consigned since last week, actually quite enjoying packing and tidying up. Dug out from the freezer a curry and some rice and lentils to take to John’s for dinner. I love it when you just open a drawer and there is your meal entire. Also pleased that Bargain Hunt seem to have made sensible decisions regarding the lot division of the goods I took over last week. Bad lotting can reduce the prices considerably. 

September 26, 2019 

Arrived at Central Station at 6.30 am and our train left right on time. We had a bit of light entertainment when the couple sitting directly in front of us were told that they were in the wrong seats. They absolutely refused to move to their allocated seats in another carriage, insisting they should be in first class and not in economy despite what their tickets said. I was half expecting some racial slurs to start but happily only one passenger got involved and race wasn’t raised. The rail employee eventually threatened to call the police to meet the train at the next stop but that didn’t faze them a jot. Eventually three employees including a heavily tattooed member (and that was the woman) persuaded them, still complaining bitterly, to move back to economy. Apart from that bit of fun the other issue was in the row behind with a mother and three young children taking up residence. I am sure Isaac, Andy and Ann were lovely little people but 12 and a half hours in their close company was about 11 and a half hours too long. Glad I packed us a picnic lunch for the train so we didn’t need to eat the canteen food. Walked from the station to the hotel to give ourselves some much needed exercise after arriving at 7.30. 

September 27, 2019 

Decided to visit the Old Melbourne Gaol and it won my heart just by spelling gaol properly, why that changed I will never know. On past trips we trammed everywhere so I assumed we would be doing the same thing again but no, the boy wonder announced he is fit enough to walk the couple of kilometres each way so that’s what we did. The cells, exercise yards and padded cell were seriously disturbing, especially knowing that they were in use till 1994. In the watchhouse it was up to 12 to a cell, no bunks they were just given a foam mattress each to sleep on the floor and the open toilet in the corner was flushed externally by the guards who apparently did that rarely as a punishment, there was no wash basin. Across the road is the old police headquarters, the site of the 1986 Russell St bombing. Afterwards we went to the Hopetoun Tearooms for lunch of asparagus, pea and mint soup, which was delicious but lukewarm. We sent it back to be warmed up, the chef was mortified and as we were leaving, despite our saying that the soup was terrific, he insisted on giving us some of his pistachio and cranberry shortbreads to take away. We will be returning as we do every visit to Melbourne. 

Sometimes mobile phones are a pest, just had two calls in succession while typing this: one from someone wanting me to organise some legal advice for him pronto and the other from a person wanting to borrow money urgently to register his car, the latter missing the boat considering I currently can’t remember my internet banking password. Both calls emanating from Windsor of course. But back to Melbourne: it was a public holiday here today with a big parade for the football, which we were happy to miss. Nevertheless the city was packed with people and most businesses were open. Ate a delicious share meal at Rice Paper Sister just 10 minutes walk from the hotel. 

September 28, 2019 

Thinking about how the heck old Windsor contacts get my mobile number and of course it’s Brian, who wouldn’t think to say he didn’t have it. I only ever gave out the landline. I tried to ring back the person who needed rego money to say I wasn’t able to do it (somewhat cross at the interruption) only to get a recorded message saying that his phone had been disconnected. So now I’m feeling guilty about the fact that he doesn’t know what’s going on about the money (and more than a little cross that I can’t ring and get it off my mind). 

Took a train 45 minutes north to Wallan expecting to go to John’s cousin’s 90th birthday party in the burbs, but it turned out to be on a 175 acre property. Kevin is a retired Marist brother and the party was at his niece’s place. We almost didn’t make it as she had said to call from the train for a lift (John actually started ringing 24 hours before that as well as from the train) but the phone was always turned off and we didn’t have an address. Finally I suggested ringing the cousin, the only other person he had a number for, and luckily he answered so we got there in the end, otherwise it would have been a train back to Melbourne. Got back in to Melbourne about 7 pm. 

September 29, 2019 

Walked to the Art Gallery around 10 am and the streets were so crowded I couldn’t believe it, this town is super full. Enjoyed the Terracotta Warriors Exhibition, I hadn’t realised that the warriors were life size and more. The artefacts including a jade handled dagger, a large necklace and a jade belt buckle particularly impressed me, especially the fact that they were made around 700-1000 BC. Then we went to the Imari exhibition and marvelled at the wonderful fine painting of the pieces. Apart from that, John was taken by a painting of a heretic being murdered on the altar of a church, no doubt seeing himself in the picture. Talking of heretics, yesterday one of his rellies told him that he remembered an argument in his house as a child when someone mentioned John and his brother Paul and the husband bellowed ‘you will never mention their names in this house again’, this due to the fact that they had both left the priesthood. Until yesterday John had no idea that he had been persona non grata in that family since 1971, a sobering thought even after so many years. 

September 30, 2019 

Met up with Dally and Remi and went to lunch at Red Spice Road nearby. They are great to spend time with, we always have fun when we get together. The food there is just my style, spicy and rich and sweet and salty and luscious. Remi asked to take the remainder home, which is outlawed in Victoria, but the waitress weakened and gave her a length of foil and she surreptitiously tipped it in. Apparently it’s to do with insurance against poisoning but we promised not to sue. John told the story of the odd birthday party on Saturday and it all seemed to slot into place in the retelling. We were invited by the guest of honour, not by the hostess, which perhaps explains why we could never get a call returned, right from weeks ago when we were first told about the party. Ah well, it makes for a funny story over lunch at least. Tonight we are eating in, I bought us a salad to share from a nearby coffee shop and that will well and truly do in the food department. We have free Netflix here but as at home I intend to watch things but never do as it means sacrificing book reading time and John is the same apart from the football. 

October 1, 2019 

One of the many things I love about this hotel, Treasury on Collins, is the fact that the staff never seems to change. The front desk is manned by the same team, similarly the person in charge of the breakfast team and the barman who does the free wine service every evening, the so-called Wine Down. It is lovely to be greeted by name each time you see someone in the lift or go out past the desk. Sure it’s good PR and training, but the difference here is that they are all genuinely social and lovely people to boot (and the fact that they routinely give us a room upgrade is fun too). We went on a trip to Williamstown which was the original port of Melbourne before they cut a wider channel into the Yarra to allow ships to come closer to the city. I took us to the wrong wharf to get the ferry so we decided to get the train there instead and come back on the ferry to see the city from a different angle. The train went through many suburbs that looked pretty depressing but when we finally got to Williamstown there were some lovely old houses and shopfronts from the mid 1800s so we wandered the streets and decided it wouldn’t be a bad place to live, looking across the bay to the city proper. We lunched at an old pub ($12 mains at lunchtime!) and took a late afternoon ferry ‘home’. Fun it was, but sadly I fell asleep soon after we embarked and John woke me up at the wharf in Southbank, so much for seeing the city from a different angle. Then it was a rush back to the hotel for a quick shower before heading to the theatre to see Come From Away, one of the best shows I’ve seen in years, which ended with a whole house standing ovation which was well deserved. John has cancelled our plans for a French dinner tomorrow night for my birthday as I am so restricted in what I can eat at night these days, so we are going to Hopetoun Tearooms for lunch instead, which suits me down to the ground. 

October 2, 2019 

Well lunch at Hopetoun lived up to expectations, Pea, Mint and Feta Fritters with Green Goddess Sauce and Microherb Salad was made with fresh peas and the Mixed Berry Frangipane which followed was magnificent. Weird food experiences of the day: 1. At breakfast the man at the next table got two plates, one piled high with fried eggs, bacon and tomatoes, the other piled high with sausages, mushrooms, baked beans and scrambled eggs….and ate both, followed by pastries and fresh fruit. 2. The couple sitting next to us at Hopetoun ordered Mirror Dory with Tomato and Broccoli and a piece of Chocolate Raspberry Cake and shared them. That was fine, except they both ate them concurrently, a mouthful of one then a mouthful of the other, seriously stomach churning. 3. Two women at Hopetoun ordered six large and varied servings of cake, the table was covered, and were devouring them as we left. I wish I had the courage to order three pieces of cake at once, but on the other hand my hips are glad I don’t, though all the big eaters I’ve described were thin, life is so unfair. We have been watching a live website of a preregrine falcon living on a window ledge of a building nearby, so after Wine Down at about 6 pm we wandered there to see where it lives, but it was sitting on its one remaining egg so we didn’t see it swooping down. Every day it does so to attack an unsuspecting pigeon and returns to its nest with a wing or some other body part to chew up and then feed to the babies. Wild goings on in the city. 

October 3, 2019 

Couldn’t sleep last night for a really stupid reason. As we were peering into the sky watching for the falcon the previous evening a man approached us asking for money for a coffee, but we had come out penniless. I then thought to tell him we were only across the road from our hotel and to offer him a coffee there, but in the 30 seconds it took to think this through he had disappeared into the crowd. So last night my head just wouldn’t let it rest, why don’t I think more quickly? did he think we were lying about having no money on us? By now it was old news but somehow my mind didn’t think so. We left the hotel at 7 am, picking up pre-ordered sandwiches for the train on the way. Just got to the station in time to check in the luggage and then we were on our way. I find watching the countryside, and the small hamlets we pass through, very relaxing but of course when the journey is extended due to a previous freight train dripping canola oil on the tracks and thereby reducing our speed, it becomes tiring. A 7 am start ended up as a 9.45 pm finish by the time I got the Hillsbus home. I did love looking at the canola fields everywhere in Victoria, the combination of green leaves and yellow flowers makes for acre upon acre of lime green, unexpectedly shocking in the brown or green landscape we are used to. No sign of drought in any of the areas that the train passed through, it was lush and the dams were full. 

up at the wharf in Southbank, so much for seeing the city from a different angle. Then it was a rush back to the hotel for a quick shower before heading to the theatre to see Come From Away, one of the best shows I’ve seen in years, which ended with a whole house standing ovation which was well deserved. John has cancelled our plans for a French dinner tomorrow night for my birthday as I am so restricted in what I can eat at night these days, so we are going to Hopetoun Tearooms for lunch instead, which suits me down to the ground. 

October 2, 2019 

Well lunch at Hopetoun lived up to expectations, Pea, Mint and Feta Fritters with Green Goddess Sauce and Microherb Salad was made with fresh peas and the Mixed Berry Frangipane which followed was magnificent. Weird food experiences of the day: 1. At breakfast the man at the next table got two plates, one piled high with fried eggs, bacon and tomatoes, the other piled high with sausages, mushrooms, baked beans and scrambled eggs….and ate both, followed by pastries and fresh fruit. 2. The couple sitting next to us at Hopetoun ordered Mirror Dory with Tomato and Broccoli and a piece of Chocolate Raspberry Cake and shared them. That was fine, except they both ate them concurrently, a mouthful of one then a mouthful of the other, seriously stomach churning. 3. Two women at Hopetoun ordered six large and varied servings of cake, the table was covered, and were devouring them as we left. I wish I had the courage to order three pieces of cake at once, but on the other hand my hips are glad I don’t, though all the big eaters I’ve described were thin, life is so unfair. We have been watching a live website of a preregrine falcon living on a window ledge of a building nearby, so after Wine Down at about 6 pm we wandered there to see where it lives, but it was sitting on its one remaining egg so we didn’t see it swooping down. Every day it does so to attack an unsuspecting pigeon and returns to its nest with a wing or some other body part to chew up and then feed to the babies. Wild goings on in the city. 

October 3, 2019 

Couldn’t sleep last night for a really stupid reason. As we were peering into the sky watching for the falcon the previous evening a man approached us asking for money for a coffee, but we had come out penniless. I then thought to tell him we were only across the road from our hotel and to offer him a coffee there, but in the 30 seconds it took to think this through he had disappeared into the crowd. So last night my head just wouldn’t let it rest, why don’t I think more quickly? did he think we were lying about having no money on us? By now it was old news but somehow my mind didn’t think so. We left the hotel at 7 am, picking up pre-ordered sandwiches for the train on the way. Just got to the station in time to check in the luggage and then we were on our way. I find watching the countryside, and the small hamlets we pass through, very relaxing but of course when the journey is extended due to a previous freight train dripping canola oil on the tracks and thereby reducing our speed, it becomes tiring. A 7 am start ended up as a 9.45 pm finish by the time I got the Hillsbus home. I did love looking at the canola fields everywhere in Victoria, the combination of green leaves and yellow flowers makes for acre upon acre of lime green, unexpectedly shocking in the brown or green landscape we are used to. No sign of drought in any of the areas that the train passed through, it was lush and the dams were full. 

up at the wharf in Southbank, so much for seeing the city from a different angle. Then it was a rush back to the hotel for a quick shower before heading to the theatre to see Come From Away, one of the best shows I’ve seen in years, which ended with a whole house standing ovation which was well deserved. John has cancelled our plans for a French dinner tomorrow night for my birthday as I am so restricted in what I can eat at night these days, so we are going to Hopetoun Tearooms for lunch instead, which suits me down to the ground. 

October 2, 2019 

Well lunch at Hopetoun lived up to expectations, Pea, Mint and Feta Fritters with Green Goddess Sauce and Microherb Salad was made with fresh peas and the Mixed Berry Frangipane which followed was magnificent. Weird food experiences of the day: 1. At breakfast the man at the next table got two plates, one piled high with fried eggs, bacon and tomatoes, the other piled high with sausages, mushrooms, baked beans and scrambled eggs….and ate both, followed by pastries and fresh fruit. 2. The couple sitting next to us at Hopetoun ordered Mirror Dory with Tomato and Broccoli and a piece of Chocolate Raspberry Cake and shared them. That was fine, except they both ate them concurrently, a mouthful of one then a mouthful of the other, seriously stomach churning. 3. Two women at Hopetoun ordered six large and varied servings of cake, the table was covered, and were devouring them as we left. I wish I had the courage to order three pieces of cake at once, but on the other hand my hips are glad I don’t, though all the big eaters I’ve described were thin, life is so unfair. We have been watching a live website of a preregrine falcon living on a window ledge of a building nearby, so after Wine Down at about 6 pm we wandered there to see where it lives, but it was sitting on its one remaining egg so we didn’t see it swooping down. Every day it does so to attack an unsuspecting pigeon and returns to its nest with a wing or some other body part to chew up and then feed to the babies. Wild goings on in the city. 

October 3, 2019 

Couldn’t sleep last night for a really stupid reason. As we were peering into the sky watching for the falcon the previous evening a man approached us asking for money for a coffee, but we had come out penniless. I then thought to tell him we were only across the road from our hotel and to offer him a coffee there, but in the 30 seconds it took to think this through he had disappeared into the crowd. So last night my head just wouldn’t let it rest, why don’t I think more quickly? did he think we were lying about having no money on us? By now it was old news but somehow my mind didn’t think so. We left the hotel at 7 am, picking up pre-ordered sandwiches for the train on the way. Just got to the station in time to check in the luggage and then we were on our way. I find watching the countryside, and the small hamlets we pass through, very relaxing but of course when the journey is extended due to a previous freight train dripping canola oil on the tracks and thereby reducing our speed, it becomes tiring. A 7 am start ended up as a 9.45 pm finish by the time I got the Hillsbus home. I did love looking at the canola fields everywhere in Victoria, the combination of green leaves and yellow flowers makes for acre upon acre of lime green, unexpectedly shocking in the brown or green landscape we are used to. No sign of drought in any of the areas that the train passed through, it was lush and the dams were full. 

October 4, 2019 

The garden has survived my absence happily, even the parsley seeds have germinated to restart the new elevated herb garden. The bane of my life now I am back (and before I went come to that) is trying to get some information out of Larrakia Aboriginal Corporation. When I went there in August the staff I met with were really helpful and encouraging when I mentioned raising funds for them, but getting any sort of response from here is like sending emails to Mars. I don’t want to cancel but I will if the buggers don’t respond soon, as I’ve just told them in yet another email. I’m sure I would have heard if the Japanese have bombed all communications infrastructure as in 1942. When I reopened my birthday gift from John, two pairs of funky earrings from the Quick Brown Fox shop in Flinders Lane Melbourne, there were four pairs inside. Two more had been sneakily added by him before the parcel was deposited in my suitcase. He is such a sneaky present giver and I love all four. 

October 5, 2019 

Lovely to wake up with no pressure to be somewhere and my favourite weather to boot so I gardened in light rain, planting more herb and edible flower seeds in pots and moving three plants that I’d decided don’t like their previous positions. Then I had a mind to totally empty my antique apprentice chest of drawers, which acts as my jewellery cabinet, polishing it with lemon oil, cleaning out the drawers and rearranging the jewellery in a more organised fashion, one drawer for silver only earrings, one for silver plus coloured stones, one for funky costume pieces etc etc. I toted up the earring collection which currently stands at 49 pairs, so I’ve decided that better be the limit because I am sure there would be a pair lurking in a handbag somewhere and 50 is enough for anyone. I won’t mention the current scarf numbers, but it puts the earrings well into the shade. Then I wiped over the perfume bottles which stand on top and felt my day was fully worthwhile. In the evening I went to Carol and Jack’s place for a charity dinner and decided to wear my grey polo neck jumper, realising only after getting dressed that it’s the only piece of clothing with which I can’t wear earrings, the very high collar routinely hooks them off, so my earring collection stayed home and rested in its new sense of order. 

October 6, 2019 

Watching Insiders in my jamies was almost (but not quite) interrupted by phone calls from the same two people who coincidentally rang me in tandem in Melbourne last week, they each have no idea that they manage to seek inopportune times to ask where their particular issues are up to. Managed to be patient with one and a bit short with the other but it’s like water off a duck’s back, so I have no doubt that the calls will continue. Did my shopping out at Dural and came home with lots of lovely veggies begging to be cooked and eaten, perhaps too many considering that we go away to Newcastle on Friday, but a veggie curry seems in order in the circumstances. 

Dying to get back into my current book tonight, reading The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein and it is an absolute joy. The subject of the biography, Melbourne trauma cleaner Sandra Pankhurst, is a trans woman, who was a battered child, a husband and father, then a prostitute, funeral director, hardware shop owner and so much more. But it is her huge heart that gets me teary. Imagine lying on a rubbish covered, bug infested bed alongside a hoarder, trying to gently convince her that yes, the dozens of rotting bags of never unpacked groceries lining the rooms really do need to go into the skip. No talking down, no lectures, no superiority, just a friend explaining that these things can no longer be of any value, but understanding the value that they have to this particular person. She has that rare and most impressive quality of being able to talk to, in her words, Mrs Rich Bitch and Mr Penny Pauper, each in their own language. I humbly dips me lid. 

October 7, 2019 

I finished The Trauma Cleaner and feel like starting it all over again, which I may well do. I want John to read it but getting someone with a cleanliness fetish to dive into rat infested houses is a big ask, despite the wonderful uplifting messages it includes. He would get to the story of the woman who spread her cats’ poo on the floors of her house and just covered it with newspaper, layer on layer like a giant lasagne, and that would be it for him. I need to rearrange my Best Books Ever list so this one can be included. Perhaps if I count the Neapolitan novels of Elena Ferrante as one instead of four novels (they are continuous after all) I could squeeze this one into the list. It is not a list of the best ever works of literature but a list of the books that impressed me most at the time I read them. Did I mention that it was fantastic? 

Cooked an Indian cauliflower recipe last night but the amount of tamarind was a bit much for someone who can’t handle bitter. Also did a carrot salad with Dijon mustard and honey in it so that toned down the cauli a bit. I plan to do the lentil ‘meatball’ recipe from the latest Animals Australia brochure tomorrow and have those with dahl and the leftovers of both the cauli and the carrot salad when John comes, though I expect he will ask ‘where is the protein?’ but with a bit of luck the lentil balls might fool him. 

October 8, 2019 

Once again it proves that being nice and polite doesn’t always get you far, but one complaining email sent to two people at Larrakia on Friday resulted in a phone call yesterday (which I can’t believe I missed at 6.30 pm while having an early shower, due to being over enthusiastic with some glue). But an apologetic and lengthy message was left by the caller, giving two people’s mobile numbers, with a request that I send them some questions in an email which was then answered promptly today. Hurrah! Perhaps the remark that getting on to the CEO (or anyone else who was allowed to answer questions) was as difficult as getting a direct line to the Pope did the job. 

For some stupid reason, if I set my alarm I then either can’t sleep or else I wake up really early and don’t sleep again. I had the alarm set this morning as the gardener was coming early but I woke at 4.30 am and didn’t sleep after that. Then he didn’t turn up! At 9 am I rang him and he had mistakenly put me down for next Tuesday, which didn’t matter a fig, but now I will no doubt be awake at 4 am that day too. Spent the afternoon listening, while doing other things, to the Aged Care Royal Commission where thedepartment secretary is giving evidence with my daughter assisting her. It is a gruelling business and one I wouldn’t want to go through. 

October 9, 2019 

Went up to Castle Hill to see a picture framer whom I found on the net, looking to get my Darwin painting framed. I drove round and round looking for a building called Home Hub but in the end had to ring them. Oh, she said breezily, it isn’t called Home Hub any more, it’s the Supercentre. Perhaps change it on the website? I suggested. Anyway she understood the way I want it framed, floating on a matte, rather than with a cutout matte as is usual. However the price was more than expected so I am thinking. On the way home I pass Heather’s house and as her car was in the drive I popped in and she recommended another framer nearby who does all her work so I will get a quote there. I had an excellent artistic framer for the shop for years but he once did a job for a client and buggered the bleaching of a large old lithograph which had foxing. Accidents happen, but then he claimed to have never had the piece and only after a lengthy legal stoush with Fair Trading who wanted him to pay the clients compensation did he finally produce the damaged litho and return it to them, still wanting his fee for framing it. Nah, don’t think I will rekindle that relationship, similarly with the jeweller who ‘lost’ a very good antique diamond ring I put in for repair, but sent me a modern inferior one in exchange. I never did get the ring back and suspect he resold it for a tidy amount. 

October 10, 2019 

Last night I served Lentil and Almond Rissoles with Indian spiced cauliflower, rice and salad. John commented on how nice the rissoles were, with no idea at all that they weren’t meat, that recipe is a keeper. I think it is the umami of the soy sauce that tricks the palate. Today was a busy one, first putting his nibs’ car in for service and rego, then the gas fire technician came to replace the fan which has made a racket ever since they did a service in July, a freebie so that was nice. Then off to Heather’s framing man who quoted almost exactly half of the lady yesterday so I left the painting with him, to pick up next Friday. Then to Barsby’s Auctions to put in some quality china and glass for their next sale. John had an appointment nearby at RNS with the infectious diseases specialist who was very pleased with him and reduced his antibiotics from 8 a day to 4, but said she was too scared with his history to take him off them altogether. Picked up the car on the way home and packed for the wedding in Newcastle on Saturday, as we leave in the morning. Hoping to catch up with our friend Jackie at Caves Beach on the way but she didn’t sound the best on the phone and will tell us tomorrow morning if she feels up to a visit. She has been ill for many years now, but sounded worse today. 

October 11, 2019 

Jackie rang to say she was keen for a visit so we tootled up to Caves Beach and had morning tea with them. She is thin and frail but bursting with her own special Jackieness and love of life. We have both always found her to be wise counsel in any situation. Carl showed us a video on proton radiation treatment, unavailable in Australia but widely used in the US. Its benefits include being much better targeted and not damaging surrounding tissues so higher doses can be given. Carl contacted the Mayo Clinic to see if Jackie was eligible and they said to come over just for an assessment appointment, at a cost of $25,000 US with no guarantees that she is a suitable candidate, they’ve decided against it. He researches possible treatments constantly and was the one who asked her oncologist about a trial treatment which hadn’t been offered to her but proved to have the best results so far. Toes crossed for her. 

Booked into Noah’s on the Beach at Newcastle and went for a long walk along the beach in a cold and unpleasant wind. Later we went around the corner to a Thai place and just had a soup each, with me fishing out the slices of chicken in mine and dumping them into John’s. 

October 12, 2019 

Rain descended on Newcastle but didn’t do anything to dampen Teresa and Stephen’s wedding at Corpus Christi Church. Her brother Andrew officiated and a nice touch was singing by the Tongan church choir. The reception was at the Apollo Hotel with a sit down meal of very good food, all gluten free to suit the bride and some other relatives. We caught up with many of John’s family members and met many of Stephen’s family for the first time. He told me how they met, her saw her in a doctor’s surgery and asked the doctor for her contact details. The doctor said to write her a letter, leave it open so he could read it and if acceptable he would pass it on. Now they are going to send wedding pics to the doc. 

October 13, 2019 

Went out to Islington to the antique shops looking for a battery acid jar to replace the one I broke a few months back. I always used it for large flowers especially agapanthus. I bought the previous one here in Newcastle and thought because they came out of old power stations I might be lucky again. However no one has seen one for years so I left disappointed. Met up with Deborah and Stephen and had lunch at East End Hub, where the food is always both healthy and delicious. Afterwards we went down to Belmont on the shores of Lake Macquarie, then towards evening to Stockton where we walked along the break wall which is the mouth of the harbour, watching a huge freighter passing with tugs aplenty on its way to load. Interesting to see the rusted wreck of a ship from 1905 half way along the walk. By the time we got back from our walk it was totally dark with a full moon. After a long and happy day we got back to the hotel fairly late. 

October 14, 2019 

I suggested a visit to the wedding couple after we had looked around at a few of the historical Newcastle buildings that I’d vainly attempted to see on the last two visits there. So John rang Teresa immediately and left a message to say we’d be there in an hour! I was signalling ‘two’ while he was speaking but he couldn’t understand what I was saying and got quite snappish, all of which was recorded on the phone message along with my reply ‘are you letting all of this go on the tape?’. I will laugh about it eventually.

We tried to find the cathedral I’d seen on the top of a hill but John couldn’t remember where it was so I settled for the Baptist Tabernacle which sadly was locked up, just as I had an urge to convert, so they missed their big chance. The building is in ornate classical style but the back is pretty plain brick so perhaps facade is important to the Baptists? But apparently they believe literally in all 66 books of the bible, which is pretty scary when you consider the permission to beat one’s wife and kill one’s servants. But as I have neither wife nor servant conversion wouldn’t be of much use to me after all. We then went over to Teresa and Stephen’s to observe newly married life up close and they still seem very happy, so it appears they’ve made the right choice. On the way home I picked up the newly framed painting from Darwin and was pleased with the result. The framer said that their prices are so good because everything is done in their workshop on site, with a choice of 500 frames available in any size. 

October 15, 2019 

Kirk the gardener was arriving at 8 am but I was good and ready for him, weeding in the front garden. He cut down a privet that had grown up in the back corner and was putting pressure on the fence, two Sulo bins full of cuttings. (WOW, right this minute I had a call from the head of the tenancy program at Larrakia Nation, returning my call from early September. She will speak to the CEO tomorrow about the information I asked for in my message back then. If I get every call returned I will be a busy woman this week). John went to his clerical mates’ monthly lunch today but it was at the Baulkham Hills home of one of them instead of the club where he complains about the food every time. Phil has lymphoma and can’t go into public places, how I remember that scenario with John and how I did lunch for the boys here during his illness. It seems years ago now but it was not quite three years since we were in that position. I came home from the weekend absolutely whacked and if I sit down I fall asleep straight away so I’m trying to keep active, but doing easy stuff like unpacking and putting the washing on. Amazing to think that we push the clothes into a machine and come back and get them sometime later, so different from in the past (and the present in many places in the world). 

October 16, 2019 

So the message yesterday from Darwin was that the CEO was going to ring me today…….I carried the phone around all day like the trusting dill that I am, even had it on the side of the bath during my ablutions, along with a pad and pen for taking notes. I still haven’t had replies from 17 people about the morning tea, so the numbers right now are anyone’s guess. If they all come we’ll have to keep cutting the Vegemite sandwiches into eighths and perhaps sixteenths as more folk arrive and perhaps cut the Iced VoVos into quarters. Speaking of Iced VoVos, they look now as if they’ve been run over by a steamroller. Not that I buy them, but always reach for one if they appear at someone’s house. Methinks the Arnott family would quake to see the fate of their beloved Voey. Still feeling below par and hoping that it’s the busy weekend and not the fact that I tossed the autoimmune medication a while back. I plan to put off my next specialist visit till after Christmas, wimping out on telling him that I threw them out instead of doubling the dose as instructed, but revelling in my small defiance. He calls me ‘a minimalist’, little knowing the state of my underwear drawers, my shoe cupboard and my garage, but as far as drugs go, yes a minimalist I certainly am. 

October 17, 2019 

Almost beyond words tonight after watching the 7.30 Report on the murder of racehorses at knackeries in Queensland and NSW. One of the sites, Burns Pet Foods at Riverstone, I drove past every working day for 27 years, knowing full well they were killing horses there, and I guess I should have known racehorses would be among them. Someone who worked for the local council told me that he was tasked with picking up euthanased dogs’ bodies from vets and delivering them to Burns, astonishing when you think that they would be full of toxic drugs which were then going into pet food. He mentioned that they had picked up a German Shepherd as road kill the night before to add to the load. I once drove in and asked about the paddock full of horses near the road, only to be told that their owners had left them there for agistment, not believing a word but unable to prove that they were lying. They were all gone within the week. Sometimes I think that the planet will be better off once it divests itself of humans. 

October 18, 2019 

Thinking about how simple life was (and how dull and less interesting in so many ways) before we had access to all the information the internet provides. I must wear my glasses in the supermarket to read all the labels because now I know what all the additive numbers mean (beware E700-799 which are the antibiotics). Then there may be countries of origin one wants to avoid or products from a particular country like basa fish from Vietnam. I avoid anything made by Unilever after asking the people at the guest house I was staying at in India what tea they were using (it was foul) and discovering that despite living not far from tea plantations the poor were using a Unilever product in a jar, ingredient list was: 100% TEA DUST. Yes dust off the floor of the tea plantations, well probably off the conveyor belt, but it tasted as if it were off the floor, so no Unilever. Of course we have the businesses to steer around as well like Harvey Norman, just because Gerry Harvey is a whinging pest, and Kennards Hire who are always pushing the interests of rich white men. Radio 2GB is out, as are all TV channels with ads, but that’s just my personal preference, the ads drive me to drink. I cringe when I think of how many Melbourne Cup sweeps I’ve organised, but I’ve sworn off horse racing quite a time ago and was never into the dogs, not since the pet cats started disappearing from Berala when I lived there in the early 70s and then were discovered at a nearby greyhound track, declawed and ready to be used as lures. That track was just near the headquarters of the RSPCA but of course nothing happened in those days, no Facebook to post it on. So life is tricky negotiating all these obstacles, but so much better than when it was all happening, but we just didn’t know. 

October 19, 2019 

John was here overnight and he helped me with two jobs this morning that I’m very thankful for. One was to hang my much prized and newly framed Aboriginal artwork, Damper Seeds by Patrina Kitson, and the other was to help put some photos of Darwin into a frame I had scored on a council cleanup many months ago and had sitting around waiting for a use. I later went to Officeworks to print out two photos of Patrina actually doing the painting and was embarrassed after I’d used the machine, queued up and was asked to pay……20 cents. I can’t remember the last time I paid 20 cents for something but I certainly felt I’d had my money’s worth. 

October 20, 2019 

The loathsome Gerry Harvey, that whingeing billionaire, was in the news again today in a different context. He was the owner of one of the racehorses seen being killed at an abattoir for pet mince. Abominable people seem to manage to be abominable in so many different ways during their lives. In my list of things to avoid I forgot to mention franchise businesses. They often manage to be the meat in the sandwich between odious franchisors and the public, so they tend to be squeezed at both ends, hardly a recipe for good service. Michel’s Patisserie, Jim’s Mowing (in fact Jim’s anything), Krispy Creme Donuts, Wendy’s, Donut King, Coffee Club, all good examples of places I avoid like the plague. Of course it goes without saying that Gloria Jeans has pride of place, Nabi Saleh outclasses most comers in the contemptible stakes. Phew I feel so much better after that rant, I think I shall have a cup of tea. 

October 21, 2019 

After so much negativity I will only say nice things today. Woolly lambs, edelweiss, raindrops on a tin roof, waves lapping up the beach, I can do it if I try. Went to see Brian and Fay today. He has been quite negative the last few days but got up with the walker and went down to lunch so that is an improvement. He is so thin and frail that I sadly ignored his comment about wanting to go to the zoo. I’m afraid his family would freak out considering his current condition but I hope they will take him, and soon. He told me to go to his garden and pick some gerberas which I did, a little bunch for him and a little bunch for me and enough left to keep his garden looking good. I noticed Burns Pet Foods have taken down all their signs facing onto Windsor Rd, probably in expectation of demonstrations, but I am being nice today so that’s all I am saying. 

October 22, 2019 

Food shopping today for cooking days later in the week sent a thought across my mind that maybe I should just have sent a decent donation to Larrakia instead of involving other people at all, but it’s a social event as well and probably overdue. Looking forward (with some trepidation) to Senate Estimates tomorrow night when my daughter will be a witness for the first time in her latest role in the public service. It’s an incredibly public way to do your job, in front of television cameras in a room full of reporters. I am glad I’ll be at home on the couch watching the live feed rather than in her position. 

October 23, 2019 

Writing this in the 15 minute break while watching Senate Estimates. I kind of love Jackie Lambie’s mispronunciations and stumbles in amongst her undoubted passion. It is worth all of that to have someone real in parliament, despite the fact that I often disagree with her. Even when she’s wrong she’s interesting. Senator Roberts on the other hand is just plain unpleasant and a fool to boot. Diplomacy and weasel words are so tightly linked as to be inseparable. My friend Owen in the late 60s and early 70s who was a master at Kings School told me that they were there to teach the boys to speak in such a way that they never offended anyone and never told them anything meaningful either. I’m sure that’s a training ground for politicians and diplomats. Government language often drives me mad, but at the other extreme you have Trump with ‘Don’t be a fool!’. It’s a fine balance and one I’m glad I don’t have to negotiate. 

October 24, 2019 

Up at the fruit shop at 7.30 am, most unlike me, and home with the goods before Aldi even opened. Baking all day today. Tania came over with a basket full of ingredients to donate to the cause and made delicious looking Italian almond biscuits, which we were self-controlled enough not to sample at lunch. There was a major disaster when the sponges blew up like souffles and then crashed, the end result suitable to retyre a vehicle or use as a discus. I’ve never ever had it happen before and don’t know how to prevent it happening again, so sponges have slipped from the repertoire for a while. I thought a lot had been achieved but I realised there is as much to do again tomorrow, without my sous-chef who has gone back to her secondary career of accounting. 

A disturbing message from my indigenous friend in Vanuatu this afternoon, part of which reads: “Chinese are invading our country, we women are fighting to get into parliament in 2020. Chinese are everywhere, starting to do business reserved for indigenous people eg: small livestock, farming, kava bar, taxi, they’re getting through Vanuatu with green passport, our government is very corrupted.” It absolutely sickens me that they would use these beautiful, unsophisticated, generous people for money and at the same time ruin their magnificent landscape and economy. I feel much worse about it than anything they could do to us. Hopefully we can help in some way, but how I am not quite sure yet. Will ring her after the weekend. 

October 25, 2019 

Up at 6 and baking till about 1 pm to avoid the heat of the afternoon. I’ve had a few guests pull out today for the morning tea which always happens, but I hope we keep a critical mass. Sue rang and said they were back and looking at options about book group so I suggested they stay here and come to the function in the morning. I had idly thought of doing this fundraiser every 3-4 months and asking a different crew of people each time, but no, I think I’d rather just give a donation myself and keep up the kerb trawling. I don’t want to look at cake for a while either. Book group at Brigitte’s was gentle and most enjoyable with mixed views of the book from very positive to ‘I didn’t finish it”. We didn’t sit up for the usual nightcap, with Sue going to bed as soon as we walked in. Good to have them back safely. I was too dog tired to lie awake stressing about tomorrow which was a bonus. 

October 26, 2020 

Up again at 6 and I left the guests to their own devices apart from boiling Robert a couple of eggs. They went to visit Sue’s mother while I iced, filled and plated the cakes. It took more time than I’d expected and I just managed to beat the first guests, getting out of the shower less than 10 minutes prior to their arrival. My plan to ice the fruit cake with an Aboriginal flag made out of fondant came to nought because of time pressure and was probably a tacky idea anyway. I had received a text during the night to say that Tania was in hospital with kidney stones, a withdrawal at the barrier in horseracing parlance. So unexpected as she was fine when we communicated yesterday afternoon. Life can turn on a dime as the Americans say, and isn’t it the truth, but later she messaged to say she had been discharged which was reassuring. It was particularly great to see Jackie again so soon, having been to Caves Beach to see her only a couple of weeks ago. She holds a special place in my heart and it pains me to see her so ill. The guests all seemed to mix and there was plenty of food, too much in fact, so we did a cake run dropping off at Tania’s, Heather’s and the Fire Station. Unfortunately the firies were otherwise engaged and the station empty so I took two boxes of scones and cupcakes to my next door neighbours who are always happy beneficiaries. Those on the other side who are Indian don’t have a sweet tooth which I told Arvind is the only thing wrong with them as neighbours. 

October 27, 2019 

I was in bed at 9pm last night, unable to go a moment longer. Astonishingly the day raised $715 !! People were generous in the extreme and I sensed they were enjoying themselves (except perhaps the gentleman I asked John to introduce around when he arrived, John had to ask him his first name and he is probably more John’s friend than mine, oops, awkward moment). Bob offered to be scrutineer of the money counting in the absence of Jack who had left earlier and I thought he just wanted to write the total down so I gave him a scrappy offcut of paper. I should have known that he’d itemise every note and coin, sign and date it like a prescription. It’s funny but I’ve been craving salty food instead of the usual sweet. I don’t want to look at the leftover cake yet. It is almost painful for me to see waste, so I took another boxed lot of cakes down to Davina’s today and John also took a box for himself and one for his next door neighbour, my ex gardener. Perhaps I was thinking about whether we’d have enough if the 11 folks who hadn’t replied turned up, but of course we would have been fine. 

When in Erko today I took Millie to the park then out for a babychino followed by a play in the fountain at the apartment complex. I took her home dripping wet and put her into the bath, after which we played a few of her favourite games. In the park she was talking to a man, it’s always a man, and asking him to play with her, calling him dad. When he was leaving she said ‘thankyou, it was nice to meet you’ and shook his hand formally. He was bemused. 

October 28, 2019 

I asked John to ring Larrakia to find out when the board meets and it’s Wednesday of next week, giving me time to send a formal letter requesting retrospective permission to hold a fundraiser. Playing by the rules is fine as long as someone explains the logic, something that hasn’t happened in this case. I would never have survived in the military. 

Decided I wanted to go to the Tchaikovsky concert at the Opera House next month. He was the favourite classical composer of my youth and I’ll enjoy it I know. However I don’t seem to have a musical memory at all and despite loving opera and classical music I couldn’t hum a tune from any classical piece from memory, nor name a famous piece that I hear on the radio. While waiting on the phone they had a piece from opera playing, I couldn’t tell you what, but I knew it was from an opera I’ve seen more than once, which one is a total mystery. That was why I always failed music at school I think. John’s been complaining lately that we don’t get to enough concerts so he’s pleased that I’ve booked. 

October 29, 2019 

Last night Stephen rang about 7 pm to say that Deborah’s lung operation had been completed successfully but at 9 pm he called back to say that she had had a bleed and the surgeon and team were racing back from home to operate again. About 11 he called to say that they had taken out a 500 ml clot from her lung, rendered her unconscious and intubated her with a respirator. Very worrying news, but it seems that today she is off the breathing tube, having had three units of blood. She fainted when they got her up this afternoon so she may have more blood tomorrow. It will take a lot of rest to get over this very big hump but Stephen will be an excellent nurse. 

Went this afternoon to see the acclaimed doco The Eulogy and it was an awesome piece of work, not least because it opens with Paul Keating giving his famous eulogy for pianist Geoffrey Tozer. It was a poignant film both from the point of view of Tozer’s life and in seeing Richard Gill back on screen a year or so after his death. Tozer’s downfall is investigated in detail but to me it all seemed to hark back to a self-indulgent mother who wanted to live out her dreams through her son, never considering the effects on his overall development as a person. He was fatherless, with a dominating mother whose ambitions for him created a one trick pony, despite the fact that that one trick was so breathtakingly good that the music world looked on in awe. 

October 30, 2019 

I posted off a very official sounding and extremely polite letter to Larrakia asking for retrospective permission to have the event I’ve already had and saying that I will send a cheque as soon as more promised funds arrive and the permission is granted. Very diplomatically put of course, but underneath it all saying ‘I’ll swap you the money for the permission’ so it’s in their court now. 

I remain Facebook friends with a woman from a country town who was a regular browser in the shop, her suggestion not mine. She is extremely politically conservative but I keep her as a friend partly in order to know what the bad guys are up to.

November 2, 2019 

So, I am not imagining that the internet speed is slower on NBN. Tests over the past couple of weeks on cable have produced speeds varying from 28.8 Mbps to 52.9, averaging around 47.4. Since I got NBN on yesterday the speed has been tested four times, from 13.2 to 24.7, about half what was promised. I intend to complain strongly to the Optus man on Monday which will get me absolutely nowhere. 

Went to First Saturday at Michelle’s bearing a mushroom stroganoff from a new recipe, which I was sadly unable to taste as my parotid gland went on strike in the morning. This means I can’t eat or drink anything but water without experiencing excruciating pain, triggered by chewing or even simply mouth contact with food or drink other than water. Presumably this came about because I’ve stopped taking the Plaquenil, as it used to occur periodically but I’d sort of forgotten about it since I’ve been on the meds. Especially disappointing as Michelle had made her famous quiche. The talk concerned me in that it focused totally on assistance for veterans and remembrance without any reference to avoiding the pointless and spurious wars since WWII which created unnecessary grief for our young men and women. I’ve written to the presenters to express this view. 

November 3, 2019 

Hurrah, after 24 hours without food I luxuriated in tea and toast for breakfast. Food tastes so good after a break. Once when the spasms continued unrelentingly for 5 days I had visions of it never going away and having to be tube fed. Had an enjoyable day cooking Christmas cakes for Wayside Chapel and Exodus Foundation with Carol, Amy and Kath, the latter a woman born the same year as me in Harrogate so we told stories of places we both knew. She was from Starbeck, the village in which my adoptive cousins lived and which I visited in 1973. Reminded me to ring the bro tonight, as if I needed reminding. 

November 4, 2019 

More NBN goings on. The Optus man came today to make sure everything is okay with the changeover. Me: I’m not happy about the speed. Him: It’s dropped by 50% right? Me: How did you know? Him: Because everywhere I go they say the same thing if they were on cable before. He is getting speeds at his home of 100-110 on cable and fears the NBN coming to where he lives as he’s young and does a lot of streaming, he’s with Telstra which amused me no end. So, I rang Optus to complain and it’s obvious they’ve heard it all before. Not our fault, it’s because the government changed the system etc etc. However Ahmed on the phone offered to become my ‘case manager’, is sending a new modem (which we both know will make no difference) but I am hoping when it doesn’t he may agree to bump me up to the speed I am paying for at no extra charge. He is Indian, living in Punchbowl so we chatted India, food, culture and more and I am in with a chance as he is a lovely helpful person. What a complete fuckup this NBN has been with Malcolm the Technology Guru, who clearly was as useless as a marshmallow hubcap in decision making on this issue. I think I shall write and tell him so. 

Fascinating teev tonight with Australian Story featuring Mark Morrison, the astounding principal of a Kempsey school, who does everything from going to court with his students, rounding them up from home, feeding them, setting up a creche for their children and being a last chance for them to get an education. Respect. Following this was 4 Corners which looked at the police investigation into Bill Spedding, the repairman suspected in the disappearance of 3 year old William Tyrrell. I was surprised and pleased to see his lawyer Peter O’Brien with whom I chatted during breaks at the Coroners Court a couple of months ago (not about the case, just passing the time) but I took his card as I’d picked him as a good bloke to know if you got into deep doodoo. When I win Lotto I am going to have a million or 10 put aside to hand out as needed to fund cases like the ones O’Brien does. He is a specialist in miscarriages of justice, particularly involving the police. Perhaps I will put him on retainer. Yeah, dream on girl, you need to buy tickets to win, but the thought of millions to give away is my ultimate fantasy. 

November 5, 2019 

Yay! A big win, my spy tells me the Anzac sign has been removed from Kiama Lighthouse so I can cease and desist writing letters, emails and phoning the mayor. The RSL asked the council for permission to put the sign there for 2018 only, then applied to make it permanent against the wishes of Crown Lands, National Trust and many others. They have their own perfectly good memorial in the centre of town but got to use a historic building as a billboard for well over 18 months. Hurrah that the council were forced to see sense. 

Up gardening with Kirk from 7.30 am to nearly 10, then we went to Bondi to walk the Sculpture by the Sea. Not as exciting as some other years, but we enjoyed it nonetheless, despite ferocious winds. Had a lovely morning tea at Bronte Bogey Hole, the first cafe on the strip and still the best, then drove to Bondi and got a park right near the start of the walk. I’d figured that Melbourne Cup Day would be an excellent time to do it and that traffic would be light if we came home about 3.30 when everyone was watching tele, right on both counts. It’s Nup to the Cup for me in future, actually I beat the rush and pulled out of it a couple of years ago, an early adopter so to speak. 

November 6, 2019 

Went to the nursery to buy an Acanthus after seeing one at Carol’s in full flower, then wandered around with it in my hand looking for a spot to plant it. It’s a wide spreader and so are many other things I’ve planted recently but finally I found the perfect spot. A few of the books that came into the street library during the week had a Bookcrossing.com number inside the cover. Intrigued, I put the number into their website as instructed, to discover its history and was amazed to find that it went into that system in Geelong, then went to Rooty Hill and then into my library which was pictured on the site! So I registered on the website and I suppose now I will be deluged with emails about where these five books end up. But also in the box yesterday was the book Australian Gypsies by Mandy Sayer, interesting to me as many settled in western Sydney, particularly around Liverpool, where they were discriminated against, even to the point of keeping their children out of some public schools. We went a couple of years ago to a talk in the city on that book but I kept my wallet firmly shut on that occasion as I am downsizing right? However it has been on my ‘to read’ list and I am super glad the universe landed it to me in its own good time. With it was the novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist which was also on my list. 

November 7, 2019 

Became inexplicably ill this morning so the usual hour of gardening was out. Decided I would likely just be lying down if I stayed at home so I jumped in the car and went to court at Lidcombe, air-conditioned, quiet, with lots to focus my mind on. By lunchtime I was feeling well enough to do a bit of gardening so I came home and did just that. Court as therapy? It occurs to me that I am lucky so many things appeal to me to occupy my time because, in the reverse of Bill Clinton, John’s become a hard dog to get off  the porch. We’ve had three lovely trips away but each was occasioned by work (Tenants Advisory Group conference) or by two different celebrations in his family. When I suggested that the morning tea we had on Tuesday at the Bogey Hole was so good that we ought to consider having lunch there, my shout, his response was oh, I’d need to look in my diary, I’m pretty busy at the moment. I’m not telling anyone yet……..but it looks as if my pal Ahmed at Optus, after numerous phone calls and texts from him to me over three days, may have fixed my internet speed……..shh, I don’t want to jinx it. Bless you Ahmed. 

November 8, 2019 

I bought tickets a few weeks ago for A Russian Gala, Sydney Symphony Orchestra with Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov playing Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 followed by the full Symphony No. 2 by Rachmaninoff. His playing was sublime, four curtain calls, and it took me back to my youth when Tchaikovsky was number one on my hit parade. Did I fall in love with him or Dylan first? I can’t remember, but they were in tandem for a long time. It was partly him and partly Tolstoy who convinced me to go to the USSR in 1973, just wanting to be where those masters had been, and I was lucky enough to visit Tchaikovsky’s house in Klin, north of Moscow, to sit at his piano and to look at the remaining hand-rolled cigarettes on his desk (whether or not they were genuinely left there when he died is another question which I didn’t press). Unfortunately I didn’t get as far as Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s house, which was somewhat further afield and in the opposite direction. The two of them met and admired each other immensely, Tchaikovsky saying of Tolstoy that he was “the greatest of all writers and artists ever to have existed anywhere”. Tolstoy was such a supreme student of human nature who could, I assume from his writing, put himself into anyone else’s shoes. Last night’s concert was a wonderful experience and made me realise that I should seek out his music every time it is scheduled. Tchaik 1 and Rach 2, what a double. It also confirmed that when I go ahead and plan an event John not only comes, but enjoys it immensely, so I just need to do so more often. 

November 9, 2019 

Stayed at John’s last night and went to Erskineville to see the fam today. First thing this morning I got a message from my cousin Angela saying that her brother Jimmy is in town from his home in Byron Bay and all the family are meeting tomorrow for a picnic in Royal National Park so we agreed with pleasure to attend. Worked out the food we would take to share as two of their brothers and their families are Muslim converts and it needed to be halal. Met Dav, Louis and Millie at Sydney Park and Millie thoroughly enjoyed the face painting, Elsa of course, and the various child centred activities. About lunchtime we headed back to Lane Cove to shop for the avocado and bean salad and the beetroot, sweet potato and ricotta salad for tomorrow, plenty of fruit and cake in my freezer to take too. Just sitting down to lunch when Angela rang wanting to know where we were, I was aghast to find that she’d sent the message on Friday night and the picnic’s ‘tomorrow’ meant ‘today’. They had been waiting for us to arrive to serve the lunch. What a bummer, I was so looking forward to seeing them and having a swim to boot. I am doing this on John’s computer which is so slow as to be barely believable since he got the NBN. It took an hour and 10 minutes to upload a short video of this morning’s event to Facebook. At home it would be one minute if that. He needs an Ahmed but as he’s with TPG Ahmed’s no help. 

November 10, 2019 

Still rankling about the mixup of days for the picnic but I need to let it go, not something I’m good at. Went to Carol’s on cake duty along with Kath and Virginia. We got through quite a bit of work and had a lovely lunch to boot. Did a detour to look at a desk I was tipped off about, put out for the council cleanup, but it was much too big for me to wrestle. A glance at my phone told me that the Liberals have elected Jim Molan as a Senate replacement. He was disloyal to them once before and is an extremist in my view, so clearly this is the type of person they like. I shall turn off any electronic device which shows his face or voice for the sake of my mental health, I despise him with every grain of my being. 

November 11, 2019 

A mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes attention. Yesterday when I went to water the front garden I discovered that the connection between the hose and the tap was missing. This morning I searched through my hose bits and bobs but couldn’t find a replacement so a trip to Bunnings was on the cards, however when I went out to lay some mulch the fittings had been replaced. So did the heinous thief suffer guilt overnight? Who borrows one’s hose fittings and puts them back the next day? Life’s little mysteries abound. Martha came over to deliver our copies of her book When I Was Ten, for which both John and I were interviewed. Fifteen years in the making, it is a volume which charts the changing lives of Australians across the 20th century. I did have serious reservations about how much of my early life I had exposed but I’ve come to terms with that over the last few months. 

November 12, 2019 

Decided to stay close to home today considering the catastrophic bushfire warnings we are under, but early on I hosed the garden in a probably futile attempt to appease the fire gods. Then went up to Service NSW because the National Parks website said I could renew my concession parks pass there. Unfortunately I discovered you can only pick up the form there and must send off a coloured photocopy of both sides of your pension card to apply, a bit tricky when you don’t have a printer, so another favour to ask of John. I must say that coordinating all state government service at one office, where they are helpful in the extreme, was a very good idea. In fact the only good idea I can think of that the Liberals have had in the last decade (except banning dog racing, which they then reneged on). But seeing all National Parks are closed in NSW because of fire danger, I guess there is no rush on that account. Making a fish and prawn curry for dinner tonight, sauce already done so I just need to heat it up and drop in the small pieces of mullet and the tiger prawns at serving time. The recipe comes from a book of Indian recipes, one of a few my friend Ramachandran has sent me over the years. It’s called Indian Non-Vegetarian Delights, I love the way that in India vegetarian is the norm, and the first on any menu, then non-vegetarian comes at the end. 

November 13, 2019 

Had a sudden insight that I don’t need a printer for the National Parks pass, I just need to photograph the form and the pension card and email them, feeling very technological. Decided that I have so many summer clothes that I need to get them out and iron a few so I don’t keep wearing the same old, same old. So I ironed about 15 tops ranging from 10 to 30 years old and and hung them in the wardrobe. Most are house or going to the supermarket tops, though I did wear one of them out tonight, but even so they need to be cycled. Feeling virtuous. It is now a week since the Larrakia board met and no reply to my letter, what to do? Apart from banging my head against a rock, I just don’t know. Trotted into town on the bus and went to Cafe Chino in the Hilton for a sweet treat before meeting Carol for a movie, but sadly my query about whether a particular tart contained chocolate was wrongly answered in the negative so that was a waste of money and anticipation. The movie, a doco about a small medical service in New Mexico which treats the poor and drug and alcohol addicted folks, was both depressing and inspiring. Depressing that a country like the USA can always find money for prisons, wars and walls yet no money to help its citizens. Inspiring that the same country produces medicos and nurses who have come from hardscrabble backgrounds themselves, yet rise to help others overcome the same social problems which afflicted them. Inspiring too to see the folks trying their best to get well, not always successfully. Discussing the movie afterwards we noted a man in what appeared to be a red Trump hat, he was black. I have no words. 

November 14, 2019 

Decided to do my weekly ringaround and had spoken to Brian and Jackie, when as if by magic the call was interrupted by an incoming from…drum roll…Larrakia Nation. Not the CEO or anyone on the board, but from the head of HR who has been my best contact all along. She explained that the CEO has no secretarial support, is massively overworked, that the organisation ‘lurches from one crisis to the next’ and that he is currently in Alice Springs trying to help folks affected (who isn’t affected?) by the police shooting in Yuendumu. So, where does that leave us? Lee asked me to email her a copy of my written letter to the board and is going to attend to it if she can. I guess the answer is that if you are one person with massive responsibilities you need to delegate and I haven’t seen much willingness to do that so far. I said to Lee that I wish I could just come up for a month and work fulltime to which she answered ‘oh god we would so welcome that’. The saga continues. 

John and I went in on the bus to the Sydney Peace Prize lecture. Michelle is a fixture at this event but sadly missed it this year due to being in hospital, a lame excuse. We enjoyed a speech by Aboriginal woman Antoinette Braybrook of Our Voice, Our Visibility, to whom Tracey Spicer later donated her part of the prize money. While Tarana Burke spoke well too, I didn’t think that she outlined her organisation in the way that perhaps Hanan Ashrawi or Patrick Dodson did, partly because it was almost an accidental movement, they lit the spark but millions of women spread the fire. The prize organisers recognised this by giving it to the movement rather than one individual. Perhaps less speakers, eight plus a musical interlude which I could have happily missed, would allow the featured speaker to spend more time on the matter at hand. Do we really need speeches by the Lord Mayor and local member, however distinguished? I would argue not. But I am not running the show, however I think I shall nominate Bill Crewes for the prize next year. 

November 15, 2019 

Visited Michelle in hospital and she looked right spritely for someone a couple of days post surgery. Then on to UNSW through heavy traffic to our concert venue. Had a meal at the student food court and it wasn’t bad at all. Ordering a cup of tea I asked the lady what they had and expected the usual two choices but she waved her arm across two whole shelves of Twinings varieties, plus Asian and Egyptian teas. When I commented on her selection she gave me a sample of her favourite Egyptian tea to take home, ‘it’s strong so sit down to have it’ she said. What a sweetie. The concert was wonderful, beginning with Sibelius’ Finlandia, followed by Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and after interval a new work to me The Great Animal Orchestra – Symphony for Orchestra and Wild Soundscapes, written in 2014 and performed only for the second time in Australia. It is set to a background of wild animal noises, taped in America, Borneo, Zimbabwe and the Amazon. There are five movements with compelling sounds and intricate layering of music. I am a hard one to please with modern music but I was enthralled and hope to go again to hear this excellent orchestra. 

Checked my Facebook when I got home and had three messages from friends who have fires approaching tonight. Greg and Luke whose wedding we went to at Webbs Creek a couple of months ago have a fire 20 km away and have had 5 RFS guys there today helping them to prepare the house. They have 4 horses, 2 dogs and 6 chooks to worry about as well as themselves. Simon is on the northern edge of the same fire at Wollemi, though they are 280 km apart by road. His fire is 18 km away and Mark near Gundaroo also has a fire 18 km away. All are out of control and a sleepless night is expected by each of them. To give an idea of the scale of current fire events, if the currently burning area was in the UK, it would cover the entire land surface and then some. Terrifying, the animal loss must be in the millions. 

November 16, 2019 

After forecasting a sleepless night for friends with fires nearby, I managed to be a bit sleepless myself just lying thinking about it. Mid morning I got a message from Davina saying they were going to Macquarie Centre with Millie to see a place which had bears dressed as Elsa from Frozen so I met them there despite loathing that particular centre. It is completely mystifying in its design and apart from always getting lost, I am very conscious of looking for exits all the time as I find the place really claustrophobic so never go there by choice. It was good to get together though and Millie was happy to have the bear, but they get you coming and going, because the boots, dress and even the hair come as extras to the base price making it a pricey Elsa in the end. It morphed into her Christmas present as a result. Clever marketing. 

November 17, 2019 

It was the day of Link Housing’s annual picnic and as John is on the Tenant Advisory Group we had to be there from 11 till 3, which was fine but tiring towards the end, especially during the talent quest….however there were a few people who could actually sing or dance so it wasn’t all bad. Lunch was included at various mobile units selling Malaysian food, paella, pizza and the Oz Harvest truck which I chose, having some nice tacos there. The preponderance of chicken dishes at every stall reminded me that chicken has gone from food for the rich to food for the poor in my lifetime. I was surprised at how many disabled people there were, but John tells me that Link has quite a few disabled tenants, they provide the real estate and other organisations provide the live-in carers. It was an event with lots of games for children, an Aboriginal dance troupe, the talent quest, Santa, a sort of liquorice allsorts selection of what people might like, not to mention the lunch, desserts and drinks. I did speak to one worker who said that the entire staff has been given over to working on this for a month, that did give me pause for thought about how internally focussed government and semi-government organisations can become, plus the cost of today must have been phenomenal. 

November 18, 2019 

I find myself absolutely fuming about the corruption arrest of Paul Whyte and an associate in Western Australia. He was responsible for ‘internal governance, standards and integrity’ in the Department of Community, he who sets the rules knows best how to get around them. But it gets worse, he was responsible for public housing, it gets even worse, in charge of Aboriginal Housing. He apparently spent the money on a high end house, lifestyle and racehorses while many Aboriginal people in that state live in poverty. If guilty I would volunteer to help tar and feather him. I know, I know, I am against capital punishment in all its forms, but today I am making his case the one exception. One paper is showing a video online of a man kicking the gates of his mansion and calling ‘come out you bastard’. Was it a disgruntled neighbour or member of the public who’d read the news? No, it was another high ranking public servant from the same department who reported apparent corruption to Whyte in 2017. Whyte supposedly investigated it and told the man he was mistaken. Bastard indeed if he’s found guilty. But I was able to let my ire go down to simmer for a wonderful lunch with a friend for her birthday. We went to Wild Pear and I swear it has to be one of the best lunch venues in Sydney, a big call but the food is top city restaurant quality. No wonder the daughter of this family won Masterchef this year. Bravo! 

November 19, 2019 

I have cooled off a little and tar and feathering is out the window in WA, replaced by public stocks and egg throwing. By the end of the week perhaps I will accept gaol as an option. John, out of the blue, asked me a question during the week that is perhaps relevant here. He said ‘if there is a place in the brain for religious belief and you don’t have one, what would you put in its place?’ Without even thinking I said Justice. I think that’s one reason why I love going to court, seeing people getting some little justice for acts committed against them or their families. But it applies too in hatred of injustice, seeing corruption in any form, but especially in government, just makes my blood boil. ICAC hearings are probably the most satisfying court proceedings and the Police Integrity Commission would be too, but I am reluctant to go (if in fact it is even public) in case I bust my foo-foo valve listening to the evidence. 

I am battling an ant plague and have been for a month. Every time I pick something up there’s an ant or two or six under it. Today I discovered they are all over the cans in my pantry, everything is sealed in there but they are on the hunt nevertheless. I had some meringues in a clip-lock cake tin on the bench and they somehow managed to get inside the sealed tin, currently the box is in the fridge and they are cooling their heels. I don’t want to poison their nest, I actually like ants, but they are driving me to distraction in the kitchen. 

November 20, 2019 

Hallelujah! An email arrived from the CEO of Larrakia Nation, headlined Grateful. Not looking for gratitude, just answers to some questions, but I will take gratitude as well if it’s going free. Then another from the woman who’s been of most assistance there, apologising for the fact that ‘your experience with us has been so poor’. So the cheques are wending their way to Darwin as we speak, a weight off my shoulders. Coming up to wet season (if ever it arrives) they need all the help they can get. 

I may, I repeat may, have had a win with the ants. I asked professor Google about ways to get rid of them and he said they hate peppermint oil. Well I happened to have some so I added a few drops to a spray bottle of water and every time I see an ant I give it a shower. So far, so good, they don’t like it and this morning I only had three instead of 50, so I am spraying the inside of the pantry as it’s harmless and smells nice anyway. 

My street library has slowed off of late, since I bought the Bunnings shelves for all the stored books, bloody typical. However today I’ve had a lady called Rosie at the door with donations and another called Rita looking for a particular book, so it has its benefits socially. I do get some good books to read myself in the donations, recently reading a few interesting novels and a book on Australian Gypsies that I had wanted for a while, so while my library has slowed, all books are appreciated and will find their way to homes in the end. 

November 21, 2019 

John went this week to his monthly meeting of ex priest friends. They lunch together, chew the fat, criticise the church and sympathise with each other about the trials of their time in the seminary. But this week John was disappointed to find that the view was widely abroad that the church was somehow badly done by in relation to the child sexual abuse scandal. He kept his powder dry for now but he felt he will need to address that view at some point. It’s the old story of putting on a uniform, in cases as wide as the military, the police and even among priests (ex priests in this case) the loyalty always wins, regardless of how serious the transgression it will be forgiven by those who wear or have worn the uniform. This is why prosecutions are rare, no one wants to testify against their compatriots. Governments cynically use this loyalty to keep the lid on scandals by their police and military and priests have benefited too. John tells the story of being pulled up for speeding and when he handed the cop his licence the only response was ‘on your way, you should know better’. A priest ‘in uniform’ wasn’t an appropriate target. 

November 22, 2019 

Yesterday I accompanied Martha to Windsor so she could deliver a copy of her book to Brian. He was surprised and delighted by it and thrilled that he got to keep his copy. Martha expressed interest in giving a talk to the residents and Brian pointed out the appropriate staff member to speak to. She took Martha’s number and was very positive about the idea. We repaired to the sushi train but for the first time I was disappointed by the food there,typical if you suggest a place. 

Working on the ant issue and a combination of leaving the pantry open and spraying the blighters with water and peppermint oil as soon as I see them is having some effect. I’m hoping to gradually reduce them but I’m darned if I know what they’re after, even found one in a letter I was about to take to post. 

November 23, 2019 

Left early for Erko to wrangle Millie for the weekend, meeting Carly there as she arrived from Canberra to be joint wrangler. Dav and Louis headed off for a weekend at Manly beach, with swims and a fish restaurant in the planning. I took along a bottle of bubble liquid, a large floor puzzle of the planets and a Wiggles activity book, all of which together occupied many hours of the weekend, as well as snap cards and other games, so a success on three fronts there. She is into looking at and identifying flowers at the moment so a walk to a small reserve with flowers was a must. Very declamatory at the moment so there was a lot of ‘sit there grandma with your hands down by your sides’ and ‘okay guys, let’s take turns, I’m first’ both of which I suspect come from pre-school. I was exhausted by the time she went to bed and don’t know how on earth I would manage her alone these days. 

November 24, 2019 

We made cupcakes this morning with Millie an active part of the making, including icing them with a blueberry on top. Later we went to the park where, as usual, she cosied up to a man there, linking arms with him as he sat on a seat trying to look at his phone. His son played chasings and other games with her, but on leaving commented ‘goodbye Millie, I like you even if you’ve got nits’, presumably referring to her curly hair. The father insisted on an apology, but it shows how early this stuff starts. I felt much better after a sleep, but it was interrupted in the early hours by a call from Togo, I needed Carly to remind me exactly where Togo is, and as far as I know I have no friends there. I suspect he has a million or two in the bank for me but it will have to remain where it is I’m afraid as I was too sleepy to respond. Although our charge was happy to see mum and dad return, she didn’t query their absence as she has in the past, just decided they were ‘at work’. 

November 25, 2019 

Made quite some progress on clearing my storeroom today. Threw out boxes of day sheets, lay-by books and receipt books from the shop, only keeping the last two years of trading. Then packed up all my plate stands and racks of various sizes and half of the jewellery display material, boxes, stands etc and all these will go to auction. I discovered I have got three Christmas trees and boxes and boxes of decorations, when only one tree and one box of decos gets used each year. I am far from a minimalist and have no desire to become one but I need things organised to a point that I know what’s there and how I can access it easily and quickly. My plastic and foil bulk cooking platters and dishes remain in case I go back to cooking for a horde. 

My internet speed has been ploughing along around the 46 mark but last night and tonight it’s dropped to 26 for reasons I can’t fathom. However John must have the slowest NBN in Sydney, dropping yesterday to 0.2 download and 0.0 upload, he’s still waiting for a pic I sent yesterday. 

November 26, 2019 

With the car filled to the brim with an assortment of goodies from my storeroom, plus a few things from council pickups, I trotted off to Bargain Hunt to put them to auction. Larrakia will get another cheque before Christmas I’m thinking. However I now have a car full of lifejackets, signs, a lamp, a 6 foot Christmas tree with decorations, Christmas ornaments, collectable matchbooks, postcards, jewellery point of sale goods, plate stands and lots more. I was only hoping for about $20 a lot, but the owner told me they had lots of good stuff coming in at the moment, so only the wall mounted bronze animal head passed muster. ‘big Christmas tree with decos and ornaments $20 bucks’ I wanted to shout from the car as I came home. Not sure what the next move is, but the only good news is that they gave me a $200 reserve on the bronze. 

I had rung my optician friend a few days ago complaining that although I keep cleaning my glasses to get rid of a blur, there doesn’t seem to be much improvement afterwards. Could I need a new script I asked? He mentioned cataracts as a possibility as well as the obvious, a new script. So this morning I went to his eye test person who confirmed that my eyes had deteriorated somewhat and she bumped up the script 2 points. However then she asked if I go to an ophthalmologist, which I do as the drug I have been on for years for Sjogren’s/lupus can damage your eyes, part of the reason I stopped it about 6 months ago. She suggested I see him soon, but it was hard to get out of her exactly why. Seeing she was Asian it brought to mind Robert and Sue’s difficulties in getting the truth out of his oncologist, something they’ve put down to cultural differences. So I trotted out to Ralph who said he’d put new lenses in my old glasses as he always does and then I left with my referral from her, which I promptly opened to find that she thinks I have glaucoma, which of course has an initial symptom of blurry vision. A bit annoyed as I am not a Nervous Nellie regarding medical matters. Anyway I rang the ophthalmologist’s office and was offered an appointment next year, but when I told her I had opened the referral and glaucoma was suspected she put me in this Thursday. All the more reason that the optometrist should have been upfront, though she did say I have cataracts now but apparently wasn’t game to mention the G word. 

November 27, 2019 

Ant update: I wasn’t here all weekend and there was no chance of the little blighters getting anything to eat, so I thought I was shot of them. Then yesterday one only knife was left on the breadboard and the whole damn nest appeared. This morning I decided that I had put up with this for 5 weeks and enough was enough, so I reluctantly went down to the laundry and got the Ant Rid, putting it on a piece of foil where they congregate on the kitchen bench. So far, they have walked around it, searching everywhere else for a crumb. 

Reading George Pell’s 2002 hagiography, ahem I mean biography, by Tess Livingstone and it is as if Louise Milligan’s recent excellent book about him is referring to another person altogether, though at one point Tess does say that many people report his serious bullying and strict adherence to the rulebook when he was a prefect at school. I am inclined to email her and ask her whether she’s read the Milligan book and what her view of him is now. I did get one laugh out of it though. Pell’s father, not a Catholic and with high regard for his son’s intellectual ability and ambitions for his son professionally, greeted the announcement that he was going into the priesthood with the words ‘you might just as well have been a bloody dill’. I am toying with wrapping it up as part of the book swap for our Christmas book group celebration on Friday, there has to be one booby prize in the pile doesn’t there? 

November 28, 2019 

Just back from the ophthalmologist, always a trial, but today I arrived at 1.30 and left at 4, groan. About 15 minutes was spent having tests done and the rest of the time waiting. I left my book in the car and was afraid to go and get it in case I missed my turn so I read every magazine there that didn’t involve sport, a pile a foot high. He is very good at what he does, but 27 people in a waiting room indicates to me that attention to the bank balance is crucial. Anyway, good news, I have neither glaucoma nor cataracts but age related deterioration of the lens. He said I would be lucky to pass a driving test without glasses and was surprised that I didn’t have difficulty driving. So I sailed through that one unscathed. Praise be. 

Thinking today about my encounter years back with Clive James, in Castle Hill of all places. Back in the day there was a very good restaurant in the Plaza there and I frequented it for dinner if I saw a movie. At the time Clive was living in Dural with a woman whose name I’ve forgotten and one night I was surprised to see them at the next table. I ignored them but as they left he said confidently ‘hello, you know who I am’. ‘Yes’ I replied and we had a short chat, about the food from memory. A couple of weeks later he was at the next table again and greeted me like a long lost friend, asking what I had ordered and chatting for some time. His lady friend looked bored and didn’t engage, I suspect she’d seen it all before. He was charming, clever, entertaining and had an ego the size of a house. When he left he stood and said goodbye loudly to the owner from across the room, judging by the bemused looks on the patrons they didn’t have a clue who he was. Postscript: while looking up his obit online I accidentally discovered by way of a photo that the woman he was with on those two occasions was Leanne Edelsten, his longtime girlfriend of the time and the reason his wife tossed him out, after discovering emails and photos on his computer. 

November 29, 2019 

Deborah is still in hospital after a month, having been transferred to rehab for a week, deteriorating and being raced back to hospital for a third go at surgery. Apparently the rehab doctor was clueless and told her she was fine to go home, despite her complaints of being too sick. He left to go on holiday at 3pm and the replacement doctor realised straight away that she was in bother, rang the surgeon who didn’t have visiting rights at the rehab centre, and presto back to hospital and into theatre immediately. They drained over two litres of fluid from her lung, followed by two more the next day. She’s there still, but this time will leave to go to a different rehab hospital, apparently the previous one is geared up for joint replacement and just weren’t with it for a lung problem. Big teaching hospitals have their problems too, but curious registrars are always hanging around to pick up things that may have been missed by someone else, that’s a big enough reason for me to prefer them over the privates every time. 

Book group Christmas party with just two members absent was a warm and relaxed affair. Carol did the customary Thanksgiving turkey and we exchanged books as is our tradition. I got Bernardine Evaristo’s for Girl, Woman, Other about which I know nothing, but I look forward to reading it. I decided to give two books from my bookshelves rather than from the street library collection, The Romanovs 1613-1918 and the novel The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser. Both were enjoyable but I can’t see myself rereading either with so much wonderful stuff coming onto the market every week. Just reading  every Trump book released keeps me out of trouble. I am attracted to reading about bizarre personalities, forensic psychology fascinates me. Which leads me to the Claremont killings trial in WA where the prosecution is trying to link particular domestic stresses in the accused’s marriage to the actual dates that the girls were murdered. His wife had an affair, later becoming in pregnant to her gentleman friend and subsequently leaving her husband. She testified that at each of these junctures the husband was calm and no argument ensued. The judge made the comment to the effect that if the accused didn’t react it was hard to believe he was upset enough to cause him to go out and commit a murder. I would have thought that failure to react in those circumstances would be quite an abnormal reaction, especially as he had in 1990 been convicted of going into a hospital and gagging a social worker, dragging her to another room before she managed to escape. All this immediately after he discovered his then girlfriend had been cheating on him…. but he didn’t react. It’s surprisingly similar to the common ‘kick the cat’ scenario, displacing  frustrations by abusing a lower-ranking person than the one who has caused you grief. The judge maybe needs to get out more. 

November 30, 2019 

Library run this morning and all’s well with the world. I began an unusual new book tonight, Quiet Until the Thaw, about American Indians living on a reservation in the 1960s and 70s. The similarities with Aboriginal experience are many, loss of language and culture, use of their people for war but with no respect or rights attached, removal from family and abuse in the institutions into which they were placed.A depressingly familiar scenario. Talking of depressing people, I had a communication late tonight from Chrys in Brisbane to say that the depressing figure of Angus Taylor may have had a secretive motive for his attacks on Clover Moore, using forged documents. Apparently his wife, barrister Louise Clegg, was planning a tilt at Clover’s job as Lord Mayor, giving him the motive everyone’s been looking for. If true, he’s toast and she has to be under suspicion as an accomplice. Contacted all the journos I could think of to ask if it’s true. 

December 1, 2019 

Oh no, 24 days to Christmas and I haven’t given it any thought at all. It will be a smaller gathering than usual and I think the first time that Dav won’t be home for Christmas, although one year John and I were away and the girls spent it together. On cake duty at Carol’s today in a big group of seven, it’s looking as if she’ll be finished earlier than usual this year. I probably needed a stiff Drambuie tonight after a big black spider came up the inside of the armchair I was sitting in. I didn’t know I could move so fast. I’m good with most critters but oh my goodness I’m a big coward with spiders and had to ask Mr Mortein for urgent assistance. Bless you Mr Mortein. 

December 2, 2019 

Interesting morning as Jane had asked me if she could bring over the wife of an American friend who is spending 5 weeks in Australia. So they came for morning tea, the primary aim being for  us to discuss antiques, which are her passion. She is well versed in the subject and made knowledgeable comments on my bits and pieces. She is booked to go on a tour to England for a week of antique hunting, the tour guide said there is absolutely no sightseeing involved. I had sent Jane an email detailing the best auctions houses and a rundown of their upcoming sales in the period she is here, but I’m not sure that she’d received that.

We seemed to hit it off well in the time we spent together and ended up furiously agreeing about the madness of Trump and the dangers he poses on so many levels. Perhaps we will meet up again before they go back or at least become distance friends. Later John arrived after a Tenant Network meeting in Parramatta which seemed to be a waste of a morning as is often the case. They are fixated on procedure and constitutions and whatever and never do a thing that helps anybody. He asked if I wanted to join some other homelessness action group but I said a resounding NO as I think it will be another jawfest. 

We went to Newtown for a late session of the movie Farming for which I had cheap tickets. It was the story of how Nigerian families in Britain farmed out their children to working class white families for profit, in this particular true case it was so the parents could study there. It was harrowing, and I doubt John would have gone had he known the content was so violent. It was the time of the skinheads and in Essex they were dominant in the generally right wing and racist culture of the 60s. His adoptive parents, who were illiterate Gypsies, took in ten Nigerian children from different families for payment and the children were routinely abused on the street by white locals. However that paled compared to the suffering the skinhead gangs inflicted on them and eventually, I guess to save himself from beatings and to find some sort of family, he became a member of Tilbury Skins himself. Eventually a devoted teacher at a prison facility encouraged him to get his O levels, then to study at university where he ended up with a Masters in Law. He played his own father in the movie and went to a lot of trouble to exactly represent the home in which he grew up, replete with china ducks on the wall. I don’t think I will forget it for a long time. Home after midnight but we didn’t turn into pumpkins. 

December 3, 2019 

A trip to Windsor today to  dump all my auction rejects on a contact there who has regular garage sales, mostly junk but very cheap. I gave him some of the stuff and said we can go halves in some other things. He filled me in on a couple of very recent deaths out there. The first was of a bikie local whose most memorable line in the shop was ‘I want a pair of earrings for the missus that don’t come off when I’m humpin’ ‘er’. I obliged and found a pair of silver ones with clip hooks. His son is currently in gaol for murder awaiting trial, after the first jury was strangely unable to reach a verdict. His excellent legal aid barrister was able to instil doubt in them, but certainly not in me. It was a drug dealers’ argument after which he has admitted putting the body into an old car and towing it to the wreckers at Penrith to be crushed. I wondered why he admitted that bit, until a lawyer explained to me that for murder with a missing body the penalty is higher, so he is taking a hit for disposing of a corpse and still hoping to get off the murder charge. A sad day if he succeeds. The second was Horrie, only in his 50s, a local boy who somehow or other managed to get a lovely Finnish girl to fall for him years ago, they married and now have an 18 year old son. He had an op 6 months ago and had complained ever since of chest pain which the doc ultimately decided was emphysema, sadly he was wrong and poor Horrie died at home suddenly, suffering in fact from sepsis from the operation. I think about both of these flawed characters with some sadness, yet in life I disliked both quite intensely. The former was probably the worst racist I’ve ever dealt with and the latter I had long ago nicknamed Horrible. Yet it just shows that for all of that we still regret a life ending, one that could have been so much more, yet they were both hidebound by their own upbringing and now it possibly flows on to the next generation, certainly it has gone even further downhill in the case of the bikie’s son. Perhaps they did their best with what they were given. 

December 4, 2019 

Sometimes you get a win. On Saturday an auction house rang me to say that the highest bid on the bronze I had put in their sale was $100 and they were hoping I would accept that. ‘I’d rather use it as a doorstop’ I said and planned to pick it up today. Yesterday I had a message not to come in because they had sold it for $200 post sale. I replied that the charity the money was going to would be pleased and a message shot back ‘if it’s going to a charity we won’t charge the commission’ so I will get the full $200. Of course she asked for the charity details and presumably will make the cheque out to them. Bonza. 

We went in to the city on the bus and had an early dinner at The Grounds in the City. I don’t know why we don’t eat there more often, yes I do actually, it is because we are usually going to the Opera House and it is just a bit too far away when you are hurrying to a performance. I had a salad which was all nuts and grains and shoots and herbs and roasted baby carrots with not a lettuce leaf or a slice of tomato or cucumber in sight, it was fabulous. Went on to the Recital Hall at Angel Place to see Vivaldi’s opera Farnace and what a performance it was, both musically and dramatically with a dark, but arresting design. The joy of not one, but two, counter tenors was a rare treat, though to my ear it was the smaller part of Gilade which was the highlight of the night. Max Riebl you can sing under my window any night that suits you. What a talent he is. It is interesting that I am usually the opera person in the family, yet because it was John’s favourite composer, he dismissed all his usual complaints about the length, the unlikely storyline etc and just immersed himself in the music. I hope he feels the same way about those I have booked on subscription for 2020. 

December 5, 2019 

Went up to see Bob Elliott with John at 8.30 and then continued on to Ralph the optician where I had my glasses upgraded to the new lenses, the third set in these frames now. He charged me the Medibank rebate only until I asked what the proper price was and found there was a difference of $30. He is a great optician but not much of a businessman, always finding ways to do things cheaper for me. This time I stuck the 30 bucks in his pocket and his answer was ‘thanks, it’s a lean time right now’, so even when things are tight he is still trying to save me money. Love dealing with the same reliable good people, it takes decades to find them all, but then you don’t have to think about looking around for any service from then on. Heard a god-awful crash tonight and thought it was another branch down on the roof, but it was a large painting in the dining room which had come down due to the eye hook failing. Luckily it didn’t smash the glass but sadly it took off the top of one of my ladder back chairs c1700, which fills me with guilt as they’ve survived over 300 years and now one comes to grief on my watch. 

December 6, 2019 

I was so happy when my pal Ahmed, my ‘case manager’ at Optus, got my internet speed up to a steady 46, but suddenly and for no apparent reason it has dropped to about 25 so I phoned him up and it appears it is 48 when it leaves Optus but only 25 when it gets here. So after a bit of trying this and that he decided to get an engineer out here on Monday to have a look see. If you need help at Optus insist on Ahmed is my advice, just tell him Maureen sent you. 

Went to Erko to Millie’s pre-school Christmas party which had loads of food and activities, including biscuit making which involved the staff baking the results. I must admit ours were more flour than dough but whatever. Had dinner with the Erko mob and still got home in time to read a few chapters of my latest Trump book. The librarian asked if I ever read pro- Trump books and I pointed out that I hadn’t heard of one, a point she acceded. 

December 7, 2019 

Talked to Deborah who is back in rehab from hospital, a different one this time after finding the previous one lacking. Then I was just about to leave for Carol’s to do some cake baking when Arvind next door rang to see if he could come in to see me. I judged rightly that he had some concern and it was that someone had thrown two eggs at his house, one hitting the upstairs balcony and one the downstairs one. We were both at a loss to guess who might be responsible, but I think he needed to sit and talk about it. A mighty effort at Carol’s over the last many weeks means the cake baking is finished, about 5000 small ones made for distribution to homeless people on Christmas day and other larger ones to be sold to donate cash to the two charities involved. What an amazing commitment successfully completed. Carol cracked two bottles of champagne for those of us there today to celebrate. 

December 8, 2019 

Millie is a bit obsessed with poo at the moment, understandably for a 3 year old. Last week she gave me a painting of 4 poos: cat, dog, Millie and one of her pre-school friends, in various shades of brown. This last was the biggest, as the little girl had apparently pooed her pants one day, much to Millie’s delight, not too young for schadenfreude. On Friday the Mooch was very excited that she had got up from a nap, pooed in the potty and wiped herself without assistance, a fact with which she regaled her teacher as soon as we got to the Christmas party. On the walk home she spotted a dog poo and pointed it out to me: ‘Look grandma, that’s a dog poo!’ Yes it is Millie, but don’t worry it’s on the grass so we won’t step in it……long pause…..’It’s not as big as the one I did grandma’. 

Still reading Siege by Michael Wolff and the Trump stories abound. I’m up to the part where the ghastly Kavanagh is appointed to the Supreme Court with Trump trying to get an assurance that he would find in his favour if he is impeached, tried over his business dealings or charged with any other offences but Kavanagh is on record supporting the idea that a President can’t be charged while in office so he seemed a safe bet, ‘you want judges who owe you’. The man is beneath contempt. On a lesser scale but shocking nonetheless, the father of the former NSW Police Minister Troy Grant has finally handed himself in to police today over the hit and run killing of a man back in November. But the thing that shocked me most was that he was chased by the police on the night and charged with drink driving but wouldn’t admit to being the driver responsible. Investigations have continued but it’s taken him till now to hand himself in. He’s a former cop, an inspector would you believe? Actually, yes I would. 

December 9, 2019 

I have often told people that the koel is a very honest bird. The only time it calls ko-el is when it is about to rain in the next 24 hours, the rest of the time you don’t hear a thing. But the koel has blotted its copybook, calling every day in the last month or so with not a drop of rain arriving. So has the constant smoke confused the poor bird who thinks it is cloud? I don’t know, but I can’t trust its forecasts any more and that’s sad. Now I am glad I didn’t vote for it in the best bird stakes recently. 

Bright and early came the Optus man, sent by the lovely Ahmed, and it seems the distance from the gadgetry to the computer is a small part of the problem and Malcolm Turnbull the bigger part (computer has been in the same spot all this time). But the solution to getting back my 46/47 speed seems to be plugging it into the modem, (wi-fi speed of 25, cable speed of 47 when he was here testing it). Sort of defeats the idea of wi-fi doesn’t it? But whatever, at least I can go back to good speeds if I simply move my carcass to the desk, which is probably where I should work anyway. 

December 10, 2019 

The New Zealand volcano disaster dominates the thinking of everyone today, that and the smoke which is the worst ever. I wore a mask just to go out into the front yard. But regarding the NZ tragedy I hope we can accept that it is just the might of nature showing its hand and not that someone is to blame. Volcanoes are amazing things, we all want to see them and walk on them if we can, the website of the tourist company clearly states that there can be an eruption at any time, not just in times of perceived increased risk. Part of the reason we love volcanoes is the danger factor, so blame shouldn’t be our primary concern. When Robert and Sue went to Vanuatu they took a helicopter to a volcanic island and hiked up with a guide. Robert jokingly asked the guide how many people had fallen in after observing that there was nothing to stop a slide into the crater. The guide casually replied that a young Japanese couple had fallen in a few months back and their bodies were never retrieved. Didn’t even make the news. It is a tragedy, but the earth is a harsh mistress. As well as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, flooding, drought and bushfire there are cyclones, thunderstorms, the list goes on. This is why religion was invented, to give us some surety in an unsure world and to give us the hope of seeing our lost relatives and friends again, but I cling to the reality of just accepting these things, tragic as they are, as bloody bad luck. Our sensitive prime minister chose today to ralph on about 11 changes to the religious freedom bill. I sometimes wonder if he’s on the spectrum, so out of touch with the zeitgeist he is. 

December 11, 2019 

A trip to Windsor through appalling smoke to visit Brian and see Martha give a talk to the residents. They were very dynamic and keen to discuss the slides she showed. The manager said to me ‘you can bring her back whenever you want, they never respond as positively as this to talks’. I think the fact that she asked them to relate stories from their lives to the slides she was showing was the key. John came up and we headed into town by bus to see Cosi at the Drama Theatre. It stands up well after all these years, as an autobiographical look at Louis Nowra’s production of a musical in a Melbourne psychiatric hospital in the early 70s. It doesn’t glamourise the patients, but it certainly finds their humanity and was hugely funny. Beforehand we ate at Salt, Meats, Cheese at the Quay. We were home again at 12.30am and it seems that’s the third time lately that we’ve arrived after midnight, but luckily before the witching hour. I am starting to think about Christmas but that’s as far as I’ve got, thinking. 

