7/12/10

A return to the Day Book formula! Once I wrote a weekly diary but I found that a bit restricted. Since then I've been haphazzard, and that doesn't work either because it's all too easy to say 'I'll do it tomorrow'. I find writing poetry on http://rinklyrimes.blogspot.com/ more to my taste, but I enjoy other peoples' journals so I feel I must make the effort.

Outside my window... all is dark because this is mid-winter. Our 'dusk' time is almost non-existent though, compared with the UK. In both winter and summer the change from night to day is much more sudden. When we were over in the UK on holiday I really enjoyed the long, long evenings.

I am thinking......that I hope all goes well for our little Harry tomorrow. He has a slight turn in his eye and tomorrow he goes to have a muscle tightened. I'm not concerned about the operation as such, but I'm worried that he'll be frightened at being put to sleep and also concerned that he'll rub his eye once it's done. He hasn't got to stay in hospital, though, so it can't be considered too tricky.

This is a recent picture of Harry and his little brother Max, ready for soccer practice.

I am thankful for... all the good friends I have. Yesterday one of them had a 70th birthday party and about twenty of us got together to celebrate with her.  Her name is Betty Druzina and she's forever jetting off to far distant places with her boyfriend! It must be right what they say...... that 70 is the new 50!

Here Betty is about to cut the cake!

And here am I with the Guest of Honour.

From the kitchen..... I surprised everyone a the party by actually taking along something I'd made myself! I'm normally renowned for turning up with a packet of biscuits. I'd only made Rock Cakes, but they really were quite nice, and they were cut in half so everyone could have a taste. While I was in the kitchen making them I also put the slow cooker on again and made several meals for next week. I don't really mind cooking, but I'm not crash hot at it and I do get bored with the daily necessity to produce a meal! If I lived alone I'd buy one big cooked chicken a week and just gnaw on it till it was all gone, and then go out and buy a slap-up meal.

I am wearing...  A beige jacket with matching trousers, a purple jumper and cream necklace and earrings. We've just been out to my friend, Joy's for tea. Her daughter teaches Aboriginal children in a remote part of the state, but she was home for the holidays, and I wanted to share some thoughts with her about teaching reading. It turned out she'd already got my book on the subject though, and I don't think it will help her circumstances. I had ideas about how to involve a native language with English, but it turns out her pupils are some of the saddest among Aborignal  people. They have lost their own language and have just picked up the very worst of European 'culture'! In other words, swearing and walking out of the classroom are commonplace! She's passionate about teaching them, although she lives in relative isolation and her Mother worries about her.

I am creating... well, tidying-up three plays for a festival. It's called 'Short and Sweet' and no play must be longer than ten minutes! One of my plays is my old faithful 'Unhand Me' a ridiculous melodrama in verse, that I've shortened for the purpose. The other two are a monologue called 'Naked Ambition', and a thriller called 'The Old Block'. I don't suppose I stand much of a chance but I'm going to give it a try.

I am going... wherever my daughter, Rebecca, wants to go tomorrow. She's got a day off work because it's the school holidays and she's bringing Blake (11) over for the day. I suggested we could go shopping but she said Blake would hate that, so we'll see what transpires. We'll go out for lunch anyway. There's a new chef at The Leagues Club and we hear good reports of him. Blake will be easy to entertain as he's lost in some electronic gadget a lot of the time! I'm giving Rebecca a rug I no longer need as she has a cold floor in her office. She works for an Income Tax Assessment firm in the season and they've just moved premises.

I am reading... 'Year of Wonders', a novel built around the Plague Village of the 1600s. It's based on fact and very welll researched and I'm enjoying it very much. When I say 'enjoy' consider the fact that life was very harsh in those days. There are gruesome scenes of witches being drowned and people dying of the plague but the story is good and very well told.

I am hoping...my next Melodrama performance will go well. Most of the cast are off to the Blue Mountains for a Xmas in July excursion, so I've had to rustle up an alternative cast, some of them new to the game. Still, it doesn't really matter how we go. We had a great show last week at a VIEW club. We made an awful lot of mistakes but the ad libbing and asides made it funnier than ever and the audience was very receptive.

