Autumn --- and a Fall

 

Sunday, after church I had coffee in the church hall and bought a few jars of homemade jam.  As I walked back to the car a breeze came up and started blowing Autumn leaves around.  They are a problem for gardeners and streetsweepers I guess, but I don't mind them.  In fact I like them as a visible reminder of the change of seasons.

Tuesday 11th May

Croquet on Tuesday afternoon this week must have been a record for this year.  We had 18 people playing today, the most for quite a while.  As usual I played a very mediocre game in the first round, then after the coffee break I improved a bit.

You could say more or less the same about the Quiz Night too.  We kept up a reasonable standard through most of the rounds (aside from only scoring four points in Pot Luck) and ended up in a tie for third with 82 points among the nine teams playing.  The winners powered home with a startling 97 points, the sort of score you get across the river.

Recently I was asked to  lunch at Edith's place, a function attended by about twenty people to celebrate Gill's birthday.  I was not expecting to find myself the centre of attention, but that's what happened when I disappeared in the middle of the meal.

I went to stand up, pushing my chair backwards.  What I didn't notice was that the rear legs got caught on the carpet and when I went to step back I vanished under the table -- still seated in the chair but horizontal rather than vertical.  Fortunately Alistair was at the next table and quickly helped me to my feet, but I spent the next hour reassuring other guests that I hadn't been hurt.  (And since this was a Presbyterian function, I had had nothing stronger than orange juice!)

Keith Curtis has longer legs than I do, so I was a few minutes behind him when we went into the Salvation Army store.  He was standing by the DVD shelf and said "Do you want these?", handing me the entire four seasons of BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, both seasons of BATMAN BEYOND and the first two seasons of SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES.  Whoo !   (Now to find season 3 of BATMAN BEYOND,  SEASON 3 of SUPERMAN.)

Wednesday 18th May 

That was a bit tiring.  I started out the day doing a pratfall when I walked out the back door to greet a friend who was bringing over some hay.  Not concentrating on where my feet were going, I sat down hard on my backside.  But, as they say in the classics, nothing was damaged but my dignity. 

Then drove to Sandy Bay and back for the afternoon Bible study, taking care to choose a nice well-padded armchair. 

In the evening I was invited next door for a seafood dinner and the screening of ANNA KARENINA starring Keira Knightey. Salmon with Pink Eye potatoes and home-grown tomatoes.  The DVD looked spectacular, but two hours of Tolstoy left me a bit overwhelmed  (maybe if would have been more comprehensible if I'd had the courage to ask them to turn on the captions).

Thursday 19th May 

I felt really tired and sluggish this morning.  No breakfast as I had to fast before my quarterly blood test.  While I was serving up toast and coffee afterwards, Keith phoned to ask me to lunch and a trip to the  Salvation Army store;  fortunately I had time for two cups of coffee before I had to meet him.  And by a turn of good luck it was discount day for Senior Citizens at the Salvo store.  I think both of us  easily qualified.

 2009 haiku to his EFTPOS card: 

Those glowing letters 

bring an end to your shopping 

"Insufficient Funds."

Sunday 11th April
Alternating sunny and showers, the usual indicator that it is snowing somewhere.
Nick is back from Sydney Bible College and preached at this morning's service.  While they have certainly trained him to preach an effective sermon, I was a little surprised that it also includes a Powerpoint display, something I hadn't seen for a long time.  I usually prefer to concentrate on the words of the sermon rather than being distracted by illustrative pictures flashed up on the wall behind the person preaching.

Tuesday 13th April
The Three Musketeers assembled for the pub quiz tonight.  We did fairly well  [got the puzzle question on the second clue] but there were eleven teams playing and we ended up in fifth place with 77 points. The winners Jam Bag scored 92 points.   Minerva's Disciples came in tenth place.  No sports round though there were a few sports questions here and there.

Wednesday 14th April
For reasons too tedious to enumerate,  some of the quiz team have started going across the river to the Beltana Hotel's quiz night.  I was invited to join them tonight, so thought I would give it a go.
Suze gave me a lift over, probably aware that I didn't like driving at night outside my own suburb.  Noisier than my favorite venue, and a very competitive crowd  --  I once worked out that the maximum score possible in this quiz was 110 points, and there were teams regularly scoring over 90 points!  It made our 75 points look quite slack.
I was amused when we arrived and a car drove in just after us, stopped and seemed to be waiting for us.  It turned out to  be Kate, the quiz-master at the Tuesday night quiz.  She was filling in for the Wednesday night MC and was a bit surprised to see us there.  "At least you'll have a couple of familiar faces in the audience," I told her reassuringly.

Thursday 15th April
Slept a bit better last night.   During the last few days I had been waking up every couple of hours then going back to sleep.  Not only was it difficult to wake up when it was time to get out of bed, but  had little bits of two or three dreams all mixed up in my head.  A bit distracting.

One of my neighbors asked if I could get her a DVD of the movie of ANNA KARENINA, and I'd located a copy in a store in Queensland.  It was on sale, so the movie actually cost less than the postage.   It arrived yesterday.  Having to go to the pharmacy,  I called in at the Salvation Army store on the way and what should I find but a copy of the 1948 version with Vivien Leigh.  So now my neighbors can have a choice of color or black & white!