December 12, 2019 

My bro’s 85th birthday and the British election both. He is very anti-Brexit but hates both Johnson and Corbyn. I sent him the book The Dry which, despite being a murder mystery, gives an accurate picture of the country in drought. Decided to head to Rozelle with some donations for the Gunawirra charity which supports Aboriginal mothers and their young children. I had quite a bit of stuff such as tinned formula, clothes, toys etc to drop off but unfortunately missed crossing paths with Graham with whom I’ve been dealing. Then into town to the Rocks Christmas Markets which were advertised as being on daily, instead of just at weekends, up till Christmas. However it eventuated that there were just three stalls! Oh the big markets are on the weekends the tourist office said, well why do you bloody advertise them as on every day I was wondering. So I hopped straight back onto the bus home, bah humbug. 

December 13, 2019 

Well the bro’s birthday is over and with it any chance of the British avoiding Brexit. But they clearly understood the result of their decision and that’s what they want, a Donald Trump but with a better vocabulary. The UK will not only lose duty-free access to the EU’s single market of over 500 million people, it will have to renegotiate every single trade deal with the rest of the world. Good luck then. It all comes back to immigration of course and you only need to spend a few days in England’s north to know how hated migrants are. 

Went to lunch with Tania at Sarino’s where the food was very good but the atmosphere, we both agreed, was far south of the prices. Very noisy, no clothed tables, no outlook or architectural artistry to keep the diner entranced. But looking around at the diners, I suspect we were the only ones who noticed. Am I pompous and old-fashioned to think that denim shorts are perhaps not the best choice for a restaurant lunch? Yes, okay I am pompous and old-fashioned. The waiter was a tall Brazilian with good looks and a mouth full of teeth and he took his job of schmoozing two lunching ladies seriously. After a bubbly and a glass of limoncello to finish, on the house, plus birthday cards for each of us signed by all the staff, I was buoyant enough to put the Brexit vote aside and to smile benignly as I watch Britain begin her unceremonious slide into the sea. 

December 14, 2019 

Drove down to Erko to give them their Christmas goodies and Millie was thrilled with her gifts ‘grandma, a Frozen dress!’ she said excitedly, actually a nightie, but that didn’t dent her enthusiasm. She packed it to go on the plane to England on Monday. Got home in time to attend the late afternoon auction of no. 20 Cross St, a house on a small corner block, the backyard having been chopped off years ago. I was amazed at the quality of the restoration, obviously gutted and rejigged to include a walk in wardrobe, 2 ensuites and a full bathroom, plus a divine kitchen with marble benches and a super cooking range. The young buyer, a single man, paid $1.43 million with his steel-eyed mother doing the bidding for him. I picked her as the winning bidder immediately, she was not going home empty handed judging by the set of her jaw. One wonders how a man in his 20s gets $1.43 million, but I’m guessing rich parents is the answer. Cooked fettuccine with broccoli sauce for dinner and splashed a tiny spot of boiling water on my hand while testing the pasta, it hurt a lot and made me wonder how a human could even survive the pain of being caught in a volcanic eruption as happened in New Zealand. It is unimaginable that shock didn’t kill them. 

December 15, 2019 

Yesterday I saw a Noisy Miner going to each agapanthus flower in the front garden and sticking its beak in. I hadn’t seen that happen before and was pleased, but decided it was a dangerous occupation so close to the ground. This morning I found the little fellow dead next to one of the plants, looks like a cat was watching as well. Life’s cruel out in the wild, you will be missed little friend. 

Just got a text with a photo of me nursing a friend’s toddler son about 30 years ago. I was blown away by the resemblance to Millie, the same teeth but more particularly the masses of dark curly hair. I had simply forgotten that I used to look like that, never having seen this picture before it was quite a shock, but certainly a pleasant one. I have the Christmas cake in the oven, the fruit macerated in port from a 1994 bottle that’s lived in the back of the liquor cupboard after I got it at a house clearance about 20 years ago. Seeing I don’t drink the stuff neat it may as well be used up in the cake, smells damn good in the oven anyway, starting to smell like Christmas. 

December 16, 2019 

Had lunch with a friend today at Geranium Cottage, a restaurant at Middle Dural where we sat outdoors under an umbrella and enjoyed food, wine and a gentle breeze. I am becoming quite ‘the lady who lunches’ lately, though we discussed the group Christmas functions that she goes to and I never have. I am not really a joiner so there aren’t the invitations flowing at this time of year, something that I’m perfectly fine with as I really prefer small more intimate encounters. 

I saw with horror the racial abuse hurled at an Aboriginal artist couple in their home in Mildura and I’m so glad he filmed the whole thing. Very pleased that McDonalds were so quick off the mark to sack the man as franchisee of two of its restaurants. His recent online posts exhibit more racial taunts attacking Chinese, plus posts supporting the coalition, particularly Dutton and Abbott. His lovely wife is past president of Gold Coast Young Liberals, why am I not surprised by this fact? Got a call from one of the agents who sold the property near me on Saturday. Of course they follow up the attendees but I must say this agency, which came out of nowhere a couple of years ago, seems to be better at it than most, not putting the hard word on you to buy or sell, just a low key ‘what did you think of the auction? what price did you think it would go for?’. Apparently the vendors are moving to New Zealand and all the high end furniture and fittings were included in the sale, lucky young buyer indeed. 

December 17, 2019 

Davina and crew left for England last night at 9.45 and just after I remarked to John that they would be on the ground in Doha I got a text to say they were in the airport there having a coffee and waiting for the onward flight to Birmingham. The thought of being in the air from last night to 1.35 pm today is almost unbearable for me now. She reports Millie vomiting numerous times even though it wasn’t turbulent, so it appears she has inherited the motion sickness gene along with the dark curly hair one, the former she could have done without. 

Just finished reading The Costello Memoirs about Peter Costello’s long stint as treasurer. Yes, the GST, WMF, GDP and the rest of the financial hooha glazed me over a bit but I read it to get a sense of the man. On the good side he is certainly loyal, patient, steady and a self-confessed ‘tax law addict’, well I guess someone has to be. On the negative, if one judges a person by the company he keeps he is a bit of a worry. Thick with the parliamentary ‘God squad’ he cites Michael Kroger, Eric Abetz, Tony Abbott, Peter Reith et al as allies and friends so with those dubious characters as intimates you have to be wary of his perspective. I was willing to give good works their due, but I’m afraid I saw a classic conservative who can’t see past the monetary aspects of society and with little human empathy, unlike his famous brother. His vigorous support of all of the American wars is in itself a damning summation of his inability to see outside the conservative package. Having said that he has a wry sense of humour and showed incredible patience and forbearance not to out John Howard for reneging on the deal they made for Costello’s succession. Eventually it was a witness who made the agreement public, though JH still welched on it anyway, losing the election and even his own seat in the process. 

December 18, 2019 

Just back from a visit to Bob and I had a winge about the fact that I was unable to eat for about 20 hours after consuming a bowl of pasta, garlic bread and a dessert for lunch on Monday. Same thing last week when I went out to lunch, so the restrictions on what I can eat at night have morphed into what I can eat at noon as well, which is a pain in the butt for someone like me who lives to eat. One option is to go back to the gastroenterologist who will have me in hospital for an endoscopy before you can say garlic prawns. Bob said that when I had it done last time the doc said that he went down looking for one problem and came out looking at four, so no doubt he’d be keen for a reprise. So I can expect to be in pain on Christmas afternoon and just need to cop it sweet. It was a medical day all round with John going to St Vincents at 9 am for the monthly transfusion of blood products to keep his immune system strong, then seeing the orthopaedic surgeon for a check on his knee at 1.30, followed by the public dentist at 3.30. No wonder the country’s in a mess, it well never get back into the black while John is draining Medicare like he has the last three years. 

My seeds arrived from the Diggers Club and I planted the Four O’Clocks out near the street in a raised bed. I have no idea what they look like but they open in the late afternoon, so that’s fun. Then put the Salad Burnet into pots as my mixed lettuce leaves are getting close to their end. The Zinnias were put into seed trays to be transplanted later, I remember calling them ant flowers when we had them in the front garden as a child, they were always crawling up and down the stems. Purple Basil will go in later once my current green basil finishes, good work but now I need to keep the water up to them, not simple now we are restricted to watering cans only. 

December 19, 2019 

The story of the leaf blower so far: A brand new boxed McCulloch leaf blower appeared under my deck some weeks back and I immediately phoned my friend Tim who admitted to being the trespasser and culprit. It is my Christmas present he said, from someone with whom I’ve never exchanged presents at Christmas or any other time. It is a 2 stroke machine about which I know nothing, but my occasional gardener informed me that it isn’t the sort of thing I could use easily and I should ask for it to be exchanged for a battery one. Undefeated I went to Bunnings and bought 2 stroke oil and a petrol can with a spout, but the Bunnings man told me the same thing as Kirk, it’s not for someone who doesn’t understand using 2 stroke. So after some thinking I finally decided to return the bits and bobs to the hardware shop and email Tim to thank him profusely, but explain that I wanted him to take it back. NO came his response, but he kindly offered to give me a coaching session which he did today. He came armed with earmuffs, a petrol can and some of the oil. I managed with some difficulty and blew the leaves out of my open laundry and under the deck then took the mess off the pebble paths at the front. Maureen 1: Leaf Blower 0, but whether I can start it on another occasion is a vexed issue. (Press the button 6 times, not 5 or 7, then move the choke to N then back to the start, then press the trigger and pull the starter cord hard, or was it the cord and then the trigger……" src="blob:https://theblathering.net/085b2b20-7567-4f44-8bc1-312a2132c98d">. 

December 20, 2019 

During a wakeful night I had the sudden realisation that Christmas was on Tuesday and I’d miscalculated my preparations as I was a day short. Then I really couldn’t sleep trying to work out a timetable to fit in food shopping, cooking, a trip to Windsor and more. Half way through this morning I glanced at my diary and discovered that it’s actually on Wednesday and my preparations are all in order. Talk about wasted angst. 

On my way to Windsor to distribute a few small presents I called in at the Headquarters of the Rural Fire Service in the Hills at Kenthurst. I was surprisingly met by the commander wearing more epaulettes and cloth badges than I’ve seen outside of television. I asked how to best help and he was so positive, telling me exactly what food carries well in the trucks and what the fire fighters like to eat on duty. Muesli bars, poppers of juice, sandwiches are preferred to taking say a cake or a box of biscuits, unless those things are individually wrapped to pop into their tucker boxes. I broached the subject of their receiving pay from the government for days worked but he said unequivocally ‘no, they would all refuse it, they take pride in being volunteers’, so a letter writing campaign on their behalf would be redundant. A few loaves of sambos seems a poor thank you for what they do, but he assured me that they would be well received. Blinded by the bling, I didn’t even get his name. 

December 21, 2019 

Well I never! The zinnia seeds I planted on the 18th are well and truly up on the 21st. I don’t think I’ve ever had any seeds grow that fast before but as it was new potting mix they can’t be weeds in those neat little rows. Now I have to decide where to put them which is more of an issue. Contacted our friends in Blackheath and they have decamped to a hotel with cats in tow until the bushfire emergency has passed. I can’t ever recall both the Great Western Highway and Bell’s Line of Road being closed at the same time, making it impossible for them to head to Sydney rellies even if they were of a mind to. I’m not sure how else you would get to Sydney as the Putty Road via Singleton is closed too. Unprecedented, and it must make the mountains folk uneasy knowing that they are trapped both ways. Ben Quilty came out with a scathing attack on the government over its lack of action on climate change which, as one would expect from Ben, hits the nail right on the head. 

December 22, 2019 

Whinge whinge, I may have to go back to the gastro next year after all, ate dinner last night before 5 pm and was still suffering at 2.30 am, what a pain in the arse (no, in the stomach actually). I might even have to take the medication he prescribed, ha ha. As Professor Reeves once commented I am a minimalist when it comes to drugs, so I can hardly go back and claim that I’m sick if I haven’t continued to take the tablets he prescribed. Anyway next year is soon enough. 

Yes the little green shoots in the seed tray are actually the zinnias, which are extraordinarily keen to come into the world, haven’t heard about the fires obviously. I watched the presser that ScoMo gave at the RFS Headquarters this morning and checking out the fixed faces of the staff, they weren’t actually too keen to see him. He waved as he left and was met with blank dials, no one jumping up for a chance to shake the Prime Ministerial paw. Even if you accept the ‘can’t let the kiddies down’ response, which has some merit, that doesn’t explain his department’s evasion and downright lies regarding his whereabouts. The Hillsong NYC theory still bounces around the net, with the Hawaii trip a cover or add on to that, but one thing is for sure, the truth will come out eventually. It doesn’t make any sense at all to hide a simple beach holiday so a whiff of rat is definitely in the air. My friend Tim, he of the elaborate conspiracy theories, would be able to link it in effortlessly with Kabbalah, child abuse rings and crooked judges but I think the fact the ScoMo is naturally as cunning as the proverbial shit-house rat is probably closer to the truth. 

December 23, 2019 

Did my fresh food shopping today so I can have an uninterrupted cooking day tomorrow. Thankyou, to whoever organises such things, for the cool weather which made my shopping trip a pleasure instead of a trial. I have just four takers for Christmas but enough food to feed quite a few more of course. I took a gulp when the fishmonger gave me the price of the side of salmon I bought, but will have forgotten that when it comes out of the oven all dripping in honey, lime juice, garlic and coriander, I can taste it already. The Christmas cake however looks dry, yet it’s the recipe I’ve made for years. My oven is like the bowels of Hades and if you give something another 15 minutes it can be catastrophic. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I don’t think so. 

Got a good laugh at a Canadian tourist who bears quite a resemblance to ScoMo wearing a T shirt announcing ‘I Am Not Scott Morrison’ because he kept being abused on the street in the Gold Coast, which by extension means that the real one is copping some abuse too. (I shouldn’t like that idea but I do because I am a bad person.) He is unable to change his behaviour because he just doesn’t see where he’s going wrong and why people fuss, in that respect he is like Tony Abbott. 

December 24, 2019 

So glad that the weather has changed for the better, for the firefighters in particular. Spent the day cooking and preparing for the festivities. Carly arrived about 6 pm and we enjoyed the baked salmon, just the right laid back food for Christmas Eve. I think I shall have a day or two with no news, no politics, no getting angry, just relaxing and enjoying life. Strange to have no one else here but we three enjoyed ourselves immensely. 

December 25, 2019 

After the traditional Christmas breakfast of croissants and jam (as distinct from the usual breakfast of toast and jam) Carly and I prepped for the main meal while her friend was travelling up from Canberra. Lunch of roast beef porterhouse with Yorkshire pudding, bread sauce, roast veges, snow peas and sugar snap peas ticked all the boxes. We followed up with spiced creme brulees but unfortunately the heat gun misbehaved and doing the brulee topping was a bigger job than usual. Present opening filled much of the afternoon and I was lucky to receive some unusual ones like the hand knitted house socks from Himachal Pradesh, plus a hand painted duck from Kashmir, both from her friend. His mum sent me a beautiful scarf from northern India too. Too much food but I am assured calories don’t accumulate on Christmas Day so that’s a relief. As my grandmother always said after every present opening…’we’ve all done very well’.

December 26, 2019 

Luckily I bought enough croissants that we could indoctrinate our visitor into the Partridge Boxing Day breakfast even though he missed the Christmas one. He is lovely to have around, very accommodating, easy to be with and happy to discuss any topic in a relaxed and intelligent way. In the afternoon Heather came over, shortly followed by Robert and Sue, so we had a house full for a while. Robert seemed well and was sparking on all cylinders. We did a strange fridge raid for dinner, having Yorkshire puddings and gravy as an entree and baked salmon and veggies for main followed by Christmas pudding and brandy custard. Our visitor told us about a 6 month post-graduate course for doctors in Varanasi to treat people who believe they are possessed by demons, something he might like to do once he has finished his PhD. What a weird intersection of science and belief. I rang the restaurant that I am taking John to on New Years’ Eve and asked if we could have a window table. They replied that we already have a corner window seat ‘the best table in the house’ which shows there is benefit in booking in the first week of January for NYE 12 months hence. 

December 27, 2019 

Danish went back to Canberra this morning to continue his studies and John went off to RNSH to visit his friend who broke a femur and wrist just before Christmas playing street cricket. I had had 5 texts during the night about the fact that the burglar alarm battery was down and it wasn’t communicating with them. The texts woke me each time but I just thought it was some idiot up very late and ignored them. But sure enough it was security so they sent a techie this morning and it was promptly fixed, the speed due to the fact that most businesses are shut and so I was near the top of the queue. He was a lovely young man and we talked antiques for some time. I have his phone number and promised I would look through my reference book collection with a view to passing a couple of books on to him. Next we drove to the nursery, taking my very dead Acanthus plant to see what I did wrong. Turns out I was ill advised about the position it needed by the person I asked when I bought it, so it basically fried to death. By rights I should have asked for a replacement but I let it go. Then we went to Wild Pear and shared a meal and a dessert, being served by Larissa Takchi, the owner’s daughter and winner of Masterchef 2019, who is the restaurant manager. The dessert of Lemon Parfait was extraordinary in that it came with a lemon and black olive compote, a black olive madeleine and was ringed with olive oil. Not hugely sweet but absolutely delicious and very Masterchefy. She is just amazing, not that I watched the series this year, but I did watch her once at the beginning and then the final. To cook like that at 22 just blows my mind. 

December 28, 2019 

We tossed around the idea of going to Balmoral or Manly and decided that the traffic and the parking issues weren’t really worth it, so we went to Baulko Pool and had two good swims. The shade has improved since my girls went there as kids and we enjoyed it immensely. Also went to a strangely situated pharmacy in Norwest Business Park that is the only place in the area to sell Passport brand glasses. I had rung the company in Adelaide to find their stockists as I am hoping Ralph will be able to put my new script for long distance glasses into these funky $20 frames after passing on all the boring ones that optometrists sell. Perhaps he’ll say no, but the chemist will take them back in that event. The only nearby business is a medical practice and both are accessed by a lift so I really don’t see how she would stay in business if the surgery moves out, but perhaps the doctor is her husband? No passing trade at all seems risky to me. 

December 29, 2019 

We three went into the city to the Art Gallery to see the Japan Supernatural exhibition and to go to the Quilty one man show there. The Kenthurst boy has certainly made good, always on the compassionate side of any argument and a wonderful portraitist. Do I like the more recent surrealist ones….no I can’t say I do, but his earlier works sustain me. Then we doodled around the exhibition of Kaldor Public Art Projects, no doubt funded by John Kaldor, and I constantly asked myself WHY? Why is wrapping the coast important? why is a dog made of flowers earth shattering? why is some dude baking multiple loaves of psychedelic-coloured bread consequential? I got as far as the photos of society matrons munching the vile looking bread at the art gallery (bread they would rather die than touch anywhere else) and decided Kaldor can keep the plurry lot of his artworks, wouldn’t take any of them as a gift. Wandered down to Boy Charlton Pool and had some lunch at their cafe overlooking Garden Island Naval Base. I fared well but John’s barramundi, plainly garnished with some tired rocket and two orange segments was a rip off. Then we had a swim in the pool while John minded the gear and it was noticeably colder than the water at Baulko yesterday, but good all the same. As usual the RAN ships Canberra and Adelaide were in dock opposite, a permanent situation since early this year when the navy discovered that these brand new bits of gear have major faults, so they sit in the aptly named ‘graving dock’ as $3 billion dollars worth of scrap metal. (Hint to navy brass: check if any of the designers have Russian names). 

December 30, 2019 

My conspiracy theorist friend often regales me with tales of child abuse by the judiciary and prominent politicians (Hillary Clinton features), of the killing of babies in order to drink their blood, of successful Jewish efforts to control the world via financial markets, of surveillance within our homes and lots more besides. These theories have led to a restaurant in the US being invaded at gunpoint by people looking to free child slaves which some idiot had tweeted were being held there by Clinton, Obama et al. Increased anti-Semitism in the US may also be related. My eyes glaze over at this sort of stuff, even when Trump is retweeting their rubbish, but now it turns out that the Australian promoter of this group, QAnon, is an old friend of our PM and his wife and has been appointed to Scott Morrison’s staff, working out of Kirribilli House. His wife, a lifelong friend of the PM’s wife, has also been given a job. They put a lot of store in symbols and one of these is to refer to child abuse as ‘ritual child abuse’ a phrase which QAnon is claiming they influenced Morrison to use in a speech and which he did in fact say, to the puzzlement of many. Red shoes are apparently a sign, so now Julie Bishop is suspect according to them…. This is getting a bit too close for comfort, I prefer my ratbags well and truly over the water, not sitting on the verandah looking over the harbour. 

December 31, 2019 

Talking about ratbags looking over the harbour, my friend Judith alerted me to a post on Twitter that she wrote about Smoko using Kirribilli House on New Years Eve as the venue for a private party for his rellies and friends to watch the fireworks. Her post went ballistic and every response was hugely negative, excoriating him for everything from holding a private party at our expense to queries about the invitees, some asking if Tim Stewart, the QAnon conspiracy theorist was attending. Clearly that association has been widely publicised, and of course Brian Houston of Hillsong was another name widely bandied about. There were hundreds of responses, every single one critical of Scotty from Marketing. If only the election were next weekend…. 

I booked the best table for New Years Eve at The Boathouse at Blackwattle Bay back in the first week of January 2019 without telling John so he was super pleased that our NYE was sorted. It was in the front corner with our backs to the restaurant proper and plate glass on both sides, looking out over the back harbour and city, apart from the noise we could have been the only people there. Oddly in all three course I preferred his meal to mine, but that’s the luck of the draw and my choices were perfectly fine, it’s just that his were better. We were between courses when the 9 o’clock fireworks went off and saw the aerial ones but of course not those on the Bridge. We decided to book for next year as we were leaving, same table thank you garcon. 

January 1, 2020 

My god, 2020’s a weird thing to type, sounds like an eye test. The bushfire disaster is just unbelievable, even with everything I’ve read about the sorts of fires climate change could produce, this was still hard to believe. I know all those little towns well, we holidayed in Mallacoota for a week just before John got sick and travelled back staying at Bermagui and spending time in Mogo and Lake Conjola. Mallacoota is memorable particularly for the wilderness cruise we went on from Gypsy Point, west of the town, where Captain John was so knowledgeable pointing out lots of birds such as sea eagles, kites and azure kingfishers as we travelled along the river. I suspect all that beautiful bush is now gone. 

We decided today to go on the Rivercat from Parramatta to the city and take in a movie at Opera Quays. Loved the lazy trip in, but discovered that the last boat goes to Parra at 4.07 so we had to train back unfortunately as we’d parked at the wharf. Shocked to find out that the cinema has lost its lease and now the only Dendy will be at Newtown from February, our favourite cinema destination bites the dust. We planned a quick lunch at Renaissance which was closed so ate some sushi standing up at the quay. Good day out though the city was packed. 

January 2, 2020 

I am finding myself quick to anger about the bushfires and those suffering as a result, but I guess anger is more healthy than depression. I do believe that there is a place for anger, after a certain point of being nice and patient and accommodating, a short sharp burst of anger can help everyone. In my household as a child it was an absolute no-no to show anger about anything. But to paraphrase Malcolm X, “There’s a time and a place for anger, where nothing else will do.” I salute those who made their views known to the Prime Minister today at Cobargo, I can’t imagine Jacinda Ardern running off with her tail between her legs if faced by a few angry fire victims, but that’s what he did, of course making the people more angry than they were in the first place. Apparently at a fire station one of the volunteers refused to shake his hand, this will not go unnoticed in the Liberal Party upper echelons. But any changes will be superficial and only enough to pacify a few gullible voters. If only the election were next weekend, the government would sink like a stone. 

January 3, 2020 

THE ANTS ARE BACK!!! Just when I thought that the peppermint oil spray had deterred them, I discovered a track across the kitchen opening to the pantry where they had forced entry into an unopened $15 bag of almond meal and were feasting inside the bag. I upended it into a salad bowl, trapping the little monsters at the bottom if the bowl and later in the day I found a sieve appropriately sized to filter them out. Anyone objecting to this practice should perhaps avoid my almond meal cooking for weeks/months. Their buildup escaped me this time by going higher than my eyes could reasonably detect and coming down into the pantry from the top, but I’m a wakeup to that tactic now and my spray bottle is refilled and in use again this morning. Not giving a hoot about their lives anymore puts me in mind of our PM who, when told by a weary firefighter that he had had nothing to eat that day, replied ‘well, I’ll let you get back to it then’ and walked off. If the man is suffering from some variation of psychopathy perhaps I could spare him some sympathy, but his psychiatrist should have warned him that public service probably wasn’t a good idea. But David Elliott is back from holidays so an improvement in the fire situation should follow, not. If I can contribute to getting that bloke out of parliament and into street sweeping my life has not been in vain. 

January 4, 2020 

At home today, 46 degrees C currently on my shaded back verandah, 48.7 degrees in Penrith, the hottest ever recorded in Greater Sydney, that’s 119.66 Fahrenheit. It’s a day of huge news interspersed with the domestic, the ants are in retreat, Australia is burning, idiots (whom we are paying to govern us) talk about fires starting from self-combusting cow manure. I just noticed that my deciduous trees are dying back severely, the PM says everything possible is being done for the fire refugees yet he won’t call in the Defence Force apart from two ships to get people without enough food, water or medications off a beach. Well there seem to be a disconnect here between reality and what is coming out of his mouth. Welcome to 2020. 

It seems somehow important that my garden is watered, yet what does it matter in the scheme of things in Australia on this awful day? It’s a bit like knitting through the Blitz, keeping something small and controllable happening normally. It pains me to hear that Southern Ocean Lodge, the place at which I’d intended to spend a month when I won Lotto, is just a blackened ruin. Six staff stayed back to fight the fire, but ended up in a bunker built for just this eventuality, thankfully safe. Strangely the thought of Champagne bottles exploding as they heated comes to mind, a macabre version of the celebratory popping corks. I think of Walt Whitman’s words in Leaves of Grass for some reason: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.’ I think we need to be large at the moment, moving from the huge and impossible to control, to the minutiae of life to keep ourselves sane. Having said that I think I need to make a cup of tea before I face looking at the News. 

January 5, 2020 

The importance of donating appropriately came to mind today. Bilpin Rural Fire Service had a Facebook post asking people to come to their hall to take away donations of toys, clothes, food. Not fire victims mind, just anyone, they want their hall back and it’s full of stuff donated by well-meaning people, but there were only a handful of homes lost in Bilpin and a heap of donations left so it was really a wasted exercise. Bearing this in mind I rang RFS local headquarters in Kenthurst first to see if they could use some sandwiches, fruit and biscuits packed into individual lunches today, as I had a free day and was available to help. No they said, nearly all of our trucks are at Mittagong so there’s no one around to eat them, yet on other days they were more than happy to have them. 

I could see various black marks on the kitchen cornice this morning so I got the steps and a wet Chux and climbed up to wipe them off. But they were not just marks, they were groups of 20-30 ants, not moving, just in a tight mass. It’s as if they had drawn the waggons in a circle, were having a meeting triaging new tactics or perhaps they were having a prayer meeting, I don’t know. I am starting to get paranoid, they are smarter than I am and get around every stratagem I dream up. The pantry doors are left open, the steps are permanently in place so ten times a day I can climb up to where I see, or imagine I see, a solitary scout looking for a new way in. All the while an open sugar basin for guests sits on the shelf and nary an ant goes near it, so perhaps not quite so smart. I had these tiny buggers once before and they had a taste for flour, not sugar and I am wondering if these are the same when they bit their way into almond meal yet left the sugar packets alone. I will win, not immediately, but definitely. 

January 6, 2020 

John came up and fixed the frame of the picture that fell off the wall a couple of weeks ago, half demolishing a chair and then we went to a movie in the afternoon, Knives Out, which was a ridiculous premise made into a funny film. It stars Daniel Craig who needed to spend more time with the voice coach, but because he’s a big star no one wanted to tell him. His Southern drawl veers too close to Cheshire England on many occasions, but all in all it was an antidote to the grim news surrounding us at the moment. I was unable to sleep and ended up in the spare bedroom, still only getting a couple of hours. I think this whole fire disaster has really got to me and it feels hopeless at times, so I intend to go to the Sack ScoMo rally on Friday night, it won’t rid us of the smirking bastard but will be a good morale booster, for me anyway. 

January 7, 2020 

Sue texted early to see if we were home for visitors so I invited them to lunch, arriving less than two hours hence. A quick trip to the corner shops provided leg ham and pate, the garden provided salad greens and the rest was a fridge raid, luckily I made another batch of tahini sauce yesterday. Along with six eggs halved and stuffed with anchovy and a few cheeses from the fridge it made a meal which catered for Robert’s keto diet, high fat, no carbs. We laughed and played up as usual, not much talk of the fires, which was a good thing as I’d been obsessing about it all. We took a nap in the afternoon, a rare event, but a welcome one today. John also plastered up a few match head size holes at cornice level through which ants may be entering. Yesterday they ate their way into a new packet of honey coated cashews with heavy packaging. I washed them off then dried the nuts in the oven and put them into a tin. They rarely find food, it is the constant scouts that drive me mad, I picked up my glasses to read and one walked across the lens, mocking me. Sigh. 

January 8, 2020 

No ants this morning, for an hour anyway. Then they came streaming in from the direction which John thought he sealed off yesterday, the top of a door jamb. I am now spraying with vinegar and water, too much needed to keep depleting the peppermint oil, which is too good for them anyway, vinegar works just as well. 

The expectation with the government’s plan to pay the firefighting volunteers was that they could claim once they’d spent 10 days on the fire line and any days thereafter. Wrong. The first 10 days makes the volunteer eligible, but those first 10 days cannot be claimed, only day 11 onwards can be claimed. Also the expectation was that the volunteer could claim $300 per day. Wrong again. The volunteer can only claim their normal working day wage, after tax. The expectation was that the volunteer could claim for the day they spent on the fire line. Wrong three times. If the volunteer’s normal working day was 9.00am to 5.00pm and they spent from 6.00pm to 10.00am fighting fires and then turned up for work, they can only claim the one hour out of their normal working day – 9.00am to 10.00am. If the volunteer is retired and does not have a ‘working day’ then they too are not eligible to claim compensation. God, I hate this government and all members of it with every fibre of my being. 

January 9, 2020 

Michelle rang with another ant tip, tea tree oil on cotton balls left in their path which I will try. I think I am ahead as I was out all day and expected heaps when I got home but none so far, perhaps they just like me and want to hang out. I went to Erko to meet Davina after her holiday. I thought we were going for a swim at Marrickville but it was Mahon Pool at Maroubra that she had in mind, so we tootled off there instead. The water was cool under the overcast sky and we were initially the only ones swimming but soon a couple of other hardy souls joined us. I remembered to take my goggles so I got to observe all the sea life clinging to the walls, reminding me of one of the many benefits of a sea pool over a tiled one. Today a message came from Anglican Parish Gosford that I have reached Top Fan status, acquired by the number of times I’ve accessed the website or shared a Facebook post. They asked if I minded them adding Top Fan to my shares which when you think about my religion, or lack of it, is pretty funny. The fact that I once posted ‘Father Rod for PM’ didn’t hurt I guess. I was sold on him once I read his autobiography and get his sermons sent to my page each week, although I must admit that I gloss over the religion and focus on the politics, but I suspect his sizeable atheist following does the same. 

January 10, 2020 

The protest against ScumMo was huge, stopping the trams as it spread out across George and Park Streets. The square isn’t really big enough so there ended up being three different protests, one in the square itself, one on the Town Hall steps and one on the Park St corner, but all for the same purpose. I’m sure it suits the powers that be that the plaza there can only hold a modest crowd. It didn’t appear as if they had permission to close the roads, it was just a case of people swarming over them. Very few police and no counter protesters so that was good on both counts. 

I have been teased in the past for reading the Daily Mail and I don’t defend their trashier moments. However when I want to know fast about what’s going on or when I just want a leisurely browse I find it worth the $0 it costs me to look. Anyone reading early this week would have seen an article saying that Harry and Meghan would be moving part time to Canada in a deal worked out with the government there during their six week holiday. The DM is often (rightly) criticised for robbing stories from other papers, but here was a case where the other papers ignored their story, to their cost. Now we have a shock horror reaction from most media to something that’s been in the press for days. In the days prior to that the DM also pointed out that the Queen had photographs of William and his family on her side table during her Christmas speech, but none of Harry with his. They speculated about a rift and were proved right. I’m not sure why they are often first with a story but I suspect they are willing to rush to print and will wear the opprobrium of being wrong on occasion. 

January 11, 2020 

Went in to town on the bus to the once a year meet up of a group of women I’m friendly with, almost all north shore ladies, for lunch in the kiosk at the Botanic Gardens. It was interesting that their criticism of ScumMo was unanimous even though they are not at all a political group. The Gardens were looking a bit tatty, many of the tropical plants browning off and two very tall palms lying where they had fallen, dead as dodos. Then I wandered to Circular Quay to meet John for the movie Sorry I Missed You, another Ken Loach classic, this time on the subject of the working poor in northern England, specifically contract home nurses and delivery drivers. It was gut-wrenching and so well acted that you would be forgiven for assuming it to be a documentary. Our future, if we keep electing conservative governments. Dinner was at Jimmy’s Recipe at the Quay, which cost all of $20.80 for us both, including card surcharge. A new bus service from the city right to John’s door whisked us home. 

January 12, 2020 

We exchanged gifts with John’s neighbour Ann this morning. She doesn’t do Christmas but does celebrate Ded Moroz, Father Frost in Russia. I was spoiled rotten with a plaque reading ‘I’m not old, I’m vintage’, a delicious Donna Hay Seasons Cookbook and some earrings, actually 12 pairs, twelve, one dozen, the number of months in a year, a duodecim of earrings. These range from tomato slices, goldfish in plastic bags, pineapples, daisies to various shapes and colours in plastic, metal and stone. Each was bought separately online on ebay or from retailers. I bought her a bottle of perfume that she didn’t like so now I have that too. A somewhat asymmetrical Ded Moroz. 

We went to Narrabeen, potentially for a swim, but it started to rain as we got there, quite a downpour in fact so we retreated to Driftwood Cafe to share some banana bread and a cuppa until it stopped, except it didn’t, so then we drove to Curl Curl and read in the car looking out over the ocean and luxuriating in the rain on the windscreen. Both beaches were closed for swimming but they looked fine to us, a rip perhaps? I read that Rise Up Australia Party leader Danny Nalliah, who once claimed the Black Saturday bushfires were God’s payback for Victoria having decriminalised abortion, has closed down the party because “Rise Up was formed almost a decade ago because of a vacuum in Christian-conservative politics, which has now been filled. There is no need for us to continue because Scott Morrison was elected,” the pastor said. So nice to know that’s all sorted and God’s happy. 

January 13, 2020 

John woke me between 12 and 1am to ask if I’d slept well, which I had up till then, but didn’t afterwards. He thought it was 6 am as it’s a pretty full moon. We loaded into the car the painting that fell from the wall recently and the sad chair that it broke on the way down, so I am set to take both to my old restorer tomorrow. I did some food shopping and decided to cook a meal from my new Donna Hay cookbook for dinner. It includes a tzatziki which has honey and cumin in it as well as the usual yogurt, cucumber and garlic. I like I’ve decided. Picked up my new distance glasses today and I’m very happy with the funky $20 frames, not to mention the fact that I can now see sooo much better at a distance. I get on so well with my optometrist who is a very generous and helpful soul, as well as a homophobe, a Trump supporter, a climate denier  and of course in this quadrella…..an evangelical Christian. Aaagh. 

January 14, 2020 

Went for a run to North Richmond to see John Koster and leave my painting and chair for repair. Followed this with a visit to Brian, taking a selection of fruit, which he always loves. Had a glimmer of hope in the ant situation after ringing the Department of Primary Industries for advice. They put me through to an entomologist in Orange who was helpful, conceding the possibility I raised that they could be Argentine ants. Their nests are so huge that they need to need to utilise every available food source to feed the vast numbers of ants that eventually build up. Argentine ants become a major pest by invading houses and swarming over everything, including entering fridges, unopened packets and have even been known to follow the spiral down inside screw-top jars to get at the contents. When I told her that they have managed to eat through plastic to get into sealed packets and that they’ve invaded clip lock sealed cake boxes she suggested that she send me a pack to catch some of the tiny blighters to return to her for identification. When I was a kid we were always searching for them as there was a cash reward, but I never succeeded in finding one. I told her I’d killed thousands but she said it’s pointless because they will just organise the queen to lay that many more eggs. They also use pheromones to tell the other ants which areas they’ve already checked and which areas are most dangerous eg my kitchen bench. Now they only travel at cornice height, so at least that’s somewhat of a relief because I can cook without interference. They walk around Ant Rid, teatree oil likewise, Mortein barrier spray didn’t work under the house so I am just left with my trusty vinegar and water spray bottle if they come down below the cornice. 

January 15, 2020 

A trip to the nursery yielded just a Thai chili plant for $4.70 after loyalty discount. I looked at the succulents, trying to get more of the ones I have in already but there were none there, nor at the nursery at Windsor yesterday. I had bought some on special there before Christmas, typically I didn’t buy up when they were cheap. But I am looking forward to getting chilis as I need them because fruit shops sell them en masse in packets and I only want them intermittently. Trying another recipe tonight from the Donna Hay book that Ann gave me, Salmon with Lemon Cream Sauce on a bed of greens. I now have my pantry slide-out baskets spread around the house, cake icing things in my bedroom, cake cooking ones on the chaise in the loungeroom, others on my desk or in the spare bedroom. So far the ants haven’t twigged and it’s a nuisance getting the flour from the lounge, the nutmeg from the desk etc but it seems to have fooled their limited language capabilities as they are still going to the empty pantry. He he, primates rule, so far today. 

I came across yet another article from Quadrant written by John’s football friend who is so opposed to everything we believe in that I can no longer safely be in his presence. He rails against the gullible people who believe this climate change nonsense, in the past writing scathing articles on unions and racial diversity on the ABC. Everything is a Communist plot as far as I read his meaning, but he’s way smarter than me and wouldn’t be crass enough to put it that way. One article explains how the current climate hysteria is born out of the anti-nuclear movement of the 60s, carried on through the generations by leftist Teachers Federation apparatchiks. Last night as I sat reading it on the net I was as angry as a hornet in a bottle, but he refuses to debate his views with anyone, or at least not with John. He is the intellectual darling of Catallaxy, the IPA, climate deniers and libertarian causes, justifying with excellent writing skills the attitudes of his friends Gina Rinehart and Christopher Monckton. Deep breathe Maureen, deep breathe. 

January 16, 2020 

Decided to go in to town to the Police and Justice Museum which is always worth a look for the old photos from Sydney’s early days, apart from any current exhibitions they may have. Then I got a welcome call from Sue beginning ‘have you got time to talk?’ so we spent a while chewing the fat. I was still in my nightie at 10 with good intentions lagging, when I looked up the hours and discovered the museum only opens weekends now, so that was that. Did some weeding, to find that the light rain we’ve had only dampened the top centimetre of soil. It was as dry as a pommie’s bathmat underneath, then the postman brought my water bill and I discovered that my usage was way up on last year, so much for my saving water. The postman also brought the ant kit from DPI so I am closer to getting them identified, if not to getting rid of them. They haven’t discovered my pantry contents hiding in plain sight, so that is a win of sorts. 

Continuing to enjoy the Harp in the South trilogy, read as a 20 odd year old and totally new to me as I read it now. I am taken with the way the characters address each other and half of me thinks that we have patently improved in our civility, while the other half wonders if it were better to be able to state one’s opinions forcefully and then come back the next day with no hard feelings. I can’t even imagine the response if I addressed someone in my book group with the equivalent of ‘shut your ugly face you skinny slag’, but I don’t think I will do so, even as an experiment. 

January 17, 2020 

Lucky me! I have had a grey butcher bird on the deck twice this week. Wondering what attracted it, I looked up my bird books and it appears they will eat grains if meat is not available and I had put out some leftover savoury rice. My two magpies have brought their big adult size baby and it sits, as its parents used to when young, on my outdoor chairs to avoid the rain. The parents sit out in the tree despite the rain, watching over it just as their parents used to do for them. It squawks to be fed rather than bend its head to eat what is right there, I feel like telling the parents that they are being used but I think perhaps they know. Making an old fashioned baked rice pudding for tonight as I had some perfectly good cream that was out of date but I didn’t want to push my luck, so just added some milk and cooked it up with the rice, sugar, vanilla and nutmeg, yum. Will serve it warm with fresh white peaches and raspberries, but John will still want his icecream later I know. 

January 18, 2020 

As predicted John said he liked the rice pudding last night, but would have preferred his usual icecream. Ah well, I did predict it. We checked online for trackwork on the rail to Katoomba and there appeared to be none, so off we went on the bus to Parramatta only to be told that we needed to catch a bus to Penrith due to trackwork. Felt a bit cheated but as it turned out we were only a few minutes later than expected as the bus left before the train had been due to leave. We were meeting up with Annabel, Dan, Aurora and Tallulah to celebrate the children’s birthdays, both this week. John had the brilliant idea of inviting Dan’s mother Lyn and her sister Pat, both of whom we get on with very well, and the whole event went off without problems. We had lunch in the lounge of the Carrington Hotel, replete with many people in vintage clothing for the 1950s festival this weekend. Lots of vintage cars in the closed off street and markets selling vintage clothing and jewellery, which I was self-disciplined enough to avoid. A tent with 50s live music completed what seemed like a very good event. By the time we negotiated a train and two buses to get home it was after 7pm, tired but a good day had. 

January 19, 2020 

Drove to Erskineville to see Dav and Co and to give Millie the gift I’d bought of a box of yucky, creepy stuff like a plastic poo, a cockroach, some blow flies and maggots and a slippery tongue, all the correct sizes and very lifelike. It went well till I suggested she trick mummy and daddy by quietly putting the cockroach in the fruit bowl but the concept didn’t appeal and she pulled a blanket over her head and looked upset. She was fine with doing it openly though and spent the next couple of hours finding funny places to deposit them, such as a blowfly on biscuits Dav served up with a cup of tea. So she got the joke, just didn’t want to do it surreptitiously, which was interesting. Afterwards we went to see the film Jo Jo Rabbit which was clever and superbly acted by its young lead, but I am afraid I just can’t get used to the idea of joking about Fascism, and Nazism in particular. Although I can see what he was trying to do and most of the audience found it funny, I was often cringing, as I always did with M*A*S*H and Hogan’s Heroes in decades past for the same reasons. Not sorry I saw it though, but not my fave by any means. We went to it because Carly texted to warn me not to go to 1917 which she saw last night as she’d had to leave due to motion sickness, so I would certainly be affected by it too. Pity, as John was looking forward to it, but he can go alone through the week. 

January 20, 2020 

Rang the Sydney Festival for tickets to Betty Blokk Buster Reimagined after a very positive review from Michelle who went last night. I was a regular for years at all of Reg Livermore’s shows in the 70s, seeing some of them twice, and once when I visited his open garden in the Blue Mountains he came wafting out of the house to the gazebo in a heavy mist with a tea tray and invited me to share a cuppa. One of life’s highlights was seeing him appear out of the those tiny droplets of water suspended in the air, just like an entrance from one of his shows. He may have been a few inches above the ground, but perhaps I imagined that. Drove out to pick up my damaged chair from the restorer and confirmed that he is a genius, it’s impossible to pick where it was broken even though I took a bag full of pieces for him to put together like a jigsaw. Then I called in to see one of my contacts theoretically just to pick up a payment on a loan we’d negotiated last year. Seeing he now has no car, that turned into a trip to the post office, the real estate (to pay the rent), pet food store (meat for magpies), the bulk bird seed place at McGraths Hill (seed for the hundreds of other birds he feeds every day), the bakery (stale bread, ditto), then to Aldi for his fortnight’s groceries. Pension gone, he’ll now live with just small change till next pay. It is the life many lead and few understand. 

January 21, 2020 

Had an exciting morning making a cake from the Donna Hay book I was given recently. It is unusual because it is cooked in the oven in a heavy frypan after cooking the orange slices in said pan with sugar and vanilla and then pouring the almond cake mixture on top. I used blood oranges and it looks superb, waiting for sir to arrive before I spoil it by cutting, but he needs to get his skates on as it looks too good to resist. The excitement came when, half way through making the cake, a nasty big spider ran across the kitchen bench and when I screamed it reared up on its hind legs and presented its large fangs, reminiscent of funnel web behaviour. I couldn’t hit it because of all the cooking equipment between us but finally it ran into the flour sifter (ugh) so I cleverly placed a plate on top and sprayed it through the mesh base. Primate 1: Spider 0, but where are his loved ones I ask myself? Why has the world of insects and arachnids got it in for me at the moment? Ants I can deal with, just, but spiders creep me into a shrieking mess. On the ant front I am still seeing outliers but the constant trails seem to have been stopped by separating all food sources into different rooms, although I did open my morning jam jar to find it full of the little bleeders. The lid was firmly tight, so that goes to show these little ants can and do travel around the thread of the jar to get in, as I had been warned, so all jam goes in the fridge now. Note to self: Screaming indoors does not bring help of any kind and may in fact precipitate a cardiac event. 

January 22, 2020 

For some reason I like typing 2020 as I can do it so quickly, pathetic typist that I am, 2020, 2020, 2020. There, that’s it for now. Well with John’s help and advice I succeeded in getting a lot of stuff out of the garage today. Firstly we decided that my beautiful hand woven Persian carpet which has remained rolled up there ever since the loungeroom was extended should come back up to live in the dining room as I just can’t bring myself to sell it. Vacced front and back it looks a treat. Huge spacemaker in the garage too. Then I unpacked numerous boxes and repacked them for auction, gift giving and to keep. Tossed lots of packing paper into the recycling and felt suitably virtuous. Later we went to the framer and I chose a frame for the broken painting that came down off the wall, a nice silver painted wooden one which is much more suitable to a modernist painting than the poor choice in which it was originally framed. Later we went to Riverside Theatre to see Bran Nue Dae and enjoyed it very much but I thought the crowd was a bit disappointing. I booked it as part of our Opera Australia subscription and splurged on the best seats in Row C, but most other takers were much further back with only 4 people in Row A, 3 in B and 4 including us in C. It was well received but the turnout reminded me once again that I live in a cultural wilderness. Ernie Dingo did a good job, though I was a bit shocked at how old he is looking and hoped it was makeup, but the star of the night was male lead Marcus Corowa who was able to go from a gawky schoolboy to a man before our eyes. The lyrics are often memorable: “They taught me the white ways, and bugger the rest, Cause everything white is right and the best. So learn all the white things they teach you in school, And you’ll all become acceptable coons.” Late in the piece blown up condoms showered the audience so I grabbed a couple and as we wandered back to the car through Prince Alfred Park a drag queen (pneumatic lips and skimpy outfit) was headed to the St. Vinnies food van there. ‘Are those condoms?’, she asked. ‘Yes they are’, I replied and she responded ‘aren’t you sweet’ and began to surreptitiously take some photos of us. ‘Do you want to come for a coffee at the food van?’ came next, but we were both bashful about scrounging drinks meant for the homeless. Later we regretted that decision as we could have just paid for them with a donation and continued parleying with our new friend, with whom I’d disagreed about the bats in the park, specifically in relation to whether they were cute or repulsive. I also wanted to suss out the van because I was thinking about joining that team, but the 9.30pm start put me off. Perhaps a smiling face or two would have changed my mind. 

January 23, 2020 

Somehow or other this day pales into insignificance because I updated this blog on my phone rather than the computer and have now discovered that the three days on which I did this have disappeared, but I am sure it consisted of sending off letters or emails of protest, cooking then reading at night. They’re all safe bets. 

January 24, 2020 

I WON! I WON! 
Got a call from the vice-captain of an RFS brigade to tell me I’d won their raffle. I’d joked with him at purchase that Purple 76 of the many I bought was the winning ticket and by George I was right. Perhaps predestination is a thing after all. I shall ponder the question while aboard the High Tea Cruise on Sydney Harbour which was the prize. Plenty of anti-nausea drugs will be consumed to make sure the food stays where it belongs. Discussed with Carol her similar experience of just ‘knowing’ that she would win a raffle (with a much bigger cruise as the prize) and being totally unsurprised when it actually happened. Instinct can be odd and unexplainable sometimes. 

Went to the amazing play The Visitors at Carriageworks tonight. John booked it as a surprise and I had no idea what we were going to. It was about the day in 1788 that the Aboriginal clans gathered to watch huge ships appearing in the harbour. Where are they from? Who and what do they carry? Should they be welcomed or treated with suspicion or attacked? Seven senior law men (cleverly dressed in business suits to indicate their power and position) meet to decide how to respond. Their decision must be unanimous. They are pulled between fear of the consequences of a wrong decision and their culture of welcoming visitors to their land. The play ends with the decision to welcome the visitors because everyone knows that visitors are just that, visitors, and they do not stay. I was wet-eyed by the end, but the two young Aboriginal women sitting in front of us were wiping away tears all through the second half of the play, perhaps seeing their alternative destinies playing out, 10/10 from me. 

January 25, 2020 

Another day where the post went up in smoke after being done on the phone. But I know I had stayed at John’s overnight, did some food shopping on my way home, watered my garden after 4pm and read into the evening. I am currently reading Ronan Farrow’s amazing book Catch and Kill about his near year-long investigative reporting on the victims of Harvey Weinstein. He was working for MSNBC and CBS News who encouraged him all the way until phone calls from Weinstein to executives caused them to can the TV program that was ready to roll. Farrow documents the day to day experiences in detail until the point that he realised the work would never come to air and jumped ship to The New Yorker who, after much fact checking and legal work, embraced the project. And the rest is history. Farrow received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, which he fully deserved in my opinion for the way he ignored legal threats and physical surveillance for a year, to the point that he needed to move to a safe house, in order to publish. 

January 26, 2020 

A huge day beginning with the Invasion Day March. After many speakers in a very hot Hyde Park we trudged off towards Victoria Park somewhat the worse for wear (in my case at least). Later we discovered that the trams weren’t working due presumably due to the crowds at the Quay but eventually got there by train and lunched at Renaissance. Later in the afternoon we headed back to Hyde Park to see Betty Blokk Buster Revisited, which was very good in itself but not a patch on ‘our Reg’ whose delivery snapped from aggressive, sad, sympathetic and bitingly cruel. This version was a great reminder of Reg, but never a replacement. 

January 27, 2020 

Up early to email the honours division of the Governor-General’s Department to complain about the awarding of an OAM to the horrendous Bettina Arndt. I suggested that they rescind the honour under Section 4 which says this is possible if the recipient brings the awards into disrepute. Also requested the details of those who put her name up and I suspect somehow that they will be from the usual suspects of the Right. But this is not just a political matter, she is also an apologist for paedophiles, is a promoter of the Men’s Rights Movement who believe that children of physically and sexually abusive fathers should remain in their custody and refuses to accept that misogyny has any bearing on violence against women, ‘except in countries like Saudi Arabia’. The woman has been peddling this stuff for nigh on 50 years to my knowledge and the award gives her views credence. 

My neighbour came in to tell me that his house has again been the target of egg-throwing. What to do? he asked. My suggestion was 1) Notify the police and get a name of the investigating officer and 2) Visit the three townhouses from which the eggs were apparently thrown (they were at the back of his property, not from the street) and give each resident a slip of paper with the name and phone number of the officer, as well as his own name and number, with a request to contact either if they observe anything suspicious. This will put them on notice that he is a wakeup to them as well as making them aware that their neighbours are also watching them. He liked the plan but said he needed someone to go with him, so I volunteered and we plan to put the scheme into action next weekend. 

January 28, 2020 

A fun day all round with a train trip to Leura to pick up my raffle prize. John couldn’t come as he was picking up Ann and Karina from the cruise terminal after their latest of their frequent trips to sea, then was on standby to take a friend’s wife to chemo if needed, both part of his ‘pastoral care’ I told him. The friend is in hospital with a broken femur and wrist after falling while playing street cricket, he is John’s age. I say nothing about the pitfalls of playing sport, nothing. Met the RFS vice-captain at Sparrows cafe and it turned out he is a local architect and all round nice guy. So we talked architecture, building, bushfires, roll bars on their trucks, and face masks and their undersupply, while the government keeps a store of a million of them for ‘an emergency’. The waitress at the cafe, seeing him handing me the big envelope, got excited and took about 20 photos, so I said I would mention their great service on social media and give her praise on Tripadvisor. Then I wandered Leura shops, finding some beautiful salad bowls made of bamboo and decorated with Aboriginal designs by the Utopia Community with a photo on the base of each of the person who did the work. Rang Carly to see if she wanted one, but she has a Kashmiri theme happening (funny that) and said no, so I was forced to buy myself one. Then purchased a pair of huon pine ‘salad hands’ from the lovely wood-working shop after querying whether they would stain with say, balsamic vinegar. Assured that it wouldn’t happen, I invested in them and will be mightily pissed off if they do. Next was a dress for Millie’s birthday and then lunch at Leura Deli which was fabulous, as always. It looked like a delicious quiche but was actually caramelised onions topped with goat cheese and not eggy at all, happy to have one for lunch every day. Declined a sweet, I am getting so good. Late at night when the Canberra bushfires worsened I mentioned in a call from Carly that friends Peter and Dawn lived in that area and her immediate response was ‘tell them to come here if they need a bed’ so I sent off a text to Peter. They are packed and ready to leave. It took me back to their wedding, a wonderful occasion where a believing Catholic ex-priest married a Communist atheist. Speeches were given by a Bishop and by Dawn’s Communist father, what a treat it was. 

January 29, 2020 

Now I am finished the amazing Catch and Kill, I have started another non-fiction book, Troll Hunting by Ginger Gorman. Although the explanations of Facebook, Twitter and the Australian law (or lack of it) regarding trolling are of some curiosity, it is the personal contact with the trolls themselves that has me really interested. I love people who can deal with the ‘bad guys’ as humans and interact with them, this provides the key to motivation. It seems there are many different reasons but it’s not unsurprising to find that they are almost all white males (Bettina Arndt, note well). They mostly tend to be right wing, though there are exceptions, with an almost fanatical desire to uphold free speech at any cost. Ginger’s ability to maintain internet friendships with these guys, genuinely curious about them and their lives, makes her quite different to someone who just researches them like lab animals. I noted today that I suddenly have 2,186 spam comments on this blog, a massive increase. So I checked them, expecting them to be mostly ads, and discovered that there are great slabs of what looks like lifts from academic medical journals with no comments attached. The WordPress system has rightly identified them as spam and removed them before I was even aware, but still I wonder why would someone send such stuff, what was their purpose? Unlike Ginger I don’t intend to reply, though I might have if there had been 3 instead of 2,186, so it remains one of life’s little mysteries. 

January 30, 2020 

In the light of Ginger Gorman’s book and seeing I am constantly reading about, and writing letters about, Bridget and Bettina (spit, spit) I started to wonder if perhaps I have troll tendencies. But I guess the difference is that I am not putting my opinions of them on their Facebook pages or on Twitter, which I don’t use, but writing to the powers that be trying to get their worst excesses curbed (let’s face it, to get them sacked). Perhaps that just makes me more two-faced in that I am not taking the argument up to them directly, but in each case they have shown no inclination to listen to critics, however they are approached.

My New Year’s resolutions were 1. Swim more and 2. Call out bullshit every time you see it. The second has kept me quite busy of late. 

The Australian response to the novel corona virus outbreak has been less than stellar with an academic a few days ago saying that the Chinese had ‘overreacted’ by sealing off Wuhan and being very critical of them. Then our Health bureaucrats said that there was no evidence of transmission before patients were symptomatic, despite publicised Chinese advice to the contrary. Now they’ve changed their tune on that one too. I know it’s fast moving and changeable but one reading of the excellent 1995 book The Coming Plague answers a lot of questions about previous epidemics, animal causation and spread. I’ve reread it each time there’s been an outbreak of Ebola, Lassa, SARS or whatever and it is invaluable. Though writing in the early 1990s, Garrett discusses the effects of global warming on pathogen populations and spread and following up the more than 100 pages of footnotes could easily keep me reading from now until I pop off. 

January 31, 2020 

Arvind and I did our neighbourly visit to the townhouses below our properties to see if we could ascertain who was responsible for the twice repeated egg-throwing incidents emanating from one of them. At each of the four doors he did the same spiel, ‘hello I’m your neighbour over your back fence and someone has been vandalising my property by throwing eggs. Would you please keep an eye out for anything suspicious and ring me or Detective Bloggs whose phone number I am providing’. Three of the places were super friendly, asking questions about what happened and when, commiserating etc. At the fourth, number X, both the husband and wife came to the door, she asking when and what time this happened and her head positively whizzed around to her husband as if to say ‘was that you?’. One resident had suggested we be careful at number X because the man there had left a nasty note on his door telling him not to wheel his rubbish bin in after 7pm. Sherlock and I agreed that we had probably found our man and doubt if there will be any more problems in the future. When asked by the suspect who I was Arvind quickly responded ‘she’s a distant aunt’ which was funny considering he is a dark Indian and I a white Brit, but he was protecting me from a neighbour whose property is also close to mine. Quick thinking 99. 

All of this paled against the fact that a crack has appeared in a wall close to the previous crack from which all the ants descend. Also the door jamb is away from the wall and it appears something is eating at the gyprock. I called the pest controller and he said he was busy for a few weeks but could come then. In the meantime he suggested I send photos of the damage and immediately after I sent them he replied that he would come late afternoon tomorrow as it looked like white ants. Groan, my heart went through the floor and stayed there. John helped me clear much of the storeroom contents to under the deck  and we relocated the rest to the centre to let him inspect, which was all we could do, between spraying ants. Book group was good but termites were never quite out of mind. 

February 1, 2020 

A hot and restless night imagining the house crumbling around me then we started early on the garage, which took till well after lunchtime to partially clear the walls, by which time the temperature in there was 46 degrees or 115 in the old money. Jeff came in the afternoon and after a limited inspection told me he thinks it’s a giant ant nest and because I removed all possible food from them they’ve begun to eat the gyprock paper and the silicone which seals the door frame (kind of makes me sorry they are starving, but my mental health demands a cure). I had left the ants I’d killed this morning with my vinegar spray on the benchtop and I think he was pretty shocked. Apparently when I had termites in the garage he used a chemical (banned later that year because some pest people were spraying it instead of drilling into the ground and pouring it in as he did) which has a half life of 25 years. He was able to say that he did it in 1995 and it’s probably still working fine so he is reasonably hopeful that there aren’t termites but will do a complete inspection and ant treatment later this month. I could easily have kissed him but controlled my joy and kissed John instead. I feel as if I might get my life back after all. With all this happening and 46 degree heat to boot, I had cancelled a visit by the Erko fam but we’ll reschedule next weekend. 

February 2, 2020 

Ant report: Swarms came down on the bench within half an hour of my cleaning up the dead ones I’d left to show Jeff. I sprayed hundreds more and left them there to clean up this morning as I’d already done it so any times yesterday. But this morning the bench was sans dead ants, which were apparently raised from the dead Lazarus style or eaten for breakfast by the hundreds of live ones that arrived overnight, eew. February 19 come quickly before an admission to Callan Park is required. Oh, that’s right, we rarely admit people to psychiatric hospitals any more, leaving them to struggle alone in the community. 

My instincts failed when I made a bet that Bridget would be sacked by last Tuesday at 5pm, but luckily I won’t have to pay out on a loss because I only bet myself this time. I continue to shake my head at the lacklustre Australian response to the corona virus outbreak. While the scientists are doing amazing work, as usual, the policy makers and their publicists stumble along. Potential pandemics, as this clearly was, need action that is both strong and meteorically fast because anything else will let the disease run in any number of directions. This has been shown over and over but we still put in good policies, but way too late. No one will complain about rigorous safety precautions in this sort of event (oh well there was that academic who said China had ‘overreacted’, but leaving her aside…" src="blob:https://theblathering.net/53a10381-d44a-4807-a1fd-31835747c999">. When at the library today a fine young Chinese schoolboy apologised to me in the lift ‘I’m sorry, I should have put my mask on’ and promptly did so. I understood then just a little about how we have made Chinese Australians feel that they are the bogey men in this outbreak, I told him that I didn’t have a mask on either and that I was as big a risk to him as he was to me, he smiled and carried it from then on. 

February 3, 2020 

John and I went in the afternoon to see A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood with Tom Hanks, who performed admirably as Mr Rogers, the American children’s show host from the 1960s on. It walked a fine line between ‘schlock and soppy’ and ‘erudite’ or sometimes profound, falling only just within the latter two. A dream scene where Hanks’ character was seen as a miniature person in the childrens’ show fell definitely into the soppy camp and needed to be left on the cutting room floor, but all in all Hanks’ acting lifted it over the line. I am interested now to read the Esquire article on which the story is based and to learn a bit more about the real Mr Rogers, so I guess the film did work for me. Had some more communication with my ex sister-in-law, with whom I am becoming closer over time. We reaquainted a few years back courtesy of Facebook (her approach, not mine) and this also led to my becoming friends again with her two sisters. She and her husband came to visit last year from Brisbane and plan to do so again later this year. I wish now that I had reached out to them years earlier but for all its faults Facebook made it easy and has allowed me some amazing connections with people whom I wouldn’t be talking to on a regualar basis otherwise, such as John’s sister-in-law in the US whom I’ve never met but  communicate with at some level every few days at least. 

February 4, 2020 

After breaking my rule not to watch Q and A because of its effect on my sleep, I watched last night out of interest in its theme of the bushfires and to see how young Hamish equipped himself in the role of host. Am I in love with young Hamish? Possibly, yes. But it was the diabolical Jim Molan, with his lounging posture, his superfluously overlong legs dominating the set, that sent lasting shivers of disgust up my spine and ruined my sleep. I guess iview, not at bedtime, is the only solution, though I did read till midnight to try to wash him off. The general thrust of my sleeplessness was a feeling that we are already ‘rooned’ as Hanrahan would say. But it seems we’ve dodged a Barnaby today, but by how much remains to be seen. The figure is important because it will influence his decision on whether to keep trying. These ego-driven politicians are like my ants, they only know ‘barge straight ahead without stopping, no matter what’. Those sorts of people put me off in everyday life as well, the Gladys Lius and their more mundane counterparts in this world will never end up in my phone directory. A couple in my sphere of aquaintanceship give me the gee willikers after a short time in their company, they are like human steamrollers. 

February 5, 2020 

It was lovely to get a call from Robert for no apparent reason other than to chew the fat, which we did, covering a myriad of topics for over an hour. This morning Michelle rang from hospital after an eye operation “I thought I’d ring someone since I can’t read” she said, which reminded me that she had done the same in the afternoon after her morning hip replacement. Perhaps it’s a sign of friendship when a person rings you for no reason at all, there should be more of it. I headed to Windsor today to see Brian and got there just after his daughter had taken him out for lunch, but at least I was able to pick up $100 from my old shop associate, almost clearing his lastest loan. It’s always a good feeling to get back to tors before the next calamity hits him. I was thinking on the way home that I need a short list (or perhaps a long list) of people I refuse to watch before bedtime for my self protection. Jim Molan, Judith Sloan, ScumMo, Angus Taylor, that Witch from the West Michaelia Cash, all the Queensland Nationals, Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and their ilk, it goes on and on. Barnaby is such a fool that I can laugh at him so that lowers the pressure, unless of course he succeeds in his Lazarus attempt, in which case he will need to be added. Gosh, life is a series of mini labyrinths which one needs to negotiate for sanity. Or perhaps it’s just me? 

February 6, 2020 

Unusually I was up at 6am, but for some reason I wasn’t hungry so I gave my usual jam on toast breakfast a miss. Later in the morning I suddenly realised that I needed to go and get the 36 blood tests which I have every six months before seeing the immunologist. The phlebology technician asked if I had fasted, no I said, I haven’t, before remembering that it was 9.30 but I still hadn’t eaten as yet so I changed the answer and wondered yet again about instinct. Although I’ve had these done twice a year for 7 years, the staff query every time that some of the tests have to be done in his lab in Newcastle. I’ve never jagged the same staff member twice so it needs to be explained and the same furrowed brows appear and phone calls are made but eventually it gets done. 

My kitchen tap has gradually become loose and a close inspection reveals that neither my tools (nor John’s) will fix it, as they need to go into a deep channel to tighten the screw. So I rang 3 plumbers and asked about the cost of this very simple job. They all quoted about $80 to come out and then $50 per half hour and I was hesitant. But the last chap, when I said I would think it over, asked what I’d been expecting. I told him honestly that I was hoping to find a plumber in the street doing a job for someone else and I was going to offer him $50 to come over and tighten the screw. He immediately said ‘you’re not far away so I will come and fix it for the $50’ and was there in 20 minutes. It was even more complicated to access than I’d thought and it took him half an hour, but he insisted on sticking to the quote and I sent him home with $50 plus some baking from the fridge. I now have myself a plumber for life as he’s just a young fellow and will see me out, though I am happy to pay his normal rate for bigger jobs of course. 

February 7, 2020 

Lunched with a friend at a tiny Japanese place at Cherrybrook. It was my first ever visit to the town centre there but I didn’t explore as I was reluctant to hold up my friend whose car I was in, but I shall return. My dessert was unusual, a green tea lava pudding which I’ve never had before. I am a bit besotted with the book I am reading, Born Bad: Original Sin and the Making of the Western World by James Boyce. He traces the journey from Adam and Eve through St Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley and more, all the way to Adam Smith, Billy Graham and on to Richard Dawkins in his story of this idea and its influence over 1500 years. I have learned so much from this book but one fascinating piece of information is that “In God We Trust” only became America’s motto in 1956, subsequent to the Billy Graham crusades from 1947 and every year from then on. The founding fathers were particular in not mentioning God in any of the original documents because of their agnosticism and their strong desire for separation of church and state. Then along comes Billy, who wheedled his way into every White House until his son Franklin took over the family business and continues to this day. The chapters on early Protestantism were absorbing and I couldn’t help seeing the face of Eric Abetz, (small eyes, tight mouth, grim) whenever those hardline witch-burning Scottish Protestants were mentioned. So perhaps this Tasmanian author was thinking of that connection as he typed. Wesley bragged that none of his 10 children dared cry after the age of one as he deliberately ‘crushed their spirit’. One daughter eloped and had a child but the father failed to marry her and she went home in disgrace, only to be refused entry. She married a local plumber and was the victim of domestic violence from then on, losing subsequent children to miscarriage. I will reread this book again soon, it is one of the most enlightening (no pun intended) philosophical books I have read in quite a while. 

February 8, 2020 

In a bit of a funk today that just wouldn’t lift, despite it being my favourite weather. Sadly I didn’t get to enjoy it as a result. Sometimes it is just so hard to pull yourself out of a hole that you’ve dug for no tangible reason. Prepared food for the Erko crew for dinner and was pleased to hear Millie’s newest phrase “so, what’s the situation?” which she recycled when Heather arrived at the door to visit late in the afternoon. I found a box of china animals in the storeroom, Wade Whimsies from the 1950s or 60s which she enjoyed playing with. Sleep was elusive while my mind tried to solve the corona virus situation single-handed. 

February 9, 2020 

Dav, Millie and Louis left early and I attacked the grate in front of the garage which had filled with soil and as a result the garage was flooding. Managed to drag the grates off and then used a hoe to pull out all the dirt and throw it into the barrow. After that I lost some enthusiasm for the garage work I was planning to do, as I was soaking wet. Went to a movie with John in the arv, Bombshell, which was interesting from a historical point of view but not a masterpiece. The movie stopped three times due to power outages which didn’t help. When we got out there had been a call from Justin next door, a fact that worried me, rightly as it turned out. The Eucalyptus nicholii had crashed onto the street library and the grass verge, severing the power lines at my house and Justin’s, as well as our NBN and internet. It had been there 45 years so it was very sad as it protected my front windows from the northern sun in summer. The SES informed me that they wouldn’t come if I had been in China recently, so clearly they don’t trust the government’s quarantine policies. Live power lines in the front garden wasn’t enough to get Endeavour Energy here in a hurry so I hope I don’t go out to find a black figure attached to the wires. I made the worst pumpkin soup ever, can’t cook when stressed apparently. 

February 10, 2020 

Restricted now as I have no power, no water, no phone and no internet. SES is cutting down the tree, but into huge unmovable sections that 3 men couldn’t lift, and the council informs me they won’t help with removing the wood piled on the grass verge, let alone what’s on my property. They’ve turned off the water as the tree crashed onto the metre area, but it will be back on when they finish, unlike the power as I am in a queue for that. NBN and Optus can’t do the phone and net till the power’s on so there we are. I am at the library waiting while my phone charges as I’ve spent so much time, hours, ringing all the services. The SES opined that the drought had killed most of the tree roots and it was a moral to fall in the first wind. 

February 11, 2020 

John in his usual calm and methodical way decided that the only way to clear up the wood was to tear off all the leaves by hand and then saw up the branches, so by the end of the day we had just three piles of branches looking like stork nests and two green bins chockers with leaves. If I had been in charge I’d still be standing there wondering what to do. Of course the huge logs are a different matter, but I’ve decided to rename them ‘garden feature pieces’ and they can sit where they fell. In between I took up Michelle’s offer to put all my freezer contents into her spare, and luckily empty, fridge. So I did that and fortuitously most of the important stuff was still frozen, while the lesser things like bread, berries, cakes etc could be used by them as they were already thawing. We thought we were going to spend another night with candles but right at the end of the day Endeavour Energy arrived and spent a couple of hours redoing the power lines. The boss man looked up at Arvind’s tree and said ‘I wouldn’t want to sleep under that’ so I explained that I had moved into the back bedroom for just that reason. I put the point to them that in the old days when government controlled electricity, crews could be moved around to places where there were issues but now that they are all different companies we just wait. They agreed. I think I hate privatisation more than any of the other myriad problems government and the markets have conspired to cause. Come the revolution, I’ll be putting them all back in government hands so be warned Gladys! 

February 12, 2020 

Someone has put a hex on my house apparently and when I went to get the vacuum cleaner out of the front bedroom the lock had mysteriously collapsed so I can’t get into the room. I’ve doused it in WD40 but so far no luck, the key just won’t move it, so I swept instead. I will be mightily pissed off if I have to get a locksmith. Waited in for the NBN man who was booked to come between 8 and 12 this morning, but didn’t. Just before 12 NBN rang to ask if the power was on, they’d been notified of this fact by both phone and email yesterday and that’s when the appointment was organised. No I will not scream or swear, I know there are more important issues, but patience is wearing thin on the ground here. Now I’m stuck at home again tomorrow when I had plans for this week, of which not one has materialised. Finding it impossible to get Dark Emu, our next book group volume, in any of the four library services I have access to. Great that it’s popular. Then John just rang to say he has bought it, even though he’s already read it, because he feels he will want to reread it at some time, so problem solved. 

February 13, 2020 

I am wondering what sort of person, driving a garbage truck, reverses at speed into a passing jogger, gets out to see what he has hit, rolls the body out of the way and continues his garbage run? I think I make a lot of allowances for people’s upbringing, life experiences, IQ etc in any circumstance I come across, but still I am constantly amazed when people do these things, despairing actually. Started rereading The Coming Plague, the 768 page epic which I bought about 1995 or so and which is still the bible for understanding plagues, new diseases, pandemics, the interaction between humans and animals resulting in disease and the functions of the World Health Organisation and the Centre for Disease Control amongst many related topics. One chapter describes the issues which cause epidemics to be much more serious in cities than in villages, relating incidences going back to the Roman Empire and before and listing many disease outbreaks in China over the centuries which resulted in massive population drops, casualties in the millions. The story of the sudden emergence of the Ebola virus in Zaire in the mid-1970s has a Joseph Conrad-esque feel and is as scary as a novel. The first people to see the outbreak were Belgian nuns who were running a remote hospital with very limited or no medical training and no doctor within cooee. When told by radio communication to put up a ‘quarantine cordon’ they just strung bandages around the trees with signs not to come in, brave women but most died as a result. No sign of the NBN man, no opportunity to go out in case he comes, but tomorrow is an appointment up the coast with the Prof so Saturday is looking like the first opportunity, groan. 

February 14, 2020 

It is a week of disasters. Apart from the tree, now a huge stain has appeared on one ceiling so a roof leak has occurred. I wasn’t going to claim on insurance for anything but it looks as if I will have to now. Then Millie’s portrait fell off the wall, bringing down a smaller picture of her that was beneath it, but I can fix that myself. Then John rang to say his car had broken down in Lane Cove on his way to seeing me and had to be towed to our lovely mechanic at Castle Hill. The NRMA man was interesting and dropped J at my house on the way, which he didn’t have to do. They had deep and meaningful discussions about religion on the way, he is a Baha’i and it seemed to John that the values they discussed: internationalism, lack of discrimination on the basis of sex, colour, race etc, support of minorities, world cooperation and peace, were pretty much aligned with our views, except that we are without the god aspect. Anyway they swapped emails and phone numbers to keep up the conversation so whether we end up meeting him again remains to be seen. This morning we went to the mechanic’s to collect the disabled parking sticker from his car and Alex the mechanic said that he didn’t think it was a big deal so he could fix it on the spot. He charged $51 which was for the part and nothing for the half hour’s labour. This is the umpteenth time he’s done something like this and won’t be argued with. So Valentine’s Day was spent on a trip to Erina to see the Prof. I pointed out to John that I have seen him up there 15 times over 7 years and we have never taken the opportunity to stay a couple of nights at the beach while we were there. Except the first time, when Robert and Sue came with us, and we went back to their place overnight but I had to be at Windsor at 10am the next morning so it was hardly a relaxed break. We couldn’t stay anywhere this time because the NBN guy is due at 8 am Saturday. Anyway, the Prof said that my blood tests were slightly better than 6 months ago despite my stopping the medication, so he didn’t go crook about my doing so, which surprised me. He gave me a kiss as I left, the first time that’s happened!! Went on to Killcare and had some lunch before visiting Robert and Sue. He looks somewhat more frail and tired but apart from that was his usual funny self. Sue holds up magnificently. We departed before dinner as we didn’t want to add any pressure to her existence. 

February 15, 2020 

THE NBN MAN CAME AT 8AM AS PLANNED AND SAID: ‘I CANT FIX IT BECAUSE THE LINE IS DOWN AND IT NEEDS TWO MEN AND A CHERRYPICKER TRUCK’. Which is what I’ve been telling them all f*****g week by phone and email. He is the second NBN man to come and say the same thing. I despair of the stupidity. Despairing as well about human? nature after discussing with Arvind the truck driver who rolled the corpse out of the way and continued his garbage run. He countered with a story almost as bad in that it was premeditated. He is an electrical engineer and he got a new assistant, a young man with a recent degree from UNSW. He always has a number of phones so Arvind asked him why. He explained that he has a girlfriend but goes on dating sites, telling the unsuspecting girls that his car is in dock so he gets them to pick him up and suggests a walk in a park. His girlfriend follows in his car and robs the vehicle of cash or phones through a window which he has cleverly left open. Arvind told him how disgusted he was and when he told the assistant that he didn’t want to discuss anything with him again, apart from work, the guy appeared shocked. Beautiful Arvind was in my house to try to set up internet for me using his wifi, but try as he might the double brick of his place defeated it. How can these two people be part of the same human race? It was noted though that the country from which the thief originates is one which has been in chaos for decades and I guess as a result it is dog eat dog from birth. How lucky we are, we decided, to have grown up in different circumstances to the thief. 

February 16, 2020 

I decided to shop for ingredients for the ‘flexitarian’ week of recipes I saw in Good Living online, well a few of them at least. So I made for dinner a Salade Nicoise with fresh tuna and some of the eggs Sue gave me and plan to do some falafel stuffed mushrooms, a green bean dish cooked in coconut cream and some fish skewers later in the week. Managed to sort out a few more things for charity, including five lampshades which were taking up a  lot of room in the storeroom, plus  a folding camping chair and a box of china. Each dispersal gives me inordinate pleasure. The leaves on my beautiful healthy blueberry ash trees have become covered with a white powdery film which I assumed was some sort of powdery mildew, however when I asked Mr Google two different websites said it is common with this tree and to simply ignore it. Hard when the leaves are yellowing and the trees are looking mighty unhealthy, but I do remember how hard it was to treat when we got this fungus on wheat at the University farm so I guess some harsh sun will do the job when the weather goes back to usual. 

February 17, 2020 

NBN sent me an email saying that since my case was ‘now closed’ would I like to fill in a survey about my contact with them. Actually, no. No, I won’t do the survey and no, my case is far from closed. I can’t be bothered replying. Spent 1 hour and 45 minutes on the phone to GIO putting in the insurance claim for the watermarked ceiling, but once I got on the response was excellent. She asked what else was damaged and I mentioned that the garden tap now won’t stop dripping since it was hit and she replied that we need to get a plumber on to that quick smart, something I wasn’t even going to claim for. Then she pressed me for more, well I said 5 of the pavers were broken, no problem she replied, we’ll put that down. So all in all it was a time-consuming but successful call. Picked up my painting from the framer’s and asked the nearby locksmith how much it would cost to get the door to my spare bedroom opened, but beat a hasty retreat at $165! I bet a house burglar could get it done in a trice. 

Still bothering anyone who will listen with facts from the book The Coming Plague. Today’s beauty is that when Belgian, American and African doctors wrote a paper about the AIDS outbreak in Zaire in the early 1980s, 13 medical journals worldwide refused to print their research because…..the US epidemic was among gay men, so therefore it couldn’t be the same disease if it were occurring in heterosexuals, despite laboratory tests confirming that it was. The other widely known story is the neck and neck race between France and the US to find the causative agent of AIDS. The French scientists had the virus cultured but Robert Gallo in the US insisted that no, it was actually his leukaemia virus which was responsible. He asked the French for a sample of theirs and when the French published Gallo suddenly announced (wow, amazing) that the virus he had was identical, even though theirs was certainly not a leukaemia virus. The French suspected strongly that he had simply stolen the sample they had happily provided to him. As a result the two shared the Nobel prize, which should by all accounts have gone to the French team. 

February 18, 2020 

To overcome a generalised feeling that I have wasted my life (prompted by watching programs on my usual Monday night tv binge and seeing lots of professions that I probably could have done, but didn’t) I decided I had better go out and sod any NBN men who hadn’t notified me that they were coming. Went to Dural to put in my script for the 50,000 unit tablets of Vitamin D which the Prof prescribes. They need to be compounded and cost less there than at the Castle Hill equivalent, then off to Glenorie where I bumped into an old client with whom I remain friends on Facebook so we sat and chatted for a while. Back via Warrah, a Rudolph Steiner home and organic farm for people with intellectual disabilities, where I was able to get a few things I’d had trouble buying elsewhere. On the way home I got a call from the Optus guy to say that NBN will take up till the 28th to reinstall the downed cables, then arrived to find two of them up their ladders doing just that! Now I just need the connections man and we’re done. Praise be. 

It appears that the novel coronavirus may be even more novel than it first appeared. If people were in quarantine for almost the entire 14 day incubation period on the Diamond Princess and yet more are being found to be positive every day, then perhaps either the incubation period is much longer than was estimated or else it is able to be spread via air-conditioning, neither option is advantageous to control of the virus. Perhaps those that have been released from quarantine are still contagious at some level, a sobering thought. It’s looking more and more like a pandemic, despite eventual good moves from the governments of China and Australia. Being an island has benefits, but we are still welcoming people from countries where the health protections are sub-optimal. Time will tell. 

February 19, 2020 

Jeff the pest control man arrived at 6.45 am but I was actually dressed and waiting. No termites, yoohoo! But a very wet patch inside the roof just near the front door which will need attention. He was supposed to charge me $250 to get rid of the ants, which I had accepted, but decided to use a little tube of attractant/poison in just two spots and see how we go. If that fails he will come back and do more, but for the ant job today he charged nix. What is it with tradesmen, they either rip me off (rarely) or else give me unexpected bonuses (mostly). Met up with John at Renaissance and we lunched there, then went to the architectural photographic exhibition at the Museum of Sydney. Finished there in time to see the 4.40 session of Richard Jewell, the new Clint Eastwood movie. A lot to think about in this film which has echoes of the Lindy Chamberlain story and is wonderfully acted, particularly by the Jewell character and his lawyer. I need to read up some more on the story, there is a Vanity Fair article and a book which I hope to source. Bussed home to arrive just as the sun was setting with a red glow. 

February 20, 2020 

Asked Sue if some food would help matters and she said yes, it would, so I offered a couple of suggestions and was happy that she chose Neil Perry’s Massaman Curry, which I enjoy doing. It is the ridgy didge Muslim version with no onion or garlic to inflame the passions, but tastes amazing anyway with all the spices, peanuts and coconut. Also cooked a pot of Coconut and Spinach Dahl which is so good I could plunge my face into it. I kept a little back and had it for dinner with extra spinach and some tomatoes, mm-mm. The beauty of this recipe is that you can water it down and call it soup just as well. Sue’s brother is going up on Monday so he will take whatever I’ve made by then. It appears that Woolies may be cutting back on the organic Macro lines, so I was able to pick up lots of their frozen spinach and peas at a good price. My friend JanBert used to ask me what I was going to do with the pittance I’d saved by buying specials but it is ingrained in me to buy cheaply as long as quality isn’t compromised. I am still deep in The Coming Plague and it just gets better and better. 

February 21, 2020 

One of those days when I’d answered half a dozen emails and messages by 8 am, but hey who’s arguing about having friends? Went to the cake decorating shop and agonised over how I will do Millie’s cake but they were able to print the image I had emailed them to go on top of the cake, so now it is just a matter of working out how to do the rest. I will have a practice on a few ideas on Monday. Then out to the compounding pharmacy at Dural to get the 50,000 unit Vitamin D tablets made up, as ordered by the Prof. Dicky immune systems use a lot of Vitamin D apparently. Turned around to come home and fire engines were racing, police everywhere, one of whom indicated I had to turn around so as not to run over the fire hose running across the road. It turns out that the squash courts and fitness centre was up in flames (dangerous places fitness centres, so I never go there). What to do? It’s an awfully long detour if I can’t go that way so I decided to wait it out at Wild Pear just up the road. Had a rose milkshake and then they said that the date and orange scones were just cooked so I weakened……but I am blaming the police. It was delicious but had to serve as both morning tea and lunch. Cooked some Harissa Eggplant and a batch of Chocolate Brownies to send up to Sue. 

February 22, 2020 

Thinking about the coronavirus (who isn’t?) and wondering whether it’s possible that it can live in the body asymptomatically like TB or Herpes. It seems odd to me that it’s a new virus yet many people are having hardly any symptoms while for others it’s fatal, and not only the elderly as we’ve been told. Usually a new virus cuts a swathe through almost everyone as there is no resistance in the community, but if it can secrete itself away and wait for the person’s immune system to labour, due to another illness or lack of food or stress or whatever…..then we could be in knee deep do-do because these people would be in the community as time bombs. If its spread continues, which I am sure it will, I think I will get the flu vaccine early as it should give limited protection to something of the same family, theoretically at least. 

On another issue, I am waiting for a man to come to clean the gutters. Sounds simple enough, but the chap who was given the job rang yesterday and said he’d done his back in and would be sending his offsider instead. Later I remembered he had told me that he had ‘a couple of young fellows’ who work with him but that ‘I do all the roof work’. So now I’m imagining the offsider splattered on the concrete at worst and doing a really bad job at best, but Arvind has a much better view of my roof than I have so I’ve asked him to keep an eye out for what’s going on. However he’s in and out today and they may not coincide. Somehow I’ve got a feeling that maybe the boss isn’t sick at all and this is a way to fit in a few extra jobs, but I may be totally wrong there, so we shall see. I’ve booked a plumber for Monday to repair the bent and dripping tap at the front, damaged by the tree, as I haven’t yet had the GIO assessor come, but they did say I could get urgent work done and they would pay the invoice so I booked the lovely fellow who did my kitchen tap a couple of weeks ago. I am a tradesman’s dream at the moment, one trade after another, but hopefully GIO will come to the party for the plumbing and ceiling repainting. POSTSCRIPT: The gutter boss man came because he ‘woke up feeling fine’ so my worries and night terrors were in vain. He discovered two broken tiles and replaced them for me as part of the job, though I tipped him for that, so pleased was I that none of my worst nightmares had befallen me. Now I’ve added a gutter, roof and pressure cleaner man to my endless list of tradies to contact when things go wrong, which they are doing at an alarming rate right now. 

February 23, 2020 

Today we went to the Opera House for a special subscribers event Behind the Scenes at the Opera where we got to try on costumes, watch makeup being applied, watch wigs being made and ask questions about stage managing, conducting, singing, direction etc. It takes 40 hours to make one wig by hand and they make them for each new opera. The hand embroidery on the costumes was stunning and I got to wear a few examples. It reminded me why the sub is so darned expensive and I will stop bitching about it (for a while anyway). It was a lovely afternoon which we capped off with a ferry ride to Watsons Bay and fish and chips in the park there. 

