idle persiflage

Togetherness

2012-01-30T19:26:00.000+11:00

Back home after several days in Melbourne seeing all my children and four of my grandchildren, I sit at the computer feeling strangely lethargic. Where to start? What to say? Perhaps my muse is still in the air. It is certainly not inhabiting my imagination.

Being with all my children does not happen very often. My daughter Stomper and Fixit gave me, in their loving home, my lovely grandsons, a bed, cups of tea, a sympathetic ear, the chance to put aside the things which beset me, liberty to do whatever suited me, Basil the cat to play with (he was really only interested in the long narrow ribbons dangling from my nightie - the rest of the time he played difficult to find and hard to get). My other daughter and my son and his boys were also there. It happens rarely that we are all together, and it felt good. We all spent some hours yesterday at the pool. Pools and swimming are such enjoyable pursuits, and it was lovely to see so many families having such a good time, with the littlies flinging themselves in and out of the water and having such fun. It was a VERY hot day.

I have returned home feeling better than when I left it. The minor vexation occasioned by the impenetrable instructions in the crochet pattern was assuaged by all the good and nice things that happened.

I had dinner one night with a friend. My youngest sister and I spent some time wandering in and out of shops of varying degrees of trendiness. I tried on a sundress, but it was too short. The salesgirl suggested it could be worn with leggings. With a sundress? No way!

When we parted, I decided to walk some of the way home. My newish sandals chafed my little toes, and thus I resorted to the tram. Alas, a tram had broken down further up the line, so the route was clogged with stationary trams. It enabled me to get out, and go to the supermarket to buy bandaids for my little toes, and then get back on the tram again.

On Saturday I met another sister and we saw the Metropolitan Opera's production of Gounod's Faust, which went for over four hours, and was absolutely stupendous and enthralling, with superb singing and acting. I recommend it.

Imagine all the people

2012-01-25T00:49:00.000+11:00

It's people, not pills, that make the difference. For me, that is.

I have endured a lecture from my youngest sister urging me to go on anti-depressants. She means well. It works for her, but not for me. Yes, I know that if you have a broken leg, you use crutches. I don't think they work as well for hearts and emotions. I think she fails to understand the difference.

Nevertheless I will discuss it all with my doctor. She is a sensible and good woman, whose advice deserves respect. If anything I would need tranquillisers, to help deal with all the ongoing stress, and that which is to come with the legal proceedings.

My sister has had huge support, personal, emotional, social, legal, and financial, from family and friends. And from anti-depressants. She has a very outgoing personality, is brave and talented, and is very attractive.

I am different, as is my situation. I must use my own qualities and apply my intelligence to my situation, While it does not change the emotions, or the practical difficulties which confront me, I am able to analyse how and why I feel as I do. It must be endured. This metaphorical dark night can be extremely long, but I hope to experience the reality of the saying that "weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning".

What makes the difference for me is people. They give me the sympathy, practical help, emotional support, kindness, laughter and understanding, all of which are essential. I need the people. Their support helps keeps me going. This is why I needed my children to be with me over Christmas. Even if I was not much fun.

I love my distant family, but I have had to be the one to make more of the efforts to keep in touch. They visit me seldom. When I visit, they are good, kind and hospitable. They came here for Dr P's funeral, but none has visited me since. All their visits have been to others, such as our older sister, who has dementia, but none has hopped on a plane or a train to come and be with me during this first year. So I have had to ask, to be demanding. I am subject to jealousy. I know they all are busy, have many other commitments, their own families. But I need them. And I don't want to feel that I am always the supplicant.

I don't like admitting to such ignoble feelings, and think it would be very inadvisable to express them. I'd rather be able to think well of myself. It is necessary to come to terms with them myself.

There are friends here who have given me enormous support and comfort. My friend MH and her husband, who constantly ask me over for dinner, ring me up, who gave me their opera tickets, with whom I can both laugh and cry. MG, the bell-ringer, divorced many years ago, left with five children to bring up, who had a mastectomy at the age of 80. My juror friend N, and her husband, with whom I share so many interests and passions. E, such a kind and gentle person, with understanding and compassion. M, in Adelaide, widowed three years ago, so brave, so wonderful, so constant. My friend C, ever interesting and always compassionate, whose daughter died suddenly from cancer at the age of 18. G, whose son died after heart surgery. KP, partner of my closest friend. And there are others, from my classes and from my choir. These are the people who continue to make a difference and who give me comfort. They understand loss and bereavement and they know me. We are able to laugh together.

My blog, and all my blogging friends, who have commented with such kindness, generosity, humour and understanding, have helped me. To all of you out there, I thank you, and appreciate everything. You have been balm and comfort to my soul, offering practical wisdom, kindness, generosity of spirit, insight and understanding. This has meant very much to me. Truly it is people, with their milk of human kindness, who matter most. They make and keep the ties that bind.

No place for me, no good place to be

2012-01-20T11:23:00.000+11:00

Today is awful. It is the period in between what would have been Dr P's 88th birthday and the anniversary of his death in a month. I am sitting around crying and feeling sorry for myself. Sad, depressed, fearful, and aware that I am not a real part of anyone's life, except for being a bit of a nuisance. I wanted to go away to see family for a few days, but everyone is busy with other things, and I cringe about having to ask for a bed. Everyone is working, busy, holidaying or away. Too busy to talk on the telephone.

I am terrified that at the last minute my brother in law won't be able to come here for the mediation in a few weeks. That despite plans something will crop up, and I will be alone on the day. And that all will fail, that all the struggle will have been for nothing.

Indecision about my future is paralysing me. I feel I have been away from places for too long and that I would be incapable of building a new life yet again. I don't know what to do, or how to do it. All my coping mechanisms have fled or gone on strike. I cannot be brave or hopeful any more.

Idiot female

2012-01-16T16:23:00.000+11:00

It never pays to become smug, or even slightly secure in one's coping mechanisms. There I was, walking down the road, having attended to the sundry necessities of life. And then I caught sight of my car. All was not as it should have been. How did it happen that I did not notice this as I left it, but only when I returned to it two hours later?

Simple answer, idiot female, not paying enough attention. Automatic pilot is clearly inadequate in many circumstances. CON-CEN-TRATE! on what you are doing. Don't let your mind just wander off like that!

Preview to the day's events:

Last night I had to personally attend to the demise of three cockroaches. With the fly swat.

I have been clambering up my little ladder to try and peer more closely at the crippled curtain track.

In a further attempt to be more organised and to get rid of things I no longer need/like/fit into, I managed to fill two bags of clothes and linen, which I will take to Vinnies. I intended to make a round trip, first to have lunch with a friend, and while in the vicinity to visit the bank to feed my credit card again, and to establish internet banking for it, and finally to drop off the bags. As I was carrying these bags to the car, the skies opened, and a huge downpour poured down. In the several seconds it takes to get from the back door to the car, the handle of one bag broke, and the contents spilled onto the ground.

The rain was so heavy as I drove along that I switched the headlights on.

I don't think I need to describe what happened next. Suffice it to say that two hours later, having attended to everything, I had to call for roadside assistance. After the car was started, I had to drive it around for a while, to make it feel all better.

The NRMA man was lovely. I admitted my sheer stupidity, and he told me I was his tenth such case that day, all because of the rain. As I drove around recharging the car, I kept noticing other cars with their lights on. I wanted to hail and warn them of dire consequences. Well, nuisance type consequences, more realistically.

When I arrived home there was yet another communication from the lawyer, sending me a bill from the estate to be paid. Funny that they have not get got around to reimbursing me for the money I am owed.

Despite the very enjoyable lunch, I am left yet again with a sour taste in my mouth.

Gremlins on the kitchen bench

2012-01-15T16:13:00.000+11:00

In my next incarnation I intend to be a tidy and organised person. In the meantime it seems necessary to put into practice some techniques towards achieving this desirable status.

It is time to register the car and to do all the necessary and associated things. I have a few days up my sleeve and so I thought I would get a wriggle on with it all, be efficient and have a sense of achievement.

I keep all my 'to do' documents on the kitchen bench, and periodically flip through them to bring to the top of my consciousness whatever it is that must be done next. So when I went looking for one piece of paper, somehow it had disappeared. It was nowhere to be found, and this aggravating fact makes me question my own competence, memory, and sanity. Finally - I KNOW I had it in that pile only a few days ago - I abandoned the search and decided to ring up and get the people to process it personally for me by phone. A very nice man talked me through it all, and then I tried to pay. The credit card would not work. Enquiry revealed it was over the limit. It has been a very expensive month, and I did not monitor it carefully enough.

So I had to fritter away time and energy in going to the bank, withdrawing REAL cash, going to the other bank and handing it over. As there are even more bills to be paid in the coming week, I will have to repeat the action. It has been necessary to mentally slap myself, and to severely utter admonitions to myself to become efficient and methodical, NOT TO LOSE THINGS anymore, and do things straight away. Yes, I say to myself, tomorrow I am going to stop procrastinating. (Isn't that a lovely word?)

I thought I was making some slight progress, as I went through the pantry, to examine the quantity and quality of all the jam therein. This resulted in my chucking out quite a few jars, and the pantry suddenly has much more room. And I won't have to go and buy more jars quite yet. How these trivial activities consume time and give some sense of purpose and achievement.

Just as it appeared that a modicum of order and control might be entering life, the act of drawing the curtains the other night resulted in the breaking of the parts of the curtain tracks which hold the hooks, so that the curtain is suspended from each end and nothing in between. Someone with a long ladder and sufficient know how and skill will have to come and see what has to be done, and I am desperately hoping it won't cost an arm and a leg. These things are always a hassle.

Despite all this moaning and groaning, I spent some very pleasant hours this week with friends. Other kind friends gave me their tickets for the dress rehearsal of Turandot at the Opera house yesterday morning, which was most enjoyable.

There are many things to do which are interesting, enjoyable, and not stressful. Crochet to occupy the hands and to periodically puzzle the mind, books to read, music to play, people to see, energy levels to raise, lassitude to overcome, years of bad habits to break. Goodness, life can be full! But of what? Therein lies the rub.