Here is Maisie (Me) being carted off to prison

I am hearing... a ringing in my ears! It sounds such like cicadas a long way away. The doctor says it probably means I'm going deaf! No sign of that yet, though, although both Malcolm and I put the sub-titles on for shows in which people 'mumble'!!!!!

Around the house.....we gave the two single beds to the Salvation Army and we now have a double bed in our spare bedroom. When I came home yesterday I found Malcolm had bought a bed-head for it. He was worried I might not like it but I think it's quite nice. I like anything wicker.

The new bedhead

One of my favorite things... is helping Harry with his school-work. I really do miss teaching even after twenty years of retirement. As soon as I start talking about it I get goose-bumps!

A few plans for the rest of the week:  A fairly quiet week this week. I should have Choir Practice tomorrow but I'm having a day with Becca instead. Then, on Wednesday it's the monthly Scrabble get-together but it's not at my house this time. Then the only other thing is the 'Tiddly Pom' rehearsal on Friday.

 Photograph and a Thought

A magnolia (?) tree in my daughter's garden this week! Mid-winter in Australia!

For some reason old comments have attached themselves to this new blog! And I don't know how to get rid of them!

7/1/10

A great day today! And all grandmothers will realise it needs few words to describe it! I spent time with all three of my grandsons!

I spent time at Harry's school, where I prepared the take-home readers and supervised some of the tables. I'd forgotten what an exhausting task it is, teaching five year-olds! Not for me, but for the teacher. She organised one table to chalk on old-fashioned blackboards only to discover some little darling had crayoned all over the boards so that they were unusable! Things like that! And the children are so ......lively! I posed Harry in front of the model Post Office van that's been made for a concert at the end of the week. I'd love to see the concert, but there are only two tickets per family so, of course, Greg and Michelle are going.

Then I went on to my daughter, Rebecca's. She was minding Greg's other son, Max, as she usually does on Thursdays. After lunch we drove to the Reserve and had a great time rambling in the woods. As you can see, Max looks very cheerful and healthy but there are a few worries about his health at the moment. He often gets very pale and listless, and his innards don't always work well so his parents are trying him on a gluten-free diet. It certainly seemed to work well today. If he really does have a problem with gluten he'll have it for life, but at least it can be managed easily. 

Finally, Rebecca's own son, eleven year-old Blake arrived home from school. He was clad in his pyjamas which seemed odd until I learned that pyjamas had been worn at school in aid of Stewart House! This is a holiday cottage for deprived children run by the Education Dept, and all the children in Blake's class had had to pay for the privilege of wearing night-attire. He then started riding his old trike, which had been unearthed for Max! The whole effect was rather circus-like! It was his own mother who said he looked like a clown! But a handsome one, you must admit! 

6/26/10

I must apologise for having deleted the very welcome comments from my last entry. For some reason the photographs went higgledy-piggledy and just would not stay where I wanted them, so I've redone it, losing the comments in the process.

It's been quite a week, both for the nation and for me, personally. Kevin Rudd, our previous Prime Minister, had been creeping down in the polls, so members of his party decided to knife him, figuratively speaking, of course! So now we have our first female, Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. This is quite something for a 'blokey' country like Australia! She was sworn in by a female Governor General too! As I'm a Feminist I'm quite delighted by this but I like to think that I'm intelligent enough not to vote for her in the coming election just because of that! She seems very capable and she has the 'people' skills that Kevin lacked. But there will be a lot of enemies to contend with, I'm sure. She comes over as tough but charming; two useful attributes. But she has one of the worst Australian accents I've ever heard! This is odd because her parents have broad Welsh accents and they came out here as 'Ten Pound Poms' in order to guard Julia's frail health from the Welsh climate.  I wish her well.

Julia and Kev before the 'knifing'.

In my own life it's been one long round of entertaining! Not that I've minded as it's my life-blood, but I'm quite happy to have an 'empty' weekend now.