I haven’t spoken here about the murder of Hannah Clarke and her three children a few days ago, simply because the appalling nature of their deaths is outside my ability with words. But we must realise that it is as a result of pushback against the idea that a man no longer owns his wife and his children, after thousand of years of that being so. Fred West in England who raped and murdered 12 young women including his own children apparently told them ‘I made you, so I can do anything I like with you’ and that is fundamentally the view behind these crimes, the rights of men over those of women and children. Bettina Arndt’s children are both sons and you have to wonder at their attitudes with the sorts of ‘male rights’ lessons they are learning from their mother, but hopefully they will see things differently. I can only beg that her award is reversed, a possibility which seems more and more likely given the public outcry. 

February 24, 2020 

Last night John’s 90 year old cousin Kevin rang and invited us to morning tea at his ‘priests and brothers retirement village’ at Randwick, which I am sure has a fancy name but I don’t know what that is. We had attended his 90th in Wallan in Victoria last year but the order has moved him to Sydney for easy access to medical treatment. It was lucky that although we each had an early morning appointment, both of those went to plan and enabled us to get there right on the appointed time of 10.30. Two other Sydney cousins Gai and Brian came as well and it was the first time in 12 years that I’d met them, such is the polarised nature of his family. Kev is planning to come to watch football on Friday nights with John once the season starts. My appointment was with the plumber and it was lucky I went ahead with it as he dug down and found a rupture in the pipe a foot underground where it was leaking water, as well as the bent pipe and drip which I thought he was fixing. So now I have a taller, more practical, non-leaking, non-dripping garden tap and hopefully my good friends GIO will reimburse me for that. Now my computer battery seems to have gone as it only charges up to 4% and goes no higher, what was I saying about all my money going out to tradesmen at the moment? Funnily I got a long letter from a NSW politician whom I don’t remember writing to, but seeing the reply was about something I am very interested in, I can only assume that I did in fact write. 

February 25, 2020 

Cake making day! I did a mud cake for Millie’s birthday because it needs a dense cake to hold fondant and they don’t like fruit cake, much as it pains me to report that. I’m told young people don’t go for it and it seems that’s the case, as weddings and other celebrations all seem to have the dreaded chocolate mud, but at least this one’s caramel. The cake decorating shop where I buy my supplies and get advice told me the trick to making a flat topped cake for icing: start it at 120 degrees C and then gradually increase it to 130, 140 etc so it doesn’t dome in the middle…..and it worked, that cake’s tall but as flat as a pancake. Now for the icing later in the week. Dav asked all the class, so as not to discriminate, and 22 kids are coming along with their parents, plus us and Louis’s family from Queensland, in a unit, should be fun. I offered to do a Valium cake but haven’t heard back. 

We have got out of epidemics really cheaply in recent years, HIV excepted, but I am not so sure that applies this time. It seems a mordant factor that the church in South Korea, which is the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak there, is a doomsday cult. A senior health official in Daegu, the city that lies at the centre of South Korea’s outbreak, confessed to being a follower of the controversial doomsday church cult only after testing positive for the virus, so 50 other high ranking health officials have needed to be quarantined. They believe that Jesus will return soon and take only 144,000 people to heaven, so a lot of us will be left behind to manage climate change, environmental degradation, disease, wars etc I guess. The way this thing’s going he might get them in one hit, but there are 250,000 in the cult, so some must be secret unbelievers. We could do a lot worse in terms of epidemics. In the 1970s an apparently harmless squirrel monkey virus infected other primates in a Boston Primate Research Centre and turned out to be an extraordinary cancer-causing Herpes which killed the monkeys there within weeks from a strange contagious lymphoma. The virus was 100% fatal to any other primate which caught it, other than the original host animal species. The virus was airborne and terrified researchers as a squirrel monkey simply had to breathe near any other type of monkey to cause death from cancer in five weeks. Now if that one had got out of the lab…….. 

February 26, 2020 

Woke up fine, breakfasted, watched the 7am news, then started to feel very seedy indeed. I lay down and slept from 9 till 11, then proceeded with my day. While shopping at Castle Mall I half filled a trolley with fruit and veg and then had to alert the staff that I was sick and needed to abandon it. Hopefully they put the goods back on the shelves because I wasn’t well enough to go back. The rest of the day was pretty much written off and I had to email Mary and cancel our lunch date in the city tomorrow. They are only here from NZ till Saturday and I don’t have any time to reschedule, so that’s it for seeing her this visit. John came up to work on the street library repair (if the GIO come to the party I will pay him for this, but so far no GIO assessor has contacted me but I appreciate that they are busy after the storm). John got another nasty communication from guess who, deriding him for going off to university to do architecture at age 53 (what, 25 years ago and still aggrieved?) leaving the family with insufficient ready money. So much for the nice family event last month, clearly it was only the presence of others that kept it civil. I don’t know why I bother, but of course I do know why he does, he’s living in hope of a change in attitude but also knowing it will never happen, poor lad. 

February 27, 2020 

Headed up to Castle Mall and bought the same fruit and veg that I abandoned yesterday, plus a bit. Hope I didn’t infect the last lot with a 24 hour virus as I am fine today. I complained to the owner, whom I deal with a lot, that the mint wasn’t very fresh and he gave it to me for half price, but it pains me to buy it at any price since I managed to kill off my plants at home by spraying with my vinegar and water ant-killer solution in order to kill the big green grubs which were eating it. It killed the grubs alright and the plants as well within an hour or two. John is working on the repair of the street library and finding it somewhat difficult whilst I am making the decorations for Millie’s cake, fondant snowflakes in press out moulds. First the springs kept popping out of the two larger size moulds, then to my horror I discovered that I’d given my whole collection of small paintbrushes to John when I was cleaning out the garage two weeks ago and needed one to apply silver sparkle to said snowflakes. I was forced to use a pastry brush and so it didn’t give me near the result I was hoping for. The world is going to hell in a handbasket and I am fart-arseing about with glitter on snowflakes, but I guess it keeps disaster and death somewhat out of mind. Iwould have more faith in the WHO if they still had active teams of scientists on the ground and testing labs and whatever, but now I think it’s more of a giant health bureaucracy than anything else. When asked yesterday why he hadn’t declared a pandemic when it clearly is one by their own definition, the head replied ‘because we don’t want unnecessary panic’. Aah, okay I shan’t panic till I’m told to by Geneva. Sorted. 

February 28, 2020 

Last night Sue’s brother rang to let me know that he is going to Killcare on Monday and is able to take food if I have any ready. My first thought was ‘aaagh’ because I am on cake icing duty today, then Millie’s party tomorrow and Luke’s art exhibition Sunday, so cooking time is limited. But I said yes, figuratively crossed myself for inspiration and decided to cancel the exhibition opening and go later on, as it’s on till the end of March. But then I realised I was a dope as my Crockpot can work night shift if necessary. So I raced up to Aldi (it was late night shopping, something I never avail myself of but exceptions need to be made). Midnight found me chopping and dicing to make a Crockpot piled high with lamb shanks, sweet potato, lentils, dates, nuts and spices. Robes will love it I think. Dinner tonight was a pasta bake so the rest could be frozen to make a second dish, so I soon recognised that the time frame was doable after all. 

The cake went ahead more easily than anticipated, my only self criticism being that the snowflakes I made yesterday were a mite bigger and clunkier than I’d imagined in situ, but four-year-olds won’t pick it. I have such a collection of cake icing paraphernalia that I used to use often for birthday cakes for children and others who came to the meal service at Windsor, but now that’s ended I rarely use it. Carly arrived just as I finished the cake and later we went to book group which was a small but sympatico gathering. 

February 29, 2020 

Headed in to Erko with gifts and cake in hand and met up with Louis’s mum, sister and nephew who flew down from Sunrise Beach in Queensland for Millie’s party. At 2 pm the barrage of little people arrived, 22 in all, accompanied by parent/s and the odd sibling. Then arrived the Elsa-dressed entertainer (is that the real Elsa? one little boy queried). She sang with them, blew bubbles, made ‘snow’ out of some chemical or other, played games and finally did some cracker face-painting, all this spanning two hours, after which I was exhausted from doing very little. John asked me if Millie will remember the day as she grows up and my answer was ‘sadly, it is doubtful’. But there will be photos, hundreds I suspect. We decided to go back to plan A and go to Luke’s exhibition tomorrow, cooking at night to be ready for Monday. 

Peter Hartcher has done it again and I am sick and tired of his mind-reading. His column today pretty much mirrored discussions I had yesterday with my daughter, and earlier with John, regarding the WHO and their tardy action in calling a pandemic. Perhaps he has my house bugged, but it has to stop. It is reported that a dog has caught coronavirus and while this may eventually prove untrue, it could also mean that dogs are the mysterious vector between bats and humans that they have been looking for in China. That doesn’t bear thinking about for pet owners if or when it starts here in earnest. 

March 1, 2020 

Saw Carly off back to Canberra before taking a leisurely drive to Blackheath, with a stop at Patisserie Schwarz in Wentworth Falls for the obligatory cherry crumble slice for me and fruit tart for John, washed down with a pot of Irish Breakfast. At Blackheath I found a world globe in an antique shop which was closing down and had 50% off everything. John had been looking for one for a while, just to grab when a particular country is mentioned in a book or on the teev, enabling a quick location check. Off to the Heritage Centre at Govett’s Leap for Luke Kelly’s art exhibition, after having sent our apologies on Friday night. I had told John not to let me buy anything, but hadn’t counted on his falling in love with a dear little painting of two baby fairy wrens, which he bought as the first sale of the exhibition. Then at Gleebooks he saw the Macquarie Atlas of Indigenous Australia, completing the trifecta of pieces he took home today. Later he asked what would happen if we both got the coronavirus together and his will then had no executor, no doubt considering the new purchases in the light of current events. I told him we’d have a few days notice to attend to that possibility which seemed to satisfy him. I think a few people might be heading to their solicitors in coming weeks, as well as stocking up on canned chick peas that is. One friend has already told me her husband is (unnaturally or naturally?) very, very afraid of catching the virus. I would far from relish that possibility, but be more concerned for the young whose world seems to be crumbling in so many different ways. The fatality rate for the under 9s is about 1% while it is 15% for the elderly so perhaps it will eventually improve the bottom line by ridding the country of all those pesky pensioners? 

March 2, 2020 

Up early to ferry the food for Sue and Robert to her mum for pickup by brother Martyn. I had last night got a late night message from Tania wanting to know if I would come on a taste testing adventure to Blacktown, sampling a local pasticceria’s cannola with a view to ordering them for a big party she is planning (and I mean big). So we sat down to five of same, one of each flavour, tasting a small sample of each and taking away the remainder. Although they were certainly crisp and varied, we decided that perhaps the fillings were made on the cheap and a better source could be found. Blacktown hasn’t seen me for about 40 years and likely won’t see me again for a goodly while without a specific reason, but it is certainly a multi-cultural hub where I will go if I need a Pakistani salwar kameez or my eyebrows threaded. At first I thought this was to bulk them up but now I know it is to slim them down, a service nature is providing for me unpaid. We retreated to my place for a bit of a fridge raid lunch, just a hurriedly made repeat of the Green Counterbalance Salad of lettuce, watercress, mint, fennel, green apple and onion, which I did for book group last week and can’t get enough of at the moment. I had expected the computer man with a new battery in tow between 4 and 5 but at 6 he rang to say the battery hadn’t arrived in his post box, which didn’t matter particularly but would have been handy to know at 4. 

March 3, 2020 

A shock message from Carl to say that our friend Jackie from Caves Beach died yesterday. Last weekend she had planned a trip to Sydney to meet up with city friends for a ‘coffee day’ as she always called it, a drop-in over many hours at a venue in Lidcombe where people could turn up for a little while or for longer. Unfortunately it coincided with Millie’s birthday so I wasn’t planning to go, but then on Wednesday came an email from her saying she had fallen over in the middle of the night and Carl had called an ambulance, but it just required a check over and 6 hours later she was home. The email to all her friends said in capitals DON’T RING, YOU HAVE ALL THE NECESSARY INFORMATION NOW, so I abided by that and hoped to see her in a month when she planned to reschedule the event to celebrate her 70th. Now we meet on Friday to celebrate her funeral instead. I have no idea yet if the fall contributed to her death or if it was just the cancer she had fought for so long, even travelling to Latvia to join a program of immunotherapy which did wonders for her for a few years, but sadly wore off gradually after that. Still, she had been given only months to live before going to Latvia, so she bought herself another few years by taking Rigvir, astounding her oncologist. Vale dear wise perceptive Jackie, she was always there to be a trusted confidante to her friends, but there no longer. 

March 4, 2020 

Last night I went with Carol and Jack to see the film A War of Compassion about the life of Rev. Bill Crews of the Exodus Foundation. He is a man of incredible energy, compassion and love. Also he is a driven man and I think the film showed that his work with the homeless is not a choice, but a compulsion, an addiction almost? Does this make him some sort of ‘saint’ or martyr perhaps, as he has never really made a life outside his work? I am interested in the forces that drive this very complex man. It appears the work is not an option for him and will remain so for as long as he breathes. 

I am both bemused and amused to read that there was a skirmish in the toilet paper aisle in Woolworths at Parramatta involving a woman pulling a knife. Police were called, six of them, and the store barricaded each end of the aisle and were handing toilet paper to customers over the barrier. How thin is our veneer of sophistication and savoir faire. Brought up with newspaper squares in an outdoor toilet I can’t see myself getting into a fight over toilet paper somehow, jam perhaps, dairy products maybe, but loo rolls? Nah, that’s just common. Sue went shopping and had rice on her list. In the large supermarket at Erina she found one lonely 5 kilo pack of (brown) rice and, unable to shop at leisure while coping with a sick husband, bought it. This is with a handful of cases of coronavirus, imagine how it will be if/when the pandemic hits with a vengeance. Apparently the supermarket runs are worse in some suburbs than in others, Cherrybrook, Pennant Hills, Chatswood were named as particularly bad. Anyone waiting to buy cherries in a fruit shop behind a Chinese lady checking each cherry one by one will understand. On the basis of what we’ve seen we will need to lock our home against grocery thieves who will only take our jewellery incidentally if it is in their way. 

March 5, 2020 

So ScumMo has finally heard me yelling at the TV and telling him to quarantine arrivals from South Korea and Italy. The right time to do that has come and gone I’m afraid, we already have people who’ve come here from those two countries and have tested positive. They started off so well, but then lost courage to continue. It is easier for a wealthy island nation to quickly bring in travel rules to stem this outbreak at the border, putting returning citizens in quarantine and refusing entry to tourists, but they squandered that chance. Now I can’t even buy a kilo of flour to bake a cake. 

On a more important note, who will send me emails and texts now that begin ‘hi sister’? Who will counsel and advise John not to give in when he is monstered by an errant relative? What a philosophical giant you were Jackie Patricia, with skills learned in spite of little education but with a lot of scholarship in the school of hard knocks. I am suffering that same lack of understanding that always comes when someone you love dies, where has she gone? I guess that’s why we have funerals, they are proof that the person is there, in that box at the front, and they are never ever going to walk through your door again. I am doing my best to continue as normal but so far it feels like I’m walking through honey. 

March 6, 2020 

Jackie’s funeral today and it was one of those that did absolutely nothing to ease the heartache, but many in the packed church, standing room only, were part of the congregation so I am sure they felt differently. The minister, or priest as she called herself, was a bit of a control freak (6 minutes each for a family member and Jackie’s two closest friends, but no time restriction for the priest to bang on and on and on). The whole shebang was a very long two hours where we heard stories about little leaves, big leaves and autumn leaves, which drop softly onto the earth. In case we missed the point she cleverly explained that the little leaves were young people, the big leaves were big strong people and the autumn leaves were grey-haired people like herself who drop softly onto the ground, ‘that means they diiiee’ she said ‘and that’s all very natural and as god planned it’. Helpfully she had brought along a shoe box covered in red cello and was able to produce the appropriate leaves as she yammered on. Oh please god I prayed, save me from this woman who would presumably have been a fair age when she became a priest and must surely have been a pre-school teacher before that. Plus she had a snappy streak (where’s the banner! I thought we had a banner! undertakers come to the front!). So I spent most of the funeral deciding whether to sit in the car or see it through in case it improved, sadly I chose the latter. Not a speck of you came through Jacks. 

John got another noxious message which, while being abusive and accusatory, simultaneously asked for money for school camp fees and swimming lessons, plus a design and drawings for a studio to be built on the new block of land. How he will respond without Jackie saying ‘no John, you just cannot reward bad behaviour’ I have no idea. 

March 7, 2020 

Survived a 5am alarm to get the 7.05 train from Central. Almost empty in First Class, but I’m not sure if the early hour or the Coronavirus scare was responsible, certainly the least passengers I’ve ever seen on that route. Passing Canberra Gaol I noticed the large grounds, with trees and fields but not a soul visible. Seeing it is surrounded by high fences and razor wire I don’t see why the poor bastards can’t be outside enjoying some sun and nature, but the way we treat prisoners is appalling in most respects. No wonder so many come out worse than when they went in. John packed me some of his sultana cake which was a lovely morning tea on the train and I was met at Canberra Station. Later we went to the Spy exhibition at the National Archives and I saw a covertly taken photo of Laurie Aarons taken in the street amongst the historical photos. A woman looking over my shoulder asked as a joke ‘can you see anyone you know?’ and I was able to reply that yes, I did. Loved seeing the spy paraphernalia such as the tie with microphone and the book with embedded camera, both used by ASIO agents in the 1950s-60s, but so primitive by today’s standards. Carly told me she needed a pack of toilet paper so we tried the supermarkets but no chance, then walking home we called in at the Caltex servo on the offchance and got 30 rolls for $14 on special, the only size available and the biggest pack she had ever bought. Dinner at Pilot, highly recommended by her winemaker friends, but while the food was inventive and delicious, the portions were tiny, tiny. Our wine serve was so small I thought they were offering me a taste, and that at $20 a glass. Ordering two mains and two sides to share, the waitress informed us ‘that won’t be enough for three people’ and she was right. We repaired afterwards to Frugii for the best icecream in the world, frankincense in my case, omg it was stunning. Messina is the best icecream available in Sydney but Frugii is another world above, just eight flavours at any time, changing daily, each with a single natural ingredient for flavouring such as cherry, pear, white chocolate, caramel. Died and gone to heaven. 

  March 8, 2020 

Got Jackie’s story in my inbox this morning, written late December to be read at her funeral. It was discovered on her computer on the morning of the funeral but for unexplained reasons they decided not to read it out. The reasons given were that it was long and had some typos, neither of which is a valid excuse from where I stand. It is just inexplicable. She talks about going for the Public Service exam just before she turned 15 at the family’s insistence and coming ’22nd out 0f many thousands’. She was offered a job in an office and her mother wrote to the school the next day to say she would be finishing immediately and starting work the following Monday, much to the horror of her teachers. We had never discussed this but her experience mirrors mine, except I had just turned 14 and hadn’t sat for any exam. There was so much more in her document that I am sure many people wouldn’t have known about, such as being told after her 50th birthday party that she was adopted and her sister wasn’t, which explained the preferential treatment her sister always had and which seemed inexplicable. She left out the fact that she collapsed and was admitted to a psychiatric centre for six weeks, but did include the story of going to her birth father’s funeral and remotely identifying her brothers for the first time as the pallbearers. I hope they were at the funeral, but have no way of knowing, not wanting to ask Carl on the day. Not having her hurts more keenly than I’d expected. 

We spent the day at Canberra Zoo and it has been extended and has more animals than when we last went. Asked for my three favourite animals on the day I had to nominate four: white lions, tigers, black and white Colobus primates and meerkats, though the runner-up list was huge. I’d hoped to handle some snakes but the reptile handling opportunity was at 1pm and we were at the opposite end of the zoo so we gave it a miss. Dined royally at Blackfire, delicious Angus the Bull Cabernet Sauvignon is one I will try to track down and the food certainly made it a ‘must return’. The bill was half of what we paid last night and the wineglasses filled amply. 

March 9, 2020 

Up early for the Canberra balloon festival and so was everyone else in this city it seems. Beautiful to see mass hot air balloons crossing the lake and then to see the huge Tyrannosaurus rex and Skywhale on the ground and to marvel at their size. I’ve never been up in one but I’m sure it would be quite an experience. We all went to The Cupping Room in the city for an amazing breakfast afterwards with Potato, Leek and Jalapeno Fritters winning out, just ahead of the Mushrooms, Goat Cheese and Caramelised Peach on Sourdough. We shared one of each between the three of us and it was more food in total than we had at Pilot for dinner the other night for a fraction of the price. Do they do bad food in Canberra? They must somewhere I guess. Carly and I went to IKEA where we sourced a pair of cane armchairs for her deck as a very late housewarming present. On the way home we had to walk through Braddon and Frugii has some of the frankincense icecream left…..so we were obliged to partake. 

March 10, 2020 

Got in late last night after a good trip from Canberra on the train. Danish had driven me to the station and as usual called me Aunt Maureen, though occasionally it is Maureen Auntie. He is such a sweet person and apart from his not liking cats I can’t find fault in him. Today John had a routine morning appointment with Bob who was so late that John fell asleep in the waiting room. I had counselled John not to mention the dreaded virus at all because I’m sure Bob is sick of hearing questions about it. So true it turned out, but as he was leaving Bob volunteered that ‘this virus will be the death of me, I am run off my feet’, though it was the worried well rather than the sick who were taking his time. I spent most of the day on hucking the storeroom (in haste now, before the virus gets me I’m telling myself) and was able to half fill the bin with old receipt books, dirty paper items, unwanted metal tent poles and the like. I found my 1995 diary, written every day till Karl’s death in the early morning after Mardi Gras, just the same as Jackie, and then abandoned for the rest of that year. I immediately went out and bought a black kitten then, my beautiful Isis, because the risk of infection from animals had been too great to have one in the house all the time he was sick, but no kittens will be bought this time. 

March 11, 2020 

Went to Castle Towers to see Dark Water and we were both blown away by it. The storyline, the acting and the filming were as good as they could have been and it was interesting at the end to discover that some of the ‘actors’ were real people affected by Du Pont’s pollution in West Virginia. Of course we now know that this wasn’t limited to that area and that almost every creature on the planet, including 99% of Americans, have PFAS or PFOA chemicals in their bloodstreams. These chemicals pass on to the next generation, and the next and the next, no-one is currently able to tell how many generations will be affected. For a complete change of pace we went in the evening to the City Recital Hall to watch Xavier de Maistre playing his harp with the Brandenburg Orchestra. Loved that they played the first movement of Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor, Paul Dyer now at the organ instead of the harpsichord, but to my mind the piece was played more than a touch too slowly. However the Vivaldi pieces were wonderful and high spirited. It occurs to me that the CRH people are the most musically educated audiences around, never a soul clapping in the wrong place. The full house went wild over Xavier and incidentally I noticed, as is always the case there, many of the women wear a few thousand dollars on their backs. The young woman next to John wore the most beautiful silk dress in a pale green floral, but I resisted asking who designed it, now I wish I had. Got home absolutely buggered but worth it for such a day. 

March 12, 2020 

I think I deal with some things better by getting angry rather than scared or nervous, some examples for starters: 1. How about the fact that the US had a Department of Homeland Security Pandemic Preparedness team in place. They were the people who understood best how epidemics and public health works. Then Trump said that ‘as a businessman I didn’t like it when people were just sitting around’, so he defunded them. Ahem, firemen ‘just sit around’. 2. At the CDC the head can’t speak unless Mike Pence sees everything he wants to say first. The CDC has been financially gutted under Trump. 3. I just paid $40 for the last bottle of hand sanitiser at my local chemist, the same bottle I’d bought for John before Christmas for $18, but the chemist just shrugged when I pointed it out. 4. The same pharmacy is selling ‘eco-friendly herbal hand sanitiser’ for $12.99, with no apparent anti-viral or even anti-bacterial ingredient that I could see. Once again the chemist pointed to the label and said ‘look, it says it works on viruses’, when I asked which particular ingredient was anti-viral. It was selling out. Capitalism, you’ve gotta love it. I guess it’s more healthy to be angry, at least you are inclined to do something rather than falling into a slump. Making a curry for Sue and Robert, he likes them and it’s very different to the last one, so stuff the virus this afternoon. 

March 13, 2020 

Wow, Friday the 13th is living up to its reputation. Where to start? I just sat through ScumMo’s press conference and my eyes were rolling back in my head at its idiocy. (I wish I’d known it was in Parra, I’d have seriously considered demonstrating just as a single person, sometimes that catches more attention than a crowd). But anyway, missed opportunity, though I might have ended up in the watch house if I’d been close enough to him. I have learned to tell though when he is lying or evading or exaggerating or understating…his mouth is open…boom tish. But what a scatty, disorganised, muddled, shambolic address it was. We are getting a lot of local transmission so we close down events over 500, but not tomorrow lest the PM looks like a goose for going to the football. Could he please catch it there? No, be careful what you wish for as we’d then get a bigger goose, his deputy. 

Interestingly, John who has faced death numerous times over the last three years with great equanimity has decided he definitely doesn’t want to go out with coronavirus. He rang yesterday to suggest we start limiting our social interactions to the necessary (there goes La Traviata on the Harbour, blubber) and has even cancelled his very first football night of the season with the execrable Rafe. We were/are going out to lunch for St Patrick’s Day with his ex-priestly mates next week, the first time the partners have been included. It was moved from the Irish pub at Ryde to a yacht club somewhere to enable us to be somewhat spaced but I suspect even that may now be cancelled. Then we had a play later in the week at the Belvoir. I had suggested having a couple over for afternoon tea next week but now I don’t know whether to invite them or not. Perhaps my anger is prophylactic as I haven’t yet succumbed to much fear of the virus but it could be just around the corner, as John’s wasn’t here two days ago. But the quote of all time was at the end of the conversation “If I died there would be no-one to finish the street libraries” and no, it was not a joke. 

March 14, 2020 

Martyn, Sue’s brother, rang to say he will be able to pick up food on Tuesday, and ended with ‘and that cake last week was really lovely’, so I took the hint and made some date and walnut slices and a raspberry coconut slice, some of that one will stay here though as I am particularly partial to it. I still have lots of baking supplies to get through, but I understand flour is now restricted so I might need to do a hunt for some soon. I rang the bakery where I buy my bread to put a couple of loaves aside today but it was all sold out. Had a good long chat with Deborah this morning and then I was sent a piece by Dr Dan Suan, an immunologist of renown at Westmead Hospital, asking people to have minimal contact with each other and to ‘cancel unnecessary things’ in order to slow the virus. Just before I sent this message around to contacts I got an email that our St Patrick’s Day lunch at a yacht club on Tuesday has been cancelled, a good move I think considering one attendee is on dialysis and two have lymphoma! I think we need to make judgments sensibly one day at a time, weighing up the dangers to ourselves, and more importantly to susceptible others, about every event. Life was so simple in December, but hang on, we were in the middle of bushfires then, so no, not so simple at all. Father Rod Bower just sent around a simple picture being circulated by doctors in Greece. It is a row of blackened matches, then one unburnt one pulled almost out of the row with the caption “The one who stayed away saved all the rest”. 

March 15, 2020 

When we were in Vanuatu for a couple of weeks many years ago we had a lovely unit on the edge of the harbour. From there I used to swim past the nearby kustom village where I would hear wonderful hymn singing first thing in the morning. Then one day at the end of a wharf nearby was a man in a little boat heading out to fish. I introduced myself and said that I would buy a fish or two if he came back with some. A few hours later he appeared at the door of our unit with a huge fish, but when I tried to pay he wouldn’t accept money initially because ‘I can’t charge you money because now you are my friend’. Eventually I convinced him that in our culture it would be very bad form if we didn’t pay him the full value he would have got from the local restaurateur to whom his fish are usually destined. From there the relationship developed to his bringing his wife and sons for afternoon tea, causing incredulous reactions from both the French owners and the local staff. Later they drove us around the island of Efate, stopping to meet various relatives in villages on the way, and admiring the pig at each home. I have remained in touch by letter and later Facebook with Alice, who speaks fluent English, French and Bislama. John is a bit more restricted language-wise so we don’t communicate at distance. Now this month Alice is standing for parliament in their elections for the electorate of Tongoa Islands. There are no women in Vanuatu’s parliament and I am so hoping Alice may be the first. I offered to contribute to her campaign, but only after she looked into the legality and propriety of foreign donations. This deeply religious woman has the motto ‘better to fail with honour than to succeed with lies’ so how could you not support her elevation to government? Anyway it was a problem to send her money, but eventually we worked it out. Her daughter-in-law is in Sydney at the moment, staying for some reason at a conservative Orthodox Jewish shule at Dover Heights, but not wanting to do the slog over there as things stand, I arranged to pay the money into the account of a Russian-sounding lady there, who then paid it to someone else who got it to John in Vanuatu by 3pm that day and he sent it off to the islands where Alice was campaigning. I think it must all have been on trust, I’ll pay you X when I get back and on and on from there, but Alice had it by dusk. Please do well Alice, your country certainly needs leadership right now. 

March 16, 2020 

Wow, it’s been a day of fast moving situations. First a call from the organisers of a luncheon I had been invited to attend at Parliament House on Friday, it has been cancelled after discussions with the Health Department, even though there were only about 100 people going. Then later a call from Carol to discuss cancellation of the Open House at Gerringong next weekend, something both John and I (to a lesser extent) were involved in. It came on the back of an email from Sonia to say that she is ill and had a coronavirus test today. All of this in the space of an hour so my head was spinning. I wonder if in a hundred years a text book will talk about the incredible response to the pandemic in certain Asian countries and the pathetically late and inadequate one in Europe, the US and Australia? Somehow on the basis of our piecemeal response so far it is looking more likely. The Asians, both Communist and capitalist, have a certain disciplined response to government edicts while we tend to take a more individualistic reaction. By the way, where are all the anti-vaxxers at the moment? Praying that they get a vaccine developed asap I suspect. So lunch is off tomorrow, play off Thursday night, lunch off Friday and open house off at the weekend. Thanks coronavirus, you just wrote that week off pretty effectively! 

March 17, 2020 

Love to say we went to the planned St Patricks Day lunch but of course it was cancelled, so I didn’t even remember that it was St Pats until I saw someone on the news in a silly hat. Instead, at 6.45 am I lined up with about 150 others at Woolworths for the early preferential shopping for pensioners and the disabled.  After showing my pension card I went in to find a very busy situation, with a security guard handing out single packs of toilet paper which wasn’t even on my list. But as far as rice, pasta, flour, hand sanitiser and much more, the shelves were already bare so clearly no stock had come in overnight. The whole thing wasn’t worth setting my alarm for. Martyn came dead on his appointed hour of noon to collect the food for Sue and Robert. Although I am here alone, I’ve often been cooking for three so things like rice and flour have been used more quickly than usual. I will need to cook with what I have in future, rather than planning a recipe and then trying to buy the ingredients. Martyn’s take on the coronavirus situation surprised me and I am still thinking it through. As a medical specialist I expected to hear what we’ve been hearing from all the others: get in fast with restrictions and closures to stop the spread. But no, his take is that the collapse of the economy which we will see if widespread shutdowns occur is much worse in the long run and that we should effect total home quarantine on the over 65s and then let the virus rip. This means no restrictions on travel, large groups, shops, cinemas etc in fact we should encourage them and build up the herd immunity (he didn’t mention herd immunity himself, but that is basically what he’s talking about). Then in 6 months or whatever, after which some vulnerable younger people have died, we let the oldies out and by then we will have enough hospital availability to treat them if and when they fall ill. I am glad I am not the one who has to make decisions like that. But he feels that if we continue as we are going ie following Italy, we will see poverty, homelessness and crime rise to epic proportions ‘they will be breaking into your house for food’ he surmised. 

March 18, 2020 

Decided to do a meat loaf for Sue and Robert and, not prepared to battle the big shops, I walked to the corner IGA and butcher. I know him because he’s been there a long time but I wouldn’t call myself a customer as I rarely buy meat anyway and not from him as his prices are way high, but quality no better than elsewhere. ‘Half a kilo of mince please’ I naively asked. He smiled and said that all the mince was gone by 9 am as there were 40 people waiting outside when he opened. ‘And I doubt I’ll have the meat to make any more for a couple of days’ he breezily said as I left, I suspect cheesed off that I never buy there. Touche. 

John had his monthly IgG infusion today, his only break from self-isolation, so I sent him with a list of questions. Q. Is the blood used for this tested for coronavirus? A. I don’t know, no-one’s asked that question before.Q.  Can you find out? A. Goes away, returns with we don’t know but this batch would have been made last year before it was an issue. Q. As it comes from America, that makes future batches somewhat suspect? A. Don’t know, sorry. I have told him to contact the blood bank and get it in writing before next month’s infusion. John: but they wouldn’t give it to us if it wasn’t safe. Me: Yeah, there were the 12,000 that got AIDS that way in the US alone, and then there’s the hepatitis cases, but nothing to worry too much about I guess. 

March 19, 2020 

I don’t want this to become a shopping blog, but boy a kilo of mince is hard to find (up from the half kilo I was aiming for yesterday you’ll notice). I was at  Castle Mall at opening time and managed to score a kilo, just. But both butchers were serving huge orders, hundred of dollars, mine was a bit of a joke I think. But with NO PRICES on anything, and no-one was asking. I later emailed centre management to complain, as the fruiterer advised me to do when I told him. If he can find time to put prices up in the rush so can they. Perhaps people are all buying chest freezers, I can’t see any other way they could be storing these meat mountains. The chemist was my only other stop, almost everything restricted to one per customer and many shelves bare. Don’t anyone tell me in a hurry how great Australians are compared to everyone else in the world, because I didn’t buy it before and I certainly don’t buy it now. We are better than some and worse than many. Shelves in South Korea are full apparently, the government told them not to panic buy and they didn’t. In some supermarkets today the police were dealing out the toilet paper, I kid you not. 

Two tales from the front: 1. A friend of someone I know is the bestie of a well known immunologist who yesterday commented privately that if we don’t ALL isolate for the next two weeks, we are Italy. 2. The specialist medico daughter of a friend says her hospital has today put in plans not to treat anyone 70 and over come the rush. Pain relief only. Jeez, it’s a bastard that you can’t even spend up on good wine and restaurants when you are looking down the barrel. Quay one night, Bennelong the next, every show at the Opera House, go out with a bang at least. Bob said to me years ago that ‘anything you want to do you should do now, you never know when life could change in an instant’. Wise words unheeded. 

March 20, 2020 

This morning it was confirmed that the reports I’d been reading online were correct: hydroxychloroquine is the new big thing in coronavirus prevention and treatment. Trump has just announced government support for the drug to be used so I guess it will become as hard to find as hand sanitiser. I am lucky to be ahead of the game, as this is the drug that I decided recently to quit using, so I have a bottle in my medicine chest and a script for more. It is used to treat the autoimmune diseases Sjogren’s Syndrome and lupus, but I suspect that now the president has wrongly claimed that the FDA has already approved it for coronavirus the pharmacies will be swamped with desperate buyers. 

It is so hard being unable to visit Davina and particularly Millie now, I am trying not to think into the future to speculate how long this situation may last. She came home from daycare talking about germs and coronavirus which is both good and sad. I phoned Kenneth in Halifax last night and we spoke for an hour and a half. As usual he takes the libertarian view that he is entitled to go out if he feels like it but was shocked at our food restrictions, the only thing in short supply in Halifax is toilet paper. I told him that may change very soon as it did here but he thinks Yorkshire people are too sensible for that, I hope he’s right. Instead of the usual ‘when are you coming over?’ discussion he volunteered that ‘I don’t think you would be able to get into Britain now, probably the whole year is like that’. Not wrong I thought. Emailed Tom in Northern Ireland to quell ideas that we might be able to take him up on the offer to stay with them in Northern Ireland. Look at all the money we’ve saved, to spend on luxuries such as……well maybe it can just sit in the bank in fact. 

March 21, 2020 

John is taking advantage of isolation by trying to learn The Man From Snowy River by heart. All good, except I think I am the test vehicle for his learning and that may end up affecting my mental wellbeing if I need to listen to it each day on the phone….today I got the whole thing, read of course, but I fear the days ahead. A later call began ‘just listen to how much I’ve memorised now’. 

Today I filled the day by writing a story for the Fellowship of Australian Writers’ Seniors Stories competition, the prize being publication in a book of 100 short stories in October. The pessimistic me thinks that I probably wouldn’t be able to go to the launch at Parliament House anyway….. and I’d have preferred it if the comp were an open one, but the timing was right so I plunged in. I recounted an actual event, recorded at the time because of the effect it had on me and it still caused the odd tear while typing. Also shed a tear watching The Scribe on ABC, a wonderful doco about Graham Freudenberg, Whitlam’s speechwriter who went on to write for Hawke and Carr. Particularly affecting was his last message to Gough just prior to the great man’s death: ‘My Leader as ever’. It reminded me of Gough’s custom of referring to supporters as comrade. I was lucky enough to be the recipient of that greeting in 1969 while working on the federal election campaign handing out how-to-votes in his electorate of Werriwa. I have never forgotten the sentence and the heat of that day ‘Can I interest you in a chicken sandwich comrade?’. Those were the days when politics really meant something. 

March 22, 2020 

They will still be writing books about the times we are living through in 100 years. I suspect as well as the colossal figures of deaths, they will be talking about the laid-back attitudes of the West to the coming plague, leaders who believed nothing could touch them because they were rich and money controls everything, right? Whereas the Asian countries with their greater focus on elders and obedience to rules might just find they jumped onto a higher rung on the world’s ladder, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. As ever it will be the poorest and weakest who suffer most: the homeless, the prisoners, the refugees, the old and the ill. I idly wonder if one day in the far distant future someone will get excited doing their family tree ‘Oh wow, my great-great-grandma died in the Plague of 2020. How cool is that!’ The reply from his friend may very well be ‘Well everyone has rellies who’d died in the Great Plague, it’s no big deal’. 

I signed up for Woolworths home delivery today, something I didn’t think I would do before I was very old and infirm. Although I don’t inspect every single cherry like some do, I still like to handle and sniff my apples, if they don’t smell like apples they’ve been in cold storage. I guess I will have to accept purple Chux as well, though my preference is green or blue. I smiled at myself when I refused to take the purple ones off the shelf on Tuesday during the pensioner shopping time, normally we lose important things one at a time but this week we seem to have lost a motza. Naively I thought we could drive to a beach somewhere for a swim, the salt water is disinfecting after all, but now that’s been canned. Or perhaps get a cabin down the south coast as we were supposed to be doing from tomorrow, taking our own food so we don’t have to mix, but no, travel is banned too. 

March 23, 2020 

Ended yesterday in a funk after a big fail in the Woolworths online ordering system. I got a text to say I was approved and went online to order but when I got to choosing the delivery time I discovered every time for every day was taken so I cancelled the order and walked down to the IGA to pick up butter for baking today. It looked like a Beirut shop looted after an earthquake with almost every shelf empty, no dairy, no canned fruit or vegetables, no frozen food, no meat, no nuffin, except for some ghastly looking biscuits, dog food and some rusty lettuces at $6.50 a pop. Actually when I think about it, very like Moscow’s GUM department store’s food section when I was there in 1973. At the time it was basically tins of fish or….tins of fish. Then decided to treat myself to some Indian food for dinner so I rang, ordered and paid only to discover when I tried to give the address that ‘oh it is pickup only, we have no drivers’ so I just got her to do a refund. Then Planet America wasn’t on at it’s usual time…..I had an early night. The Eastern philosophies talk about the Guna, or mood that rises and falls, well mine went way down last night. 

But this morning was another day! I was on the pensioners’ queue at 6.45 am and lo and behold there was food. Chicken and meat aisles were virtually empty but I didn’t want those anyway and 75% of the things I did want were there. Hallelujah. Came home to cook Choc Chip Muffins for Sue’s pick up tomorrow, the meals having already been cooked and frozen. I got a call today from my ex-husbands wife to see how I was doing. This on top of a friend request on Facebook yesterday from someone who unfriended me years ago….seeing if I am still above ground perhaps? Anyway I am not averse to friendship so I accepted and we shall see how it goes. Strange times. 

March 24, 2020 

Busy busy morning for a change. Firstly I rang GIO to pay my home and contents insurance and struck a chatty person immediately, no waiting. Forty minutes later we had been through coronavirus, school closures, working from home, Trump, Morrison, panic buying and more. She explained that she always works from home and I told her I had imagined her in a smelly, dreary little booth somewhere in a nasty office building, but no she is ensconced at home as are 75% of her colleagues regularly in that office. Also she told me she had dealt with a woman this morning who was canceling her car insurance policy as she had just got the sack, she is going to leave her car in the garage from now on. Anyway at the end of the discussion she put my payment through, $1265 instead of the invoiced $1489. That wasn’t my devious plan as we chatted, but I was very happy that she did. Sue told me at the petrol station this morning the attendant asked if she had a Coles docket. She didn’t but the girl said ‘it’s okay I’ll put it through as illegible’. Perhaps we are feeling a bit more obliging to each other. Then arrived Martyn for food pickup and while he was there the assessor from GIO arrived to look at my ceiling water damage etc. He told me it was easier to ask the questions on the phone as he needed to wear a respirator to come into the house! He then got on the roof, went through every room drawing a plan of the place (he said many people object to his doing this, but I was fine with it) and then photographed the damage. He was here for about an hour and a half and I don’t expect any issues in pursuing the claim. 

Trump last week talked about the current research showing that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine may be both preventative and useful as a treatment for coronavirus. ‘I’ve got a hunch it will work’ the cretin surmised publically to the horror of his medical advisers. Well now an elderly pair of Trump watchers saw the containers of chloroquine phosphate they had on the fishtank for cleaning the water and, deciding this must be the stuff, downed some of it. Both dead now, so in fact they didn’t get coronavirus and I guess Trump has been proved right in a grisly kind of way. I now foresee difficulties in getting my prescribed supplies of hydroxychloroquine as a result of a worldwide shortage on the horizon. When will they staple his lips together and let the medicos handle this? Professor Fauci always looks ready to explode when he stands behind the imbecile during press conferences and I am hoping to be watching live when he does so, figuratively of course. 

March 25, 2020 

I decided this morning that I need to get back into my gardening before the weeds cover the house. Also I want to be able to sit on the verandah peacefully and enjoy a tidy front yard without the silent accusation of the plants. But first I rang the council chambers as soon as they opened to ask when the library is closing. They didn’t know but soon rang me back to let me know that today is the last day, so I was at Castle Hill library, all masked up, when they opened. They have a much better selection there, I usually go to the closer one and have them sent over but today that wasn’t an option. I filled my shopping bags with 20 books and hoped she would approve, but the librarian offered to let me have even more if I wanted, so I ended up with 26 after she did an overide on the system. Mostly they are old favourites: Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwen, Elena Ferrante, Barbara Kingsolver et al but of course only those I hadn’t yet read. I picked up an early Thomas Keneally, the one he wrote after leaving the seminary in Manly. The critics commented at the time that it was too unbelievable because a seminary couldn’t possibly be as bad as he portrayed, but of course it was all factual stuff but with names changed. Then I got a few random picks, just in case I pick up a five star book that I had not heard about before, it has happened a few times in the past. One random was an Australian novel about people fleeing from England to Australia due to a pandemic over there, should be fun. Cooked up a pile of baked potatoes, pumpkin and eggplant to have in the fridge as meals or sides or even soup. 

March 26, 2020 

I was thinking this morning that I should make a point of speaking every day to someone I rarely see, just a random person from my directory. A couple of days ago I got a call from my ex-husband’s wife in rural Queensland, then a person who unfriended me on Facebook years ago suddenly sent a friend request and just now I got a call from an old acquaintance whom I last spoke to 18 months ago, so perhaps lots of people are thinking along the same lines. I’ve just finished reading Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee a Queensland lawyer who, as a judge’s associate, sat through many, many rape and sexual assault trials where she believed justice was not being done. She decided to stand up and have charges brought against the teenager who sexually abused her as a primary school child. I found interesting her descriptions of circuit court and her comment that in Gympie she saw not a single rape or sexual assault defendant found guilty, of course many in the the jury knew the men accused. Similarly in Warwick it was extremely hard to get a conviction. Her descriptions of the cases heard were disconcerting, all the more so for her as a survivor, but her respect for the judge for whom she worked helped her to tackle her own case. Inspiring reading. 

March 27, 2020 

Saw a photo this morning of a gowned and masked doctor working on coronavirus patients in London and around the eyes he looked awfully like my friend Mustapha who is a cardiologist who took an early retirement or at least a stand down from medicine about 5 years ago when his partner was given a promotion to Singapore. Sure enough there is a photo on his Facebook page showing him in his gear, but I had been unable to read all of the comments as he speaks many languages and none of the respondents had posted in English. He has volunteered to go back to work in an NHS coronavirus hospital in London, a fact which made my stomach sink, but all power to his healing hands in this situation. Only yesterday we were in contact discussing onions of all things and he sent me a recipe for his favourite tagine, with not a mention of his work. Then I got a text from a friend who let someone rent a cottage on their property while they did their 14 days isolation after coming back to Australia. Now the property owner and the tenant have tested positive, despite very little contact between them. Sheesh, this thing is sooo infectious. 

Tried to contact Optus to get caller ID put back onto my phone so I can avoid callers from Chad and Burundi and wherever. The country of origin shows on my mobile but not on my landline since the NBN was connected. But the phones to Optus are impossible and the email page just says urgent communications only, which I don’t understand really as people could be working from home. Book group tonight, but by email. Perhaps I will make something to take as per normal and then eat it all myself. Or make an exception and have a glass of wine all by myself. 

March 28, 2020 

A lovely interlude this morning when I went for a walk for the first time in ages and came upon an old Chinese man sitting on the bus seat in my street singing out across the road to no one. I stopped to listen and indicated with my phone that I would like to take a photo of him but he seemed to have no English at all and instead wrote down his phone number on a scrap of paper for me. On the way back he had moved seats and wasn’t singing so I sang la-la-la and he got the message and gave me another song in his not at all bad voice. Glad I went out. I am pissed off with the confinement of the last 16 days but not panicking about the disease, though for the last two nights I’ve had nightmares which both involved coronavirus in some form so perhaps I am kidding myself about the concern. It’s just not there consciously. 

Planning to make nachos for dinner with a can of black beans that has cluttered up my pantry for the last couple of years. I don’t cook Chinese so I don’t really know why I bought them, but finally I stumbled on a non-Chinese recipe to use them up. Missing an avocado to put on top, but isolationists can’t be choosers. I do have the cheese and sour cream though. Sue’s Kate is arriving shortly to return a heap of plastic boxes, cold bricks etc from the food deliveries. It’s a pain to have a visitor finally and not be able to invite them in. Martyn has gone back to Orange so I need another person to deliver, I guess I will try to tee something up with his brother Stephen, even if it means meeting him halfway between here and the Hornsby area where he lives. PS Kate arrived with two organic pumpkins picked this morning from Robert’s garden and a big tub of Sue’s pumpkin soup, so that’s tomorrow night’s dinner sorted. She will also be food courier next week, so a very successful visit. 

March 29, 2020 

The nachos recipe was a keeper, great with the black beans, better than the usual kidney beans I think. I was planning to make soup for Sue this arv but she contacted me to say they still have plenty of meals in the freezer and to give myself a rest, not accounting for the fact that I actually enjoy doing it, but she’s the boss. Surprised that one of our book group today offered her home for our June meeting, something I really can’t see will be going ahead, but I hope she’s right and I am wrong there. I was good this morning and continued an overdue weeding of the front garden, which gave me much pleasure as I saw flowers up close that I have been walking by this last week. One of Millie’s confreres asked her mother if they still had to stay at home because of the corona pirates, the mother went with this and said yes. 

I am still on the coronavirus rollercoaster as are we all, but I must admit that I enjoy getting the spontaneous youtube message from the Prof to all his patients which arrives each Sunday afternoon, in which he discusses the week’s events in his usual calm and encouraging style. This one was much longer than the last and covers things like the hydroxychloroquine shortage, a drug many if not most of his patients would be on. Apparently the government has restricted the writing of prescriptions to appropriate specialists, which will take the pressure off GPs being pressured by the mob. John’s upstairs neighbour was taken away by ambulance during the week with chest pains and there was naturally speculation that she might have the big V, but unfortunately it is worse than that, it is the big C, in her liver with spread to her shoulder. With two kids that I have met, plus apparently two more that I haven’t, and with no father around their future is grim indeed. Everyone has a story at the moment but that is one of the more tragic ones. 

March 30, 2020 

Forty-one years at about noon today since my twins were born. I’d like to do it all again, but do it better this time (not the birth though, no, certainly not the birth). It is a weird birthday in that we had a family dinner planned and booked for Saturday night and Carly should have been here for the weekend, but they are each working from home in different state capitals. We will certainly talk every year about ‘that 2020 birthday’. Following the last few days of happy contact surprises I got a message from Sheila in Blackheath sending a photo of me when I had the best of grey hair, naturally evenly grey but no white, pity I couldn’t have kept that look I decided. 

Monday is my appointed ‘getting whatever you can’t order in’ day, my only venture out in the car for the week, so I look forward to it now as if it were a huge social occasion: a ceilidh, a mardi gras and a soiree all rolled into one. Today I got three loaves of bread from the bakery I frequent, (1 to eat, 2 to freeze) seeing my freezer capacity makes it slightly more feasible now. I’ve had to give my Lane Cove baker away due to distance, this one is much closer and was always a close second. Their sweet stuff is miles ahead of his too, forcing me to purchase a small lemon meringue tart to eat during 4 Corners tonight. Lane Cove has Sydney’s third highest concentration of CV infections incidentally, so I am glad John is getting his shopping brought in and not going to shop there anymore. It is 3 years today since he went into remission for lymphoma after months of heavy chemo. Bravo, celebrations all round!! Arvind arrived from next door with four hot curry puffs straight out of the oven, bless. Good day. 

March 31, 2020 

I had booked an appointment with Bob a couple of weeks ago, hoping he might have flu vax by then. I was told it wouldn’t be here till mid April but insisted on making the appointment anyway as I knew there would be a rush once it came in. I could check each week and keep moving the appointment forward if necessary. But today when I rang to move the appointment it appeared as if their phone was down for many hours, but when I finally got through I discovered that the vaccine arrived today, so I wasn’t so silly after all. John wanted an appointment too so I halved my double one and now we will each get jabbed on Thursday. Stephen rang later and asked if we’d had our pneumovax….um, flu vax I asked? No pneumovax, which I discover protects against 23 types of pneumonia and according to Health NSW should be given to everyone over 65. Bob has never mentioned it, but I will ask him on Thursday. We had planned a picnic today, somewhere closeish, with no people or homes in sight. But the new rules and regs made that impossible so we had it on the back verandah instead. Pumpkin soup spiked up with chili and garam masala with Arvind’s curry puffs on the side. Sir is visiting today and declaimed it to be a perfect lunch. I took a bow. 

April 1, 2020 

Not making any April Fools calls today, I think we are all the April Fools for trusting our governments to protect us from what was always just over the horizon. As I wrote here in January: ‘I continue to shake my head at the lacklustre Australian response to the corona virus outbreak. While the scientists are doing amazing work, as usual, the policy makers and their publicists stumble along. Potential pandemics, as this clearly is, need action that is both strong and meteorically fast’. Luckily for their residents Singapore understood this and acted accordingly, including having a fully stocked 300 bed pandemic hospital sitting empty, waiting for just this occurrence. Had we had a similar hospital set up (and we can afford it) we would now have it occupied by those initially infected, with no community transference occurring.  But experts like Prof Raina McIntyre, who workshopped this eventuality with international colleagues in a week long conference just last November, were ignored. As usual the government gets off scot free and the populace pays bigtime for their mistakes, pays in lives and pays in money, more money than ever we could have imagined. A stitch in time Scotty, didn’t your mother ever tell you that proverb? 

One of John’s ex priest mates helpfully sent around to their group Pope Francis’s Urbi et Orbi Vatican speech, retelling the story of Jesus sleeping in the helm of a little boat when it hit rough weather. The disciples woke him in a panic and he replied famously ‘why are you afraid, oh ye of little faith’. Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves and it was completely calm. Perhaps they won’t be expecting his reply: ‘I’m not going to read any nonsense about Jesus and corona virus.  If Jesus is in charge, why did he let it happen in the first place? Stay safe boys.  The only people who are going to save us from this plague are ourselves and our wonderfully skilled and dedicated health professionals.’ He has certainly left that culture waaay behind.

February 20, 2024

I went to the Coroners Court today for the inquest of a man in Tregear who had been killed by dogs. But when I got there I discovered that it was an inquest into seven, yes seven, people who had been killed by dogs. One was a three week old baby pulled from its mother’s arms by their American Staffordshire terrier, which was actually a pitbull. Apparently no one wants to admit to their dog being a pitbull these days because of the restrictions on the breed so they are being sold by breeders, or on Gumtree or privately as American Staffordshire terriers in something called rebranding.

We heard from Professor Paul McGreevy, who gave evidence that the two breeds are closely related, pitbulls were bred for dogfighting and the less aggressive ones are now on the dog show circuit as American Staffordshire terriers. However, he pointed out that the genes for aggression can be shown in the DNA sequences that both breeds share. American Staffordshire terriers are taught to allow for some handling at a show, but that does not alter the aggression in their genes. He described both breeds as bold, aggressive, and importantly, they both take initiative. So they don’t wait to be attacked or hurt in some way, they take the initiative and attack first, therefore we can never be safe from them. Central Coast City Council rangers had given the couple 28 days to prove that their dog should not be declared a pitbull and therefore restricted. The father of the dead child requested a stay because they were dealing with a new baby, two weeks later the baby was dead, he was three weeks old. 

March 14, 2024

One of the weirder encounters I’ve had recently was a man running up to me outside the QVB and excitedly asking: ‘black, black?’ and indicating something with his hands. He looked perhaps Thai and didn’t seem to understand English at all. My bus was due and although I was trying to help, it wasn’t going well until I realised that the hand gesture was like spreading so I asked ‘on toast?’ to which he replied ‘YES, Yes’. So I was able to suggest Vegemite was the word he was looking for and he was thrilled, but we parted and as he walked away he was repeating ‘Vegemuch, Vegemuch’.

A quote from Don Watson: ‘Anzac Day was originally for people who fought. Now it’s become this big national thing that is poorly understood and more and more it’s like a national religion’. I so wish that I had written that though I’ve often said something similar.

March 18, 2024

How hard is it to make a Caesar salad? Pretty hard it seems from the strange combinations I’ve been seeing lately. One at the Palm Beach Club (on a bus tour) came in at $27, but I passed on it when I saw that they were using spinach leaves instead of cos lettuce. At the other end of the price scale was one John and I shared at Olympic Park after long walk on Sunday. It was $14 and even though we shared it, we discovered that we couldn’t finish it and the remainder filled a large takeaway container. That was my dinner tonight. The price was certainly right, the quantity was too, but having mixed leaves with tomato and cucumber made it a fail. It was interesting in that the owners of the shop were clearly Muslim and the bacon had been replaced with very thin, crispy strips of beef, something I hadn’t seen since Dubai. Hopefully soon I will get this delicious dish with all the correct ingredients: cos lettuce, boiled egg, croutons, anchovies, and bacon strips topped with a creamy anchovy-rich mayonnaise. I live in hope.

March 24, 2024

I paid for my Forensic Science course by credit card yesterday and shortly afterwards got a text message purportedly from the ANZ bank asking if it were a genuine transaction. If so, I should press one, and if not press two, but in the meanwhile my card had been temporarily halted. I was at odds, was it a scam? So I tried ringing the ANZ number and it kept telling me to put in my tele code, which I don’t have so I couldn’t get through. My daughter told me not to answer the text under any circumstances as it sounded like a scam. Then I got a call from the Medical Register Of Australia saying that my payment had failed. Finally, I came up with the idea of calling the lost or stolen card number at ANZ, and eventually got through to someone who seemed rather surprised that I hadn’t just pressed one. This is despite numerous messages saying to ignore texts and emails about your bank account. So I pressed one, and it announced by a second text that the transaction would go ahead in about 15 minutes, but the story didn’t end there. the Medical Register people got back to me to say that they had received the funds twice! They were very apologetic and said that they would refund the second payment, they had no idea how it happened. What a bloody mess up and crazy system.

March 26, 2024

I couldn’t believe it when I got a fine notice in the mail. Yes I was parked where they said, but had John‘s disability parking sign on the windscreen. I tend to park there when going on the bus somewhere if John is with me so I don’t have the problem of getting him across the busy road safely. So I decided to contest it, and as part of that lengthy process online, I was asked if I wanted to view the photographs which of course I did. But right in the very first photograph taken from the rear of the car, what is that thing you can see on the windscreen? Yes you got it in one, the disabled parking sticker, so I very politely suggested to them that they enlarge the photo a bit and have a look on the windscreen. I had been there over the mandated two hours but was entitled to stay there indefinitely. I awaited their response with interest and the letter came, with no apology or explanation, just an instruction not to pay the fine.

April 6, 2024

I am always impressed by ABC News presenter, Lydia Feng but last night she made a couple of howlers, first by misnaming Taylor Auerbach (calling him Backhour) and secondly reporting on a bike race where she said a man fell and “broke his cervix“. In both cases, she continued on with no apparent recognition of the mistakes. Who would want to do live television?

May 10, 2024

It came as a shock to have my credit card declined twice in one day, both for piddling amounts. So I rang the bank’s overseas hotline only to be more confused than ever when I was told that I hadn’t paid the bill. It is paid automatically on the due date from an account at a different bank, and has been done that way for decades. So I went to front the bank only to be told that ‘the money is in there but the funds haven’t cleared’ so then I went straight to Bank 2 who assured me that they paid it the day before. Bank 1 couldn’t explain it to my satisfaction but said that the funds should clear overnight, which they did. BUT the next day I got a flurry of emails wanting to know why direct debits hadn’t been paid the day before, some offering me financial counselling or staggered payments! So I’m cross, as this affects my credit rating with a number of organisations. While in Parramatta on a different mission I popped into Bank 1, explained it all over again but was told there was no logical explanation as I still had over $3000 to spend on the account when the card was paused. So none the wiser, but if it happens again I need to think about cutting the card up, though it would be a pain to redirect all the automatic debits.

May 19, 2024

Well I’ve never had as close a shave on Old Northern Road as I did on Saturday night. Thought being around 6 pm on a weekend the traffic wouldn’t be too bad compared to a weekday peak hour, so I got off at my normal stop and waited for some time to cross the busy road. But I’ve learned that it’s easier to tell the speed of cars in the daytime than at night when you can only see the lights. There seemed to be time to cross in a gap in the traffic but I suddenly realised that cars were bearing down at a great speed and I had to run across the second  half. The main car I was worried about didn’t slow down at all, in fact he just kept boring down flashing his lights. I managed to jump up on the kerb but wasn’t at all sure that my suitcase would make it, and was a bit concerned that if he hit the suitcase I could be dragged back onto the road, however I made it and so did the suitcase but not by much. I need to rethink crossing that road at all, perhaps going up to the tech college, crossing at the lights and walking the longer distance home. There has been a trifecta of pedestrian deaths near me in the last 10 days, information courtesy of the Hills Police Area Command, which I’ve recently started following on Facebook. The first was a woman killed by a driver coming out of the petrol station that I usually go to on Seven Hills Road, then a woman was killed at the corner of Old Northern Road and Olive Street near the Baulkham Hills shops and finally on Saturday afternoon, a man was killed crossing Windsor Road. Their ages ranged from 78 to 80. I’m lucky I wasn’t the first in another trifecta.

But on to some good news. John was asked if he would accompany some more disabled residents on a bus tour to the Powerhouse Museum at Castle Hill last Saturday as a helper. So he went as ‘extra staff’ rather than as a resident which he was rightly chuffed about. The lady he looked after bought him a milk shake in the cafe afterwards as a thankyou.

May 20, 2024

Went to Parramatta today to sit in on the Justin Stein murder trial in the Supreme Court. Seeing the trial was in the online court list I was surprised that I couldn’t find the courtroom number on the foyer directory, even more surprised when someone at the Registry told me that there’s no Supreme Court matters heard in Parra! But with persistence I discovered the right court from a Sheriff, apparently Supreme Court matters are not listed on the board for reasons best known to them. I got there two minutes before the judge, who proceeded to tell us that one juror had rung in sick and they were trying to ascertain how sick, in order to decide whether to appoint one of the reserves in his/her place. So an hour was set aside for that, happily filled when Fran rang for a chat. Back to court to find that the jury was stood down for the day to sort it all out. Stein is the son of wealthy high-end antiques dealers Annemie and James Stein at whose QVB shop I occasionally drooled on the glass cases. They also own the luxurious property Wildenstein in Mount Wilson where the murder allegedly occurred. It’s a sorry tale but he is suggesting that his fiancee murdered her 9 year old daughter and he simply covered it up. While not impossible, bearing in mind that she was a drug addict, I find it somewhat unlikely, so I want to spend some time at the case trying to get a sense of the truth.

May 22, 2024

Although I didn’t write it here at the time I have been thinking lots about what I learned at the Forensic Science and Crime Scene Investigation Course recently. Thoughts seem to pop up randomly like when I was driving next to a Tesla today. The lecturer referred to electric vehicles as ‘driveable bombs’ and explained that the only way to put out an electric car fire is to drop the whole vehicle into a dam, swimming pool or similar. Firies can hose them but it’s really pointless as the heat is too great from a lithium battery to be extinguished, they just need to burn themselves out. Interestingly they can’t be towed by a conventional truck either because if the back wheels are rolling it is charging the car, potentially causing a fire, so they need to go onto a flat bed truck.

I have a host of books to read for the course and the first arrived by mail yesterday from World of Books, one of those lovely companies that sends post free. It is about Richard Kuklinski, the American psychopathic killer who began murdering people whom he decided were looking down on him or patronising him in some way but then was noticed by the Mafia who employed him as a contract killer. They put on a film (during our lunchtime, so I was glad I took my own food and didn’t need to go to the cafe) of a psychiatrist interviewing RK in prison and it was poignant when at the end he asked: ‘Doctor I’ve answered all of your questions, can you answer one for me? Why am I like I am?’ He had previously explained that he had no concept of feeling sorry for other people or sorry for his own actions. The doctor did his best to explain, saying that 2-3% of people are genetically primed to be sociopaths but those who suffered mental or physical cruelty before the age of five could then become psychopaths, however those with a happy childhood could use their lack of fear to become test pilots or explorers or climbers of Everest for example. Richard looked somewhat sad and I wanted to give him a hug, which left me wondering if there is also a set of genes that makes a person vulnerable to wanting to hug a mass murderer?

May 23, 2024

A lot happening here. John rang me early complaining of back pain, headache, pain in his arms and legs and a cough, he was fine at 9 pm last night. I texted Vivian as it was shift changeover and I knew she would be busy. She did a RAT for Covid, negative of course on day one, but then did the right thing and organised a PCR, so we can only wait and see. I have tickets for an Eric Bogle concert tomorrow night but clearly he won’t be well enough for that, which is a shame as it was part of his birthday present.

I went as planned to the Stein murder case at Parramatta and saw that the jury is now down to 14 so the sick member has been pulled. The jury is a real League of Nations, only 3, maybe 4, members are Anglos and I’m interested to know if that’s because it represents Parra’s population in general or whether for whatever reason this mix was specifically chosen during the challenge process. Near me there was an elderly lady in a floral skirt and blouse with a hand-embroidered collar, looking just like someone’s sweet old-fashioned granny. She approached me and asked my connection to the Steins (which of course is zero, I only know them by repute) then telling me that she’s been coming each day just because she’s interested in the case. She is 88 and travels by public transport from Epping. She came to Epping to live from Newcastle so she could more easily attend music and theatre performances in the city, rather than travelling down by train! I seriously admired her puff and I’m sure I will be able to get a good rundown of anything I miss from her in future, she’s a very sharp lady who won’t miss a thing.

The first two witnesses were a married couple who own a weekender next door to Wildenstein, talking about what they saw, or more accurately, didn’t see. It was a good day to go as we heard then from a young female forensic pathologist who did the autopsy and she was an excellent witness, explaining things in detail and addressing all of her comments to the jury, not to the wigs or the audience, just as it should be. I was somewhat puzzled by the fact that the shots, from a .22 rifle, were fired in an upward trajectory, strange considering it was a 9 year old being shot by an adult. Her stomach contained schizophrenia medication prescribed for the accused, but nothing was said about the effects that would have on a child, though that was probably due to be discussed by the toxicologist who is a later witness. Next was a forensic ballistics officer (a South African who presumably had plenty of practice over there) who discussed the testing of the rifle used. I understood this better than I would have before the ballistics lectures of two weeks ago. I know very little about guns, but we had a talk at the course on firearm types, ammunition, rifled and smooth bore weapons, and the different types of wounds coming from different guns, so what he was saying made sense.

May 24, 2024

Bussed down for another day at the Stein murder case. In a call with her son recorded at Silverwater gaol, Stein’s mother, Annemie Stein, begged her son not to say that the fatal shooting occurred on the family’s luxury Mount Wilson property. In reply, he agreed and said instead he would say it was ‘on crown land, behind the shed, on the fire break’. The priorities exhibited here are almost unbelievable, to lie to save yourself from being locked up for life is surely understandable, but to do so to protect your mother’s reputation and the value of her piece of real estate is just plain sad and says much about the family dynamic. The Stein family certainly haven’t had a life out of the spotlight. Their super expensive antiques shop in the QVB was in the news about 20 years ago when their best customer, from memory a Blacktown domiciled bank teller who had bought hundreds of antiques, mostly diamond jewellery, turned out to have fraudulently milked the best part of $8 million from the NAB, much of which ended up at Martin and Stein. She had been wined and dined all over Sydney by the Steins and spent weekends at Wildenstein with them. Try to convince me that these wealthy folk didn’t notice a teeny bit of class difference there…. Then there was the well-publicised Stein marriage split and also the long-running court case they brought against their neighbour who had a penchant for firing his guns at birds who were trying to feed on his orchards. Notoriety seems to follow the family but of course this tragic case is something else again.

A man who attempted to befriend me yesterday at court was quite chatty again today. I was a bit reluctant after my pal from yesterday quietly informed me that ‘he’s a psychic’ and to me that’s getting close to ‘he’s odd’. But he was very pleasant today and I was happy to talk to him in the break, when he explained that he’d been down in Victoria searching for the missing Ballarat woman, now feared murdered. He thought that he may have received some sign, clue, manifestation, whatever one calls it, so he rode his motor bike down there but got nothing and came back. I figure that a psychic who tells you that he tried yet got no signs can’t be all bad. My grandmother used to go to spiritualist services in England where it was quite the thing in the north and she told me that the speaker told her that ‘the picture of your dead brother who was killed on the railways is askew and you should straighten it’. It was and she did. So who am I to say he’s not a psychic, I will just take him as I find him.

May 26, 2024

Friday night saw a blast from the past when I went to an Eric Bogle concert at Riverside. It was meant as part of John’s birthday present but he was sick so Martha came along with me (luckily he forgot that we were going somewhere special). Yesterday he was diagnosed with Covid, about which I was totally unsurprised considering his symptoms. Last Saturday when I was in Canberra he was asked to accompany some more disabled residents on a bus trip (perhaps because he was a bit down in the mouth that he wasn’t going home for the weekend?) and I asked him if he had worn a mask, something I insist on whenever we go out. Of course he hadn’t, arguing that no one else was wearing one, so now a number of passengers on the bus, as well as the driver, are stricken with Covid while no other resident on his floor has it. Them’s the breaks but there’s a good chance he could have avoided it with something as simple as a mask. I’m trying not to extrapolate that to ‘he wouldn’t have got Covid if you had been here to look after him’. But back to Eric. His voice has held up remarkably well and I was pleased to hear a lot of new songs as well, he’s now written 260 of them! One called The Flag about neo-Nazis impressed me particularly, but I’m having trouble finding the lyrics online unfortunately. I thought that he became quite emotional near the end of the concert and especially during the encore which he sang without the accompaniment of his excellent band. It was a song he’s in the process of writing and seemed to me to be about the end of his life, which I guess one is thinking about in the 80th year. What a good human he is, it will be a huge loss to the country when he goes.

Sue came on Saturday morning and then we went with Kate, Harvey and Anna to a talk with Niki Savva and Lech Blaine. Harvey was a real hoot at the end, talking his mother into buying one of Savva’s books so he could get in the queue to talk to her. She asked him questions about the genesis of his interest in politics and his answers were classic, but probably not for this journal. He is a one-off that boy, quite a delightful old soul. I am keen to read Blaine’s upcoming memoir about the children his family fostered when he was 10 (amongst many others that they fostered over years), who were removed from their fanatically religious family after the parents sent death threats to Queensland’s politicians. Again a decent human. More about his mum in this article: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/10/mum-dedicated-her-life-to-protecting-others-in-australias-aged-care-system-she-received-no-such-sanctuary.

We came home to feast on fresh mullet brought down by Sue, which I baked with spinach and the tiniest tomatoes I have ever bought (she brought 8 fillets! 6 of which I froze). We had some good laughs about Harvey and discussed topics far and wide. She left this morning after we watched Insiders together.

May 27, 2024

Off to court on this lovely warm autumn day. Kallista Mutten, mother of the murdered girl Charlise, was in the box today. One of my aims in going to this trial was to make a judgment about whether he (Stein) or she is telling the truth about happened. My gut feeling is that her testimony stacks up, but I’m not sure whether he will take the stand at all, somehow I doubt it. His barrister Carolyn Davenport SC must be 80 if she’s a day, though we have heard very little from her when I’ve been there, apart from a persistent and hacking cough that overtakes her periodically. I am curious about how the reporters can simultaneously listen to the evidence and type. As someone who can only concentrate on one thing at a time I find it compelling to watch, but I guess interpreters do it all the time. One lonely man, the only hand scribe, takes longhand notes in a spiral notebook, spacing them across the page and leaving lots of white space, another oddity to someone who uses every scrap of the paper, closely written.

I expressed some doubts about the strength of the ‘balance of probabilities’ in the Lehrmann defamation case. The concept of a 51:49 majority just seems too loose for something that will affect a person for the rest of their lives. I was out of step with everyone from the judge to reporters to family members, but then in the Forensic Science course the lecturer was very clear: that balance depends on the severity of the wrongdoing as well as the penalty that accrues from being guilty. Only my court-going mate had put this view, saying that he was ‘shocked’ by the decision, not because he was confident in the innocence of the accused, but because he felt that it was not adequately proven. So I’ve been reading up on this and discovered the Briginshaw Principle (193 which apparently still stands. “A majority is often described as ‘50% plus one’. Analogous to this, many lawyers assert that if the court is 51% certain of an alleged fact then it is ‘more likely than not’ and so the civil standard is met”. This explanation was specifically rejected by Sir Owen Dixon in 1938.

“Factors that should be taken into account include: the nature of the the allegation and the consequences that would flow from the finding of fact. The Briginshaw principle is not a separate standard of proof, but rather a standard of satisfaction. The more serious the allegation, the more serious should be the consideration given by the decision maker. Serious allegations with serious consequences require more
compelling evidence for the decision maker to feel an ‘actual persuasion’ and reach the
necessary state of reasonable satisfaction that the facts in dispute are more likely than not
to exist”. I’ll go with you Sir Owen, it makes so much more sense to me. Given time I will read the whole case and all of his comments.

John’s treatment appointment at Nelune scheduled for next week has of course had to be cancelled and when I rang them they said they would ring me back with some options for the following week. I pointed out that they needed to ring me rather than John but later discovered that they had rung him and he’d accepted another date and time without speaking to me about it, luckily it is a day that I can do. He just can’t get the idea that I may have other plans, but this time we were lucky. It will disrupt all the future appointments too as they are very strict about the four week gap between infusions.

May 28, 2024

The best laid plans can go awry….I was walking out of the door to get the bus to court when my trusty roofer rang to say that he would come around noon. I need that little matter sorted out so I gave up seeing Kallista Mutten cross-examined, an important part of the proceedings if you are trying to ascertain her guilt or otherwise. She was almost unrecognisable from previous photographs when she appeared in court yesterday, in fact I wondered who the devil she was when she got in the witness box. So if she is physically unrecognisable perhaps she is also quite a different person to the drug-addicted woman of two years ago, making it very difficult to decide how to take her evidence. The meeting with the roof guy Ayman went well, he agrees with me that GIO is just trying to get out of paying the claim for a very small repainting job where water got in during a torrential downpour in January. He says some of their excuses are clearly wrong whereas he agrees that some of the cracks in the ridges need repointing, however they are nowhere near where the water got in! He’s going to give me a quote for that and replacing the sarking that has perished, although he pointed out that many new houses don’t even have sarking. I may tell GIO to take a running jump and just hire a painter myself…to be continued. It is sad because I’ve always found their claims process to be excellent in the past.

So now I’ve discovered Justice Lee references Briginshaw in para 102 of his Lehrmann judgment (I would have heard that, but not known what the devil he was on about at that time) but he still overrode it in his decision. My pal says: “Part of my reasoning is that Lee was scathing of The Project’s unquestioning acceptance of Higgins’ version of events, but that he too has accepted her claims without any corroboration”. Mmm, I will drink to that.

Book group on Friday so I should soon start the book! So far I’ve picked up some differing views on it which makes me keen to begin. No court on Friday either as a result, I will be very cheesed off if Stein gets on the stand that day. He had a good education so he should be able to acquit himself well in terms of answering questions, but I still wonder if his barrister will risk it. I’d prefer it if we could at least see the testimony online but it’s not done, though seeing they need to type it up anyway it is just the flick of a switch to get it out there for the masses, not to mention the help it would be to all the poor madly typing reporters.

May 29, 2024

Off to court for a morning session that ended early because two crime scene investigators from the same lab have come down with an illness of some sort, however we heard from a psychiatrist who saw Mutten as well as a number of police. Of most interest was the news that Annemie Stein is due to give evidence tomorrow, beginning a bit early before the jury is called in, so I suspect from this that she could be classified as an ‘unfavourable witness’ and seek some sort of protection from self-incrimination (purely speculation here).

Each day I get an update from the Hills Police Area Command and I have been shocked by the frequency of serious accidents, burglaries and thefts (these usually coming with excellent CCTV photos of the suspects). One burglary was in Baker Crescent, the dogleg street I walk down to the corner shop, where someone advertised a motor bike on Facebook Marketplace only to be burgled and have three bikes stolen, the masked thieves correctly anticipating that there would be cameras. That is exactly why I never use Marketplace, the person picks up at the door and gets to scope your house while they are at it, with eBay it is all at arm’s length with delivery by post. The suspect pics have made me have a rethink about going up to the shops for a quick purchase in my gardening clothes and sans makeup, someone somewhere can put you up on candid camera, even in the background.

May 30, 2024

To court again today and it was Annemie Stein’s turn in the witness box. I think her evidence was summed up by the judge who, when the jury were out, said words to the effect of ‘I don’t think we are going to get much cooperation in finding the truth with this witness’. She initially denied knowing that Charlise was missing, until she was played police body-worn camera evidence of discussions to that effect; then claimed to have heard Charlise’s voice on the phone in the background of a call with Justin, this after a police video was played where she specifically said that she heard no-one in the background; didn’t know that there was a gun safe in her own house; and generally couldn’t remember much at all, except for remembering very clearly how good her son was with the child and how bad the mother was. Though the gunsafe was news to the witness, others have testified to seeing the ‘safe room’, entry via a fake back wall inside the wardrobe, taking one to a set of stairs into the roof cavity (lots of antiques stored here) and ‘the bunker’ another room hidden underground beneath the back verandah (lots stored there as well). My newfound pals were all there, the 88 year old woman, the bike-riding psychic and the man who always bought his wife’s jewellery from Stein. His memories of her are interesting but I’ve decided not to repeat them here so as not to risk a libel suit.

One fascinating episode came in the morning when I was sitting right behind the only grumpy one of the reporters. Jack had told me years ago about the Daily Mail lifting photos and bits of stories from other papers and I replied that I think they all do a bit of that. But as I watched she altered the headline of the DM story of yesterday updating it with today’s news (big type so I could read it clearly), then the story was added to as the evidence unfolded. Interesting to watch how news is reported in real time, but nothing unusual. But then the photos taken this morning were reviewed. Apparently none was good enough so our friend went to an old Financial Review article about the sale of some of the jewellery from Stein’s shop at auction, viewed a large clear photo of Mrs Stein in a large room, lopped it significantly to just head and shoulders, and dropped it into the article. It will be interesting to see if the photographer gets a byline, but I hardly think so.

Well The Guardian reports that New Delhi had India’s highest ever recorded temperature yesterday. It is almost unliveable at 52.9 degrees I would think and has certainly been so for the poor souls who died without the option of retreating into the aircon. Thinking of all of those outdoor workers and the many shopkeepers in their tiny businesses.

June 1, 2024

Sue stayed overnight after book group yesterday. It was a high end afternoon tea of savoury and sweet delights held in the beautiful environment of Sonia’s house. (I am lusting after the set pf 8 porcelain candleholders which looked for all the world like paper, I’m glad they were not for sale). We were on a unity ticket about the book I think, Small things Like These by Claire Keegan, a novel which moved me to tears in parts and did the same for Michelle. We read according to our past experiences and it was a bit too close to the bone for both of us. I’m on a bit of a Garry Disher roll, having discovered him only recently. Sanctuary, my current read, explores so many iterations of crime and dishonesty by a number of characters that there are scenarios that I wouldn’t even have considered, for example setting up a private detective agency with fake IDs in a ritzy office, talking a client into paying upfront in cash to be used for bribes or whatever, then closing the office and bolting interstate. Similarly the cyber crimes done in somebody’s spare room with a bunch of computers and equipment to fake identities. Parts of this were so real that when he talked about setting up spy cameras in people’s homes I immediately looked up and wondered if ever I would notice if such a thing had been installed, the answer of course being no. But whether someone would go to the trouble to see me in my Ugg boots and dressing gown or sitting on the toilet is another story.

After we got home yesterday I got a call from my court buddy filling me in on the day’s events, basically the Crown wrapped up its case and the Defence case begins on Monday. Aaagh, I will have John tomorrow and Monday so I will miss it, though she is sure to ring me with an update. I am assuming that the defence will consist of putting enough doubt in the jurors’ minds that Kallista could be the guilty party, due to 1. the effects of recently ingested ice 2. possible psychosis at the time 3. her belief in the supernatural eg using a pendulum to make decisions and 4. a fear of the breakup of her relationship with Justin. She’s already instilled a little doubt in my mind (though not in the minds of my compatriots) and she just needs to build on that, with the jury being aware that he’s likely to get a decent sentence in gaol for disposing of the body anyway. My buddy is a close talker and on Thursday sat right next to me, digging me in the ribs with her elbow if she detected lies or evasion. She proffered the suggestion that our biker associate ‘may be a bit predatory’ but he certainly isn’t deaf and as he was sitting two seats away at the time I cringed a bit about that. I had sensed a tinge of jealousy perhaps that his friend was spending more time talking to me than to him, but perhaps it was imagined.

Sue is going to see her daughter today and offered me a lift to Erskineville as Anna lives on the next corner to my daughter. I was planning to drive in after lunch, have an early dinner with them and then go on to see Ink, a play about Rupert Murdoch, at the New Theatre but now I will cadge a lift with Sue after lunch and come home on public transport after the show.

June 2, 2024

After a relaxing morning yesterday Sue and I headed through torrential rain along the M2 to Erko and I spent the afternoon playing the card game Organ Attack, a super educational game where we tried to attack each other’s organs with diseases and such other delights as necrosis and botched surgery. But it is a fabulous introduction to the body and what can go wrong with it as I discovered when my granddaughter was delighted to hit me with gallstones and a urinary tract infection. How else can an 8 year old find out about muscular dystrophy or stroke I ask myself? Lots of fun and cleverly designed.

After dinner my son-in-law drove me up to the New Theatre for the play Ink, the story of Rupert Murdoch’s first foray into publishing outside Australia, his purchase of the failing newspaper The Sun, turning it straight downmarket and making it the biggest selling paper in Britain, now biggest in the world. He did this with near-naked models on page 3, competitions, giveaways and scandal. I had vague memories of the death of Murdoch’s colleague’s wife at the hands of local crooks, they kidnapped her because our Rupe had lent his friend and deputy his Rolls-Royce for a few weeks while he went back in Australia and the baddies assumed that the woman riding around in it was Anna Murdoch. Sadly for Muriel McKay the suitcases full of (fake) money left for the kidnappers were seized by local Bobbies who hadn’t been informed about the arrangement, so poor Muriel paid the price and although her assailants were tried and convicted no body has ever been found, though there was some suggestion that she’d been fed to the pigs on the farm. Some superb performances, particularly by the man who played Muriel’s husband, quite chillingly realistic. The evening ended as it began with thunderous rain along the 15 minute walk to Newtown Station, by now it was 11 pm, but that was all forgotten on the train to the city especially so when I made the acquaintance of a lovely young Samoan man who pressed me to take his umbrella so I wouldn’t get any more wet on the way home. I refused of course but I told him that he was a typical Samoan, which seemed to please him immensely.

Today I picked John up from a pretty depressing Gracewood where everyone is locked down due to Covid and ‘various flus’. Thankfully he is over it now but there are no activities or meals in the dining room due to many others now afflicted so he’s once again confined to barracks. I suspect that situation may prevail for a while. I outsmarted myself at my favourite service station on the way home when I keyed in and paid for $100 worth of petrol on their ‘pay before you fill’ system only to find it would only take $95 worth as I hadn’t allowed for the recent drop in price. Doing a curry and green rice for dinner, the rice full of peas, dill and basil, just the thing for early winter.

June 3, 2024

Who was the most important witness in the Stein trial? Justin. When did he give his evidence? Today. Was I there? Noooooo. No good crying over spilt evidence, I’m sure Pam will fill me in tomorrow if not by phone tonight. We took a trip to the The Water Shop in Cammeray where I did the unthinkable and bought something new. My old water filter has been leaking from the tap and needs a jar under it, plus the three filters were well overdue for replacement. However he didn’t have the filters for that one in stock and when they did come in it was going to cost a pretty penny for three, plus none of the replacement taps fitted. So I bought a new one, much bigger capacity, but with just two filters which were included. When we got home I asked Karen next door if she wanted the old one, explaining that it’s long in the tooth and she jumped at it, so then I felt I’d made the right decision. After that we called in on Michael bearing a cake from Maggio’s in Cammeray which was beyond delicious.

I looked up the headlines just now and it says ‘Giles admits there are no drones’. If that’s true I am completely gobsmacked that he could be so stupid. Perhaps there are white-anters in his department giving him wrong information? I don’t know. But I have supported him because much of the criticism of immigration decisions has been a beat-up considering that every minister in his job has overturned visa cancellations for people convicted of serious crimes, however if this is true there’s no saving him. Tip in case by some miracle he survives: look the detractors square in the eye, stick to the facts, but tell the truth.

June 4, 2024

Well it’s all about courts and crimes today one way or another. Firstly an innocuous observation: I’ve always panned plywood, it’s the bottom choice in any situation, but in the Supreme Court in Parramatta all of the tables, benches, jury box etc are ply. But this is super thick, about 4-5 inches or so though I haven’t yet counted the number of layers. It is just beautifully done, with massive dovetails which make a feature on the sides. I may have to rethink my opposition in the light of this.

But to more important issues. Justin Stein was in the box all day yesterday and today his grilling by the Crown continued. I have to say he is articulate, calm, a good witness in terms of understanding the questions and responding to them and quite willing to agree about the lies he’s told the police in the past. Tapes of his phone calls from gaol to his mother are damning to him, but just as damning to her character perhaps. So what do we know for sure? That either Stein or Mutten killed her daughter and either Stein alone or both of them together conspired to dispose of her body. I’m glad I’m not on this jury, it’s nowhere near an open and shut case.

Next door in court 6 there is a case which has my interest aroused. It was ‘court closed’ all last week but today it was open, however I was otherwise committed. That sign usually means something involving a child, or a sexual assault case or something affecting national security, like terrorism. His name is South American, probably Colombian I’m guessing, but there is zip about the case in the press as far as I can find. Once Stein is done I will have a gander if it’s still on. One highlight of the day was bumping into a fellow court watcher in the toilet, someone whom I regularly chat with, except it was the men’s toilet as he kindly explained.

Our old mate Lehrmann has posted his intention to appeal Justice Lee’s ruling and actually quotes the Briginshaw principle in his reasons for doing so. I think he’s in there with a chance but let’s see what the judges think of it all. The other case of interest at the moment is the double murder charge against pilot Greg Lynn in Victoria. In a sense it has similarities to the Stein case in that there are two competing narratives, both with body disposal being admitted by the accused.

Last night’s 4 Corners was the touching story of Rainbow Lodge in Glebe, one of the few places where released criminals can go for residential rehabilitation back into the world. Many of the inhabitants were struggling and the main reason seemed to be drugs. My reaction to the drug problem has hardened, I think that if we don’t make drugs extremely hard to find, by both strong Border Force work and heavy penalties for dealers we are not going to ever get on top of the problem. Humans are just too susceptible to the seductiveness of drugs to resist them, so the state has to do that job just as the Soviet Union managed to do. Bag searches getting into that country were unbelievable and drugs were the target; get a whole team of drug-sniffing dogs and search every damned piece of luggage and shipping container coming into the country before we end up like Mexico or the US. Crack down big time on the crack labs and don’t dilly dally about starting.