Normal life and ordinary things take lots of time, and give some sort of sense of achievement, notwithstanding their relative triviality. They are in no way a substitute for making the larger decisions of life and the future, which remain unforeseeable and imponderable, but somehow they give some sense of progress being made. Time is occupied. Things get done. The larger confusion, the indeterminacy, remain, and as yet, no clarity has emerged, and no decisions are made. The future lurches awkwardly towards me.

Summer time, and the living is easy

2012-01-09T23:20:00.000+11:00

Casa Persiflage is presently inhabited by my elder daughter and her boys, and thus there is a lot more activity than usual. The boys are busy making plasticine flowers, watching DVDs, exploring the contents of the cupboards, playing on the computers, and using Dr P's inclinator. This is a source of endless fun and interest to the littlies, but eventually the damned thing gets stuck half way up or down, and beeps aggrievedly, a sentiment inevitably transmitted to the person in charge - which means I have to work out yet again how to make it go, and how to make it stop. If I ever come across the wretched mortal who invented electronic beeps and gave them their incredibly irritating sound, I shall devise cruel and unusual punishments for him - has to be a him, could not possible have been a her!

Things such as inclinators are wonderful for the afflicted persons for whom they were designed, but from the point of view of the abler-bodied carer - to whit, me - they are a damned nuisance, as I have been the person going up and down the stairs, usually carrying something, and they get in my way. While I understand, and accept the fascination they have for the young, I do not share it.

There are times when I think that living with a very old man has destroyed part of my capacity for enjoyment and toleration of the young. I hope I get it back. I love having them here, but I have become very accustomed to sorrow, solitude and quiet, and wonder whether I can ever again achieve normality and human enjoyment. I have become very introspective, and have lost a lot of my sparkle. I am not the world's best grandmother right now, nor am I a barrell of laughs, but I know having them here is healing and restorative. I hope that we are doing enough things for them to be having a good time. I need to have good hard thinks about all sorts of things.

Not all our time is spent on inclinators. We took a Metrobus to the beach, which was fun, except that the waves were real dumpers, and I therefore avoided being dumped, and only got my nether limbs wet. The beach was not as wild as it was when the other half of the family and I went there on Boxing Day, but the waves were not the sort that could be used for body surfing. Then it started raining lightly. Now I understand that the object of bathing in the sea is to get wet, but somehow it seems an indignity to get wet at the beach by being rained upon.

Today we went to the Powerhouse Museum for them all to see the Harry Potter exhibition. I did not go again, but they all enjoyed it. Two of my grandsons were selected for assessment by the HAT which allocated them to a Hogwarts house. They both chose Slytherin.

I continued my trip into the city, and bought another couple of balls of wool so as to make a few more squares for yet another cot blanket. Somehow or other, all these surplus squares made from scraps have to be used up.

I have started another sweater. In purple wool. The initial effort was the middle size, but this seemed too big, so I started again, with the smaller size, and it took me about six - SIX! efforts to do it correctly. I am so ashamed. Mind you, the first effort was aborted because of a knot in the yarn. Then the second effort revealed another knot. This was really too much.

Perhaps if I keep making things, I can re-make my life along with them.

Tomorrow we are off to have a ride on the ferry, and then plan to make another trip to the beach. Third time lucky, perhaps? I may yet immerse myself in salt water.

Tonight is a full moon, and it is clearly visible, which is always a great pleasure.

Let the light shine on all of us.

Aprons and things

2012-01-05T22:05:00.000+11:00

The newspaper the other day had a photo of Stephanie Alexander, one of our great cooks and writer of a most authoritative book, which tells you practically all you ever need to know about food, exercising her skills and instructing the universe. She was wearing a large blue and white apron. As cooks do. Or ought to do, in order to qualify as a serious cook.

This got me thinking about aprons. In particular, my own apron collection.

As my Huon pine chest, which houses my shawl and scarf collection, needed tidying and refolding of all its contents, I mounted the stairs to tackle this task. Right down underneath all the shawls were the aprons. Five of them. Then it occurred to me that there were some more in the linen cupboard. Yes, there are another five.

These are the spare aprons. They are being held in reserve for an apron shortage. In case I never get another chance to buy some more. This collection does not include the several aprons which are in use. You can't be too careful, and the aprons save a lot on dry-cleaning bills. They are good for drying the hands, as well as for catching all the splashes and splodges. They also came in handy when eating food such as curries and laksa, which use turmeric, or dishes such as bolognese sauce.

My earliest aprons were made by my maternal grandmother, who was a most practical and competent person. When I became engaged, she gave me some aprons. My other grandmother was not noted for her domestic skills, although she was an excellent pianist, and used to play me the Waltz of the Flowers, when, perforce I had to stay with her after my brother's birth. I was six at the time, and almost about to go back home when I contracted mumps. She made me stay in bed, and I was most horridly bored.

Spare or odd pieces of fabrics were made into aprons. In those days fabric was not wasted. These aprons did not cover the chest, only from the waist down. The scrap material was gathered and sewn unto a band, which was, naturally, tied at the back, and there would be a rick-rack decorative border. Or some cross stitch embroidery. I still have the blue and white gingham apron, extensively embroidered.
I remember my grandmother made one using the scraps left over from a skirt she made me. This was most decorative, as the apron part was made of sheer organza. I can't find that one, alas. If it is still in existence it would be over 50 years of age. Almost a genuine antique. It must have fallen victim to one of the five yearly cycles of tidying up the linen cupboard. There's nothing like moving house: it makes you get rid of things. "I'll never use this," you think, "It will have to go." Years later, one mourns this foolish and mistaken decision.

In the tea towel drawer in the kitchen there are another three or four aprons. Some are very worn by now. Good grief, there are actually five of them. One of them, a fetching wildflower one, was a Christmas present.

My favourite aprons are those I bought in Italy. The earlier ones are made of robust cotton, and wear extremely well. Some have art works printed on them - one is an apron featuring the Uffizi, and another of Leonardo da Vinci. Then there are the pasta, the cheese, the oil and the wine aprons.

From 2010, I have an apron from Barcelona. It is in a fetching dark blue and features some Gaudì buildings.

It would be good to start using them, but their predecessors have not yet worn out. I have had to replace the tape in a couple of them, but that good sturdy cotton wears extremely well. Some of the successor aprons use synthetic fabric. They are not as good. I do have a fear of running out of aprons. I must candidly admit that this fear is not at all well-founded.

In Italy, the further you get away from Rome the better the prices are. Not that they were ever very costly. However, the design choices are not as extensive.

I noticed that my sister is still using the apron from our trip in the mid 1990s. She really does need a new one. Aprons make good presents, they are practical, light, unbreakable, and often very attractive. They don't cause excess baggage charges to be incurred. And with them come precious memories. I have a much smaller collection of little Italian hand towels, which are quite beautiful. I love Italian textiles.

Long live the apron. Mine are already becoming quite venerable. It seems unlikely that I will ever be able to wear out all my aprons. Will my daughters want them, in due course, after I go to the Great Kitchen in the Sky? I am curious to know whether others have similar collections.

Perhaps some enterprising museum could put on an apron exhibition. They could do a roaring trade in apron souvenirs. It might solve all their funding difficulties.

Meandering, maundering, malingering and making

2012-01-03T23:30:00.002+11:00

The car service was done today, so now I can get the car registered. As I did not have a lift home, I decided to while away the hours at the nearest shopping centre. I have not been there for ages, so it seemed like a good opportunity to browse around looking at things I should not buy.

Naturally I went to the book shop, which is having a sale, but the city store has much better pickings, so I did not buy any books. This caused feelings of virtue to froth away in my breast. Then I browsed at a pharmacy which sells the brand of makeup I have been accustomed to buy. I left it all in the shop, so that I can better afford the legal bills. Next I carefully perused the range of ice creams, but resisted the temptation. I tried on a dress, but we did nothing for each other.

It then occurred to me that here I was, stuck for several hours, and that this presented me with the opportunity to see a film. The Iron Lady was on, so it seemed a good idea to see it, as Meryl Streep is such a wonderful actress. In case sustenance was needed, I succumbed to evil temptation, and bought a packet of chips, and a drink. Another bright light started flashing in my brain, which suggested to me that it might be chilly in the cinema. I found a place which sold cheap but nice shawls, for a mere $20, so now have another to add to my already substantial collection, in an amazing array of colours, patterns and fabrics. And I bought a pair of purple socks. (They can be very hard to find.)

The film allegedly started screening at 12.15, but it actually did not commence until 12.30. A very disparate progression of shorts and ads were inflicted on the hapless audience. I now know that there are a number of films which can safely be avoided. There was an ad to tell you to avoid too much exposure to the sun, so as not to develop a melanoma. That made me want to leap to my feet and tell the unwitting audience about the melanoma on my bottom, which has probably never seen the sun at all. But I resisted the temptation. They all had a narrow escape, though.

I liked the film, although I was never keen on Mrs Thatcher. We had our own John Howard, who has just just been given the Order of Merit. Meryl Streep gave a wonderful performance, very moving as she flickered in and out of dementia and forgetfulness. This is still very close to the bone, for me.

In the middle of the film my mobile rang. It was the car service people telling me that my car was ready. It was a naughty thing, to leave it on, but I had it ready to grab, and switch it off, and I ducked out of the theatre to ring them back. I transmitted silent apologies to the afflicted audience.

Having eaten quite a lot of the chips, it seemed a good idea to walk back to the car place, rather than take the bus for three whole stops. So I did. I had prosciutto and salad for dinner - and wine. I dusted the lounge, and cleaned some windows. Then I resumed the latest crochet project. I am a bit worried that it might be too big, although my tension is correct. Should I pull it all out and make the smaller size, I wonder? As I wondered, I came across a knot in the ball.

Aarrgh! this sort of thing happens all too often. I complained to the wool shop the other day about too many knots in balls of yarn and they told me the acceptable knot rate is two (2!) per ball. That is two too many.

No wonder people have nervous breakdowns. Things like knots in balls of wool are the straws that break the camel's back.

Addio al passato

2011-12-31T22:55:00.000+11:00

As the evening moves inexorably to night, to the midnight when the New Year commences, I sit feverishly urging it on. Haste, haste. It cannot come soon enough for me. Let it be over.

It has been an absolutely awful year, and I long to be rid of it, and hope fervently that 2012 will be better. Not that this can be certain, of course.

