beware the eyes of winter

Tuesday 3rd August  
Another busy day at the Croquet Club, with 19 playing this afternoon.   I had two games, losing 6-7 and 2-7.  The trend continued at the Tuesday quiz night, where we had trouble answering the puzzle question till the sixth round, and difficulties with most of the regular rounds.  We  ended up in seventh place with 77 points.  Kate the quizmaster was disappointed before the start because they'd moved our table away from its prime position next to her;  we were disappointed at the end when the scores were given out.  We must do better next week;  we couldn't do worse, surely!
Wednesday night we started off with a bang, solving the puzzle question on the first clue -- we were  in third place at half-time.   We didn't quite keep up the pace in the second half and our 79 points only got us into sixth place.  Those brainiacs at the Don Quizote table romped home with 98 points out of a possible 110.

Friday 6th August
Cataract surgery in three weeks.  The strange thing is that now I have accepted my eye problems, I feel that suddenly my sight is much worse than it was last month.  Maybe my mind has been suppressing my problems until I accepted them.  I remember that many years ago my sister Julie was told she should wear glasses.  She got glasses but seldom wore them, almost as though she overcame it by willpower.  She did make an exception for live theatre, where she would use a pair of fold-up binocuars that I think were made for sports fans to carry in their pockets.

Monday 9th August
I don't get into the city that often this year, so today after I'd taken care of a couple of errands I took a stroll around.  (I had hoped to find the new Teresa Ashby paperback but no luck)  It was surprising how many of the shops in the central block were now closing at 3 pm  --  when I was a youngs,ter the whole city centre was open till 6 o'clock.  But that was a long time ago.
Tonight's MARPLE episode on TV was "Towards Zero", which I didn't bother watching all the way through.  I recall seeing it at the Playhouse Theatre in 1971.  And I have seen the television version more recently than that.

Tuesday 10th August
Croquet goes from strength to strength lately.  This afternoon we had 24 players which meant we had the maximum number of people on the three lawns  (unless we brought out the third color balls, something that rarely happens).  That's the biggest crowd I can remember seeing on a Tuesday.  
By the time I walked to the club, played croquet for two hours then walked home,  I decided I needed to rest for a while before this evening's quiz.
When I felt able to walk as far as the pub quiz, I set off at a steady pace and actually arrived before the team members who were driving there.  We set our minds to the questions, and managed to work out most of them, although the puzzle question demonstrated how little we knew about Madagascar.  Our 75 points put us in fourth place, while those perennial prizewinners Jam Bag romped in with 90 points.  (And thanks to Caroline for giving me a lift home.)
The Wednesday night quiz, however, saw us sneak into second place with 81 points, behind those brain-boxes next door at the Barnstoneworth table who hit the front with 91 points.   

I'm still shaking my head over the question about best-sellers by living authors;  who would have thought Danielle Steele had sold more books than J.K. Rowling?

Wednesday 11th August
Wet and windy this afternoon.  I had been thinking of checking out newsgents in the northern suburbs to see if I could. find that new novel by Teresa Ashby.  Instead I stayed home and did some serious googling.  I ended up finding the book was available from a web site in the UK, though it cost me three times what I would have paid if I had just walked into a shop and picked it up from the shelf.  There's a cloud to every silver lining.  

According to philosopher Alain de Botton, the news of our times is predominantly an agent of confusion, envy, purposeless excitement and needless terror.
We're still among the first generations ever to have had access to news on the current scale and we're struggling to make sense of the deluge of information.
In a wiser, more mature society, we'd still engage with the news on a daily basis; but we'd have clearer and more ambitious ideas about what we needed it for.   
 Amen to that.  Similar ideas seem to have been on the mind of radio presenter Sabra Lane at the ABC. After a long time with AM (thirty minutes of bad news every weekday morning) she has branched out to publish a weekly newsletter The Bright Side which will give the public constructive and edifying news items and links.  About time somebody did this.
 
Sunday 15th August  
A wild morning.  I set off for church on Sunday morning, hoping the gale-force winds would ease off but nope.  When I got halfway up Macquarie Street, I could hardly make any progress walking into the wind.  One particularly strong gust blew off my good waterproof cap and sent it cartwheeling down the street;  I hope whoever finds it gives it a good home.  Fortunately a passing good samaritan stopped and insisted on giving me a lift.  In a typical Hobart circumstance,  it turns out her mother is the friend of a friend!
After a birthday lunch for a friend from church, someone gave me a lift home and I stayed in the rest of the day, listening to non-stop rain and wind outside.  Spring is coming, but not yet.

In Memory Still Green

 Word for today is Semaglutide. Tuesday I started on a different medication for my diabetes, the first injectable drug I've used in years.  The difference is that this is a once-a-week dose so I don't need to worry about injecting myself in restaurants before dinner.  (It sounds unbelievable but you do get used to doing it.).  I shall be interested to see what the effect on my blood glucose levels is over the first week.   Semaglutide is sold under the trade name Ozempic, a made-up word that at least you can pronounce.

Didn't really expect there to be many people at the Croquet Club today -- the weather forecast said there might be snow down to 500m tonight -- but there were ten of us there and the conditions were better than I expected.  It rained on us for five minutes during the first game, but by the end of the second game we could actually see our shadows.  And I was playing much better than I have recently  --  we won 7-2 and lost 5-7.  So there , Ms Optometrist !