June 5, 2024

I asked my mechanic back in January if he would sell my car for me and he suggested leaving it till a month or so before the rego was due so as to get full value for the green slip fee which isn’t refundable. Then a few weeks ago my neighbour expressed interest in buying it as he was planning to change jobs and needed a vehicle to get to work. I suddenly realised that the rego was due next week and texted him about it but he’s decided to stay where he is with a vehicle provided. So that leaves me with the problem that there’s not enough time to sell before the bill is due, so I puzzled about it during the night and rang GIO at 8am. The shortest period that I can take is 6 months, at well over half of the full year rate, so I’m going to be blowing almost $300 for no benefit.

My court pal rang me first thing to say that she will be there today and will fill me on proceedings in with a phone call tonight. Yesterday she was chipped by the Daily Mail reporter who really doesn’t like anyone sitting near her. The other case of great interest at the moment is the double murder charge against Jetstar pilot Greg Lynn in Victoria. In a sense it has similarities to the Stein case in that there are two competing narratives, but both with body disposal being admitted by the accused.

Took some costume jewellery over to a friend’s house today as she is putting together an outfit to wear to a wedding in Spain next week, a gorgeous dress that she bought with a sheer bolero which she made to go over it. Have left a few brooches with her to try on, mostly gold coloured ones which I don’t wear, they and their fellow goldies are waiting for me to eBay them in a bulk lot, something I should have done long before now. They were the property of a woman from Roseville and I bought them from her widower. I’ve already sold about half of the earrings, all clip-ons, but I have lots of strings of fake pearls and coloured beads to get rid of yet. They only bring pin money but it feels good to send them off to new homes.

June 6, 2024

Apparently the jury went out today in the Stein trial, just in time for a long weekend of thinking, if they last till then. I have swung somewhat in my opinion. Though I don’t feel as if I can trust Kallista, it does appear that Justin changed his testimony about the day and time of the shooting after seeing evidence in the police brief of evidence, which he was given before the trial. In phone conversations with his mother he clearly said that she was shot by Kallista in the early hours of the Thursday when it seems it happened on the previous day. As to motive? One could suspect child abuse in a case like this where the child was alone with him overnight though the Crown didn’t make that suggestion, perhaps because there was no forensic evidence and suggesting motive without evidence might just confuse the jury even more. His mother only came to the trial to give evidence, never to support her son and the father didn’t come at all. So I guess I am satisfied on the balance of probabilities, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. If he is acquitted (which is a possibility I think) it will be for that reason, because the jurors were pretty sure he did it but not sure enough.

Today was the opening of the Sydney Film Festival and Carol kindly offered me some tickets. We saw a Mongolian film, City of Wind, about a teenage shaman who was trying to balance the beliefs of his culture with a modern education and a developing relationship. Very interesting look at the traditions of Mongolia as well as its landscape and it had some worthwhile things to ponder later. The second film, Pepe, was probably the most excruciating film I’ve seen for a long time, if not ever. Carol bravely stayed on to hear the director’s talk afterwards so she may have the good oil on it, but those leaving via the side lane when I did seemed universally censorious. I was pleased to find that it was only 2.30pm when I came out which gave me time to do some chores at home before taking John to St. Vs tomorrow. Had my ticket checked on the bus home and felt suitably virtuous when it was approved.

June 7, 2024

John’s visit to St. Vs is always long but today was a record. We got there at 10.30 and I went back to pick him up at 2, but he was nowhere near finished, which he finally was at 3. Meanwhile I was hoping to get a bus from Darlo into town but couldn’t find a park anywhere so I went to Woollahra instead, pottering around the shops picking up some fruit and veg, nothing exciting sadly, though I did enjoy the time reading my book while waiting for John to finish. It is about an American serial killer, Richard Kuklinski, who we discussed in the psychopathy lecture in the forensic science course. What particularly interested me about him was the question he asked the psychiatrist who had interviewed him in gaol for many hours. ‘Can you tell me why I am like I am?’. The psych explained that about 2% of people have the genetic background to find it difficult to experience fear and to feel empathy. If those people are abused in some way up to the age of 5 they have the potential to become psychopaths, but if they are happy as children they become confident, fearless adults who often gravitate to being explorers, military men, test pilots or similar. I find that both fascinating and poignant. Other studies have shown that the vast majority of serial killers are either adopted, victims of abuse or both. Sadly Kuklinski inherited both the genes for violence and the abusive upbringing.

I think Peter Costello just had his Mark Latham handshake moment. Having watched the video it is hard to see him coming out of this with his job. Ignoring his version of events as well as that of the journalist Liam Mendes, we fall back on the two independent witnesses who have called assault in no uncertain terms, one of them without knowing who Costello was. So typical that PC was at the time being asked questions about the bad behaviour of male Nine executives, join the club Peter.

June 9, 2024

Great party for Jude’s 90th yesterday in a private room at St. George Leagues Club. Somehow I thought the place would be crowded, with difficulty parking, but neither was the case. However our party room was packed with 120 people of whom only 3 seemed not to be family. I find it so odd to be in that environment, when a party for my entire family could be held in a bathroom. Yet here are almost 120 people obviously loving each other to bits, from babies to tattooed teens to middle aged parents to grandparents. The care which is shown to Jude by her grandchildren is a delight to see, young Lachlan ferrying his gran around the room with his arm firmly around her and watching Jude dancing with her very musical and handsome Mexican son-in-law was a treat too. But still somehow it seems foreign, like something I’d read about in a novel but that you would never actually see in real life. I always come away from that family feeling loved, somehow they manage to extend that feeling outside their familial boundaries. T 4. A need for excessive admiration.ook 2 hours to get home through horrendous traffic (where are all these people going and coming from I asked myself), but absolutely worth it. Especially loved Jude’s story of how she managed at age 40, having been a nun for over 20 years and owning only two habits, to get money to buy a dress to go on a date with a priest, later her beloved husband Terry. But that’s a story for face to face only.

Mmm, below are the criteria listed in the DSM-5 for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Obviously one person comes immediately to mind when we read these, someone who has been referred to at times as a malignant narcissist, but what if it applies to the administration of a country or the way a country looks at itself? Perhaps peak capitalism and peak narcissism have reached the obvious endpoint? Consider as you read through these: 1. A grandiose sense of importance. 2. A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success and power. 3. A belief that they are special in such a way that only other high-status peoples or institutions can understand them. 4. A need for excessive admiration. 5. A sense of entitlement. 6. Interpersonally exploitative behaviour. 7. A lack of empathy.  8. An envy of others or a belief that others are envious of him or her. 9. Arrogant and haughty behaviours or attitudes.

June 10, 2024

I’ve been trying, largely unsuccessfully, to piece together bits of my old blog entries from emails and whatever, and discovered that back in 2018 I was attending a court case about the will of writer Colleen McCullough. She had changed her will in her last days to her estranged husband Ric Robinson, who had recently moved back to become her carer. All her papers and the royalties from her books were left to the University of Oklahoma in her prior will. Despite the best efforts of her close friend and executor, he sadly won the case despite having had a paramour during the marriage, having moved out and reportedly mistreated her towards the end of her life. Justice is elusive.

Bussed into town yesterday to see Gospel According to Paul, a one man show about the life of Paul Keating. One needed a pretty good political knowledge to remember all of the characters mentioned, but most of the audience were of a vintage to understand all of the references. It covered his early life, rise in politics and his time in government, fairly evenly spaced over them all. When I left the theatre the sun was setting behind the bridge and the city and it was a beautiful sight. Decided to wait the 45 minutes or so till the Vivid lights were turned on but sadly those I saw were cartoonish representations, not the beautiful or artistic representations of other years, so I gave it away and came home. The trams had been stopped understandably, the crowds sweeping towards me when I came out of the Opera House were like a huge wave which I had to fight my way through. I wouldn’t have wanted to be there later in the night.

Months ago I laid out a lot of money on tickets to various plays and an opera, but it just happens that they all bunch together in a period of a few weeks, four of them within the next two weeks, so I will be a busy beetle. However if they are all as good as Keating was it will be money well spent.

I see that the wife of sadly deceased doctor Michael Mosley said that: “We’re taking comfort in the fact that he so very nearly made it”. To me that is the biggest tragedy of the whole thing, that he got within 250 feet of safety and perished anyway. But I guess at times like people have to grab whatever comfort they can find. 

June 11, 2024

Well today didn’t quite work out as planned. I rang GIO at 8am and paid the 6 months green slip on my station waggon, then took the car to my mechanic Alex for the pink slip, still full of fuel after putting in a $100 worth a few days ago. But unfortunately it needed 4 new tyres and something else I’ve forgotten which came to $1500 all up, add this to the green slip and it comes pretty nearly to the $2000 I was asking for it. So Alex said to cancel the green slip (which took a lot longer on the phone than getting it!) and he will ring around the wreckers and see what he can get for it. Makes sense financially but I am not someone who sends stuff to scrap easily. However I then needed to come home to drop off John’s birthday presents and some other things that I had foolishly picked up on the way, not knowing how things would pan out. (I had been to the Chocolate Warehouse and bought him a box of Baci Amaretto chocolates, a bag of barley sugars, a bag of eucalyptus and honey drops, a bag of dark chocolate almonds and 2 various blocks of Old Gold chocolate, that should keep him out of trouble for a few weeks). Then back to Blacktown to sadly drop the car off, then a journey home by public transport, getting home after 2pm. Done and dusted, I just hope they syphon out the fuel at least. I think I might have a bath with some lavender oil, guaranteed to salve all ills.

A few weeks ago I joined the Hills Police Area Command Facebook page and what an eye-opener it has been. A few days ago they posted that there had been a group of boys in hoodies and black masks hanging around ‘transport hubs’ and robbing people. Then yesterday they arrested a group of males wearing said hoodies and masks after someone was robbed at Castle Hill train station. But what shocked me was the photographs of the weapons they were carrying: a very large and nasty looking knife, a smaller knife, 2 hammers, some box cutters and somebody’s mother’s meat tenderising hammer. In Castle Hill. At 3 pm, not 3 am. I think I’ll stick to the bus.

June 13, 2024

Yesterday was John’s birthday but we spent it largely at home, planning to be out to a movie and lunch today. However after the present opening ceremony I needed to do some more car admin including the transfer of ownership of his car to me, thereby bulking his dwindling bank account. But Service NSW said that I should have returned the plates of the waggon when it went to the wreckers (I’m sure they didn’t tell me that so they could drive it there instead of using a tow truck). So I needed to fill out forms explaining why I wasn’t returning the plates before they would let me transfer ownership of John’s car. Then I went to leave and the woman reminded me that the car was now uninsured as it had changed hands, so I had to wait on the phone for ages to insure it with GIO as well as getting a green slip for it. When we got home I had to cancel John’s insurance, cancel my Linkt toll gadget and something else now forgotten. Luckily he was rewarded with a dinner he liked after a day of car discussions, but his promised lunch and glass of wine today wasn’t a goer because I wasn’t feeling well enough, however he has a raincheck on that one. Perhaps we will go to Glass Bistro rather than the Palace seeing he has had to wait. We went with Carol in the morning to see Thelma at the Film Festival, it was a delight from start to finish though sadly John couldn’t understand the plot, it looks as if films are completely off the agenda for him now.

Tried to read another Stan Grant article but the thing ended up as a sermon, as do all of his articles lately, so I gave it away. I find that I agree more with John Hewson these days which is a bit of a joke considering his past associations.

Bloody claim assessor from GIO is on my case again (still) because the roofing guy has let me down, providing neither report nor quote, but clearly she thinks I’m full of do-do as she’s sent me an ultimatum regularly. This time it’s 10 days to get a report or else. My policy cancelled? a firing squad? tied up in a cave to be eaten by rats? (I cheated by borrowing this last option from a book I’m reading on the New York Mafia), but the punishment was not at all clear. Now I will have to go through the whole procedure with a different guy and I think roofers are particularly suspect tradesmen as you can’t see their work.

June 14, 2024

I was reduced last night to a fraction of a person, sitting in a hot bath and drinking Ural, so I had to take Bob’s latest antibiotic offering to get me out of the current predicament. Luckily for me the pain faded somewhat overnight, enabling me to still attend to getting the pink slip on John’s (now my) car. It sailed through with no problems and I feel a little bit comforted by Alex’s comment that my old car (sniff) is being ‘cut up for parts’ which is better than my imaginings of it being squashed into a metre x metre block of metal. It’s the first time in about 40 years that I haven’t owned a station waggon and I am trying to avoid looking at council clean-up piles in case I see some wondrous antique which won’t fit in a sedan. Hopefully I will be up for going to the opera tomorrow as planned and also to the lecture before it, which is particularly helpful with a new work.

Still frustratingly trying to patch together bits of the old blog. Paragraphs here and there, but I really want to retrieve all of the Covid period stuff as it is a different mindset altogether and the best way to remember it is to read back through the posts of the time. I found some of it and I had forgotten getting all my fruit, veg and fish from Harris Farm in that period, the fish coming straight from their freezers in the Flemington Markets complex. I’d forgotten feasting on stuffed sardines amongst other things from them.

June 15, 2024

I have cried in an opera before but I’ve never cried through an opera as I did today. Watershed, an opera based on the death of Dr. Duncan in Adelaide’s river Torrens in 1972, brought back a flood of memories of my friends being harassed, beaten, and in one case driven to suicide by the actions of police who made the lives of gay men miserable for decades, and did so with impunity. This was a 5 Star production with a down to earth libretto written jointly by Alana Valentine and Christos Tsiolkas and directed by Neil Armfield with the music composed by Joseph Twist. Dancer Macon Escobal Riley hung by a harness from the ceiling head down for longer than seemed healthy, before being pushed into the ‘river’ onstage and lying in presumably cold water for a quite some time, through all of this looking balletic and beautiful. Tim Reeves wrote the book The Death of Dr. Duncan on which the performance is based and he was signing copies in the foyer, but I couldn’t have got a word out then so I decided to save getting the book for another day. Three vice squad police were implicated and refused to give evidence at the inquest so as not to incriminate themselves. A Scotland Yard team found they were most likely guilty and years later they were tried but refused to testify, the judge accepted an 11 to 1 majority to find them not guilty. I wonder what they are doing today?

June 16, 2024

The roofer due to come this morning postponed at the last minute, saying that his son was sick, but I had done my baking for today’s baby shower earlier this morning to accommodate him, so I was well in front in the end and had time for a leisurely glance at the paper before we left. It was a lovely function, with an activity to decorate a bib with special fabric pens, something I hadn’t seen before. With my limited drawing skills I just did a big butterfly and the baby’s name, Alec and then got talking and neglected to go around and see what others had done. It suddenly occurred to me that I had made the card but not written inside it, however a hasty reopening of the envelope solved that problem. There was a huge pile of gifts there, more than the number of guests I think. I got John back to Gracewood just in time for dinner.

I always read the Deaths in the Saturday Herald and muse that everyone will be ‘sorely missed’, is ‘loved by so many people’, often ‘adored’ in fact. I frequently wonder what the notices would say if everyone told the truth. But this week there was an attempt at that for Richard John Burgess ‘Involuntarily incarcerated in Wyong Hospital 7 months’ and ‘Exiled and stolen from his loved ones. Karma to his Captors’. My goodness I would love to hear the story behind that death notice, almost worth a trip to the funeral to get the lowdown, a pity it is in Wyong. I met someone years ago who admitted to going to funerals of people they didn’t know, partly for the free feed I guess but mainly for the camaraderie. I could relate to that and didn’t feel critical of them, as long as it’s not a mass of course, it just isn’t worth sitting through all that for some sandwiches and a couple of scones. A good atheist funeral though, especially one leaning towards the political left, can be a call to arms and very uplifting and inspiring.

June 18, 2024

Yesterday the roofer came and I was impressed. Last night while I was minding my granddaughter his quote came in by email at 9.30pm, so no complaints about his promptness. I considered it in detail this morning and decided to accept his quote, all of which was clear and made sense to me (apart from the almost dyslexic spelling) BUT this morning I rang Fair Trading to check on his Builder’s Licence details and they had never heard of him! Bugger me, I can’t win in this roof business. I was going to cancel the other chap who is coming tomorrow, but now I won’t.

Still mulling over the Forensic Science course and loving the story that Alexander the Great died in 320BC and his body was preserved in a container lined with honey. Because honey is mainly monosaccharides and H2O, it deprives the microorganisms of water. The low pH and low moisture content starves bacteria of the water they require to survive and grow, though who’s to know how much of the actual Alexander story is myth and how much is truth. However it does link to modern use of honey as an antibacterial agent. Worth more reading. As part of the course I have finished reading The Ice Man, the story of Richard Kuklinski, a classic psychopath and contract killer in the US. Both absorbing and shocking, it is 524 pages of murder most foul. He took orders about methods, so it was hard for law enforcement to connect the dots with someone who shoots, stabs, beats, drowns or burns his victims. The degree of suffering was also to order so a Mafia boss could order a long and painful death for someone who impregnated his daughter or killed his son in a hit and run for example, any way or any degree of brutality could be accommodated. The Iceman (his name due to the fact that some of his corpses were dismembered and frozen) was more than happy, in fact eager, to oblige.

I had been told that the huge, sad, faulty Dyldam buildings at the main intersection in Baulkham Hills was empty apart from security guards living there, but the other day I got talking to a man called Ram at the bus stop and bemoaned its wasted units in a city with so many homeless people. He replied that he lived there, renting from someone who bought off the plan, never a good idea these days. He said that he is the only person on his floor but there are others scattered through the buildings. I fail to understand how a building can be refused an occupation certificate yet still have tenants, but I have no doubt that the young man was telling the truth. The mystery continues.

June 19, 2024

Well Maurice the roofer was on time and gave me a cheaper quote than the unlicensed but charming Irishman. It occurred to me overnight that it was odd that a roofer could afford to have his office on the 20th floor of a tower in Chatswood, but perhaps he runs a few businesses under different names? I should have picked that up as being sus and not been beguiled by his pronunciation of ‘tousand’. Maurice was pleased to see that I had icons on the wall (for purely aesthetic reasons) but when he asked what religion I was I answered honestly. I think I will take his advice, junk the insurance claim and pay him to fix the roof, employing my own painter to do the ceiling. But then I won’t have the lovely Chloe to email………

I was driving this morning when a call came in from my court pal Pam, somehow it rang with importance so I took the call and she was ringing to tell me that the Stein jury had come in with a verdict of guilty. I had over time come to this view myself and breathed a sigh of relief, but felt emotional at the thought of the child and sad at the way his life has turned out, schizophrenia, drug addiction, petty crime and now this. He will face a very long sentence. Pam is on the hunt to get the sentencing date and I will try to be there too.

June 20, 2024

Well as expected Pam rang with the sentencing date for Justin Stein, I think it was August 23, but I was in the car and didn’t write it down. She wants to have lunch afterwards, so I guess we will, she’s a good stick. I’ve set her a task, finding why the trial in the next door court was closed to the public. She’s a bit of a Sherlock and has more time than I do, so I’m sure she will come up with the goods.

I’m probably in the minority here but I have bones to pick with this current production of Death of a Salesman which I saw on Tuesday night. Anthony la Paglia is superb, from his posture and shuffling gait to his eternal optimism in the face of the fact that he’s a has-been. His wage removed, reduced to selling on the road for commission only, it is one of the saddest plays I know and he totally pulls it off. However the parts of his wife and sons are to my mind over-egged, theatrical rather than real, bordering on histrionic at times, while la Paglia holds himself in and lets the suffering show in his face, in his body and its mannerisms. When I last saw this play it was set in the family loungeroom, dull and brown and boring from memory. Was it Belvoir? About 2012? This version is sited in the football stadium where Biff’s dreams crumbled all those years ago and I don’t think the change of scene does anything for the play. Better to site it in the very house he is so desperately trying to save, but I guess every director wants to put their own slant on a production. It was written in 1949 as a condemnation of capitalism and it stands firm as that today. Of the minor cast members Biff’s old school friend and neighbour Bernard, who succeeds in becoming a lawyer appearing before the Supreme Court, was calm and caring towards his pal, realising that Biff’s failure to go to college has probably ruined his life. His performance, like la Paglia’s, was all the better for its control. After the Belvoir performance I could barely leave my seat, I was so traumatised by the play, that didn’t happen this time, yet it did happen in the current Opera Watershed, even though both had the same director, Neil Armfield. Strange.

My my, being on the local police Facebook page is a reality check on what goes on in the area. Just last night another woman was killed in a car accident when the Merc she was travelling in collided with a ute in Tuckwell Avenue at Castle Hill, three others were taken to hospital. It’s a back suburban street but the comments on the page seem to indicate it’s a bit of a speedway. In regards to another post I commented that a black ute that overtook me on the left then crossed three lanes to the right on Old Windsor Rd at Bella Vista this week. He was on L plates! Immediately someone else reported what sounds like the same black ute with L plates cutting her off on the same road in the same area. I need to try to get a number plate if he pops up again. One annoying but unsurprising thing is the spelling on that police site, my fingers itch to correct it but cops and tradies mostly seem to have been off sick or at the toilet during spelling at school. The best one I’ve seen recently was the Irish roofer who in his quote called Gyprock ‘chip rock’, aaaagh the sheets used to have Gyprock written all over them so how can someone not notice at least that it starts with G?

June 21, 2024

From spelling to pronunciation: can someone please organise a class for ABC reporters and politicians to help them say the word nuclear (ensure that Chris Bowen attends). It is “new-klee-ah” people, I don’t understand why this word trips so many people up, perhaps residual brain damage from Mururoa?

In the wake of the nuclear debate I was thinking about Whitlam’s Minerals and Energy Minister Rex Connor who wanted funds to nationalise minerals across Australia. He proposed that to finance his plans, the government should borrow $4 billion from the US. If that had occurred imagine the wealth pouring into the country now, we could have initiated a fixed income for every person in Australia out of the small change. Opportunity lost, probably forever.

When I told friends that I was renewing my passport which had expired I was given dire warnings about the complications and time it would take. But it was 10 minutes in the post office and now it is coming by registered mail today, only 10 days since I applied. Easy peasy.

I have been buying some wonderful glace fruits, oranges, peaches, pineapple, cherries and more, from my tea supplier Pine Coffee and Tea in the industrial estate in Castle Hill. I sensed that it was a once off buy for them so I have been getting quite a few packs to stash away. Today I’m doing an American Fruit Cake which is in the oven as I type. I have rung them to ask that they put away whatever packs they have left for me but sadly that doesn’t amount to many. The oranges are particularly good and I look forward to trying a cake using only them.

June 22, 2024

So the fruit cake I made yesterday was okay, but wasn’t as good as I was hoping for. I wish I had done another recipe which has very little flour but heaps of glace fruit and nuts, somehow this one is more like a traditional fruit cake, not something really special, but John asked for seconds so it can’t be all bad. I’m looking forward to baking pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, onions and my fave Jerusalem artichokes for dinner tonight, I so love their nutty texture. John put the rest of the carrots through the juicer but it always amazes me that a kilo gives us only two glasses, but the possum has a load of crushed carrot for his dinner. The ‘new’ possum, smaller and younger, is the first one who’s ever come in daylight, he usually comes about 5 o’clock or so. I worry that a cat might see him but I guess that can happen anytime, however I’ve been feeding them 40 years or more and it’s a sudden change of habit, maybe he’s a hungry little blighter who just can’t wait for dark.

Two shocking stories on the front page of the Saturday Paper today (a very wet paper as was the SMH), first that the CSIRO has had to close two clinical research units and cancel a plan to set up a food research centre in Victoria due to funding cuts. What do we need more than clinical research and food research? Oh of course, we need to cultivate Scott Morrison to be a link between our government and a possible Trump presidency. How could we even consider such a thing? The man can’t be trusted at any level, certainly not to push this government’s agenda. One hopes that the journalist wrote it from the depths of a febrile imagination. I am still getting over the fact that he was able to use our Washington Embassy to launch his wretched book.

June 23, 2024

We headed off on the bus to the city this morning for the Food and Wine Fair. Loved the cheese tastings, but I didn’t see as much of interest this time, along with the feeling that there were less stalls than last year. I didn’t buy anything and the idea of brochures seems to have fallen by the wayside. Certainly I looked out for the Murray cod, the Lubeck marzipan and the amazing soup mixes that I remember but none were there. We gave the crackers made out of crickets a miss. John was pleased that I suggested ice creams afterwards at Darling Harbour. The walk back up the hill to the QVB burned off some of the cheese.

June 24, 2024

It has been reported that the Riverstone factory that processes ‘meat waste’ for dog food is going to close due to the ghastly smell affecting nearby residents. It was once an abattoir as well but that closed some time ago. I can remember talking to a person who worked mostly at night on a council truck. One of his jobs was picking up the cadavers of euthanased animals from local vets to deliver there and the men at Rivo told them to ‘pick up road kill as well if you see it’. It occurs to me that these animals would be in one case full of drugs and in the other possibly rotten, yet the end product is used to feed animals, presumably mostly dogs. Isn’t this sort of thing how we got mad cow disease?

What I’m finding out on the Hills Police Facebook page fills me with doubts about my fellow man, or in this case woman. “Female charged with High Range Drink Driving – almost six times the legal limit!! A 20 yo Bidwill woman will appear in Parramatta Local Court next month after allegedly driving a Kia sedan on the M2 Motorway Baulkham Hills at 11.20 am 22/6/24. After 000 calls were received regarding erratic driving PolAir tracked the vehicle as it collided with a number of barriers before stopping near the Cropley Drive underpass. Police were directed to the scene where she returned a positive road side breath test. She was arrested and conveyed to Castle Hill Police Station where she returned a blood alcohol reading of 0.284. She was charged with High Range Drink Driving. Her licence was suspended and she’ll appear in Parramatta Local Court next month”. This was all bad enough but a follow up story hours later was almost worse. Believe it or not, she was caught driving again a few hours later, but this time only four times over the limit. I think the judge may be a little cross, as well they should be.

I was very interested to see that that a Freemans Reach egg farm has been quarantined with bird flu, causing a tragic end for those caged chooks (or a blessed release). The only egg farm I know there is P**e Farms which has a history easily recalled. My old client Bob was a close friend of the owner of this establishment and related a conversation about ‘magic eggs’. When he asked what they were Mr. P**e gleefully stated that he only had 200 free-range chooks yet they produced thousands of ‘magic eggs’ every day, raising his bottom line in the process. I have never bought from that company since and encouraged Bob to dob them in, something he wasn’t willing to do. However I may need to rethink my disbelief in karma.

June 26, 2024

Too busy yesterday to post, but spent the day enjoyably, catching up on eco-dyeing technique. It is so unpredictable despite all coming out of the same pot. The plain white cotton scarf came out a treat with clear images of maple leaves, berries and more and adds one more to my already ridiculously large scarf collection. The papers were mixed, some very usable, others less so, but I managed to make two passable cards this afternoon by cutting the worst paper in two, glueing it to card paper and adding paperbark in one case and flowers and leaves in the other. John was here colouring so it was good to sit with him and do craft together.

Big news day with Julian finally free, thanks in large part to our government, but also to his staunch supporters. The big news yesterday was of course the Lynn murder case in Victoria, with a surprising result of not guilty for Russell Hill’s murder yet guilty for Carol Clay’s, but I guess one out of two ain’t bad as Meatloaf sang. What shocked me today though was how much Lynn’s excellent barrister Dann managed to have the judge withhold from the jury, vital evidence all of it, including 5000 hours of taped conversation over many months. There were some things that were arguable such as a doorstop by the police which was taped without the suspect’s knowledge. But as a result of one restriction Dann was able to tell the jury that Lynn had stuck to exactly the same story for the entire time he was being interviewed (despite his knowing that this was untrue) because the judge had only allowed the last four hours of his police interviews to go before the jury. The judge agreed to cutting out all of the many hours that Lynn was denying having seen the couple at all, making the defence’s lies to the jury unable to be refuted by the prosecution, something that they and the police must have found galling in the extreme. It must add more pain to the family of Hill, for whom the not guilty verdict applied. Lynn comes across as a high-functioning sociopath, probably an excellent pilot with his lack of fear and his strong need for absolute control, but not someone to mess with in a deserted forest.

June 27, 2024

So how can it be half way through the year? Saw Bob this morning, still trying to get on top of the latest flare which has taken three weeks to get under control with a change of drugs. I don’t know what I’d do without him, I don’t want to think about it. Currently reading Peter Goldsworthy’s book The Cancer Finishing School, this great writer and GP is suffering from multiple myeloma and describes his treatment, not just from a scientific perspective but from how it feels. Going through a bone marrow transplant is harrowing and often fatal, but he explains how ‘coffee tastes like diesel so I want to get a cup of diesel from the service station to see if it tastes like coffee’. He talks about losing energy, losing taste, losing intellectual ability to do things like reading and he really isn’t that interested in whether he survives or not. But far from being a depressing book it is lots of fun, with laugh out loud stories about his patients over the years. He seems to do house calls for a chance to sit and share a cuppa and a chat as much as for purely medical reasons (don’t tell Medicare) but he’s someone you’d welcome in any time at all, no matter what the reason.

This arv I had a front row seat to see the play Gaslight at Riverside and it was well worth the price of the ticket and more. Four in the cast and you’d be hard pressed to choose between them in terms of acting talent. Afterwards I realised that I’d forgotten to buy some things at the fruit market where Bob is so I just stayed on the bus to Castle Hill, bought my fruit and veg and got the bus back, leaving me on the right side of the road and not risking my life at peak hour.

June 28, 2024

I talked to Bob yesterday about my nightly bad dreams and full on nightmares but he agreed with Prof. Reeves that they are a very rare side effect of the Plaquenil which I take every day. What this stuff is doing to my brain can only be imagined, but seeing he quoted anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation and psychosis as being in the same family of ‘very rare’ side effects, perhaps I have come off fairly lightly. If I weren’t in a flare at the moment I’d give the big P a rest for a few months, however now is not the time. Last night it was all about the child of my next door neighbours and somehow I was responsible for getting treatment for her deafness but seeing she is in her 20s and living elsewhere with her partner I have no idea where that could have come from. John’s friend Terry, a psychoanalyst, may have had some clues about all of this but I certainly don’t. However at the time it is very anxiety producing and only comes across as nonsense the next day.

After finally settling my claim with the GIO for ceiling water damage a few days ago (only sorted by my acceptance of a small cash settlement to get the work done myself, rather than using their tradesmen) I happened to ask whether my loss of a freezer full of food due to a faulty power board is a claimable event. Yes certainly I was told, and was sent the online claim form immediately. I have just filled it out and it appears that it’s been accepted already, as I was told that the money will be in my bank in a few days! Contrast this with the hoo-ha that’s gone on since January over the roof, particularly when you consider that the amount they are paying me for the food is MORE THAN THEY’VE GIVEN ME FOR THE CEILING. Perhaps I was just unlucky in that the particular claims officer I ended up with was difficult, as I’ve suspected all along. This latest claim was handled in the polite, efficient manner I’ve become used to since I went with them in 1976. I am supposed to be getting a minor roof repair on Monday, though rain is expected now. However I am so glad that I didn’t go with the silver-tongued Irishman who quoted more than double the amount for the roof repair than what I’ve agreed to with the new fellow. My daily Facebook message from the Hills Police told me yesterday to beware of a group of Irishmen going around quoting for roof repairs and then disappearing with the deposits (or the full amounts in some cases). They target the elderly, surely not moi I thought defensively, however I’ve retrieved his brochure from the Sulo bin and handed it over to the bobbies. So glad that I thought to check him out with Fair Trading who of course had never heard of him or his companies. A close shave.

June 30, 2024

Yesterday after a full day of fun I was too tuckered out to post anything. We went to Manly, had a lovely lunch on Manly Wharf at the Wharf Bar, a shared plate of flathead fillets, chips and salad which neither of us could have eaten alone. Lovely spot and good grub at a fair price. Then we walked through the Corso like tourists and got ice creams at the best gelato bar in Sydney, Anita Gelato. Funny how I always thought Movenpick to be the best, then the only outlet I knew closed and Messina became the ice cream of choice, but that was before Anita opened. My two scoops were superb, Macadamia Cream and Pavlova with Berries. John had Raspberry and Passionfruit, the latter making you wince just like eating an actual passionfruit and of course it was full of seeds as it should be. Spoiled me for any other brand.

Got a letter up in the Saturday Paper yesterday following on from the lead article last week about ScumMo being touted as a conduit between our government and a potential Trump one. Spare me the thought on both counts. But after Biden’s performance, or lack of it, yesterday that option looms over us even more tangibly. If the choice is a near-corpse versus a sociopath, I guess the only answer is to vote for Biden, trusting that his backup team is capable. His festinating gait has been obvious for a couple of years if not more and it is selfish in the extreme to risk another Trump presidency for the sake of his ego. Carl Sagan in 1995 in The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark said it all: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.” Well noted Carl.

Working on the idea that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission, I am keeping John here for a second night. I suddenly realised that today is the last day of the financial year, having thought that it was the 30th yesterday. So, seeing the lady who monitors his nights home doesn’t work on weekends I thought…….well there’s no one to ask is there? He wants to know what we are doing but if the roofer comes we are stuck here, however it may rain in which case we can decide in the morning.

I saw a picture on Facebook of someone’s pantry black with ants and it made my heart jump, just remembering the terrible infestation of a couple of years back. Thousands upon thousands descended on my pantry for weeks and used to drive me to tears. Despite removing the packet they had eaten their way into, the message was going back to the nest that there was still food to be had here. I’m so careful not to step on ants outside but come over the border into my pantry and it’s just kill, kill, kill.

July 1, 2024

Well the roofer was here for four hours and cleaned the roof and gutters of copious leaves as well as repairing the cracked mortar in the capping tiles and replacing a couple of broken ones. He suggested lopping a few branches off the golden elm so that they didn’t hit the garage roof and didn’t charge any extra for that. A bonus is that the green bin is full of rotted down leaves off the roof which will make excellent top up mulch for the garden, something I will attend to this week. So I think I found a goody and would happily use him again. Interestingly after I sent a pleasant email to the Irishman who quoted double what this man did, to tell him that I was not going ahead, he didn’t ring or text me back or attempt to talk me into going with him. The roof job prevented us from going out but we both enjoyed our activities anyway, John colouring and me making a few cards and prepping a Granny Smith apple crumble. I’m on a bit of a run of cat card designs but not sure who to send them to, however Boris loved the cat one I did for him so an opportunity will present itself.

I see that the Art Gallery is asking for an extra $17 million from the government so it need not make further cutbacks. But Treasury has found that the opening of the new contemporary gallery has failed to boost sales for ticketed shows, in fact the numbers are down! Ahem, if you plan to spend $344 million on a new gallery it’s a bit rich to come begging when its building doesn’t profit you at all. Especially when its all about the building and not so much about the contents. However the government decided to fling them $12.1 million towards its operational costs, which would have been hugely increased when they doubled the gallery footprint. Why exactly do we need two contemporary art galleries in Sydney, as well as the private ones including the highly regarded White Rabbit Gallery in Chippendale? My prediction is that the new gallery will eventually cause the main one to be forced into charging admission, I will get no satisfaction from saying I Told You So.

July 2, 2024

So the aptly named Wes Fang is getting his comeuppance courtesy of Mark Speakman, and not before time. What a nasty piece of work he is, guaranteed to say something unpleasant every time he opens his mouth. I have watched him a number of times online at hearings in parliament house and he alternates between constantly looking at his phone and interjecting inappropriate comments on the matter to hand. I hope Speakman doesn’t back down.

I am feeling virtuous after, instead of going to a movie, I succeeded in spreading on the garden ALL of the mountain of wet leaves retrieved from the roof yesterday. I wish I could also get rid of the many gum branches I have piled up, no one with a fire seems to want them and I don’t want to waste them to the green bin if they can be used. Also I had a feeling that somewhere in the storeroom there was a small lidded wooden box, ideal for storing finished cards I thought, and with luck I found it. So that led to cleaning out my drop-front bureau, putting a pile of made cards into the attractive new receptacle and tidying up the rest of the essentials I store there.

So the West Australians are up in arms over the new live sheep export ban, as expected. I was interested in the 4 Corners programme on Chinese technology (much of which went over my head of course) that they gave an example of a man setting up a company to build massive computers to process cryptocurrency transactions. They were built in some remote place and not causing any objection apparently, but the government just decided that cryptocurrency isn’t something that they support and therefore closed the whole thing down. Now, apart from the obvious fact that refusing permission to build it would have been smarter, I applauded the Chinese for saying that they don’t want to have operating anything that is detrimental to their society. Wow, what a concept. Where do we start? Live animal exports, online gambling sites, casinos, selling off all our minerals and gas for a pittance, gosh so many thing that I’d need time to make a list in case Albo takes up the idea, though there’s fat chance of that.

I was just interrupted by a pleasant young chap from Red Cross and explained that I prefer to give to certain organisations that I already follow. But he surprised me by saying that he wasn’t asking for donations, just letting people know about Red Cross. Somehow it seems an odd thing to pay fellows to do these days, but they must have their reasons, unless of course he’s just looking for houses to rob.

July 3, 2024

Today I tried another bus trip, this time without incident. They rang at 8.20 to say that I was first pick-up despite my expecting them about 9, but they rescheduled me for later which meant I didn’t have to go through all of the winding up, down and around streets to pick people up, a real bonus. We went to high tea at the Intercontinental Hotel at Double Bay (best known as the place where Michael Hutchence breathed his last) and it was lovely sitting near the marble fireplace in the dining room and feasting on savoury Portuguese tarts, egg, cheese and cucumber sambos, sweet tarts and scones. I was very surprised that prosecco was $5 a glass and Moet was $10, the cheapest I’ve ever seen for quality wine, considerably less than you’d pay at the bobby basic local pub here. My table partner quaffed three glasses, while I was happy with one of Moet. The staff were particularly friendly and obliging, not at all stuffy. Home without feeling unwell, the trick is to take the tablets before each of the trips and not rely on just one in the morning to do the job. Lesson learned.

This day in 1993 the Greek government generously decided to forgive Germany its debts from the war. It helped spark what became known as the German economic miracle. Decades later Germany was among the countries resisting Greece’s requests for debt relief, so much for owing a debt of gratitude.

John has been complaining of pain in his hands from arthritis so I talked to one of his three five-star nurses, Bisa, yesterday and suggested Panadol Osteo daily. Just got an email to say that they’ve discussed it with the doctor there and it’s been prescribed. So easy to get things done, just ask any of the three and snap, it’s sorted. I thank my lucky stars every day that my first choice, the Anglican Retirement Village, were so slack in not replying to me for two weeks that he ended up in Baptistcare.

July 4, 2024

Receiving regular emails from Alan as he traverses 6000 kilometres across Canada by car. Prior to this they were on an extended cruise stopping at six ports in Norway then going across to Iceland and Greenland. These last three places, along with Newfoundland which they have just been to are my absolute bucket list destinations, if I realistically thought they were possible, which I don’t. However they remain my dreaming list. I am trying to convince Alan to prepare a First Saturday presentation but he doesn’t seem to think that people would be interested.

So Bruce Lehrmann is to face trial in Toowoomba on another rape charge, but this one could be as problematic as the first, considering they were both on cocaine and she consented the first time earlier that night. Maybe with a judge alone trial perhaps, but not with a jury from what’s been released so far.

John’s nurse Vanessa, one of the five-star trio, is sadly moving to the locked dementia ward so I won’t have the benefit of her wisdom any more, but I couldn’t think of a kinder person to look after those poor tormented souls. I noted last weekend that perhaps John’s sense of taste is awry somehow. I made him toast with a lovely South Cape smoked cheese for breakfast but when I asked if he liked it he replied that he had thought it was peanut butter. I hope that his appreciation of food, one of the things we share an interest in, isn’t going the way of so much else that’s been lost.

I feel a bit sorry for Albo, who hasn’t lived up to my hopes on the Palestine issue, yet had the Fatima Payman disaster right when he should have been getting some kudos for tax cuts, wage hikes and more. I think the problem goes back to the rule that pollies in the Labor Party can’t cross the floor on issues of principle or conscience. Drop that rule and it becomes a non-event politically.

July 5, 2024

Poor John rang at almost 10 am to say that he’d been waiting for me in the foyer since 9 am, he’d got mixed up with tomorrow. I offered to go and get him now but then he’d have to be there all day Sunday with nothing to do, as there are no recreational activities. Fridays he has Happy Hour and a music programme in the afternoon so he decided to go back upstairs and wait for tomorrow, but then discovered that he’s lost his room key, a precious comfort since the attempted heist on his figurines. I’ve told him to ask for a spare to be cut and I’ll fix them up tomorrow, so hopefully they can do that.

Lovely to have Sue here overnight. We sat in front of the fire but no red wine as per usual as she’s trying to do Dry July. I missed my glass of red though as I never open a bottle for myself. Did lentil and feta rissoles with fried tomatoes for breakfast which went down well. Good for me that she comes here for an overnight stay in preference to Kirribilli.

My experiment with stopping Plaquenil is working a treat. For the first five days there was no difference at all, but in the last few days the nightmares have gone altogether!! Too soon to be sure but so far it looks as if it’s working and I feel sooo much better when I wake up in the morning. I decided that the Sjogren’s symptoms were better than the nightmares but the Prof will have a fit, however I don’t see him till January so I will worry about that debate then.

Wonderful news about the British election, apart from the fact that we will have to endure Farage’s ugly mug and grating voice for the next five years. I was so hoping that he would slip into obscurity. He lied that the problem with Britain was the European Union, now there’s not a mention of that at all, everything is the fault of the immigrants.

June 7, 2024

Oh Biden what are you thinking. In the very interview where he is supposed to be reassuring his country that he’s on top of his game he comes out with “You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world.” We know that US presidents are more like emperors than their counterparts in most other countries, and running the world is probably truer than we would prefer, but to actually say that is astonishing. He should have been pushing his vice-president forward for the last 18 months, making sure she is well known and familiar, but no. The generous observation is that he’s doolally and the alternative is he is a control freak and megalomaniac, both of which are reasonable criticisms of his opponent. Poor America.

Then here we have Albo who can’t get any Press about all the good things he is doing that doesn’t include questions about Fatima Payman. The problem is partly the rigid rule about not crossing the floor for a conscience vote. The Greens and the Coalition have had plenty of people cross the floor and coped, in fact 17 MPs in recent parliaments have crossed the floor, the most frequent being Barnaby Joyce who’s crossed 28 times and Bob Katter who’s crossed on 9 occasions without the world as we know it ending. I do worry about two other things though, the idea of a religiously based party which, along with religious based schools, is a very divisive idea. Also the fact the Glenn Druery is involved, he is no friend of the left and I doubt if he gives a flying fig about Palestine, however getting the opportunity to cut Albo off at the ankles would be a huge temptation for him and so his advice likely has an undertone that may not be understood or appreciated.

We went to the annual Watercolour Exhibition today and for me it wasn’t a patch on last year. I was not sorely tempted to buy as I had been last time, partly because the paintings in general were not as good. But also it has previously been held in historic Lion’s Gate Lodge in the Botanic Gardens with sculpture for sale in the gardens, a raffle to win a painting or two, and Devonshire teas and sambos served in the lodge surrounds so you could have a break for a cuppa and then go around to see your favourites all over again. None of that this time, just in the bare walls of the new gallery, which may be practical but is totally without character. What a pity, it was a favourite event for us in the past. John kept asking where we had parked the car but happily we went by two buses, so parking wasn’t an issue.

July 8, 2024

After checking photos I took last year at the watercolour exhibition I discovered that they were taken in September, not July, and it turns out that I was confusing this exhibition with Artisans in the Garden which is later in the year. So we still have that one to look forward to and it will be at Lion’s Gate I hope.

My communications with the nurses about John are frequent, factual and friendly, always perfectly understandable, but sometimes I am baffled by those from the admin people such as this one about brochures available: “You can find spare time at each level when you are out of life”. Still mulling over what they are trying to tell us here.

I’ve pretty much given up reading anything by Stan Grant since he went down the religious road, but now I am finding Peter Hartcher does my head in too. First it was just on China but he’s taken the road to the right on many things it seems. Pity on both accounts.

July 9, 2024

I am wondering if the current spate of domestic violence incidents is partly a backlash to the fact that women are coming out of the boxes that they’ve been in for so long. It is said that the surge to the right in the US is partly due to the horror of those, particularly in the southern states, who just couldn’t abide the idea of a black president and carried that anger forward. Of course there are other issues involved too, unemployment, struggling to make ends meet, social isolation, to name just a few. In the recent case I mused about how I would have coped at age 28 with 7 children? Not well I suspect.

I noticed that an expected email hadn’t arrived and belatedly looked in junk, only to find seven recent emails there from folks who would usually go straight to the inbox. It’s a very good system but sometimes it’s overzealous. However I won’t complain when I see the tide of rubbish that also found its way to junk.

Currently reading Dassi Erlich’s book In Bad Faith which shows that she was severely abused by both her parents, and the religion itself, long before Malka Leifer came on the scene. She talks of being starved as punishment, being sent to bed along with her siblings at 4.30pm and refused permission to use a toilet till morning, being beaten constantly. But the religious rules have to take much of the blame for the madness in their home. Stealing food from other children’s school bags and eating it sitting on a toilet, she avoids bread because the prayers involved in eating different foods are varied and the bread prayer is a long one. Once again I wonder why we are funding religious schools when I read that the day’s lessons began with Torah studies, followed by a double period of Jewish history, then Jewish law, following that was Yiddish classes and only the last two lessons of the day were English and maths. The whole Orthodox experience she describes would constitute mental illness outside the confines of religion. Then I turn on the 12 o’clock news and Albo has appointed the former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry Jillian Segal as a new antisemitism envoy, I had to turn it off.

July 10, 2024

The Hills Area Police Command serves up a daily feast of information, such as the fact that a 17 year old was arrested in Dubbo in relation to burglary in company offences in our local area including the theft of eight pairs of luxury shoes, worth about $14,400. It was in Oatlands and we know the reputation of the suburb as a bolthole for a few wealthy people whose source of income is somewhat dubious, but $1800 per pair of shoes? Though the bigger question for me is ‘how did they know the value of the shoes?’ I’m sure I wouldn’t even be able to hazard a guess at their worth, so did they employ a shoe valuer? Hopefully we will catch a whiff of the procedure when it goes to court.

Another source of neat information is my cousin Carole in Spain who, in response to a question about the heatwave they are currently having and my expectation that their pool was getting a hammering, replied that they couldn’t use it due to the Calima dust?? I had to Google it and it turns out to be a meteorological phenomenon that occurs when fine sand from the Sahara Desert is lifted into the atmosphere and transported by prevailing winds, in this case all over Spain. Apparently they can’t use the pool filter to remove it and it’s ‘a nightmare to get rid of’. Well that’s one thing I won’t ever need to bother GIO about.

July 11, 2024

Now I have cooled down enough to talk about Albo’s ridiculous decision to appoint an ‘envoy’ against antisemitism. How could he be stupid enough to announce it with a follow up statement that ‘we are appointing an Islamophobia envoy as well’, tacked on as an afterthought. Count the Jewish votes Ant and then count the Muslim ones, and don’t complain when you lose all the south western seats of Sydney in the next election, you were never going to win the eastern suburbs ones mate. More importantly, reducing it to a Jewish identity and religious issue and not about the occupation and colonising of a sovereign land is looking at all this in a very narrow way. These actions reduce the conflict to a simple religious conflict and not the conflict of the Palestinian people’s liberation struggle against the Israeli state. I can’t even formulate a letter to the SMH that would be polite enough to publish. I am not anti-Jewish, but I’m happy to put my hand up as anti-Israeli under the current government. Send your bloody envoy around here and we can thrash it out. Perhaps we can book her for First Saturday?

While I’m on my high horse, I’d like someone to convince me of all the good that religion does in the world….. Just finished In Bad Faith and was mortified by the details of the Orthodox upbringing that the author suffered. In a psychiatric hospital in her early 20s Dassi couldn’t believe what she saw from her window, just a couple of kilometres from her home, she had lived her whole life within the few streets of East St. Kilda where her tribe resides. It reminds me so much of the Exclusive Brethren, of which I have some knowledge via a friend. Keep the women at home until they get a marriage offer as soon as they leave school, keep them totally within the community, ban outside friends as evil, use tradespeople, doctors, food providers, etc who are also in the cult so they never get to see how people live ‘outside’, don’t let them go to university or TAFE, ban TV, newspapers and radio, ban secular books. Yes I’ve heard it all before and hate it with every cell in my body.

Today I read about The Saints in Toowoomba, 14 of whom are on trial for murder and manslaughter for watching a type 1 diabetic child die after refusing her insulin. They won’t accept the authority of the court and refuse to plead, ditto re accepting legal advice. (Reminding me again of the Orthodox Jews who partied in Melbourne during Covid lockdown and laughed when the police came calling). What a pity that we can’t tally up how many people religion kills against the few they save. I am half hoping that the Jehovah’s Witnesses come knocking today.

July 12, 2024

Now that I’ve calmed down I fired off a few letters to the papers (the ‘envoy’, Biden, greyhound racing, Anzac Day trading etc) but I think I am too late to the party to get any published, which is fine. Finishing the Dassi Erlich book I came across the statement that: ‘Israelis are remarkably rude or refreshingly frank, depending on your perspective. It’s quite normal to be pushed to the back of a queue if you don’t stand your ground, or to be questioned by a stranger about personal matters’. I immediately thought of John’s ex neighbour, perhaps she is not quite as mad as I thought, just typical of her cultural upbringing. I still don’t want a bar of it though, it took me too long to object so I think I was seen as a willing victim, until I called it quits on the relationship.

So, spies to the left of us and spies to the right this morning. Somehow I always feel more comfortable listening to the AFP’s Reece Kershaw that I do with ASIO’s Mike Burgess, who would be type cast as a shifty bad guy if he were in the movies. Probably a good fellow, but he certainly has shady written on his face, perhaps that’s just what dealing with spying does to you.

Yesterday my entire herb garden was upended if at all possible, and dug out if not, presumably by brush turkeys as I can’t see any other animal eating all of my rocket. I can’t hate them though as many people do, they are pretty and clever and just doing what their nature tells them to. In fact one just came onto my verandah rail, peering down at what was the herb garden as if to say ‘I dun good’. I rarely get them here, though John said he saw one on the garage roof recently, scoping the joint apparently.

I got a text from Gracewood late last night offering me a shift from 7 am to 3 pm today! Clearly it’s a case of mixed messages but it would have been funny to turn up in a nurse’s pinny ready for work, except that it was for the locked ward and eight hours in there would not qualify as funny at all. I thought John may have been interested in seeing Maggie Beer’s new show aimed at revamping the kitchens of nursing homes, so I put it on iview yesterday. Bad move as he got quite upset about it and I had to turn it off. Not quite sure why it upset him so much but it certainly did. I was fascinated by the reactions to their current food from the board members of the home, with the chairman’s comment that it was ‘just like I eat at home’ to be pretty damning. Perhaps his wife has a pantry full of protein powders like the cook there uses. Serving cordial with each meal was a dead giveaway that the ‘chef’ was actually a pretty ordinary cook. I still remember spending a couple of months in Hornsby Hospital in mid-summer and getting brilliantly coloured but liquid ‘jelly’ on my tray every day. They never succeeded in getting it to set. Here’s hoping that Maggie can get the food up to speed, as the dietician reported that 75% of the residents were suffering, or in danger of suffering, from malnutrition. Save me from ever having to be in such a place.

July 13, 2024

Went to the Farmers Market first thing despite having a fridge full of fruit and veg. But I love the marinated goat cheese and the Moroccan spicy hummos that the Lebanese chap makes so I got both of those as well as some sugar snap peas, carrots and salad leaves. Last night I cooked up a pot of cauliflower au gratin with tomatoes on top which will do me for a few meals.

John rang last night asking if I was coming to get him today and I made sure that he recorded in his diary that it is tomorrow, because I am going to the Opera House tonight with Millie and fam to see James and the Giant Peach. But this morning as I was arriving at the market he rang to see if I was on my way and I explained again. But just now at 10.47 he rang to say that he’d been sitting in the foyer for ages and when am I coming. Apart from getting him to write everything in his diary I just don’t know what else to do, he sounds just like that little boy whose parents kept leaving him home alone to go to cocktail parties and dinners and eventually to live overseas without him. It breaks my heart.

July 15, 2024

A lot going on and I had John home yesterday so didn’t do my duty and write here. Let’s get Trump out of the way first. Biden used words something like ‘unprecedented’ or ‘unheard of’ regarding the shooting and I can only say that he needs to read a little bit more history. I found it shocking, but totally unsurprising, in fact I had commented recently wondering how long it would take for a crackpot to try shooting one or the other candidate, not long is the answer. Then we discover that the boy was ‘a misfit, a loner, quiet, shy, was bullied’, surprise surprise. His father owned the AR-15 military style rifle and was registered to vote as a Libertarian, surprises by the bucket load then. I wondered how soon the loonies would get to work on this and then saw someone had posted that it was fake blood that comes in a capsule that you bite, it must take a lot of skill to transfer it to your ear, it would take quite some practice. Pity the young chap who got his head blown off for nothing if that were actually the case.

Yesterday David came over and spent time loading all of my fallen branches for firewood, ably assisted by John who loved helping as well as having him here for morning tea and a chat. I planted daffodils and topped the pot with plate glass just in case the brush turkeys come around the front. I commented to John that I have more to plant and could do with some more sheets of glass and the universe was listening because this arv I pulled up to a roadside rubbish collection and scored 5 sheets, so now I can cover any new plantings. Thanks be to gardening fairies. In the afternoon we went to Radioactive Live at Hills Lodge and it was fun, though I don’t think it works for John, he was confused and couldn’t follow the stories, so if I go again it will be on my own. I found us a seat for afternoon tea but he wanted ‘to sit at a table where our friends are’ but the set-up doesn’t really allow for that unless you are first to bags the only lounge. It is strange that a hotel doesn’t have a cosy lounge with a fire going.

Today I bussed to town and saw the film A Silence at Palace Central. I love that cinema, partly for the great movies they show but also for the super comfy seats. I was alone in the cinema until a man came during the opening credits, but it was still like a personal showing. It was a moving film with superb acting. I’m having a bit of trouble walking with a pain under one heel since yesterday, Trusting that the dreaded plantar fasciitis isn’t either catching or hereditary, while knowing it is neither, but whatever it is I hope it disappears soon.

July 16, 2024

So, J. D. Vance for a possible vice-president. When I read his book way back when, I noted that he was intelligent and funny, but potentially unstable and dangerous. His original description of Trump as America’s Hitler was spot on, but he has since retracted that opinion. The two make a chilling combination, his intelligence and Trump’s rat cunning.

I am planning to take John to the S.H. Ervin Gallery tomorrow to see the Salon des Refuses, but my foot is worse and I will now have to take the car, as walking from Wynyard to Observatory Hill is out of the question, what a bummer as I so prefer to bus it. I had a little competition with myself beginning on April 1, wondering when I would see a Hillsbus with the clock set to the right time. I thought it may be a month, but no, it took till yesterday July 16 to find a bus with the time even remotely close to correct. Woo-hoo!

I tried to change over the membership of the NRMA on John’s old car to my name but was told to leave it in his till it expires. But I was hoping to get him a refund of the unused portion, however it turns out that they don’t refund anything if you cease being a member. So I transferred it into my name and now realise that it wasn’t many months ago that I paid it for him, so I probably shot myself in the foot there as I could have used up the rest of his membership before paying for mine. The downside is that my membership for this car only starts after 48 hours, so tomorrow we either have to go on the bus or drive with no breakdown cover?

I made some lemon curd the other day but discovered that pikelets don’t freeze well, the ones I got out of the freezer were like cardboard, so now I don’t have anything to put the curd on. I really dislike sweet things on whole grain bread, it’s like yogurt with sweet stuff, ugh. Making something to put the curd on is now a job for another day. I am concentrating today on planting the rest of the daffys, covering them with my newfound glass. Managed to score an outdoor table and a stool from a junk pile in the next street this morning, great for raising my pots off the ground in the garden.

July 17, 2024

Well I was feeling pretty down yesterday between Trump/Vance and various minor problems with John which all added up to a dose of the woebegones. But today was a new day and we went to the Ervin Gallery for our annual visit to the Salon des Refuses. The harbour is beautiful from Observatory Hill, with the old and new buildings alongside each other and the water behind. Voted for my favourite painting and then we had something light to eat at the cafe. The notoriously difficult proprietor was all smiles today and I enjoyed my mushroom, leek and potato soup though $23.50 was a rude shock, 50 cents less than John’s chicken salad. Luckily I drove in, as the flight of steps up from Kent Street was closed for restoration of the stone and we would have had a long walk to the bus stop.

The head nurse has asked me to sign a permission note for John to take Aricept, a psychotropic medication which tries to fend off the early effects of Alzheimer’s, for a while at least. Which is strange as he’s been on that tablet for over two years, well before he went to Gracewood, and no one there has asked permission before, an oversight perhaps. I tried to contact his neurologist because I seem to remember her saying that it only works for about a year so I need to know if there is any point in continuing with it at this stage. She’s away till next week so I will do it by email.

Watched Maggie Beer’s televised attempt to revitalise a nursing home, especially in terms of its food, and while I commend her endeavours there are obvious flaws in her approach too. Serving up afternoon tea in gilt edged china which can’t be put in a dishwasher is a fail for starters. Then serving food buffet style is an excellent idea, but having large jugs of cold and HOT milk for frail aged people to serve themselves is just crazy. I suspect that as soon as the cameras depart the staff will go back to the way they’ve always done things. It is interesting that the vibrant and enthusiastic Maggie is a similar age to some of the residents, but I’m sure she won’t settle for a nursing home of that calibre if that unfortunate end befalls her.

July 18, 2024

This morning I decided to see if there was a YouTube video of painting using a straw to blow the paint across the page, an idea that came to me during the night. Of course there was such a thing and although it was intended for adults, the American woman helpfully and in depth explained tricky words she was using like imagination: ‘that is when you think of something in your head, so if you can see a picture in your head, that’s imagination’, realism: ‘means when something looks like the real thing’ and abstract: ‘when it doesn’t really look like something’. I guess by definition I am an abstract painter as none of mine look like much. I was so put off by the commentary that I wasn’t even watching the demo but went as far as ‘this looks a bit like two insects dancing’ so she drew on legs. Nah, I don’t think so.

Today is busier than usual with ‘JohnStuff’, though every day there seems to be something. First the pharmacy bill came in, $241 which was a bit of a shock, so I investigated it in detail. There was a drug on there that isn’t on the PBS so it’s nearly $40 a pop, he needs one a day and there are 30 in the pack, but checking the dates it seems they are charging him for it every 20 days. Bob says there is a PBS substitute available. However that doesn’t answer why they are charging for it so often. Gracewood has changed pharmacies a few months ago and I am starting to think that they’ve picked a bad’n as the previous one was spot on with charges. Now I will have to do a chart of all his meds and see if they are overcharging for the others as well. I did and it gets worse! His BioZinc tablets are in a bottle of 84, yet they are charging him every 42 days. If I contact them today I’ll be calling them fucking crooks and mongrels, so I will wait till the morning and just call them bloody rorters.

July 19, 2024

I’ve often wondered what it was like in Germany in the early 30s as far as the adoring crowds for Hitler are concerned but now I know, much like the Republican Convention which we seem to be following here with an obscene interest. Now I wish I hadn’t wondered. Trump is to give a one and a half hour speech today, bandage intact. I wonder how long it will take for him to accept just a Bandaid, a prolonged time I fear, more likely it will be replaced with a small pillow.

I have finished reading No Country for Idealists by Boris Frankel and oh what a book it is. I took a holiday from David Marr’s Killing for Country and I have to say that the Frankel book is infinitely more intriguing to me, mainly because I had previously read quite a bit on the wars between the British and Aboriginal people, depressing as that is. But back to Boris. His family, committed Communists in Melbourne, decided to migrate to the Soviet Union and within a day of arriving they were regretting their decision. However leaving was much more difficult than getting in and they needed both an exit visa from the Russians and an entry visa from the Australians, but neither were willing. They lived a miserable life in a small Russian town, hungry, with poor accommodation for many years until finally Boris, his mother and two sisters were allowed to come back but not his father, who blamed himself totally for their plight. Eventually, fearing bad publicity in Australia for splitting up the family, he was allowed to return after signing an agreement to never again support a communist or Russian cause. Fascinating stuff.

The trial in the Northern Territory of policeman Neil Mellon has ended with his being sentenced to three months gaol for a string of offences including destruction of evidence. He took it upon himself as a private citizen, not as a police officer, to attend a helicopter crash which involved friends of his, moving the body, disconnecting part of the plane and getting rid of the dead man’s phone. The man who actually threw the phone into the ocean was given just a fine. Later Mellon involved himself in a number of other friends’ cases including domestic violence offences, revealing to them mental health information and details of high-profile investigations related to them. It took me back to the couple of weeks we were in Darwin when I spent some time in their courts for a look see. The case I remember most was the Aboriginal man who was sentenced to the rising of the court after spending 3 months in gaol for……stealing a banana from a convenience store. It’s clear how the law operates in the NT.

JohnStuff: Yesterday I sent an email to the pharmacy dispensing his drugs politely asking them to explain their oversupplying and overcharging of his drugs (the swearing at them is waiting, but not yet). Interestingly when I first queried his account the reply came within minutes but now it is nearly 24 hours and nothing. I guess they are trying to think up a believable explanation which does take time I’m sure. This morning I showed the bill to my Baulko pharmacist who agrees it is a rort, but I am stuck with using them as they have a contract with Gracewood. However I intend to demand that they refund John’s account with the overcharge and threaten them with exposure to whichever government department looks after such things as well as to the Pharmacy Guild. If they don’t comply it’s only a short drive to their location at Eastwood which is where some swearing may come in handy.

July 21, 2024

A surprise call yesterday from Mary and David, our New Zealand friends, to say they are in Sydney for a few days for David’s work (he is a legal mediator in NZ and Australia). So plans were laid to have them here for lunch today. It was so horribly windy yesterday that some time was spent tying more staking to my precious “Lime Magik’ acacia after losing the same tree to a whippy westerly in the past, the current one is a replacement for that after it was broken and killed by the wind. Also it was quite scary hearing the big gum tree hammering the roof and we lost a few branches but no lasting damage. So I decided to make a meal for today that didn’t involve going out shopping, it’s Atlantic Salmon with lemon and brown butter sauce, green veges and salad and an apple and berry crumble (I knew I bought those Granny Smiths for a reason earlier this week).

I already knew, but the sudden thrust of activity has now confirmed, that I’ve been depressed all week. Trump, Vance, issues with John, and a dose of self-pity the culprits. I really felt (and feel) despondent that the pharmacy has ripped him off and it makes me despair of people. So far three polite emails have gone unanswered but I’m determined to make them refund what they’ve stolen, even it it means a hissy fit in their shop (actually a hissy fit would do me the world of good at the moment). Bob says exactly the same thing happened to Nancye’s mother when she was in a home and he suspects that seeing that a patient is on drugs for dementia makes them think that they can get away with it. John’s deteriorating condition means that there is no point in trying to discuss anything like this with him, and I am only too aware that I’ve lost my best friend and loyal supporter. Seeing Mary and David today will be a boost, even though John has forgotten who they are, despite our spending two weeks with them on holiday in NZ a few years back.

The universe did shine on me a few days ago (actually it shines when I wake up at all). Years ago I lent my J. D. Vance book to someone who lent it on and it didn’t come back, but as I was thinking that I wish I still had it to read again, the gods delivered Hillbilly Elegy for use in the street library, thankyou providence. I see Martina Navratilova has come out about Trump’s bandage, saying that a nursing friend contradicts his assertion that ‘ears bleed a lot, there was a lot of blood’. No doubt she will suffer for that comment. But I fear more for all his many critics and how they will suffer if he is elected. I was horrified that one of those helping the poor man who was shot and killed at that infamous rally was a specialist doctor working in emergency at a hospital, how on earth could a person like that be a Trump supporter I ask myself?

July 22, 2024

Yesterday with Mary and David was just what I needed. They are such beautiful people and I regret that they are so far away. Mary came with an armful of flowers for me and in the process left her handbag on the bus from the city, so we waited at the stop as buses came back but no luck. Then I saw one coming back marked ‘Not in Service’, David contacted the depot, and yes by then they had the purse. Drove David to Seven Hills where we picked it up and came back home to toast the find in champagne. Got John back to Gracewood for dinner at 5 to 5, although he was just up from the lunch table where we sat all afternoon.

I always check the food photos in the SMH and for years, no decades, they have been styled by Hannah Meppem and photographed by William Meppem, but I’ve noticed lately that the styling is being done by somebody else though he’s still doing the photography. Has she retired? been overthrown for a younger model? died? I must investigate.

As expected Greg Lynn has appealed his murder conviction, with his tenacious barrister I had no doubts. But I still choked to see Dermott Dann’s quote that ‘Lynn answered honestly every question put to him by the police……..that the jury saw’, the last four words exempting all the lies he told in the recordings of his police interviews, widely seen since his conviction. The hide of the man is astonishing. My court pal Pam rang to make exactly that point, she doesn’t miss a thing.

July 23, 2024

Universe shining department: Today I have been gifted the following, a box full of very interesting wooden, stone and enamel funky costume jewellery (a friend picked up a full jewellery box off a council cleanup but I’ve only seen the photos so far); a large collection of books (mostly children’s, many brand new); and then when I was shopping at Baulks I found first a boxed discarded muffin for the possum and then half a packet of sushi for the birds. To pay back the universe for the animal donations I tidied up the mess that both people had left on the armchairs provided, putting their drink bottles and general rubbish into the bin. Fair deal. Is this not an improvement over last week’s string of downers, yes it is! I commented to my friend that the woman who threw the jewellery out is a selfish cow as it could all have gone to land fill if he hadn’t opened the box, so he went back and tactfully said that if she’s throwing anything else out his friend will find a good home for it, apparently she was chuffed

Of course we are all wondering who Tunnel Man is. What we know so far: he is a detective inspector of NSW Police; he clearly has a drinking problem; he crashed a police car in the Northconnex tunnel abandoning the car in a nearby street suggesting that he lives in the general Hornsby area; he didn’t lose his licence and he didn’t lose his job; his name is suppressed for 40 years!!!; he omitted to tell the insurance company that he was as drunk as a skunk when the car was totalled, having been shown on CCTV to have downed 23 drinks in 8 hours (is there an award for that, like there is for most hot dogs in a sitting for example?). What do we want to know: his name; why he’s so important that his identity is suppressed (does he have a side job with ASIO perhaps?); what punishment will he be dealt? Knowing the risk of a gaol sentence for anyone who reveals his name I can only hazard a guess, which is that his initials are the same as Donald Duck.

This arv I went to the Hearing Hub to collect my new hearing aids. There was a lot of testing going on but I wasn’t asked to respond to all of the noises, just to sit there, so I have no idea what they were doing. But 45 minutes later I walked out with new hearing aids and I go back in a couple of weeks for a follow up and then again in September. Thankyou Albo my sweet, I won’t say anything bad about you today.

Yesterday I got a notice to return a book to the library but couldn’t find it anywhere, finally deciding that I’d accidentally put it in the street library. Of course I beat myself up as careless and was hating having to confess to the librarian, but today it materialised on the floor underneath my library table (where else? it was trying to stay with its pals) so my self-caning can cease till I stuff up next time.

I went up to Dulux yesterday to see if I could snag a painter to do my watermarked ceiling but I found none hanging about, though the staff were really helpful in recommending two. My old painter Joe of past years is not answering his phone, retired? dead? or just changed phone numbers perhaps. One man has come already but I am not keen. I asked myself if it was his quote, his heavy gold chain or his request for cash that put me off, anyway he’s not my guy despite smelling pleasantly like a perfumery when he walked in. The other is coming on Thursday and over the phone I likes him.

July 24, 2024

I have been to sewing but spent the time repairing a box full of clip-on earrings that I want to be rid of. I will put them on eBay but they need cleaning and in some cases glueing. There are almost 30 pairs so I think dividing them into three lots is the go. Colleen mentioned that the house next door to her, old with leadlights and well-restored period features, is going to be bulldozed by the new owner who paid about $3.5 million for it. Apparently there is some delay due to his waiting out the time for overseas arrivals to buy property here without having to pay an extra tax. But a person just in the country has no sense of heritage, no understanding that the street holds two heritage listed properties and many others have good age, so replacing even one of those devalues the whole street. Development hungry councils and the current state government don’t give a fig for holding those values for the future, certainly this buyer doesn’t know or care.

July 25, 2024

I see that the driverless metro train died in a tunnel to Chatswood last week and the poor folk were stuck there for over two hours, with one woman taken to hospital eventually with a claustrophobic anxiety attack. The firies have complained about being asked to enter the tunnel without the power being switched off on the tracks, risking electrocution. My worst nightmare come true and why I won’t be going on the damned thing. Actually second worst nightmare, worst is any sort of plane malfunction.

Well the second painter recommended by Dulux has been and I have my man. Friendly, warm, natural “can we have a look see at whether you’ve got any ceiling white in the garage so I don’t need to charge you for the paint?”, his quote is 30% of the first guy, not 30% off, but 30% of the total! And he didn’t ask for cash, a big bonus to me because I’ve never resented paying tax, only objected to some of the things my taxes are spent on. He’s busy for a month but I’m not in a hurry.

I was going to comment on Netanyahu but why spoil a lovely day? He can wait.

July 26, 2024

I am wondering if Netanyahu’s referral to Joe Biden as “a proud Irish-American Zionist” was a deliberate dog whistle to Democrats, hoping to incense them and thereby increase the Republican vote. Calling someone a Zionist these days is surely a coded insult in most people’s books.

JohnStuff: My argument with the new pharmacy seems to have been solved for now with a refund for overcharging and a commitment to use only PBS funded drugs unless I have approved same. I’m sure they think I’m a penny-pinching old witch but in John’s case I’m happy to have that moniker. Last night he was so confused about what was happening today that I needed to explain to the staff and they wrote it out for him. But this morning he asked ‘so what are we doing for the rest of the day?’ and I explained who was coming, what time etc. After a moment he asked ‘who owns George?’ which I thought was lovely terminology, though he remembered him after I mentioned Sonia. On a more concerning level I sometimes hear him muttering ‘You’re a goose. What are you Murray?’ followed by ‘I’m a goose brother’, referring back to a frequently remembered conversation that he had with a harsh teacher at his Catholic school. He has never let that slur go after all these years and it still upsets him. How our words can echo down the decades.

July 27, 2024

I am so pleased that Gladys Berejiklian lost her appeal against ICAC’s findings. It was on a technicality anyway and the majority rightly threw it out. Having watched the ICAC hearings live, I had no doubt about the original decision being the right one. Unfortunately I believe that Gladys is psychically unable to see herself in a critical light; after all she was dux of her school, top achiever in her family, Armenian migrant made good, minister, premier, how could she possibly do wrong? In a way it’s the exact opposite of John’s personality where he blames himself for everything. If something is missing it’s ‘did I lose it?’, if something’s broken it’s ‘did I break it?’. But Our Glad believes her own PR I’m afraid, got her a good job at Optus though didn’t it? Confidence is all apparently.

Back to the painter’s quote: The GIO’s painter wanted $885 to paint a tiny ceiling and wouldn’t guarantee the work because of his idea that the slope of the roof was inadequate, so eventually I accepted a cash settlement of $485 (less the $400 excess that I need to pay). The first painter quoted $500 cash, a cost to me of 15 bucks but with the second quote of $150 I actually make a $350 profit! Just shows how much the GIO’s tradespeople are overcharging them though.

Picked up a host of stuff today: children’s books, a linen basket full of clothes and a box full of jewellery, all thrown out by someone in Annangrove, thank goodness they were all retrieved before it rained. So I’ve spent the afternoon sorting them (books for Millie versus street library books, worn clothes cut up for dusters, good clothes ironed for Sallies, summer clothes stowed away for Sallies later in the year, jewellery poor moi, jewellery to go to Sallies). Although it was a big job it was eminently satisfying.

July 28, 2024

Went to cake baking at Carol’s today and I think it worked out well in terms of output. Had a beautiful carrot and beetroot salad at lunch which I think had orange juice as the dressing so I plan to emulate that soon. I never tire of salads, winter or summer. On the way to Gracewood, shortly after leaving Carol’s, John asked me why we had been there today. After I explained that we had been there to help with cake baking he remembered that and asked ‘what tasks did Carol give the other men to do? I didn’t see them’ but the rest of the group were all women. He was on his usual and chosen duty, the washing up. Sometimes you think he is across what’s happening and then you discover he’s not, bless him. Anyway he said that we’d had a good time so that’s the main thing.

July 29, 2024

It was 9 degrees in the loungeroom when I got up so I quickly headed off to the Sallies at Dural with the clothes I’d washed and ironed for them, plus a couple of pairs of shoes that I never wear, a handbag and some ornaments. I got out of there only having bought 2 packets of five cakes of soap for John who doesn’t like the liquid soap he is provided (plus I must admit, a beautiful scarf for $1). Sallies often has lots of new stuff like shampoo, soap, cleaning products etc that must be donated by companies. Then bought some beetroot to try to reproduce the carrot and beetroot salad I had yesterday but somehow it doesn’t taste the same, despite making a dressing of olive oil and orange juice which I detected in the original. However mine is nice and perfectly edible.

I am thinking that we need to consider renaming the ABC to ARC (for Antiques Roadshow Channel) as it seems to use that show to fill every gap. Even though I enjoy the programme, it is galling to see them replace The Drum with it. A friend of a friend asked for advice in reducing the furniture and smalls in a large 4 bedroom house in Pymble to downsize to a unit nearby. I suggested getting Bargain Hunt Auctions to come and take everything in one go, which they promptly did. However I saw today the first of her things go online and cringed to see a kitchen dresser she paid $5500 for get an initial bid of $100. I know it’s a first bid but gosh I don’t think I’d have the hide to bid that low, there are 6 more days to run though. However judging by another auction finishing in about 4 hours, the prices are woeful. Royal Doulton statues that I would have asked at least $250 each for in the shop are going as a pair for $20, not one pair but numerous different ones. Lladro was always a good seller and I was pleased when some came up at the right price, but 3 or 4 in a lot are going for $30. I’m glad I didn’t do as some folks did and buy up Doulton and Lladro as an investment.

I see Albo has demoted Andrew Giles which is a shame as he is one of the few pollies who never says an unkind word, even as he’s being skewered by Dutton et al.

A young Hunter Valley man has died from Influenza A after paramedics called to his home told him ‘that he was coming out the other side of it’. He had worked with engineered stone and it’s considered that this could have caused his death when the flu turned to pneumonia, however it’s bad that the ambos didn’t take him in. John’s dear friend Kevin has been taken to palliative care at Concord Hospital due to end stage mesothelioma, he is unable to talk on the phone and I’m reluctant to visit as he’s struggling to breathe. A beautiful soul and a terrible loss to the world.

July 30, 2024

I just looked up the furniture that I recommended be sent to auction and the 12 foot dining table in cherry wood with 12 matching chairs, all in perfect condition, is going at the moment for $40 all up. Yet people will go out and spent thousands on crap furniture at the big name stores, I just don’t get it.

Today was so cold that I finally wore the hand knitted Kashmiri socks I was gifted a few years back and that I’ve resisted wearing because they are ‘too good’. It was 8 degrees in the morning and I ended up leaving my PJ pants on and putting a jumper with them to complete the ensemble, luckily there were no visitors. I was intending to take a piece of hand embroidered fabric, Indian maybe, to give to the sewing group in case anyone could put it to use. It was the covering of a damaged box that was in the Annangrove haul, but then I decided to start cutting it up and making cards from it and got four done this afternoon, not works of art but something different.

My letter to the SMH didn’t get a go but here it is in part: ‘Despite the designer of the Olympic depiction of an Ancient Greek Bacchanal refuting that it was even remotely connected to Jesus and the Last Supper, all the usual suspects have come out of their boxes positively outraged. Outrage and moral indignation seem to be their favoured positions, regardless of the facts. In the old days we recommended a Bex and a good lie down in these situations, but perhaps just sticking to the lying down is for the best these days’. As soon as I heard about the Paris fracas I thought here comes Israel Folau and the Australian Christian Lobby and as if I had snapped my fingers, there they were. The right wing Christians are always searching for persecution or anything that would indicate the ‘end of days’ to justify their position and I think in many cases they actually hope it is the end of days, which is why they give not a fig about climate change, war, poverty and the like.

July 31, 2024

I woke up this morning and thought whatever is on today I think I’ll cancel, but then realised it was a bus tour and as I had booked a month ago it was a given that I’d go. It was just a lunch outing to Vanilla Cream Cafe at Annangrove but I was very lucky in that I was seated with the driver, a Zoroastrian Indian and an Indian volunteer, so we spent lunch discussing British colonialism, American dominance and so forth, at their instigation not mine. Such a change from the usual pedestrian conversations on the bus group outings. The food was good and reasonably priced and the place was packed, though partly because as well as our minibus group there was a car club gathering, lots of sports cars and a purple Rolls-Royce in the car park (probably the last colour I would paint a Roller, but each to their own). I had taken with me a purple stone necklace to give to Tonya, who always wears purple, but she didn’t go on this trip. We passed by the end of Memorial Drive on the way home and I wished we could have called in on John, or better still taken him with us, but that’s not allowed as it would be double dipping into the government coffers. If only I could be sure of the destinations I would like to do the mystery tours as well, but I don’t want to risk any more windy roads.

Reread Tim Winton’s novel Breath at Martha’s instigation as she wants to discuss it and it is years since I read it the first time. It is just as powerful the second time around and I finished it this morning while waiting for the bus. It really takes us inside the head of Pikelet and even though I’m not a bit sporty I loved all the surfing descriptions. Would he get away with a novel these days about a relationship between a 15 year old boy and a woman in her 30s? I’m not so sure, we’ve become much more conservative about what we can depict.

August 1, 2024

Happy birthday horses and wattle. I’ve decided that the premier qualification to be successful in the Olympics is a flat chest. Swimmers are always ironing board flat but I’ve started noticing that it’s the same for all the sports. I’m glad therefore that I was always disinterested in every sport.

I have been pretty slack on the Coroners Court front lately, though I check the register every now and again and read some of the findings online. At the forensic science course there was a talk about coroners versus medical examiners, the US system. Apparently there were so many cases of corruption in the coroner system there due to political pressure from those affected or their relatives that many states abandoned coroners altogether and went to a medical examiner system, but both systems remain. Many states have a medical examiner system, many have a coroner system, and 18 states have a mixed system. Coroners there are elected lay people whereas here they are judicial appointments, so it’s easy to see how a coroner in the US could be enticed not to notice a suicide if that means that the insurance company won’t pay out to one of the town’s powerful families. In fact a number of coroners are currently in gaol for corruption for Medicare fraud. Conflicts of interest occur especially when funeral directors, prosecutors or sheriffs act as coroners. A medical examiner in contrast is an independent doctor with specialist training in pathology and forensic science who can integrate autopsy findings with those from the crime scene and the laboratory. I think we are stuck with the coroner system here but I think moving to the medical examiner model would be a great improvement overall.

April 2, 2024

After coming to Killcare by bus and train yesterday we dined last night at Osteria Il Coccia on the Esplanade at Ettalong. A thing about the central coast is being able to drive to your destination and park at the door as often as not. They don’t use electricity or gas to cook there, everything is made over the flame. We supped on Merimbula oysters, then shared a slab of tuna just tickled by the flame, served on a bed of Jerusalem artichokes with sides of brussels sprouts with chili and parmesan and a salad, following up with a shared serve of cheesecake with grapes and Montenegro liqueur. Sharing made it all manageable without being too full. It had been prearranged that Bob Brimble would book community transport to come down from Toowoon Bay for the day and as it was quite cold we sat in front of a warm fire most of the day apart from a short drive to nearby Wagstaff to look out over the lake and watch the birds. In the evening Sue cooked a pie of blue-eye trevalla in a cream sauce after which we returned to the fire. Bliss.

April 3, 2024

Off after 8 to the big smoke, picking up John at Gracewood (where he was in Covid lockdown due to three cases on his floor) and then coming here. Sue took off to see her mum while I finished off the rice, lentil and brussels sprout dish and headed off to Martha’s for First Saturday. The talk was by Norman Webb on bees and it was fascinating, so incredible to hear about the complexity of their short lives. He mentioned inexplicable things like the fact that a swarm of bees can settle on a particular branch of a tree and a year or more later another swarm can land on the exact same spot, despite the fact that all of the first swarm are long dead as their lifespan is only six weeks. How is it so? He didn’t know. He explained the fight against the verroa mite and expressed the view that it was always a waste of time to try to eradicate it and many beekeepers were put out of business by the attempt. Every country who had tried to stop the mite had failed, we were the last country to get it. Bought some Manuka honey from him so bees will remain in my thoughts for a while. John really enjoyed it and asked some interesting questions.

August 4, 2024

Well my pleasure in the honey was short-lived as it didn’t get as far as home. Searched the car, pantry, fridge and kitchen but no honey. Martha says it isn’t there so I think someone has mistakenly picked it up, that’s the only explanation I can think of. But the good news is that John remembered First Saturday this morning and knew it was about bees, he was really engaged with it yesterday. We stayed home today and I fashioned a small cork from a whiskey cork Sue gave me, so now my hanging basket of nasturtiums and Spanish Moss has a better source of water when it rains or when I remember to water them both. Cork shaving is an interesting little job I discovered, which we followed by hauling out all the many paint cans I have looking for undercoat and ceiling white, both of which I found, so the painter whose quote was so reasonable won’t even have to shell out for paint. Some cans which rattled were even thrown out!

I watched the very end of an Antiques Roadshow episode, hard to miss on ABC now, only to see someone with a magnificent rosewood table inlaid with satinwood. It was from about 1800 and the couple had inherited it. Giving a value of about 15,000 pounds the man asked if there were any chairs; ‘Oh yes there were but they got a bit rickety so I burnt them’. The assessor was incredulous, as was I, but they would have been worth a similar amount. Philistines about such things are not as common in England as they are here, but clearly they exist.

I am seriously thinking about going to the Jewish Museum and asking whether there are people there who support the state of Israel but deplore its tactics and its government. As there are plenty of protestors over there, there must surely be some of like mind here. It is inexcusable the way they have (cleverly) conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and that needs to be called out.

August 5, 2024

I keep getting an invitation to work shifts at Gracewood, despite having replied that I’m not a nurse and I’m sure they wouldn’t really want me! But still they come, this morning’s being worded somewhat differently: ‘There is vacant shit on Tuesday 7-3 in Hampton if you are interested’. If it were not for the language difficulty I would reply asking them to just clean it up.

The appalling scenes in Britain and Northern Ireland these last few days are distressing but not unsurprising. I have never seen such blatant racism and overt racial abuse on the streets and on public transport as I have in northern England, so when you add that common behaviour to the tragedy of young girls being stabbed and the internet posts wrongly blaming the deaths on an asylum seeker, it just fires up existing biases. My own family laughed at my suggestion that I take them to Bradford for an authentic Indian meal as recommended in my Lonely Planet (of course what is known as Indian food there is largely Bangladeshi of Pakistani, but that’s another issue). Why we would want to go and eat with Pakis they said, when there’s a good Indian takeaway place nearby run by British people? Um okay, I dropped that idea. But I was always nervous when on a bus driven by a coloured person, waiting for the abuse to start, often as the abusers were getting off but sometimes a continual tirade. Now they have the far right telling them that it’s their duty as white British people to attack hotels housing asylum seekers, I think this is only the beginning.

My beautiful Bougies de Luxe lavender bath oil bought as a gift from my friend Michelle W. is nearly empty despite my judicious use. So I thought I’d look up the company and see if they mentioned what oils they use, and bingo, there is the recipe. So I went to the chemist for sweet almond oil and jojoba oil to combine with the lavender which is profusely flowering in the garden right now. Should be able to make two bottles with what I’ve bought. They told me that they were out of jojoba but as I was walking out of the shop they came running with the news that they’d put the last bottle away for someone but she hadn’t come back, so I was lucky there.

August 6, 2024

Off to the audiologist today to check my new hearing aids but it was a short appointment as everything is fine. The booklet that came with them says that this model works for hearing loss of 15db to 75db, mild to severe deafness, so I asked Andrew what mine was and he said 35 so I’m pretty much in the middle as moderate. One more appointment before he’s happy that there are no problems.

Made the lavender bath oil today and I probably overdosed it with lavender, it looks almost solid, but I can dilute it with more oil as it’s used. Also planted in a pot the two new crucifix orchids given to me by Barbara after I said I had bought one from the Botanic Gardens, she has quite a few in her garden. The rest of this morning was filled with writing a long letter to Anne in England (who has neither computer nor smart phone), sending a card and letter to my brother and a card to a lady in Melbourne whom I know as an old eBay customer. Dropping three in the postbox at once was very satisfying.

A friend took her stepmother to the doctor to get antibiotics for a UTI and the doc said that there is a vaccine out for that problem. Last I read of it many months ago it hadn’t been approved for use in Australia but it seems that it’s a possibility now. I shall bend Bob’s ear about it next time I’m there.

I had a couple of other things I wanted to talk about but they’ve gone, a problem that seems to be happening more frequently lately. Add that to my rapid failure to do mental arithmetic and it adds up to……let’s not go there.