I hope I will cease to plummet to the depths of emotion, that the swings into the abysses of sorrow, grief, rage, resentment, self-pity, exhaustion, and stringent endeavours will all diminish, and that from all of this will emerge a better future, a happier person, with hope and resolution to make the best of my remaining years, alone.

There have been so many times when I have absolutely doubted my capacity to emerge from this morass of emotions, this buffeting of competing emotions, this negation of life, this almost despair at ever emerging into the light, this forced immersion into the world of bereavement. Can it ever end? Should one just hope never to wake?

Oh no, today is not a good day. Tomorrow shall, must, be better. A new dawn, a new year. The flux of the seasons must allow and encourage the natural progression of life, from birth, to death, and to greet the future with whatever hope I can gather to my heart. Surely the New Year will be better. Once I get past the first anniversary.

While I have had a lot of support from family and friends, for which I am truly grateful, essentially one must bear things alone.

There has been a constant progression of people walking into this peninsula, to watch the fireworks, firstly at 9 pm, and then again at midnight, to bring in the New Year. I walked up to the roundabout a block away, to watch the first fireworks. We can see across to the Harbour Bridge, and there is always a substantial gathering of people, with many children sitting on the shoulders of their parents. People can enter by foot or by bus, but car traffic is confined to locals. There will be bus traffic out, and many people will walk out again. There are sirens wailing.

A Happy New Year to all.

Our Christmas

2011-12-29T20:10:00.000+11:00

My son and daughter and their children were with me for Christmas, which was lovely, but exhausting. From my lengthy solitude, and ability to do whatever I choose when I choose, I was in the company of six additional people, and that is a whole different experience.

They all arrived in the late afternoon of Christmas Day, so until they arrived I occupied myself by setting the table, arranging my relatively few Christmas decorations, and organising the food.

Given that the oven does not work, I bought turkey legs rather than a whole turkey, and eventually we cooked them in the electric frypan, which, to my relief, worked quite well. We had a very late dinner, after we had put the little ones to bed.

On Boxing Day we went to the beach. There is a Metro bus which goes from just up the road right to the beach, so we caught that, and arrived at the beach in good time.

It has been rather stormy weather, and when we arrived, the sea was very rough, and the water was cold. Our bathing was restricted to standing at the shore and trying not to be swept off our feet by the very strong seas. The little children did a lot of squealing, and clung onto the hands of their minders. I wore my new bathing suit, a rather fetching piece, several sizes smaller than the last model, but it did not actually get wet. We saw the yachts setting off for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, an event which invariably seems to encounter storms and rough seas. Then we retired to a beer garden for fish and chips, and following that took the bus back home. We then flopped about in a desultory and exhausted fashion, after attending to the needs, feeding and bedding of the children.

While I was preparing dinner that evening, the eldest of the grandchildren just came and informed me that there had been a disaster upstairs. He had accidentally knocked over a stool, an elderly relic of Dr P's belongings, and, much to his alarm, it splashed forth evil black liquid, all over the rather unlovely carpet. God only knows what chemical process has been evolving all these years inside the plastic. It was not worth bottling, however. It was not his fault, just a disaster waiting to happen. So as well as feeding all the children, we attempted to clean up all the evil black splodges on the carpet - mostly over the rug in front of the door to the balcony, but also on the plastic carpet beneath. My son recommended white vinegar. He had to go out and find a shop which was open which sold white vinegar. I did not expect to spend Boxing Day energetically but unenthusiastically scrubbing the carpet with white vinegar.

The following day was good, but exhausting. We went to the Powerhouse Museum to see the Harry Potter Exhibition. When we arrived we found that all the sessions were sold out. We explained that the website had not made it clear that pre-booking was most advisable. You had to get to the Ticketek site to do that. Fortunately one of the staff enabled us, and sundry others, to be included in the last session of the afternoon. This meant we had at least three hours to kill, which we spent at the playground and at various other parts of the Museum. There was a Wiggles exhibition, which we all herded our littlies around. I never took the trouble to work out which Wiggle is which, and I remain profoundly ignorant. My mind has only so much room. Each part of the exhibition had its own noise and music, and flashing lights and interactive thingies. I found it all most migraine-inducing.

We managed not to lose anyone, and eventually it was time to queue for entry to the Harry Potter show. It took quite a while before we were let in, but it was well worth the wait. All the exhibits served to demonstrate the brilliance, variety, humour, imagination, and light and darkness of Rowling's world. The numbers admitted each time were not too many, and thus we were all able to take our time and to look at all the delights. The staff of the Museum were all wonderful - unfailingly helpful, courteous and friendly.

We had thought about taking a ferry ride next morning, but settled for coffee and gelato at the local cafe. My son and his boys set off late morning, and my daughter and her children a couple of hours later.

Since then I have been washing all the sheets and towels, and putting everything away. And discovering what happens when you take your eyes off the children for a second. Someone had undone and cut the yarn on a piece of crochet....and snipped the yarn into a number of useless pieces....they had better not let me catch them...and what's more, that very same someone - you know who you are - found all the sewing elastic and cut much of it into small pieces, and discovered all the cottons, which obviously need to be unwound, small threads cut off and then ceremoniously laid here and there around the house. And, in a late addition to this bulletin, I found the same culprit had found (No, it was not lost, just in a place where I could find it when I needed it) the green gardening wire, detached it from its little wheel, cut off several lengths, and left all in a tangled mess. I resisted the temptation to ring him up and cross examine him about these sundry misdeeds and to discover why he thinks it is perfectly all right and justifiable to investigate my sewing stuff and my yarns, and instead had a glass or two of wine. I do not really want to upset him, or his mother, who is doing a very fine job with her children and her nephews. Her eldest child is like the Elephant's Child, full of 'satiable curiosity. It is obviously genetic, polished and perfected by experience. I sometimes wonder when my own genetic inheritance will burst forth - will it be in my lifetime? I think not.

It can come as a shock to discover how accustomed one can become to solitude. Not that this is to be recommended.

Late yesterday I investigated my mobile phone and realised that I had totally forgotten that my car was booked in for its pre-registration service that morning. Oh dear. Never mind, it has been re-booked for next week.

It is a lovely night. The sun has set and the light suffusing the scattered clouds is still pinkly golden.

Getting it right

2011-12-24T14:27:00.000+11:00

Most of yesterday was spent doing the largest food shopping of the year, and then lugging it into the house. This is in anticipation of the arrival on Christmas Day of my two younger children and their children. They will have to be fed, and possibly they might have to adapt to what is in the refrigerator, and what can be cooked here.

My oven has been on the blink for most of the year, and I decided not to get it fixed until such time as we know just whose oven it is. It is probably the thermostat which is the problem. Generally when I cook chicken pieces it takes twice the normal time for them to be cooked. The lack of a reliable oven made it rather difficult to contemplate the cooking of a turkey. Being a purist, I cannot countenance purchasing a pre-cooked turkey, and the compromise solution is buying a couple of turkey legs and some slices of turkey breast, to be cooked in the electric frying pan.

The shops were incredibly crowded, and parking spaces were in short supply. There were even traffic-directing staff on duty. Amazingly, I found a parking place immediately, and then set about shopping, making progressive trips to the car to drop off the purchases, thereby disappointing a number of drivers whose eyes had lit up hopefully as I approached my car, unloaded the shopping, and then failed to depart.

Despite the crowds and the queues, everyone was really pleasant, chatty, nice and considerate, which was very heartwarming for this sore soul so smitten by sad and sorry circumstances.

I do believe we live in a very fortunate country, in which most people are decent and considerate. My friend in Melbourne remarked to me that she found the people there generally very pleasant and helpful. I did, too, more so than in this city. I travelled around mostly by tram, and on one trip, a stranger to the city got on and asked about the best way of reaching a particular place. The tram driver gave his considered opinion, other passengers gave theirs, everyone discussed the options, and when we arrived at a stop where a different tram route could be taken, the driver got out to check the timetable, and told the woman that the next tram would arrive in two minutes. The spontaneous civility of the whole exchange was wonderful. We need to hang on to these characteristic social interactions, whereby we do not always put our own needs first.

Remembering that we might all like some dessert, I bought a large tub of the world's best gelato, made by Tonino, who used to have a cafe just up the street, until his lease was terminated. He disappeared for a while, to the intense and general regret of the community. The food was terrific (such perfect gnocchi!) and the gelato superb, especially the chocolate, the hazelnut and the passionfruit. Tonino and his gelato eventually turned up at a cafe down the other end of the peninsula, to general rejoicing and enthusiastic consumption.

I have bought some tinsel, etc, to festoon the house a little. And I am listening to lots of absolutely luscious and beautiful music on the radio, and trying to let some seasonal gladness trickle into my heart. I hope that the negative effects of the years of living with Dr P will dwindle and enable me to open my heart and emotions once more. I don't mean to say that those years were all bad and negative: far from it. There were many good things, and we did love each other and enjoy much of our lives together. However, I had to bend and give more than he did, and his age, and attitudes led to a constriction in my own life. The last couple of years were very hard, and this year has been awful.

Now, despite my continuing struggles, I need to open up and expand. And to let the sunshine in.

Much adoing, but is it about nothing?

2011-12-22T14:09:00.000+11:00

It is amazing how time-consuming simple things can be. Shopping, for example, and getting from Point A to Point B. Waiting for people to arrive. Sorting through the mail. Writing Christmas cards and then realising that some recipients, there not having been contact between us all year, do not know what has happened to me in the meantime. Finding papers and documents relevant to this and that. Sitting thinking. Talking to people. Buying new bras. And a swimsuit. And a dress. Travelling by plane and taxi.

Catching up with the washing. Sorting out which bills need urgent attention. Organising the very overdue car service. Scrabbling around looking for the leftovers of a particular yarn, and then finding there is insufficient to finish off this piece of work, which probably no one will want anyway. Wondering how to cook a Christmas dinner without a functioning oven. Correcting the typing errors which the tiny Apple keyboard makes me make. Not seeing for some time this typing error dccuments. Wondering why it is that when I write, the letters appear in their correct order, but when I type the same words, they do not.

Pondering whether I urgently need new glasses. Wondering how on earth I used to manage to work, raise a family, do all the housework, cooking and gardening and have a social life, when my days are now filled with so many apparently minor things.

