Sunday, July 02, 2006

winter wears on

The hens stop laying. The lawns are white with frost. For a couple of hours the sun shines then darkness descends.

It must be the winter solstice.

June and July in Tasmania are the depth of winter. "As the days lengthen, the cold does strengthen," says the old proverb.

A few ginkgo biloba tablets help keep the chilblains at bay, but I feel like my car – a few dents, slow to start in the mornings and not much charge left in the battery.


The end of the month was a tiring couple of days. For the second Thursday in a row, the photocopier broke down at the vital moment. Very aggravating indeed.

My sister complained that I'm not assertive enough when making complaints. It's just not in my nature to say "Get your **** down here and fix this **** machine before I **** !"

The next morning was icy cold - only 1º in the Celsius scale, which is about 34º in the old scale. I waited by the phone until they rang and made an appointment to fix the machine. A little while after that, just as my sister was starting breakfast, another phone call. "Julie, it's Coralie. Are you still coming round for lunch?" "Aaaaagh!" she said and ran out of the room.

So she went flying off while I donned my galoshes and traipsed around her place feeding the animals. I didn't have much time to spare but I got through everything (except nursing the cats - "there's a time and place for everything" I told them).

Arrived at the office two minutes before the service van. They spent almost 2½ hours pulling the machine to pieces, testing it then pulling it to pieces again.

Finally they announced there seemed to be some gears that weren't meshing. That sounded reasonable. The next time they put the machine back together it actually worked.

And it only took them ten days.

So I did the weekend photocopying and (when my back stopped aching) drove home and made myself a sandwich and a mug of hot chocolate. That last item may have been a mistake, since I felt so tired and sleepy I almost dozed off in my chair.

That night was the monthly concert at the Moonah Arts Centre but the last thing I felt like was dragging myself out on a winter's evening. Where's the listing to see what's on... Hmmm, 15th century choral music. I can live without that.

Saturday morning I was so tired it took me a long time to drag myself out of bed. I had to urge Julie into action - she had another lunch appointment. We fed her animals and raced back so she wouldn't be late. This just gave me time to snatch a cup of coffee and be ready for a visit from Kay and Chris who drop around every second Saturday.

I'm always tired lately. Every day of every week. I seem to be constantly struggling through the quagmire that is everyday living.

Of course it doesn't help that I haven't had a holiday since 1989.



There are all sorts of things available for free on the internet, including music. I've got to say that Accuradio has a truly amazing range of music available for free listening.

There are 24 main channels, and each one has between three and thirty sub-channels. There's even a sub-channel devoted just to all the different versions of "White Christmas" !

If you can't find something to interest you here, you're very hard to please.






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