August 7, 2024

Today was John’s hospital day and we left Gracewood at 8.30 because he always needs a blood test before seeing the haematologist, who was coming to visit him while he was having his IgG infusion. But when we got there the lovely Filipe rang her and she said she didn’t need a blood test today so then we were quite early. I waited with John till his treatment was due to start and then decided to go to the State Library which had a photographic exhibition on with some entries from our friend Paul’s daughter. Trotted off down William St and then decided to cut across the back of the cathedral and through the Domain, a fair walk. Unfortunately the exhibition was catalogued on big cardboard folders of which there were only three and mine had the pages after the 1990s missing, nothing was attached to the pics on the wall. After hoping that one or other of the only two people there might finish with theirs in a reasonable time, it was obvious that they were there for the duration so I gave up and wandered to Hyde Park. By then my dodgy foot was really grumbling, even more so after I walked down the stairs to St. James station to get a train to Kings Cross, but discovered that they go on a different line so I had to climb back out. By now I could barely walk on my dodgy foot but was too mean to taxi it back to Darlo, so eventually I found a bus going there, with an enjoyable Cooks tour of Woolloomooloo and Elizabeth Bay included. Walking back from Kings Cross I was feeling a tad peckish and stopped to read the menu at a Filipino Street Food shop but deciding between a fertilised duck egg, chicken entrails, pork intestines and pig’s ears convinced me that I was actually more thirsty than hungry so I kept walking and fell back on the old fave, a vanilla milkshake instead. Usually John calls me when they are doing the flush after the infusion so I can get to the door in the next 15-20 minutes to pick him up, but he phoned me to say he was on the footpath outside Kinghorn and why wasn’t I in sight? I raced there and when I asked later why he had departed from our usual practice (of 3 or 4 years) he replied that he didn’t remember what we normally did so he just went outside and was then anxious when I wasn’t there. The oddest thing though was that the doctor came while he was in the loo and didn’t wait, leaving a message that she’d see him next month!

I have been very nervous about the results of the auction which I had recommended to someone selling off the contents of a large house to go to a unit. I checked right up to 6 pm on Sunday night, an hour before it was due to end and the results were so appalling that I decided to stop watching. However I thought I needed to ring and apologise for the disaster, but she’s over the moon. The 12 seater dining table which was $20 at 6 pm was $3000 by 7 and the 12 matching chairs which were $20 for the lot at 6 went for $3500. Apparently the bids were coming in so thick and fast at the end that they extended the auction, much to the angst of the underbidders I would imagine! Anyway all her things went well and I am off the hook and on the pedestal now, phew.

August 8, 2024

Well after a month of on again off again foot pain I was forced to seek an appointment with Bob for later today as walking has become very difficult. I hope his answer isn’t a physiotherapist because if so I will just grin and bear the pain as I don’t have much faith in them through past experience.

This new pharmacy servicing Gracewood is a pain in the neck. Despite cancelling all of John’s supplements from them I got an invoice for a Blackmore’s product yesterday. I replied saying that it had been cancelled but he is arguing the toss. However Cecilia had confirmed to me on July 20 that she had organised cancellation of all supplements and the product he mentioned in his reply was a different one to the the one he had charged for. Perhaps they are sampling some of their products, she says with gritted teeth. I wish we could go back to the old pharmacy but apparently that’s not an option.

I got caught out financially by another company this week but it was rectified by Apple. For years I have used the free PlantSnap app to identify plants, getting five free queries per month, though I only used 1 or 2. The other day I couldn’t quite make it work, try as I might, and then it told me to put my finger on a particular spot on the screen only to see a message pop up to say that I’d enrolled for unlimited snaps at $29.99 for a year. I immediately contacted Apple who only a day later organised a refund of my money. The app was promptly deleted from my phone! Clever, but no cigar in this instance you cheeky buggers.

I have pretty much given up on walking across Old Northern Rd due to the heavy traffic, but yesterday I came close to having an accident there with a pedestrian. I had pulled up behind a bus which had stopped to take on passengers, looked in my rear vision mirror and then pulled out around the bus. I was shocked to see a bloke suddenly appear, running across the road to get the bus. Luckily he saw me just in time and stopped in the centre of the road, but it could have been very nasty if cars had been coming the other way or if I hadn’t seen him just in time.

August 9, 2024

I could have leapt through the teev last night to congratulate Paul Keating who was ranting about AUKUS, our partnership with the ‘aggressive US’, China and more. I had had a discussion last week with a friend of a friend on exactly these issues but he is of the opposing view, seeing the US as our saviours. Paul’s comments were like a rerun of my arguments in that conversation. And while I’m on the hustings, I deplore the decision by the US ambassador to Japan to skip this year’s memorial service for the nuclear attack on Nagasaki because Israel is not invited. The US dropped the bloody bomb! They should be there on bended knees. Of course our government has copied the gutless American position, the 51st state of the US as always.

My trip to Bob yesterday was helpful in that he ordered an X-ray that confirmed plantar fasciitis but also found calcification in the heel bone. I’ve never had it before, so it was a coincidence after another person’s momentous struggle with PF. I was glad when Bob specified not to ‘get involved with podiatrists or physiotherapists’. I hadn’t asked the question because I didn’t want it to appear as if I was interested in going to them, but he warned me off the option anyway. We see eye to eye on most things but I was still pleased about his advice, restrict walking for a while, buy lace-up shoes with soft soles and wait was the counsel.

Anne’s letter of this week was disturbing on a number of counts but particularly in respect of my brother’s drop in cognition. She travels there by two long bus rides across country which he asks her about in detail each time, but after being told repeatedly last week he asked ‘did you come on the Tube?’. Then she overheard him asking a staff ‘who is that woman? has she been to see me before?’ this after about 40 years of a close relationship. She keeps going bless her, but how long she will keep it up remains to be seen as she’s not in good health herself and is in her 80s. I checked for the last email to me from one of his daughters (my nieces haha) regarding his condition, it was December 2 2023, so I don’t even bother asking any more and rely on Anne for a truthful assessment of the circumstances.

August 10, 2024

John has expressed the desire a couple of times to go to a park but I didn’t feel like driving far, so we tried Nurragingy at Doonside. Native gardens, a Chinese garden, a marsh, deciduous trees, heaps of birds, a really lovely spot. Wearing lace-up shoes as instructed and it was much easier to walk. I knew there was a reason I was holding on to those ugly 25 year old joggers, now I know what it was. Joggers really are the ugliest footwear so unless I suddenly want to take up running I shan’t be happy wearing them, but joggers versus pain is no contest. The modern idea of joggers with a dress is just not on as far as I’m concerned, but perhaps they all have something wrong with their feet.

I put a few bits on eBay yesterday and now I’ve had a sale, but I’d accidentally listed it as Buy-it-Now instead of auction, grrr, but I got $10 and tomorrow he will pick up so I’ll be rid of the thing. It was a boxed set of stencils of the alphabet and numbers, something a woodworker might use to do signs for example. How did I get such a thing? what did I pay for it? I wouldn’t have a clue. The rest of the lots are clip-on earrings so I’ve notified the person who bought a lot of them from me last year. He’s a dealer online who only sells clip-on earrings, a niche market indeed.

I’ve had another win with the pharmacy who does John’s meds, they’ve finally agreed to remove the last item that they billed him for, a Blackmore’s supplement that he doesn’t take. They must rue the day that the bill goes out, knowing I’m going to argue but eventually they will learn to get it right. I would never get anything from wretched Blackmore, financer of the No case for the referendum and much else on the wrong side of politics (yes, yes I know Blackmore himself retired but I can still punish the company).

August 11, 2024

Well the lovely Keith came to pick up his stencils and he was bearing a bottle of wine because I let him have them at a mistaken price. What a sweet man, you get such lovely people on eBay and some not quite so lovely ones on Facebook Marketplace. Inspired I have sorted out some of the costume jewellery that came with the clip-on earrings and have put one listing of necklaces on as well as a job lot of broken jewellery which could be useful to a craftsperson or jewellery maker.

Darling John gets more and more confused, repeatedly asking me if he’s staying the night and packing his bag when he’s not going till the next day. Yesterday I told him repeatedly that the family day wasn’t happening due to illness but after we went out and enjoyed the park he wanted ‘to get changed before they come’. It’s strange that he both forgets the right story and simultaneously remembers the wrong one. But he’s doing a lot better than others so I’m not complaining.

Well who does one trust in an argument between Mark Latham and Peter V’landys? Neither is the short answer. Both are unpleasant people but V’landys outranks even the irksome Latham. Whatever sport he is involved with he is loud, vexatious and a bully I’m sure. I’m hoping they lose Rosehill Racecourse and fail to find another, but that’s wishful thinking with those deep-pocketed racing types who will fight the government to the hilt.

I have never had a police officer come to my door armed with a bottle of gin. I would be shocked if this occurred, just as I am shocked that the police are handing out liqueur to anyone else. On what basis? None that I can think of. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the gin wouldn’t have drawn any attention at all if the police commissioner were male. I suspect that it is part of a bigger pile-on intended to remove Karen Webb, with the Murdoch press always howling about her.

August 12, 2024

It’s been an eBay day so far, first with my buyer from yesterday getting back in touch to tell me the time that his grandson did in the City to Surf. He’s going to make him a wooden sign commemorating the run and the time using the stencils he bought from me. He asked me for an email address to send a photo when it’s done, it’s always tricky doing that as eBay’s AI blocks messages with personal details, but I was able to get it through using the word ‘at’ instead of @ and leaving out the dots. Now I want a sign saying that I beat AI, but I suspect it won’t be long before it will be able to beat my little ploy. The morning was spent listing numerous necklaces and brooches from the big collection of jewellery I bought so many years ago. It wasn’t a shop thing as I decided they were too downmarket, despite being pretty, but I did buy furniture from the same man whose wife had just died. He was so keen to be rid of the jewellery that I bought it personally but never got around to selling it. He had a disabled adult daughter who was interjecting things like ‘will you give us a thousand dollars for them?’ and so I weakened, but not to the point of $1000 or anything like it!

Heather reports that every year random Japanese people turn up to photograph the cherry blossom tree in her front yard, and they have returned again this year. Some things just resonate with us emotionally and cherry blossoms certainly do with the Japanese. They symbolise life and death in that culture, the coming of spring promising new life. At the same time, their short lifespan is a reminder that life is fleeting.  Mono no aware is their expression born over 1,000 years ago that refers to a feeling of awe and sadness for the transience of life and the impermanence of things. Note to self: take John to the Auburn Botanic Gardens where I think the cherry blossoms should be out.

John told me this morning that the usual bus tour was definitely on so I advised him what to wear, something he’s been needing lately, but unfortunately when he tried to go down to the bus he was shooed back into his room as the lockdown is still in force. He had been going on the printed weekly event sheet, not a personal communication, so he was naturally disappointed. I will take him out on Thursday, perhaps to the Auburn Gardens, which might make up for it a bit.

August 13, 2024

What a gutless decision by Albo et al regarding gambling ads. The end result is more addiction, therefore more fraud, more bankruptcy, more domestic violence, more suicide. If one of the commercial channels folds then so be it, the other two will then be brought back to profitability perhaps. It’s dangerous to go against a policy that 80% of the public supports. While I’m on the rantan here’s one for Minimal Minns: Anzac Day is not a religious festival, and even if it were there are many religions in Australia these days. Those of us who are not rusted on supporters of Anzac Day are being encouraged to spend the day at a march, playing two-up (hang the fact that it’s illegal!), getting pissed and being objectionable as a result. Anzac Day was the worst day of the year in my shop because of all the drunken yobbos on the street who couldn’t find Turkey on a map, even with a gun to their heads.

John is finally out of lockdown today after 10 days. There was a residents meeting this afternoon but neither he nor his friend Neville could understand the accent of the speaker so they didn’t have a clue what it was about and left. I baked a couple of things in the morning, something I haven’t been doing enough of lately. Then did some more work on eBay, sold a collection of earrings today for $20, went to Pine Coffee and Tea for more Russian Caravan and they gave me a sample of Lapsang Souchong as they know I like smoky teas, went to the pharmacy and stocked up on the drug supply, went to the Post Office, pretty exciting day? No, not really. I decided to look up Lapsang Souchong and discovered that Twinings can’t get it and have brought out a copy marketed as “Distinctively Smoky, Inspired by Lapsang Souchong”. Mmm sounds dodgy as well as smoky. Sue loves my Russian Caravan tea and so she bought the Twinings version and was very disappointed, now I get it for her at Pine. Their comment today was ‘we have three different Lapsangs but we’ll give you the smokiest one’. I’ll try it with John at the weekend.

August 14, 2024

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra just cancelled the pianist Jayson Gillham because he played a piece ‘dedicated to Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza’ in his previous performance. They then sent out an email to those who were to attend his upcoming concert in two days on why they cancelled him, including: “The MSO was at no point made aware of the content of the remarks Mr Gillham was intending to make. They were made completely without authority. The MSO understands that his remarks have caused offence and distress and offers a sincere apology. It has been a priority for us to address this difficult situation today”. Since when does an artist need to have their comments scrutinised in advance of a performance? This follows on the heels of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital removing a display of artwork on plates, done by children from Gaza. Lawyers intervened on behalf of ‘some Jewish patients who said they felt vulnerable and victimised by the display’. This whole thing reminds me of what I’ve read about life in the Netherlands before the invasion by the Nazis, when people were charged by their own government with offences related to their spoken or published criticism of the Nazis, for fear of upsetting the German government. Of course the Germans invaded anyway, just what the laws were trying to prevent. Giving in to bullies never works, never.

Today I was talking to an acquaintance who suddenly announced, apropos of nothing, that last week she was told by her family that she was adopted, she is 82 or 3. I don’t know her well, and she didn’t know that I was adopted, but she said she was brought up by a very strict and unloving mother. She has no idea who her family was and doesn’t know if she wants to find out, it’s all too new, but it has put her childhood into context. I’ve heard of late discovery but that one takes the cake. Although I didn’t speak of my experience and it was a short conversation, it came to mind once again that blood is everything. I thought my ex-husband’s family would become my own, haha to that. His mother positively loathed the spouses of her four children and never missed an opportunity to let us all know that, having nasty pet names for each of us. Later in life another opportunity for a family presented itself and proved to be a bigger disaster than the first. In both cases I foolishly tried to appease the bullies in the hope of some acceptance, if not a warm relationship. As I said in another context, giving in to bullies never works.

August 15, 2024

Today I picked John up on the way to getting the car serviced and then took a loan car (how I hate driving other people’s cars, constantly expecting a disaster to befall the bloody thing, but the only problem was not being able to work out how to turn off the heated driver’s seat!). We went as planned to Auburn Botanic Gardens to see the cherry blossoms two days before the big crowds arrive and a hefty fee is charged to get in. There were in fact moderate crowds and every single person bar us was Asian, perhaps Japanese I’m not sure, but quite possibly Chinese or Koreans too. There were busloads of people, many in matching hats and some even with matching windcheaters and hats, which made me wonder if they could be cruise passengers as who buys someone a quality coat and a hat for a day trip? Anyway the grounds looked beautiful, the waterfalls were a delight and the cherry blossoms were out on cue. The food stalls hadn’t opened yet but I took cheese and crackers, nuts and mandarins with a cupcake for John so that did us as lunch. On the way back we were early for picking the car up so I pulled in to Granville for a looksee. It is even more depressing and down at heel than it was when I travelled there every day during high school and early years of work, getting the bus from there to Guildford morning and night. But I noted that the fruit shop’s navel oranges were $1.49 a kilo instead of $5.99 at Castle Hill so I bought some as well as carrots. Much of the produce was suited to the tastes of the locals with great piles of okra, bitter melon and the like with not a pea, a bean or a bunch of broccolini in sight. I always like to leave some money in a place that I stop to visit, but the going was pretty hard in Granville. We arrived back to Alex and I paid for my ‘service’ but I must admit that I expected to be paying a number with a 2 in the front rather than a 7, though he had rung me for approval to fix a couple of extra things. I do wonder though if services used to include ‘washing down the motor’ and ‘lubricating all the door locks and catches’. He assures me the next one should be a cheapie, I should hope so.

August 17, 2024

My spirits have been lifted by the debacle of the Liberal Party failing to nominate their candidates. But now as expected they are going to the courts with all the excuses they can muster. What is the point of having a deadline if they let them off? One Northern Beaches candidate survived by putting in his own nomination, he is a newbie and didn’t know that the office does it normally so he is the lucky duck candidate for the Liberals. If they succeed in court then the power of the electoral commission will be reduced as a result, with the extreme consequence being that the staff find out who is going to stand on the day and write the ballot papers in pencil as the voters are walking in. The deadline is there for a reason.

Also pleased to see that the members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra have ‘by overwhelming majority’ passed a vote of no confidence in senior management as a result of their cancellation of a concert, due to the pianist’s stated dedication of a piece to ‘the journalists of Gaza’. This artificial attempt to link every sympathy expressed about the war to anti-Semitism is almost McCarthyist in its scope. Just as Katherine Deves and her many acolytes spend their time searching for a drag queen or a trans person to vilify, the pro-Netanyahu camp does the same, looking for any sign of sympathy towards Gazans and pouncing on it.

But in my kitchen Jews, Gazans, drag queens and trans folks are all welcome so I’ve enjoyed making a carrot, beetroot and walnut salad as part of our dinner tonight and icing a mandarin cake to take to Erko tomorrow. The cake has mandarin peel in it and segments of mandarin all over the top, which adds a nice burst of flavour as you bite through them. John is now washing up the mountain of mess I’ve made doing that and making lunch. John, while eating lunch: If somebody asks me what I had for lunch what should I say? Me: Say mushroom risotto John: Oh good.

Apparently a friend of a friend who was recently diagnosed with dementia has now been found to be suffering instead from long Covid. This on top of recent research that shows that existing dementia patients worsen after Covid and “older adults who have had Covid infections are at a higher risk of cognitive decline as compared to matched healthy adults or individuals who have had other respiratory diseases. The risk of new-onset dementia was found to be one of the long-term outcomes of COVID-19 infection”. Note it is not severe infection they mention here, just infection. Perhaps my inability to do mental arithmetic for the last few years is Covid linked rather than a precursor symptom of dementia after all?

August 18, 2024

I am a constant note jotter: things to write to the papers about; book review notes; feedback positive and negative to businesses I’ve used; things I need to add to the blog. But lately I am having trouble working out what the devil the notes are about, today trying to figure out ‘private gaol apc’; ‘paracetamol empathy’; ‘swift community’; ‘Coles we’; ‘man and dog’. I couldn’t work them out so I’ll delete them, but I’m sure they were very important when written. Blame Covid, my convenient new excuse for everything.

A Sydney teacher charged with sexual offences with a number of her male students is in the news. It reminded me of being with a group of women (maybe a school group when the kids were little, I’m not sure). One of them, a married PE teacher in her 30s at the most prestigious school in Sydney if not Australia, casually told us that she was ‘having a relationship’ with a year 11 student at the all boys school ‘I’m training him and we go running after school and just happen to stop off at my place as we go past’ she said. Although I think everyone was shocked, no one said a word and it would never have occurred to any of us to talk to the police. Had the teacher been male and the student female it wouldn’t have come out in discussion in the way that it did in this case. I think that reflects the difference 40 years makes in how we look at these things.

Apparently the owners of White Fox have spent $120 million on four properties in Vaucluse and are currently seeking permission to demolish three of them to make way for a mega mansion on the site. The mind boggles. How do the previous owners of these homes feel to know that they will be turned into rubble. I would be devastated to see that happen to my humble cottage, but perhaps it’s just real estate to them more than a home.

August 19, 2024

So not a great start to the morning as I fell in the garden and toppled into my rose bush, the thorniest one I have ever seen anywhere, which had just been pruned last weekend. The result was that I was pinioned between two thorn-ridden upright stalks and couldn’t get out! I decided to wait for a passing person to help but on-one came so I was force to deal with it myself as I had Anzac biscuits in the oven. I gingerly pulled one branch away and pushed myself up, ending up with a row of thorns in one side of my hand and arm and a few gashes in the other as well as a skinned knee. Sitting on the front verandah pulling out thorns and getting over the fall and the postman arrived with my new ‘old lady shoes’ which had finally worked their way through the postal system but he took one look and retreated without a word, as if an old lady dripping blood was either quite usual or else more than he could deal with first thing in the morning. Second fall in the garden in the last few weeks, but if anyone tells me to join a gym I shall inform them that no, I truly enjoy falling more than going to a gym.

On the last bus tour I took note of the passengers’ footwear: one man with shorts and thongs on a cold wet day and nine women in either joggers or orthopaedic shoes In one case I noticed that the shoes were quite different to each other, custom made for her dodgy feet, at considerable expense I would imagine. Although I gave up wearing heels long ago I still like nice shoes and unfortunately bought two pairs from my pal at The Entrance a few months back. Neither pair has come out its box as they were waiting for summer, here’s hoping I can wear them by then.

Saw Peter Regan, head of Sydney Metro, on the early news today rightly basking in the success of the mega project that he has overseen, right back to Berejiklian days. I well remember a long lunchtime barbecue at his home overlooking the harbour, was it Naremburn or Longueville, something like that. He and his wife can certainly put on a party and somewhere I still have the cards I was given by an Indian man who was on Blacktown Council (‘if ever I can do anything for you don’t hesitate to ring’ and a professor from the University of Notre Dame with whom I debated gaols and capital punishment at length. We agreed on the fact that gaols needed a complete makeover in terms of putting the focus on rehabilitation but he argued that capital punishment was kinder than a life sentence. I reminded him that his church has a policy of ‘Thou shalt not kill’ but he didn’t seem to think that was a problem in the same way that the church is so anti contraception but takes no stand against war. Anyway we had a good slog and followed it up later by email but neither of us budged in our positions. I do remember his comment that when he took medical students to Lithgow Gaol they often commented that ‘the inmates seem just like us’ which is the point of my arguments: we either attempt rehabilitation where there’s any chance of that working or else if they are so mentally damaged that they can never be returned to the community we put them in a secure but lovely funny farm somewhere with good food, activities to amuse them and medical care.

August 20, 2024

A month or more ago Gracewood asked me to sign for a drug called Aricept that John takes for Alzheimer’s, as it is psychotropic, but why I hadn’t needed to sign for it before is another question. I thought I was told by the neurologist that it only works for a year so I didn’t have the information I needed to answer the question. I thought I was clever to ask the neurologist by email for the answer, but she said that she needed to speak to him to make a decision and that conference was set up as a video call today. No link came through so luckily I phoned, only to be told that I should have organised a referral, grrr why didn’t you tell me that a month ago I said sotto voce. A hurried text to Bob should have fixed that I hope.

It was so lovely to see the enthusiasm of the crowds who gathered at some god-awful time of the morning to celebrate the opening of the M1 rail link yesterday. (Why would they name it the same way as a highway? No I don’t know either, but it’s very confusing if you say you to someone that you are arriving on the M1). I am all for celebrating anything, but I probably (actually definitely) wouldn’t get up at 3 am to do it, but all power to those folks who did.

I am like the walking wounded at the moment with one sore foot, the opposite knee bruised and one arm very painful after the rose bush altercation. John changed the bandage for me which is damned awkward to do on your own. Suddenly I’ve gone to being an old lady and I don’t like it! Luckily I can still drive with no problems, though turning my left arm is more difficult than yesterday.

Eventually the video link with Dr. Massey materialised and we had a good three-way discussion, the upshot of which was that she considers it possible that the relatively slow progression of his disease is due to the Aricept, so she wants him to stay on it. I’m glad we went through the process. She says there are newer drugs available for Alzheimer’s but they are not yet approved by the TGA but she will contact us if that approval happens.

August 21, 2024

Went to sewing group at Louise’s with only Martha and Gaby attending. It was lovely sitting outside as it was unseasonably warm. I opened a jar of Pickled Watermelon Rind to go on a cheese plate I took and found it quite addictive, I’m still picking tiny bits off it off the empty platter now I’m at home.

Dr Massey’s rooms sent a bill for John’s consultation yesterday, $740 ($370 plus $370 outstanding) which I had a fit about, but when I rang it was actually an error so the payment was reduced by half thankfully.

Our friend Kevin has finally seen an end to his suffering and died yesterday. What a hard death mesothelioma is. It wasn’t even possible to speak to him for the last few weeks as he was too breathless to respond. Vale good man.

August 22, 2024

Why do I wake so early every time I set an alarm? I set it for 6 am and woke up at 4.30, apparently to make sure that I hadn’t slept in, which is just silly. It happens every time, though but I can’t undo the brain program. I arrived at Erko early for the school Book Week parade and open day. Some of the costumes were amazing including the one on our girl, but I am so out of touch with the books of this generation that I hardly recognised what character they were imitating. We are very lucky that there is such a good school nearby.

So let’s say that two men are on trial for fraud involving billions of dollars and after a 12 month trial they are acquitted. Then one dies in a yachting accident alongside his lawyer and a witness in the trial. A couple of days earlier the other accused dies in an unrelated motor accident, killed when hit by a car while out running. So both defendants dead, the lawyer and his wife dead and the witness and his wife dead. If this trial were in Russia everyone and his poodle would be telling us that it can’t possibly be a coincidence, and we would believe it, but sometimes extraordinary coincidences happen. I do wonder if we will see a slew of theories that agents of Hewlett Packard were working overtime? It is a tragedy all round but I will be very interested in what the authorities make of the cause of the sinking. Apparently the mast of the yacht was the highest ever built and one theory is that when it snapped the sheer weight of it in the water pulled the boat into such an angle that the ocean flooded in to doors and hatches left open in the heat. I know zip about boats but it seems logical. So what were the final words of the lawyer in a post about the acquittal before he went onto the ship: “And they all lived happily ever after…”

August 23, 2024

I was always planning to attend the sentencing hearing of the Justin Stein case today, along with my new friend Pam, but last night when I was dog-tired I discovered that it was in the city and not in Parramatta where the case was heard. In conversation last night with Pam (88 years old and full of go) I intimated that I may have to rely on press coverage as I’d spent the day in the city yesterday. However she unintentionally shamed me into going because nothing was going to stop her getting on the new Metro and heading in to town. I am glad to have her positive influence as she abashes me when I think something is going to be too hard and makes me believe that I may have another ten years of useful and enjoyable life after all. The summing up by ‘Mr Crown’ as the judge calls him (though she calls the defence barrister by her name) indicated that he believes this murder is in the worst case category and should deserve a life sentence. Defence had little positive to say except that it wasn’t planned in advance. I believe, on the basis of the judge’s questions, her comments, her body language and facial expressions that she will give him a life sentence, if not a never to be released one. Interestingly I was saying this to Pam afterwards in the court corridor when the defence solicitor was walking past and surprisingly he entered the conversation with the words ‘I think you are dead right, that is what we are expecting’. I’m guessing he feels freer to speak to outsiders now it’s in the judge’s hands, but I was still surprised by his comments. Although Stein has neither confessed nor explained what happened, I believe that he attempted to or did sexually molest the child who ran away to escape him, during which time he shot her twice and killed her with the second shot. She had his anti-psychotic medication in her bloodstream which could have been given to subdue her. I doubt we will ever know the answer for sure and it will be interesting to see if the judge speculates. Two peripheral matters from the day: Mr Crown’s robes fall down around his arms every time he gets up to speak and it annoys me, as it must annoy him, I’m thinking of buying him a safety pin and more importantly the balustrade to the spiral staircase up to the second floor of this beautiful heritage building is not legal, it barely comes up to my hip bone and considering my recent penchant for falling I held on to rail on the opposite side. But a tall person would be even more at risk and I’m amazed that they haven’t had to install a second higher railing which they did in the QVB, but only after a boy fell to his death.

Finished rereading J. D. Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy and, just as the first reading, I enjoyed it immensely. There is a lot of thoughtful observation of people and society that makes me think that he’s no fool, so his support of Trump may just be politically convenient, perhaps hoping that the next assassin will be a better shot and he would end up as president? However towards the end of the book he is heading further towards religion and three years after it was published he adopted Catholicism. Raised evangelical, then briefly atheist, Vance was baptized Catholic in 2019. He has supported efforts in state legislatures to have schools display the Ten Commandments, has opposed no-fault divorce, and opposes support for transgender people. He supports Project 2025’s plan to criminalize porn, supports legal challenges to get prayer in public schools as well as being fiercely anti-abortion. Remembering John’s words from the past about Tony Abbott that he ‘wants to go back to the Middle Ages’, Vance as well as Abbott would like to push ‘classical education’ in schools and universities as well as reintroducing the Latin mass so it appears as if his latterly espoused views are more closely related to his conversion to Catholicism than to his ‘hillbilly’ extended family.

August 24, 2024

For the third Saturday in a row I took John to a park for a walk. First to Nurragingy, the next week to the cherry blossom festival and today to Fagan Park, the biggest of them and a really lovely space. Loved seeing the trees covered in lichen and listening to the whip birds in particular. Took some fruit, cheese and crackers and enjoyed morning tea au plein air. In the afternoon we made potato salad with anchovies and capers and carrot salad, the latter with some pickled watermelon rind and currants which prompted John to say that he was looking forward to First Saturday here tonight. He was quite surprised to find it was just part of our dinner ‘who’s coming?’ he asked, to which I replied ‘you’.

Since buying my old lady orthopaedic shoes online I have been deluged on Facebook every day with ads for all manner of shoes, all flat laceups. Seeing I didn’t buy them from a Facebook ad but from their website it just shows that every keystroke is monitored somehow, somewhere. I never usually buy things online but this purchase has been simple and foolproof considering I payed with Paypal who will refund if you are not happy, though the company offered free exchange or refund themselves, so I would deal with Axign again.

In years past I often went to see the Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Opera House, but now it’s at Carriageworks which is so much more difficult to get to from here. The other reason that I am not going this time is that the ideas have become less and less dangerous, really most were pretty mainstream like The Case for Not Having Children for example. Perhaps in this cancel culture environment the fear of outrage keeps the lid on anything too dangerous, they certainly haven’t made me desperate to go as in past years.

The article in the Good Weekend recently on Michael Klim and his rare autoimmune condition was interesting to me as I’d tried to remember which disease a lecturer at the forensic science course had. Now I recognise it was CIPD or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, something I never would have forgotten once. He was on crutches and really had to heave himself around, he didn’t seem long out of a wheelchair. I don’t understand why it affects just the leg muscles, something else to read up on.

August 25, 2024

I have been seriously considering going on my own to Bowral for the Tulip Festival, but going just before it formally starts, to beat the crowds and the higher accommodation costs. I decided to mention it to John to see his reaction and he was somewhat disappointed, so I have rethought the plan and now I will take him as well. My concern was partly that last time we went there he thought that I had moved him to a different nursing home and was very concerned that it was too far away for me to visit him. But the counter argument is that he is currently the best that he will ever be, so I just need to keep explaining that it’s a holiday and everything will go back to normal afterwards.

Tomorrow is the Stein sentencing which I am looking forward to in one way, but also sad about. No winners there, particularly sad for the grandparents who made what proved to be a life-changing decision with the very best of intentions. He commented on Friday that some family members still blame him and his wife and he doubts that the family rift will ever be righted. He is also divorced from his daughter for understandable reasons. Also Stein is schizophrenic which complicates things as how do we know what that feels like and what lapses of judgment accompany it, but you can’t let someone with his criminal history out on the street. I mentioned schizophrenia in another context last week at a social gathering and someone there arced up immediately and defended schizophrenics from criticism, saying that her son suffered with the condition but was a gentle soul. I’m sure that is true, but I did have two shop customers with the condition and I was afraid of both of them. One subsequently assaulted and injured a stranger while waiting to see a doctor at Windsor Hospital emergency and the other became very aggressive when I wouldn’t buy something he had picked up at a charity shop. I was on my own on a quiet Saturday afternoon and had to grit my teeth through the verbal abuse and ignore him as he revved up and down the street at speed to punish me for my sins. Two out of two (not counting the many in court proceedings) has made me wary.

August 26, 2024

The sentencing comments for Justin Stein’s murder charge went from 11.30 am to 1 pm, during which he sat placidly (I see the Daily Mail reporter said nervously, but I didn’t see any sign of that). What was going on in his mind, knowing even before she spoke that he would serve somewhere between 25 years and his whole life in gaol? I can’t even imagine, but he showed no reaction at all. Perhaps he was medicated. The judge listed his sad and troubled life in a very well off family, attending Cranbrook (where he was expelled in year 9 for abusing the headmaster) and Kings. He told a psychologist that he started using drugs at age 11, was on heroin by 15, and reported a poor relationship with his father. He has had repeated charges involving drugs, including some leading to gaol sentences, and has entered Odyssey House and numerous private hospitals for treatment for addiction. He claims that he uses drugs because they ‘block out the voices’ yet none of his psychiatric reports definitively mention schizophrenia. However an ambulance officer who took him to hospital reported him ‘talking to people who weren’t there’. The judge was quite critical of the most recent reports done this year while he was in prison, where a big section of the report seemed to have been cut and pasted from one done in gaol in 2017. What a total waste of a life, before we even get to his victim’s short life. There were a number of her relatives present, yet they didn’t sit together, nor did they speak at the end of proceedings, family rift indeed. I feel very sad for them but also sad for Justin at just 33, in some ways it would be kinder to let him die.

August 27, 2024

My Melbourne friend Antonia, whom I’ve never met but I think is about the same age as me, commented on my email in which I told her that I had fallen into a rose bush: ‘First of all, you didn’t fall, old people fall, you tripped on a stone, slipped on a banana peel, but never ever say fall’. She always gives me a good laugh. It’s true that medical people get a certain look about them when they ask the question ‘do you ever fall?’ I think it goes on a register somewhere and counts against you in the future. 

I seem to always be doing surveys, but I continue in the hope that it will change policy somewhere down the line. Every Wednesday I do the SMH one, just four questions with the results published the following Saturday. Yesterday I got a Morgan Poll set of questions by email and one was ‘If you got a $3000 bill tomorrow, how would you pay it?’ Answers ranged from savings, which I ticked, to credit card, get a loan, sell some possessions, and on down the line probably including murdering your granny for the dough, but I didn’t go as far as the end. Then at 1 am my burglar alarm company texted to say that they had lost communication with the alarm system, so this morning I rang them and they talked about 4G and the age of the alarm (this one went in in 2011) and the fact that at the last free service the technician had disconnected the outside warning light and siren as it was cactus. I decided to get the whole thing replaced rather than keep paying for service calls when it malfunctions, as it did a couple of months ago. Well there ain’t much change out of $3000 so I think they paid Morgan to see if I were in a position to cough up the dough!

August 29, 2024

Got a call from Kiama only to find that it was an ‘epidemic warning’ with some dame asking me to choose a language via the keyboard in which to hear all about it. I just don’t have time for an epidemic in my life right now so I hung up and will never know what dire end was going to befall me.

Silly Albo has buckled to Julian Leeser’s request for an inquiry into anti-semitism, but the definition of anti-semitism includes any criticism of Israel. As Leeser well knows, and Albo should know, Judaism and Zionism are not the same things and there are many Jews who are not supporters of the current Israeli government and support a Palestinian state. The gall of even asking for an inquiry with those terms astonishes me, but Albo is more to blame than Leeser who just tried it on and got lucky.

I have collected so many Spring leaves and flowers for pressing that I am running out of containers to put them in. The solution of course is to make cards with them as intended, but there never seems to be a day when I can just sit down and do it, certainly there were none in this week and the next few days are spoken for.

Baking cakes today, one for book group tomorrow and another for lunch on Saturday. The Swiss Chestnut and Hazelnut one suggests dusting the top with cocoa, ugh I don’t fancy that, but I can blow it off I guess or eat somebody else’s cake. The second is an Apple Cake, a lemon and almond kuchen with 12 quarter apples sliced part through Hasselback style and pushed into the top. I thought that the apples would be somewhat more cooked than they are, so I may need to serve it as a warm cake or pudding with a quick burst in the microwave to finish cooking the apples, though I notice that the picture looks just the same as mine so perhaps a bit if resistance in the fruit was intended.

August 30, 2024

It is dear Kevin’s funeral today but I am not up to going so I’ve arranged for John to have a computer brought to his room and set up before it starts at 10.30. He asked whether he will be able to speak to people but I explained that it’s just visual for him with no feedback. When I thought it through there are few of his friends left to attend, with one in Melbourne and one currently in New York, but he knows Pat who is the priest doing the service very well. Pat was a school friend of Kevin’s since kindergarten, it must be a hugely emotional task for him.

Reading about the PFAS chemicals in Medlow Dam in the Blue Mountains reminded me of staying with the family in a motel in Blackheath when the kids were about 4 or 5. We drank tap water as usual but I turned on the local radio station as we drove away to hear them constantly reminding people not to drink out of any tap due to a giardia infestation in Medlow Dam. No one at the motel had told us and I didn’t think about it much until I became violently ill a few days later and remained so for the next couple of weeks. Oddly no one else in the family caught it but I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, well perhaps I can think of a few people I’d wish it on now I think about it…….

Someone told me that you can turn on your phone’s light just by saying Hey Siri Lumos and it bloody works! I don’t even use Siri so it was a surprise, to turn it off you just say Nox. I guess it is through this sort of thing that mobile phones are tapped? I pity any poor cop being tasked to listen to my conversations for days or months. I still cringe thinking about poor William Tyrrell’s foster parents (poor William, not poor foster parents by the way) who were taped non-stop for 14 months in every room of their house, in both their cars and on their mobiles. All of this was transcribed as evidence, fascinating but creepy job that must be. I’m sure it must somehow have been done remotely as how would their Turramurra neighbours not notice a team of overalled bobbies breaking into the house to set up the bugs? The tapes were played in part at the court hearings for each of them for intimidation of a child and for assault. They were pretty shocking stuff, I felt intimidated just listening in the safety of a court. They are both control freaks, very dominant and scary people even to an adult. That poor child must have been damaged beyond repair to put up with that behaviour for years, prior to the police reporting them to FACS who immediately removed her.

September 1, 2024

Johnstuff: John is noticeably weaker, puffing just walking up my driveway from the back yard to the front when we were doing some watering this morning, also finding it hard to bend over or kneel down, just in a week. Seems strange, but I guess changes have to happen sometime, however his spirit and optimism remain the same.

The story of the poor folks stuck in the space station till next February after expecting to be there for just a few days reinforces my decision not to become an astronaut. I can’t even imagine the sense of terror, of claustrophobia, that situation would induce. I guess people are prepared for that sort of option but even so it must occur to them that they may never come down.

Loved the article in the Good Weekend about the Sydney marble sculptor Alex Seton. While I wasn’t over the moon about his rendition of a drop toilet, I absolutely loved the life jackets and the folded flags, just superb. Next time I go to Canberra I will visit both, though actually I remember now that the life jackets are in Adelaide, equals plane trip, equals unlikely, but never say never.

In another article on Rwanda, Blood and Toil, there was a monumental quote about their civil war and the monstrous genocide of 80,000 Tutsis: “The West knew what was happening, had been called on to help, and effectively did nothing – in fact, worse than nothing, because United Nations forces were on standby with a mandate to act but, for reasons too ancient to go into here, chose not to intervene. The commander of those forces, Canada’s General Dallaire, observed later that it was ‘the fear of Western world ­casualties in a country of no strategic or resource ­importance’. In short, he said, in the world of real­politik, ‘Rwanda didn’t count’.” A country of no strategic or resource ­importance, like East Timor and West Papua and Palestine and so many other places where we sit back and watch as their populations are gratuitously murdered.

John hasn’t heard anything from kin today but Heather came around with a card and gift for him and Michelle W. sent greetings, both of which gestures were much appreciated..

September 2, 2024

Watching last night’s news I was amazed that they didn’t make a big deal about the heat yesterday. It was after 8 pm that I happened to notice that the air conditioner was going, on the heat setting. I had left the doors open all day to try to cool the place down, but John was up when I got up at 7 am and he must have turned it on then. He has a funny idea of temperatures these days, constantly changing from sandals to shoes and shirts to jumpers. But on the bright side: over 6 months ago one of my set of Global knives disappeared. Bins were searched, every cupboard and drawer opened, as well as looking in the fridge and freezer, all to no avail. But yesterday John washed up and there was the knife, he had no idea where it had come from…..

Last night I watched Kevin McCarthy’s funeral again on Comcast and noted how frail the celebrating priest is getting. He struggled a bit getting up the three steps to the altar and his voice was much thinner than it used to be. He was forcibly retired at age 80 a few years ago, but he told us yesterday that he is used to slot in to different parishes when the priest goes on holiday for a couple of weeks or a month. He can’t drive any more so he trots off to the churches on public transport every day, which begs the question of why they made him retire from where he just had to walk from his house in the grounds of the church and where he hoped to see out the rest of his life? The upcoming churches are at Carnes Hill, Bonnyrigg Heights and Malabar, so all over the shop and none with train services. The other notable thing about Kevin’s funeral was the reading by our Minister for Indigenous Australians Malarndirri McCarthy. I assumed she must have been a friend of Kevin’s until Pat told me that she is the daughter of Kevin’s brother, I’m so slow that I hadn’t even connected the last name. She looked deeply affected by his loss. Comcast is such a wonderful tool for people unable to attend, I am looking into the possibility of using it for another upcoming funeral overseas but so far I’ve had no reply from an email to the funeral director, however I somehow doubt that it will be on offer.

I decided to contact ADT again as I was having second thoughts about the alarm upgrade and whether or not I should go ahead. So I just asked them to check the records and see how often the connectivity had dropped out, deciding if it was once I would cancel to wait and see if it was just a glitch, but if it was more I would go ahead. However it had happened three times over a couple of months (on specified dates) so I am going to go with the replacement. Luckily I decided that way as when I went to the front door to welcome a visitor there were two parcels of parts on the verandah to do the job. Why don’t delivery men knock any more? Because everything is contract so there’s no customer loyalty to worry about.

I think I am developing a salad addiction. Carrot salad with pickled watermelon rind has been a recent favourite, also potato salad (capers and anchovies a must), and any green salad with a dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar and honey. Today I had a sudden desire for coleslaw but instead of buying the ingredients I took the cheat’s way out and went up to El Jannah and bought a pack, can’t wait for dinner.

September 3, 2024

Audiologist this morning for the final testing of my hearing aids before he ticks off to Albo that they are with me permanently. Interesting test involved repeating back about a dozen sentences from a recording, first with hearing aids, then new sentences with ‘cafe level noise’ added, then repeating both types with no hearing aids. It turned out that I got 97%, 92%, 60% and 52% for the four tests, so clearly the hearing aids are doing a fantastic job. The Hearing Hub does a fantastic job and it’s great that I can park in their basement.

A friend was here for lunch on Sunday and reported that she was seeing a physiotherapist for neck, arm and back pain, to no avail. I relayed my experiences with that particular discipline in the past so she cancelled the next appointment and today went to a medico, only to find that she has shingles, exactly the same scenario as Sue’s brother who was having painful treatment for some time last year before going to a doctor. Our friend Terry went to a physiotherapist for almost 12 months while his undiagnosed cancer continued on its merry way untreated till he finally relented and went to a doctor, but by then it was terminal.

I understand our mate Justin Stein is to appear in Penrith Court on Friday for a Readiness Hearing which I think is to just to make sure that everyone is ready to proceed. The parties are required to complete a Certificate of Readiness prior to the case being heard. I can’t go but I doubt it will be more than formalities, however I am interested in what he is being charged with, something I can’t access online. If I am right about his motive in the Mutten child’s murder it may be something to do with viewing child pornography, but we shall see, it could also be to do with his firearms theft or drugs. Seeing he has a life without parole sentence it’s all academic anyway from his point of view.

September 5, 2024

I have been positively deluged with emails supposedly from Microsoft say that my email address is going to be cancelled because of all the spam emails originating from it, plus dozens more variations on this theme. They all ended up in my spam file but so did lots of other emails that were genuine, some quite important. It’s stressing me out so I’ve sent a random couple to Louis for his opinion. What a wonderful world it would be if all of the dishonest people just vapourised overnight. No locksmiths, no keys at all in fact, no security guards, hardly any police, just some for getting cats out of trees and attending accidents and natural disasters, no high fences, no razor wire, I can’t wait, it will be like the Rapture watching them all go up.

Yesterday I had brunch with Fran at bill’s, note no initial capital as per their preference, then went off to Woollahra to find, shock horror, that my favourite fruit loaf was out of stock, but an acceptable if not favoured replacement was purchased along with some other foodie bits that Maloney’s tempted me with. John’s treatment took a record 5 and a 1/4 hours, up from the usual 4. It used to be 3 but when they changed from US blood to Australian it lengthened the procedure by an hour for reasons no one could explain. Perhaps Aussie blood is more laid back and takes its time. I need to pick him up at the door which is a no standing area except for ambulances, so it was tricky when he he told me he was ready an hour before he actually was and then when I was parked in front he phoned to say ‘they’ve just plugged in another bottle’. Anyway it all worked out in the end as everything does, well almost everything.

Reading Miriam Margolyes autobiography and loving it. She seems to be a clone of her mother in many respects, her father was very socially conservative. Though one difference is that la mere was a snob and social climber par excellence whereas Miriam seems to find pals in all walks of life. She is very critical of some people she’s worked with or met socially, and not afraid to name names. There is no vague descriptions of the people who’ve pissed her off, she calls them out pointedly. Her sexual encounters are many and varied, with hilarious results in a few cases. Some of the lines in this book even shock me, which is somewhat hard to do! She writes: ‘I’m a repository of many confidences. People often tell me about things…..that they haven’t told anybody else’ and I can believe that with her openness to oddness. She talks about being a court watcher! ‘going to the Oxford County Court sessions to listen to the cases….I saw and heard details of crime close up’. This led to becoming a prison visitor and going to visit Broadmoor an institution for the criminally insane, saying that many of the inmates ‘looked as mad as snakes. They looked vicious and deranged and were nearly all murderers’. I laughed at her description of going to their carpentry workshop, full of saws and drills and screwdrivers. She got so interested in talking to the inmates that she didn’t realise that she’d be left behind alone with them, amongst all sorts of dangerous objects, something that would never happen these days. (I remember an inmate at the Mulawa Women’s prison cutting off someone’s head with a circular saw in the workshop, or was it her own head? it was some years ago, but in either case I’m glad I wasn’t visiting). I love Miriam’s stories, and her, to bits.

So Elle McPherson sought the opinion of 32 doctors before deciding not to have chemotherapy. This means nothing if we don’t know the stage of the cancer she had, plenty of docs don’t insist on chemo after a low grade cancer lumpectomy. But for those people who will only read the headlines and not think it through, she could be doing real harm by dissuading women who do need it. Who needs 32 doctors anyway? Someone who has a lot of money to waste I’d suggest.

I’m trying to focus on what Kenneth always said to me: ‘You’ve got to learn to com-part-mental-ise, there are lots of parts of your brain and you can just park something in one section until you have the ability or desire to deal with it’. He had to do that in his spy training, learning not to know things that were inconvenient at a given time was a useful skill for a spy and he was very good at it, but I think I’ve been a poor student.

September 6, 2024

This morning there was a beautiful, huge, fluffy, grey cat lying peacefully on my grass verge. It just looked as if it were sleeping there, but was very dead. I burst into tears only to be comforted by the lovely Umair from ADT who is here to install the new alarm system. (He assures me that the system is way past its use by date and it would only cause me trouble in the future if not replaced). That was comforting in itself, but more comforting were the words he used about the cat: ‘Maureen that’s just part of life, it happens to us all’. Somehow, although I knew that intellectually, his words spoke to me at a much deeper level and relieved my soul. Thankyou Umair, thankyou beautiful cat.

September 7, 2024

First day without my beloved brother in the world, his funeral was last night our time and I’m thankful that I was able to watch it live. I had emailed the funeral director asking if this facility were available but they said that the family hadn’t chosen it, however they then (cheekily I think, to get the 54 pound fee) bumped my email to Tanya who authorised it to be done. I watched it here and Davina watched from her place, having offered to come out here to see it together but I said no as it was quite late at night. Carly got a message from Dav but not in time to watch it live, however I have sent her the link. She rang me at 2 am and we had a long chat. Facebook memories came up this morning with photos of Kenneth, John and me walking around Haworth exactly 12 years ago today, a strange coincidence. I tried looking through the Facebook photos for more images of that trip but they only go back 10 years, though somehow they come up as memories from earlier than that.

I tossed up whether to go to First Saturday or not but decided to do it, getting a lift with Martha. I’m not sure it was a good decision as I struggled talking to people, though they probably didn’t notice. It didn’t help that I had already seen the lengthy presentation on polar bears before. My crispy vegetable stir fry seemed to have been through an oven or microwave many times till it was a dish of overcooked veggies and was then served cold, so I left that for others to struggle with and enjoyed mushroom tart and an egg sambo with side salad. By the time we were due to leave I was starting to fray at the seams, I should have driven myself so I could beat a retreat as needed, but it couldn’t be helped. A slice of raisin toast and a cuppa will do me for dinner and I will get up early to finish packing and prepare a simple picnic lunch for tomorrow.

September 9, 2024

The traffic gods were kind to me yesterday and we had a very good trip to Berrima with virtually no trucks on the road. Luckily I stopped at the Mittagong Tourist Information Centre because they told me that the Corbett Gardens where the tulips are will close today Monday for the setting up of the festival due to begin at the end of the week, so we had to see the tulips today, not tomorrow as planned. We had our picnic lunch at Mittagong and then booked into the Berida Hotel as planned.

September 10, 2024

I began typing yesterday’s post in our room after seeing that John was falling asleep during breakfast and after he said he felt unwell and needed to lie down, but the post was rapidly abandoned when I saw that even lying down he was breathless, was as white as a sheet and shaking. I went to the desk to ask for assistance to get him down to the car to go to hospital but once I went back up to the room it was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to walk down a flight of stairs, so an ambulance was the only option. It was there in 10 minutes and they did an ECG, gave him two lots of drugs and chewable aspirin and carried him in a chair to the ambulance, despite one officer being about 8 months pregnant. I followed the few streets to Bowral Hospital and he was taken in immediately, tested for a heart attack, had multiple other blood tests and a chest X-ray done and then we waited for the rest of the day for the results. Not surprisingly, they showed that he had pulmonary oedema or fluid in the lungs due to heart failure, so I’m really glad that I took the ambo option as that’s a serious diagnosis. He was given a couple of injections for this and told that he would need to be on the same drug in tablet form from now on. He improved overnight but was still very puffy when we started to walk half a block to get some lunch in Bowral before driving back to Gracewood. Eventually I decided that we needed to drive to a bakery instead and thankfully got a park right outside. The hotel was fantastic yesterday, while we were at the hospital they collected all of our stuff and moved it to a much bigger room downstairs (at no extra cost), apologising that they couldn’t give us the Grand Suite because it was upstairs. The manager phoned in the evening and inquired on his condition, all in all a fabulous and warm response.

We were very lucky that we saw the tulips on Sunday as all hell broke loose on Monday. They were absolutely at their peak and I fear will be a little past it by the time the festival concludes. Personally I preferred seeing the gardens without the stalls and food outlets that they will set up by the weekend and I will go before the festival proper begins in future years. It’s hard to imagine how much time and money it would take to deliver that display, 80,000 tulips as well as other flowers like the delightful Hellebores with which I fell in love, I so love green flowers. This morning we went briefly to the emerging Botanical Gardens at Bowral, though John couldn’t walk far so we sat on a seat and looked out over the new garden with volunteers everywhere weeding, mulching, pruning, it doesn’t seem to have any staff that we could see, just a host of busy volunteers. I was taken with a green Hellebore plant and bought it for under the trees out the front. When I said I didn’t have much space in the garden because I had planted a lot of Agapanthus and Clivia the lady stepped back and said, somewhat jolted: ‘Oh, perhaps you could dig some out to make room for better plants’. Clearly my choices were considered infra dig to a seasoned gardener.

Another memory that comes to mind is at breakfast yesterday watching an older couple, aged in their 60s perhaps, trying to get a week’s calories in one meal. First it was fruit, then a large hot breakfast from the buffet, then an order of an omelette with ham, cheese, tomato and chili, followed by crumpets, toast and jam, then Danish pastries. I thought they were done, but no. They ordered pancakes with berries and icecream to top it off! I was agog. Today I felt virtuous as we ate just mandarins in our room for breakfast. I have cancelled everything I had planned in the next week including helping on council election day on Saturday and a bus trip next week, I am going to bring John home for the weekend instead (despite breaking the one night a week rule and having three, we can make up for it some other time) and visit him each day. It’s not that I don’t trust Gracewood staff but I just trust my own judgment more, I know what’s normal with him and what’s not.

September 11, 2024

In an unusual occurrence I emailed the Local Member Mark Hodges about the Dutton-like negativity of his newsletter article on the new Metro and within 10 minutes he was on the phone, reasonable and personable, to defend his stance. He ended up by saying ‘point taken’ and we parted on good terms. How unlike his predecessor, the ghastly David Elliott, who got nasty if you had the temerity to disagree with him, a point I made to Mark.

Although I totally agree with the demonstrators against the war machine conference in Melbourne, I can’t abide seeing police horses caught up in it. Throwing things at a horse doing its job is a low act, full stop.

I am glad for many reasons that I was not driving the Mazda that killed a senior member of the Bandidos motor cycle gang yesterday. Regardless of whose fault it was, and while I think that it would be horrifying to be involved in the death of anyone, it would have an added layer of apprehension when it turns out to be a Bandido. I remember racing to a bikie who had come off his steed near me, only to be abused because, as he told me, the damage to the bike was much more important than the damage to him. I couldn’t really do much about that and left him picking up pieces of it off the road.

John seems to be a bit better today, though Gracewood organised a physio to visit him last evening (I have no idea why) and she said he shouldn’t go out on his usual walks around the block with a companion until next week to allow the drug to start working. My observation in the hospital was that it worked within minutes, but whatever. Anyway I explained to John that he’d agreed yesterday to abstain from walking outside till next week, but of course he forgot that instantly and went out with Neville anyway at 10 to 2, a time rigidly adhered to by his companion. I decided to keep out of it and let them go.

September 12, 2024

From memory the day 10 years ago that William Tyrrell disappeared. John is still doing okay, my anxiety levels are still on a high but I guess will come down. I woke up at 2 am and didn’t go back to sleep. I can’t help thinking about the fact that I had planned to go to Bowral alone, but John wanted to come and thank goodness he did as if he’d got sick at Gracewood and just gone to bed things may have worked out very differently. But I can’t get bogged down in what ifs, she says while bogged down in what ifs. I took the discharge summary to Bb but they had already sent it by email, however I was there for the second shingles vaccine so that’s another job jobbed.

I have had three phone calls this week from Kenneth’s daughter Tanya, funny how the dynamic changes when you delete someone from the picture, now I’m her aunty and she seems to enjoy talking to me. I’ve sent her a couple of photos by email and she asked me if there was anything I wanted as she packs up the house, ‘only his stories’ I said, copies of which she can easily send electronically to save money. I took quite a few photos of me as a toddler and child to show him on my first visit to him (as he had asked me to) and he swiped them I realised later, but I guess I was flattered that he wanted them so much, and he usually got what he wanted. I passed Kenneth St going to see John and smiled, it will be Brother St from now on. I sent an email to John’s priest friend Pat, one of a few we’ve exchanged lately, mostly about all the parish work he’s doing despite being forced to retire. As I hit send I realised I had signed off ‘love Maureen’, perhaps that’s not the done thing, but it was too late by then. Swordfish baked in the oven with spinach, tomatoes and a cheese sauce for dinner, even if I only eat half it’s a step back to routine.

September 13, 2024

It puzzled me that Umair from ADT couldn’t replace the second smoke alarm because it was hard wired with 240 volts while the original one was just attached to the burglar alarm with 12 volts. So I rang the firies and as ever they were keen to help. Four of them arrived in a fire engine soon after and informed me that the second alarm was perfect, didn’t need replacing and even changed the battery so it works if the power goes off. What a gem firies and ambos are! Any questions? they asked at the end. ‘Yes, why is it that you guys and ambos are always so nice and yet the police come in two types, either lovely or really nasty human beings?’ I asked. ‘Oh we know just what you mean’, they said, all nodded furiously. ‘Well the nasty cops are the ones that didn’t pass the test to get into the fire service’, one replied. ADT are going to refund the price of the second alarm, so happy me.

John has had another small setback. A staff member from Gracewood rang to say he was walking unsteadily, quite wobbly, and when they checked him he had high blood pressure and has been confined to quarters. Mmm that didn’t sound right, he has low blood pressure normally and the new drug would make it more so. On personal investigation, it turns out he had LOW blood pressure which made much more sense. I’m hoping that they still let him come home for the weekend, but I will argue that case if and when it happens.

Years ago, 15? 20? when I had my DNA done I was matched as a cousin up with a man in South Africa and we correspond occasionally, still trying to work out our common ancestor. He is much more adept than I at this sort of thing but this week he wanted to know if I had any Taskers in my ancestors. Yes I do! Back in the early 1700s in Lincolnshire, on my mother’s side. I sent him all the details and he’s doing the research. His long later email described every family’s worst nightmare, the death of his grandson in a freak truck accident. He had just finished his final year at school and while deciding his future he was temporarily working for a family company, as a trainee mechanic. One of their articulated trucks returned early from its journey and parked in the normal place for the weekend. The driver switched off and submitted his paperwork but then decided to take the truck and fill-up with diesel ready for an early start. But the boy thought the truck was finished for the weekend and as he could hear air escaping from the rear of the trailer and always being eager to please, he went under to try and determine where the air was leaking from on the air brakes. The driver, not knowing that the boy was under the truck, pulled away and crushed him under the rear trailer wheels, killing him immediately. They think that he didn’t hear the truck start up again due to the noise of the leaking air. It is hard to know what to say to someone you’ve never met in such horrendous circumstances, but he says his wife and daughter are crying day and night and sometimes he is too.

September 14, 2024

I was a bit shocked when I picked John up, he was more confused than usual and Cecilia told me that he was very breathless and to bring him back if he got any worse. She also asked what we were doing for the weekend, suggesting that we not go too far from a major hospital, she was very happy when I said we would spend it at home. Mmm if I had heard anything about tomorrow’s meet-up in the mountains, which I haven’t, it would be off anyway. This afternoon it was touch and go whether to take him to hospital again but then he improved slightly. I think he’s safer here than at Gracewood as there isn’t a doctor readily available at weekends.

September 15, 2024

Had a leisurely and happy breakfast of a pot of tea and toast but before we even got to opening yesterday’s papers John decided to have a shower and that set off his breathlessness so badly that I got quite worried. He was still puffing 10 minutes later and said he felt as if he were going to pass out. When I asked if I should take him to hospital the answer was a definitive yes, so I hared down the M2 to RNSH where his cardiologist is a staff professor and wheeled him into emergency. We waited less than 5 minutes and were soon ushered to an acute bed, then to X-ray. The doc came back with the same news as Bowral, heart failure, which was not unexpected. He was given the same IV drug which helped there as well as a couple of others which I’ve already forgotten. I’m not sure where we go from here as he can’t keep going to emergency and being pumped with the stuff and clearly the tablet form isn’t doing the job. He got a bed in the cardiac ward and tomorrow will see Gemma or her team. It is going to be hard for the staff as at one point they asked him why he was there and he said ‘for bowel surgery’, which would have been the right answer decades ago. His nurse is named Manon, the same as a favourite little French bolthole in the city, a silly fact that pleased us both.

September 16, 2024

Bob rang at 7 am and I burst into a flood of tears then and afterwards, from discussing the merits and demerits of a ‘do not resuscitate’ order. But John is looking much better today and was up walking around when I got there. Compared to yesterday that qualifies as a Lazarus, courtesy of the IV drug. Now we just need to get that amount or something like it into him via tablet. A couple of weird asides: the lady who yesterday wheeled John up to the ward kept her lips tightly shut and didn’t engage with us but when a staff member went by and greeted her she was forced to respond and her top teeth were at a 45 degree angle outwards. I’ve seen buck teeth but this was something else, it must make eating a bit problematic but I think she is way too old for it to be corrected. Yesterday in the paper there was an article about a woman being badly bitten by a pitbull on the North Shore and as a result of the dog bites she had a heart attack. I’m sure she is in the next bed to John, she certainly looks like the woman in the photo and always has a sheet pulled up over one shoulder. He hasn’t seen Gemma yet and the nurse said he was being looked after by another doctor, which seemed odd, so I went to her office and asked if she was away. No, she just does procedures on Mondays and her acolytes are looking after him. Home at 5 exhausted for no good reason, but it’s my TV night tonight so I can veg out.

September 17, 2024

Home at 5.30, it’s a bugger of a trip at that time of the afternoon with the sun in your eyes. When I got to the hospital John was asleep so I let him be, but then thought it would be a good time to try to speak to one of the doctors. She was working on a computer so I indicated that I would like to speak to her, but no hurry. An hour and a quarter later we had a brief chat. She thinks he may be discharged tomorrow, but it depends on the result of an echo they did today. She is doubling the dose of the tablets he was put on in Bowral and hopes that will be enough, however it can be increased even further. Got back to John who was still asleep but then a chap came with a wheelchair to take him away for another test, so it was a pretty disrupted day as far as visiting time went. Those nurses are on 12 shifts, I don’t know how they do it.

September 18, 2024

This has become a hospital blog, as it was 10 years ago when I started it. John has been moved out of cardiac care and into a ward. The cardiologist has been and doubled the drug Bowral Hospital put him on as well as adding three more! One is a diabetes drug and he doesn’t have diabetes, so it must have other properties that help his heart, but the other two I didn’t recognise. Still no call from Gemma, so I think I can forget about getting one now. He seems quite chipper and has acclimatised to being there.

I wanted to get all the details about the council election results but with everything going on I’ve only discovered a few things, that Clover is back, that the Libertarians picked up a lot of votes from absent Liberals and via a message today I found that one of our Hills for Yes 23 group has been elected, so welcome Councillor Tina Cartwright. The rest is a mystery.

I wonder whether the Israeli Mossad squad responsible for the death and maiming of nearly 3000 people in Lebanon and Syria were high-fiving when they heard that the results of their evil plan had been so successful? What a heinous, clever and depraved plan it was, to kill people going about their business, buying their food, visiting their friends, with not a care in the world about who else is mutilated. If that’s what it takes to win I’d rather lose.

September 19, 2024

Woah, the folks who control the universe are having a beano with us at the moment. Last night I came down with a respiratory infection so I can’t go to see John today in case I pass it on, but he says he doesn’t feel as well as he did yesterday ‘for reasons I can’t articulate’ so perhaps I have already done so before my symptoms became apparent. Of course we could both have picked it up hanging around in two different hospitals. RNSH rang just now to get me to come and pick him up but I had to tell them that they need to organise Patient Transport. I had already warned somebody there earlier today that I am unable to get him, but no one was sure if he was being discharged today or not, so clearly my message hadn’t got through to the right person. A pharmacist rang this morning and said John was ‘antsy’ because I hadn’t turned up to visit, despite two phone calls to him explaining the situation. Everything was so simple yesterday and he was looking up.

6 pm and John informs me that the bus can’t get there till 9 pm, so he’s going, but not for a while yet. This morning he was upset with his breakfast ‘oh so what is it?’ I asked. It was fruit salad and pancakes! I pointed out that this is a pretty high end breakfast and he agreed to eat it but reminded me that he has porridge at Gracewood. I tried to avoid going out but even though I thought I had every drug known to man here (never throwing anything out) I have nothing for cold and flu symptoms, so I dragged my carcass up to the pharmacy and got the one Shariff recommended. Weirdly, it works a minor miracle in about 20 minutes, no headache, no sinus pain, no runny nose, no sneezing……but 20 minutes after that they all come back! A bit of a waste of time but nice to have 20 minutes of freedom I guess.

I will watch the news but the TV will be in danger if they talk about our gubment abstaining in the vote put up at the United Nations by the Palestinians. Hang your head in shame Penny and stick your head in a paper bag Dutton (even better a plastic one).

September 20, 2024

John is back safe and sound in Gracewood, but because I couldn’t pick him up he had to wait on the patient transport service, something I’m very grateful for. He is luxuriating in all the space he now has, his own room instead of a similar sized one for four people and plenty of community space including a small garden to wander around in. I am forced to trust that all his new drugs are working and interacting well, he certainly sounds okay.

I got up this morning at 7.30 am, decided to lie down again ‘for a few minutes’ about 9 am and was just woken up by a phone call from a Gracewood nurse at 1.30 pm, the few minutes having stretched out to many hours. I am trying not to beat myself up for all the things that I could have done in that time, as realistically I know I wouldn’t have done any of them.

When I had a cuppa with a slice of fruit cake for lunch I was astonished to find a cherry seed in it, the first time ever I’ve seen one in a glace cherry. For some reason I felt as if I had won something. It reminded me of all the cans of Heinz Baked Beans in Ham Sauce that I consumed over decades, just because the flavour of the sauce was so good. But one day after eating them for 30 years I got a piece of ham and I can remember writing down the date in my diary as some sort of celebration, Ham Day. Well today is Cherry Stone Day and I’m just as chuffed.

I read an article in which J. D. Vance admitted making up many of the stories he recounts. It is astonishing that someone would admit to (and attempt to justify) making up stories about powerless and vulnerable people to try to win an election. He says that it is up to journalists to work out which of his stories are true. But if that were not enough, I saw another article on the ABC about the black Trump-supporting nominee for Lieutenant-Governor of North Carolina who identifies as a Black Nazi and says: “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it back. I would certainly buy a few.” He pities the fact that the KKK doesn’t allow black men to join. From what swamp do they dredge these people up?

September 21, 2024

Up before 6 am, courtesy of all that sleep yesterday! Still under the weather but fit enough to sift through a whole bunch of court cases, ICAC hearings and inquests to decide which three I will use in the First Saturday talk. Not an easy task, but I must remember that not everyone is as addicted to this stuff as Alan and I are, so we need to limit how long we speak and how many different cases we present. The difficulty will be in the gleaning, not in finding things to talk about, there is no shortage of fascinating human dramas to choose from. In one case I was reading over and that I’ve chosen, it only just occurred to me that every person involved, from the victim to each of the varied perpetrators, was a criminal with a criminal brother. One of them admitted to being a ‘fourth generation criminal’ and in every case the villain was aided and abetted in the offence (or at least supported after the fact) by his brother. What to do with people where crime is part of the everyday functioning of a family? Where doing the right thing is thought of as weak? I’m not sure, but it did stop me in my tracks to reread the notes and remember that one of these brothers lives in Castle Hill. How simple it once was to just look up the White Pages to find an address. However are they any different to the Plymouth Brethren families who are directed to “spoil the Egyptians (non-Brethren people, governments and businesses) by charging the highest possible price to take their money” and to maintain an “utter hatred of the outside world”. Crime families come in all stripes, they are not necessarily murderers.

Hopefully by tomorrow I can safely scoop up John, who would chase a fellow down the street to tell him that he had dropped a coin. He had the opportunity to go on a tour of the Powerhouse Museum at Castle Hill this arv, but was quite content to just colour in instead.

September 22, 2024

I have met Lily Arthur a few times and was both shocked and delighted to see that her story was on the front page of this week’s Good Weekend. Although I remembered the basics of her life story, seeing it described in detail was gut-wrenching. The theft of her child was not just cruel and heartless, but totally illegal, and has ruined her life. The steps taken by the Catholic Church to prevent her marriage to her son’s father reminded me all over again why I dislike religions of all stripes, who manage to inflict pain and misery in the name of their Christ, Allah, Buddha or whoever. The gems who are within a church framework, looking at you Bill Crews, are people who are doing wonderful things despite the values of religion, not because of them. The allegations of private hospitals ‘giving’ children to mothers who had had a still birth are chilling and doctors playing god is something I had heard of before. Two people that I’ve met socially are quite proud of having worked in hospitals where they helped to find ‘good homes’ for these children of ‘girls in trouble’. The ‘trouble’ was actually in the attitudes of them and their ilk, but when it has been raised I’ve chosen to stay silent and not tarnish their positive self-image with views that they would never understand.

The weekend paper was certainly worth its cost this time with the wonderful article from Louise Adler, which unfortunately is just going to earn her more abuse. The ideas expressed seem to me to be the bleeding obvious, but not to a committed Zionist obviously. She is a good egg and I admire her bravery.

Picked John up this morning and it is patently obvious that he is far from his old self. I needed to carry his bag, jacket etc into the house as just walking in from the car was as much as he could manage. The wonder drugs are keeping him alive, but certainly not returning him to what he was a couple of weeks ago. I need to look again at various plans in the near future as clearly he can’t walk very far at all now. The first is that in a couple of weeks he was going to take me out for lunch for my birthday (which he has told me a few times is ‘in a couple of weeks on March 8’ and it involved a 500 metre walk from the bus stop in the city to the restaurant. Clearly that’s not on, so we’ve been tossing around some alternatives over lunch and currently Garfish at Manly is winning, where I can drop him at the door and then go to find a park, however it might be tricky to leave him on the street, though perhaps I can ring them from the car so he can go straight to the table. I need to keep an eye out for a free or cheap collapsible wheelchair for taking him out, otherwise the restrictions are too onerous. Mmm… I just had the brainwave that perhaps Gracewood could lend us one for the days he comes home? Things are not going to be simple from now on.

Yesterday I got a text and then a call from Gracewood to say that his hospital discharge notes had mentioned his monthly IgG infusions and they were ringing around departments at RNSH and St. Vincent’s trying to find someone who knows about this and what it entails. ‘Why didn’t you just ring me?’ I asked and it turned out that according to the notes an agency nurse had rung me and I’d said I knew nothing about it. I’m not sure which Maureen she’d rung, but certainly not this one. The nurse told me she’d also asked Gracewood’s doctor who knew nothing about it either!! This despite his going one day every month for the last 4 or 5 years, including the whole time he’s been at Gracewood. Aye aye, sometimes you can see systems failures that haven’t caused a disaster yet, but easily could have done. Anyway I know if I tell Cecilia or Bisa something it will be sorted with 100% certainty.

September 23, 2024

I see there were plenty of complimentary letters to the Herald regarding Loise Adler’s terrific piece, but of course the big headline had to go to the pro-Israel guy. I’d like to the see the figures about the relative number of letters, but of course we’ll never know that.

Yesterday as we were coming home I stopped at the new Woolworths near Gracewood and noticed a chap driving a very flash silver car that I’d never seen before. Of course because I’m a gig I had to ask him what it was and it turned out to be the latest model Corvette. It is so low to the ground that it has a button to press that raises it to go over speed bumps! How bloody ridiculous, but anyway, I must admit it is aesthetically very pleasing, if ridiculously priced and impractical. I Googled it last night and discovered that there isn’t much change out of $400,000. I said to the chap that I’d always thought that people who buy two door cars don’t have any friends, but he replied that must be doubly the case with him as he owns two two-door sports cars. I would have loved to ask what type of crime he specialises in, but as we’d had a laugh together I decided not to push my luck. Love random moments.

Today I finally had the ceiling painted in the back room where water got in last December. After months of haggling with the GIO who have always been very good about claims, they finally got sick of me and offered $400 cash, which I accepted. I had two quotes, $450 and $150, from two very different fellows. Seeing it was the cheaper fellow I liked, I went with him and I’m very happy with the job, the man who did it and the fact that I now have a painter to use if I need one. Win, win, win.

John made it through the weekend okay but could not have carried his bag into Gracewood on his own. Luckily I took it upstairs and met the physio who began trying to get him to accept the use of a walker. After some reluctance he accepted it ‘as a trial’ when she explained that having something to lean on will lessen his breathlessness. I had no need to bring up the wheelchair option as yesterday Tania rang wondering why I’d gone quiet of late. After telling her about John having been in hospital she announced ‘If you ever need a wheelchair I’ve got one in the garage and you could have it for as long as you like’. Thanks to whomever is listening in to my conversations and reading my blog entries.

(April 1, 2020 to November 30, 2020)

April 1, 2020

Not making any April Fools calls today, I think we are all the April Fools for trusting our governments to protect us from what was always just over the horizon. As I wrote here in January: ‘I continue to shake my head at the lacklustre Australian response to the corona virus outbreak. While the scientists are doing amazing work, as usual, the policy makers and their publicists stumble along. Potential pandemics, as this clearly is, need action that is both strong and meteorically fast’. Luckily for their residents Singapore understood this and acted accordingly, including having a fully stocked 300 bed pandemic hospital sitting empty, waiting for just this occurrence. Had we had a similar hospital set up (and we can afford it) we would now have it occupied by those initially infected, with no community transference occurring. But experts like Prof Raina McIntyre, who workshopped this eventuality with international colleagues in a week long conference just last November, were ignored. As usual the government gets off scot free and the populace pays bigtime for their mistakes, pays in lives and pays in money, more money than ever we could have imagined. A stitch in time Scotty, didn’t your mother ever tell you that proverb?

One of John’s ex priest mates helpfully sent around to their group Pope Francis’s Urbi et Orbi Vatican speech, retelling the story of Jesus sleeping in the helm of a little boat when it hit rough weather. The disciples woke him in a panic and he replied famously ‘why are you afraid, oh ye of little faith’. Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves and it was completely calm. Perhaps they won’t be expecting his reply: ‘I’m not going to read any nonsense about Jesus and corona virus. If Jesus is in charge, why did he let it happen in the first place? Stay safe boys. The only people who are going to save us from this plague are ourselves and our wonderfully skilled and dedicated health professionals.’ He has certainly left that culture waaay behind.

April 2, 2020

I was looking forward to gardening this morning but a neighbour across the road, who obviously doesn’t smoke inside and pads the pavement with her cancer sticks, was on the prowl. She came over straight away and gave me her news ‘Did you know that between 5 and 14% of people carry coronavirus naturally in their blood, so what we are seeing is all the false positives from those people and we are being kept inside as a result?’. It is so true what Elizabeth used to tell me in the shop, I thought: ‘You are a crazy magnet’. So I gently disagreed with her and her retort was: ‘Yes most women would agree with you but men see through what we are being told’. Ah, not only unscientific I am, but a woman to boot. Then she went on about vaccination not being the answer, so I suggested that we do nothing and let it rip, killing off the weak and susceptible. She was nodding in agreement when I remembered I had left something on the stove….. Shit, I can’t even go into my front garden in peace now.

I was thinking about which things we are loath to give up in our current situation and how we are altering our lives in regards to consumables. I am certainly using up all the stuff that was too good or too new to be used, so the packets of bath salts and lip gloss and chutney in pretty packaging that I had been gifted over

time are being ripped open and used. Treats like the more expensive Kumato brand of tomatoes, black skinned beauties, are now bought despite their higher price. (This is both a taste and an aesthetic choice, they look sooo beautiful that I smile as I put them on crackers for lunch). However there are some things I refuse to give up such as Epicure cheese, which Kevin managed to score for me at Coles North Rocks today, and which was home delivered by Michelle. (She asked me for self-raising flour that he couldn’t get, but sadly I was out as well). At this stage of the pandemic I simply decline to eat any other cheddar, though I realise that may have to change one day. Likewise Chux, I could have bought purple ones but am hanging out for blue or green to tone with all my crockery and kitchenware, but if I must buy purple in extremis they will need to be kept inside a cupboard, wet or not. Similarly bread, bought from a good bakery, will be among the last things I surrender, Tip Top will not be entering this humble abode until we are barred from leaving our homes and have the doors welded shut. Which is not out of the question I have to say.

April 3, 2020

John’s neighbour, who has now lost her job and in the past occasionally caused us to connect our heads to the wall forcefully, has come into her own in this crisis. First she insisted that she do all his shopping as well as things like going to the Post Office or to the chemist for scripts. She also has him on a short lead, ringing him if she hears his garage door going up to ask ‘why are you going out?’. Yesterday his excuse that he was off to get a flu vaccination apparently passed muster and he was allowed to proceed. Davina has decided that because of my immune system issues I am taking too many risks by going out shopping at all, even walking to the corner IGA for milk as I told her I was going to do this arv. So they will deliver for me tomorrow and after that I will use priority delivery from Woolies, current wait 2 weeks! The jaws of the coronavirus trap are closing slowly but surely. Going to Bob’s surgery was certainly different, with patients needing to line up outside for temperature checks and symptoms quizzes, only allowed in at the exact appointment time. Then Bob did our injections himself because ‘I don’t want you sitting in the waiting room with sick people until the nurse can see you’. We go back in 2 weeks to have the Pneumovax, of course not effective for coronavirus, but preventative for 23 types of bacteria that could cause bacterial pneumonia as a complicating factor.

It occurs to me that coronavirus could very well equal creeping socialism. Whereas weeks ago the government called the idea of subsidised pre-school education ‘communism’ they have now made it altogether free. Jobseekers were dole bludgers, now they are suffering Australians. The idea of evicting unemployed tenants is not on, hoarding is infra dig when once it would have been boosting the economy, private hospitals are being temporarily taken over by the government, discussions of nationalisations abound, soldiers are helping manufacture needed supplies. Well I never, so it’s true that every cloud has a silver lining.

April 4, 2020

We all need something to look forward to and my thing at the moment was Mondays when I ventured out, early and briefly, to buy those things that I can’t order in. But both my daughters are of the view that I am playing Russian Roulette. So today the family turned up with a heap of groceries on the proviso that I don’t even walk down to the corner IGA in future. I know a number of others in the same situation, including John whose neighbour keeps him honest, watching out her window to ensure compliance. I think I probably need that policing as I am already thinking wistfully of Monday, oh the bakery…..and what about KOI where my weary carcass has not been sighted in all of two months? Not dead though, so there’s that.

One good thing about the current situation for me is that I am now using all the things that were ‘too good to use’ or had to be held back for some impending emergency… so this evening I used the Molton Brown bubble bath left over from our last visit to Treasury on Collins and stepped into my best fancy hotel pyjamas, now known as my everyday pyjamas. Pity you weren’t here to smell and to see but there you are.

April 5, 2020

Spoke to my bro last night and as usual he is the most un-medical person I’ve ever come across. Doesn’t have any interest whatsoever, even when it pertains to him and he doesn’t ask questions when he goes to the doc. Have you had a flu vax? ‘I don’t know.’ He’d told me his daughter brings groceries twice a week but I know a lot of it goes to feed squirrels and foxes…..and he has a cold. Okay, so you’ve not been going out? No I haven’t he says, apart from getting the bus into Halifax last week. Telling him that it might not be just a cold is a complete waste of time. He did mention though that the daughter who works in a Bupa nursing home has complained that they have no protective equipment. None at all? I asked. That’s what she said, he replied. This is the daughter coming twice a week with groceries, but I can do nothing from here I’ve decided, apart from gritting my teeth and ringing more often. The saddest thing I’ve heard in the last few days, and we are all hearing plenty, was the black American bus driver complaining in a Facebook post about the woman on the bus who had coughed all over him. I must admit I had been concerned about the fact that during the post he was constantly wiping sweat from his face and it’s not particularly hot anywhere in the US right now. I actually looked up temps in various places in the hope I would find a heat wave somewhere, but no. It was a giveaway that he wasn’t well, but I tried to imagine he’d just had the bus heater turned up, sadly no. Three days later he was dead. The story today of Ged Kearney’s father-in-law was sobering. He had panic bought and they had teased him for filling the cupboards for just him and his wife. But he had ventured out to the shops, just twice, and that was enough for infection and death. How unlucky can you be? It’s a tenacious little bastard this virus, you have to give it that.

April 6, 2020

It is a funny thing but the more I am restricted in what I can do, the more I think of to write about when I sit down at the computer. Anyway one funny thing is that I noticed that the latest script for hydroxychloroquine, Donald Trump’s purported cure for coronavirus, which I have been taking on and off for 8 years is marked ‘take in the morning with food’. I always take it at night so, being a curious person, I asked Dr Google why I should change and the answer came back that it can cause nightmares which is less likely if it’s taken in the morning. Ah, I have had a few nasty ones lately so I will be trying something that simple to avoid another.

I am having increasing doubts about NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller. He was Mr Nice-and-Helpful early on but now he seems to be enjoying the spotlight a tad too much and I worry that he may be becoming Commissioner Full-of-Himself. His blustering about Carnival Cruises indicates that perhaps he’s already holding them responsible for the Ruby Princess disaster, even before the ‘criminal investigation’ into the matter has barely begun. Can anyone really believe that he will find his boss, the NSW Government, was responsible? Or the woman who appointed him, Gladys Berejiklian? The government clearly knows where the blame lies and if it wanted us to know it would have appointed someone outside of its sphere of influence. My money is on Carnival being called out as the culprit, regardless.

April 7, 2020

I was curious as to how I made the mistake of not reading the label on the drug I take which the script now says must be taken in the morning. But I found a repurposed bottle and it simply says to take one a day, so no-one had told me otherwise. It gives me the creeps that it is working on my brain and thinking as well as whatever else (perhaps I can use this as an excuse for something down the line) but I didn’t have a nightmare last night so that’s an improvement. I had put them down to a subconscious anxiety about coronavirus, which I think I am handling reasonably well at a conscious level. I teared up though when I heard that Boris Johnson had gone to intensive care. He is a goose, but to get to that position which he’s aimed for his whole life, and which his father also coveted, only to be struck down at the peak of his powers is mammoth. His statements about only having mild disease showed how totally out of his depth he was/is about the course of this virus, the progression of which basically seems to fall into three phases: Week 1, mild symptoms for almost everyone Week 2, either progression to serious disease or gradual improvement Week 3, either deterioration to ventilation and possible death or else recovery. Clearly he just didn’t understand the thing when he happily admitted to shaking hands with victims, but ignorance shouldn’t bring a death sentence. The chief health officer of Scotland has been sacked for twice retreating to her holiday cottage against their current laws and also the health minister of New Zealand has barely escaped sacking for going out bike riding on one occasion and for taking his family on a bushwalk, after a drive 20 km from home, on another. NZ’s PM has promised punishment and says he deserves to be sacked but she can’t put in a new health minister in the middle of a pandemic. These people were both responsible for giving out the segregation message publicly, as was Boris, but it just shows the delusion that the rules don’t apply above a certain rank. Which brings me in a natural segue to Pell. I grieve for his victims, including those who came forward last week in the last episode of Revelation. No-one could ever look at their faces and see a liar, just as the jury said about the victim at Pell’s trial. But he could afford the best of barristers, and as I have seen happen many times before, the best of barristers can get a defendant walking swiftly out the door scot free as John Marsden did a few times for Ivan Milat. The serial killer didn’t slow down afterwards, such was his compulsion to kill, but Marsden gave him the opportunity to go on to murder many more. John Marsden said he had always been plagued by his decision to represent Milat on rape charges in the 1970s, saying on his deathbed that the backpackers might be alive today if Milat had not been acquitted. Solicitors and barristers are between a rock and a hard place in representing people they know or suspect are guilty and Marsden took his own responsibility to his grave.

April 8, 2020

Some silliness in a sea of death and misery can only be a good thing, right? So I set my mind to finally deciding between my two toy boy candidates of the moment, Hamish Macdonald from the ABC (yes I know he’s gay, but I don’t choose to complicate matters) and Chris Moller of Grand Designs NZ. The problem is that on Monday nights Hamish is far away the winner, but then I watch an old episode with Chris and I’m back with him. What a lovely problem to be having.

I’m currently reading Thomas Keneally’s novel Three Cheers for the Paraclete from 1968, one of two he wrote based on his time at St Patrick’s Seminary in Manly. Of course this is where John studied and he tells me that Keneally’s novels were well reviewed at the time but considered exaggerated, one review in the Bulletin reading ‘this is a metaphysical novel about a place that couldn’t possibly exist’, despite the fact that the characters were based on real people whom the seminarians could identify by name and the setting describes the seminary in detail. I go from grinning to sadness as he explains the dark, confined, narrow and oppressive surroundings and the people, who can be portrayed by the same words. Very much enjoying the book and I think I appreciate it more now than I would have when it was written, due to John’s horrific tales of the place. On the subject of Catholicism, I’ve read a fair bit over time about Pope Francis and tried to understand his difficult struggles with the Curia, but his indecent haste in coming out with support for Pell means I’ve written him off now and won’t waste my time and sympathy on him in future. Francis did not mention Pell by name at mass, but compared the suffering of those inflicted with “unjust sentences” to the way Jewish community elders persecuted Jesus with “obstinacy and rage even though he was innocent”, adding “let us pray together today for all those persons who suffer due to an unjust sentence because someone had it in for them”, so it didn’t take a seer to read his meaning. Dead to me now Franky boy, you’ve shown your true colours.

April 9, 2020

I woke up this morning completely oblivious to the fact that it was Easter as of tomorrow. I had thought all the Easter holiday warnings were in advance of next weekend. So I was more than a little pissed off, no Simnel cake made, no seafood or treats of any sort procured. I phoned John who didn’t know either but couldn’t care less, then the other phone rang and it was Michelle who told me she was shortly going up to the seafood market at Castle Towers. So the hand of something, ‘god’ or fate or serendipity or Lady Luck will do as explanation in this instance, pushed Michelle into the breach and not long after I was the adoring owner of one whole trout, some giant green prawns and 4 pieces of excellent barramundi. That should see Easter out with the trout baked for Saturday lunch with all the trimmings. I have been eating from my liberal stock of veggies all week so some seafood will go down very nicely. I had even sorted an order from the bakery for next week, thinking that it would cover me for Easter weekend, but I’ll let that stand now.

April 10, 2020

I’ve been waiting for a rainy day, and a few showers was close enough, to replant the naturally occurring Hypoestes plants that have self seeded along my driveway. These are the pretty shade-loving guys that look as if someone has splashed pink housepaint on them accidentally. I had two plants appear a couple of years ago down my driveway near the garage apparently from seeds washed under the fence from next door, but they don’t like the full heat of summer so I transplanted them into the front garden where they are doing much better. But now I have about a dozen more of them coming up from where I removed the first two, so this morning I moved every second one to the front and I will give the others a chance to remain where they are with some help by watering them in hot times. Love these donations from the universe so I will try to help them survive. After that I went out for a walk, which is tres ennuyeux in this area, and living on a ridge means a climb back up from wherever you go, which I suppose is a good thing in one way. But it goes to show what I have always thought, that if you can afford it you should live in an area of natural beauty such as along the beach or harbour or in the mountains because you have your recreation right at hand. Next life I am definitely doing that.