They do say, don't they, that work expands to fill the time available. A depressing thought, this!

I am back from my family gathering in Melbourne. I don't think I am good company, as yet. Nor have I obeyed the injunction on the sympathy card I bought myself many months ago, which said "Pull yourself together."

Threads and themes

2011-12-14T22:02:00.000+11:00

I am protesting. Against the trivialisation of issues.

Yesterday I went into the city to attend the wool sale. I came away with yet more wool, including a couple of balls which are intended to make a little scarf thingie. Already the first ball has revealed itself to be defective, as a separate length of wool was in the middle of the ball. This is aggravating as I had already started crocheting this scarf thingy.

Now I will have to take it back, and protest. This issue is undoubtedly trivial, although irritating enough.
The wool I bought will be devoted to making blanket squares for the ABNc's Knit with Love. Or for a baby blanket. There is another great niece or nephew expected.

As I sat tranquilly, counting chain stitches, I watched the Australian Public Affairs Channel. Our Minister for Communications was giving a speech to the National Press Club. He was discussing the National Broadband Network, a subject about which I know relatively little, especially given that I do not have a good understanding of my own internet and telephone plans. I thought the Minister gave a good speech, although he did have what I regard as a regrettable tendency to use single verbs with plural subjects, and vice versa. I do like people to speak and write grammatically, and get very upset when people say things like 'Me and Jim had Maccas for dinner' and 'Her and me went out last night..."It makes me wonder what teachers are doing. Not to mention their parents.

Back to the subject, though. The Minister finished his speech and started answering questions, and in response to one question commented that everyone cheered if a tax was reduced, but that if the tax was increased it was seen as F****** dreadful.

Now I know he ought not to have used that awful word, but let's face it, the rest of the world does, almost incessantly. I blush to admit that I have have used it myself, from time to time, but only when provoked, and not as a necessary insertion after every second word. I live near a school, and as the students walk past each morning and afternoon, I hear most of them use that word at least three times in each and every sentence. It is not as though it is not now common parlance, deplorable though this may be.

In a less imperfect world, one concerned with issues rather than style, one might have expected the issues to be the subject of the news, but No. Each news channel, on the three I have listened to so far, has reported the use of the F word, but given absolutely no attention or coverage of the issues nor the content or context. I have telephoned all three of them, to protest against their trivialisation of issues and political coverage. Not that my protests will change anything, of course. Although, the ABC did give some emphasis to the content of the speech in their later news bulletin, so who knows, I might have achieved something

If there is one thing I hate, it is the sanctimonious journalist. (There are a few other things I hate, but it would be tedious to dissertate upon them needlessly. Sufficient to the day thereof...

Renovating and renewing

2011-12-12T23:50:00.000+11:00

Isabelle of In This Life has just been fantasising about household renovations, and this got me started thinking about what I might do if I am able to stay in my home.

It is a big house, and apart from having had the outside painted, the garage extended and the plunge swimming pool filled in, and turned into a garden, the sinks replaced with stainless steel instead of stainable porous white plastic, handrails wherever possible, stairlifts installed, and air conditioning, blinds and curtains fitted to help control the overheating of the house caused by the fact that it faces east/west and thus gets fearfully hot, no decorating has been done.

Heavens! That sounds like quite a lot. But wait, there's more, to consider, that is.

If I were to splurge according to what is needed to be done in the house and to my own tastes I would:

Rip out the carpets. Put new carpets in. Those on the floor are unlovely, tired and unhappy, and badly fitted.
Have the tiled floors fixed. They really need it, and it shows. Many tiles are broken, or wobble when walked upon. This would cost heaps.
Re-tile the laundry and adjacent toilet.
Get better blinds.
Fix the wooden window frames which are greatly the worse for wear.
Replace the vanity unit in one of the bathroom, as it is rotting.
Replace the kitchen bench surfaces. They are rather unlovely and are rather battered. Dr P, who despite having a chemistry degree appeared not to understand some practical consequences of the theory, such as the melting point of plastics, and who put hot saucepans directly on the benches, causing damage.
In fact, fix the whole kitchen. The bench level is higher than the window levels, evidence of really stupid design and planning. The window frames in the kitchen, dining room and the upstairs sitting room were installed back the front, which means that instead of rain falling away, it can trickle inside, as the slope is to the inside and not to the outside. In the olden days building inspectors should have picked up that sort of idiot mistake, but once things stopped being actually inspected, and were merely ticked off, they got through. So theoretically they should all be replaced.

It always bothered me that the house was allowed to deteriorate. I would have kept it in better order. Bearing in mind that from from this day forward there is no one to tell me what to do or to veto my decisions, theoretically, at least, from some future date I can make such decisions of wherever and whatever, I will be able to do (to some extent anyway) what I damn well please.

The house across the road, on the other corner was sold recently, and the new owners have moved in, and have started some improvements and renovations. I looked at the house before it was sold, out of general interest, and attended the auction. (Everyone does this as in this city the contemplation of real estate is a predominant passion.) I had not actually met the couple, but as I watched from my balcony at the weekend while garden rubbish was being removed, they saw me and we waved at each other. So I went downstairs, and went across and knocked on their door, bearing a welcoming jar of cumquat marmalade, and we all said hello. They have two small children, aged three and one. Their names are Baxter and April. (Sigh!) The children are lovely.

Although this is said to be a very active and sociable neighborhood, full of community involvement, in fact it is not easy to meet, or to get to know people. In part, this is due to the fact that it is an old area, with very small blocks of land, and no one has front gardens. So you never see people out the front. The backs of the houses have lane exits, and what little space there is accommodates the car, and roller doors. I walk through the lanes to get to the main road and to walk to the bus stops, but it is relatively rare to encounter a neighbour.

Across the road there is a school, and next to it is a large complex of units, but all the residents leave their houses from the back. Thus there remains the side street. I exit from the rear of the house, which means onto the side street, and I know several of the neighbours, but getting to know them depends on our being outside together at the same time, and the ensuing general conversations. Across the lane lives a very old and deaf lady in her mid 90s, and she never remembers knowing me, although I chat with her daughter when she visits at the weekend, if we happen to coincide. The house next door is used as a a professional premises, and I have got to know the couple. I know the couple down the far end of the lane, having chatted to them from time to time as their house was renovated, and indeed, they kindly witnessed my will for me - that is, as it turned out, a good way of getting to know people.

Dr P was not sociable towards his neighbours, and so he did not know any of them. After he died it occurred to me that I should tell my neighbours of his death, so I telephoned next door, and called to see the other neighbours. It felt weird, knocking on doors to say that my husband had died, but I am glad I did, as they have been kindly and helpful. And I like to build and maintain connections with people.

All this makes me wonder how I would manage if I were to lose the house, and leave the neighbourhood and perhaps the city. And start all over again.

It is an odd thing. I have lived in houses at the end of a complex, and in a street opposite a hospital but without any direct access to it. Thus there has never been an abundance of neighbours. None of this was done on purpose. Perhaps if I have to move it might be advisable to choose somewhere with more neighbours. However, neighbours are among the very many of unknown factors which surround so many of our choices. It is all rather daunting, as I am actually quite shy.

Date being set

2011-12-07T23:04:00.000+11:00

A date for mediation has been set. But not for another couple of months.

In the meantime, perhaps it will be possible to think about Christmas. I do not want to be alone.

Mediation may be only a formality, as it seems that it may not be a serious exercise for the other side.
At least, perhaps for the time being, it will be possible to think about other matters. It is a compulsory procedure, but it does not, of course, mean that it will produce a result.

We will see. Perhaps I can relax a little. There is no point giving up at this stage.

In the meantime I am tired and grumpy. It has all been a most exhausting process, and for me it is my life and its future, whereas for the lawyers it is just another, probably routine, thing to get done.

My BIL thinks my latest effort in reply was a good one. Whether it makes a difference won't be clear for some time.

I hope I can clear my mind somewhat. Think of other things, and be able to enjoy the little, but important things of life.

Being, necessarily, obsessed, by what had to be done, has been most painful, and I have wondered whether my life for these past years has been worth anything. And I wonder further whether I will have the strength and wisdom to make good and positive decisions on whatever the rest of my life may bring. Or whether I am locked or have locked myself, into making the wrong decisions.

Is it possible to know these things, or do I blunder blindly into the void? Should I have folded up my tent and stolen away into that dark night? Have I acted wisely in choosing to contest my future, and trying to counter what I see as the injustices dealt out to me? If I do not try to counter them now, I have fewer grounds for complaint.

It is my desire to become free of it all, to be able to put it all behind me, and to take responsibility for my own fate. And not to have accepted injustices, but to have fought to set it right. I am not naturally combative, but I do have a passion for justice.

A still day

2011-12-06T12:45:00.000+11:00

I am awaiting the outcome of the latest hearing, to fix a date for whatever happens next. Nothing will happen until next year. I feel betwixt and between, and don't know what to do next. What is the meaning of life?

My friend, the partner of my dear friend who died three years ago, was here for the weekend, for sundry social activities. We went to the Art Gallery, and he saw the Picasso exhibition, which I had already visited. So I went and inspected a new ultra contemporary art gallery section funded by a very rich donor, and there was scarcely anything there which I though was worth having. Pretentious nonsense, is my opinion of it. There was another exhibition of work entered for a Drawing Prize, and that was far far better. Much more interesting than pseudo arty Christo wrapped trees and/or cliffs.

Last night we went with other friends to Pinchgut Opera's production of Vivaldi's opera Griselda. We all dined beforehand, and caught up with our various news, and all enjoyed the opera immensely, despite the sadistic and manipulative character of the king, and the seeming masochism of his wife Griselda. The singing was superlative, even though with three counter tenors/male soprani, a soprano and a mezzo soprano, to one solitary tenor (the king) the absence of male sounding voices was quite strange. And I had problems telling the counter tenors apart. The music was gorgeous, and we all came away feeling happy, unlike Griselda, who, it seems, finally worked out that she was married to a rather despicable cad, and who thus (eventually) expressed some irritation. However, opera is not always rational. To put it mildly. I love it anyway.

