I nearly always play croquet after lunch on a Tuesday, but one day was just too cold. The following week I was asked out to lunch unexpectedly. The following week I finally got out on the lawn, mallet in hand. I lost, but they say that taking part is the important thing, not winning.
Friday was a bit of a madhouse. I had to be in town in the morning for a committee meeting; this went all right and I was sent off with some leftover home-made scones for lunch. On the way home, I detoured through the JB Hi Fi shop to look for a couple of movies I wanted; I didn't find them, but I was pleased to spot the boxed set of television serials based on John Wyndham's novel CHOCKY for ten dollars less than I'd seen it on-line.
Taking the bus home was a bit of a drama. The bus left late because police had to be called to remove a woman who was abusing the driver. When we did start off, the bus turned onto the highway instead of taking the road through the suburbs and I realized I must be on the wrong bus. After some thought, I waited till we got to a bus stop on the same latitude as my home, got off and started on a 45-minute walk through the back streets to my house.
Spent an hour on hold with my bank so I could straighten out some irregularities with my credit card (I googled a transaction I didn't remember, and it took me to a page with 300 complaints about the merchant!)
In the evening, my friendly local goatherd came round and we spent two hours after dark in the backyard rounding up the roosters, who were the subject of a noise complaint to City Hall. I think we got them all, because it was unusually quiet when I woke up the next morning.
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Feeding the chickens this morning, I noticed a woman and her little girl watching the hens pecking about. I had to bring in the rubbish bin, so I ambled down the driveway and bade them a good morning. The mother sighed and said "I'd love to have chickens, but I can't where I live at the moment." "That's a shame," I said, "once every family had chickens in their back garden." I waved goodbye as they went on their way and the little girl gave me a big smile. I was reminded of something my sister Julie said about how sad it was that some city children grew up with no animals around at all.
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Sunday was wet and windy, so I motored into town cautiously, driving to the conditions. This had the usual effect - cars behind me who decided I was driving too slowly so they overtook me and zoomed off. But I'm used to that.
The Sunday before, I was worried about other stuff. It was my turn to stand at the lectern and read from the Bible, and I was down to read the whole first chapter of Samuel. Not only is that a large chunk of text, but there are several unusual names in the first paragraph. I started off all right, but halfway through I lost my place in the middle of a sentence and couldn't find it again; A couple of people in the congregation were starting to look concerned, so I skipped to the start of the next paragraph and carried on.
Over morning tea, a woman approached me and commended my clear reading of Samuel. But, she said, as a GP she had been worried for a second that I might have been having a mini-stroke. I replied "Well, if you'd known I was recovering from a head injury, you would have been REALLY worried."
*
The doorbell rang at 7 a.m. and the phone rang at 11 p.m. Nobody there either time. Sometimes it's like living in a haunted house.
The meeting I was going to on Wednesday afternoon was cancelled. So what did I do with all that extra time? Fooled around with the laptop and drank too much coffee of course. In the evening there were just two of us at the quiz night, but we did fairly well -- at the beginning we solved the puzzle question on the first clue, and got a perfect score in the first round. Unfortunately we didn't keep up that standard, especially in the Sports and Music rounds! Still, an entertaining evening out.
Imaginary conversation:
"I'm not eating that, it's going green."
"You did order the Pesto Parmagiana, didn't you sir?"
*
Friday was a nice day but I spent most of my time resting up from the day before. Thursday had been one of those "perfect storm" days when everything happened on the same day. It started straight after breakfast, when my friendly local goatherd stopped by to check on the goat. Then I drove down to South Hobart for a morning tea with friends from church; I'd never been to the Rivulet Cafe but it's a nice modern place with (of course) a view of the Hobart Rivulet. Took a couple of minutes trying to get pictures of the ducks paddling around in the rivulet.
Not long after I returned home, got a call to meet visiting friends for lunch. Grant doesn't get down to Tasmania often, so it was good to see him and meet his wife Cheryl. Following that, I went around the bookshops with Keith, who took pleasure in showing me a couple of desirable items he'd picked up for two dollars a throw this morning. I'm trying not to buy books these days myself, but I was happy for him.
Then I had about sixty minutes before I had to leave for the theatre. Just time for a hasty meal before my lift arrived. I met Helena at the Playhouse and we saw the comedy 39 STEPS in which four actors play dozens of characters in a high-energy spoof of the Hitchcock movie. Some clever stagecraft meant the pace never slowed down and the audience (mostly from the older age group) seemed to enjoy it a lot.
I returned home and sat down on my bed. Looking at my watch I realised I'd been on the go for twelve hours, not something I'm used to these days. Either a feast or a famine, eh?
*
Haiku for the TV serial of WAR OF THE WORLDS 20/08/2020
Robots a-scuttling
as a world goes to ruin.
The blind see again.
*
Free and easy? Well...
I noticed one of my tyres was getting down a bit so I thought, no problem I'll just stop off and get some air while I'm out. Nope. First station I stopped at had a big Out Of Order sign on the air & water. I traveled on to another station, but their air hose was missing altogether. Third time lucky, at the United station in North Hobart I was able to inflate the tyre back to normal pressure. I was so grateful I went into the office and bought coffee and a sandwich just to thank them for having a function air pump. (And I noticed another car was waiting to use the pump after me - air may be free but it's not always easy to find)
*.
In 2020 there was an arts project in Huonville where your three-line poems were stencilled onto walls of buildings:
See those words on walls
a community haiku
for all Huon eyes
*
Clear weather, which means a fine afternoon but a cold morning. No croquet again this week, but made it to two quiz nights. We went from the sublime to the ridiculous - Tuesday we finished second, the closest we've come to winning this winter, but Wednesday night we came second-last! I will admit that the latter was the first time I've ever scored 2/10 in the TV and cinema round.
*
The following Tuesday, it seemed a bit wet for croquet so I went out for lunch with the goatherd and his partner. Later she persuaded me to remove my shirt so she could rub arnica onto my shoulder after my fall in the garden yesterday. Fortunately I haven't mowed the grass this month so it was a relatively soft landing.
Got ready for the quiz night. There were five of us there tonight and we finished second out of nine teams. Second week running - not bad.
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I've been scouting around the various channels on You Tube and I've found several that offer a lot of old B-movies from the post-war period. So far I've watched THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, THE GIANT GILA MONSTER, THE NIGHT THE WORLD EXPLODED and EARTH vs THE FLYING SAUCERS. These are actually better than you might think from the titles. The last mentioned one is a triumph of special effects by the great Ray Harryhausen -- if you came to it cold you'd find it hard to believe it was made in 1957!
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I posted this on Facebook back in 2012 when I was younger and sadder:
Sometimes on a wet afternoon you leave the TV and the radio switched off and think.
You think about the past and the future. The people you knew. The people you never met but you felt you knew them. The things you wish you'd done and the things you wish you hadn't. The things that you know now that you'll never do.
I guess that's life, in all its richness and heartache. But every day we get a new 24 hours, to do with as we wish...
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