On Monday we took my play 'The Golden Heart' to a Probus Club. Nearly all our members were at the Probus Committee Meeting so we were thin on the ground. (I'm on the Committee but only as an Assistant Secretary so I wasn't missed.) I adapted the play so that it could be perfomed by two people, and they performed well. Afterwards I organized a Quiz based on the songs in the show, and gave a prize. I forgot to take photos that day.

On Tuesday morning I went to a retirement village called 'Fig Tree' to read my poetry. I also told the old people the story of my evacuation as a child and they lapped it up. Afterwards I discovered one of the ladies was German so I apologised in case I'd upset her at all, but she was very gracious about it and we had a good chat and laugh about our very different experiences.

That very evening we put on our rehearsed play 'Jeweled Jeopardy' for the Retired Persons Group. They treated all eleven of us to a lovely meal, having us mingle at their tables so it became a social occasion.

The audience tucking-in.

The play went well. As usual, our mistakes, rather than my witty (?) script got the most laughs. I didn't laugh when someone dropped my new camera and 'broke' it though! However, he delivered it mended to my house next day!

Here I am gazing at the moon (a torch)! 

On Thursday we performed 'Unhand Me' at a local VIEW Club. I had a full cast this time and we did the version which involves the audience. We also sang songs to Xmas tunes (not religious) as the Club requested something for 'Xmas in July' although it was June!

The audience enjoyed joining-in.

 And me directing and chuckling too.

The week was not yet over, though! On Friday we had a rehearsal for our new play, 'Tiddly Pom', at the 'Cricketers' Arms'. I said to someone that I'm enjoying exactly the old age I'd have chosen for myself! Long may it last!

But this weekend hiatus is being enjoyed to the full!

6/20/10

Winter is at its very best at the moment. We get some of our most pleasant days in winter, although, of course, we can get miserable rain and cold as well. We don't get frosts here, although they do further inland. Today the temperature was in the high sixties, with clear blue skies and only a rather chilly breeze to remind us that it was winter. What a pity we can't bottle days like this and uncork them to enjoy in our stifling mid-summer.

There has been a lot of interest in the Soccer World Cup here. 12,000 people braved the elements at night in Sydney to watch a large screen and cheer on our team. But I don't think it will do us much good. We managed a tie against Ghana, but we're definitely underdogs. It's unusual for me to be interested in sport, but I find this world-wide game fascinating. My only quibble is that I feel the teams should be made up of men born in the country they represent.

A local boy named Harry after Harry Kewel, one of 'our' players..

My friend, Peter Lewis, drew this rather telling cartoon of our local political scene. As usual with all parties everywhere the state government is throwing money at New South Wales. As though we wouldn't see through them! Sometimes democracy is plain silly. But the alternative isn't great.

Our Premier, on the left, has an American accent.

Surf House has finally bitten the dust. This icon of years gone by has been demolished. There's been a lot of heartache among local Aussies of my generation, as they spent their lives on the beach when they were young (and they have the skin cancers to prove it!) A rather snazzy retaurant s going up in its place.

The pigeons and gulls have had to leave.

My son and his family have settled into their new house but I haven't taken any photos of it yet as they wanted to get it straight first. Harry was due to come to me for a reading lesson today, but he had an extra soccer game instead, so I shall have to wait until Tuesday for my fix. At least I saw Blake, my eldest grandson, yesterday evening! He and Rebecca, his mother, came for a meal and an evening of video , as Brian was on fireman duty down in Sydney. I made chicken a la King, but Blake didn't much care for the mushrooms in it and I, myself, thought it lacked flavour. Still, w enjoyed the old film, 'Chocolat', which we hadn't seen before. I found it really charming, and I found Johnny Depp very attractive, never having cared for him in 'pirate' guise.

'Chocolat'

Yesterday was a busy day. We met at The Cricketers Arms for a run-through of 'Jeopardy', which we perform on Tuesday evening. After that we slipped in a brief rehearsal of an abbreviated form of 'Golden Heart', our Monday show. We're very under-rehearsed for that but it doesn't matter too much as our mini-melos are just a romp with lots of audience participation anyway. Then we all went downstairs to a Cooking Class! This was the first I'd ever attended (as my cooking proves!) but I'll certainly attend more. We were plied with wine while we were shown haw to rustle-up delicious dips and then Osso Buco. Afterwards we all sat at a long table and ate the proceeds!