I drove KP to the airport this morning and am now sitting about at home, contemplating going out to buy a coffee. The weather for the last week has been rather cold and I have needed my hot water bottle again! It is a still day, but it is raining intermittently. With the completion of the latest affidavit, and the departure of my friend, I am wondering what to do with myself. My mood is rather lugubrious, and restless. My foot is tapping all by itself.

I suppose I could vacuum the house, which probably needs it, but vacuuming is not the most enjoyable or interesting thing in life. The cleaners are no longer coming, as they were not doing a very good job, and so in the meanwhile I will save the money. One person living alone does not make a lot of mess. There is nothing to do in my tiny garden - the other day I tried yet again to remove the unreachable weeds underneath the front steps.

I cannot decide what to crochet next. There is an uncompleted baby jacket, which needs some deep analysis. It is in stripes. There is no obvious baby recipient, so long has it been since I started this jacket. I had started a stole, in a light mohair, but it was not working, and so I have pulled it all out. Undoing crocheted mohair is a devil of a task, as the stitches do not wish to come apart. They stick together.

The solution must be to curl up with a good book, with some opera playing in the background.

Or I could, and should, do some choir practice. The concert is next Sunday afternoon.

There passed a weary time...

2011-12-01T22:42:00.000+11:00

Except it has not quite passed yet. The past couple of days have been spent preparing and revising the latest affidavit, and in providing evidence to illustrate that what the other side has said or implied about me is false. It is incredible how long this sort of thing takes. My advice to the ambient air and to any casual readers is to document absolutely everything and never to throw anything away...

It would be tedious to describe it all, and probably even more tedious to read it, so I refrain from inflicting it upon the blogosphere. Suffice to say that I got cranky when I found words had been put into my mouth, and thus had to spend hours correcting and clarifying, etc, and even more hours today in the completion of it all.

Thank goodness it is now done to the best of my ability, and several weeks sleep would be welcome. It will all drag on for quite some time to come. I have been active with my tape measure and in the calculation of how many linear metres of bookshelves I have.

Naturally, not everything has gone smoothly in other parts of my life. Why would it?

After the last crochet clinic, I came home with all the parts of the jacket ready to be put together. I decided to sew them rather than crochet them together, as a trial run showed that it was difficult to get the crochet hook through the two parts. Having joined one front and the back using backstitch, inspection revealed some unevenness. Instead of saying that near enough was good enough, I decided to unpick it and do it again. Big mistake. Accidentally I unravelled some of the stitches in the back, and I lack the expertise to fix it myself. Now it was not easy to do this accidental unravelling, in fact it was, in its own warped way, an amazing achievement. Had I been less fussy it would have all been finished by now, and I would have had a) a nice new dark blue alpaca jacket, and b) a sense of achievement.

I have been able to consult with the crochet expert, and on Sunday week will take it to her in the city and she will (she says, and I certainly believe her, as she is a crocheting genius) pick up those unravelled stitches, and all should be well. Then I will have to decide what to make next. Something using yet more purple wool, I suspect. The mauve sweater recently finished, which is too large for me, still has to be found a good home.

On reflection, I have managed to do quite a lot this week, even if not all has been well done. I read two books, did my Dante homework, got to half the choir practice last night, and was allowed to go home during the break, so as to attend to the affidavit, emailed it after midnight, and after three gruelling hours this afternoon, came away with the finished product. In some ways I am perplexed that it takes so long, but it seems to have taken the professionals just as much time. Their monthly bill arrived yesterday.

It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes...

On Monday night I am going with friends to Pinchgut Opera's production of Vivaldi's opera Griselda, which promises to be an absolute delight, as long as one can tell the three counter tenors apart.

Those recurring weekends

2011-11-27T22:02:00.000+11:00

They just keep coming, the weekends, that is. Today I went off to the crochet clinic, where I sat diligently finishing the two front pieces of the jacket I have been doing for months now. It is quite a soothing way of using up a weekend. In the intervening fortnight I got no crocheting done. The sleeve seams have now been sewn, and I am contemplating carefully the joining of the fronts to the back. And hoping the result will fit me and look good. I don't know whether I could cope psychologically if they don't. The camel's back may well break. Let's hope not.

Today was General Household Cleanup Day, and so I went through the house to see what I could discard. If I get kicked out of my home, there are a number of things I would not want to take with me to whatever part of Siberia I'd have to settle for, but those items are far too big for me to move unaided, what with their considerable weight, and all the stairs and the stair lifts to contend with. Thus the items to be discarded included elderly umbrellas, waste paper bins, garden pots, some tiles and bricks, and firewood. And two old speakers. I bought the bricks thinking that somehow or other, unassisted, I could raise the level of Dr P's bed, to make it easier for him to get in and out of it. It remains unclear how it would have been possible for me to hold the base of the bed high enough to enable me, unaided, to slip bricks underneath the castors. The firewood was in the fireplace when we moved to this house, but we never lit the fire, and it seemed to me that it would be a good idea to get rid of the wood. There were a few tiles, which used to be decorative, but they have been unused for the past eleven years, and it seemed the time had come to dispose of them. Some crafty items also joined the pile.

As the day progressed, various neighbours brought out their stuff and piled them on the footpath, or against my wall. I politely asked them to move them onto the kerb, the designated collection point, and this was done. One young female neighbour, never before spotted, brought out a dead ironing board. I expressed surprise that a young person had an ironing board to be disposed off, but she smilingly assured me that she always ironed her clothes. (Unlike my children.)

I was pretty excited that I had managed to notice the forthcoming collection day, as year after year I used to miss it. Although the Council warned that the collection might not occur on the Day Itself, in fact they arrived, hefty men and their mpressive truck, at about 7 pm and they took absolutely everything.

Late in the afternoon I looked down at the street from my balcony, and saw some neighbours combing through the discards. They took away an umbrella which used to belong to Dr P. Recycling is alive and well around here. It was pleasing to note this.

There are still a couple of dead radiators and a printer and scanner to get rid of. Computer thingies are not readily accepted, and it may require a special effort to get rid of these. You would think that with the manifold increase in computer paraphernalia, and the rapid going out of date that afflicts so many such machines, that councils would have got around to making special provision to help their loyal ratepayers dispose of them, but No.

There are some things which I can take to Vinnies. A woman's work is never done.

I suppose it made a change from the seemingly endless revision of legal documents and the countering of false statements made by the other side. All this resulted in a lengthy appointment with the lawyers earlier this week, and I await the next exciting instalment. It is evident that nothing will be settled in the near future.

Half full and half empty glasses

2011-11-21T19:38:00.000+11:00

Our city has had a great tragedy. An horrific crime. There was a fire, deliberately lit, it seems by one of the nurses, who has been charged with murder, at an old people's home, and seven elderly people died, with many more seriously ill in hospital. Heroic firemen, police, staff, and neighbours combined to evacuate the home, and to tend to the victims. Imagine ending your days in an inferno, trapped and immobile in your bed. Unable to see, unable to move, unable to help yourself. A fire deliberately caused! I think of Dr P, and imagine if he had been a victim.

It is nine months since Dr P died. While this memory has been strongly present all through this day, I bethought me of other and more immediate things, such as half full glasses. This mixture, this conflict between grief and memory, and coping with the necessities of the present tears me in two.

Thus I resort to the more trivial things in life.

On Saturday morning I felt delight, as a tiny boy pointed joyfully at the sky, crying "There's the moon."Well spotted. (I too love moon-spotting.)

My son showed me how to find the planet Mercury. I am very happy about this. I get very frustrated, because what with living on the down side of a hill and with houses in between blocking the sight of the moon rise, I want to yowl when full moon approaches.

I am halfway through Hilary Mantel's novel Fludd, which is full of unexpected delights and surprises, and which revives many similar memories.

Today when I bought some prosciutto crudo, the young woman beside me at the deli counter complimented me on my pronunciation. I felt unreasonably delighted.

My friend rang to let me know there would be a wonderful program on Italian gardens. And I have visited one of them, at Bomarzo. It is quite a strange one and has a lopsided building on it.

My thoughts have turned to the prospect of going for a swim.

A little more order has been introduced to my documents, and this may possibly prevent their mysterious overnight increasing and multipying. I have become a devotee of coloured plastic folders.

I remembered it was the garden rubbish collection day on Sunday and put it all outside to be taken away. And no one nicked my garden rubbish bag.

I tidied up the contents of the hall cupboard, and have reduced the number of things therein. Now all I have to do is find legitimate means of disposal. There is a General Household Cleanup next weekend, but they don't really mean general, as they won't take dead scanners or printers, or electrical things like heaters. And there are two Marantz speakers which need a good home. Still, they are all now downstairs in the garage. Naturally, it immediately rained and some drops fell onto them.

The red and green alstroemeria still look just gorgeous.

In between them all, and the rampant mint, some basil is surviving.

Tomorrow, more lawyers.

Banks and the ever increasing vicissitudes of life

2011-11-18T19:32:00.009+11:00

There are times when irritation smites you. There have been two such occasions this week.

From time to time I fantasise about online purchases. The temptation is not great. However after a lesson about iPhoto I went home to practice what I had learned, only to find that the instructor had used a more recent version than mine. Oh well I thought, I will go in and buy the whole iWork package. However it seems it is no longer available in this form. Instead, you buy bits and pieces of it on line.

I have a typical elderly female reluctance to indulge in on line purchases. I remembered the very techno-savvy husband of a friend telling me how he had a special low limit credit card to use for such purchases. Well, if it was good enough for the brilliant Steve, it should be worth doing.

The experience that has followed could well be serialised and has been more than enough to send me into a ranting and raging virago. (What is the male form of virago, by the way?)

Now here I am, a modest, unassuming aging female, who has always lived within her income, always pays off her credit card every month in full, uses direct debits to make sure I always pay my bills, and who has been a good and reliable customer of a bank beginning with A for quite some years. Surely, I said to myself, I can just call down and get an el cheapo credit card with a low limit, and explain to them I just want an el cheapo with a low credit limit for specific purchases, so that my real and ordinary card cannot be ripped off by those lurking OUT THERE somewhere in the ether to prey on innocent and stupid persons such as myself.

Off I took myself and queued in the bank. Eventually my turn arrived and I recited my request, and a form got filled in and sent off. Much to my surprise - given my existing credit history and the fact that I wanted a credit limit of $500, the request was not automatically approved. I had to supply the name of someone who could vouch for me. I did so and warned the person so nominated, who has known me a mere thirty years or so.