Decided to do Jamie Oliver’s Baked Whole Trout served with a potato, pea and broad beans combo with mustard sauce. The recipe is supposed to have a whole bunch of mint but sadly every time mine gets healthy some mint-coloured grubs descend on it and the whole bush gets eaten to soil level overnight, so perhaps it will be a bit bland I’m thinking now. More research may be needed for a new accompaniment. Bloody virus puts paid to everything when you can’t go to the shops or even ask your neighbours. Bah humbug.

April 11, 2020

The universe provided again in the form of Heather who rang for no reason (love people who ring for no reason) so I was able to ask if she had mint and yes, she had a motza. I said I would drive over to get it but she offered a bicycle delivery courtesy of her husband David, so that happened this morning just as I started the food prep for lunch. We lit a candle, in the middle of the day no less, had a lace tablecloth and cloth serviettes and really enjoyed the trout with an unusual veggie combination of potato, broad beans, peas, lettuce and mint, all served with a yogurt based horseradish sauce followed by baked custard and hot stewed plums. John then went for a SCAN, a senior citizens afternoon nap. I think coronavirus is knocking him around more than it is me, not the isolation, which he quite likes, but the fear factor.

I had trouble sleeping last night due to a silly thing, but the sort of thing that always leaves me wakeful. Yesterday I had a call from John’s closest friend about identification of the timbers on the mantelpieces in his Federation house. He mentioned that John had sent him an extract from my blog a few days ago regarding George Pell. John doesn’t normally read the blog, but was interested in looking at anything I wrote about Pell so I sent him just that day. His friend then mentioned that he’d seen a good interview from Sky News with Father Frank Brennan, a longtime defender of Pell in this case. He asked if I would read it (I haven’t as yet) and I see it popped into my inbox immediately after. Part of the interview deals with Brennan’s assertion that the accuser was defending his dead mate who was actually abused by someone else, somewhere else, not in the cathedral at all. In other words he was trying to punish the church by punishing Pell. I don’t know the source of his evidence for this but will look at the interview in due course. My lack of sleep was engendered by the fact that John’s friend is a beautiful person, intelligent, a deep thinker, yet he is in my opinion grasping at straws to find Pell innocent and if he of all people is doing that, then so many others in John’s circle are likely doing it too. I mentioned all the other accusers but he let that go and seemed locked onto this interview as evidence of innocence. It just made me feel disturbed and unutterably sad.

April 12, 2020

Night time is thinking time and a thought suddenly came upon me at 2am: Don Harwin, who was until yesterday a NSW government minister, is now a backbencher after being found in breach of current regulations regarding staying at one’s primary residence. He was sequestered at his holiday home on the coast, apparently in the company of a man recently returned from the UK, another breach if true. But what came to me was his physical presence: he has fairly suddenly become fat, not fat all over though, but just fat around the middle, something like a child’s swim ring. It didn’t seem quite right when I replayed in my mind the pictures of him being interviewed yesterday. Fat doesn’t float around when you walk and his did. So I think it is not fat at all but ascites, that dreaded accumulation of fluid that comes with cirrhosis or abdominal cancer or end stage heart failure. The latter is ruled out by his walking ability, but I think he could be in real trouble medically. I hope for his sake though that I’m proved in time to be talking through my hat. That happened once before, I think in 1970?

April 13, 2020

I finally got to looking at Frank Brennan’s interview on Sky News and replying to the friend who recommended it. A brief excerpt is as follows:

“Firstly, neither you, nor I, nor Frank Brennan heard the evidence of the complainant in all of this. The only ones who did were the judge and 12 members of the jury. Pell chose not to defend himself, as is his right. The Appeal Court and the High Court were discussing matters of law, not only matters of guilt. Secondly, he says that the witnesses for Pell and his movements had ‘no skin in the game’ which to me is a nonsense. Monsignor Portelli, the main defence witness in regard to Pell’s movements in the cathedral was an old friend and colleague. For five years he spent time as Pell’s ‘driver, editor, ghost-writer, ceremony-preparer and proof-reader’ and he and Pell worked together from Thursday to Sunday for 50 weeks a year, with Portelli putting onto computer all of Pell’s handwritten speeches because Pell is a technophobe. Hardly someone with ‘no skin in the game’ as he has frequently described himself as a close friend. The Appeal Court judges found that ‘in our view the jury were entitled to have reservations about the reliability of Portelli’s answers under cross-examination.’”

Somehow just typing about this stuff makes me want to have a shower. Everyone will choose which court to trust, but he has had his day thrice and as the lyrics of the old song declares “Now don’t be sad, ’cause two out of three ain’t bad”. Here endeth the Pell discussion.

April 14, 2020

Just finished reading Me, Myself and Lord Byron (2011) by Julietta Jameson, a sometime travel writer and journalist. My neighbour across the road lent it to me, I took it reluctantly, but I’d mark it as a fail. Her writing skills are not in question, and she is particularly candid about her own shortcomings, but I was underwhelmed and wondered if Elizabeth Gilbert read this before writing her book Eat, Pray, Love (2016) which was similarly underwhelming. They both have something for everyone: failed love affair, travel, spirituality, new love affair….but pretty boring for all of that. The concept is suspiciously similar, a midlife crisis solved by a trip which shows the writers that they were pretty much alright before they set out. More interesting was Audience of One, written by chief NYT film and TV critic James Poniewozik, in which he examines the last 40 years of American media and relates it to the phenomenon known as Donald J. Trump, the ‘volcanic, camera-hogging antihero’. Some of the early references were lost on me, partly because I knew all the names of the shows but hadn’t taken enough notice of them to fully understand the characters mentioned, but later when the focus was closer to Trump’s campaign and election I was more attuned to it when he talked of Fox News etc. It appears little Trump watched endless TV in his mansion as a kid, often with his father, including hour after hour of Billy Graham Crusades which, having seen old Billy perform in person, would be enough to warp anyone for life. So the author postulates that Trump is lead character in his own imagined ‘raging, farcical reality show’, still wanting to yell ‘You’re fired!’ as he famously did in The Apprentice, something he does with monotonous regularity in the White House with each appointment worse than the last. I am predicting that even Fox News will peel away from him in coming months, not wanting to be seen as a laughing stock along with the 45th President. I must make a list of these predictions somewhere so I can gloat if they come about and confine them to junk if they don’t.

April 15, 2020

Each day I am trying to cook a mildly ambitious meal, something new from a recipe I hadn’t got around to trying for example, and also make a staple of some sort. Yesterday it was houmous, today it was rock cakes. One of my favourite small cakes, made from the same recipe for about 50 years, yet they turn out slightly differently very time, from dry and needing butter to moist and delicious as they were today. Oh and I also boiled and mashed and froze a lot of potatoes that I had here, because John got his first online grocery order yesterday and it included two huge bags of same, perhaps he ordered two potatoes I don’t know, but he is bringing up one of those huge bags to me tomorrow as a result. Potato curry, potato bread, potato whatever is on the menu from tomorrow on.

Spoke to my bro in England again last night, something we do frequently of late. His libertarian streak means that he’s ignoring the stay at home advice and doing his own shopping, both at the supermarket and at the corner shop, though he rails about having to wait outside till someone else comes out. Isolation suits him very well as a loner and a thinker and a reader, he is very happy with his own company, even complaining about the weekly visit by his daughter and her husband because they stayed for an hour and a half. I know he would have been itching for their departure but not showing a thing on the surface, I’ve seen it all before, ‘Bloody hell I thought they’d never go!’ I sometimes wonder how many people really know the man that I know, I suspect maybe one other, but certainly not his children. His final comment was that the shutdown was ridiculous and they should just let the virus rip to save the economy and let those who die die, ‘people die every day, so what’s the difference?’. I didn’t waste my breath, I have to be in the mood to argue which I often do, but not last night.

April 16, 2020

John rang at 8.30 am to say that he’d be here shortly as he only had to have a shower and then wash up. At 1 pm he rocked up, by then I was near starvation but I had cheese and salad sambos and rock cakes at the ready. Had a long discussion about the Pell matter and my ongoing correspondence with his best friend around it. He had commented little so far and admitted that he sees his lack of belief and his friend’s enduring belief as a ‘gulf between them’ which meant he didn’t want to enter into the debate with him, despite being CC’d into all our emails. Interesting, but typical, in that he doesn’t want to rock the boat with close friends and family and admit to views that they may find unpalatable, though he would argue those same views enthusiastically with anyone else. Later we toddled off to Bob’s to get our pneumovax injections, lately when we go I keep trying to stand up and go but Bob always has more stories to tell or jokes to share and is in no hurry to see the back of us. I suspect we are a welcome relief to the horde of worried well who came at the beginning of the pandemic wanting to be reassured that they won’t get coronavirus, plus of course the fact is there are very few patients game to enter a medical centre now. For us it was a huge social occasion, masked up and sanitised, his surgery is the only place we’ve gone together since March 12. We are very lucky that when we get there it appears that Bob feels the same way about the get-together.

April 17, 2020

Had a Facetime talk with my granddaughter this morning but she was much more interested once I asked if she wanted to speak to John. My interstate daughter has adopted a desexed and immunised feral cat through an organisation that traps the kittens and rehomes them. Though she’s 11 months old, she has been absolutely traumatised by the move from her foster mother’s home and has been under furniture, neither eating nor drinking, since Wednesday afternoon, poor little mite.

I read a novel in one night this week and although it was short, only 186 pages, I couldn’t have stopped reading even if I’d wanted to. Cormac McCarthy is a favourite of mine, The Road and No Country for Old Men being just two of my favourites. All of his novels are bleak, but boy this one was the darkest, not of course in terms of numbers of people affected in the tale, The Road takes the prize for that, but certainly by the depths of human experience he trawls. Shocking doesn’t come anywhere near to explaining it, perhaps horrifying, disturbing, grisly, terrifying, overwhelming might come closer. Certainly not one for my book group, many of whom favour more uplifting or edifying fare, but as a chilling narrative of someone cut off from society and eventually from societal norms, it’s a ripper. Too believable in fact.

April 18, 2020

I’m ropable after reading about a guy with practices in Canberra and Bowral who is claiming cures for coronavirus. Bill Giles is the dude’s name and when I looked at his website last night I almost levitated. Firstly he explains that the coronavirus is just ‘one of your everyday cold viruses’ which can be treated with echinacea, vitamin C, olive leaf extract, colloidal silver, multivitamins etc etc, all of which he conveniently sells of course. But he goes on, ‘the single most important thing to do is to avoid all grains’, ‘plus drink warm water or tea’ with occasional ‘small nips of brandy’. On his website he throws in cancer and autoimmune diseases as his specialties and claims to be a ‘clinical immunologist’, but he has no, nada, zip, zero medical training at all. Why didn’t I hang out a shingle decades ago I ask myself? This guy’s been in business 30 years. How can these people get away with it? But they seem to until someone is killed by following their advice, then they get sent home with a slap on the wrist. Did I say that I’m angry? It’s taking me all my time not to ring him and if I do it won’t be pretty and I’ll bet I’d be the one charged, for harassment.

Back in the real world, in a Boston homeless shelter officials decided to do testing and the results caught them, and the CDC, off guard. Of the 397 people tested, 146 people were positive. Not a single one had any symptoms. This is a terrifying set of statistics as it means that the underground infection level in the US could be massive. Whether these folks are spreading the virus remains to be seen, but it is quite possible that they are. Meanwhile Trump tweets in support of those demonstrating against the lockdowns. Perhaps this is social Darwinism in action, survival of the fittest and the rest can go to hell.

April 19, 2020

I’ve been noticing a difference in my huge gum tree in the back yard lately. The leaves are a paler green than usual, there are masses of flower buds on every branch and whole dead branches have been dropping out of the tree for no apparent reason, each loaded with buds. The latter fact lulled me into a false sense of security as I thought it must be healthy if it’s producing flowers, right? Well wrong it seems. As I have a good relationship with the horticulturist at a nearby nursery I rang him and explained the problem. Ah, severe stress he said, you need to call in an arborist to cut it back by 10%. Okay, so Arvind has a very good arborist and I rang him yesterday afternoon, luckily for me he wasn’t far away and offered to come within the hour. Halfway down the drive he looked up and said ‘that tree’s in a mortality spiral’, a phrase I’d never heard before. Apparently when a tree thinks it’s going to die it produces heaps more seeds in the hope that it can at least reproduce its kind by seed, so my positive view of the flower buds was sadly awry. When mature trees are exposed to stress from environmental factors, wounding, pest infestations or other causes, growth rate slows and the declining tree has less growth, smaller and paler leaves, abnormally heavy crops of seed and branch dieback. Tick, tick, tick, tick. He believes the cause is twofold, the drought and particularly the building of units at the back of my property a effectively removing a big part of the root system and subsequent grading below me two weeks ago would have killed off even more. Expecting a mammoth bill after treatment of the tree I was amazed to hear him say ‘I’m not willing to prune it and cause further stress, but I’d recommend putting the sprinkler on it and throwing handfuls of sugar all around it to try to give it a bit more energy’. I couldn’t force money on him, yet he asked me to keep reporting in to him about the tree’s progress. How do I find these simpatico souls?

On the other hand, I heard on the American news that it is a conspiracy theory website that organised and is promoting the US demonstrations, possibly independently or possibly at Trump’s behest, who knows? Seeing there are quite a few Australian followers of this site, including a few of my Facebook friends I suspect, I won’t be surprised if we see an outbreak of this stuff here. Would I be an evil person to think that a surge in coronavirus cases in that cohort might be a benefit to Americans as a whole?

April 20, 2020

I just started to do an order at Harris Farm but not sure if I will finish it, have the prices of fruit and vegetables really gone up 100% since I’ve been away from the shops? $4.50 for a small cos lettuce? (I interrupted typing to check a couple of prices at Woolies and I couldn’t order a cos there at all so it looks like I am snookered).

I received a Sydney University Public Health survey on COVID19 and boy they wanted to know the ins and outs of a duck’s bum in the questions. Apparently I will get them for the next 12 months, which I am happy to do, egocentric enough to think that my opinions matter. For example, some of the odder ones with a scale of responses: How confident are you at using fractions? Can you work out with mental arithmetic the price of a shirt if there is 20% off? (Is mathematical incompetence a first sign??) More to the point were things like: List 3 symptoms of COVID19, Do you think the restrictions are too harsh/don’t go far enough, How many times have you been out this week and where were you going? How are you feeling right at this minute? with a range from calm to extremely stressed. Ha, I was fine because I was concentrating on the flipping survey wasn’t I? I’ve forgotten most of the questions but it took me 42 minutes to answer all of them. John seems to get a heap of phone surveys and I never do, or else when they get to my age they say ‘we have enough people in that demographic’, so I feel my 42 minutes on the computer evens it all out. I remember when my kids were little and a man came to the door doing a survey on bananas. I welcomed him in, an actual adult to talk to, but he asked me eventually ‘are you sure you are not connected to the industry? you seem to know an awful lot about bananas’. I was racking my brain for banana opinions to keep talking to him for as long as possible.

April 21, 2020

We did a sneaky drive to the Cumberland State Forest and took a walk that claimed to be 1 km but must have been double that I think, as we were buggered by the end. I just got so sick of walking around the burbs that I suggested a forest walk would be just the ticket and luckily it’s a very short drive. Being in the

forest really lifted our spirits so it was worth the risk. If a bobby had pulled us over I was planning to discuss the philosophy of whether we have an obligation to obey the law or the right, which may have got us in deeper but was worth a try. Did some gardening and then cooked a tagine of barramundi for dinner, the last of the fish Michelle brought me before Easter. All out of fish now but I’ve plenty of other options, so I will just wait till John does a Woolies order and break my long-standing rule never to buy seafood from a supermarket.

I am thinking that there is one way in which coronavirus has done me a huge favour. Previously I lived in fear of catching a cold and getting the dreaded cytokine storm that always comes with it. It is a constant fear in the back of my mind as I know how ill it will make me for a couple of weeks, followed by a recovery period of over a month or more. Now I am self-isolating I can’t get coronavirus, but I can’t get a cold either so I am free as a bird. No more ducking and weaving when I hear someone sneeze, bliss.

April 22, 2020

Woken up early this morning by a text from Harris Farm Markets to say that my order was being packed, then another later to say the truck was on its way. The technology is pretty good, with a tracking device that tells you exactly where the truck is, where you are in the queue and the minutes to arrival. The masked delivery guy brought splendid fresh vegetables so now I am not whingeing about the price and just being thankful that they are so reliable and efficient. I made soup for our lunch with some of the produce before John left for home.

I jagged an intriguing book on the last day that the library was open. I decided to grab a couple of wild cards amongst the 26 books I chose, this one an Australian novel with an appealing picture of a jellyfish on the cover and considering my longtime love of jellyfish of all kinds, that was enough. It is The Trespassers by Meg Mundell, published only last year, and would you believe it? it’s about a ship full of British folk coming to Australia during a plague. They have been quarantined and repeatedly tested before boarding the ship to come here as workers, a strange cross between refugees and ten pound Poms. I’m not far into it but so far I am enjoying not knowing where the story is headed as well as having some curiosity about how the plague is being dealt with. I don’t believe in karma, the good seem to die young and the bad seem to prosper, but the true story of a gentleman in Ohio has me wondering if I rejected the philosophy of karma too soon. He posted on Facebook dismissing the killer virus as a ‘political ploy’ that he said officials were using to exert control over the public and claimed that the state governor didn’t have the authority to close businesses. “Prove me wrong,” he wrote in a March 13 post, well I think it just did my man. He died of the virus in hospital in late March.

April 23, 2020

Listening to the earthmoving equipment down below my house as they dig up more roots of my eucalyptus tree but of course there isn’t a thing I can do about it when it isn’t on my land. I will be devastated if it dies but it is out of my control I’m afraid, as is so much else at the moment. Somehow I have become used to isolation though, I can’t actually remember everything I used to do, so that has to be a good thing I guess. My morning routine is usually to search through the SMH then one other overseas paper, then read one or two of the daily suggestions from Medium, which is delivered to my inbox every morning. It is a selection of newspaper and magazine articles from the US which may include longform features from the NYT, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and my favourite, The Atlantic, interspersed with pieces from lesser known journals. Then a walk (boring) followed by a bit of weeding and watering by which time I do some basic housework or washing, ring one person who doesn’t have much happening right now and then it’s lunchtime. I may sneak in the headlines of the US news on SBS at either 12.30 or 1 pm, then decide on dinner, looking through my recipes for something I haven’t tried which fits with my fridge and freezer contents. Do the dinner prep, then perhaps make a cake or cheese biscuits or a salad and then a late afternoon retreat to the sun of the back verandah to read before dinner. No wonder I get tired!

April 24, 2020

Now I’m convinced that Trump is actually barking mad as well as all the other things: narcissistic, egomaniacal, corrupt, malicious, contemptible etc etc. He has brought up the possibility of the use of ultraviolet lights or injectable disinfectant as a cure: ‘I see that disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that? By injection inside?’ ‘Supposing we hit the body with tremendous ultraviolet or just very powerful light?’ How long before some idiot takes him up on it and dies trying? Rabid barking mad.

His encouragement of hydroxychloroquine has made for a worldwide shortage, the White House buying millions of doses and even Clive Palmer buying millions of dollars worth and donating it to our government. I left my name at a couple of pharmacies to get supplies but I’m not in great need, having about 90 tablets left. Yesterday a pharmacy rang to say she had had some of the generic form of the drug come in, which is interesting as I’ve never been offered a generic in the 8 years since I started taking it. So I photographed the script and emailed it to them and they will deliver free by courier this afternoon. Recent research in the US has indicated no positive effect from its use as in the study of 368 patients the 97 patients who took it had a 27.8% death rate, while the 158 patients who did not take the drug had an 11.4% death rate. This is not at all compelling evidence when you consider that it was data from after the event, not randomised, not double blind testing, so perhaps the doctors only gave it to the worst cases? Looking at the actual data, rather than the news reports, it is impossible to tease out that information, so for me the whole thing is still in the ‘don’t know’ department.

April 25, 2020

Today I decided that I should rearrange my day from the usual so I don’t risk becoming institutionalised, so I baked a cake first thing instead of doing my walk as the primary task. I did the old fave Blueberry Cake, but as I had none of that fruit I replaced them with frozen raspberries which worked a treat. The icing is just icing sugar and fruit whizzed together so it looks pretty violently pink, even though it’s all natural. The icing was a bit quantity poor though so I have added that staple to my next food order. (Such highlights of my day must surely be of interest, but to whom I can’t think). I hope there will be enough Domestos left by the time I put in my next shopping order as it will be like toilet paper all over again now that Trump’s let the injecting secret out of the bag. Then instead of phone calls I emailed my overseas contacts in NZ, England and Northern Ireland and I just hope all are doing okay. I downloaded a plant identification app on my phone after seeing Danish using one and it was a bit tricky, saying it was free and then after you downloaded it saying it was $29.99 after the 7 days free trial. I shall delete it by then but I had fun trying it out in the garden. It correctly identified the majority but was totally wrong on the weeping acacia, calling it a teatree. It does weeds, flowers, whatever and it is a nifty piece of kit, but I am not sure I would use it often enough to pay that.

April 26, 2020

I’ve been having fun trying a new recipe for dinner every night but last night’s was a disaster. It was a French prawn dish, Shrimp with Sour Cream Blesoise, which I thought was very different but it turned out to be different in a bad way. Fry onion, fennel seeds and parsley in butter, add raw prawns then when they are nearly cooked stir in some red wine vinegar and sour cream. So far so good, but the last step was to add fresh breadcrumbs which immediately turned the sauce into clag, killing the flavour of the prawns and all else. A big azalea (a failure) as the Windsor regulars used to say. I’ve never known a place where Pommy rhyming slang is more commonly used, outside of Pommy land of course. Always put it down to the fact that many of the area’s antecedents were convicts, and possibly East Londoners, with the same convict names cropping up repeatedly in the area.

One thing that I’ve found puzzling and disappointing recently is the small but consistent minority of my Facebook friends who instigate or disseminate unfounded rumours and fake news on their pages. In the last week I’ve had someone suggest that China propagated the coronavirus to overtake the US economically and another that the deaths in the US are being deliberately overstated by adding in mortality from all other causes (this one was originally posted by US Attorney-General Barr, presumably to get some heat off his pal Trump) and reposted by a relative of mine no less. A couple of weeks ago a rellie of John’s posted something from a friend saying that we should all let the virus rip to save the economy, but I let that one go through to the keeper for obvious reasons. I usually do take the time to refute this stuff online though, otherwise it just gets carried further without dispute, but it’s emotionally tiring dealing with it and I’ve got better things to do, like stuff up some really good prawns.

April 27, 2020

Today we broke the rules, went to the Cumberland Forest nearby and did a short bushwalk. Apparently in Queensland the rules from today allow picnics of household members only, so we are awaiting that change here and are planning a picnic at Bilpin or Mt. Wilson, both places where we can be completely away from other people. I can’t wait. It did us both good to get out into the bush, even if it is only a bit of bush in suburbia. It prompted me to do some gardening when I got home and tomorrow I plan to sow some seeds for lettuce, rocket and spinach for salads.

I was thinking this morning about how I misinterpreted my gum tree’s health based on the fact that it was producing copious quantities of flower buds. It shows how a little bit of knowledge can often lead us astray. It reminded me of when the Prof asked if I needed a new script for daily eye drops and I said proudly that ‘no thankyou, I don’t get dry eyes, in fact they are the opposite, with tears running down my face at times’. ‘Is that so?’ he replied ‘well then you really do need a script, because if your eyes get severely dry your brain reacts by producing a liquid to stop them seizing up, but it is devoid of the lubricants that should be there, so don’t neglect the drops in future’. Okay, understood.

April 28, 2020

Was pleased to sow my greens this morning and I look forward to eating them over time. Jane rang and said she was culling out some various creepers and she could drop off some cuttings, so shortly after she arrived with Boris and a box full of cuttings, which I can now use my plant identifier app to record, before I delete it that is. I threw caution to the winds and invited them onto the back verandah for tea and cake so we were able to have a good chat but unfortunately John had gone to RNSH for a blood test before a routine doc’s appointment tomorrow so he couldn’t be at the tea party. We all agreed that the risk was very small but it felt very daring nonetheless.

Last night talking to my bro in Halifax I posed the question of whether or not there was pushback or even demonstrations in the UK over the strict lockdowns there. Oh no he said, rather shocked, nothing like that! It goes to show the deep divisions between the societies of the US and UK. I’ve found it quite surprising and somewhat heartening when I’ve been visiting my brother that you are just as likely in the local pub to hear folks discussing Prime Minister’s Questions as football or the weather. There seems to be a much higher level of civic awareness there which would tend to make ‘fake news’ laughable rather than believed. Sadly we fall somewhere in between with a population more interested in real estate and sport than in how we are governed.

April 29, 2020

I used my free trial of the Picture This Plant identification app to identify all the cuttings that Jane brought over yesterday, which is very handy because it tells me heaps including their names, origins, as well as what position they like in the garden. I could get quite attached to it but I’ve deleted it for now. I am sometimes wondering if I am a bit peculiar, not for the first time I must say. Amongst my friends quite a few are feeling quite anxious and stressed about this whole coronavirus business, but after the first couple of weeks I sort of sank into it and now it feels like normal. Not to say that I am not horrified by the external things, the loss of life, the job losses and much more, it’s just that the effects on me personally seem to be much less than my friends in terms of worry and fear. Of course if I got the damned thing it would be a different story, but I think the chances are very very low while I am totally isolating, so I am just getting on with enjoying life under the new regime. Perhaps the fear will hit me all of a sudden, who knows. But once we start going out again, if we do in fact, I think that will be much more challenging as the bloody virus is hiding under every rock and living on every handrail, just waiting to welcome us. Now that’s what I call stressful, perhaps I’ll decide to just stay in.

April 30, 2020

I have been keen to see some discussion about the decision last Friday afternoon to include priests, nuns and pastors in the JobKeeper scheme. Did it slip past the attention of journalists, as it was meant to do by releasing it quietly late on a Friday? Does no one think it peculiar that people who don’t normally get paid can qualify for $750 a week of government funds? Or shouldn’t we ask the question because it is churches who are appear to be rorting the system?

While I am on my soapbox…… I am getting mighty sick of the China bashing happening every time I pick up a paper or turn on the news. No one turned a hair when SARS or MERS or swine flu or bird flu were ravaging Asia, no one except the epidemiologists called for investigations into its source, but now Australians are affected everyone is in the game. Yes we need to look into the source, as we needed to on all the other occasions, but it should be a medically led investigation, not a politically led one. Do they not see the effects on Chinese Australians on public transport, in the streets and even having their homes vandalised? The press picks up the raised temperature in Canberra so that when Twiggy Forrest donates millions of dollars worth of tests and invites a Chinese official to the publicity event the headline is ‘Chinese official gate-crashes Hunt’s press conference’, um he was invited. If you object, take it up with Forrest privately Greg Hunt. In any event Forrest is hardly ‘donating’ the millions of tests as the government intends to repay him in full. One radio person even accused Forrest of treason! It has gone beyond the bounds of reason and all the usual suspects jump on the bandwagon. There are very valid political and social issues to be taken up with China but this foghorn ‘diplomacy’ is not the way to reach the best outcome and I for one am in danger of throwing something at the television very soon if it continues. Postscript: Dr Stephen FitzGerald, Canberra’s first ambassador to Beijing, must read my blog. He just wrote an article for the SMH agreeing with all the above but putting it much more eloquently than I ever could.

May 1, 2020

What an odd and ultimately uplifting day. It started when I decided to have hot milk at breakfast and discovered that the microwave lit up, buzzed and went around but the milk didn’t heat so I tried it again but it had gone to its eternal reward. So I started hunting for a new one online and discovered that the vast majority won’t fit on the purpose built shelf that John designed in the kitchen. It took literally hours to go through all the options, reading the specifications of each until I finally made the decision. Rang Winning Appliances and Appliances Online, my favoured retailers for such things, both of whom offer free delivery. Nup, can’t supply till June and as I steam veggies in it almost every night I can’t wait that long. But they did tell me not to buy any other brands than Panasonic and Sharp for microwaves, saying that LG and Samsung were the ones they have trouble with. This fitted with what I was told by one of my friends who is a kerb crawler who has warned me never to buy LG as they were the electricals most left out for council cleanup. That led me eventually to the ghastly Harvey Norman (Gerry Harvey I hate giving you even $1) as the only place with that Panasonic model in stock, but they wanted $59 to deliver, so I baulked at that. The lovely salesman agreed to meet me in the carpark with the machine so I could pass the money through the window and not enter the store. He was a darling plump man with a decided limp and a big smile who made me feel as if this arrangement was the highlight of his day. He had paid for the microwave on his own credit card before I even arrived and I reimbursed him with cash! I was delighted to find his name was George Whippy so I have dealt with Mr Whippy for electricals instead of icecream. I was impressed enough to give him big praise on the HN Facebook page. Then my bakery delivery arrived from Dural and after paying her at the door I went back inside only for her to return with the offer ‘If you ever need groceries when I am coming I am happy to pick them up for you on the way’. I seem to come across lovely people lately, perhaps I am starting to look very old and they’re all taking pity, I don’t know, but it warms my heart every time I meet another.

May 2, 2020

After yesterday’s lovely people, today I watched the American ABC News on SBS and was horrified by the people demonstrating against the lockdowns there. It is their right to protest, but the gun-toting, Nazi flag-waving, aggressive, disrespectful attitudes made me feel sick. One can’t help pondering a clear out of their ilk by the virus and frankly I won’t be losing sleep over some of them. Standing without a mask screaming into the faces of young police officers is way more than they should have to put up with. What other country on the planet has anti-lockdown protestors waving guns? Or a head of state who would support them?

Also on the bulletin was a story out of China about a small family who went from Wuhan to a restaurant in Guangzhou, not knowing they were infectious. Fifteen other people in the restaurant caught the virus from them, despite no physical contact and sitting up to 15 feet away, which is just more evidence that it is likely airborne as well as droplet transmitted. Also tests on infected airline passengers show a likelihood of 85% of catching it if you are sitting 2 rows ahead and behind or across the aisle, as happened to those passengers seated near Peter Dutton, but only 1% if you are sitting in the rest of the plane. I have had continuing online discussion with my second cousin (or first cousin once removed, I can never work it out, but anyway he calls me aunty) who is strongly anti-vax. I discovered that neither he nor his sister were ever vaccinated for anything due to his mother’s belief that it was detrimental and it’s true they are each as healthy as a horse, but I suspect genes and not lack of vaccination is at play here. But it is fun parlaying with him and his Byron Bay friends over the issue. They are convinced they will be lined up and forcibly vaccinated, one of them telling me I’d been ‘Sco mowed’ for downloading the app, which I had to laugh at.

May 3, 2020

We took a drive to Parramatta Park to go for a walk, but so did half of western Sydney apparently. So we parked over near the gate into the mental hospital which has nice gardens and a walk ‘to the head of the river’. We promptly got lost and ended up on a long walk through the hospital grounds, happily free of knife-wielding psychopaths this morning, and ended up on a sort of history tour encompassing the delicious sandstone buildings including the infamous Parramatta Girls Home. Growing up it was common knowledge that being incarcerated there meant physical and sexual abuse, it was a given, but it was only a few weeks ago that its 82 year old ex-superintendent was gaoled for 20 years for rape, buggery and assault occasioning actual bodily harm for the beatings that the girls sustained in a locked cellar in the 60s and 70s. However it was much earlier than that when I was aware of it so it appears it was the culture of the place for decades. We came out near the stadium and then wended our weary way back to the car and home for a lunch of leftover Cheesy Spicy Black Bean Bake with rice, a recipe I saw in the NYT last week. After that walk I felt totally justified in spending a couple of hours reading Malcolm Turnbull’s new book A Bigger Picture, which I am enjoying more than I expected. He certainly has led a big life, with contacts in all sorts of fields and friendships with all sorts of people, many of whom are on the opposite side of politics.

May 4, 2020

Today John went home to be part of an ’email meeting’ of the Tenant Network. Pretty much as expected it was cancelled at the last minute, it seems such a disorganised mob which he threatens to abandon after every misspent gathering. I’m so glad that I steer clear of organisations which suck your time for very little result. They are more interested in navel gazing, rewriting the constitution or such things, with virtually no movement forward for the public housing tenants they seek to further. Luckily his involvement with the Link Housing tenant advisory group does produce results for his compatriots. I have no inclination to continue hucking out the storeroom as the charity shops are all closed and the auctions are all online only now so prices are very low. Luckily I did get in early and sell some stuff before the crash, but the remaining items went for next to nought once the onlines began eg today I got a cheque for $13.40 for the remainder of the lots. It comprised a mug, bowl and 3 plates of Royal Doulton Bunnykins ware as well as 2 pieces of Royal Worcester, a cigarette box and a cigarette container. Any one of those 5 pieces in the shop would have brought triple what I got for the lot at auction and most would have brought more. But it is Larrakia that misses out in all this and of course their needs are constant. I achieved an acceptable apple and maple cake to use up a few apples in the fridge before I reorder from Harris Farm later in the week. Discovered my very recently planted rocket seeds (expiry date 2014) have come up so that’s a pretty exciting end to the day.

May 5, 2020

Michelle offered to coach me with Zoom so, after a few stumbles, that took up the middle of the morning and we got to talk in the end. Then on to the Harris Farm order which takes me longer than it usually does to go out and do the damned shopping, but there you are. They charged me for delivery after saying last time that it was free for the first 3 orders over $80. So I rang and got to speak to a lovely lad in lockdown at home in the Philippines who refunded the delivery, so that made the error into a positive. I have been thinking with all this talk of businesses and schools reopening, no-one is spelling out what happens to the over 70s and those with existing illnesses. I suspect we are down for the count until such time as a vaccine or treatment is discovered, unless of course we choose to play Russian roulette each time we go out. If that is the case I for one can deal with it, but I just wish someone would have the guts to say so. I also spent time today checking on annual death rates in the UK for the last few years because my cousin keeps putting up dodgy ‘statistics’ on Facebook, sent to him by people with an axe to grind over coronavirus. His numbers claim to show that the death toll in Britain this year is actually lower than in previous years. So I wasted my time getting averages for the last 3 years for the month of April and comparing it to this year. The figures were 57,254 for 2020, versus an average of 31,322 for the last 3 years, an excess of 25, 932 extra deaths just for April! So I’ve emailed him spouting a version of the saying that you can choose your own opinions but not your own facts. This whole thing has brought out people who are just a bloody menace and it is time-consuming to refute every claim. I guess eventually I will give up and leave them to just keep convincing people who don’t have the energy, time or smarts to refute their nonsense.

May 6, 2020

In the shop I always left the glass cleaning to the staff because I always made things look worse than before I started. No staff here, so today I decided to clean the four glass doors and panels to the deck. First I washed them with hot soapy water, a cloth and one of those wipery things that window cleaners use. Five minutes later I discovered that all the dirty spots are now smeared evenly over the glass so I did it all again with window cleaner and newspaper and while not perfect at least I can now see through them. Next job is my bedroom window but not today Josephine. However if I am housebound it may as well be in a clean house. I am so enjoying Malcolm Turnbull’s book and learning about the decision making behind the scenes on things like how to handle Trump (don’t give in to a bully pretty much sums it up), what needs to be taken into account when ordering a submarine and what world leaders are really like one on one. Merkel, Obama, Jokowi and Abe come off particularly well, though Obama’s comment to Turnbull at the White House “Don’t worry Malcolm. The American people will never elect a lunatic to sit in this office” proved somewhat innocent in hindsight. But when MT asked why the US insists on supporting the Saudis despite their many human rights and other abuses he was spot on: “One word Malcolm. Oil”.

May 7, 2020

Thinking more about the length of our lockdown so I sent a message today to someone in a similar situation as us, she with an autoimmune disease, he with other health problems. His reply was that they had decided to sit it out, having only contactless deliveries done, no visitors etc. They’ve decided that life together alone is better than life with the constant underlying fear of infection, which would likely prove fatal in both instances. Clearly people are coming to individual decisions and it seems from the very small straw polls I am taking that most are staying in lockdown, one said that they will review it if things are still the same after a year! A specialist doctor from Melbourne was on last night’s news saying that she left work at her hospital immediately due to having an autoimmune disease and won’t be going back. I’d seen a fuller interview with her elsewhere and she indicated that having an autoimmune disease means it would likely be a fatal outcome despite her young age. But it is remiss of the government not to address this situation publicly, by all means let folks come to a decision themselves, but some guidance should be given by the medical experts as has been done in the UK where they were flatly told to stay locked down for the foreseeable future. Plain speaking is so refreshing, more leaders of the likes of Daniel Andrews and Shane Fitzsimmons and less like slippery ScumMo please.

May 8, 2020

I’ve been struggling with a few low level lupus symptoms these past days but this morning woke up with my face swollen up, a rash and feeling pretty crook. Had a Facetime call with my girl who said ‘open your eyes grandma’ and found it hard to understand that I couldn’t, well not to her satisfaction anyway. By 12.30 I’d accepted that nothing was happening in this house today and lay down, waking in the late afternoon. Tonight was our book group Zoom meeting which I thought I’d have to bow out of but with a shower and a good slap of makeup I managed it okay. I was worried that Kenneth might ring in the middle, but luckily he rang at 6. I had sent him the Thea Astley book Drylands and last week I asked how he found it, Dry was his response. I was puzzled until I realised that as a man who’s always made all his own decisions and kowtowed to no-one, the idea of a woman not being able to do as she pleases is a mystery to him. But tonight he told me that Anne, who lived for decades with a dominant and violent husband, had borrowed the book and thought it wonderful, so I think my reading of why he didn’t like it is accurate. I got my Harris Farm order today and am luxuriating in a fridge full of beautiful produce, the fact that it comes straight from the markets shows in the freshness. This time I risked seafood as well, green prawns and fresh sardines, so I will cook the latter for dinner tomorrow night. Tonight all I could manage was a piece of peanut butter toast, but hopefully the flare will pass by tomorrow.

May 9, 2020

Still feeling off so had a quiet day. Made mushroom soup for our lunch and at night I did Sicilian Stuffed Sardines, oh my gosh, heaven on a plate. I am so pleased I can get fresh sardines from Harris Farm as they don’t appear in the fish shops around here very often. In the evening I finished Malcolm Turnbull’s book and despite what the critics say, and I doubt they’ve read it, only a small section is about the coup which overthrew him. He is a big thinker who delves deeply into many things that politicians would usually leave to the public service or advisers, from the new door required at the Lodge to the design of a hydro plant in the Snowy Mountains. I would have liked to see an Australia where he was able to run the show unencumbered by the right wing of his party, always dragging us backwards. In some ways he is a statesman, but we will never know how he’d have gone with no anchors trailing behind him. His behind the scenes cameos of various world leaders and their wives were worth the read on their own. Would I rather spend a long evening over a bottle of wine with him, or with Bill Shorten? MT no question. While not agreeing with his politics, I commend his vision.

May 10, 2020

Hurrah! Mr Lupus has left the building and gone home to wherever he lives between flares, so I woke with plenty of energy for the day. Cooked black bean nachos and we had a garden party Mother’s Day in the front yard with a lovely bottle of Barossa GSM red that Dav brought. Then her carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and toffeed walnuts, plus I got a jar of the leftovers of toffeed nuts, mmm. Millie was happy to play in the garden while John and I sat on the verandah. Tonight John rustled up a fridge raid for dinner, he the leftover mushroom soup and me a couple of leftover sardines. Millie was asking today to see ‘the little blue man in the shiny bucket’ but we couldn’t work out what it was. Clearly she knew but didn’t have the words. She was recently talking about the ‘rainbow circles’ which turned out to be CDs, logical really, but the little blue man in the bucket? We will find out in due course.

May 11, 2020

I fear we are following the US down the path of craziness when the NSW Health Department has to do a press release to let the population know that COVID19 isn’t caused by wi-fi, in this case 5G. Perhaps 5G does have negative health effects, how can we know without evidence that can only be provided with research and time? But last time I read anything about pandemics it appeared that we didn’t have 5G in 1918-19, nor during the AIDS or ebola crises. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and it can be, but not nearly as dangerous as no knowledge at all. One Republican senator who is a doctor claimed that the number of COVID19 victims is being wildly exaggerated, it gets picked up by Fox News and before you can say ‘reelection’ it is all over the world as a fact. The protesters in Sydney and Melbourne this weekend were the usual suspects: the libertarians, the extreme right-wingers, the anti-vaxxers, the QAnon maddies (more wicked than mad I suspect) and a scattering of the ‘I should be able to open my business no matter what’ folks. I think the days of patiently arguing with any of these folks is coming to an end in this house. It’s like a religion and we all know that you can’t sway anyone about religion with logical argument.

May 12, 2020

As John and I talked early this morning he noticed a policeman right outside his window. ‘Open it and ask him what the f**k he’s doing there’, I helpfully advised. No more jokes when not long after it all became plain, his neighbour Scott was led down the steps outside John’s flat in handcuffs. Of course John was curious but it became clear very soon after when channels 9 and 7 turned up to record the arrest of the accused murderer of Scott Johnson, US citizen, brilliant mathematician and PhD student who was apparently pushed or thrown off North Head in 1988 in an apparent gay hate crime. His deep-pocketed brother had recently added $1 million to the existing $1 million reward offered by NSW Police, who at the time had insisted it was a suicide. Three inquests later, despite police disagreeing with a murder scenario, the coroner found it was in fact a homicide. There are so many questions here: is he guilty? is the first and if he is, how do you live your whole life with that on your conscience? how can you live for 32 years waiting for that knock on the door? if the reward is a material part of the story, how do you go for 32 years knowing that a murder is unsolved, but fail to put your hand up till $2 million is in the offing? The crime was deplorable and the family deserves justice. If they hadn’t persisted against police intransigence the suicide assumption would never have been put aside. But I can’t help thinking of Scott too, sans his beloved little dog Jazz, who is spending possibly the first night of his life in gaol.

May 13, 2020

Feeling virtuous because I got my sweet pea seeds in, under a spiral frame to support the lush growth I am forecasting. One of my long-term acquaintances in the shop used to tell me every year that sweet peas had to go in on Anzac Day, it was one of his life’s rituals, but I’m sure with weather changes the mid May sowing will do the job. I have mixed lettuces, rocket and spinach coming up as well, have made Anzac biscuits this morning, as well as redoing the glass in the back doors with Windex (I don’t have good cleaning genes) and writing a couple of letter to pollies, so I think I’ve justified my existence temporarily.

I’m still thinking a lot about Scott’s arrest yesterday and the fact that someone is hoping to pocket a cool $2 million out of it, mulling what sort of person it would take to sit on that information. It occurred to me that a particularly nasty fellow who lives in John’s block had recently been having some contact with Scott and the fellow’s partner has confirmed in an interview that Scott had discussed a possible accusation of murder going back to the 80s. Though I could imagine this obnoxious fellow trying to profit from hearing a person’s secrets it’s likely just coincidence. Nearly midnight now and I’m still mulling over all my earlier thoughts, it is too easy to knit a possible scenario together, my mind wants to sort it out, get the facts, ask the questions, solve the puzzle. One day soon we may have a better idea of whether Scott is a murderer or just a gentle helpful neighbour, or both perhaps. As the wise Elbert Hubbard once said: ‘The criminal is not wholly a criminal, he is only a criminal at times. Under the same conditions, if I were of the same quality and temper, I would have done the same’. That quote always helped me decades ago when, under the auspices of Justice Support, I was writing to and sometimes visiting murderers and other serious offenders in prison, and it helps me tonight.

May 14, 2020

A funny day which started when I cooked pikelets in expectation of a garden visit by friends Greg and Luke. When whipping the cream I accidentally used the wrong container with the electric whisk and managed to spread cream around the room, walls, cupboard doors, shelves, self. What’s more it formed a 3 metre circle which sprayed the kitchen and dining room floors, with some intrusion into my bedroom through the open door. A massive cleanup followed, so glad that it wasn’t blood as it was a fine imitation of a chain saw massacre, an excellent spray pattern exercise for a forensic scientist. (Incidentally the forensic science course which I was so looking forward to doing this year at UWS has been converted to online, so nah. Luckily I hadn’t yet paid. I can study forensic science on my own online, I want to put the skills into some sort of practice.) Anyway John arrived at the end of the cleanup followed soon after by the boys, who were delivering John’s gorgeous wren painting, bought from Luke back in February. I apologised for the coronavirus precautions but Luke made the point that he wouldn’t be happy any other way. He is a clever boy, a wonderful artist but also a virologist whose work focussed on both AIDS and influenza, particularly the 1918-19 pandemic. He told us the story of that flu virus being found in the lungs

of 10 Danish people dug from the permafrost for research purposes a few years ago. The expedition was designed specifically to isolate it for study at his London Hospital because no other examples existed. They fully expected the current pandemic, without knowing the exact form it would take. His summary: Don’t hold your breath for a vaccine, it’s a very hard one to develop and even if they do succeed, an RNA virus mutates so easily that it will get around the vaccine pretty smartly. We just need to learn to live with it until some anti-viral treatments are developed.

May 15, 2020

Thinking back to yesterday when John asked Luke ‘how long do you think before we get back to normal?’. ‘Never’ he said, ‘this is the new normal. We will get treatments but the virus will continue to be endemic across the world, with flareups happening from time to time until it mutates again and then……’. Viruses are ancient, starting as a fully functioning self-replicating cell that lived billions of years ago, shortly after life first emerged on the planet. From this cell, bacteria have evolved in the direction of increasing complexity while viruses have gradually shed genes they found they didn’t need until they could no longer even reproduce on their own. Which got us onto the perennial question of whether viruses are ‘alive’ or not. Luke leaned somewhat to the no case, because they can’t survive independently, but we agreed that this is more a philosophical question than a biological one, they are on a continuum with prions on one end and us on the other. Which still begs the question of when is it safe to go out again, in some ways the answer seems as far away as ever, but in others I think it is right there on the wall. We can go out all we want, but will never be safe from infection. Had a visit from a friend this arv and we quaffed tea and the remaining pikelets from yesterday with jam and cream, just the thing for a cold afternoon. Good to have two visits in two days, perhaps there is some life to be had in due course, even within the limitations.

May 16, 2020

Writing this a day late after feeling pretty flat yesterday. I am quite content to be at home but find it increasingly problematic that no-one is able to say how long my particular lockdown is likely to last. In a straw poll of three others with lupus I discovered that all of them have been totally locked down on doctor’s orders since mid March, not expecting the current easing of restrictions to apply to them at all. My Canberra daughter spent the afternoon with her friend from Health, a doctor who is heavily involved in the COVID19 planning. She asked him in conversation about my query ‘when is it safe for people with immune problems to begin coming out of their foxholes?’ His answer was far from promising: ‘It is one of the trickiest questions we are being asked’ (that’s why we hear no-one in government addressing the issue!), ‘we will need to keep researching which interventions have been most effective and why’, basically indicating that at this stage there is no answer available. Okay, I can deal with long term lockdown but it would be so helpful if someone qualified gave some guidance on the issue. Made a crumble with two persimmons given to me by my friendly baker when she delivered last time. I’d never eaten one in my life but it worked okay cooked with two apples, though my decision to use honey and cinnamon on the fruit was a dubious one. Long live nutmeg, that queen of spices.

May 17, 2020

Watched Insiders but was disappointed by the sabre-rattling about China. It is so easy to get people angry about a particular country and its people but very hard to stop the racist attacks that bubble up as a result. I have had a number of very aggressive Facebook posts about China sent to me by people who should know better. By all means let the scientists (including the three Americans working in the Wuhan lab) investigate the pandemics origins, but just keep it non-political, as it should be. No-one seems to be asking why governments took no notice of all the epidemiologists who’ve been telling us for decades that a pandemic was on its way, but everyone is pointing out where this originated, even though a pandemic could equally (and may still) come out of Africa as did Ebola and AIDS before it. Somehow I think that we would likely feel sorry for an African country, but it’s much more politically acceptable to kick China in the shins at the moment. In last year’s pandemic preparedness meetings the UK failed miserably and the US didn’t take part because Trump had fired the whole long-standing Pandemic Preparedness Team in 2018. I rests me case because I am sick of arguing it.

May 18, 2020

Went for a walk around the local burb with John and along the way I found a perfect spiral metal CD stand out on the footpath for council cleanup, just the ticket for supporting the sugar snap peas I intend to sow, once I get the seeds. Recently I also found a perfectly fine cane chair with a ‘free’ sign on it which now resides on the front verandah so the boring walks are proving profitable. I think the universe is trying to encourage me, particularly now that The Hills has today been declared a Red Zone for coronavirus. Jimmy from the bakery came with my order, just as I was in the garden cutting some camellia branches for his wife Natalie to put in the shop. They always include a treat, today it was two apples picked just yesterday. Baked a loaf of banana bread for afternoon tea and tonight I am cooking a recipe sent from London by my friend Mustapha, a cardiologist who has come out of early retirement to help treat people in the pandemic. I fear for him and was glad when I saw he is feeling positive enough to bother sending me a recipe.

May 19, 2020 (written 21/5)

John thought we were well overdue for a picnic so I suggested Mt Wilson, prompted by the beautiful pictures of Bebeah garden that Facebook sent as a memory from this same week last year. So a picnic I prepared, smoked salmon and lettuce sambos, banana bread, fruit and a thermos of tea. An uneventful but partly beautiful drive ensued but by the time we reached Kurrajong I was feeling very odd and by Mt Wilson turnoff I realised that the car had provoked an attack of the dreaded vestibular migraine. For the last 18 months or so I have never left the house without the two medications to help control it, but I not only forgot to pack them, but actually forgot that I have the condition! That’s what two months in iso does I guess, not leaving the house has its benefits and one is that I don’t get motion related illness. The day passed with difficulty but John enjoyed being away and particularly his solo picnic in the beautiful surrounds, however the thing didn’t abate and by late afternoon he told me I would just have to bite the bullet for the trip home. I’d have happily paid for a motel in order to forego the drive but of course there are none there to go to. So lying down on the reclined seat I travelled what seemed like the distance from Melbourne to Sydney with numerous sick stops whenever he turned the wheel. I will certainly never forget in future and I won’t leave the house without those drugs, in fact I am feeling at the moment that I never want to leave the house period, but I guess that will pass. Isolation is sweet I’ve decided and I will not be complaining in future.

May 20, 2020 (written 21/5)

After a 12 hour sleep I awoke to my resident nurse, the best one ever, with tea and toast. Apart from the usual odd symptom of finding it hard to recollect words, Sard soap became ‘gluestick’, the stepladder was a ‘climbing frame’, I enjoyed the peaceful second day calm. It is as if the mind is emptied of all worries and excitements, with just a clean slate of peace and tranquility where anger or worry is an impossibility, quite pleasurable in fact. The neuro’s explanation when I saw him last was ‘well, your brain’s just been zapped so it’s time to relax and get over it, but don’t make any important decisions in the two or three days afterwards’. As if I even cared enough about important decisions, I felt like saying.

John had noticed that my bulging pantry is so heavily stocked that I can never find the ground almonds or whatever, even though I know they are in there somewhere. I love to be able to do any recipe I fancy without pre-planning and that’s even more important when nicking to the shops isn’t an option. So he suggested repurposing my meat safe as storage for unopened goods, using my current pantry drawers for everything that’s on the go. Brilliant decision which just involved my sitting on the lounge while he brought me the endless folders of paperwork currently stored there, 95% of which ended up in the recycle bin. Currently I am inclined to toss out the maps and tourist guides to places I thought we’d definitely go again, but it’s pretty clear that’s off the agenda for a number of reasons. I turned up lots of long lost oddments in the process though and now I have a veritable Woolworths in the meatsafe and my kitchen pantry is a pleasure to use. My hero to the rescue in more ways than one.

May 21, 2020

My weather app told me there would be showers around 10/11 then fine till a later storm and more rain, so being a trusting soul I spread sugar around under my ailing tree as advised and hey presto! it rained on cue. I am lucky enough to have food cooked for the next few days, so I decided to attack a job emanating from the reorganisation of the meat safe. I had numerous newspaper and magazine cuttings of recipes in a big folder, but I now have numerous cuttings sorted into separate labelled folders according to desserts, seafood, etc. I managed to cull some recipes that I’ve done and some I will never do. The system is that once tried they go into the bin, unless they are extremely good in which case they are copied into my hand written recipe book. There are hundreds so I need to get speedy if I want to finish them in this lifetime.

I got an update from GIO regarding my claim for tile and water damage from the storm in early February. It said they are waiting for the assessor’s report, which was the exact same message I got a month ago. I am not trying to hurry them up as I don’t really want painters in here at the moment but I wouldn’t mind

being repaid for the money I spent on roof repair and plumbing over three months ago. Whatever, life’s little issues are not feeling very pressing right at the moment, I am already saving money by being at home.

May 22, 2020

Still sorting stuff from the deconstructed contents of the meat safe. I found an Aboriginal themed book I had bought for my granddaughter at some point so I added another from my gift box, a Ruth Park story, and packed them up, walking down to the corner shops to post them at the PO box there. Trying to send her a card or a parcel every week or two so she has something from grandma until things free up in the visiting department. I deliberately don’t take my purse with me so that I can’t be tempted to go into the corner shops and break quarantine, therefore abiding by my promise to a certain person that I wouldn’t. Then I attacked the fern that constantly grows up in the herb garden, feeling pretty good about life by the time I’d finished that and restocking the street library. Apparently libraries open on June 1 so I’d better get weaving and finish the 26 books I borrowed as I want to take them all back as soon as they open and there are still half to go. I deliberately interspersed them with some of mine so I didn’t feel bereft of library books, but now I have a return date I shall attend to them with delight. Waiting impatiently for the sweet pea seeds to come up so I can see them start to climb their fancy frame, then I will plant some sugar snaps and the pink star flowers which I ordered. It’s funny that I pace the fun things so I have a couple each day rather than racing down and planting them all at once as I would have when time was short.

May 23, 2020

China has much to answer for: the treatment of its Uyghur people, the Hong Kong situation, capital punishment and more, but I can’t see the justice in blaming them for the pandemic as the US has tried to do. China has multiple centres constantly testing for novel viruses spread across the country, yes they missed this one initially and local authorities are guilty of covering it up and not referring it up the chain, but the aggressive tone of the foghorn diplomacy regarding an inquiry was unnecessary and counterproductive. One of the European countries, Belgium from memory, quietly asked them to agree to a scientifically led investigation and they immediately signed on, later voting as part of the unanimous decision for an inquiry. Mary-Louise McLaws, a professor of epidemiology at the University of New South Wales who also sits on the WHO’s health emergencies program experts advisory panel for Covid-19, was one of the few willing to call this out: “The only unprecedented issue is the politicising of the source country,” she said. “We’ve had swine flu, we’ve had HIV, we’ve had Ebola, we’ve had mad cow disease, you name it, and we’ve never politicised the source before”. Hear hear to that.

I am still sorting my pantry situation and now I can see them properly I discovered that I have 10 cans of butter beans, one of 4 bean mix, 3 of lentils, 5 of chickpeas and 1 of black beans. I do love all beans and legumes, but that’s a little bit over the top. Planning to do Jamie Oliver’s butter bean mash with chili and garlic instead of potato or rice tonight, too easy. Since the pandemic started I’ve been getting the Herald delivered on both weekend days and The Saturday Paper as well. Somehow a story is always more meaningful on paper than online, in fact if I read a particularly interesting one online, I reread it on paper if I can and always enjoy it more the second time. Anyway I tried to duck out surreptitiously to get the papers today as I was still in my dressing gown at 9.30. Mission accomplished, but I had to smile when I saw my neighbour in the yard wearing hers at 11.06.

May 24, 2020

Decided to walk up to the bank this morning as I seemed to remember they had a chute to deposit when the bank is closed but no, apparently now there’s just an ATM so I will ask someone to drop it in for me next week. At least it gave my walk an excuse. Then I decided to type up a review of a book I finished just last night, for the book group virtual meeting next week. It wasn’t my favourite of recent times but by the time I’d finished writing I’d realised that some parts of it will stick in my memory for a long time and perhaps I will give it a second go at some point. Then Carly asked me to nominate a book and write a review of it for her Book Challenge on Facebook. I nominated A Manual for Cleaning Women and fell in love with it all over again as I wrote. Note to Self: Reread it soon. Oops, I just checked my diary and the book group is in a fortnight, not next Friday as I’d thought. There I go, reinforcing my reputation as not being quite with it, but unfortunately there isn’t a countermand button on Hotmail to suck back emails sent in error. Spoke to the bro at length last night, he seems well but I sense he really, really wants us to get together soon and I just can’t see it happening in the foreseeable future which saddens me beyond imagining. He always finishes the call with: ‘Well we’ll just keep loving each other till we get together won’t we?’ I miss him so much, I’ve missed him all my life in fact, before I even knew he existed.

May 25, 2020

For some reason I choose to have my Harris Farm order delivered in the early morning and the text to tell me they are leaving wakes me up. Somehow it is a nice start to the day, this time it came at 6.25. Then I have time for breakfast, sorting space in the freezer and washing out the fridge crispers while he’s on his way so when he arrives I am ready to go with loading the delivery into its appropriate places. Today unfortunately the fish was missing, although the prawns were there, so a call ensued and they were able to contact the driver to make sure it wasn’t left in the truck. No luck, but they are going to do a refund so I changed the menu for tonight from fish to parmigiana pasta, with an eggplant and tomato sauce. Doing Margaret Fulton’s bread and butter pudding which has sherry (or whisky) added to the milk, eggs and sugar. I soaked the sultanas in a bit of sherry too, so I am looking forward to that.

I have been trying to get my head around the mass social activities going on in the US this weekend, as shown in their ABC News which SBS broadcasts at 12.30 each day. I refuse to watch ads, but all I need to know is in the first 15 minutes before the first ad comes on, so I sometimes flick it on to see what bastardry Trump is up to today, I am rarely disappointed on that score. But today it was all about the packed long weekend beach, pool and park congregations, not to mention the churches. I wonder what it is that makes these people tick? Lack of science education? blind adherence to Trump? faith in their religions? the confidence of youth? the libertarian streak which is so prominent? I don’t know but I fear some will suffer for it, or perhaps not them but their parents and grandparents. Of all political philosophies, apart from fascism, I think libertarianism is the one I find most objectionable. I know I’m an old socialist but the idea that people could demonstrate against public health is anathema to me. Meanwhile a church congregation in Germany went back together for the first time after lockdown and infected 40 of the faithful in one service, what can you say?

May 26, 2020

Planted my sugar snap peas and lemongrass but the lettuce and spinach seed trays are looking very light on. I am afraid they are almost a fail, but I will give them a bit longer before writing them off and starting again. John was very taken by the bread and butter pudding, saying it was ‘as good as my mum’s’ which was pretty good considering the extra shine we always put on things from the past. There’s been some correspondence re having the next book group meeting in person, but I won’t be participating despite the general acceptance of the idea. I’ve learned (well more truthfully I am still learning) to trust my gut and it is telling me that it wouldn’t be a good idea and would defeat all the other things I am doing to stay out of the firing line for coronavirus. I remember an excellent article this month written by a Yale epidemiologist who said: “If your son visits his girlfriend and you later sneak over for coffee with a neighbour, your neighbour is now connected to the infected office worker that your son’s girlfriend’s mother shook hands with.” I don’t want to be a link in that chain, much less the end recipient, so no I won’t be participating.

May 27, 2020

We decided to go out again today despite the disaster of last week’s journey. This time we chose somewhere closer to home, the walks at Sydney Olympic Park. First stop was the Brickpit Walk which goes around the edge of the massive old brickpit, with a suspended walkway over the pit which is home to threatened species of frogs. That was a big failure as the walk was closed ‘for urgent maintenance’. So we tried another walk and unimpeded on this one we went around the edge of Homebush Bay, seeing the rusting hulks of many boats, then along to a tower on which someone had written at the top ‘nothing to see’ which was pretty accurate as the view was basically the same as on the ground. It smacked of a grant looking for a purpose or perhaps the need to use an amount of money before June 30. But a nearby bird hide was well worth its dollar value, with a man secreted there using a camera with a massive telephoto lens focussed on the shore birds in a sheltered backwater. Next time I will take binoculars as I love birdwatching. John is going to try to download a map of the area because directions to the start of walks weren’t signposted, you just stumbled on them and after that the instructions along the way were fine. We had our picnic on seats near the carpark as we had walked quite a way by then and were ready for a sit. I am looking forward to seeing more of the area and especially the frogs once the ‘urgent maintenance’ is complete. I’m hoping that isn’t code for ‘the suspended walkway is dangerous’ in which case it might be a while. There were signs warning against going on it if you have a fear of heights.

May 28, 2020

I have been tossing up whether I should write to John’s neighbour Scott in Silverwater Remand Prison but I’ve been told by another neighbour that he is illiterate, so that put me off the idea in case it caused embarrassment at his end. But as we passed right alongside the prison yesterday John told me he had booked a video call with Scott for today. He had contacted Corrective Services for Scott’s location at my suggestion and they had suggested it as a means of contact. John was nervous about the technology and also about what to say, so I reminded him that the call would be listened to and probably taped, so he shouldn’t mention anything about the crime at all. Poor John sat at his computer for over an hour waiting and eventually rang them only to be told that Scott had turned up late for the call so it was refused, he booked another for 9.30 am tomorrow. It is funny, and typical, that we were each contemplating separately what to do about Scott and I think John’s call will turn out to be the best outcome. Baked an orange and almond cake using a foil butter wrapper to line the base of the tin as I often do, but when I tried to turn it out the butter wrapper had stuck unusually and I ended up with half the cake coming out and the other half was firmly stuck to the tin. It tastes fine but is a mess to cut and looks disastrous, so now I won’t enjoy eating it anyway six eggs wasted too. John will end up with it I think.

May 29, 2020

Last evening I got both an email and a text from the company that GIO has deputised to fix my storm damage. For some reason it threw me into a funk, actually I know the reason, it was because in order for the job to be done I need to have two men in the house for a day or two. I know I can stay away from them, but it unnerved me nonetheless. So today I contacted the company with my concerns and was assured the men would wear masks and social distance at all times, so I am less bothered than I was. GIO still hasn’t paid me for my outgoings after the storm, but I am assuming they have accepted the claim or else the tradesmen wouldn’t be scheduled. I have something that I want to show the sewing group without actually attending it, so today I dressed up (well nice cardigan with my jeans, makeup and perfume) and rang Jane to say I would drop it in. She had just arrived in the mountains visiting friends so I was all dressed up with nowhere to go. Eventually I decided I should go while in the mood and did so, hanging the bag on her door, making for a lovely little outing, which is pathetic really. Sue rang me for an opinion on whether to read Lincoln in the Bardo which had been deposited in her street library, so I read her my Goodreads review seeing I was already seated at the computer. I had spoken to Robert for half an hour yesterday and he seemed not substantially different but Sue says he’s gone down this week.

May 30, 2020

Natalie delivered my bakery items and as usual undercharged me. She always rounds it down but today it was by $4.80 and she deliberately hides the docket in the the bottom of the box so I can’t see the bill till she’s gone. She and her husband are such lovely people and deserve to do well. Davina, Louis and Millie came for a garden afternoon tea, bringing beautiful citrus cupcakes which Millie had helped make this morning. Louis is going for a fourth interview for a job, how can it take four interviews I ask myself? Last week he had the third interview for another one but didn’t get it, so here’s hoping this one comes up trumps.

I don’t know what to say about the American demonstrations and riots except that I would be demonstrating too in their place. The only police murder that I can recall where the perpetrator went to gaol was a coloured man last year who had killed a white woman, so I don’t expect much from this trial. It doesn’t seem we have moved far from when as a child I was horrified by the Ku Klux Klan and their murders, now it’s murder in uniform instead of in robes, but the intent is the same. In my teens we sang: My brothers are all others forever hand in hand, Where chimes the bell of freedom there is my native land, My brother’s fears are my fears, yellow white or brown, My brother’s tears are my tears the whole wide world around. Now we only watch and wait for the next.

May 31, 2020

Had a friend over for morning tea and had both Millie’s cupcakes and my orange and almond cake to offer. We canvassed the US nightmare, the China/ Hong Kong nightmare, books, the government and more, so it was a pleasurable and interesting rendezvous. Martha messaged to ask the four of us who had qualms about going to the book group meeting (the recalcitrants in Keating’s terminology?) if we want to join in via Zoom. When the first proposal came in about meeting face to face after we had previously agreed to a Zoom meeting, I said to John that I hoped that the group wouldn’t potentially cleave into the happy goers and the hesitant non-goers. This puts us back on a more inclusive pathway which is all to the good. Who knows what future meetings will look like? Now that people are mixing more and going on public transport it is anyone’s guess where we end up. John has already lost a distant relative in a retirement village to the virus, but interestingly she was an isolated case and no other cases appeared there. Similarly the gentleman in Canberra who caught it while shopping for masks and hand sanitiser despite being in lockdown for everything else. The vector was never found and no-one else was affected. Just bloody bad luck in his case as he didn’t survive. They will be writing about this pandemic in 100 years and it pains me that I won’t get to read it all! But it is becoming clear that it is not just a respiratory virus, it has vascular and autoimmune involvement in a way that its predecessors SARS and MERS didn’t have. I hope I’m around long enough to read the science at least.

June 1, 2020

Nearly Christmas I’m thinking, aagh. Walked down to post a letter, I seem to have a letter to post each Monday for some reason. A recent card posted to Castle Hill took 3 weeks, which is a very very long time, I could have walked there and back at a pinch. Replanted my lettuce and spinach seeds alongside the pathetic showing from the last planting. Not sure what went wrong, but these seeds were fresh whereas the rocket seeds which came up beautifully were years out of date. Then decided to split my spices into Indian/Middle Eastern/North African and what do we call it? traditional European cooking. Found two lovely tins which took all of them and now theoretically it takes half the time to find what I want.

John, some years ago, did a design for a 5 bedroom house for his cousin, who didn’t pay him a cent for the plans despite being on a contract to do so and then eventually dropped dead (no, I don’t believe in karma but…..gosh). I pushed him to claim on the estate which he did but more than two years went by while nothing happened. John let it ride as he tends to do with anything financial, while my ardent desire not to let weasels, knaves and miscreants go unpunished caused me to nag about it. Finally I said he needed to threaten them with the local Member of Parliament and goodness me it worked like a charm. The ‘really complex affairs’ of his cousin suddenly became simple and an email informed him that there was money in his dwindling bank account, with the mere mention of the Member’s name enough to sort the knotty problems out. I shall remember that in future but the best bit was when John said ‘thank you for nagging me’. Unfortunately I didn’t tape the moment.

June 2, 2020

Had a phone appointment with Service NSW today (I couldn’t forget because I had FOUR text reminders) to make sure I was claiming all possible pensioner discounts. The vast majority of things I already knew about, like discounts on licence, rego, electricity, gas, Opal card, country train travel etc, but they got me with a couple that I didn’t know. I can get a 40% discount at Good Guys if my fridge is over 10 years old and packs it in, plus a 50% discount on a new TV in similar circumstances. Free parking for 3 hours at the outrageously expensive public hospital carparks was another new one on me. I am constantly critical of this privatisation-mad premier, but the Service NSW idea is a beauty and I wish those who train its friendly, efficient staff could have a crack at Centrelink. The old RTA staff were surly and slow and the wait times were horrendous but the people at the one-stop-shop at Service NSW act as if you’ve made their day by just turning up. I didn’t ask for this appointment, I rang about something else altogether, but I was asked if I’d like to book a phone session just to ‘make sure you’re not missing out on anything’. That’s service. Thanks Julie.

June 3, 2020

An early call alerted me to the fact that the building company wants to come tomorrow to repair the storm damage from February, mainly painting two ceilings but also replacing broken pavers. I had insisted on masks etc and they weren’t fazed at all. We had planned a bushwalk so we continued with that idea, heading off to Bobbin Head to do the Mangrove Track. It begins at the river and winds all the way up to Wahroonga eventually but that was way too far for today. However I would like to do it in reverse, so it’s mainly downhill, at some time in the future. We came upon a large Aboriginal rock carving of a man as well as axe sharpening grooves in the rocks, which they used to sharpen their blades made from volcanic rock with a wooden handle attached. It was a good place to sit quietly and say sorry we stole your country, your way of life and, in many cases, life itself. A highlight was seeing a new bird I’d never recorded before, a Rock Warbler, which only lives on Hawkesbury sandstone and makes its nest in caves using rootlets stuck together with spider web, so that was quite a find for me. In the afternoon we moved all the smalls in the dining room, put the table and chairs out on the back verandah and took all the plates and pictures off the walls. Prepared.

The cafe at Bobbin Head seemed pretty full but I had packed a picnic. I am just not prepared to take the risk for something so fleeting. To go somewhere important (and it would need to be really important) is one thing, but to be sitting there wondering if you are picking up a potentially fatal illness just to eat out, nah. Our picnic of sambos, apples, cake and tea was guaranteed virus free and delicious.

June 4, 2020

The repair men arrived at 7.30 as planned and covered the ceiling water stains with some sort of sealer to stop them leaking through the paint. Then they repainted the ceilings and we finally moved everything back into the rooms later in the day. However it’s now some hours after and I can still clearly see through the paint to where the sealer was applied. I’m hoping that it takes some time to dry, but somehow I doubt it, I will be hopping mad if it all has to be done again. My feeling was that they weren’t painters by trade, unlike the last time I needed insurance repairs and the man mixed the colour perfectly by eye, saying he’d been painting for decades and didn’t need the name of the colour.

I’ve been reading some new research just out of Oxford, trying to quantify the risks of COVID in relation to age, sex, ethnicity, socio-economic status and with many individual pre-existing illnesses. The comparisons which they recounted are worth thinking about: a healthy man aged 80 has a 1200% higher chance of dying than a healthy woman of 50, with his chance of dying approximately 25% with no pre-existing illnesses, which is 100 times his chance of dying from the common flu. The highest risk of death, at any age, is for someone who has had an organ transplant or has had blood cancer within the last 5 years, the latter of course applies to John. The report comments: “At such a high level of risk, it would be prudent for this man and any of his close contacts to scrupulously exercise precautions avoiding exposure to SARS-CoV-2 until an effective treatment, proven vaccine, or natural herd immunity arrives”. As they stress, there is rarely a mild dose for someone over 70 or with one of these and other high-risk conditions.

June 5, 2020

Thinking about America (aren’t we all?) and it occurs to me that the similarities to Germany in the 1930s are worrying. Blacks and Latinos are seen by some as the equivalent of Jews at that time. It is easy enough to build a wall to keep out the Latinos but what to do about the blacks and browns who are there under sufferance to many people, who see them as folks who shouldn’t have escaped from slavery in the South in the first place? Perhaps keeping them poor or jailed and killing those that step out of line, and even a few who don’t? Because there was once a feeling that these people didn’t deserve health care or a good education or assistance in retirement, these things have over time been effectively denied to everyone giving Americans a much less secure life than someone in the European Union for example. And then along comes Trump, the man who in 1983 refused an engineer, who was part of a work team, permission to come aboard his yacht because he was black. The company leader Jesse Pariseau cancelled the contract of work and was sued for breach of that contract by Trump, who thankfully lost. But of all people he is one who could never have been expected to lift people up, the poor are to him commodities in the cogs of business, slaves even, needed to work for wages that no-one could comfortably survive on. When a society divides its citizens into Jews and non-Jews or white and black it is bound to be less inclined to provide for its citizens in general if the current legal framework doesn’t allow outright discrimination. Hence all of its citizens suffer ultimately. We are so shaped by our histories, the US as a conqueror of Native Americans and then a slave nation. We in Australia were first a conqueror and then a convict colony and these histories show every day in our respective political and social lives.

Participated in a Zoom meeting with my book group, though most were physically in attendance. Somehow or other we’ve gone from last Friday every month to first Friday and next month the second one for reasons I seem to have missed, but I guess it will all sort itself out in the end. It has been suggested that we meet at midday instead of in the evening in future, but I pointed out that one of our number is still working so I am not sure where that idea will go. There was an assumption that we will all be in face to face meetings by next month, but neither Rosanna nor I were prepared to commit to that at this stage. I have no idea how I will feel tomorrow, never mind in a month. But considering the limitations the meeting worked well I think.

June 6, 2020

I really missed being part of the Black Lives Matter demo today, but I just couldn’t justify joining a crowd of what turned out to be 10,000 people in Sydney. I’m afraid I am going to have to leave it to the young ones at the moment, however I’ve kept up the Facebook posts and letters. Proud of the turnout and the peaceful march in difficult circumstances, but I am hoping we don’t see a surge in COVID19 in a couple of weeks.

My bro is ringing more often of late and last night’s call was an example of where we differ, he is defying restrictions and doing his own shopping. K: They only let 11 people on the bus into town now, I can’t even go on the bus if I don’t wear a mask and I’m not going to wear one, blah. There will be plenty of people dead if they are confined any longer in tiny flats, blah blah (this referring to his sister-in-law who doesn’t leave her tiny flat at all, not even for a walk, because of the publicity about coronavirus). I think it’s all a big con and the suckers are falling for it, I refuse to take it seriously like you are, blah blah blah. After about 10 minutes of this I replied, very cool, not cross: I think you should go to town whenever you want and insist on getting on the bus without a mask. K, taken aback: Really? Me: Yes and you should lick all the handrails while you are in town as well and send me some pics of your valuables so I can choose a few things. That shut him up temporarily but of course he didn’t agree. But we still love each other don’t we? he said as we ended the conversation some time later. Yes I love you, I said, even when you are infuriating.

June 7, 2020

After some weeding in the sun I came in to order my (and John’s) fruit, veggies and seafood from Harris Farm. It works quite well as he is doing the same for Woolworths today and then we’ll swap goods. Trying to work out how to celebrate his birthday next Friday. No restaurants or cafes, no opportunity to go out to

buy a gift. Perhaps a drive to the Southern Highlands or the mountains or the coast? Still thinking it through and waiting for a brainwave. Yesterday he rang in the afternoon and asked if I wanted to go with him to look at a house in St. Ives for which is is doing some architectural drawings. It may or may not turn into a DA, of course if it does it will be a much bigger job, but currently it’s just a concept. The people were away for the weekend but we had permission to go into the garden to look around at the rooflines etc. The job came about when previous happy clients for whom he’d done an extension mentioned his name to a builder who was looking for some architectural work on a job. He was recommended and hey presto a job out of the air. It is such a lovely area and a lovely big house as well, I was bedazzled by the size of the camellias growing all around, many of them 10 metres tall at least. It must be deep volcanic soil as no matter how old the house you would never see that around here. Afterwards we drove to the nearby Wildflower Garden, I had packed a thermos as is our habit these days, and we sat in the car watching wallabies feeding for an hour before they closed the gates at 5pm.

June 8, 2020

Well as expected the brownish patches on the ceilings that were painted last week have not dried out with time as I was told they would, but are clearly visible to me. John assures me that no-one looks up which is hardly the point. I contacted the ‘painter’ who has promised to come back and fix it by overpainting those areas without need for me to strip the rooms again, a fine solution, if it works.

As a result of the decision to change book group meetings from night time to noon, one of our number has pulled out and two are unhappy with the change. This was predictable, and in fact was predicted, but it goes to show how important it is that big changes are put to the group as a whole and not passed by a vote with only half of the membership present. We shall see what happens but at the moment it’s just a confusion for everyone and an upset for some. I took about 20 books back to the library yesterday to put into the outside return box, but the box was sealed and inside the whole place was empty apart from some painters’ ladders. Clearly they took advantage of the closure to have a redo and thank god I’m not one of the librarians who had to empty every book, desk, computer and shelving unit from the building. Books now happily sleeping in the sun in my car boot, no wonder they haven’t been on my back to return them. I am currently reading Andrew McGahan’s last novel The Rich Man’s House. It is so different, so unpredictable, that I am not at all sure what I will rate it in the end, but 5 Stars for ingenuity and imagination.

June 9, 2020

Oh my, the book group is imploding for reasons that aren’t clear to anyone and who knows what the final upshot will be? I am still riveted by The Rich Man’s House. It is so beautifully descriptive that I go to bed with clear images of the inside of the house and how the rooms relate to each other and on one night I dreamed that I was in it, scary though that was I found it intriguing. I wonder about a mind that can even begin to formulate that story, with its creeping dread that combines elements of science fiction, adventure, the supernatural (something I usually groan about) and rolls it all into a chilling and scary story that makes

you glad to live in an unremarkable weatherboard house in an unremarkable suburb. I hope he managed to pull together an ending that fits the rest of the book, I should get there tonight.

I’m sending my bro the Australian Story episode on the 1918-19 pandemic in Australia. He seems to think that we are all over-reacting and that back in those days everyone was cool about it. Hardly, as that program shows. He is refusing to wear a mask, doing his own shopping, whingeing about the bus being restricted to 11 people, so I am sure he’ll enjoy? seeing how Australia coped last time. Every 3 weeks I fill in a COVID-19 survey sent from Sydney University. This last one asked whether the pandemic was caused by 5G, a Chinese lab, Bill Gates and a few other possibilities. If you answered to none of these, there was a box to fill in with your theory, I bet they got some doozies.

June 10, 2020

I bit the bullet and launched into people-land as I couldn’t see another way to get my pink slip for rego without taking the car to the mechanic’s. However they were fast and efficient, just a brake light needed, and I came back confident that I had taken no unnecessary risks. Got them to check the tyres which saved me another trip to a garage. A friend was planning to come over for afternoon tea but too much landscaping at the weekend left her in no fit state to go out. We have planned a morning tea for Monday instead. Tonight I have a Zoom meeting at 7 pm for which they have scheduled 3 sessions cumulatively, perhaps a little ambitious I suspect as being rooted to a chair is hardly the same as being able to move about in a room. Anyway we’ll see how it goes, one of our number now lives permanently in Europe so it will be different to have her join the group after a year or two’s absence. John’s drawings for the St Ives house weren’t quite what they were after so he’s redoing them today and will come up here tomorrow. He’s taken to feeding milk to a cat which often hangs about his door, it’s guaranteed that it will be permanently there from now on.

June 11, 2020

The Zoom meeting last night was technically fine, hosted from London by someone who lives now in the hills above Florence, but was caught in the lockdown there and is now stuck. With an expired visa, the only solution is to apply for residency, an expensive and time-consuming option which leaves her with no passport while it’s being considered. So many people affected in so many different ways. I decided that a couple of hours on the computer for Zoom isn’t something I will be doing again if I can avoid it, I prefer to replace it with one-on-one get-togethers with those who are available. Admittedly I wasn’t really feeling very social last night for other reasons, but I think it will be my attitude going forward. On other social media matters, what to do about an old client who asked to friend me on Facebook when I was closing the shop? Not a person I would socialise with at all given the option, I cringe when I see her posts. A few days ago it was an exalting post about cops (they are neither all good nor all bad, but unfortunately the bad ones have great power over us) and today she put up Pauline Hanson’s miserable speech to the Senate on Black Lives Matter. I have resisted unfriending her, something I’ve never done to anyone, but I don’t need to be riled up every few days either and debating the issues is a complete waste of time. Ah, isolation has its merits, the oven and the book never rile me; well maybe a book sometimes does but I can even the score with a scorching review, but that’s more tricky with folk. A review site for people? Now that’s something worth a thought.

June 12, 2020

John’s 79th birthday! How did that come along so quickly, I can’t believe he’ll be 80 next year. I decided to do a special picnic and we went to the Australian Botanical Gardens at Mt. Annan. It was a new place for us and we loved it, especially the garden of ancient plants like the cycads and ferns and the Wollemi pines, plus the signage which gave a description of the evolutionary course of life on earth from floating elements in the soup of earliest time through to current species. Fascinating but humbling when you think 79 years is a big deal and it’s telling you that actually 500 million years is more like a big deal to the earth. Makes you realise how little we mean in the whole scheme of things yet we are conditioned to believe that we are important. If I burn a cake I think it’s a big deal but whether we burn a cake, a house, a cathedral or half the country it’s of little relevance in the bigger scheme of things. We really enjoyed our picnic (irrelevant after what I’ve just said) and learned yet again how great a whole trout is as a meal as the leftovers make great sambos the next day.

June 13, 2020

I’ve been thinking about the differences between people and the fact that they seem to be divided into investigators and sweeteners. Both John and I are investigators I think, well I know we are. But so many people we come across just want things to be lovely and run from any deeper discussion about an issue (the ‘never talk religion or politics’ crew are a subset here) preferring to paper over things as quickly as possible, make nice, but not acknowledge differences. I see it in the sweeteners’ eyes when they disagree with me but nothing comes out of the mouth, though I’m sure it does when they retell the conversation later. Geoffrey Ludowici, who like his brother died way too young, neither living to take over their father’s highly successful company, used to tell me that ‘you only need to discover if a person is basically honest or basically dishonest and everything else becomes simple’. But I think knowing if they are investigators or sweeteners is perhaps the next step, as investigators will expose their true feelings whereas sweeteners will always try to please. Big lies are not their thing, but big truths aren’t either. Pity I didn’t put this to Geoffrey all those years ago, he would have given me an honest opinion on whether I’m right or talking shite.

June 14, 2020

Well what makes your heart sink more quickly than the computer dying? It’s not the money as much as the fear that it’s unfixable or that the potential fixer will baffle you with terms you can’t understand and then charge a bomb. I got the blue screen of death but Louis suggested I take it down to him to have a look. He’s a software engineer not a hardware man but he said he’d have a go. So this morning I made a batch of chocolate brownies and then went to Erko. This was made possible because they all came down with colds earlier this week and had COVID19 tests which proved negative. Poor Louis was downloading something or other onto his computer to be uploaded onto mine, but when I left more than three hours later it was still downloading so he said he would bring the computer back to me on Tuesday, either fixed or still cactus. He has had the good fortune to get a new job after his recent retrenchment but explained to them that he has to mind Millie for two days a week until her day care can take her back to her pre-virus routine. The new boss accepted this arrangement, proving what a catch Louis is. Amazingly Millie let me shampoo her hair in the bath, usually hair washing is the source of much upset. An unusual day compared to the last few months.

June 15, 2020

A busy day compared to usual in that I first prepped a slow cooker meal so I can give it to Louis to take home tomorrow and it will also serve as my dinner tonight. Then Arvind came over in his morning tea break working from home and sat on the front verandah shooting the breeze for what was a very long morning tea. As usual he rejected the offer of either a drink or food and he doesn’t eat sweets at all so tea and cake isn’t an option anyway. We continued to chat on the front verandah after another friend arrived for a planned morning tea. She brought a photocopy of Carol’s article just published in the Australian Women’s Weekly which was thoughtful of her. That encounter then spread to a couple of hours and she showed me how to use voice recognition to send messages which I’ve just tried successfully on an email but haven’t yet mastered on a text message. I’m wondering how long it will be before the library gets on my back about all these books, but I’m lying low now until I finish a couple more. Currently reading the magnificent Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Set in the same grand but tumbling down house in both 2016 and 1871, it has me in its thrall. It exposes the difficulty of middle class comparative poverty in a society where you are always just one illness away from bankruptcy. It ties in with the report of a man on the US who spent 72 days in hospital with covid19, only to be sent home with a $1.17 million bill itemised over 181 pages.

June 16, 2020

I am typing this on………….my computer! Louis brought it back today working perfectly and I am so happy that my daughter paired up with a genius. His genes are setting Millie on the path too, her comprehension of the digital world is just amazing. I was able to bring out the huge 2-storey Barbie House that John discovered recently on a walk nearby and snaffled for use as a grandma’s house treat. She loved it and we had a good game of girl and grandma, which included cooking in the well equipped kitchen and using each of the rooms for its purpose. She enjoyed her peanut butter sandwich lunch and then asked for crackers with peanut butter which were licked clean and then reloaded. Before their arrival, again at dead on 7.30, the painters came back to redo the ceilings that were subpar originally. With another coat they’ve turned out fine. It’s been my day.

Reading Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver, which has to be a 4.5 in terms of reading enjoyment for me. Set both in the period leading up to the election of the current president, ‘The Bullhorn’ as she aptly names him, and also in the 1870s it thrilled me to the point that I was scribbling down quotes on scrap paper as I read. The title wisely gives us the feel of the fragility of living week to week, despite one reasonable salary, in a house where the rain comes in, plaster ceilings collapse and cracks in the walls are stuffed with socks. The parallel Victorian story, of a teacher trying to open children’s eyes to science in the face of dogmatic religious beliefs that deny it altogether, could well have been set in modern day USA rather than in 1871.

June 17, 2020

I decided it was unfair to keep getting the bakery to deliver if I could work out an alternative, so last night I placed an order and then drove today to Dural and they delivered it to me in the carpark, everyone happy. But I have to say those people wouldn’t have complained if I’d kept up delivery till 2030. On the way back I went to the nursery and bought some Charlie Carp fertiliser using the same technique. John seems more affected by the lockdown than I am, so he is quite disappointed if for example a Zoom meeting falls through, but we are all different in these times. I get a kick out of getting around the lockdown as I did this morning but it doesn’t bother me when I can’t, the BLM marches being a big exception. On that note, my bete noire on Facebook sank to new lows yesterday asking why ‘a thug and felon gets 7 funerals and a gold-plated casket’ but I’ve decided I need to keep her on for the same reason that I read Murdoch papers in a cafe (well I used to….). You always need to know what the enemy is up to.