The Chef at work

The Feast

I left before the dessert as I had Rebecca coming for the evening. I'm not fond of sweet food, anyway.

Today, Sunday, I've been busy visiting the local Officeworks and photocopying copious audience-involvement sheets, as well as preparing tapes and costumes. It's all quite hard work but I love it.

6/16/10

This-afternoon has been quite frenetic! As usual, once a month, I invited friends around for an afternoon of Scrabble. Unfortunately, there were more of us than usual, and so we had to split ourselves into two groups, one to play Scrabble and the other to play Rummycub in the kitchen. Our house is quite small and some of my friends are the opposite and so it was all a bit of a squash. Immediately one of them suggested having a cup of tea before rather than during the afternoon, so we had to squeeze our way round each other to get that sorted! Once we started our games there were gales of laughter from both rooms. Malcolm was upstairs having a rest with his ear-phones on! I wonder why! Then came the time for another round of refreshments. Ann is a dab hand at sausage rolls and Shirley's forte is tiny cucumber sandwiches, both of which I love. Finally, another game of Scrabble, involving all of us, minus two who had to go home early. I won the game, so that was good for the ego. But after they'd left I felt completely exhausted!

Yesterday evening was much more civilised. We went to Gwen's for our Book Group. She lives in a cottage dating from the 1900s, and she has furnished it to suit. It's particularly attractive in winter as her main room has a lovely golden glow about it. And she is a superb cook too, which helps! I drank Marsala, which I hadn't had for a long time and the glow became even more golden.

A view from the kitchen.

Judith, Joy and Pat were there too.

We had all been reading 'The Perfect Hostage', the story of Aung San Suu Ky in Burma. I hadn't expected to enjoy it as I'm a speed reader and I knew the history of Burma would take a bit of serious study, but I found it fascinating. I had to return the book to the library before I'd finished the last two chapters (someone else had it on order) but I was able to join in the discussion quite well.

Altogether a really delightful evening. But I'm still exhausted from the Scrabble! I never imagined it as a rough and tumble sport!

6/12/10

I have had a very satisfactory day. We looked after Greg's boys all morning, as Greg and his wife, Michelle, prepared for their big move. It's only a suburb  away but any move is an upheaval and we were pleased to help. I don't quite know what they did today as they were up at the new house. The boys' bedroom has a floral 'dado' (I think that's what it's called,) and Greg has been preoccupied with removing it. I told him that I thought it was the least of his worries, but I didn't make much impression! Anyway, we had a great time with the boys. First of all we let them watch a cartoon or two while we tidied our own house. They love 'Shaun the Sheep' but M was reording something else so they couldn't watch that. Instead they watched some Oriental film about Water Benders which I thought would be way over their heads but they watched it enthralled! I'm so impressed with the artistry of moden cartoonists. There were enormous icebergs in this show and I thought they were most impressive.

Then we took them for a bus ride to Hamilton. They rarely go on a bus. So different from my childhood, when a ride in a car was not only a rarity, but practically unknown! They were delighted with the speed humps and steep hills. We visited the Library, where they enjoyed choosing new library books and then actually sat quietly for a while 'reading' one or two.

Clearly very advanced!!!!

After that we treated them to a Baby Chino each. ( I presume these small cappucinos are normal everywhere). They looked very rich, with marsh mallows floating on the top. Such food would normally be forbidden by their parents but I thought moving house involved breaking some rules!

Yum!

Trying on Grandpa's cap!

Finally, after another bus ride home, we visited the small local playground where they let off steam on the equpment.

Posing!

Being himself!

Once home I read the new library books to them and Greg turned up at 2.00 o'clock to take them up to Auntie Bec's for the afternoon. They were such a joy and so well-behaved and all round delightful that I was quite sorry to see them go. Unfortunately, Harry is not too well behaved at school!. I wish his teacher could have seen him today!