This morning someone from the bank rang me. Obviously they had not read the information I supplied and kept asking me stupid questions to which I had already supplied the answers. I began wondering about their literacy standards. They wanted to know how much I spent each month. I told them it was less than my income and if they wanted further details they could look up my credit card record, discover that I always paid off my credit card in full and paid most bills by direct debits. Eventually I got very shirty and told them that they were very inefficient, and had not checked the information previously supplied, and that I no longer wished to do further business with them, and to cancel my request for a credit card with a $500 limit. After adjuring them to report my dissatisfaction to their employers, I hung up.

But maybe I am just a slow learner. This afternoon I went out to buy food, and even more plastic folders in which to keep the ever-accumulating number of documents related to my current struggles. On the way I called into My Usual Bank, into which is paid my regular income, and from which my direct debits are paid, including my direct debit of the credit card payment. It took forever. I began to feel quite irritated. People kept queueing up to talk to the person with whom I was dealing, and interrupting. Time dragged on. I was sorry to be the cause of their delays. However this bank employee did not display the efficiency one might have expected. Everything took ages. Perhaps it was because that bank uses Microsoft. She too asked me for my monthly expenditure. I told her I did not know, but that as she had all my financial statements before her, she could see what payments were made to me both fortnightly and monthly, she could see all my direct debits, and also how much I withdrew in cash each month. I was starting to tap my feet, and the occasional sigh escaped me. Eventually she said all was done and we (I) would wait and see.

I'd hate to be a person on a low income. While my housing situation is uncertain, pending the outcome/result of all these legal struggles, I am on a comfortable income. Just ask my step-daughters! But we keep getting told how dreadful governments are, and how much better at everything private enterprise is, and then for two days running I find that the contrary is true. I am a good risk, but they do not make much money out of me, because I always pay on time, and thus incur no interest charges or penalty. Again I had to nominate a person who could vouch for me. I nominated my son, and remarked, 'He's known me all his life." This gentle sally provoked no reaction. Huh?

I know I am not as kind and tolerant as I used to be. Having had to deal with accounts and bills and payments after the death of Dr P, I found I was very liable to get very upset and enraged. I hoped that I had recovered from these reactions, but Alas, I found that in this regard I am still just like the tinder-dry bush in the heat of summer, and that the least little spark can ignite an horrific blaze.

So here I sit, growling away just like a lion, and feeling very very ready to bite.

When will it all end? Is all this worth being able to buy the update of iPhoto on line and download it?

Various ilks

2011-11-15T18:09:00.000+11:00

Weekends consisting of two days of more total solitude than is comfortable, on Sunday I decided to get out of the house. The fortnightly crochet clinic was on so I set out for that, and spent several pleasant hours crocheting away in the company of similarly dedicated women, most of whom were far more competent than I am, and who were working on more difficult things. The late arrival, who was more of a beginner, turned out to be from the Isle of Man and she is an astrologer. I am not a believer in astrology, so chose not to join in any conversation about it.

I am working away on a jacket and as I kept getting wrong the number of stitches, and having had a few problems on when and how to decrease, decided to resume work on the back of this jacket, so that the other pieces could be measured against it. The back is now finished, and so I now have a model on which to base the other parts. I was all set to take it to the opera study group, but when I got there found I had somehow left the crochet hook somewhere else, and thus was forced to listen attentively instead. have now almost finished it - only a row or so to go. One of these days I will get this garment finished.

There are only a couple more crochet sessions this year.

Having already got myself into the city, I decided to hang around for the rest of the afternoon. At the art Gallery a Picasso exhibition has just been opened, and Members of the Art Gallery Society had a special free viewing available from 5.15 pm. I knew if I went home, I would never drag myself out again, so spent some time browsing around, and buying myself a biography of Maria Fitzherbert while I was at it, and then walked to the Art Gallery to kill the rest of the time, and managed to get myself a cup of tea. We all got cleared out of the Gallery and then had to queue outside so as to get back in. It was a bit of a press, but as I queued I ran into another woman from one of the Italian classes and she was with her sister. We wound up viewing together.

It is quite an extensive exhibition, and well curated, except that in my opinion a larger size font should be used for the labels used to identify the art works. I had to do more peering than was comfortable. The art was very interesting, especially as last year I visited the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, which had quite a lot of his early work. There is no disputing Picasso's immense talent, productivity, and technical facility in every artistic medium. However, I don't think there is any other artist who moves me or engages me less. He seems obsessed by structure, and he must have had a compulsive urge to work, work, work in every possible medium. Whereas with many artists I could happily race off with, and love to bits lots of works, I found there was not one of Picasso's that I wanted, or even that I would ever want to see again.

The National Gallery of Australia is having an exhibition of art from the Accademia-Pinocoteca Carrara of Bergamo, and I absolutely have to get along to see it. I stayed in Bergamo for a few days in 2009, and we went to see this gallery, but it was already closed, apart from an exhibition of portraits in the Città Alta.

In the news just to hand, and with a special cheerio to Frogdancer, two agapanthus buds have been spotted lurking in the jungle like conditions of the Persiflage garden. It is difficult to spot anything at present, owing to the sudden profusion of the red and green alstroemeria flowers. This is Alstroemeria pulchella, but is apparently commonly known in Australia as New Zealand Christmas Bell, although, as my gardening book says, this is a mystery as it comes from North Brazil. I have never heard it so described, but then I don't know anyone else who has it growing. I must have brought it with me when I moved here. A good description of this plant's habit would be 'invasive'.

A citrus beetle was spotted on my kaffir lime, and exterminated, and obviously some pesticide is necessary.

Work, work, work. And innocent pleasures.

A good night's sleep

2011-11-10T22:29:00.000+11:00

That's what I need.

It was a late night last night, as I slaved away over my hot computer, completing replies, or at least drafts thereof, to refute the Other Side. I emailed them late at night and then copied assorted documents in support of my statements, sorted them out and put them into folders. I try not to allow order to descend into chaos, but chaos seems to creep up, seep up and engulf me and my efforts.

By the time I got to bed last night I was feeling exhausted and drained. After my Italian class today, I walked up to the lawyer's office, and deposited my documents. Then I went home and flopped on the couch and dozed spasmodically. I need sleep. I feel leaden, exhausted and depressed.

Takeaway dinner seemed a good idea, so I ordered it from the local Thai takeaway. It was horrible, so I feel I should call in and tell them so, and declare my intention of never patronising them ever again. The twice-cooked taste is pretty disgusting. It is almost enough to make me resume cooking for myself. This year I have done very little cooking. I buy spinach and fetta triangles, spinach quiches, sushi, occasionally cook myself a steak and have it with raw vegetables, sometimes cook a ham and cheese jaffle, or have cheese and biscuits. Nothing very fancy. I have made pesto, and had it several nights in a row. Occasionally I have toast with cumquat marmalade. All of this has made me much thinner, which is good, but also much more wrinkled, which is less good, but an apparently permanent condition. I don't care.

For a person who used to be a very good cook, it is all pretty pathetic. But there is something about cooking only for oneself that is quite depressing.

When I shop, it is difficult to buy quantities for one person. A new butcher has opened just up the road. The other day I bought a chicken sate stick, pre-marinated. I cooked it, but should have prepared the marinade myself. ONE chicken sate stick! How ridiculous.

In short, I have lost inspiration.

Perhaps at such times it is difficult to concentrate on more than one thing at a time. All the focussing on affidavits, evidence and writing it all up, interspersed by Italian homework, and choir practice, seems to take up all my energy. I am crocheting, but once again have to count stitches and rows.

At the last crochet clinic I said that this pattern I am now working on was much simpler than the previous one - the mauve 1970s style sweater which is now too big for me, and which thus needs a good home. The teacher/expert said to me "Never say it is simpler. That is asking for disaster". I said, "Well, it seems much less complicated". Never mind, I will go again this Sunday.

I have some interesting books to read, but my energy levels and concentration have plummeted way below the horizon. They had better get back up over it quick bloody smart, that's all I have to say to them.

Away and back

2011-11-07T21:46:00.000+11:00

I had a couple of days away, and got back this afternoon. I feel somewhat whacked, and thoughts swirl around my head. They won't stay still, or let me focus on any one theme or strand.

So be it.

I drove to Canberra, stayed with a friend and spent most of my time with my son and his boys. That went well. The little boys seemed pleased to see me, and I did lots of cuddling, and conversed with wildly fluctuating levels of competence on subjects such as the calendar, the planets orbiting the sun, the occurrence of leap years, but skilfully managed to avoid string theory. (I have no idea what string theory is, not having been blessed by a scientific mind, nor do I understand parsecs.) However, thanks to being keen on history and various other significant events and developments in the history of civilisation, not to mention having done some languages, I was able to dissertate with sufficient expertise on how the months were named, and the various changes made to the calendar. It was all rather exhausting and challenging, though. Fortunately, at this stage, although I remain relatively ignorant, I still know more than your slightly above average eight year old boy. I don't know how much he took in, of course.

I also did a bit of housework for my son, and then we went to the park, where the little one flung himself intrepidly onto all the equipment and the older one freaked out - but kept trying it - going down a rather large slide, panicking all the way down. Eek!

We did some grocery shopping, and I had to catch the little one and put him in the shopping trolley, rather than chasing him around the whole supermarket. The idea flashed into my head that perhaps I am not fit enough to do all this. My back got a bit sore.

My son kindly checked the pressure in my tyres. I blush to admit I have never learned to do this, and will do all I can to avoid learning for the foreseeable future. He is doing a good job with his boys, who are progressing well.

I saw another friend and former colleague, and it turned out to be the 30th anniversary of the death of her seven year old son. We remembered Jonathan together. He'd been born with a heart defect, and eventually had open heart surgery, but he died shortly after the operation. She later tried to have another baby, but the shock and grief caused her reproductive system to totally pack up. The surviving child, a daughter, now has two children. I often think of those of us who have lost children, such as this friend, and another, whose daughter died at 18 from undiagnosed leukaemia. We pick ourselves up when we can, and get on with life, as we must, but those wounds never completely heal.