Having a conversation with Woolworths after they substituted the barramundi with saddletail snapper in John’s and my shared online order. Normally I would never eat fish from a supermarket, having known someone who worked at Woolworths in the fish section, but it was on a half price special and I weakened. I was okay with trying a new fish, until I tasted it that is. Oh my god, I have no words for how disgusting it was and the texture meant it could easily be used to retread my car tyres. Mine went to the birds, but although John hated it too he ate a little. So I asked Mr Google where it is caught, thinking it must be in the Mekong, but no, it is a tropical reef fish from Nth Queensland and the Northern Territory. But more interestingly I turned up countless Facebook posts going back to 2013 of people warning others never to buy it. The keywords were ‘disgusting, rubbery, stinks’ which are all understatements, but it didn’t smell when it was raw so clearly it wasn’t off. Anyway I sent a nice friendly missive to Woolworths telling them that they’ve upset a usually happy customer but that I would be happy to return the unused portions, which I froze, to their Norwest headquarters. They could come out to the carpark to collect it, he he.

June 18, 2020

I decided that today was cooking day so it began with making a traditional egg custard using frozen egg yolks that were left over from pavlovas or whatever and it worked a treat. I put the end result through a fine sieve though just in case, but there were no problem bits in the bottom so that’s one more use for accumulated yolks. Then on to a 4 bean stew with tomato, chili, paprika etc which will come in handy as a topping on corn chips for an easy nachos meal, freezer for that one. Next to a cake, mmm would I do a fruitcake, an orange and almond? But seeing I am supposed to be working my way through my untried recipes I opted for a Stephanie Alexander orange cake with icing. The batter seemed awfully stiff as I mixed it during a phone call from John (hint, I can’t do two things at once) so I added a little more orange juice and then some water and popped it into the oven. As I began to do the mountain of washing up and cleaning of the bench I found to my horror the two eggs that were meant to go into the cake! Whipping the partially risen cake out of the oven I hastily threw the hot batter into the Kitchen Whiz with the eggs and returned it to the oven before you could say IDIOT. It is now beautifully risen and doesn’t seem to have suffered for the experience. Now for the icing, surely I can’t mess that up?

June 19, 2020

So I’ve been thinking about why race relations in America don’t seem to improve, in fact they seem to be worsening. Rather than improving because they had a black president, perhaps they’ve worsened for that very reason. Now if you’ve grown up in a racist community perhaps getting a black president was just the last straw and firmed your sense of an invasion of ‘the other’? Also thinking about Trump’s cold inhuman attitude to the loss to COVID-19 of 116,702 lives as of today. One explanation is that the man is in fact a sociopathic malignant narcissist, but what if his mindset makes it impossible to feel any kind of empathy at all? I feel as if I’ve known Trump for decades, but in another body, as a friend’s father was long ago diagnosed as a malignant narcissist and despite being well treated and looked after into his dotage by his son he is bitter in the extreme and makes a life of misery for his son and his family. Just sitting at the dinner table with him is frightening, as he looks around the table for the weakest person to verbally attack tonight. I was lucky, being a guest, that it was never me but I had to stop going because it was too awful to watch and I suspect he liked the audience. If in fact Trump’s fear of being the loser in any encounter is so strong, then why feel pity for the ‘losers’ who succumb to this illness, largely people who are old or black or Latino? It is statistically a killer of minorities, just those people that largely vote Democrat in fact. This disease could be seen in that sort of mind as separating the weak from the strong, winnowing those frail and feeble and minorities. Just as Ronald Reagan refused to stump up money for AIDS research and was reported to see it as a gift towards ridding the US of homosexuals, perhaps Trump with his refusal to wear a mask and organising mass political gatherings is simply helping to sift the superhumans from the subhumans. We all know the end result of that thinking.

June 20, 2020

Martha gave me a couple of recipe books from 1980 and tonight I am doing dinner from one. It’s funny how you can date a recipe book almost exactly by just looking at the ingredient list and the pictures of a few dishes. I now need a bottle of Barossa Pearl or Sparkling Rhinegold or Porphyry Pearl to go with it. I noticed a press article about an upcoming inquest (that I can’t attend) into the death of my sometime upholsterer in the shop. He was a troubled young soul who attempted suicide at one point, almost succeeding, but damaged his oesophagus so badly that from then on he had to be fed through a tube into his stomach. The medicos told him that this would shorten his life considerably, of course human nature being what it is he then wanted very much to live. He descended into alcoholism and domestic violence until, during an attack on his wife, an intervention by her mother ended in his death. A sad waste of his young life and a tragedy for his wife, his 13 year old daughter who witnessed it all and of course his wife’s mother. With any such tragedy, including his suicide attempt, it is natural to ask yourself if you could have done anything that might have made a difference. But I know others who tried, including people who gave him work and the upholsterer who apprenticed him, and somehow it never seemed to make a difference. There was something deep in his psyche that just kept pulling him down.

June 21, 2020

Woolworths responded positively to my comments about the fish, not looking for a refund but a reason why they sell this stuff to unsuspecting customers. We had a to and fro about it, my last email complimenting them on their response to COVID-19 and saying that I enjoyed the weekly email from CEO Brad which was just the right combination of encouragement and information. I tried to give the remaining now frozen fish to Justin next door for his dog but as he took it he said ‘I might just throw it on the barbie and try it’…mmm I will see how that works out. I finally signed up to Medium, an American outfit printing the best of US journalism delivered to my phone each morning, via blogs plus The Atlantic, Business Insider, Huff Post, Vanity Fair, and all the newspapers of note. Lots of scientific links on COVID-19 which I can then follow up by reading the original research, plus heaps of political long-form articles and analysis. You can choose subjects you like, so I am sticking to science and politics for the moment but there are dozens to choose from. There are no ads and they don’t sell your details on to anyone, plus the author gets a small commission from every article you read. I am a bit addicted to Umair Haque’s blog, he seems to read my mind on political matters and then writes an article based on that in his unmatched style. I should get a comm for the seed ideas in his articles seeing he downloads some from my brain.

June 22, 2020

Our bushwalking day saw us drive to the National Park at West Head and the weather was perfect. We did the Red Hand Cave Walk and the Koolewong Track and the moss and lichens on the first walk were just spectacular. The bush was so silent. We had our picnic at the lookout and later were driving within the park when clouds of steam erupted from under the bonnet and the temperature gauge was seen to be at maximum. Rang the NRMA but had to guess our exact location, waiting time 60 minutes. An hour and a half later the patrol man told us that the radiator, which we had been warned not to check, was completely empty and he doesn’t carry enough water to fill it and therefore see where a possible leak is coming from, therefore the car must be towed. Problem: By now it was after 4 pm and the park gates close at 6 pm. How do we get out of here if the truck doesn’t make it I asked, ‘walk the 5 or 6 kilometres to the gate and ring a cab’ he replied, telling me that ‘maybe it’s not a good idea to bring your fella out into the bush if he can’t walk far’. Nothing to do but wait and cross my fingers, with John wanting to play I Spy or else perform The Man From Snowy River in its entirety, but I wasn’t in the mood for anything except making sure that the towie didn’t go right past us in the dark. He almost did, so my concentration and mad waving was the right decision. At a quarter to 6 I asked John what to do if he didn’t make it and he said we either ring the police or else sleep in the car (on a 2 degree night with no blankets). Amazingly the tow truck arrived at 10 to 6 and he had warned the gate that we were stranded so they left it open for us to get out. Patrick, born Pasquale, broke COVID-19 rules to take us with him rather than leaving us in the bush, even though we offered to get a cab from the gates, so then began 50 kilometres of conversation about all manner of subjects. He had done a real estate investment course with Donald Trump in Sydney in 2011, had bought a terrace near Hyde Park back when it was ‘full of junkies and pros’ and now it’s worth a packet. We talked concrete, real estate, caravans, odd accidents, the English language, Ralph Nader splitting the Left in a Presidential election, night shift and more until we arrived at my mechanic’s and then he brought us home about 8 pm. He lifted me bodily from the truck with ease (even though I could have climbed down backwards) further breaking his isolation and ours. What a wonderful interaction, which almost made up for the scary few hours watching night settle in the park.

June 23, 2020

Norma’s John died this morning at 4 am, within that renowned couple of hours in hospitals everywhere. I go back to the perennial questions: where is he now? how do the mind and the brain relate to one another? is it even remotely possible that the mind goes somewhere else? Poor Norma after all those years.

Thinking back over yesterday I remembered the klaxon-like horn at fire alarm pitch that went off in the tow truck every time we approached a speed camera, very discombobulating the first time. Today we went up to get some things out of the car and Alex tells me po-faced that it’s the radiator and hoses and is going to cost $5000. Knowing him as I do I replied asking if credit card is okay for that, then I get the big smile and ‘You know I will do it for you at the best possible price’. Yes I do, bless him and I will be happy with whatever he says. John had a doc’s appointment with Bob and I sat in the car reading for the hour and a half he was away, they chat a lot and it’s always an hour or more. It was very cold and not helped by the book which was set in France in winter and every page was ice and snow. We ended the day with a trip to the bakery for my order, now that I have worked out a system and they deliver to the car park I don’t need to feel bad about their petrol and time for which they wouldn’t charge me.

June 24, 2020

I’ve been sorting out some linen to give to Michelle W. who passes it on to the many mostly migrant women she works with, it’s become my fall-back since the charity shops closed. She says they positively leap on the boxes as she puts them down, this time some old towels, tablecloths, throws etc, but who cares where it goes as long as the recipient has a use for it and these women clearly do. My obsession with finding a use for things can be a millstone around my neck sometimes but in this case everyone’s happy. Of course I add to the problem by picking stuff up on the roadside and then I need to find those things a happy home, which used to often be the auctions but even that’s stymied at the moment. Had an interesting conversation in a call from John’s neighbour who sometimes shops for him for things like the pharmacy. She told me that she unpacked his pharmacy order (why?) and found dishwashing liquid which she told me would have been much cheaper at Woolworths (she had been there to check). I tried to explain that he always favours small shops over conglomerates and she couldn’t understand it at all. ‘I don’t care if all the

small shops go broke’ she said ‘because then we would get everything cheaper from the big ones’. I tried to explain his attraction to service over price but the concept was lost on her. I am somewhere between, sticking to small shops as long as the price difference isn’t tooo great, whereas John just doesn’t look at the price at all. We are all so different in our responses to even simple things.

June 25, 2020

Decided to make the Parsnip, Apple and Lime Cake that I’ve been hankering for and it was an absolute bottler. I remember having a similar combination as a steamed pudding at Sean’s Panaroma last year and I wouldn’t mind betting that it’s the same recipe but steamed in moulds. I am going to try some of it as a dessert with custard and see how it goes. My car is finally home, fortuitously they rang this afternoon while Heather was here so she dropped me up there to pick it up, $629 but could have been worse. I forgot to take the chocolates I intended to give the boys there so I’ll drop them in another day. Feeling too clever I tried to do some work on the computer late in the day but it had gone kaput. Louis had fixed it two weeks ago but now it is out of action again so I suppose I will need to get ‘the man’, groan. While I’m bitching, the latest Coronavirus case is at a school just near John’s place. But looking on the bright side I have ocean trout for dinner, so things are not all bad in the world.

June 26, 2020

The best of people and the worst, let’s get the worst out of the way first. In the US there are actually rallies against wearing masks, in the middle of a bleeding pandemic. It does my head in. Then on the news in Melbourne there were people interviewed on the streets of the suburbs with renewed outbreaks who said they would refuse testing ‘because it’s a democracy and we don’t have to’. On that basis the ambos don’t have to pick you up you idiot and the medical staff don’t have to risk their lives to care for you if you get sick, it’s their democratic right to refuse isn’t it? But it won’t be that silly witch who gets a severe dose, it will be her neighbour who did everything the right way and caught it nonetheless from a Covidiot. Steam coming from ears.

Turning to lovely people, my friend’s brother has advanced Parkinson’s and suffers from hallucinations. He has been convinced for some time that they are caring for a refugee and expects his wife to provide meals for him. Currently in a short residential respite he has asked for mattresses to be put on the floor of his room so all the little people he looks after can sleep there comfortably. It’s a sad story but speaks so well of his intentions. They say dementia intensifies existing personality and if that’s true it speaks so well of this man. Steam out of ears receding somewhat.

June 27, 2020

Lovely day cooking for the Erskineville mob who came after lunch and stayed for dinner. My granddaughter was still entranced by the Barbie house which occupied her afternoon. ‘Where do you think this doll ought to go grandma?’ ‘In the kitchen.’ ‘No grandma she goes in the bathroom ‘. I was never right but I think that was the point of the game. a friend came over later and was entertained on the very cold back verandah but luckily she’d worn her mountaineering jacket. Her mum has MS so she’s fully across lockdown and happy to take precautions. The parsnip pudding went down really well with custard although John, who was aware of the main ingredient, wasn’t keen. Psychology of food is a real issue, as I’m only too aware when I think of eating anything that scrunches up its nose, like bunny rabbit or kangaroo. A butcher once gave me a taste of something and I stupidly took it, only later being told it was kangaroo and it nearly ended up on his floor. In France I almost ate horse, misunderstanding the menu. Also in Europe I ordered steak and thought to check what it was, ‘beel meat’ he said, only later finding out it was reindeer and my immediate thought was ‘oh god I’ve eaten Rudolph’. Knowing how silly that is doesn’t change the way you feel. As a Muslim friend told me in relation to pork, it’s as if you came to my house and I served you rat. Point taken.

June 28, 2020

So 30% of those in Covid19 quarantine apparently refuse to be tested…..what the ****? We suckers pay for them to watch Netflix for a fortnight while they whine about the food and the room and whatever else and it’s too much trouble for them to open their mouths for a test? Easy fixed, there’s a big hospital at Long Bay, stick them all in there till Christmas on prison rations. Sorted.

While I’m on my soapbox here’s another thing. Those on Newstart have struggled for years to survive on $40 a day and were considered bludgers to boot, but now that there are thousands more unemployed we just change the name of the benefit and this is considered a boon for real people who are suffering, the rate increasing massively. The poor can’t believe their luck, caught up with the middle class and now able to pay their bills. But don’t get used to three meals a day people, the bastards will put it back down by and by, as soon as their traditional voters are back in work and then the poor be damned.

June 29, 2020

A couple of weeks ago my computer died and Louis made a valiant effort to fix it, but sadly it has croaked again after working fine for a week or so. I contacted a technician, Omar, with trepidation as they have a habit I’ve found of either being a bit odd, talking over my head or expecting decisions faster than I can provide them. But I’ve had a long talk to Omar who was very helpful and not at all a pressure person. He’s saying that if it needs a new hard drive as he suspects he can do that but all the other parts are old so there would be no guarantee on them. On the other hand if I wanted a new computer he would check suppliers for the best deals/ specials on a touchscreen model, deliver it and transfer the data over. But the best part was that he told me not to rush into a decision and to ring him back when I’d thought about it, which was generous. So I’ve decided to take a gamble and get it fixed if he can, I am at heart a fixer rather than a replacer. I will be happy if I’ve found a computer tech that I can trust who is understanding of my preferences, that’s worth a lot on its own. The last time I called one he was very odd and just didn’t want to go home, sitting on the floor nursing my computer for hours, it got quite creepy in the end. Omar comes later this arv so we shall see.

It occurred to me that I haven’t eaten a meal cooked by someone else since the beginning of March, nor a drink either when I come to think about it. I’m happy with my own cooking but gee a treat from KOI or some sushi will go down a treat once it comes to pass. I’m thinking the citrus jar from KOI and some tempura veggies sounds like a meal, note dessert is mentioned first.

June 30, 2020

Omar was neither weird nor did he talk over my head. But my computer is sunk despite his best efforts. Now comes the tricky job of buying another one when I can’t go to the shops. I must pick things up, I read quality through my hands. Omar has recommended one that he can get for a reasonable price but alas it’s not a touchscreen, which I love. Louis has recommended one for twice the price that is a touchscreen. Although I don’t believe in astrology I know I’m a classic Libran, agonising over every decision to a ridiculous degree, in fact to the point that I can easily make myself sick over it. With people dying in droves all over the world the decision is very much a tiny First World one, but today it is like a lead yoke on my shoulders nonetheless.

July 1, 2020

We decided to take a drive to Wiseman’s Ferry today and I appreciated the opportunity to get into a computer-free zone and loved picnicking by the Hawkesbury River under the trees. Seeing I can’t do my online fruit and veg order easily I took the opportunity to pull over at a small roadside stall on the way to restock. The lady told me that they grow everything on the property but when I saw the bananas I had my doubts. But whatever of that I am now flush with good quality produce without needing to go to the shops. Tried out the new Thermos, bought after the old flask was accidentally knocked over and broken at Mt Annan. The tea was as hot or hotter than the freshly made one we had at breakfast and was still very hot when we had a second cup at 4pm so very pleased with the new purchase. I think Omar is fed up with my computer questions as he didn’t answer the one I sent last night. I know I’m a pain in the arse with details but in business you have to deal with all sorts. I guess it gives me more thinking time if he delays replying but I really do want it done and dusted.

July 2, 2020

Louis came out to show me Dav’s Microsoft computer which coincidentally is also the one that Carly bought. One of the features they like is that it is light and thin so they can use it easily on their laps, something I never do. So I’m still waiting for Omar’s reply and then I’ll go from there. Louis stayed for lunch and it was good to spend some time with him. The library has offered a delivery service so I am getting the book group choice delivered next Tuesday. I told them that I had 20 returns here and they said they could take a bag of 10, but 20 was too many?? Three months ago they would have fined me big time for having all these overdue books but now I’m having trouble returning them, funny times we are living in. I am constantly amazed by the lengths people will go to in order to avoid covid19 restrictions. People changing the suburb on their driver’s licence to avoid lockdown, trying to sneak around the restrictions by

coming into NSW by overnight train, it never ends. I am generally supportive of people who ignore laws that are morally suspect, such as those forbidding outside surveillance of animal cruelty on farms for example, but those who break reasonable laws just for their own comfort and convenience need a legal kick to the seat of their pants in my view and I hope Daniel Andrews has the ticker to give it to them.

July 3, 2020

Speaking to the bro last night he was complaining that now he can’t get on the bus without a mask, but then he began complaining that they should have brought this in three months ago and they wouldn’t be in the tragic situation that they’re in. I’m detecting a distinct shift here from ‘it’s all an overreaction’ to ‘what were they thinking to let it get this bad’. Perhaps I can take a little credit for this change, but then again perhaps not. What to do with the 10,000 Victorians who have refused testing? No, throwing them in the Yarra is much too brutal, it’s winter after all. Publishing their names and addresses perhaps so people can avoid them? Withdrawing their AFL viewing rights? Creative thinkingmy son, you’ll come up with something.

My computer obsession is hopefully drawing to a close because this morning I decided to apply my restaurant rule. Have just a soup at a top restaurant rather than three courses at a mediocre one, so I bought Louis’s recommendation of a Microsoft Surface Laptop which was 20% off at JB Hi-Fi but still more than double the price of the one Omar could get for me. But I went with Louis’s suggestion 7 and a half years ago when I bought the Toshiba and it didn’t see a serviceman until it died, so hopefully I’ll still be using this one when I’m 80. Oh dear that’s a scary thought.

July 4, 2020

Election night for Eden-Monaro, we are eating early so as not to miss a single syllable of Antony Green’s analysis. Barramundi with warm potato salad and broccolini, but I’m afraid I didn’t plan ahead well enough to have a sweet ready. At 11pm it was obvious that no result would be known tonight but Labor was leading by a bilby’s whisker so I’d rather be on our team than theirs. The Nationals president hadn’t cared enough to learn how to pronounce the Liberal candidate’s name, calling her something like Korvoyages, so that was an indication of their level of interest. At 12.15 my possum family had a punchup on my bedroom roof. It was very noisy and I’m sure it was the male giving the female what for due to some perceived slight. I’ve renamed him Dyson, not after the vacuum.

July 5, 2020

It looks as if we’ve won Eden-Monaro. Woo-hoo, about time something good happened in 2020. Serves the Libs right for all sorts of reasons, the fact that they air-brushed the wrinkles out of their candidate’s photos not the least of them. We headed off to Pitt Town (Piddown in local tradie parlance) to deliver some more goods to Michelle for her work mates. I love relocating things to where they are most needed and this was a three way transaction which pleased the donor, me and no doubt the recipients, four way if

you count Michelle. From there we went to Cattai National Park which meant our picnic was had overlooking the Hawkesbury again. Arndell’s house within the park was the home of the surgeon on the First Fleet, then it passed down through 7 generations of his family. It is a fine example of Georgian architecture but unfortunately is currently closed for restoration. John is finding these excursions illuminating as they are mostly to places he’s never been, I think he’s somewhat surprised to find anything worth looking at in western Sydney, Mosman boy that he is at heart. The new Thermos is proving a real boon.

July 6, 2020

I am getting just a teensy bit nervous because the Liberals haven’t yet conceded defeat in Eden-Monaro and there’s no news on Antony’s blog about the count. I thought they’d all tempted fate a little by declaring it won so quickly but In Antony We Trust. Gladys is the Queen of Backflips it seems, first on the Powerhouse Museum (a backflip which I applaud, but that’s $40 million she’s wasted on the ill-fated project, yet if I pinch a biro from the government I could be charged… and now on border closures. They were the work of Satan a week ago, but when it is NSW that’s threatened by creeping COVID from the south it’s a whole different box of frogs. No doubt she will spin it her way but I am afraid she will never win me over, she has privatisation where her heart should live. And while I am on that, I am livid that she has sold the Sirius building for gazillions after turfing out all of the public housing tenants to the western suburbs. There is nothing that would get under their skins more than having the poor in a building with amazing harbour views. The rabble can’t be allowed to think they are the equal of Mr and Mrs Moneybags, the mere thought would give Glad the vapours and she’d need an extra G and T to settle down.

This morning Omar came first thing and did the ceremonial opening of the new computer, tearing the cello covering from its box. It works and I am fully back in the world so I did a couple of online book reviews just to get used to it. He charged me about half of his original quote so it was clearly easier than first predicted. It is a huge relief to me to have a close, trustworthy computer person who distils what I need to know into words I can understand and is available by email and phone as well as in person as necessary. So far so good on the new girl but he’s there if I run into problems.

July 7, 2020

Looking at those poor souls locked up in the Housing Commission buildings in Melbourne is heart-wrenching. I know it had to be done, and fast, but surely getting every community service worker masked up and door knocking was preferable to having them see it on the news or looking out to see the place crawling with police, my first thought as a resident would have been the Grenfell Towers fire in London. But full marks to the folk who raced there with car loads of food and other necessities for them, I’m hoping that outreach will continue once the virus is behind us. I continue to be fascinated with the science of this thing; the latest report on the cluster of six genes which raises people’s risk of severe Covid-19 outcomes is that it occurs in an online database of Neanderthal genomes. The researcher found that the gene version

is the same as that found in Neanderthals who lived in Croatia 50,000 years ago. People who carry two copies of the variant are three times more likely to suffer from severe illness than people who do not. It’s possible that an immune response that worked against ancient viruses has ended up causing an overreaction against the new coronavirus. People who develop severe cases of Covid-19 typically do so not because of the virus per se, but because their immune systems launch uncontrolled attacks that end up scarring their lungs and causing inflammation all over the body. I want to read the ultimate textbook on this disease but, although a few people have rushed to print, it will be years before a definitive volume emerges.

My day began with an email to Omar describing a couple of problems I’ve had working out the new computer. He phoned back and sorted one out remotely and he will call in tomorrow to see if he can solve the other. Bless. Then I decided that there was a dearth of sweet stuff here so I did an orange and almond cake which has just come out of the oven and looks good enough to eat. Caught up on some overdue emails including to the bro who has had the trifecta of computer, hot water system and phone issues all at once. I would be spinning. Decided not to go to book group this month after John expressed the view that he would be anxious about my going, at least that settled the issue and made it one less thing for me to agonise over.

July 8, 2020

Talking today to John’s niece Teresa, one of the very few people I know who has gone into almost complete lockdown, and she confirmed that nothing’s changed in their household. Like us they go out occasionally to a bush idyll for a picnic but otherwise it is just staying home. She mentioned asking her GP this week if she should start coming in to the office but the reply was ‘no way with an autoimmune condition’. She also said that she was told, as I have been, that most deaths occur from immune cytokine storms, not pneumonia or the more predictable flu type complications. I have had a theory that the young people who die could be pre-symptomatic autoimmune patients, considering that apart from a few things like juvenile type 1 diabetes, most of these conditions don’t show up till the ages of 50 or over, but the genetic predisposition to them is there from birth. Just a theory, but a story in The Age this week about a young plumber who had his 23rd birthday while unconscious on a ventilator in Melbourne discussed the fact that while he was in ICU they discovered he had an autoimmune disease from which he’d had no previous symptoms. Time will tell. None of the groups of which she is a member are meeting face to face, all sticking to Zoom. So my decision not to go to book group this week was considered by her to be a no-brainer. We have been invited to a first wedding anniversary party in October and considering there seemed like hundreds at the (outdoor) wedding I am still reluctant to reply at this stage. Who knows what the situation will be by then.

Last night I watched the Foreign Correspondent programme on children stolen from Timor Leste by Indonesians during the invasion of that blighted country. I found myself sniffling and then sobbing as those poor souls went back to visit their families, now speaking a different language, worshipping a different religion, with many of their relatives having died. The reconciliations reminded me of meeting Kenneth in

the arrivals lounge at Manchester Airport, just hanging on to each other for dear life, but with none of the language and cultural divides that these people face. At the end I contacted my adoptive Timorese cousin Cal to express my love and appreciation of what he and Domingos went through in that war, resulting in their evacuation to Australia during the initial bombing raids and subsequent adoption by my cousin Ruth and her husband Greco. They both converted to Islam so there remains that division between their familial religious and cultural background and their current beliefs, another similarity to the stories told in this moving doco.

July 9, 2020

Had a friend over for morning tea and the handle suddenly broke off my teapot as I was pouring it, spilling the lot onto the table and floor, but it pains me to think that I could have been pouring it over her lap when it happened. However the glass insert which didn’t break will make an unusual vase. It’s made me realise that I need to clean my silver tea service so I can bring it back into the fold. We went for a walk later and John suddenly told me how much he loves me so some combination of sun or exercise or morning tea was obviously good for him. I finished reading the book group choice but it feels strange not to be going to the meeting tomorrow, I think it’s the only meeting I’ve missed except when we were overseas a couple of times. Food delivery day today with Harris Farm in the morning and Woolies in the afternoon. Normally the Woolies order goes to John’s and then we swap but they had sent me an offer of $20 off and free delivery which was too good to refuse. I just couldn’t have let that money slide past for exactly the same amount of groceries. So now my fridge is groaning but much will go back to John’s house when he leaves on Sunday. A Dutch friend of mine was always bemused at my desire to land a special and used to ask ‘and on what are you going to spend the money you saved?’ but he missed the point. I think it’s a class thing and he was firmly into the middle class. We once went to a restaurant in Crows Nest and became chatty with the Bangladeshi waiter who invited us to stay back and have free drinks at the bar with him and the owner after closing. Things went well until JanBert asked the Bangla guy what he was doing in Australia. Studying fashion design he replied, after which my Dutch friend spurted the alcohol out of his mouth in a guffaw saying ‘Just what Bangladesh needs, a fashion designer!’ We left soon after, thank goodness. The Dutch are known for saying what they mean.

July 10, 2020

Decided to get our picnic day in before the rain starts, but first stop was an old shop contact in Windsor to pick up the last instalment of the bucks he borrowed over a year ago, he’s always as good as his word but it takes time. He had also managed to sell an old briefcase of mine in a garage sale for $25 so that was an unexpected bonus. He was a bit downhearted because a neighbour had reported to the council his habit of feeding birds every afternoon and he’d had a cease and desist letter from them as well as from the landlord. Buying stale bread from a bakery to feed them he was getting huge flocks of parrots and galahs and corellas coming every afternoon, they classified him as a ‘bird nuisance’ which is funny in itself. From there we set out to find the lovely rockery and garden we spied earlier when we were in Cattai, it was on the other side of the river and on the way we looked in at the old Ebenezer Church and wandered around

its cemetery. Many of the pioneers, including First Fleeters, are buried there and the first service was held under a tree there in about 1804. Lachlan Macquarie visited in the early days of the colony arriving by boat up the Hawkesbury. But still no rock garden. We tried various roads to the river finally ending up on private property and the owner came out to see us, explaining that the rock garden we’d seen is on another private property and unreachable. John commented that had we been in the US we might have been shot but he was a cheery fellow. A further drive took us to the old Tizzana Winery, the proprietors of which were longtime clients of the shop, but it was closed, not that we would have gone in anyhow. Driving through Sackville we came upon the car ferry and took it for a lark, coming home via Maroota and Dural, making it a round trip. Thinking of doing some transplanting tomorrow and putting in some seedlings I’ve grown before the days of rain arrive. My pink speckled Hypoestes were transplanted to the front garden last year but they are not happy so I want to move them back out of the sun. The Pink Star packet said 500 seeds but because I’d had bad luck with the spinach and germinated zero, I planted them all and it looks like 1000 came up, so I need to find quite a few homes.

July 11, 2020

Got my gardening done early and then after lunch Heather came over for a cuppa but she decided not to come in after John thought it was a bit too cool out on the verandah. She said she will come by another day, being uncomfortable with the risk (to us) of being inside in the current environment. She had brought a big coat to sit outside as we have been doing recently but we will catch up on a sunny day, hopefully this week. We find such a huge range of responses amongst our friends from the super cautious who allow no one inside and carefully disinfect everything that comes in via home delivery to the gung ho ‘it won’t happen to me’ folks. I think we fall into the pretty cautious camp but not at the extreme end, though I don’t criticise whatever responses people have, I think it’s largely a personality thing in combination with how much (or how little) they’ve been reading about the virus and how to avoid it. Apparently at the book group meeting on Friday a suggestion was made about having meetings outdoors somewhere but it was kiboshed by someone on the grounds that carrying picnic baskets from the car was a nuisance. A pity as that would have gone a long way to making me feel comfortable about going back to the meetings. The way things are going in Victoria though, we may well be in lockdown again by August so the venue could be a moot point. I’m happy to play it as it comes.

July 12, 2020

John surprised me by saying he would like to do another walk and picnic today and that was well-timed considering we had a baked trout for dinner last night with enough left over for sambos. We decided to dispel the West Head jinx and do a walk from the exact point where we spent many hours waiting for help when the car broke down last time. It was uphill to the highest point in the park and we had our picnic at the trig point on top, looking out at Lovett Bay in the distance. A whip bird decided to do his whip thing right next to us, the first time I’ve heard it so close by and boy it’s loud. Later we drove to Akuna Bay and Illawong Bay and decided to spend some time there in the future too, though there aren’t many walks on that side. Some very handy looking yachts were moored there, another thing alongside fancy cars that I have no desire to own, regardless of how much money I come into. But we’ve realised that going on a Sunday, indeed any time at the weekend, is not for us because we couldn’t get a park anywhere near the lookout and there are just too many people about. Luckily our particular walk didn’t attract them though. I accidentally put my fancypants water bottle down on a rock and left it there for a while and when I went back someone had pinched it, yuk I can’t imagine doing that at the moment, but I hope they enjoy my favourite bottle as much as I did.

July 13, 2020

Facebook popping up random memories is always interesting and sometimes a surprise. Today some pics from 3 years ago came up, John with walking stick in his recliner chair, and it was such a contrast to the man who walked up to the trig point yesterday. I don’t think either of us thought that we’d see him as he is today. Perhaps that’s why the thought of getting the virus knocks him about a bit, coming so far and then getting knocked down by a tiny guy he can’t see and feels somewhat powerless to fight off. A report in the Lancet today about a woman who gave the virus, via elevator buttons, to 71 people she had never met is probably a story that fuels paranoia in some and gets a mere shoulder shrug from others.

I suddenly remembered fruit mince the other day. It isn’t even Christmas but I recalled a lovely mince tart I once baked that had grapes in it and decided to replicate it decades later only this time I added cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg to the pastry. Even turned up the original recipe in Cordon Bleu, that delicious series of 18 books that I ordered monthly from England in my early 20s and use still. It is just out of the oven so I can’t comment on its taste but it looks damned good. The fruit mince has been macerating in the fridge for 48 hours since I made it on Saturday, using a Bangor Primary School Centenary Port from 1994. Clearly port is not my tipple so it’s lasted well, since I bought it about 20 years ago in a deceased estate sale from someone who’d never opened it. At least that’s one thing less to feature in my deceased estate sale as there’s only another nip left in it. It is a very weird idea that we spend our lives collecting stuff that then goes to charity or the bin in many cases, losing its significance entirely. I can remember how I came into possession of almost everything I own and the story that goes with it, but those stories end with me of course. As I said when Alex Hendriksen, a very knowledgeable antique dealer, died years ago ‘it’s a pity we can’t download his knowledge onto a computer somehow, replete with stories’. Like when he bought an antique hearse and had great fun lying in the back in full view while being slowly driven through the streets of Windsor. People stopped on the footpaths as a mark of respect, well the first couple of times anyway. He had a penchant for alcohol and often walked home from the shop on a Friday night holding onto a Coles trolley because he couldn’t stand. He asked me to spread the rumour that he had Meniere’s Disease to explain his lack of balance but I could never do it, always feeling he should own his alcoholism, as he did his other peculiarities. We won’t see another character like Alex any time soon.

July 14, 2020

Julia Gillard appeared one-on-one last night on Q and A. I decided that my unbroken sleep was more important than listening to her, despite my general support and interest in much she would have to say. I was, and still am, totally opposed to her overthrow of Kevin Rudd. Despite his faults and foibles he was elected and popular, his overthrow resulted in a broad and long term distrust of politics and politicians and we ended up with Tony Abbott, a fact that ultimately I sheet home to Gillard (and the gullibility of the populace to the lies of the Murdoch press). Rudd’s unpopularity with public servants was well known, due to his unreasonable requests and lack of planning resulting in some sleeping under their desks in order to produce work that was asked for at 5pm and expected first thing the next morning. He was a micro-manager, he had a temper, but are these sufficient to overthrow a sitting PM? I would answer strongly in the negative.

A communication from my virologist friend today about the fact that there are reports of people getting COVID19 a second time and also that the second infection proves worse than the first. This is common to dengue fever as well where reinfection leads to severe illness. “From what I know about all the other Coronaviruses, reinfection is quite common due to a couple of factors, the variety of its surface proteins (small variations in strain as it spreads) and how our immune system clears the infection, as a lasting immune response is not always triggered. Both are very bad news for hopes of a vaccine.” At best it would indicate that it would need to be an annual vaccination, allowing for the changes of the previous year, somewhat similar to the flu vax. I think we have all battened down for a long wait for a vaccine but few of us have considered the long-term changes in our lives that may be necessary if a vaccine proves impossible: no overseas travel, constant preventative measures, limited personal contact, getting used to the uncertainty of outbreaks occurring and so much more. I think it is probably better to adapt to these changes as if there won’t be a quick fix and then if there is a workable virus produced it will be a nice surprise.

July 15, 2020

I’ve read recently that Andrew Dolt keeps calling Dr Karl Kruszelnicki a ‘scientific fraud’. Here is the educational comparison: Dr Karl completed a Bachelor of Science majoring in Physics and Maths followed by a Masters of Science in Astrophysics, followed by a Masters in Biomedical Engineering. He then completed a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery and practised as a doctor until he saw a child die of whooping cough and decided to go into medical journalism as a pro vaccination campaigner. Andrew Dolt on the other hand began a BA but dropped out. Well that’s that sorted.

COVID19’s tentacles reach far from the Crossroads Hotel (previously famous as a bikie pub and the preferred watering hole of Ivan Milat). My neighbour came home from work yesterday because a colleague of his had a pizza there last week. Now he’s been told to work from home until told otherwise. Too close for comfort, should I disinfect the fence? It’s easy to be wise after the event but I have been screaming at our Glad to close the Victorian border for a while. If she’d done so we may not have had the Crossroads cluster at all. How hard is it to insist that truck drivers head straight to their destinations without stopping at any other businesses on the way? There are plenty of truck stops, and an Esky solves the food issue. Sometimes I think that Glad is so business oriented that she just can’t bear to do what she knows is the right thing, in just the same way as I can’t bear to throw things out. But I do know it’s irrational and sometimes the throw out has to be done. Glad needs a good behaviour therapist at her elbow reinforcing the idea of commitment to society and cheering her on ‘Good girl Gladys, you can do it, have a Mintie’.

July 16, 2020

A win to report today. Ever since I got the NBN my Caller ID and answering machine haven’t worked, so I finally got around to sorting that out. Optus is only taking ‘urgent requests’ by phone and an email query didn’t work, so I reverted to that old trick (which I should have done first) of putting the problem on their Facebook page. Voila! Within an hour Kartik had called and said he would refer it to the technicians and today Huy rang from Melbourne and with a bit of toing and froing he fixed both problems remotely. So I’ve just praised them both on the Facebook page for good measure. Now Kenneth will get off my back about having no answering machine for the rare times that I miss his calls. He seems very sentimental lately, often saying how much he misses me and reminiscing about our early separate lives and how much he wishes we had been together. He told me yesterday that he had just read through every email I had ever sent him and that must have taken hours. I can’t let myself spend too much time thinking about how different my life would have been with him in it, not to even mention our dad, who so valued education that he put Kenneth into a good school and fully supported his move to Cambridge. But there’s no good crying over spilt family, it gets you nowhere and doesn’t change a jot. However I am finding I am close to tears now every time the bro rings, he isn’t far behind.

John is having a Zoom meeting today with his seminary buddies, chaired by the indomitable Dally, which has a firm agenda. First each is to talk about what they have been up to for the last year (I guess for those few who’ve been out of their loop), then another round to talk about coronavirus and the impacts on each of them of the lockdown, then a third round which I’ve already forgotten. Only after all that do they get into general discussion. How good it would have been to have suitably chaired book group meetings, but it’s not to be unfortunately. It does strike me as odd that the men’s group allied to our book group is only meeting remotely, yet the women only want to meet in person. Another win today was that I phoned a restaurant at Church Point and explained that we would love to come for lunch one day but are not happy to dine in. They immediately had the solution: order and pay by phone from the car and they will pack our food into takeaway containers which they will bring to the door so we can eat them at the outdoor tables in the adjacent park. This was so quickly suggested that it led me to believe that we were far from the first to ask. Some people get it, some don’t.

July 17, 2020

John’s car needed a check-up so we dropped it in and then headed off to Curl Curl and Freshwater to watch the waves in this week of above average highs. Did the cliff-top walk from Curl Curl and at one stage I sat to watch for a while till a lady asked, pointing to the edge: ‘Is he yours?’ and I looked up to find John on the rocks calling ‘Take my photo’. I quickly did and he was soon back on the path, good that he still surprises me sometimes. Later he walked the full length of the beach while I sat in the glass bubble of the car with a point blank view over the ocean. Drove to Freshwater and ordered some lunch at our fave,

Pilu Barretto on the beach, eating in the shelter shed with the trusty Thermos, watching the wild weather. First food I’ve eaten since March that I didn’t cook myself, first a delicious cannellini bean and potato soup with home made bread, followed by one of their famously amazing salted caramel tarts, so that was exciting. John’s car needs a new clutch and the lock for the rear door is buggered, both of which we knew, so those things will be done next week. John watched the football while I read at night, the usual procedure. I am engrossed in a book chosen for me by the librarian: Joyce Carol Oates epic ‘Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars’. She does an amazing job with family dynamics, I feel as if I’ve known these characters all their lives, but their issues are set against a background of racism, police brutality, corruption, business, wealth, complete with a detailed two and a half page description of a feral cat. I will be sorry when I leave them all.

July 18, 2020

Michael and Bronwyn are looking for a new table/desk so I cleaned up a cedar one that I have in the garage and John was going to take it to show them but once again he couldn’t get the rear door of the car open, thankfully Alex will see to that next week. Cedar really is the queen of woods, the grain is beyond beautiful. Then he glued on the head of one of my garden statues which fell over and decapitated itself somehow, looking more like a Roman original in the process. He loves all of those annoying little chores that I would never get around to, like working out why the hose fitting is leaking or correcting the way I’ve loaded the tape dispenser. However I sew on his buttons and get stains out of his jumpers so I suppose it all works out in the end. Not to mention dealing with anything financial, something that John finds incredibly taxing: negotiating with a company over a faulty purchase or service, getting some action out of a government department, complaining about almost anything. I write the email and he adds his name and sends it, but he is always cock-a-hoop when it results in the problem being fixed. Perhaps they did too good a job of pushing humility in the seminary as he has no sense of entitlement, of course this in part makes him the lovely amenable soul that he is. When I asked what he would like for lunch today he answered ‘Whatever you most want rid of’.

July 19, 2020

Doesn’t it really give you the shits when you see something that you should have written yourself? I love this post which was written by Peter Graham and sent to me via Facebook. It hits the nail on the head I think:

Before we get too hung up on blaming the state govt, or the federal govt, or China for our COVID situation let’s review some facts: 1. We had to bring in mandatory quarantine in hotels, because we couldn’t trust people to stay home after returning from overseas. 2. We then had to bring in security, because we couldn’t trust people to stay in those hotels. 3. We then had to bring in ADF, because we couldn’t trust the security guards not to have sex with those in quarantine in the hotels. 4. We had to get police to door knock and check up on people, because we couldn’t trust those who were meant to be self-isolating to actually stay at home. 5. We also have to have police and ADF reinforce the metropolitan Melbourne zone and state borders, because we can’t trust people to follow the restrictions. 6. We are now being asked to use masks, because we cannot trust people to social distance when they are in public. 7. Through it all, our supermarkets have had to introduce shopping restrictions because we couldn’t trust people to not to take more than what they needed. So we can get as mad as we want at politicians or health officials for imposing restrictions, or the country where the virus originated, but essentially it’s our own fault that we find ourselves here.

Overnight 60 people were fined for being at a wild party in Schofields and I ask myself (apart from why anyone would rent an airbandb in Schofields at all?) do these people not listen to the news? I was a news junkie even at the age of 20 so I find it hard to understand. But I guess it’s like me and sport, when it comes on the news it’s time to make a cuppa or go to the loo, anything but watching that tedious stuff, perhaps they are the same about things that bore them: like life, death and disease.

It seems the blog might come in handy for John as he is forgetting the dates and incidents in his long and complex medical history of the past 4 years or so. He keeps asking ‘did I get the septicaemia once or twice? before the knee replacement or after?’ so I have suggested going to the blog which documents chapter and verse of his travails. Getting him organised for appointments gets problematic so I ask him to record everything in his diary, however he forgets to look there and has been known to turn up a week early, or even a week late, for an appointment. Not sure what the answer is there.

July 20, 2020

So the day can only look up when first thing in the morning you grab your toothbrush to find a big cockroach on the handle, right? Dispensing him to his maker, I decided this bad omen was a oncer and was glad to get it done with early and to move on to a good day. Later I went to the storeroom to pack away some bits and bobs cluttering the house. There is only one key so it is longtime policy to leave it in the lock at all times when the room is open, except hours later the key is missing and I have a sinking feeling that it is inside. Paying a locksmith $200 to open the door isn’t an idea that I relish and it may be that the lock will need to be drilled out and another one put in, but realistically no one would want anything stored therein so perhaps I just drill it out and leave it. I am now waiting for the third disaster to befall me today, but looking on the bright side I did have a new toothbrush in the drawer and now have the two roach-loved ones in the ‘handy items I may need’ box. (Could I throw them out? No I could not).

Reading my current novel till late, I went to bed last night on a high point of the plot. The children of the main character are incensed, appalled, disgusted by their mother forming a relationship with a man soon after the death of their father. (At what point would they not have felt any of these things?) The eldest son is sent by the girls to ‘fix the situation’ and decides to offer the interloper money to withdraw. After a bidding war the amount is settled at $35,000, a cheque is written and the man in question simply folds it in two and announces that it will never be cashed, but if ever the children approach him again he will show it to his partner and explain to her what types of people her children really are. Now why should I have felt so good about this outcome I ask myself? I was never offered money to desist and if I had been I wouldn’t

have had the acuity to react as he did, but it buoyed me no end to see this fictional character do it. Rather than being seen as a money-grabber it was the reverse, I was told directly that John only espoused me because I was rich and he wanted a comfortable retirement. Poor darling was duped about the ‘rich’ bit but he has stuck around all these years in any event.

July 21, 2020

I watched Dan the Man at his 11 am briefing, not something I usually do but I happened to look at the clock at 10.59, though I had to turn off soon after when his address was cut short because the PM was announcing further financial matters to do with coronavirus. How can I listen to a man who set Newstart at starvation level (because it was seen as a dole bludger’s benefit) but almost doubled it when the virus came along (because these were now struggling workers dispossessed by cruel circumstance)? No doubt it will head south again in due course. Folks I know are thrilled that they can now get a haircut when they need one or buy groceries without fearing having to return some at the checkout when the money runs out. But of course they are the scruffy poor not the upscale smartly dressed beneficiaries of recent times.

I sadly finished Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. last night and after 787 pages I feel as if I’ve been banished from that now well-known family. How will the children react after their mother and Hugo married while away on a holiday together? What does Virgil’s future look like? How will Sophia do at medical school? I intend to ring the librarian who chose this book for me ‘based on your previous reading’ and tell her she’s a genius. It did give me a sense of the difficulties of being in a large family though, people worrying when they see two of their siblings deep in conversation, even more terrifying if there are three. The competition was fierce in this family of five children and none of them came out of it well adjusted. Just like the combination of susceptible host and virulent pathogen in disease formation, it is likely that a susceptible child will succumb to a much less virulent home life where a stronger one would have thrived on the challenges. Considering myself and Kenneth, both effectively only children, but the results were very different: he super confident, happy in solitary pursuits, self-regulating, whereas I was totally lacking in confidence, lonely and unable to cope with any emotional situation. Certainly being together would have helped enormously but perhaps I was just a ‘susceptible host’ from the start?

July 22, 2020

John asked at breakfast today what I was most missing (probably expecting I would say going to Bennelong on my birthday as planned) but I said a haircut. So he suggested I ring Martin and Maria and see what we could do. Maria was extremely sympathetic and has arranged for me to go at 2 pm tomorrow, when I will be the only person in the salon with Martin, with everything disinfected just before arrival. Luckily I bought two boxes of German cherry liqueur chocolates the other day, one was for our mechanic when we pick up John’s car and now the other can go to them. I feel better already, but if lockdown is coming back in I might get my head shaved and be done with it.

Watching the teev last night I struck two excellent programmes, one on Falun Gong which was as expected, only worse, and the other a doco on Putin. The Putin one went a long way to explaining that stoic personality and cold demeanor with details of his early life. Brought up in a war-damaged shared flat with only 7 square metres of space to themselves, he and his mother lived a miserable existence with a leaking roof and water dripping down the walls when it rained. Add to this a shared kitchen and no bathing facilities at all, Leningrad in winter would have been hell. But the mental damage was done early and nothing will make a jot of difference now (my summing up, not the programme’s). Then we come to the show on Falun Gong which confirmed my gut feeling when seeing these people that it is a cult. Though they play nice and seem to be just a meditation organisation, the focussed attention they display is scary and their hatred of the Chinese government all-encompassing. Their anti-medicine stance is not unlike the Christian Scientists, in both cases keeping people within the cult being more important than their lives. From time to time I’ve seen ads for the Shun Yen dance group and have been tempted to get us tickets, however my feeling that it might be somehow linked to Falun Gong prevented me from picking up the phone for tickets. Occasionally I get in my letterbox a copy of the Epoch Times, John gets it too, but despite its rabid anti-Chinese rhetoric I had no idea it was Falun Gong too, though I’m not surprised now when I think about it. They are ploughing millions into getting Trump re-elected, just on the basis of his conservative thinking and current Sinophobia. Strange bedfellows indeed, but consistent with the concept that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

July 23, 2020

I am a new woman! Short hair means I can now abandon the plan B, to shave my head in order to get rid of the perpetual beanie that I’ve been wearing to avoid seeing the old lady in the mirrors as I pass. Let’s hope that my transgression of the rules won’t bring a retribution. We cracked the Thermos and had lunch in a shelter shed at Freshwater, watching the young on boards in the surf. Later we picked up John’s car and as usual Alex had worked his magic. After he quoted $190 for a new lock for his rear door, he told us that he ‘had sat and taken it apart, fiddled with it for some time and found it had a broken spring’ which he was able to source and then replace. ‘So there’s no charge for the lock’. We argue, but he says he can’t alter it because he’s typed up the invoice. You can’t win an argument with Alex when it comes to money. On the way to Manly we called in to see Michael and Bronwyn and were interested to discover that they haven’t seen their children and grandchildren since March, with the family deciding to stay away to protect them. They concurred with our view that the problems we are facing are largely because of people not wanting to comply with even the somewhat inadequate restrictions. Lack of trust in government seems to be a significant cause of that and with trust now at an all time low, this pandemic is ill-timed. Folks will comply by choice with adequate trust, such as in Taiwan and Singapore for example, or by force if the penalties are severe enough, such as in China for example. We sit between those bookends with a poor level of trust and inadequate penalties, so people just thumb their noses.

July 24, 2020

Rang the library to congratulate whoever chose my home-delivered books last month, the librarian I spoke to will check it out and pass on my thanks. I’ve also requested another by Joyce Carol Oates after reading Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars. but they only had the one I wanted as an ebook, so I settled on ‘any others of hers that have real pages to turn’. Although I was vaguely aware of this author, I had thought her very prolific writing perhaps meant that she was one who turns out a predictable novel in time for Christmas each year. However now the kind librarian pointed me to this, her latest, I am keen to attack the back catalogue. In the novel Whitey McClaren is the linchpin of a privileged white family but he dies as a result of attempting to intervene when police are bashing a “dark-skinned young man”. That in itself makes the novel worth reading at this time. But there is so much else here to love, because once that linchpin is removed there is a necessary reconfiguration in this large family of wife and five adult children. It lurches from drama to something like a Moliere comedy at times, with an extraordinary two and a half page description of a feral cat being just one of the highlights. Perhaps the only character who seemed a bit over-drawn was Lorene, but I’ll forgive that as just a matter of opinion. Can’t wait to start another by this author, there are plenty to choose from, over 100 published pieces including 58 novels as well as a number of plays and novellas, many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction.

Perhaps John is coming under my influence because he picked up a near new bicycle off the street today and brought it home to give to his neighbour Ann to sell. She immediately put it on eBay and was contacted by a kindly man who said the wheels were back to front, offered to come around and fix them for her and promptly did so. Perhaps that’s the reason it was being thrown out? When John had the van I often suggested that he kerb crawl as a means of getting pocket money but he wasn’t keen, but when he can do it to benefit someone else he is happy so perhaps it was my suggestion that he make the money that was a mistake. As long as it saves good stuff from land fill who cares?

July 25, 2020

I see that a woman in her 40s with COVID19 attended 5 churches and funeral homes in the western suburbs over 5 days. Now she’s either extremely unlucky to have so many deaths around her or else she is like a person I met once who looked up local funeral services in the paper and went along for the free drinks and food. They commented that ‘it feels like you really know them sometimes’. I can sort of understand wanting to be part of a little community where everyone will be friendly and sympathetic. ‘Don’t you worry about being asked where you fit in?’ I queried, but was assured that it rarely happens and if it does a generic answer usually suffices. I always find out something new about the deceased when I go to a funeral, no matter how well I knew them so I guess it isn’t too much of a stretch to say ‘Gosh, I didn’t know Mary was an astro-physicist, I haven’t seen her since we were young’. One strange funeral John and I went to was for a woman friend who had been going to a Baptist church for many years. Unbeknown to us her husband apparently disapproved and arranged the funeral in a Catholic church (he was a Spaniard after all). Her Baptist minister and her Maori family objected verbally but they could hardly whip the coffin away from under the eagle eye of the priest. I will always remember the Minister in tears afterwards saying ‘but I baptised her….’. We gave the wake a miss.

It is 4.21 pm and I am wondering if in the middle of a pandemic it is acceptable to have a bath at such an hour. It sort of signifies that I don’t intend to do any work for the rest of the day and also means frying fish for dinner in my dressing gown, but it is getting chilly and will save my putting on the heater for another couple of hours so that’s an upside. God life is so hard for a Libran, endless options to be canvassed.

July 26, 2020

Well the pan-fried whole leatherjacket tasted wonderful despite being cooked wearing pyjamas, dressing gown and Ugg boots. I must get more of this neglected fish from Harris Farm on the next order. So sweet and white and delicate, not in the same universe as the dreaded saddletail snapper. Just made a broccoli and coconut milk soup for lunch, spiced up with a bit of garlic, chili, ginger, lemongrass and fish sauce. Mmm-mmm.

I am seeing already in my mind’s eye the government’s coming response to the pandemic’s fiscal problems, rubbing their hands together at the opportunities the virus has presented. Cuts to the ABC (It’s because of COVID19). Cuts to public schools (We had no choice). Cuts to universities (Sorry but we are broke). Cuts to the public service (You know we hate having to do this). Josh says he will emulate Thatcher and Reagan. In other words, screw the workers. Some of my British family members live in South Yorkshire mining towns (well, ex-mining towns) and they told me seriously when I mentioned Thatcher’s name that ‘we don’t use her name at the table’. She gutted the whole area by closing the mines and bought coal from Russia instead, the boarded up shops even now tell the story of livelihoods ruined. She tried to abolish the welfare state and replace it with an attitude of materialistic individualism. Ronald Reagan was president for nearly five years before he said the word AIDS in public and it was nearly seven years before he gave a speech on a health crisis that would go on to kill more than 650,000 Americans. Trump is following the Reagan mould. So these are your heroes Josh? May they both roast in hell.

July 27, 2020

Got my mojo back to do some put-off tasks so I started early with making a Rhubarb Jam Shortbread Slice which I did in a tart tin. It appears okay though I haven’t tried it yet. Then I took advantage of the rain to plant out some of my Pink Star Flower seedlings while the ground is friendly, plenty more to go in though. Later I got a call from the computer boffin replying to my email query about all the missing photos from my old computer which didn’t come across to the new one. I pressed this, that and the other under instruction and after more than half an hour of downloading the photos finally appeared, woo-hoo. Except now I can’t for the life of me find where they are, despite trying for nearly two hours. I am giving up and the computer boffin is on another job. I wish I were in some job of work in which you just dial a number if you run into problems and some dude (it’s always a dude) arrives to fix it. Bah humbug, enough computing grief for one day and I will focus on the more easily solved problems.

When I was a kid I thought that anyone living north of the Parramatta River was rich, not filthy rich, but rich. When our next door neighbour sold up and moved to Ermington, right on the north bank of the river,

we were somewhat aghast. Where had they suddenly got all that money from? I asked my mother. She had no insight and it remained a mystery, though their large block was later subdivided into two, so clearly that was part of the answer. Now we have COVID19 cutting a swathe across the southern suburbs and as it inexorably inches its way north I find myself illogically thinking that we are fine here as long as it doesn’t cross the river. The Maronite cathedral cluster is awfully close to the river but I envisage a police line along the banks vigilantly beating it back. With tear gas, batons, water cannon? I am not sure, but it is a reassuring image in any event. Hold the line guys, (cops are tops, all that rubbish) but just don’t let it cross the Barry Wilde Bridge.

July 28, 2020

Took advantage of the light drizzling rain to do a bit of weeding and to plant the agapanthus seeds that I harvested from the front garden last summer. Also direct sowed some Californian Poppy seeds, but kept back over half the packet in case of a failure, if so I will plant the rest in trays and put them out as seedlings. I am finding that I get two possible results with seeds, hundreds of germinations or nix, so we shall see. My father refused to grow poppies or have them as cut flowers in the house because they reminded him of the fields of France in WWII, but I love their happy faces and look forward to producing enough for some cut flowers.

Oh no, I thought, not The Apollo! It is one of my very favourite restaurants in Sydney and during the night I was thinking about what I’d love to order there, the Taramasalata, the Saganaki Prawns, the Chargrilled Octopus, bliss. So I formulated a mid-night plan: to drive over to Potts Point and dumpster dive for all the delicious things they’d had to throw out due to their coronavirus closure yesterday when a staff member tested positive. Not such a good idea when I reconsidered it in the morning light but boy it seemed like a plan at 2 am. It is a spot for the super cool, which we are certainly not. But both staff and guests alike seemed happy to share the joint with a funny old couple with the wrong haircuts and clothes. Last time we couldn’t get a table and sat at the bar to eat, but managed to have conversations with the barman and the odd customer. I hope to go there again……one day.

July 29, 2020

Well my shortbread slice was a dry as a pommy’s bathmat so I had to make a fruit cake yesterday in order to have something else to share when Bronwyn and Michael called in this morning. Bronwyn declared the slice lovely but I found it almost impossible to swallow, though perhaps it was that Sjogren’s makes it difficult to eat dry stuff and I usually end up with a coughing fit. I’d give the recipe 4/10 if that. John has gone home with some of each though.

I got a message from Ram in Kerala yesterday saying that they are not allowed out if over 60 due to COVID and that deaths are at 1000 per day. So I rang him today but the language barrier makes it difficult. The first minute of the call was taken up with a recorded message which he told me was Kerala Government advice about the virus which goes at the beginning of every phone call. I think he was saying

that they get food from markets delivered to the post office, but I am not entirely sure. I had thought his English had improved a lot over the last couple of years in messages but he told me to write some of my questions so his friend can help him. I guess that’s what the apparent improvement was all about. My Malayalam doesn’t even stretch to one word. But when I asked if he was working the answer was clearly no, because of COVID. Now that I’ve (almost accidentally) sold a cedar desk I had in the garage, I will take it as an auspice and send some money off to him. I send cash in an envelope marked ‘card only’ and so far it has always got to him, touch wood, although if it is a larger amount I send it in two or three cards. I hate to think that we will never see each other again although I am sure it is the case.

July 30, 2020

Well any bright idea I had of sending a card to India came crashing down after deciding to check the postage cost online and coming up with the message that You Can’t Send a Letter Here. How lucky that my memory is so poor that I had to check the cost, otherwise goodness knows what they do with the letters. I’m assuming it’s either an infection control issue or due to the suspension of flights and rail freight, but it’s a huge decision. Now I wish I hadn’t told him to watch out for a delivery and will have to eat humble pie later today.

We were talking yesterday about our biggest fear, of being put into a nursing home for some reason. Both Michael and John have had a series of illnesses which could have ended up with that result. Bronwyn reminded us that most nursing homes have just one registered nurse on staff with the rest basically domestics. Apparently they visited a close relative where there was only one nurse and she had a sign around her neck that said ‘don’t ask me anything I am doing medications’ and no one else was allowed to answer questions. The whole concept of a nursing home as a profit making business is anathema to me. I’d be glad to see all private nursing homes and hospitals gone. Every baked bean they put on a resident’s plate is a cent less they earn so it doesn’t take Einstein to work out why the food allowances are around $6 a day. I can’t put many single meals on the table for $6, never mind an entire day. The proprietors are the equivalent of slum landlords and I am sure that in an enlightened future people will wonder how we could ever think that essential services could be profit making ventures. We went a while back to The Swifts in Sydney, a mansion once owned by the Catholic Church and now the home of the Moran family, owners of private hospitals and nursing homes. As I looked around at the luxury there, replete with a pipe organ in the main room, I couldn’t help wondering how many underfed patients it takes to accumulate that sort of wealth.

July 31, 2020

So, my optimism about the virus stopping at the river was misplaced. Now it’s travelled as far as my local shopping centre and though I haven’t been there since March it is still much too close for comfort. I am really not sure where it will all end, but certainly there are a lot more oldies in nursing homes who won’t see their next birthdays.

ith a lovely bunch of Bromeliad, hellebore begonia, kale, little ruby and jade succulent flowers. Then I had a call from Omar who remotely found all the missing files on my computer and stuck them on the desktop so they won’t go missing again. I offered to pay him but he insisted that it was part of his initial setup of the new computer. I had to email Ram and tell him that I can’t post his money for the foreseeable future and his reply was typical of him: ‘Don’t worry, we can still contact. Your thoughts and mind is with me, so I am happy’. I am trying to take that as a pointer in my thinking. There could be so many complaints about people I can’t see, outings I can’t go on, meetings I can’t attend, celebrations that won’t now be taking place, travel that won’t occur, theatre I won’t see, but ‘Don’t worry, we can still contact. Your thoughts and mind is with me, so I am happy’.

August 1, 2020

I was once told that August 1 is the date to prune roses so I did my only one, which was a 70th birthday gift from Heather. There was a pair actually but I managed to kill the other. However I am watering my seeds every day in the hope that the garden will be full of flowers in spring. I have treated myself to a special gift, getting the windows professionally washed for the first time ever as my pathetic efforts have not improved them. Kenneth tells me that he has his done once a month for 6 pounds, an astonishingly low figure compared to what I am paying, but perhaps it’s extra when you only get it done once every 45 years. However I would snap up the 6 pounds a month if I could.

Well, well, well. Kenneth in our phone call last night had moved from a position of ‘how ridiculous, I can’t even get on the bus without a mask’ to ‘why didn’t Boris bring in masks in March and stop this thing in its tracks?’. He then commented that ‘I don’t think we understood how bad this thing would be’ but I didn’t let him get away with that one, replying that I had been trying to convince him of that for 6 months, a fact he reluctantly agreed with. The night before last, news had come through at 9 pm that masks were compulsory everywhere, no meetings of more than two people and no visits inside the home by anyone who doesn’t live there. This is only for Manchester and Calderdale areas where he lives and it applied immediately. He asked if I thought we would be alive in a year and my reply was ‘only if we avoid getting the bloody thing’, hopefully he will take more care than he has been doing, almost daring it sometimes. On my walk this morning I passed the local IGA and noticed that all of the staff are wearing masks now, this is new. Perhaps the reporting of a case in Miller’s Fashions in Baulkham Hills has put the wind up them. My longing for sushi from the shop nearby Miller’s has waned as a result I must say.

August 2, 2020

Harris Farm delivery day and I requested it between 10 and 2 so it didn’t interrupt Insiders, so of course he came at 9.30 but I threw it all in the fridge to sort out later because I need to divide things like the fish for example between the two households. Got Orange Roughy, a deep sea fish, for dinner tonight plus prawns, leatherjackets and sardines which I froze, so I am spoiled for choice. John came up and he gave moral support as I planted out more seedlings in the front garden, then Davina, Louis and Millie arrived for a

short notice visit, bearing sweet treats which we ate in the garden. Millie is always taken with John and when she saw him called to her parents ‘look who I’ve found!’. I have now finished reading Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy, a book someone donated to the street library months ago. I thought by the name that it may be a historical novel, of which I am not a particular fan, but it turned out to be contemporary, set in Dublin and about two young people who are setting up a catering business, though it’s about so much more than that and I enjoyed it immensely. I have raved about it enough to have two takers for it now that I am finished. So the last two books I have read would be in the top few for this year so I am very lucky. When the librarian rang on Friday to ask what I want for the next delivery I requested the book group choice, plus anything by Maeve Binchy or Joyce Carol Oates (the authors of my last two novels) and The Plague by Albert Camus published in 1947, the year of my birth, which tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. La Peste is the French title and they are not wrong there. I love his spare writing and am sure this one will be as good as The Outsider was. Unfortunately the most recent American translation has it named The Stranger which doesn’t capture the theme nearly as well and did make me wonder a little about the rest of the translation, which I am not in a position to judge of course.

August 3, 2020

John has gone home to put the finishing touches to his five street libraries, after which he had promised we would be going on a little holiday. But I am not sure it is the time, with the COVID outbreaks from Victoria meaning that staying home is being encouraged and could soon be mandated. I was interested to read about the Mosman doctor aged 50 who was a super fit cycling enthusiast, caught the virus and was bedridden for 29 days. Now he finds himself unable to cycle even a kilometre on flat ground and has been diagnosed with heart damage and later epilepsy, so now he can’t ride, drive or take any exercise and that may very well be permanent. It is so random in its effects this disease.

I love looking in my freezer and having lots of choices, so I am doing grilled spiced sardines with a Moroccan orange salad, something that suits my single status tonight as John isn’t a salad person and certainly not in winter. He queries if something is a salad if it doesn’t have lettuce in it. As a child ‘salad’ at my house was a fixed dish: lettuce, tomato, canned beetroot, Kraft cheese and onion pickled in malt vinegar, maybe a radish. Voila! Salad. It was a meal, not something on the side. So I think John has his territory shaken when I describe something as a ‘warm salad’ or when it doesn’t have any of the 1950s ingredients he was once used to. Even potato salad stretches the friendship. But Thai salads, German potato ones with anchovies and egg, poke bowls of all sorts are my go to dishes. John was mighty happy with last night’s effort though, Baked Orange Roughy with Garlic Butter and served with veg, right up his alley he declared.

August 4, 2020

I have been musing about how it is possible, and it often seems to happen to me in fact, that a person can connect with another in a fleeting moment or even from a photo. We are all familiar with the ABC’s We Are Australian videos. Whenever I see one I search for the young man in red, whose face I connected with on day one. Now after months of looking out for this fellow every time it is shown, and feeling warmed by seeing his face, I discovered today that he is an Aboriginal singer named Isaiah Firebrace. Nothing will ever come of that realisation but knowing he is in the world is somehow soothing and harmonious. I can’t explain everything, I can only record it. Similarly seeing the photograph of Steve Jobs on the cover of his biography made me want to encircle him somehow, I felt protective of him via the photo, which seems ridiculous. I am not a techy person as my son-in-law would attest, but I decided I needed to read this heavy tome, not to work out how to become a billionaire or to understand how Apple was formed, but to see what in this man’s face was the essence that I was picking up on. I didn’t get more than a few pages before I found similarities in both our lives (despite many differences). Learning to read before starting school led to both of us being bumped up the grades, initially dealing with boredom with the work but ending with social isolation from the more mature students, resulting in becoming an awkward loner who didn’t fit in with peers, the clever kid with no friends. He talks too about the moment he realised that he was smarter than either of his parents and the shame of that realisation. One thing I totally identified with was his youthful abandonment of religion, which almost exactly echoed mine. Life magazine published a shocking cover in 1968 of starving children in Biafra so he took it to Sunday school and asked the pastor ‘If I raise my finger will god know about it?’ The pastor answered ‘Yes, god knows everything.’ He then pulled out the magazine and asked ‘Does god know about this?’ When the pastor answered ‘Yes god knows about that’, Jobs announced that he didn’t want anything to do with worshipping such a god and never went back to a church. Some years earlier I had had a similar experience, giving away religion forever after realising that the appalling treatment of black Americans was justified by religions, I wanted no part of them. I later realised, more importantly, that they were simply attempting to sell the solution to a need that I didn’t have. It’s easy to walk past a brewery if you have no desire for beer. Can all of this be transmitted through a black and white photo of a very famous person? I don’t know. I can’t explain everything, I can only record it.

August 5, 2020

I’m still thinking about faces and what they tell us or in some cases don’t tell us. I am sure my facial recognition skills are well below par, I’d never make a politician, and that used to get me into a lot of trouble in the shop. Someone would come to the counter beaming ‘I’m here to pick up my lay-by’, but I had no recollection of seeing them before, ever. What to do? Was I looking for a pair of earrings or a sideboard? ‘Do you have your docket with you?’ ‘No, sorry I left it at home’. So I would search the lay-by book hoping for a bolt of recognition, but sadly that didn’t always help and I had to ask their name or what it was they had bought. Feelings were hurt: ‘You served me just the day before yesterday’ or worse ‘I’ve been buying here for years’, but try as I might those people were total strangers to me. Others though, despite years of absence, were recognised instantly and often greeted by name. The brain is a funny old machine. Another more recent case was when John was in ICU at Royal North Shore Hospital last year with no gilt-edged guarantee that he would survive, blood pressure down to unimaginably low figures in the 30s, heart almost stopped, and a priest entered the room. John had given strict instructions about end of life scenarios and a priest didn’t come into it at all. Assuming he was the hospital chaplain coming to give the last rites, I opened my mouth to tell him in no uncertain words to be gone when he uttered ‘Hello Maureen, how are you?’ and only then did I recognise John’s old friend whom I’d met before and entertained in my home. Close call, but I scraped through by a whisker.

My journey into the Steve Jobs biography has led me into his fanaticism and extremely difficult personality traits. I did get a laugh though about his agonising over the colour of beige for the Mackintosh plastic case. There were thousands of shades of beige in the Pantone collection, yet he couldn’t find the right one. It reminded me of John driving me all over Sydney looking at tiles for the kitchen (which could unfortunately be described by some as beige). I had the colour in my head, as Jobs did, but I could only describe it as the colour of buttermilk or clotted cream, not off-white, nor beige, nor cream. Finally in a tile warehouse in Blacktown the man pulled out a tile from a box and I shrieked, it was the one. I don’t think John has ever looked so relieved. I knew it existed but it was a question of whether we would ever find it. So Steve, I do understand and I’m so glad that you found your colour too. Parts of this book make me think that we are both mad but that he was much, much madder than I am, this being somewhat of a relief.

August 6, 2020

The window cleaners have just left and I can now relax. I was nervous about them coming inside but they were two lovely young people who were careful and took their time so it was worry for nothing. They had masks, gloves and overshoes and did a good job. It cost way more than by bro pays but that’s Pommyland and this is here, so there you go. I can see out.

I’ve been thinking about our premiers (who hasn’t?) and without a doubt Dan’s the standout. I want to hug him till his ribs bend, but that will have to be put off till it’s safe to go to Melbourne. I really miss our trips to Melbourne and have been looking back at photos from recent visits there. The last was an odd one in some respects but we still managed to have fun. We travelled from Melbourne by train to country rellies of John’s to attend the 90th birthday party of his cousin, a Marist brother of very gentle demeanour, who was clearly too nice to fill us in on the family dynamics. Despite many phone calls over days to the hostess about how to get to the property, we got no call back, even as we were on the train getting there from Melbs. Finally I suggested calling the birthday boy who had his friend and driver swing by the station to take us out to the property. We immediately felt somewhat less than welcome and it was very confusing until one of the younger generation sidled up and explained: he told the story of being admonished for mentioning John’s name in the house ‘Don’t ever say that name here again, he left the priesthood and he doesn’t exist for us’. Wowsers! Now it all made sense and at least we were in the know. With difficulty we managed to get a lift back to the station and are not expecting a reprise of the visit. But back to the premiers. I am getting seriously annoyed with Gladys’s inability to foresee her next moves. She is constantly ruling things out and then doing exactly that two days later. More importantly she refused Annastacia’s offer to temporarily move the border just a couple of kilometres to avoid dividing Tweed Heads and Coolangatta. The same could have been done between Albury and Wodonga, but our Glad is resistant even when it would have saved the wages of so many police on border control and eased passage for the beleaguered residents. Politician to her bootheels is our Glad, when what we need at the moment is so much more than that. But at least Dan is in the place where he’s most needed, more power to his arm.

Dan’s the Man! and Mark’s a Bright Spark and Anna’s a Pal, but with Glad we only know what she’ll do tomorrow by looking back to what she said she’d never do yesterday.

August 7, 2020

John sent an email to my bro and as an aside he mentioned that it seemed I had convinced Kenneth to take the pandemic more seriously, or words to that effect. Ooh dear I said, that was a bad move, he won’t like the imputation that I taught him something or made him change his behaviour. Sure enough, when he rang last night he happily told me the story of going to the corner shop and being advised that he should be wearing a mask to be admitted, as current rules apply in Calderdale. He ignored that, got his purchases and was served without an argument. Two fellows were outside queuing to come in and gave him the death stare for not wearing a mask. ‘Would you jump off a cliff if they told you to?’ was Kenneth’s retort. John, do not bait the bear, I intend to tell him. I happen to have exactly 100 Facebook friends so these calculations are easy: I have 2 who are radical COVIDiots sending me the full panoply of conspiracy theory websites and 2 who post pretty silly stuff in the same vein. So that’s 4% of my friends, a frightening proportion in my view. I lost it with one this week and just replied CRAP to a video he sent, he can be offended or not as it pleases. Extrapolating that 4% to Melbourne’s population is 198,720. If they have that many who are working against the government’s efforts, then they have no chance of succeeding.

I am of the view that NSW is in deep do-do. We’ve had more than 150 cases in the last 2 weeks and, unlike they initially were in Victoria, these are not centred in certain buildings and postcodes but are scattered like hundreds and thousands on a badly iced cake from Wagga to Port Macquarie and all over the place inbetween. No ring-fencing as a possibility here. That’s 50% more cases than Victoria had on June 18. So don’t make any plans for a holiday or a party or a wedding (and certainly don’t die) because I see another lockdown peeking over the horizon.

August 8, 2020

I probably should wait for later in the day to write this as I am feeling disgruntled right now. Disgruntled that I didn’t retire earlier and get in the travel that we’d always planned, disgruntled that now I am free to do it (and John is well again, which stopped us for 3 plus years) the pandemic means we are confined to barracks. The last year or so when we were in a position to do some modest trips has been taken up with his street libraries projects and now he has just finished a big order for five, we can’t even go to the local shops. Occasionally I had come up with a suggestion about going away just for a day or two, but there is always a TAG meeting or a hospital appointment or a crucial juncture in the library project. He simply doesn’t get cabin fever, being perfectly happy either here or at his place, while I am sometimes ready to explode, like today.

I finished the Steve Jobs biography last night and I hate to admit it but I cried when he died at the end. I clearly knew what was going to happen, but it seemed such a rotten waste. He was an artist even more than a technology wizard and had the personality to match. My pen worked overtime marking great swathes of text, sometimes because I totally understood him and other times because he baffled me. But for all of that I can now understand the world-wide outpouring of grief at his death. When a particular speech or ad was mentioned I could look it up on YouTube as I went along, helping me to understand why he fought for just silhouettes in the animation of an ad or some other artistic decision. When I am feeling up to it I will watch the memorial service, hankies at the ready, but not today.

August 9, 2020

What a difference a day makes…. 24 little hours….I just made that line up. When John came yesterday I thought I was all smiles but he reads me like a book, so I had to fess up that I was disgruntled. We sat down and talked it out and he too is disgruntled in the knowledge that he won’t ever get to see his American rellies again, though he admitted that he doesn’t feel as sad as I do that we won’t ever see Vienna or Venice as we’d planned. (He reminded me that when I asked him what Indian city he would like to see if we returned there, his answer was Prague). He made the point that even if the pandemic ended tomorrow he doesn’t feel up to that amount of travel, just as Kenneth told me he can’t stomach another trip out here. So we both agreed that we made a big mistake in not doing our planned European and American trips earlier but also agreed that it’s now crying over spilled air tickets and we just have to learn to live happily, while also regretting past decisions. We decided because of the rain that we would stay in today and sit down to a main Sunday meal at lunchtime, a baked dinner with all the trimmings. We are now both gruntled, definition: pleased, satisfied, and contented. He is watching the football and I will soon be sitting in front of the fire reading. What’s to bitch about?

Yesterday I attacked the shop filing cabinet now ensconsed in the storeroom, tossing out 95% of its contents, only holding back a few letters written years ago by my prison penpals and a few important bits of antiques info like how to date Singer sewing machines by serial number. I also kept the prison manual we were given at training: What To Do If You Are Held Hostage, just in case the situation arises in the future. Probably foolishly, I always felt I could talk my way out of that one, with the proviso that the inmates weren’t on drugs which is certainly not a given inside prisons. I think being a prison visitor and penpal was probably the best work I ever did and I often wonder where they all are now, hopefully on the outside. I felt so freed of weight when I was able to toss that quantity of unwanted paperwork and I look forward to the day 5 years after the shop closed when I can toss everything to do with it which resides in a second cabinet: day sheets, group certificates, tax details. Whoosh, I shall have a bonfire and maybe toast marshmallows on top.

August 10, 2020

With my current commitment to simplification, I decided to attack my bureau, the drawers of which could barely be opened. I haven’t finished yet but I already have a huge pile of paper recycling, plus all of the stationery, wrapping paper, cards, endless lovely writing pads and notebooks are stored sensibly in the main three drawers. All the hand written letters are now in three folders, including a lovely one from author Elizabeth Harrower which I received in answer to one of mine a few years ago. I need to start seriously writing letters if ever I am to use up all the notepaper and envelopes therein, but my only regular letters are to Anne in the UK and I shan’t live long enough to use them all up on her. Perhaps it will encourage me to send messages to English rellies in between the usual Christmas cards and letters.

I made an exception to the rule of never watching commercial TV last night to see the 60 Minutes report on the deliberate separation of many sets of twins and a set of triplets, to be farmed out by a mad psychiatrist and a New York adoption agency. They planned to answer once and for all the question of nature versus nurture but no papers were ever published. The children were interviewed throughout their childhoods but neither the relinquishing mother nor the adoptive parents were in on the scam. Some found each other after incredible coincidences or cases of mistaken identity, but of course many were reunited because the doctor refused access to the records and has since died. The case of the triplets was particularly tragic with all three of them spending in time in psychiatric hospitals in their teens and one suiciding after they had been reunited. How the doctor wasn’t prosecuted I don’t know but I guess the crime is so rare that it’s probably not even on the statute books.

August 11, 2020

I’ve decided that coronavirus is Protestant. It seems that by far the most affected places are Catholic schools and churches and the most affected school in Victoria was an Islamic one. A shaky theory you may say, but I will stick to it until I see the Prodos even up the score a bit.

Our Woolies order went a little awry this week. John assures me that I asked him to order two of many things like leaf tea, teabags, cherry tomatoes, jars of peaches etc, but I am innocent on this occasion your honour. We also got about 1 and a half kilos of a fish that was supposed to be half a kilo, so this afternoon I’ve made fish curry and a fish pie, the latter for dinner tonight but it would serve 8. Sometimes life is easier if you just go to the shops. We had a lovely surprise when Sue rang to say she was visiting her mum and two brothers while her daughters looked after Robert. So she swung by afterwards and we had a good chinwag, a hoot as it always is with her. I do miss them so much but it is hard for him to communicate on the phone now so even that is no longer possible. So glad that she got some time to herself finally.

August 12, 2020

Had a lovely visit from Jack and Carol sitting on the back verandah. Huey didn’t oblige with sending sun as ordered, but he didn’t send rain or strong wind either so we were content. Naturally we discussed the pandemic and the fact that most people seem somehow ignorant of what a pandemic even means and it all appears to have come as a terrible shock to them, despite the effects of the 1918 one being so widespread and devastating. I think the widespread sense of entitlement is also a huge problem: what do you mean the border is closing? are you serious that I need to go into quarantine? a mask? you must be kidding.

My friend’s 40 year old daughter refused to wear a mask just this week going to a specialist’s appointment because she didn’t ‘want people to think I’m sick’. She refused to believe that it is now normal practice. Tangara School apparently ignored government health guidelines and allowed students to go on a spiritual retreat and now those same students are the centre of the outbreak. I hope their prayers save them, or more particularly their older relatives. Classic example of religion versus science and I am afraid to say that science will always win.

It’s funny how my behaviour has changed in subtle ways. When cooking old recipes from my hand-written book I find myself writing in ‘cook 10 minutes less’ or ‘add 1 teaspoon baking powder.’ These are recipes I’ve done for years yet I am aware that if I get the virus someone else will likely be doing them and they need to know the little tweaks I have made. Likewise my spring cleaning (more spring tossing) which is to get rid of unnecessary paperwork to save someone else doing it. Probably a good thing anyway.

August 13, 2020

My Facebook page was apparently hacked, though what that actually looks like I have no idea. It was locked until I changed my password and then I was asked half an hour later to change it again. Now everything seems cool, but I wonder at the motivation of these people? Clearly it has benefit, so I changed my Hotmail password as well lest they change tack to that one. If you are reading this Mr Hacker, good morning to you. My paperwork war has continued this morning, when I sorted lots of hand written letters going back years, not throwing out but sorting into folders, most from my Lancashire penfriend Anne but others also from England, Vanuatu and India. Just a cursory glance reminds me of what a wonderful correspondent Anne is and although I sent a birthday card a week ago I realise it is a while since I sent a proper letter. Hers are always full of book recommendations, observations of those she meets or sees in the course of daily life, astute political opinions and historical bits of fascination. Her loungeroom is lined with bookcases floor to ceiling with an armchair and a side table. I think there may have been a second chair for a visitor as I don’t remember standing, but nought else. As we walked around in Yorkshire on our last visit she was giving John a running lecture on the fenestration tax, a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. In England and Wales it was introduced in 1696 and enables historians to date buildings by the number of windows and bricked-up window spaces, left in the hope that the tax would ultimately be repealed and therefore the glazing could be completed. John said it was all news to him and he found it like a lecture from an architecture professor one-on-one. She lives in a 17th century stone cottage, the disadvantage of which is the fact that she can’t install heating and gets through winter with a small radiator. When it’s especially cold she lies in the pillow lined bath to read because the tiny room is the only one that heats up acceptably. Anne used to work at one of Halifax’s museums and would have been a wonderful knowledgeable guide. My offer of a holiday in Australia was turned down though, because she didn’t think she could survive the flight without smoking. I shall write a long letter in the next couple of days.

August 14, 2020

A few days ago I read that if we like 90% of a person we should just forget about the 10%. I think it’s good advice. We have all had days when our 10% came to the fore. We were tired or upset or sick or just plain feeling disagreeable. We certainly don’t want our friends to be saying ‘I really liked her, but last night she was so churlish/rude/mean-spirited or unkind that I think I will cut her loose’. So why should we think about doing the same thing to other people? Perhaps we should be celebrating having a 90% compatibility and just roll our eyes at the 10%.

Thinking again about Melbourne and missing it, but gosh it has to be said that those northern and western suburbs are pretty, well what can I say, …unlovely? Coming into Melbs by train from Sydney is enough to make you wonder if it’s really such a good idea. The real clincher for me has been seeing reporting of COVID down there with the camera scoping over dead flat, boring suburbs as far as the eye can see. Not only that, but nary a tree, just oversized McMansions, cheek by jowl, with nothing living to be seen. If you fart in the morning your neighbour two doors down hears it over his Weet-Bix. But go a bit further out and rolling hills abound, Mt Macedon, the Dandenongs frame the city’s outskirts, but gosh it’s a depressing trip to get there. I once went south and booked a motel from here, at Sunshine, (must be lovely, beautiful name?). Oh dear I had to stay the night but got out fast the next morning. Sure we have lots of depressing suburbs here too, Rooty Hill and Mount Druitt among them, but see the difference? A clue is Hill and Mount (a friend of mine has I Climbed Mount Druitt on a T shirt), they may be pathetic rises in elevation terms but at least they rise, whereas any marble rolled in the Melbourne basin would come to a stop very quickly. I guess it is just sad to me that some architects and planners couldn’t manage to adorn a very ordinary landscape by filling it with beautiful buildings, built around parklands with tall trees and curving, not straight, roads. Such a waste and we commit our young people to growing up in a world devoid of beauty.

August 15, 2020

Decided to bake another orange cake so I can give half to Heather who gifted me the bag of Valencia oranges I am using up at the moment. I’ve run out of ground almonds (remember when that happened and we used to just go up to the shops? ha ha how innocent and spontaneous that seems now) so I couldn’t do the old fave. Got a recipe for an orange upside downer from the internet and it was easy and successful, but as usual my heart overtook my head and I couldn’t leave it long enough to cool in the tin, so of course it split when turned out. Luckily one side was much worse than the other so I still had half an intact cake to give. Martha came over to return a book and have a chat so the broken half came in handy. I lent her the Steve Jobs biography and foolishly felt sad about it going out of the door even temporarily. John had said we could go away for a few days when he finished the Link street libraries but by then our Glad was saying that ‘it’s not the time to go on a beach holiday’, obviously she has my new computer if not my whole house bugged, as that was exactly what we had planned. It was a tossup between the flat we stayed in at Sawtell, the cabins at Kiama, Noah’s Hotel at Newcastle or else the luxury of an apartment at Bannisters at Mollymook. Well Bannisters is now a COVID hotspot as of today and they are calling for all clients at the hotel and restaurant to go and get tested (boy I would have been cross about that after paying Bannisters rates!). No doubt Kiama and Sawtell will be announced as hotspots in coming days, Newcastle having been already marked off the list as a flashpoint. John asked me this morning what I was planning to do today and I said quite without thinking ‘either bake an orange cake or slit my wrists’. Luckily he didn’t take me seriously but I think we are all on that sort of spectrum sometimes.