Four of us at the Tuesday night quiz and we didn't do so bad.  We put our heads together and came up with some answers to questions we initially thought we didn't know.  There was a bit of muttering about "Which Australian capital is known as The Emerald City", but I insisted it was Sydney because I had seen David Williamson's play of the same name.  86 points put us into third place, while Jambag won with 92 points.    Watch out next week !

Tuesday night was the last time I'll be behind the wheel for quite a while.  My doctor sent me to the optometrist and she sent me to the eye specialist.  I have a cataract in my right eye and there's one developing in my left eye.  The car isn't up on blocks but it might as well be;  legally I can only drive it up and down the driveway.   Not much of a surprise, I've been aware for a while that the vision in my right eye was deteriorating.  Mind you, I can still hit a croquet ball through the hoop from ten feet away but that may be muscle memory rather than keen vision.
But it will mean quite an alteration to my routine.  I don't see the eye surgeon for another two weeks, so who knows when I'll be able to have the operation?

July 22nd
The Friday Lunch Club, for various reasons, met on a Thursday this month.  Eight of us got together at the Black Buffalo Hotel for lunch, champagne and gossip.  I was the only man present this month, but that didn't worry me.  A choice of seven ladies to chat to?  Nothing wrong with that.

Walking back to North Hobart to catch the bus home,  I stopped at the State Cinema's coffee shop for some afternoon tea.  Looking at the film posters, I thought "Why don't I go to the movies?".  I haven't been to the cinema for about 18 months, so I bought a ticket for BLACK WIDOW.
An intense spy drama rather than a superhero movie, but with enough explosions and battles in the final reel to satisfy the younger audiences.  Not having seen any of the MCU spin-offs, I was surprised when a certain well-known actress turned up in the post-credits scene reprising her role as ...  sorry, spoilers.  And I was amused by a throwaway line referring to the Crimson Dynamo, who I remember reading about in Marvel Comics back in 1963.

And thanks to my brother-in-law Gene who posted on Facebook reminding us all that it was four years since we lost my sister Julie.  I knew her for her whole life, from when she was a newborn in her crib to when she was lying there quiet and pale on her deathbed.  She still comes to me in dreams and until I awake, it seems quite natural that she should be with me.
 
July 23rd
Having your driving licence suspended would be as bad as lockdown for many people.  But it can actually be a way of lowering stress.  Friday I fed the poultry and had breakfast, then checked my e-mail.  Hotmail is so slow on my laptop that it's hard not to close your eyes for a while when you are waiting for each page to load.  Did I actually go to sleep -- who knows.
After lunch I took a twenty minute walk to the nearest convenience store, at the local servo.  Picked up a few bits and pieces, bread milk newspaper, then strolled home.  It was close to dusk and the evening rush was starting.   I watched them streaming past and wasn't sorry not to be on the road.

July 25th
I sat there watching the seagull use the pedestrian crossing.  After leaving church, I had to go through the middle of the city so I stopped for a salmon brioche at the Jamaica Mist restaurant.  I had a few minutes before the next bus home so I sat there and watched a seagull walking back and forth, glaring at the people at the bus stop every now and then.  I assume he was disgruntled because nobody was eating.

July 26th  💥
TRIGGER WARNING.   You probably don't need to read this bit.  Just scroll on past, or go to another page.

Maybe it's just a bad case of Mondayitis.  I spent the day at home alone.  My dinner with friends was cancelled when she was carted off in an ambulance.  Nothing in the post but bills.  The high point of the day was getting to watch the 1965 movie THE FACE OF FU MANCHU on afternoon television.    But it was more than that.

In the back of my mind, sitting there like a smoke alarm about to go off, was the significance of today's date.  Four years ago I sat by my sister Julie's death bed and watched her breathe her last.  It took a long time;  her brain had given up but her body took a while to get the idea.  Her husband and her best friend were there.  I don't think any of us coped too well at that moment.

It was a day I never thought would come.  She was three years younger than me, and I always assumed that I would die before she did.  I just hoped that it would be quick and she wouldn't be saddled with any unnecessary grief.   How little we know about what the future holds for us.

After a while I realized I wasn't doing so well, and my doctor referred me to somebody who helped me get through it.  I'm mostly okay now,  but sometimes it just catches up with you.

And that's the way it was,  July 26th 2021.

Julie in the garden, summer of 2014

Tuesday July 27th some supportive friends invited me up to their farm for the day.  Peace and quiet, with the goats and chickens wandering about as we arrived.  No Internet, no mobile phone service, just cups of tea with freshly made cakes and some Roger Miller songs on the old record player.

Arrived home just in time for the Tuesday night quiz.  There were eleven teams this week and we came in fifth, scoring 72 points  -- not that far behind the winners, Walt Quizney with 86.  I think it's the first time we've finished behind our friendly rivals at the next table, Minerva's Disciples.  (We may have done better if our answers for Sports and Music weren't mostly guesswork!)  We did well at the Wednesday night quiz, ending up with 87 points  --  just enough to come in third behind our old foes Barnstoneworth and Don Quizote (92 points).  Some muttering at our table along the lines of "How do they do it??"

After a struggle I managed to answer a question about the currency of Albania at the quiz.  Afterwards one of the team asked if I knew the answer was the Lek, or did I guess it.  I replied "Oh I knew it, but it took me a long time to dredge it up from the lowest deck of my memory banks."