Now that I am back home, I must turn again to replying to and refuting the affidavits. It is a case of girding the loins and gritting the teeth, and getting it all done. I am staggered by their combination of inaccuracy, lack of veracity, malice and prejudice. As Truth is my middle name, and I have the documentation to counter their false assertions and prejudices, they should wind up looking less than lily white. The things that they say do not invalidate the strength of my case.

Sick in stomach and at heart

2011-10-31T12:53:00.000+11:00

Affidavits in reply to mine are arriving. One in particular is sheer nastiness. Guess whose? No surprises there, of course, nor about the other nastinesses, which are less extreme, though. Fortunately, there is a lot of stuff I can document, but, possibly unrealistically, I hoped this process could be done without sneers, nastiness, falsity and exaggeration. But it seems not so. To me there seems to be the whiff of collusion.

I am writing rejoinders, so as to rebut things, but I hope it won't come to the stage of litanies of woe, outrage and relative nastiness, such as she said, she did, he said, he did, they said, they did, etcetera, because this is not what my legal contest is about - rather about the law, and the justice of my claim. The context and the nuances need to be set out. They are not the issue, though. But I must keep my language temperate, measured and rational, and not descend or resort to abuse, or snide comments. Just the facts, ma'am.

At present, I feel I need intravenous tranquillisers, good stiff drinks (I don't drink that sort of alcohol) a warm bath, to be held, cuddled and soothed, about fifty hours sleep, and the ability to switch moods at will. Lacking most of these, I must persevere, stay on course, and hope I live long enough to get through this process, and to heal and become whole. And if I could then press Delete on many of these experiences, I probably would. Right now I just want to bawl my head off.

In the scheme of things my lot is really not all that bad, and many of my reactions are conditioned, and thus difficult to prevent or halt.

Yesterday I went to the crochet clinic. It was very soothing and productive. I also lashed out, and bought an ice cream.

Perhaps later I will sort through my increasing pile of documents and ensure they are in order.

In the meantime, I will drink my coffee, have some sour dough with cumquat marmalade, and put on some harrowingly emotional opera, or some uplifting Bach or Handel. I am not sure I can cope with an opera with a heroine (foolishly) sacrificing all for the man she loves, though.

Oddness

2011-10-24T22:30:00.007+11:00

Despite the overflowing bookshelves, I keep buying books. While doing my food shopping at the end of the week, I came across a book stall. I bought a cookery book, which was uncommonly cheap, a novel by Hilary Mantel, and two memoirs, one by Margaret Forster, a writer I have long followed, and another Hilary Mantel book, a memoir, entitled Giving up the Ghost.

She starts her memoir with an account of a migraine. Then she continues:

I hardly know how to write about myself. Any style you pick seems to unpick itself before a paragraph is done. I will just go for it, I think to myself, I'll hold out my hands and say, c'est moi, get used to it. I'll trust the reader. This is what I recommend to people who ask me how to get published. Trust your reader, stop spoon-feeding your reader, give your reader credit for being as smart as you at least, and stop being so bloody beguiling: you in the back row, will you turn off that charm! Plain words on plain paper. Remember what Orwell says, that good prose is like a window-pane. Concentrate on sharpening your memory and peeling your sensibility. Cut every page you write by at least one-third. Stop constructing those piffling little similes of yours. Work out what it is you want to say. Then say it in the most direct and vigorous way you can. Eat meat. Drink blood. Give up your social life and don't think you can have friends. Rise in the quiet hours of the night and prick your fingertips, and use the blood for ink; that will clear you of persiflage.

But do I take my own advice? Not a bit. Persiflage is my nom de guerre. (Don't use foreign expressions; it's elitist.)

Is it not odd how such thoughts, such events, somehow seek you out, and smite you with their appositeness? What were the chances that I would find and buy this book?

Autobiography has always seemed to me to be a difficult genre. Many autobiographies are very boring indeed. I find I always want more than is given. I want the detail, the nitty gritty. I do not want things left to the imagination, or to be left unsaid. I like Ruth Park's, and Doris Lessing's. They draw me in, and leave me pondering. Less is more: but I want both the less, and the more. Is it possible to have both?

As I write my blog, wondering with each post what I will write about, trying not to harp incessantly on the trials of my life, and to step outside the small sealed box of my reality, to reach once more into the world around me, and to engage with it, I find such chance encounters with the realities of other lives, and the strange and unpredictable nature of coincidences more and more fascinating, and unfathomable.

Sometimes, indeed often, when I read, I am so impatient to know more that I read too quickly and carelessly, and do not catch the nuances, the subtleties. I looked up the book on the Internet, and read a review from The Guardian, thus cheating, to some extent, and found out more. I returned to the book and absorbed some more, but must return and concentrate, and try to notice what missed when I skimmed it so quickly on my first reading. How much of our early life can we truly remember? I seem to have snapshots, fixed points in time, the emotions, the embarrassments, confusions. How much was real, how much could I be sure about?

Two of my sisters have excellent recall. The elder sister, the one with dementia, now has much less grasp of reality, but I wonder how much she is still able to recollect of her childhood and past life? My next sister, C, has an amazing memory, and knows who said what to whom, and when. I wish I had this ability.

While I was at university, I wrote a diary for some years. Eventually I destroyed it, and now I regret this. I have written more about some crises in my life, such as the breakup of my first marriage, but although I occasionally glance at it, I cannot bear to read much of it. I don't suppose anyone kept my letters, and letters became less frequent, and shorter, as the children were born, and grew and as life became so much busier. Emails restored the practice of writing, but many of them have gone. Once I moved here, my computer ceased being private. I became very guarded about what I wrote in my emails. My records are thus very incomplete. As is my memory.

I kept the sympathy letters from when I lost my twins, and all the letters when each of my children was born. The children might be glad to have these, eventually. But not yet. And I have all the letters after Dr P's death.

Apart from the intrinsic interest of the subject, I find biographies fascinating, especially when they use the extensive correspondence which was common before telephones and later the Internet transformed the means and use of communications.

We yearn to know, and to know others. We want the meeting of minds.

You know what they say about sagas....

2011-10-22T14:05:00.000+11:00

Yes, they go on and on....

In the olden days of my childhood, radio serials abounded (TV not having yet been made available to the known universe) and at the end of each episode the listeners were exhorted to tune into the next enthralling episode....

It is eight months since Dr P died. It is strange how we mark off the passing of time, and note dates which seem significant. This one does, two thirds of a year. A year since I returned from Spain, and noted, with increasing alarm, anxiety, concern and sadness, the changes which had occurred in those few weeks of my absence. Having had the time away, the changes showed more clearly than if I had been there to observe them day by day. And from then on being responsible for so many decisions. And then his sudden death.

The grief is less, the shock has worn off, I am more accustomed to solitude, and the course of events has dictated how I spend my time. There are times now when I think I should write a little manual of how to prepare for such eventualities, and what to do anyway. One piece of fairly elementary advice is to have a joint back account, and to have utilities and other accounts in both names. One friend, also dealing with an increasingly frail, but still mentally competent, husband, has now sorted out the procedures for such eventualities.

I fill my time in many ways, the housekeeping, reading, listening to music (lots of that), practising for choir, seeing friends, going to my classes, sorting out all the paperwork, which, try as I may to keep it in order, somehow finds its way into a confused state, and thinking, thinking and remembering. And wishing, and brooding. Hoping to emerge in one piece, whole and sane, in due course.

I wish I had a strategic sort of mind, but at least a couple of such minds are on my payroll. Another offer was made, but we have made no response, either yea or nay, but rather allowed the effluxion of time to take care of it, while awaiting their compliance with the legal requirements.

This is likely to cause a certain amount of irritation and annoyance, and my immediate reaction to this is one of simple and unalloyed pleasure. This whole process is redolent with anxiety, crossness and frustration, reactions which should be shared even-handedly between all participants. I must not be selfish and keep them all to myself....

A couple of days ago I had another appointment with the counsellor. Was I angry with Dr P? she asked. Well, yes, for much of the time I was, and still am.

She recommended that I do some shouting and ranting to express and thus possibly free myself from the negative emotions caused by Dr P's selfishness, and meanness. The car, she said, is a good place in which to shout, rant and abuse. Well, I do not drive far enough to follow this advice, and it would not be a good idea to do so while driving to choir practice. A couple of nights ago I wandered around the house, sorting out the washing, putting the rubbish bins out, crocheting a few rows, and spoke some of my thoughts aloud. It did not seem to do much good, as it, or something, provoked a very savage migraine, so that instead of going to my classes next morning, I spent most of the day in bed, with a hot water bottle on my head, drawn curtains, and an imperfectly functioning brain. I am much better now, just feeling rather wiped out.

Being alone now, the responsibility, blame or praise rests upon myself. So it behoves me to consider carefully, to think through all possible courses of action, to learn how to vent my emotions, and not to allow them to dictate my future. If I cannot get to my age without learning some sense, and a few lessons from life with its attendant bitter experiences, then heaven help me, and save me from myself.

Watching the film The Eye of the Storm made me relive the process of watching and dealing with the deterioration, both physical and mental, wrought by age and the progressive failure of both mind and body. Watching the death once more. It felt like being raked all over by long and jagged claws. The tragedy, the pity, and the consequences. Feeling that my time is limited and that I must use it carefully and wisely. I must take responsibility for the rest of my life, and no longer permit myself to be tossed on the wild seas chosen by hostile or indifferent persons. I must carry my own life raft: no one will be there to throw one to me. In so far as is possible, I must make and be responsible for my own life choices. They are not choices to be rushed into. The healing process is slow and conditional on many things. it needs planning and resolution. And acceptance.

These are some of the reasons why I must fight for my future, and not submit to the dictates of others. Not to mention my desire for and passion for justice.

Populating the earth, and remembrances of times past

2011-10-17T22:43:00.000+11:00

On Friday I flew to Melbourne to visit family, bearing cumquat marmalade for at least a few of them. Here are some statistics. I saw my two daughters and four of my grandchildren, three of my sisters, my two brothers, several sisters and brothers-in-law, lots of nieces and nephews and their spouses/partners, and about 13 great nieces and nephews.

The main event was the christening of the most recent great-nephew, a lovely plump-cheeked big boy, who wore the family christening robe. This is about 90 years old now. The lace has become quite fragile, and I think the great-nephew put his fist through it and made a small tear. My own children wore that christening robe.