August 16, 2020

John came last night and I cooked a dinner that I gave a 4/10 and he admitted to it being a 3 for him, but you can’t win them all, roll on the 9s and 10s though. This morning we intended to have the ritual watching of Insiders in our jamies, but he didn’t wake till it was half way through (is this signalling the approach of his 80th I ask myself?) so we saw it in the afternoon on iView instead. We made up for it by having a rare hot breakfast of Cheese and Shallot Omelette with the fresh eggs Carol had given me followed by toast and Heather’s orange marmalade and delicious it all was too. We used to have a cooked breaky once a week but somehow we’ve let that tradition go, I think it needs to be resurrected occasionally. I packed up a box full of linen and a few other bits for Michelle to take in to her workmates, they jump on these boxes fervently apparently. I always think of her work pals as being Filipinos, though she’s told me they are a league of nations, but as I was packing the linen I found myself sorting out bits that would suit the Filipino taste. Also packed a box full of antique and vintage lace with some delightful lace attachments to go onto clothes such as collars and epaulettes. There were some good lengths of fabric as well so all of this went to the sewing group. Amongst it I found a delightful Victorian cotton service apron, embroidered white on white on the bib front and going down to my ankles, of course I am keeping that and hopefully will wear it one day if entertaining ever becomes possible again. Once upon a time antique lace would have brought a very good price in the shop or at auction but it’s not that way now so I don’t want them to be slaughtered at auction to a stranger, better to give them away. We delivered the box over to Martha’s in the afternoon and sat outside with a cuppa chatting to them both. Spoke to Kenneth again regarding details for Carly’s epic security clearance which is currently being updated and this time they want the ins and outs of a duck’s bum. He is not immune from the questions despite being in Pommyland. Giving his details has made me realise that he’s turning 87 this year, no wonder he is getting a bit nostalgic and misty-eyed.

August 17, 2020

Oh boy! I need a sitdown. I’ve spent the morning filling an entire Sulo bin with records from the shop, day sheets, banking records, lists of every item sold, correspondence with police, Fair Trading, clients, auctioneers etc etc, keeping only things from the last 5 years as I am legally obliged to do, with those in a jumbled mess that I doubt I could sort out anyway. Also came across lots of other bit and bobs, like a letter from Elizabeth Harrower and one from Michael Kirby, those can go into the bin after my demise. I decided I had to stop because any more would mean I couldn’t wheel the bin out to the kerb, I’m sure I’ll get a ‘bin over weight’ notice anyway. At least they don’t slap one of those sticky signs onto me when they see me out in the garden, that would be a tad embarrassing. All the tossing out made me think of John’s friend Dally whose unit balcony overlooking Southlands in Melbourne is taken up with box after box after cabinet of records, covering every transaction he’s ever made or letter he’s ever written by the looks of it. It did make me wonder if his girls would be cursing him, carrying loads and loads down to the bins. I am trying to make sure that mine have no more stuff to get rid of than necessary, a pre-mortem disbursement so to speak.

The bloody Californian Poppy seeds haven’t come up in the garden so far. I only planted half the packet in case, but now I can’t find the remainder to sow in seed boxes. Somehow, although I have heaps of other seeds, this one pack is missing. Sow directly my arse, why do I believe the packet instructions? Grrr. Martha gave me some dahlia bulbs to plant but I need to be sure that the poppies have gone to god before I plant them as I would use the same spot.

August 18, 2020

I had a funny little exchange when I rang back a missed call on my mobile. It was a young sounding Irishman who assured me he hadn’t rung me, even accidentally. Mmm odd, so then I listened to the left message and it was someone speaking in Chinese language, sounded like the same person who regularly calls my land line and I just get a Chinese recorded voice who goes on and on. So I texted the fellow back to let him know that someone somewhere is hacking into his phone and he said a couple of mates had reported a similar thing happening. I assured him that I wasn’t intending to report him to ASIO as a potential spy, considering the political climate at the moment. We wished each other ‘keep safe’, something that would have sounded odd a few months ago and the mystery remains unsolved.

I ordered some clothes for Millie today from Rock Your Baby, a company owned by two daughters of my friend Sheila. A few things were out of stock in her size, my gosh she’s going into size 5, but I was still able to buy half a dozen nice bits. I wanted a dress with unicorns on it but unfortunately it stopped at a 4. When asked to make three wishes yesterday Millie replied ‘to ride on a unicorn, to walk on a rainbow and to fly on a cloud’. Davina told me she just doesn’t like wearing dresses and even for a party turns them down for some leggings and a top, so perhaps it was just as well they were out of stock. I cheated though and got what they called a T shirt dress, which I can pass off to Millie as just being a long T shirt. I know there are heaps of places I could buy stuff online but I love their designs and it’s good to help the little guy. Following that mini shopping spree I made a Belgian Lemon Cake with some of Carol’s lemons, planted some Agapanthus seeds I’d harvested from my plants months ago and also some purple basil. Not falling for the ‘sow in place’ idea any more so I put them both into seed trays. Yesterday I offered John’s neighbour a crystal dressing table set I had unearthed and her reply was that she hated it but could sell it for me on eBay. Mmm it got me thinking this might be the answer to getting rid of stuff, I discussed it further with her and we settled on a 50/50 split, I supply and she sells. Might work or could be a disaster, time will tell. Anyway I have dug out 5 things as a trial, which John will take back to her on Thursday. Nothing to lose but my smoker’s cough, as the old ads for cough lollies used to say.

August 19, 2020

Went on our weekly outing, this time to Warragamba Dam, a place neither of us had been for decades. Since our last visit there has been a visitor’s centre built but sadly it was closed because of Covid.

However we were able to walk across the dam and have a gander at the newish spillway built at the side to allow flood water to bypass the dam wall. It is a massive chute, approximately 200 metres wide, but the best part of the design for me was that it has a ‘flip’ at the end meaning that floodwater would be shot into the air so as not to damage the banks of the river as it would if it flowed unimpeded. I just love industrial design, massive stuff like this floats my boat, makes me feel so proud of the engineers both then and now. We got chatting to a worker there and he filled us in on some of the internal details such as the 3 lifts inside the wall and a small tunnel right at the base that he has to shimmy through every so often to check something or other. Claustrophobia on steroids I would imagine, being inside 3 million tons of concrete. A memorial names the 15 men who died working on its construction, from 1938 to 1958. We had our picnic at the excellent facility there before driving out to a nearby lookout to view the dam from the other side. On the way home I suggested that we go to Badgerys Creek and see how the new airport is coming along. It was an obvious site I think, bearing in mind that it is a flat area amid undulating country all around, rare in Sydney but everywhere in poor old Melbourne. I guess they chose it using a topographical survey as there wouldn’t have been too many areas of Sydney with that consistently flat ground. There were huge roadworks going on and then we came to the massive area of the runways, driving right around the perimeter and through the area set aside for the aerotropolis. So all in all a fascinating day as well as an enjoyable one. On the way home through Blacktown we stopped for petrol and I noticed a bedraggled middle-aged man standing there, but I was reluctant to speak to him in case he was just messy. But after paying and coming back to the car John told me he had been going through the bins, but by then he’d left and we lost him. I have felt bad ever since that I didn’t just overcome my reticence to offend him and asked if he were hungry, there was a food outlet right next door. I wish I could just learn to go with my instincts as they rarely lead me astray.

August 20, 2020

We were in PJs late today trying to establish a way to play CDs now that my player has gone to god. Worked out they will play through the TV so that’s a saviour. I could get most on YouTube but some, like my Dave Alexander compilation, were created by his friends in our folk club after his death so wouldn’t be otherwise available. Having achieved that I rescued the old shop CD player cum radio cum tape deck from the garage. The CD is RS but the tape works okay, now giving me the opportunity to play many compilation tapes that are unobtainable. Particularly I wanted this in order to play the tapes of my dad that Kenneth had copied for me. He is talking, not singing of course, but it’s the only chance I have ever had to hear him. So I am feeling quite clever, the only fail was trying to get the VCR to play, I am sure it is working, I just need a techie person to plug it in properly.

Arvind and Mala came in to get me to witness some legal documents and I washed my hands thoroughly afterwards as he had brought his own pen. Pathetic isn’t it? I am weary of all this precaution. Sent John home with a box of 6 things for Ann to try on eBay, please work as it will be the answer to my prayers. I have so much stuff because often people insisted that I take all of their goods, even if I only wanted two or three of them, so I ended up with boxes of stuff that is second hand and not really old enough to be any use to me. This is mostly what I am sorting. Also my spotters, often people who didn’t know shit from clay, used to travel to the shop with junky stuff and it was my policy to always send them home with something, even if it was $10 or $20, sort of petrol money (or sometimes train fare) so they felt as if the trip hadn’t been wasted. I miss those dear souls so much.

August 21, 2020

Up early for a change and took a drive to Erko to show Millie the new clothes I had bought for her which arrived a bit less than two days after I ordered them. She liked them all luckily and when she saw one piece with Bambi on the front she read the label and said ‘oh it’s Disney’, so she’s certainly reading well for age four. Sat in the garden and played hide and seek, blocks and listened to Dav making up stories for her. They are off this arv to Bundeena in the Royal National Park for the weekend and she chose the Bambi dress to wear going down in the car. On the way home I called in to John’s and he was waiting for Link Housing to pick up the five finished street libraries which almost fill his lounge room. Ann had been dying to give me the 10 pairs of earrings she had bought for me as a gift (for no particular reason) so I collected them from her while I was there. They are all big to huge, so she correctly homes in on my taste. I haven’t been wearing earrings for months now, but I will certainly get back to doing so as soon as going out is an option. I am jealous that the folks in the Blue Mountains look like getting snow tomorrow, I was hoping his nibs might feel like another drive but he hasn’t mentioned it, though I would go up for a few days given half a chance. PS: John is off the hook without even knowing about it because I just looked up various accommodation sites to tempt him with and there was nothing above youth hostel or really crummy hotel available for tomorrow night. All of Sydney must have had the same idea. Coincidentally I just got an email from a friend up there saying it is going to snow tomorrow and asking if we wanted to come up. I was inordinately excited until I read on and found that she’s been sick and her COVID test came back negative this morning….ah, no. Early testing is notoriously unreliable so even snow won’t get me to risk that one. Pity.

August 22, 2020

Trying (and failing) not to think about the fact that snow is thick on the ground in Katoomba and Blackheath. At 9.30 am John told me he’d seen it on the news and offered to take us for a drive up there today, but he was at home and by the time he got organised it would have meant leaving about noon, hardly the time to be tripping off to the mountains. Ridiculously I feel like crying.

Thinking about the 1976 vaccine debacle in the US and wondering why no-one has brought that up in the current discussions? In 1976, multiple recruits at Fort Dix army base in New Jersey were hospitalised with respiratory ailments arising from a swine flu virus and one died. Scientists predicted a possible pandemic and the US government made the decision to protect the public and quickly advanced the manufacture of a vaccine that, in hindsight, resulted in more injuries than it had been intended to prevent. President Gerald Ford announced an initiative to vaccinate “every man, woman, and child in the United States,” but manufacturers were nervous about the haste so Congress passed emergency legislation giving pharmaceutical manufacturers immunity from legal liability. The potential for liability was significant given the many millions of people who would be immunised, the uncertainty of the risks in a large

population and the pressure to produce a vaccine as quickly as possible. Clinical testing, which had involved only a limited number of volunteers, would not reveal rare adverse events that occur only when millions of people use a therapy. Shortly after the vaccine program began, three elderly people died after receiving the vaccine and more than 450 people who received it developed Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare and serious neurological disorder. The immunisation program was halted because, among other reasons, the swine flu pandemic never emerged. The immunisation program cost $100 million for manufacture but the US paid out more than $83 million to settle the claims for death and injury. A scary result which is never talked about these days but it surprises me greatly that it is been forgotten.

August 23, 2020

Oh my, yesterday was a shocker. First an email from the person who gifted me earrings the day before, asking if I could pay for them as she is a bit short. Since yesterday? Then later another communication: I had sent a box of 6 items home with John for her to sell online, as a money-making hobby for her and a lifeline for me to get rid of some of the goods I have in storage. But, as I should have anticipated, it proved more than a little problematic. I had provided detailed descriptions and prices in an email so they could be lifted straight into the ads. I can’t expect someone else to have the knowledge required to give ages and discuss brands. However I got a text to say that the first piece had sold, an item I’d listed for $50 which sold for $20. Thinking it was a mistake I replied that I had asked for more, but soon got the answer that she had altered the description, the age (1930s-40s) and the price, ‘because it looked modern to me’. Ah, problems coming I think. I decided to look up all the other items online but none fitting my descriptions showed up. However I did find my 4 pieces of Wade china by accident, looking under the word ‘Irish’. Why didn’t you include the word Wade I asked, ‘because it didn’t say that on the bottom’ she answered. No, it had their trademark instead. I can either demand the ads be cancelled and the goods returned or write off the $200 plus to experience, my current state of mind favours the latter. Why do I always think that people will do the reasonable thing? The noise you can hear is the connection between my head and the wall.

Today I am experiencing that empty feeling that comes with receiving emails about how much people enjoyed playing around in the snow yesterday and how it was so worth the drive up. My bucket list has a major item in bold: be in heavy falling snow for 24 hours. It followed: go to the midnight fireworks on NYE in Sydney, close enough to feel the bangs. That one was achieved a couple of years ago and so it can be happily put to bed. I enjoy seeing others having that experience now that I have had it, but the snow still evades me. Perhaps I’ve left my run too late I wonder.

August 24, 2020

Oh I am so glad to leave that problematic weekend behind me. A new week full of positivity and potential, woohoo! Thankfully I have had no more emails about earrings nor goods for sale and hopefully I get a rest from it after the constant barrage on Saturday and Sunday. Poor John had a bad weekend as well, with an out of the blue abusive text from the usual source. When are they going to put a sock in it and leave the man alone? What has it been going on, 12 years? More? Anyway he says he will take my advice and ignore it, though there’ll be another along soon I’m sure and every one cuts him as badly as the last. Positive news from the garden in that a few tiny spinach and lettuce are raising their heads above the soil, promise of a spring harvest, though still waiting on the basil.

I am currently reading The Plague by Albert Camus, published in 1947 about a plague in Algeria, and it raises just the same issues that are in play today: ‘We find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends upon us’, ‘Plagues and wars always find people unprepared’, ‘They continued with business, with making arrangements for travel and holding opinions’. COVID-19 is pretty nasty but I’d opt for it over the plague any day given the choice, with a death rate of 50-90% for the latter, up there with Ebola. Looking at it like that we are pretty lucky really, an opinion I may have had trouble with over the weekend, but it’s all about frame of mind. I’ve finished the book group novel, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, and it wasn’t what I was expecting. It was almost operatic in style, certainly with an opera’s tragic ending, but its main theme to me was not the power of music to uplift, but the power of proximity to others to allow people of totally different groupings to form bonds with each other. Whether the differences be rich/poor, educated/peasant, left/right politically, the forced closeness of living means that the people are seen in their essence, leading to some unexpected friendships and romantic pairings.

August 25, 2020

This morning at breakfast I noticed that the Japanned black legs of a Victorian occasional table seemed to be peppered with rust-coloured spots. To my horror I discovered that it was actually borers eating through the Japanning and showing the rusty coloured wood beneath. I immediately took the table outside and washed it with kerosene, the tried and true cure, but it is very difficult to get the kero into the tiny holes, a syringe being the best method. I dusted those legs only a few weeks ago and I know it was okay then, so where did the blighters come from and more importantly what else have they attacked that I don’t know about? We got away late due to this distraction so opted for a close trip, just up to Bowen Mountain park and then Kurrajong village, having our picnic on the north banks of the Hawkesbury, where we were amazed at the height of the flood debris in the trees, at least 20 feet above ground. I went into the tiny chemist in Kurrajong to ask if he’d sell me a syringe with needle and he did so without asking to inspect my arms, so I must look kosher. When we got home John loved injecting kero into all the dozens of holes in the table which is currently quarantined in the garage. At least the top is safe as it is papier mache and I don’t think they’d like the taste of the glue involved in the making. I got lucky in my decision to let things ride in the contretemps over selling some of my things online. I got a text saying that there’d been no interest so far which let me reply to the effect that returning the goods to me seems the best thing to do. Better than a fight that’s for sure but I still need to decide the best move in the earrings department. At least I can smile about it now and realise that I was never going to come out of it well, so just learn the lesson.

August 26, 2020

A worrying couple of days in terms of John’s memory. He got lost on a walk from his home along the Lane Cove River on Monday and only realised it when he noticed that ‘the water was flowing the wrong way’ so he was on the opposite bank to where he should have been with no memory of how he got there. Then last night we were having dinner and he suddenly went very strange, saying ‘I just lost a chunk of my memory’. When I asked what he meant he explained that instantaneously the whole day had disappeared in his mind and he had no recollection of what we’d done (a picnic), even after I went through it in detail. I then mentioned in a conversation the town of Bowral and he asked where it was. Near Mittagong was my answer, but he’d never heard of that either. I explained it is in the Southern Highlands, to which he replied ‘Is that up north? how would we get there from here?’ Later in the evening the memory came back and he just snapped back to normal. I am reluctant to advise a raft of medical tests as I suspect that there won’t be a treatment anyway. I’ve advised that he take an old licence with him whenever he goes on a walk in future and I will have a quiet word to Bob, who has said previously that his memory issues are probably the result of a lot of anaesthetics and drugs, which of course is why he is still here at all. I’ll ask if he is still of that view considering recent events. This old age business is a shocker, until you consider the alternative.

This morning we did a good clean of the barbecue, with John scrubbing the plates in the laundry tubs while I washed and then oiled the metal inside and out. It’s now good enough to eat from. We decided to take it easy today in the light of last night’s episode, but he has just gone for his walk armed with his licence and phone in case of a repeat. I think an afternoon of reading for him would be a good idea as he is loving the book Scarlett Feather which I pressed on him, knowing he’d be tickled pink by it. I am still loving The Plague and the similarities to Victoria are endless. ‘The increases in deaths were convincing– but not enough for the townspeople to abandon entirely that it was merely an incident, annoying of course, but nonetheless temporary. So they went on walking around the streets and sitting on the cafe terraces’. Human nature changes not. I am a bad person in that the mention of the Melbourne millionaires who evaded the lockdown and fled to the Gold Coast being taken off their yacht to quarantine in Brisbane brought a smile to my face and put a spring in my step. Yes schadenfreude is sweet sometimes.

August 27, 2020

A funny appendix to the story about trying to sell some things in partnership with a third party. I arranged for her to give the things back but when asked I said that it was up to her whether she left them up for sale or not. She did so and got some interest in one item of Wade out of a collection of four pieces advertised together. Would I sell just one? Sure why not, so a price was reached and then the issue of postage came up after our previous decision not to bother with sales that couldn’t be picked up. The lady pleaded that she was an old Irish person in country NSW and she really wanted the Wade piece so we agreed to post it at cost. Now we are only talking about a $15 item so there is nothing in it financially, but I was so pleased to get the thrill that I used to have in the shop when a person found something that meant a lot to them. It amazes me that I have gone from the depths of frustration to an intense pleasure over one of these bits and bobs from the storeroom. It has filled me with enthusiasm for the idea that lots of other things have a home if only I can find it.

I had a good laugh about the high ranking government official in the Philippines who forgot to turn off the camera after a Zoom meeting, only to begin having sex with his secretary in front of his stunned (and I suspect amused) colleagues. Neither he nor his secretary have been back to work since and the government is seeking to replace them both. It made me think of all the myriad instructions provided for a Zoom meeting of our book group tomorrow and the one thing that was missed was ‘turn off the camera if you intend to do anything you don’t want broadcast’.

August 28, 2020

Made a Lemon Slice which actually didn’t have any lemon in it at all, but had lemon icing on top, so on that basis anything with lemon icing could be so named. Anyway this was a base crust with a walnut, coconut and brown sugar topping, probably too intensely sweet with icing over a brown sugar mix, but very nice nonetheless. Not one for diabetic friends. I always feel safe with a cake or slice sitting there, waiting for a visitor to knock at the door. My aunty married a second time (to the minister who did her husband’s funeral, no less) and he was sent to Bega. There she kept one of those old-fashioned three tier aluminium cake tins marked Cake, Scones and Biscuits and her role was to keep them full for drop ins who needed to talk to her husband. It occurs to me now that doing funerals, either as a minister or celebrant, is a good hunting ground for a partner as I know another person who married a woman after being the civil celebrant at her husband’s funeral. I often joke to John that if he spoke at my funeral he could cast an elevated eye over the congregation for just this purpose.

Our book group meeting was successful and it reminded me of early meetings where the proposer spoke followed by each member in turn, uninterrupted. The mute facility actually makes that easier to do, so people get to express their view of the book without distraction. I’ve finished The Plague and it was a worthwhile read. The priest thunders from the pulpit that the plague is the wrath of god coming down on sinfulness but the good doctor, a staunch humanist and atheist, just puts one foot in front of the other, the model of scientific but humane and supportive medicine. The last paragraph is worth thinking about: ‘And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperilled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city’. Then we lost Camus to a simple old car accident. Interestingly, Camus himself is reported to have said that the most absurd way to die would be in a car accident.

August 29, 2020

Got a bit of gardening done today on a beautiful morning, putting Charlie Carp onto my peas and sweet peas as well as on the lettuces and pot plants. Michelle had asked what date I planted the peas and I was able to answer after looking at the blog, so at least it comes in good for something. Then I was surprised by a call from Mary in New Zealand, what a great friend she is. Chatted with Martyn about Robert’s condition

today, not good, but Sue is surrounded by her four daughters and has always risen enthusiastically to the sad task she has been given. Later I caught up with Carol so it was a pleasant morning in that respect. Now I have been trying to use the old tape deck from the shop in order to listen to ancient folk club and other tapes but it is touch and go, the volume is set at full but can either be quite loud or non existent at will, so there seems to be an electrical fault there somewhere.

I have been the recipient of many online survey requests lately for reasons I can’t explain, this morning a Voxpop from the ABC on coronavirus which went into lots of weird and wonderful conspiracy theories and whether or not I believed them. The usual suspects: 5G, the Chinese lab, Bill Gates wanting to microchip everyone etc. Plus lots of questions about moods such as anxiety, fear, stress etc (perhaps surprisingly I listed the answer to most questions positively at about an 8 out of a possible 10) and what my sources of information are, press, TV, internet etc. I get a regular one from Sydney University with similar questions, usually once every 3 weeks. I am not sure how I got on their lists but I don’t mind doing them, but not to be ‘in the draw for a $20 gift card’ which the Uni one amusingly offers. It acts as a counter to the conspiracy theory links I keep being sent by two of my cousins, I try to be reasonable in my responses but sometimes it’s trying…… Unfortunately there does seem to be a concerted effort to suppress information coming out of the CDC and the FDA, something I’ve never seen before. First, the FDA gave the green light to plasma therapy before it was proven effective for Covid-19. Then, the CDC changed its recommendations and said asymptomatic people with possible Covid-19 exposure do not need to get tested, presumably to keep the numbers down leading up to the US election. The advice goes against what science says about the spread, and already multiple states say they will not follow those recommendations. Please just get rid of this buffoon before he corrupts every organisation we could trust in the US.

August 30, 2020

John surprised me by saying he didn’t want to watch Insiders this morning (he refers to this ritual every Sunday as going to Mass) because he doesn’t want to hear anything about the pandemic or politics today and preferred to put some fallen tree branches into the bin, so we worked on that instead and I’ll watch it later. Unfortunately the gum is constantly dropping branches so there’s a never ending supply of wood, pity we don’t have a fire. Heather came over for morning tea and that lasted till lunchtime. Then I decided to take some photos of things I want rid of, some glass, crystal and a Pentax camera. Tried listing just one thing on Facebook Marketplace and it is sooo much quicker and easier to do than eBay that I can see why people have gone over to it. Of course you don’t get the advantage of auction running away with the price but that happens so rarely anyway that I don’t think I would bother with it unless it was something of high value where there could be really serious interest. So I put one thing on as a trial, a piece of Imperial Glass that happened to have the impressed trademark for 1920 so the age is indisputable. We shall see.

Carly had some luck yesterday. She got her cat Lola from the Canberra Street Cat Alliance, a bunch of people who trap wild cats, get them desexed and rehome them. She supports them financially and went into their big 50/50 raffle, the idea being that you get half of whatever the raffle brings in. It raised $1262, half was a tidy sum, but she decided to donate her winnings back to the organisation so I didn’t get chance

to suggest any lovely treats she could indulge in with some of the money. That will pay quite a few vet bills so it puts them in a good position to continue the work and rehome lots more Lolas.

August 31, 2020

Well there are lots of firsts to report: yesterday was the first time since last autumn that I left the doors open all day, also the first day without any form of heating, the first blowfly of the season (a black monster) and today was the first day that I haven’t worn socks. So spring has officially sprung. Kirk came this morning and did the mowing and I’ve booked him to come back next Monday to help me with cutting up the bigger tree branches for the bin, thinning out and replanting some clivias and also to use his little auger tool to dig holes deep enough for the dahlia bulbs. After he went we drove to North Head to mooch around, luckily we went when we did because later it came up very cool and blowy and we needed to decamp to Curl Curl to shelter from the southerly. Last time we were at North Head John said it would be lovely to stay at Q Station for a couple of nights and he said exactly the same this time, so perhaps it may come to pass. John’s memory came to the fore again today when he rang Steve and sang two verses of Happy Birthday, except it is next Monday, which he had already double-checked in his diary last night. The same diary where he has two Nelune appointments for his infusion, this Wednesday and the following one, but he only goes once a month. I noticed a September echocardiogram appointment at the heart specialist which was a worry too as she’d told his to come back early in the new year. However a couple of phone calls sorted that out and cancelled the phantom appointments, but he does need a diary secretary badly. I guess that’s a job for moi.

September 1, 2020

Yesterday when we went to North Head we had no idea that the 1988 murder of Scott Johnson there would be the subject of last night’s Australian Story programme. We did discuss it as we looked down over the cliffs and I said that it would be an awful long way down, knowing that only pain and death awaited you at the bottom. There are a few connections between us and the case, the main one being that Scott White, John’s upstairs neighbour and erstwhile friend, was arrested for the murder recently. John watched his arrest from his bedroom window and later from his balcony, though he had no idea why he was being taken away. John’s bedroom window featured in the coverage aired last night as they bundled Scott down the stairs. My surprise connection, which I only discovered when viewing the show, was that ex Coroner Jacquie Milledge was helping the victim’s brother navigate the NSW legal system and in convincing the police that a crime had actually been committed at all, something they steadfastly refused to believe for over 30 years. Jacquie was, and perhaps still is, a serious antiques collector and although she was never a customer we both frequented John Williams Auctions over many years and often communicated there. I remember times while she was waiting for a particular lot to come up (I was watching every lot by contrast) she would immerse herself in autopsy reports and legal paperwork and I would remind her when her lot was approaching. We always sat near the front and John Williams, apart from some other positive personality traits, was a terrible snob and sycophant who loved having ‘famous’ people on show at his sales. He would mention Jacquie by name often just in case anyone missed the fact that she was there and

was well known to him. I of course was fascinated by her autopsy reports and fantasised that one day she would say ‘I’m just going to the loo for an hour, could you please mind these reports for me’. Needless to say she guarded them closely. I found her to be smart, empathetic, tenacious and just the sort of person you would want in a coroner’s job. In an aside, the most memorable example of John Williams’ sycophantic behaviour came when a certain very elderly gentleman would arrive part way through the sale (parking his white Rolls-Royce illegally as often as not) at which point John would stop the bidding and declare loudly ‘Oh Sir Les, welcome! Please come down the front, we’ve saved a seat for you. Thankyou Sir Les, thankyou thankyou’. Of course the seat business was total BS as there were often single seats available at the front, just by chance. I often chatted to Sir Les as well and he struck me as a humble old chap who was probably mortified by the attention. He had an ill and house bound wife and took the opportunity to buy her antique treats from the sale. He once said that he had sealed off a large part of their harbourside house because there were just two of them and it saved on heating and cleaning! I could never do the networking thing, probably stupidly, so in the cases of people I met there I didn’t even give them a business card as it seemed like trying to steal business from JWA. I guess Sir Les has gone to his reward by now, as has John Williams, but the memories still exist thankfully. Last night my John asked me what his relationship with the murder accused should now be, but he is still only accused, and in any case the man of 50 isn’t the same person as the boy of 17, so I told him that and whatever he chooses to do is okay by me.

September 2, 2020

Spring must agree with me because by not long after 7 I had sent off a missive to that rotten Tony Rabbit, so angered was I at his latest opinions, to wit ‘letting the elderly die naturally’ during the pandemic. Nothing like some righteous anger to start the day off at a clip. I put the letter into the Guardian Facebook page comments as well and so far I’ve had over 20 responses including some lovely replies. Angered too by the failure of my basil seeds to germinate so I sowed the second half of the packet and if they fail I shall buy seedlings and be done with it, so there. Then on to a job that’s years and years overdue. I recently decided to bring up the old tape deck that I used in the shop so I could listen to tapes that can’t be accessed online, for example those made at folk club concerts or of people who never rose to fame. But I have oodles of old tapes and with gritted teeth I began hurling them into the bin. No one needs classical music on tape these days, nor Bob Dylan either (but I just couldn’t bring myself to toss his in case the internet crashes permanently). There were meditation tapes and the chants of Paramahansa Yogananda (didn’t we all go through the Eastern religion thing?). These ended up in the street library as they can do no harm. Next I found I had numerous unmarked tapes and lots of empty cases, none of which matched up, so they went to the bin too. Gosh it’s only a little after noon and I’ve done years worth of tossing already.

Thinking back to the days of John Williams Auctions after yesterday’s post and some of the crazy stuff that went on there over the years. I had often noticed that if I bid against a gay person or couple John could never seem to see my hand waving in the air while others could bid with a raised eyebrow. On one occasion I had called out loudly to register a bid he’d missed and later I heard him apologising to the couple that ‘I’m sorry, I had to give it to her, she was so persistent’. So I stored it away that for whatever reason he was especially keen to keep gay customers happy. He was married, as I found out when his wife rang me once to castigate me for my failure to pay the bill before taking the goods. I let her finish h

house manager as I paid him in cash last Sunday’. No apology, just a promise to look into it. But one day when I was dropping off things to sell, I couldn’t see anyone in the office so I wandered into the saleroom to see said office manager and John playing tip, chasing each other around the antique furniture and collapsing into hugs and giggles when one caught the other. I went back to the office and rang the bell. It was some years later that I read in the press that there had been a huge hoo-ha when John left his wife and harbourside apartment to live with ‘little John’ as he was known by one and all. That they were madly in love was something I had seen in that game of tip years before and managed to keep mum about. He was quite the rock star of auctioneers at this stage and often mentioned in the press. Once I was invited to John’s house, St. Kevin’s in Queen St. Woollahra, but I can’t now remember if he was personally buying something from me or I from him. It was a gorgeous place but much in need of renovation and decoration. I longed to have a go at it but was shy of suggesting it, particularly as he was married at that stage. He later sold St. Kevin’s to his friend, non other than Prime Minister Paul Keating. John had been Keating’s personal dealer for a long time, especially noted for searching for his precious clocks. I wonder if Paul used his great aesthetic prowess to decorate it? I hope so.

September 3, 2020

My dear friend Robert died at 6.10 am this morning. Vale good man, your life was worthwhile and the long queue of people you helped, both in your career as a doctor and as a friend, goes way over the hill and out of sight.

First the librarian came with six new books, including two about Trump, they know my tastes! Then a friend visited and brought figs, blackberries and a dragon fruit. I’d only seen the ones that are white inside but this one is a deep majenta. Apparently they are a form of cactus without spikes and are so beautiful inside and out. Then Heather came to the door with goodies, having made the recipe for the slice that I served to her last week, but she’d altered the walnuts to pistachios and left out the coconut so I am keen to try her version. I was able to send her home with some mandarin cake. All in all I’ve had a profitable day for lovely food, I am very spoilt. In the afternoon I went to see Bob about John’s recent memory issues and he is of the opinion that considering lymphoma, chemotherapy, heart problems, heart surgery, many anaesthetics, knee surgery, infections, a mountain of drugs and his family issues it is hardly surprising. I just needed to make sure that there wasn’t any silver bullet that I had overlooked but everything he said was as predicted. He also thinks that the loss of memory for a few hours last week could be a vascular event which blocked blood flow to a small part of the brain temporarily. I wasn’t going to tell John why I was going to Bob today but he asked why I wasn’t just getting scripts over the phone, so I explained that I wanted to make sure we were doing everything possible for him and when I got home I told him fully what Bob had said. He was cool with it and glad that there wasn’t any suggestion of yet more drugs, tests or interventions.

September 4, 2020

There are two pharmacies in Baulkham Hills, one of which I don’t use any more after I discovered at the beginning of the pandemic that the ‘anti-viral hand sanitiser’ they were selling hand over fist contained very little alcohol with a main ingredient that seemed in my searches to be okay for bacteria but not for viruses. When I asked my friend the virologist he told me ‘you would need to bath in that for a week to kill a virus’. When I spoke to the pharmacist about it she said ‘but it says on the label it’s for viruses’ totally ignoring my point, so I decided she wasn’t up to the task and stopped going there. The other has been owned for decades by the son of a once prominent local politician who has all the facial expression and charm of Melania Trump so I don’t like shopping there either. However now that my chemist’s needs are home delivered it doesn’t really matter if he’s nice to deal with or not. This morning I rang to place an order and instead got a very cheery and chatty man whom I knew would never have been hired by that owner. In the course of identifying myself I gave my age and on the spur of the moment asked how old he was: ‘I can be however old you want me to be’ was the reply. Mmm this fellow is fun I decided, so I suggested 25 would be good and he announced that was fine with him. It was the next line that made me really laugh: ‘I’m not sure what sort of line you thought you were ringing but this is the pharmacy’. I later had to send off a photo of the scripts I wanted and received back a photo of him, beaming in the dispensary with the message: ‘I have taken over this pharmacy. You are safe with me and I will always be here to give you service with a smile’! Now some would find this an odd exchange in the circumstances but I think he is over the moon to have bought his own business and is probably operating on adrenaline. Anyway it gave me a much-needed smile this morning and I won’t hesitate to shop there in person now.

September 5, 2020

Yesterday was stressful in the extreme after we decided to book somewhere to stay on the Central Coast to be nearby for Robert’s funeral and also to have the first break away for a year. As we want to do all our own catering it was a unit or house that we needed so I went to Airbnb and found a lovely unit in The Entrance. What a kerfuffle it turned out to be with the request to the property owner being misconstrued so the dates were wrong in the confirmation. Then he had trouble with the system and it took some time as he had to cancel the first booking and then rebook the correct dates. The next hurdle was that they wanted a photo of my licence which was problematic, but finally we got the booking. In the middle of all of this I got a phone call from a woman who said that she had just had a call from someone pretending to be the Taxation Department and when she called the number back to see if it was genuine she got me!! So someone is using my phone number for scams. That was the last straw yesterday. I’ve got Optus working on that now but it is very disconcerting. However a sleep last night seemed to make these mountains into molehills. One of the books the library sent was a biography of Melania Trump, mmm, not quite my thing but I am ploughing through it quickly. According to the author, a journalist who has travelled widely with her, she always knows exactly what she is in for and accepts it as the price of a life of luxury. The flowers for the wedding table decorations, each eight feet high, numbered 10,000 and were transported from New York to Florida in specially adapted refrigerated trucks. What more need I say? Except perhaps that both her sister and her parents live in Trump properties and spend a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago so it seems she’s bought a lifestyle for the whole family that would have been unimaginable in Communist Slovenia.

This post above somehow disappeared from the system and I could only recover it in this form, sigh, technology.

September 6, 2020

Interested to read Julia Baird’s piece about the lovely Jerry Falwell, erstwhile president of the Christian college Liberty University and now the recipient of US$10.5 million smackers courtesy of his severance pay due to numerous sexual and financial allegations. It is just more evidence towards my theory that the last place for women and children to be safe is with the ‘super religious’. I could give many personal examples, but I won’t, however I agree completely with Julia’s quoted assertion that ‘those who believe most strongly in taboos are likely to be most thrilled by breaking them’. Just think of Catholic priests for example! I wish I had put it in those words myself when I warned off people after they told me they had confidence in being safe with someone because they are a Christian/evangelical/youth leader or whatever. For me that is a red flag.

I am in the process of packing all the food necessary to go away tomorrow so we won’t need to shop up there, apart from any small thing I’ve forgotten. I’m packing everything from swimming togs to jumpers as the weather is forecast as changeable. The unit has no wifi though so I may not be able to blog, we shall see. I don’t think I will bother taking the computer at all.

September 7, 2020

The unit was everything we had hoped for, a lovely fresh beachy decor with views to die for. It has everything we need bar Wi-Fi for me but I’ve decided to just write some notes and put it in when I get home. We are right opposite the entrance to the lake so walking on the beach is just a matter of crossing a road. I can’t imagine a more peaceful setting in easy proximity to Sydney. I had to smile when we pulled in to The Entrance and John said “so this is where the working class have their holidays, it’s nice that they can go somewhere”. His view of the place changed once we turned off the main drag and came to the area where our unit is. When I looked around later I saw that the main street does look pretty sad with about

20% of the shops empty, but I suspect this downturn was pre-Covid. Tonight confirmed that view, I can remember when the street was really busy at night but even the ice cream parlour was shut. The two fish shops who used to do great dinner trade were both closing at 3:30 pm. It’s certainly down at heel in a commercial sense. Our first Indian meal since February was a bit of a disappointment, pretty bland with no complexity in the flavours so I will be doing all the cooking from here on in, no problems in such a well equipped kitchen.

September 8, 2020

Walked on the beach just after dawn and it truly is a delightful place to be. Took a short drive to Bateau Bay but it wasn’t pleasant walking on the beach due to the wind, so we headed home and into our books, looking out periodically at our superb view. John had just bought The Altar Boys and I browsed it but was soon committed to reading it. We had been introduced to, and had lunch with, Geoffrey and Audrey who feature prominently in the book. This was when we went to Newcastle for the Cunneen inquiry into abuse by priests and brothers in the Newcastle Maitland area, so seeing Geoffrey on the cover and reading his story right from page one made a big impression. I will say more when I’ve finished the book. No wonder the commercial part of The Entrance is so down at heel. We are in a block of six units and we are the only people here. The luxury block of three units next door is totally empty, though the spa bath on the balcony of one unit is bubbling away day and night, much to my annoyance at the waste of power. Their windows are dark tinted and I would hate that, seeing the world artificially coloured defeats the purpose surely. On the other side there appears to be one unit occupied in a block of eight. This is an area for retirees as well as holiday makers, I guess the retirees don’t have the money to spend and the holiday makers are not coming, or perhaps only at weekends. It’s lucky that we brought all our own food including baked goods because there isn’t a decent bakery here any more. They are full of iced donuts the size of teaplates and cakes with icing the colour of bile, ugh. However for our needs this place has been perfect with every piece of cooking equipment one could ask for, except that I hate the induction cooktop and even more so after trying to read the instruction book which might as well have been in Latin. Loving my own gas cooktop even more than usual.

September 9, 2020

We had a walk on the beach this morning and it started to rain just at the end of it, then we headed back for an early lunch and to tart ourselves up for Robert’s funeral. The place at Kincumber was absolutely spectacular, a deep wooded valley with a glass chapel overlooking it. It was certainly the best funeral venue I’ve seen and the man next to me was musing about how he could have his own funeral there. Sue’s brothers Steven and Martyn were in good form as ever, making their eulogies funny as well as heartfelt. We didn’t go to the wake for a few reasons, one being that there were plenty of other people whom Sue won’t get to see very often, if at all. We on the other hand will catch up with her easily. Another reason was that because of the rain it would have to be held indoors and there was obviously a lack of social distancing at the funeral and very few wore masks so we decided bearing all that in mind that we would come straight home, tonight I am feeling downhearted and not in the mood for social chitchat so I think

that confirmed the decision was the right one. Nothing worse than small talking when you are beyond sad. The thing that will always stick in my mind about Robert is the fact that he was unafraid. Whether it was climbing mountains, visiting remote places, striving for excellence in many ways, he was confident and wouldn’t let life give him no for an answer. As someone who is quite the opposite of that I found it inspiring. The other memory is that he didn’t hold back his opinion, I tire of knowing people disagree on something but watching them politely swallow their opinions for fear of offending. Robert was quite happy to make himself unpopular if he needed to, what is the point of having an opinion if you are too afraid to share it? Of course there is a time to hold one’s tongue for specific reasons, but generally I think we should have the courage of our convictions, as he had.

September 10, 2020

We did a drive over to North Entrance to show John where I spent each Christmas holiday in a tent when I was young. Then off to Toukley and Budgewoi where we found a lovely riverside park which had a bridge over to an island in the river, which we explored after a simple lunch of Jatz crackers, cheese and fruit. No sweet treats here either as looking through the bakery window brought no joy, just more psychedelic disasters a la the 1960s. Later we drove to Norah Head and wandered around the lighthouse, marvelling at the list of ships that had foundered nearby, including a couple of merchant ships sunk by the Japanese in WWII, something that was far from uncommon but suppressed during the war and then not well publicised after it. When were were at Mallacoota in Victoria a few years ago we were stunned in the little military museum to see how many ships the Japanese and even the Germans had sunk so far south. In the afternoon Stephen and Deborah came down from Newcastle and we shared food and stories into the evening. Deborah now has great trouble hearing after potent antibiotics destroyed the sensory cells, she is currently waiting for the NDIS to organise hearing aids. It was great to spend time with them, a pleasure denied recently due first to her illness and later by COVID. The barramundi I cooked on that stupid cooktop was more boiled than fried as the maximum heat is totally inadequate so if we go there again I will only use the oven. When we camped as a child everything was cooked in an electric frypan and it’s a shame they fell out of fashion as I found them a very useful appliance, making the best baked dinners ever and even cooking cakes in a separate cake tin inside.

September 11, 2020

What a load of stuff we took away, clothes for every season, funeral outfits, pillows, books, plenty of food, and it all needed loading back into the car this morning, less much of the food obviously, going down three flights of stairs each time. We arrived at Sue’s (until recently Robert and Sue’s, perhaps always Robert and Sue’s in the future?) by 10 am and stayed there chatting a while with her and Anna, the only daughter now left in residence. Sue is coming to Sydney next Thursday for an appointment and I have invited her to come and stay that night, or before and after, but I won’t mention it again and she can decide how she feels at the time. It might seem weird for her to be out in the world and have options after so long looking after Robert. On the way home John and I discussed strategies to deal with his memory loss, such as only going out for walks with his licence and phone, this was after he said that he didn’t think he should be driving

anywhere unfamiliar in future unless I am with him. His driving and reflexes are good, probably better than mine, but who knows where he would end up alone as he has no idea which way to turn when we reach an intersection that we had used just the day before. His concepts of direction are failing badly, not really having a general sense that he needs to go south for example. I hope it slows down a bit because at this rate I can’t see him being able to drive too long at all. One day at a time though, perhaps it goes in fits and starts rather than a linear progression and he’s had a recent dip so it might plateau, hopefully.

September 12, 2020

We decided that because we’ve pretty much used up all our fruit and vegetables, we would drive out to a farm at Dural which we frequent, where we can replenish without going to the shops. Denise serves there on her own and always wears a mask so we feel it is a safe option. She doesn’t have every option but enough choices that we can restock our fridges more than adequately. After that I tied up my massively grown sugar snap peas which have sadly keeled over in my absence. This was done with the aid of a wooden venetian blind slat poked through the middle and then the plant was tied to it at numerous points with cord, what would I do without venetian blind cord? It solves so many problems at this house. Next I sat my dahlia bulbs on a bed of potting mix and watered them, covered with a sheet of glass, getting ready for planting next week. Passionfruit biscuits were the remaining task as I bought a big bag of those delicious fruit from Denise. Passionfruit icing must be close to heaven I think, so I will ice them tomorrow as well. Question: Who loses weight on holiday? Answer: A person who goes to a bakery desert. After all of this I sat on the back verandah and read the Herald, while taste testing the biscuits with a cup of tea.

September 13, 2020

I watched the recorded book launch of The Altar Boys at the recommendation of Stephen, who had been there in person supporting his friend. Geoffrey’s speech was deeply affecting, especially heartfelt when he angrily mentioned Andrew Murray (John’s nephew who is a priest) in a very negative light. Both the priest and Geoffrey’s deceased brother share the first name Andrew. The priest Andrew wasn’t accused of any child abuse related matters but he does stand accused by Geoffrey of recently contacting his elderly and still grieving mother twice with two different and unrealistic explanations for the child Andrew’s death in 1974. Geoffrey believes he is still trying to absolve the church of any responsibility for his brother’s suicide and asked publicly that Andrew ‘never mention my brother’s name again’. He also read a very long list of priests, brothers and lay teachers, including school principals, who have been convicted of child abuse in Newcastle, the number was almost unbelievable. Multiply that by the many victims of each and then extend that out to their families and friends, it must affect a huge number of Newcastle’s residents. Chilling.

September 14, 2020

John watched The Altar Boys book launch this morning and I could tell by his voice that he was as deeply affected by it as I was, probably more so given the unexpected mention of a family connection. He decided to spread the video widely amongst his ex-priest mates. I have been baking again, this time cheese and walnut biscuits, and gardening, potting up some flower cuttings that came into root while we were away. Some of my dahlia bulbs are shooting too which is a good sign for the rest. The front garden is looking fine, so many white flowers out including gerberas, may bush and of course the massive Rhaphiolepis which stretches right across the front yard. I would trade a white flowered plant for any number of red ones, somehow white flowers are so soothing. I sent a photo off to Ram in India so he gets an idea where I live and got a reply back straight away. I am hoping he may send a pic so I can visualise his place. I have good memories of the guest house in Kannur where he worked but his home was some hours south on the train in Kozhikode. When I rang a few weeks ago the call was prefaced by a COVID safety message in Malayalam which apparently begins every local and overseas call. I think some of the Asian countries are way ahead of us in ideas for day to day handling of this thing. On which subject, I think Scott Morrison’s repeated bullying of the Queensland premier will go down as on a par with Tony Abbott’s appalling behaviour towards Julia Gillard. I hope female voters there will remember it in the ballot box.

September 15, 2020

Last night was the perfect example of why Robert’s confidence in life was a good influence on me. I decided to try to sell a few bits and bobs that can be posted in a normal envelope without needing to go to the PO. So I listed on Facebook Marketplace four military medallions. I got plenty of response but sold them to a chap whom I later discovered was in Malaysia. After a gap of some time occurred following putting in my bank details I decided he wasn’t a buyer at all but a scammer and was toying with warning the bank. (This because after visiting Malaysia briefly the bank rang Davina and told her that scamming is so rife there that there were cancelling all of her cards and reissuing new ones, despite no problem occurring). Now someone like Robert (or Michelle) would have assumed the best while I assumed the worst and got myself into a right tizz late at night. However he eventually sent his address and paid for the goods. Phew. It turned out he is the defence attache at the Malaysian High Commission in Canberra so I am posting them to him there. I was so relieved that I cheekily asked if a tour of the embassy was part of the deal and he replied that it was. He must have looked up my profile because he referred to me as Madam rather than Miss, later saying ‘next time you come to Malaysia Madam I will show you around like a Queen’ and I’d take him up on it too if I thought I would ever go there again. The disappointed string of men who missed out on the medallions indicates that I probably underpriced them quite a lot but as that old crook Rene Rivkin used to say ‘always leave something in a deal for the next person’ and somehow that always stuck with me. Message to self: take a deep breath, everything is usually okay.

Kirk came this morning and used his battery operated augur to dig the holes for the dahlia bulbs, also replanting some Clivias from the back yard to the front, a job that’s beyond me now because it involved consistently bending low under the tree to plant them, something that always ends up with my feeling too dizzy to continue. He gave me a price less than what I was expecting and when I insisted on giving him a higher figure he seemed bemused, but as I told him it means I can ask him to do something extra another time without feeling bad about it, so it was really a selfish move. Had two different friends pop in today so that meant the passionfruit biscuits were a helpful addition to the comestibles.

September 16, 2020

Unfortunately it seems to be a fact of life that it is the authoritarians amongst us that sign up for the police force and the military. Although they often say it is to help the public, to be of service, etc it doesn’t take much for that disciplinarian streak to emerge, something that we rarely if ever see in firies or ambos who deal with many stressful situations without resorting to violence. The current situation in some ways is a policeman’s dream, not only catching bad guys but keeping the rest of the populace in trim. I am sure I would be tempted to give some of these ‘sovereign citizens’ a whack, but I am not in the police force where turning the other cheek to verbal abuse should be part and parcel of the training. Seeing a police car running into a mentally ill man who’d waited over 24 hours for help at a hospital emergency department, then seeing colleagues pile onto him while one stomps on his head, is just the latest manifestation. Another NSW policeman who chased a woman into her garage and pulled a gun to her chest, threatening to shoot her for a minor traffic offence later handcuffed and arrested her and pepper-sprayed her dog. She has just been awarded $115,000 plus legal costs but that doesn’t get the bloke out of the force, something governments are very reluctant to do after they have invested money in their training and are also under pressure from the powerful police union. I remember meeting the mother of my daughters’ school friend who told me she was just back from Goulburn to watch her other daughter graduate as a detective. ‘I pity anyone she arrests’ she told me ‘she’s been pushing her sister and us around her whole life, so she’s perfect for the job’. Ouch. I didn’t feel as much confidence as the mother did in her being right for the job, just that she was more of the same.

My career on Facebook Marketplace has ground to a halt after the three things I listed yesterday: a wartime Japanese document, 40 various coins and some wartime Japanese and Korean banknotes were all rejected as listing because they didn’t pass a review of ‘inappropriate listings’. I appealed but apparently it broke some rule, though I am unable to find the grounds for the rejection as a reading of the rules shows no reference at all to any of the items. Each had WWII in the title so I can only assume it is something to do with that. No discussion will be entered into. Sighs. However the medallions went into the post box this arv so at least I had a win there.

September 17, 2020

I hadn’t started the book group novel as yet but having read it years ago I thought I could cheat a bit, look up my review and then perhaps speed read it. But that came to nought when I discovered I’d read it before I started reviewing. However now I have started it I remember how funny and insightful it was so I’m not regretting having to read it carefully. I think that although it was pre-Trump it delves into the mindset of people who may well have become his supporters. Just finished reading Coetzee’s Summertime, courtesy of Sue, a strange mix of novel and fictionalised autobiography in which a narrator interviews people who were important in his life in South Africa. Supposedly written after Coetzee’s death it is a very odd concept, but somehow it works.

John’s neighbour Tammy who was carted off to hospital by ambulance a few months ago with chest pain thinking she might have COVID, has died of the widespread cancer that was discovered on her admission. The lease on her flat has been transferred to her eldest daughter who can’t be more than about 18, there is no husband or male partner on the scene. She will look after her high school aged sister and a small brother with autism? intellectual disability? What a life some people get. I can’t even imagine how I would have coped with that at 18, but not well is the broad answer. The report that ‘the kids didn’t seem that upset’ says a lot about their expectation of, and resignation to, what life will hand out, rather than their feelings for their mother I suspect. I hope that social services are provided in spades, but in these times of overworked child welfare staff it may be a vain hope.

September 18, 2020

Yet another funeral today, that of Patricia, wife of John’s friend Kevin. We are tuning in via Zoom, which was invented just in time for the pandemic, it’s a wonder no-one has found a conspiracy in that. We missed Tammy’s funeral when we were away though I doubt that would have been Zoomed. Talking about conspiracy theories I think that the current push-back against the lockdown in Victoria is fuelled by a grab bag of ‘antis’, anti-vaxxers, libertarians (hiss), white supremacists, far Righters and the rest. While I have always maintained a right to breaking the law over a principle (and taking the consequences) I find it difficult to understand these protesters who seem to me to be fighting against the public good. Hasn’t anyone else noticed how quiet the far Right is at the moment? And the anti-Muslim crowd? I think they are working full time on the anti-Andrews campaign.

A nice relaxing day after all the busy-ness yesterday. Heather came over for morning tea but apart from that it was just a case of hanging about and pottering. Both the WWII banknotes and the Japanese document sold, each bring in the mid to high $20s. Now I am going to try my sets of WWI postcard sets. It was always my view when I was on ebay previously that it’s better to aim at men. If they want something they will just buy it, whereas the women are more tentative to spend. Often I was asked in the shop to write a receipt for much less than the amount paid, so I split the purchase over two receipts, one the woman threw away and one for much less money that she left lying around for the husband to see. The Trumpster seems to be worse than they are wanting to say: hospital, experimental treatments, remdesivir. From what I have previously read about that anti-viral drug in The Lancet, very early treatment substantially decreases viral titres compared with control, but this effect was completely lost when the drug was administered even 8 hours after infection. Clearly Trump was infected long before that, seeing he already has symptoms, but I guess they are throwing everything at him and seeing what sticks. My friend Tim’s GP has retired early because of having had lung cancer and feeling that he was ‘100% likely to die’ if he caught the virus from a patient, a sad end to a career of a man who

I think that we are in a dire state in the world at the moment. In my humble opinion it is partly due to the failed ideology of the supreme power of the rights of the individual over society. When Margaret Thatcher said there was no such thing as society we were all shocked and scoffed at her, but these days that idea has borne fruit. The rise of Trump, the crisis of climate change, the calamity of private aged care, the issue of

refugees, even the scourge of clerical child abuse can be linked to the idea that ‘I have a right to…….’ (lie my way to power, pollute the planet, mine coal, buy a Lamborghini with the money given to house old people, lock people up indefinitely, use that kid…. you fill in the blanks). Religions haven’t helped us avoid these pitfalls and they are, like many other institutions, afraid to make themselves unpopular by calling out the failures of the prevailing norms. The worst case of Covid in Victorian nursing homes was in the St Basil’s Home for the Aged owned by the Greek Orthodox Church. They paid more than $14 million to the church in rent in the past 5 years (apparently a vastly inflated figure and a nice little earner for the church) yet the home was run on a shoestring budget. We have all become so used to capitalism that we don’t even recognise it any more, it’s become unremarkable to us. The classic divide between the churches and science is also a big part of our current problems. Trump’s evangelical followers are only too happy to believe that climate change is a myth and Covid is a Chinese plot because scientists have been mistrusted forever as anti-biblical. Just look at that evil Darwin! I am pessimistic about our future, but there is some hope in isolated pockets. However the job of getting us out of all this is monumental and climate change won’t sit back and wait till we get our act together. As I said to a cockroach walking across my front verandah yesterday: ‘I will let you keep going because your lot will be here long after we are, just keep out of the house in the meantime’.

September 19, 2020

John slept in till after 9 this morning and I had done some watering and read the Saturday Paper cover to cover before he woke, so we were still in our jimjams at 10 having eaten tea and toast in the sun on the front verandah on a day we were led to believe would be raining heavily. Browsing the Diggers Club catalogue over breakfast I discovered a tool that I could use, a gas powered weed wand, which zaps weeds with flame instead of bending too much or using some dreaded poison. I do hate gas cylinders though and wonder if I really want to be lugging one around? But I was heartened to see that they have the South African Cape Chestnut tree available, this after I spent two years trying to find one, ringing around all the nurseries and being told they were unavailable due to the difficulties of propagating them. So I put two blueberry ash in the possie I wanted for the chestnut, grrr. Now debating whether to find another spot or just write it off. It’s a slow grower, less than 30 cm a year, so perhaps I’ve missed the boat on that one, do I have 30 years to see it to maturity? Does that matter? Still thinking.We decided to go to Castle Hill because I wanted to see in person a huge McMansion I had happened on in an ad on the net. It appeared to be painted bright fluoro pink in a sea of beige houses but the agent has clearly hyped up the colour in the photos because it is in fact a strong deep berry pink and not the garish psychedelic shade he advertised, so I think he did the sellers a disservice. The inside is apparently full bottle Versace, but I guess if you love OTT decorating but don’t have self-confidence in your talents you might go that way, trusting Versace’s taste instead of your own. Full marks for being different, though I can’t even imagine what that decor cost. Then it was time to try the Salted Honey and Tahini Biscuit recipe from the colour supplement in last week’s papers. Different would be my single word description but not in a bad way, worth doing. Tonight I am doing dinner from the paper as well, as if I don’t have a zillion recipes in my own books to try.

September 20, 2020 

Loving all the 20s in today’s date for some unknown reason. John asked what we would normally do on a wet day (hint hint) and I answered go to the movies, but as that isn’t an option we watched Rams on SBS On Demand, an Icelandic movie which is mistakenly listed as a comedy but is anything but. I really enjoyed it and it has prompted me to use this medium occasionally to feed John’s longing for the movies. In some ways it reminded me of people’s reactions to the pandemic, only in this case the disease was amongst sheep, but there’s the same range of those who follow the rules, those who are totally broken by it all and those who will go to ridiculous lengths to evade the laws, with devastating consequences in this case. I raked up under the camellia and filled the bin with dead branches, errant jasmine and more, but kept the rest, dead leaves and flowers, for mulch in the front garden but I will wait a week or two to make sure no live jasmine is cottered up in it all. So much for all the promised rain though, it barely left a puddle in the bucket I had outside. Pursuant to that, where is the ABC weather man Graham Creed these days? He’s a funny stick, always on about the weather ‘on the waters’, but still I would miss his oddness. Nothing was said about illness, holidays, death…..he just disappeared, I suspect part of the constant cost cutting measures though I may be wrong. If Graham had promised rain he would have delivered I tell myself. As long as they don’t get rid of Nate, the morning weather guy, who is like the Eveready bunny, always bursting with energy and smiles and just the ticket for that time of day. He has his quirks as well such as when any high ranking military person comes on the show and he almost faints with excitement, being ex-Navy himself. Ann has asked us to go to the Archibald Prize with her, no sorry. David asked if we wanted to go to the pub in Balmain where his crowd meets every Wednesday, no sorry. It gets so tiresome. 

September 21, 2020 

For some reason I was thinking about the years I spent attending The Philosophy School in Sydney, now known as The School of Practical Philosophy. Lessons began at Castle Hill and later as I moved up the ladder they were held at their headquarters, ‘Mahratta’ in Fox Valley Rd at Wahroonga. It was slanted almost exclusively to eastern philosophy but I still found it worthwhile, Plato, Shakespeare and Mozart and a few others got an honourable mention for reasons that escaped me. However as I went through the course for almost 3 years, I started to have my doubts. By then the class had shrunk to about half a dozen people and I would be interested to know if anyone lasted the whole 5 years. One incident sparked my skepticism at first, on the evening of a heatwave day when the wife of the deputy of the school was red-faced and stressed. She told me that Tuesdays were the days that she cleaned her mother-in-law’s house and she’d been scrubbing her floors on her hands and knees in the heat. But why not go another day I asked? Oh no she said, my husband would never allow that, it has to be Tuesday. My antennae went up then as I had noted that all of the lecturers were men and all of their wives were ‘servers’, doing the cup of tea afterwards and selling books etc. Near the end of my time with them I had a private evening lesson at the head tutor’s home and his 18 year old daughter, who was in her last week of high school, asked if she could please go out for a coffee with a couple of her school friends but it was refused point blank. Less than a year later I saw she was married to one of the tutors. I think I got out of there just in time, added to the incidences mentioned there was an unusually high linkage to the services, especially the army. Popular music was considered if not evil then strongly discouraged, there were so many clues when I look back that it was a cult of some sort and I am amazed that I stayed as long as I did. Late in the last year I was ‘received’ into the School by a visiting guru who came from India for that purpose, so I guess I am on a list somewhere as a convert to something or other. My natural inclination to not be a joiner let me down this time but I got out unscathed. 

September 22, 2020 

My attempt to sell some WWII coins, banknotes and a Japanese document of unknown purpose all failed due to some obscure rules forbidding them on Facebook Marketplace so today I did what I had said I wouldn’t do and listed them on eBay. Not that I have anything against them but I spent so much time on eBay when I was in the shop I decided I was past all that. My only intention in selling them is to get them out of my house and into a place where they will be appreciated, even if it’s into a child’s first collection, they aren’t worth much. So we shall see, I do like the fact that the auction format always gives you the chance of two or more competing buyers pushing the price up, but not on these particular items I’m sure, though my inability to read Japanese makes the document hard to value. Perhaps it’s the peace agreement in which case I am rich? Someone texted me yesterday pleased that she had sold ‘an old watch’ for $50 on Facebook and I queried whether she had researched it before listing, but no she hadn’t, replying that there are always old watches for sale in op shops for $5 so she’d done well. Yes there are, that’s why antique jewellery dealers trawl those shops, knowing that the people pricing them have no idea. Some shops appoint volunteer valuers, I did it for St. Vincent de Paul at Windsor for years, but I doubt any of them are in a position to pay a professional. She sent me pics of it belatedly and with a new band and a battery it was probably worth about $200, but that’s in a shop. However it isn’t a good idea to sell old things without doing your research as a rare one of that brand would have been worth about $4000. I once accepted an offer on eBay for a fairly ugly pottery ashtray with a crack in it and posted it the same day. I then got abusive emails from potential bidders who were watching it, one reading ‘you stupid woman, that was a rare Harvey School piece worth at least $500 damaged and you sold it for a song’. I pointed out to the buyer by email that I was now aware of what I had sold him for $25 (from memory) and he asked me to send him my ring size. In the mail I received a beautiful black diamond ring, which I still wear. It turned out he was a diamond dealer, with a guilty conscience. 

September 23, 2020 

After a minor fiddle fixing a burst hose, which reminded me of an aortic aneurysm but with less disastrous results, we headed off to the Kuringai Wildflower Garden for a planned picnic with Jane and Boris. Afterwards we went for a couple of walks there but the wildflowers were less than splendrous, in fact a couple us asked if we knew where the wildflowers were and I replied that you have to look pretty carefully to see them. Jane reported that she is getting a watering system put in which is connected to the internet and doesn’t turn on if rain is forecast. Sounds luxurious. I have been considering a flame weeder from The Diggers Club and was all set to buy it but then reminded myself that I am not that keen on gas bottles at the best of times, so lugging one around the garden may not be such a bright idea. Pity because it looked like fun. It looks as if I am the only taker for Zoom at the book group meeting later in the week so I think I will dip out, it’s hardly worth doing for one. I did casually mention to Bob that book group is now meeting in person and he immediately expressed a strong view that I shouldn’t participate, ‘not with your medical history’ he said definitively. So that’s that then. 

September 24, 2020 

Had a lovely visit from Bob and Judy from Millthorpe who have come to Sydney visiting family and called in for morning tea, my all those half cakes in the freezer come in handy. It turns out that a man a few doors up from John who has a street library is an old friend of Bob’s from school days. John had befriended him a few months back to discuss respective libraries and didn’t know the connection. That’s the third household in Mowbray Road who all have Bathurst connections as John often visits Bronwyn and Michael up the road as well, they were friends in Bathurst. B and J have a home in Melbourne as well so they packed up and bolted within hours when the lockdown happened, getting out just before the deadline. So many lives affected in so many different ways. 

Well my foray into eBay has proved successful with the coins selling immediately for $20 to a coin dealer in South Australia and now I have bids from others on both the bank notes and the mysterious Japanese document. I have a motza of stuff I could sell but I am sticking to things that can be posted in an envelope at the local post box, but with 3 out of 3 lots selling I may need to rethink that. How lovely to think that you have contributed to someone’s collection, even bearing in mind that the coin dealer says he only deals in rare coins. I am tempted to email after he gets them to ask which one/s were rare, just out of curiosity. The other good thing is that there are three of us for book group Zoom tomorrow so I get to hear what others think about the book rather than just putting in my thoughts by email. 

September 25, 2020 

More problems today with John’s memory and consciousness. He is at Lane Cove and he rang me about 11.30 am, saying he couldn’t remember what day it was and what he had done and was supposed to do today. I explained that his Link street libraries were being picked up and then he was going to work on his current library project. He replied that the five libraries had gone from the flat ‘so the man must have been this morning’ though he couldn’t remember that happening. He was very discombobulated and not sure what was happening. I offered to go down and pick him up as I didn’t think he should drive but after about half an hour on the phone he decided it was best if he just continued to do his woodwork as he thought he would feel more grounded (my word) if he could get back to what he was supposed to be doing. It fits all of the criteria of transient global amnesia but I did worry the first time that he was having a TIA or mini-stroke, which would be more problematic. Bob thought that either was a possibility when we spoke about the similar experience he had a month ago but also that it could be due to all the chemo and anaesthetics he’s had. I think I need to go and speak with him again next week now that it’s happened again. Perhaps it’s an allergy to the number 25, the date of both episodes. 

Book group went well with a discussion of Flight Behaviour by Barbara Kingsolver, a book I read when it came out, but enjoyed rereading. Her depiction of somehow being in a marriage that is all wrong resonated with me and its simple four page explainer on climate change is one of the best I’ve read for people who are not into science. Her recent book Unsheltered was similarly good, on the theme of the crumbling of American society. Friends who visited yesterday spoke of an American citizen friend who received his voting papers, along with an unexplained cheque from the US government. No, not a bribe from the Donald, surely…. 

September 26, 2020 

News out today is disturbing, that The Donald is considering Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court. She is a member of the conservative religious group People of Praise that inspired the book The Handmaid’s Tale. They are a small but extreme offshoot of the Catholic Church and believe that a wife must obey her husband in everything, even the way she votes. Both her husband’s parents and hers are members of the group and they couple met doing law at Notre Dame University. When she was questioned by the Justice Committee in 2017 about her associations, as all judicial appointments are in the US, she didn’t disclose her life long membership of the group, something that may cause her problems if she’s suggested, but the committee will need to frame their questions carefully in religious America, so as not to be seen as applying religious bias. Tough one. 

I’ve spent the morning (after the usual water and weed) trying to organise my books, particularly the unread ones that sit there month after month waiting for their turn. Often these are non-fiction but not always. Giving preference to library books because they are time limited, or book group selections, or ‘books of the moment’ such as The Altar Boys, or something loaned by a friend, these poor old neglected books keep getting pushed out of contention. Often when I finally get to them I enjoy them and wonder what’s taken me so long. Our latest book group suggestion is The Offing by Benjamin Myers, one and the same author as the book The Gallows Pole sent to me by the bro. It shits me to tears that a good writer could have been born in 1976, but there you are. Policemen and doctors and politicians are getting younger all the time, I can’t work it out. 

September 27, 2020 

We decided to do the Platypus Walk in the nearby Bidjigal Reserve and so did quite a few others it turned out. It is a loop walk with lovely rock platforms and a creek, quite up and down and worth doing. There hasn’t been a platypus there since the 1970s but it was a good walk anyway with tall timbers and plenty of birds. I discovered when we got back that the wind had carried off two pots of cuttings and blown away both the pots and the potting mix leaving the plants bare-rooted on the ground. I’ve repotted them and hope they survive as I have been having good luck striking plants lately. John decided to order a meal for us at lunch next Friday when Carly will be here. After much discussion we decided to get a banquet from Lillah, a Middle Eastern favourite at Lane Cove, but we’ve discovered that since Covid they only open for lunch on weekends, mmm that plan is now out the window. 

Well my comments yesterday about Amy Barrett are sadly relevant now. She is paradoxically pro-life regarding abortion but has participated in trials leading to the death sentence. Tony Abbott (spit) had similarly illogical views. In a dissenting opinion in 2019 Judge Barrett said she would have limited the sweep of a federal law forbidding people with felony convictions from owning guns, apparently supporting the rights of every citizen to own guns. “History does not support the proposition that felons lose their Second Amendment rights solely because of their status as felons”. Oh my, poor America. 

September 28, 2020 

Two different wins today! Firstly I had an email from Lillah yesterday saying they couldn’t do a feast on Friday because they were closed for lunch, however they suggested night time or Saturday lunch. I replied that I would think about it and shortly afterwards I got another email saying that they would in fact do the order because the chefs will be in from 11 am prepping for the evening and we could pick up from 12.30 onwards. Wahoo, that was exactly the time we had in mind as Carly is due to arrive from the train at about 1pm. So it’s all done and dusted, I can already taste the falafel and toum. This morning I was hunting in the storeroom for anything else I could list on eBay that is able to be posted in a local post box ie in an envelope. I discovered over 100 WWI era sets of postcards, mostly military, but some just greetings. They are in sets of 3 or 4, the military ones telling a story on each card, usually involving a girlfriend, a family, a doting mother or Jesus. Most are exceedingly maudlin by today’s standards but are highly collectable relics from that war, sent from Europe back to the families at home. I checked for other similar listing and there were dozens, but every one was in the UK so getting them here saves quite a bit of postage for the buyer. They have only been on a few minutes but have already got 7 interested lookers, perhaps it’s a good time for eBay with more men than average browsing the net. My Japanese document of unknown content has 64 lookers right now so we shall see. 

It seems to me that the Federal Government is using Covid-19 as an excuse to do all the things it was hoping to do anyway prior to the pandemic. Tax cuts for the rich, new gas plants, loosening of banking and credit restrictions, allowing businesses to trade while insolvent, the list goes on. Covid-19 is the lipstick on this pig, but some of us can smell the pork crackling regardless. 

September 29, 2020 

This morning I had a good chat with a street library browser who took a book plus some plant cuttings while she was here. As she left a man pulled up outside and asked from his car ‘are you Maureen? I’ve come to look at the books’ so I assumed he got my name from the street library website, but then I looked it up in curiosity and my name doesn’t appear anywhere, so I wish I had asked him now. I love these little interactions that the library provides. 

At risk of repetition, I need to once again complain that something is failing badly in the training and supervision of our police forces. After watching the video of police waking up the footballer Curtis Scott and order to handcuff, pepper spray and then taser him (for falling asleep in a park!!!) I think the arresting officers should be charged with assault with a deadly weapon. They claimed they did so to prevent the possibility of his waking up and walking onto the road, which is too ridiculous to even contemplate as an excuse. The magistrate made the point that it may have been less dangerous for him to have been hit by a car than what actually happened to him, all charges against him were dropped. Under police guidelines a taser should only be discharged ‘to protect human life, prevent actual bodily harm, or during a violent confrontation’, but officers frequently use them as a compliance tool. Police Commissioner Fullofhimself has said “I’m sympathetic to the police who had to do something with him”. Why? Since when has it beena serious offence to be fast asleep in a park, in fact why is it any offence at all? Then we come to the Victorian inquiry into the escape of COVID-19 from quarantine hotels. My suspicion a couple of weeks ago, conveyed to a friend in Melbourne who has good political contacts, was that the police were the ones who refused the job of hotel security, forcing the government to end up passing the job on to private security guards. I got a reply yesterday “I am hearing from several quarters that it is the police who refused to participate and Dan does not want to get offside with them. They can be powerful enemies and he needs them at the moment to enforce his program.” Which makes me wonder if Jenny Mikakos was thrown under the bus just because no-one wants to get into a fight with the powerful police union when so much of the response depends on them. I hope the inquiry gets to the truth but it seems everyone’s gone to ground. 

September 30, 2020 

Whenever I have prawns for dinner, which is not infrequently, I put out the heads and shells on the bird feeder and often they attract a raven. But immediately he is bombarded with native minors who don’t want the prawn heads but don’t want him to have them either. They divebomb and swoop until either he finishes or gives up, but he never retaliates. Clearly it isn’t in his nature to bite one of them, he just keeps ducking, interesting to compare the pesky minors and forbearing raven with their human counterparts. 

Talked at length by phone last night to Anne, my penfriend in West Yorkshire who doesn’t have or want a computer. We compared COVID lockdowns, apparently Melbourne has been all over the news there. Wales, Lancashire and West Yorkshire are all under the tightest regime in the UK at the moment: no visits between households, masks compulsory, spacing on transport and in shops. She commented, as has my brother, that Britons ‘wouldn’t put up with police arresting people for violations of the rules’, and as far as she can see they are not policed at all. Which brought us to discussion of our police forces, hers akin to a friendly public service of Bobbies, no guns, no tasers, and ours in my opinion following the American model of being heavily armed and aggressive. I saw a clip yesterday of US police heavily tackling a man to the roadway and then screaming at him to get up, it seemed like sport as he was standing still and offering no resistance at all in the first place. British Police can apply for arms for something like a terrorist raid but they need to justify it with a proven expectation of violence. Thinking later about my bro’s attitude to it all and I suddenly understood. He is a natural risk-taker and a natural nonconformist. How else would he have signed up for being dropped into Russia in case of war or headed off to the African jungle for six years on government business? I realise now that my entreaties to be careful were always a waste of time, that would spoil all the fun. It lets me off the hook really as if he gets the virus and dies it will be something he chose and he wouldn’t be the least bit repentant about, seeing he is always right. 

October 1, 2020 

I don’t usually write this before dawn but there’s a first time for everything. John went to St. Vincent’s yesterday for his monthly IgG infusion and a routine visit with Nada, the haematologist. Well ‘routine’ he thought. Nada was very concerned about his recent memory blackouts and wants an MRI done as soon as practicable. Then depending on the result, it’s off to either a neurologist or else a neuropsychologist. So despite Bob’s initial ‘let’s not get back on the medical merry-go-round’ approach, we are on it anyway. But to be fair the second memory blackout last Friday raised my level of concern a lot and would raise Bob’s as well if he knew about it. I decided not to consult with him in case Nada had an opinion yesterday and she sure did. Trying not to jump ahead of what we know at this point (while quietly panicking). 

But to more mundane matters, it’s a pity (but totally understandable) that Biden couldn’t find it in himself to be the adult in the room during the debate yesterday. It is impossibly difficult to deal sanely with someone like Trump. I would probably have socked him one so I can’t criticise. His invocation to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” was clearly a call to arms to the far right to be ready for action if he loses the election, but after an outcry he now says he’s never heard of them and doesn’t know who they are. How exactly can a person name a group that they’ve never heard of?? I’ve just finished a Kathy Reichs’ whodunnit, because I am interested in all things forensic science it’s a bit of light relief to read a murder mystery with some science thrown in. An interesting aside is that it focuses on a religion/cult that is ‘uber-Catholic…some sort of splinter faction that is charismatic or Pentacostal’. Sounded awfully like what I’ve been reading about the Supreme Court nominee’s mob. 

October 2, 2020 

A bit of a tumultuous day which panned out okay in the end. Carly texted from the train that she was the only person in the carriage without a mask, a four hour journey with no opening windows. She was glad to get off but then disaster struck, she left her luggage in the boot of a taxi. Immediately ringing every taxi company she could find turned up no knowledge of her suitcase and she paid cash, removing the ability to trace a card payment. She’s since tried two police stations and Central Railway Lost Property as well  but the missing suitcase is currently…..missing. Eventually she arrived at Baulko sans luggage but with her wallet and keys luckily stashed in her handbag. A hurried call to her doctor in Canberra was made to organise a prescription to be faxed to the chemist here so an irreplaceable drug could be sourced. John arrived at the same time bearing the lunch from Lillah, the most unusual dish being the Cauliflower Falafel, a whole slow-cooked and then fried baby cauliflower with a crispy falafel crust, served with hummus. It looked for all the world like a (round) piece of roast beef. Everything was delicious and a bottle of French bubbly helped it all slip down. There was enough left for our dinner and Carly and I will get another meal out of the remainder. I was spoilt with gifts, though the present and card from Danish went missing in the luggage. Seventy-three, three years past the biblical figure, who would have thought. Davina texted with the news that The Trumpster out-trumped himself and came down with Covid. I refrain from gloating or making comment, schadenfreude being such a negative emotion.  

October 3, 2020 

Methinks that they are downplaying The Trumpster’s condition just a tad. Hospital (from an abundance of caution we’re told), then experimental treatments and remdesivir. In something I read a little while back in The Lancet, early remdesivir treatment substantially decreases viral titres compared with control. But the effect was completely lost when the drug was given more than 8 hours after infection so it was only considered useful as prophylaxis or for someone who has just been knowingly exposed. Clearly Trump has well passed this time as he is apparently symptomatic, but perhaps they are throwing everything at him in the hope that something will stick. I wouldn’t like to be the doctor in that situation, everyone will remember the name of the doctor who lost a president, just as anyone in the medical community can still quote the name of the thyroid surgeon who lost Neville Wran’s voice. Still eating Lillah leftovers tonight and it feels strange not to be cooking. The library delivered 8 books on Thursday and so tonight I am reading A Very Stable Genius in honour of the patient. 

October 4, 2020 

Carly and I took ourselves off to the nearby Bidjigal Reserve to do the Platypus Track that John and I did last week, but we did it in reverse to last time. Both times I found the rise up out of the valley taxing, but at least Carly didn’t ask if I thought I should go to a cardiologist as John had. He made it easily with help no doubt from his stents, but that’s a procedure I could do without, as I plan to do without any medical interventions if I possible can. The valley was full of bird calls and full of people too but interestingly all but us and one man were going in the direction of the arrow, while we went in the direction  less travelled. Which reminds me to read some Robert Frost, something I haven’t done for ages, I always get so much out of his poems. I kept feeling last night that I had read A Very Stable Genius before, but it is just that the authors recount the same and other very similar episodes in the White House to the other books I have read. A constant litany of sackings, new appointments, more sackings, rehirings, all with monotonous regularity. The White House doctor saying about Trump back in February that “if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old” and that he was “the healthiest President ever” made me consider the details that are being released now in an even more sceptical light. QAnon on the other hand is saying that he doesn’t have the virus at all, it is all part of his devilishly clever plan to expose Hillary Clinton’s paedophile cult, we shall see about that one. In any event, coronavirus could not have visited a more deserving host. 

October 5, 2020 

Davina, Louis and Millie arrived mid morning with a giant lime meringue tart from The Grounds, plus flowers, a cheese platter and some dried cornflower petals for baking. Cooking and food has featured high on the birthday present list with Carly giving me a huge box full of Spicy Sauce Co. spices and meal bases and some wonderful passionfruit fudge and Heather giving me a cake tin (for storage) and a unique slice-baking tin which expands according to the size needed. John broke the mould, giving me a big heavy box which contained an amplifier to enable me to listen to music and DVDs through my quality speakers. These had been out of use all year since my old CD player/amplifier died and went to electronic recycle heaven. Being totally inept about such things it needed to be explained to me before I mistakenly tried to push bread into it to make toast, but now it is up and happening and Leonard Cohen has never sounded so good. I am told that this is old technology, everyone gets their music through a computer these days, but the sound just doesn’t compete. Can’t wait to try some cello. For lunch I made Bobotie with rice and a salad using my own lettuces with edible flowers that Heather dropped over a few days ago, followed of course by the lime tart. The afternoon news that Trump had insisted on going out for a drive just confirms, if ever that were needed, that the man has no internal life at all, his view of himself is just a mirror reflected back by those who love him, and without that he is nothing in his own eyes. If it were not so serious it would be sad. 

October 6, 2020 

We sorted a few things like John’s car rego, getting the pink slip done okay but he couldn’t remember if he had paid the related insurance, nor whether he had received an account for it. Checking with the NRMA revealed it was unpaid and that was rectified. We are still waiting nearly a week on for an MRI appointment so he rang St. V’s and was told that the request from Nada was marked Urgent yet so far the doctors who triage and rank the appointments haven’t considered John’s. She was very surprised by this and promised to talk to them and ring back, however by the day’s end she hadn’t, so I tried and got a similar response from another lady who again promised to speak to the doctors and ring back, a call I am waiting on as I write. He is a bit confused by it all and keeps asking whether it has been sorted yet and if we have an appointment so I hope she rings soon. The place seems so quiet after having had Carly here since last Friday and everyone here yesterday. She didn’t get her suitcase back and considering physics tells us that matter can’t be destroyed I can’t help wondering where exactly it is. Is someone in the surf at Bondi in her swimsuit? Wearing her undies in the city? Using my birthday present from Danish, whatever that was?  Oh dear, just got a call from Myra at St. V’s to say that John has been deemed urgent for the MRI but she can’t tell us when he will ‘get to the top of the urgent pile’. Which is fair enough, as long as they keep us in the loop. 

October 7, 2020 

John got a call from St. Vs to say that his appointment is on October 26, hardly an urgent timeframe but of course we can’t judge without knowledge of the urgency of others in the queue. He has given the date to Nada’s nurse and if she isn’t happy with the date she will no doubt intervene, otherwise the 26th it is. Today has been a day of invitations. First Carol for a cuppa next week, then Arvind for dinner on Saturday night, then Stephen and Deborah for a picnic at Somersby on Saturday week. Keepem comin is all I can say. I’ve had to put off an answer to Arvind until we see when John’s meetup with his grandchildren is happening but hopefully that will be sorted by this afternoon. He has finished the latest street library project today and that clears the decks of his carpentry obligations. I have been busy letter writing today, one to the Diggers Club magazine about an interesting article last month, a few to various newspapers about the budget and the nonsensical (in my view) decision to focus on tax cuts for those with a job and more likely to save than spend their winnings, as against giving it to those on the lowest rung of the ladder who would no doubt spend every sou. I have a bad run of letter publications lately, the local newspapers were my best bet but they are all suspended. My morning reading today focussed on Trump (surprise, surprise, but why do I torture myself?) and the comment by a woman who reported being in the room when Trump asked the doctors whether COVID is really worse than the flu? YES !! they replied, much more contagious and much more deadly, so he then put out a message denying both of those facts. 

October 8, 2020 

As I have recorded previously for some reason I get a number of regular surveys about COVID to fill in. The one from Sydney University Health Sciences is about precautions, mood, activities, eating, drinking, exercise etc and another from the Sydney Morning Herald which landed yesterday questioned things to do with the recent government budget as well as changes in activities over the last month, such as whether you are dining in restaurants, going to supermarkets etc. Most of these are tick box answers but the last question was one to fill in. It was the general question ‘what are you feeling optimistic about?’ Um, I struggled to find something, mentally scrolling through things like the future for my children and granddaughter, seeing my brother, small personal hopes like having a holiday or being able to go to the theatre again or to dine out, getting back int0 my routine of life, government policies, seeing Trump defeated, climate change…..all of them are things I wish would turn out okay, but I realised that none of them am I ‘hopeful or optimistic’ about. After trying to come up with something positive I ended up with three words ‘Not a lot’. 

We have sorted out our weekend plans, dinner with Arvind and Mala Saturday night, then Sunday to Cranebrook to meet up with John’s grandchildren at Dan’s mother’s place, ‘neutral ground’ as she describes it. I sent Arvind a text last night reminding him that Castle Towers is a hotspot again but this morning when I was working in the garden he popped over to tell me that he had dropped his phone last night and had been to Apple this morning to try to get it fixed. ‘Not at Castle Towers I hope’, said I. ‘Yes of course why not?’ said he. Of course, he didn’t get the text. ‘Oh so that’s why it was so deserted’ he commented. Now it is settled that John’s test is definitely not till the 26th, he is hankering to get the latest street library installed before then, so I will have a look see if there is somewhere we can rent down there for a couple of days. Sun and fun would go down nicely at the moment. 

October 9, 2020 

Spent yesterday afternoon with Sue who came down for a visit. She declined the offer to stay overnight but said she wants to do that soon. Today I managed to get three barrow loads of mulch spread on the front garden, something I’ve been wanting to do for a while and the end point of all the weeding. Then John decided that he really wanted to get the Bundeena street library installed asap, so he rang Bill and next week suited them. As we’d previously discussed, we will make it a little holiday so I got on to the computer and found a studio apartment under a private home that has a gate opening directly onto the beach. It is at the end of a dead end street meeting up with the National Park, exactly where the walks begin in that area, so it’s the best of both worlds, beach and bush and only 5 minutes walk from Fran and Bill’s. It will be good to be in such a natural location rather than near the town and ferry end of the place. It looks very small but location, location, location. 

I was appalled, but not surprised, to read about the white supremacist plot to capture and kill the Michigan Governor. It takes a level of bravery for the FBI officer to get mixed up with men like that, all the while taping them, when one slipup could mean death. I don’t know how she will continue her career, forever looking over her shoulder for the next bunch of crazies that perhaps the FBI weren’t lucky enough to be made aware of. There seems to be no shortage of them and I can’t see that altering, no matter who wins the election. 

October 10, 2020 

Going to dinner tonight with Arvind and Mala next door and looking forward to genuine Indian home cooking. They eat no sugar, repeat NO sugar at all, and hate Bengali cooking because they apparently put sweet stuff in their curries. I have told them in the past that the one thing wrong with them as neighbours is that I can’t pass still warm biscuits over the fence. So what to take? Arvind already refused wine as he likes his merlot and I had offered from the cellar (okay the pull-out wine storage under the meatsafe) a choice of cab sav, shiraz, chardonnay or French Champagne, but no he wants to stick to his merlot. A fruit basket seemed the best as I am not sure if they like cheese, so I have just finished digging out a basket from the storeroom and filling it with a fruit selection. The storeroom always offers up such things as a basket, it has its uses. Tomorrow’s picnic meeting at Lyn’s to see John’s grandchildren is off, Lyn rang to tell John that the kids have friends visiting their area tomorrow and want to stay home for them instead. That actually gives me time tomorrow to bake something to take to Bundeena so it’s not all bad, but John is naturally disappointed. Covid cases are hovering around our beat, Castle Towers earlier in the week and now a nurse at St. Vincent’s Hospital. Three months ago when cases were popping up everywhere I instructed John not to take off his mask during the three or so hours it takes for his monthly infusion. A nurse told him ‘take that mask off, you’re in a hospital, you won’t get Covid here, we are all too careful’. I was cross that he obeyed her instruction and would be interested to now hear her view on the infected nurse situation. No-one is immune and a hospital seems to me to be logically one of the most dangerous situations of all. I am glad that it is two weeks before John needs to go back there and I shall superglue the mask to his face. 

October 11, 2020 

Wowsers, how it makes one feel human to put on a dress for the first time since March and wear fancy earrings and perfume, even if it is only to go next door. Mala cooked up a storm of butter chicken, lamb rogan josh, a vege dish, rice and salad. If that family had moved in 20 years ago my daughters would have been agog over the fence at their two tall, dark and