20th April
Tuesday there was a string of things to be done.  Appointment with my psychologist in the morning;  I keep forgetting this is a consultation not a conversation and go off on a tangent discussing various topics.   After lunch I had to see my GP about my physical health and got rained on while walking up to his office, not an  ideal situation  --  but he said I didn't need any more antibiotics, just let nature take its course.  And I have to wait till I am healthy before I get this year's flu shot.

This week's quiz night there were ten teams in the running, and [despite my having an Irish Coffee for stimulation] we finished just out of the money in third place despite getting a perfect score on a bonus round for Art & Literature.  The winners came home with 92 points as against our score of 82

Last week I participated in three quiz nights in four days.  A personal best  -  or worst, I'm not sure.  The third quiz was the annual Alliance Francaise fund-raiser, which presents some difficulties in that the questions are all in French and our table has to wait for them to be translated for us  (although I took a look at the question sheet and it was surprising how many of them I could sort of read --  my schoolboy French lessons were about fifty years ago).   The big question as we got closer to the end was whether we could drag ourselves across the finishing line in front of the French-speaking tables.  As it turned out ...  we could.   We came home with some badges commemorating our win and a cheese bowl for each of us  (how French).

Thursday 22nd April
Long lunch at the Crescent  --  in at 12.30, out at 3 p.m.   A lot of Michele's friends were there, leaving me as the only male with six ladies  :)  We had a great lunch with lots of bubbly and conversation.  And the restaurant was so warm and comfortable that my cold completely dried up for a couple of hours.  Someone started discussing politics at one point but Michele quickly quashed it;  "I think we'll talk about something else now."
Strange but true, there were two of us there who celebrate our birthday on Sunday.

Sunday 25th April
Traffic unusually heavy after church, probably due to Anzac Day commemorations.  Lunch for  my birthday lacked a couple of the guests due to various circumstances but we had a pleasant meal, including a hug from Marcella  (those of you who know Marcella will probably agree that's as good as any birthday present).  Then afternoon tea with lashings of cake and chocolate brownies.
While I was debating whether or not to have a nap later, I dozed off in my armchair and might still be there if I hadn't received a text message from a well-wisher about 7 pm.

Wednesday 28th April
Leon Compton's morning show on ABC radio came from just around the corner in Main Road, Moonah.  Resisted the temptation to get up and take a look.
Fine and sunny again, somewhat surprisingly.  I ate lunch in the garden while listening to the RNIB webcast of SUNSET MELODIES.  The sort of idyllic experience that winter will soon put an end to!

I'd almost swear the quiz questions are harder over the river.  Tonight we came 6th out of 9 teams with 70 points.  The winners powered home with 89 points.   However we did get 9/10 in music which was amazing for us!

My Kindle tells me I am 60% through SWANN'S WAY.   Only 6.4 books to go.

Friday 30th April

Keith is busy tomorrow so we had a look at the Salvo store today instead of Saturday.  The only problem was that when I dropped Keith off back at his place it was right on the Friday evening rush hour.  I sat by the side of the highway for 45 minutes before I could get into the traffic.  Checked Facebook on my phone, listened to the weather forecast on the car radio, watched helicopters landing on the hospital's helipad.  

I don't mind being behind the wheel except after dark, when it's raining, at rush hour, going uphill or down dale.  Or when I'm being blinded by other people's headlights.

Listened to the radio play "The Castle of Otranto" based on the book by Horace Walpole first published in 1764. Generally regarded as the first gothic novel, it merged medievalism and terror in a style that has endured ever since.  To a modern listener the story seems to have an over-abundance of ghosts, curses and other such melodrama.  The romantic complications of the two young princesses are more intriguing in their semi-Shakespearean style.

Tuesday May 4th.  

V for Victory today.  
At the Croquet Club this afternoon they announced that this year the New Town Club had won two out of the three divisions in the Hobart Pennant championship.  First time this century I think.   Then this evening our team at the quiz night in Moonah had our first win for months, squeaking into first place by a single point.  Just as well we got the puzzle question on the first clue, bringing us an extra ten points.

Wednesday May 5th
Traffic a bit heavy when I drove down to Sandy Bay for the Connect Group meeting.  I might have been on time except I wasted ten minutes looking for my Bible.  The goatherd called in just after I reached home, muttering about the traffic on the bridge.
Fortunately I wasn't driving when we drove across the river to the quiz this evening.   Things weren't as noisy as last week and we did pretty well, though we finished fifth.  And the mushroom fettuccine was delicious.

Thursday May 6th

Nostalgia is inescapable when you get to my age.  Walking back to the bus stop after the monthly meeting in the church hall,  I noticed that the Dome Restaurant in the mall has closed.  That's a shame,  I thought, remembering all the times I had eaten there, alone or with family and friends.  The memory that was most vivid was the strange "whispering gallery" phenomenon when you went to the washroom downstairs.  By some quirk of architecture, the sounds from the upper floor of the restaurant were funneled down into the lower level.  This meant that when you came out of the washroom, there was a momentary disconnect between what you saw (a room full of empty tables) and what you heard (the hubbub of a room filled with people eating and talking);  very Twilight Zone feeling.