My fourth and youngest sister gave me a bed for the first two nights. She is a creative and wonderful cook, and had found some cavolo nero at a local fruit shop, and used it in a delicious pasta sauce. She bought it partly to get her art students to draw it. I have had cavolo nero only once previously, in Tuscany, when I stayed overnight with friends. It is not a vegetable one sees very often, nor is it generally mentioned in recipe books - in fact, as soon as I finish this blog post I will check my own cookery books.

On Saturday I looked after two of my grandchildren. I saw two films, got my tax done, paid the required tax instalment, and talked a lot. And kept crocheting. It feels quite strange, in many ways, as my life is now so solitary (except when I go out to choir, classes and other things) to go from one family and social event to the next and then the next, with so much conversation and socialising happening.

It was delightful to see so many of my nieces and nephews and their progeny. Someone did the sums and it seems that our grandchildren now total 28, with another one expected, and very likely there will be a few more to come. We have indeed increased and multiplied.

These quick trips are lovely, albeit tiring, but I think that probably I ought to give myself longer so as to spend longer with everyone, and to catch up on old friends. I keep meaning to ring them, but did not find the time.

Last night I stayed with my second sister, and was able to talk through the latest developments with her husband, my excellent BIL. This was very helpful.

My youngest sister and I went to see The Cup, a feel-good film, and this morning my sister C and I saw The Eye of the Storm, before she drove me to the airport to catch the flight home. One of the actresses in that film was in my class at primary school for the first few years. She is an exceptionally talented person and stunningly beautiful, but she now looks quite old (I thought), so I must look quite old myself now too, however much I generally manage to avoid reaching that conclusion. I don't think the past year has helped my looks, although it has made me shed a lot of weight. One must, however reluctantly, face reality. Perhaps I am not very good at this. But I try.

After the film, before we drove to the airport, C and I crossed the road and had a browse around a dress shop, which featured some very pretty clothes in the fashions of yester-yesteryear. I tried on one dress and it fitted very nicely, but we agreed it was much too young-girly a style, with its fitted bodice and full skirt. But there I was, as in the distant past, with a small waist! It gave me a big wave of nostalgia for the days when my friends and I were learning to sew our clothes and we made quite a few such garments. We were such sweet, innocent young things! Had we known what was to come, the consequences of our choices and decisions, how many things would have been different.

I think the clothes from this shop would look very nice on my daughters. The series Mad Men seems to have affected fashion. Better late than never?

Beethoven'd out

2011-10-10T18:53:00.000+11:00

After a very solid week of rehearsals, the choir had our two performances of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The performances were sold out, and the audiences went away very happy. As did the performers. My second performance was better than the first. We were all on a high, and came away glowing and floating. The power of song! However, I intend never to sing it again. It is a voice wrecker. And exhausting. Three times in one lifetime is plenty.

As I sit here typing away, listening to Portuguese polyphony (totally unaccompanied, serenely and austerely beautiful), I muse about the Big Noise school of music. Beethoven's Ninth fits into that category. Brass, drums, and heavy sounds, with lots of blaring. Magnificent, but I don't need to hear it for another few years. My mind is still playing it relentlessly, and all the bits I had some trouble with have now fallen into my memory. It all kept me wide awake for most of last night. Then the towards morning noises started: garbage trucks, birds, car traffic and then aeroplanes. I live on a frequently used flight path, not very distant from the airport, (although to travel there by taxi costs me a good $50).

I went to the opera study group this morning, and listened to a completely different sort of music, an opera by Vivaldi, which is being staged here some weeks from now. Luscious and melodious. Full of counter-tenors. I will be going to one of the performances. The plot is a shocker, though. Husband, the king, decides to test his wife's character, and inflicts numerous extremely cruel and vicious trials and tribulations upon her. She bears it all with fortitude and true nobility of character, and emerges from these loathsome tests totally blameless, and finally he says to her, 'Just testing, and you passed'. It seems a spasm of irritation finally crosses her features, but apparently they all live happily ever after. It sounds like an ecstatically satisfying marriage between a sadist and a masochist. But I could be wrong. It could well be sheer misery.

It is not always a good idea to contemplate the nature of matrimony.

Despite having been lectured about having far too many books, this weekend I bought another four, none of which I could possibly do without. Some people just won't or cannot learn. Hopeless.

Persiflage rules, OK!

2011-10-06T15:59:00.002+11:00

Normal life has been resumed. After several days of house guests, consisting of my second daughter and her children, and my friend M, they have all departed and the house is very, very quiet.

The weekend was one of continuous activity and conversation, extensive revisiting of past lives, current doings, looking after grandchildren, and actual cooking.

Having invited mutual friends here for dinner, and to see M, I cooked a proper meal (all that cooking of jam and marmalade does not count). My life has been so solitary and quiet, that the mere thought of entertaining was very daunting.

Notwithstanding, I managed to do all the cooking (apart from burning the marmalade) while looking after my grandchildren and talking non-stop to my friend M. She is a VERY good talker, and I am no longer used to having lots of conversation. Which is not to say it was not good, just that I am no longer accustomed to it. By the end of the long weekend, I almost felt the need to crawl back into my silent and solitary world, wrap myself in cotton wool, and ponder life.

I used to be a very good cook, but once I moved here to live with Dr P, my level of expertise dwindled significantly. He was an extremely fussy eater, and ever ready to criticise. The circle of friends for whom I cooked were also rather fussy, although they probably thought they were willing and ready to eat anything. This was not so. One could not tolerate chillies, someone else hated garlic, another person was allergic to strawberries. Dr P had immature schoolboy tastes, and really only liked ham, eggs and cheese. Where food was concerned, he was risk averse. The kitchen equipment was not conducive to good cooking. We tended to eat in restaurants rather than at home, until this was no longer feasible. Perforce I stuck to basic dishes such as osso buco, and roast pork. Now, with the oven having developed extreme unpredictability and unreliability, cooking in the oven is no longer a good idea.

M and I watched the AFL Grand Final. However we were talking so much that we missed most of the action. From time to time we would look at the scoreboard and find that another goal had been kicked, and realise that yet again we had been completely oblivious to what was going on. We failed Sports Watching dismally.

Yesterday I attacked the garden, pulled out handfuls of alstroemerias so that the flower stalks can appear and be seen, pruned some plants, did a general tidy up, and swept and washed the tiles.

I am sitting with my latest crochet, having consulted with my expert friend about the requisite length, so I can now get on with it. She agreed my other work looked very floppy and unbecoming on me, so I need to find a good home for it. It looked quite nice on her, but I am not sure she'd wear that colour.

This friend says I have far too many books, and should discard most of them. 'Certainly not', I say, 'particularly not yet, and not unless I absolutely have to'. She is a minimalist person, I am not, and what's more, I love and use my books. She chucks hers out once she has read them, or borrows them. You never see a thing out of place at her house, but you certainly do here. As I now live all by myself (apart from stray visitors) I can do what I like. And I do and I shall. My space, my likes, my dislikes.

I did actually discard another few books, which were all collected this morning. The collectors informed me of the forthcoming Book and CD Fair. Oh dear! More temptation.

Another nine and a half jars of cumquat marmalade are sitting glowing beautifully on my kitchen bench, as they cool. I purr at them as I pass.

And before I dash off to rehearsal tonight, I must indulge in a little skite. My granddaughter and I enjoyed listening again to Rossini's Duet for Two Cats, and then I played for her the second aria of The Queen of the Night. Mein precious Wunderkind sang along with it, and picked up a goodly portion of the melody, the rhythm, and hit the high notes. That child is only six! She obviously has one or two of my genes. Such talent must and shall be fostered.

A full life?

2011-09-30T22:04:00.002+10:00

Well, it depends on what you mean by full! There is plenty to do. More cumquats picked, Vietnamese fried spring rolls purchased as a little treat for lunch, more copying and sorting, changing the bed linen before the weekend's visitors arrive, doing my small quantity of ironing, even the pillow cases, organising to see friends, making a couple of social telephone calls, watching wild life programs on big cats....

There are lots of programs about big cats, so in the late afternoon I often sit and watch them, and get very caught up in the enthusiasm of the cat watchers, and their anxieties about whether any of the cubs will survive the depredations of their animal foes and competitors. Wouldn't it be nice if I could similarly hunt down those who are doing their best to prey on me? Now that would be an interesting documentary. Alas, wishful thinking.

I am crocheting, so as to keep the hands busy and my mind occupied by matters requiring attention to details but yet of relatively little import.

Having swapped the wrong printer inks for the right printer inks, I resumed photocopying, and once more fell into the mire of the inevitable muddle. I had yet another appointment with the lawyer, several days ago. I took my little suitcase full of documents, but as, after all that, I was not required to leave them all there, trundled off home with most of the contents.

My lawyer emailed me late in the day with a draft response - as agreed a NO response. It is a pity professional etiquette (as well as common sense) precludes me from being abusive to the other side. But when the offer made is significantly worse than the original provisions, what can they expect? Perhaps they wrote it thinking it was 1 April, as I can't see how it could possibly have been a serious offer. Enough already. We have replied rejecting their proposal. It always pays to proof read: I (fortunately) found a couple of significant typos which substantially altered the intended meaning. Having done that, I then paid the latest bill. There is probably no discount for my having picked up the significant typos.

Earlier this week, on the urgings of my family and my doctor, I met the counsellor whom I saw when trying several years ago to deal with the problem of the Wicked Step Daughter (WSD). Having to give a full account of all the events since then, particularly of the last year, and describing Dr P's death, was very difficult, but has been accomplished. The counsellor expressed her view that I had done all the right things throughout, told me she was most impressed, and that my situation is indeed dire, but that I should fight on. And indeed I will. I hope seeing the counsellor will help me cope with all the tension.

The thing is, it is almost impossible to think of anything else other than my predicament and the problems of achieving a just outcome, which gives me freedom of choice, and the time to work out what will be best for me. Although I read, listen to music, study, see friends, go to choir, make the jam, go for walks, and do whatever else takes my fancy, my mind is consumed, obsessive even, and almost totally absorbed by my pain and my problems. It harps upon it all. It must be borne. But goodness me, it is like a stuck record, relentlessly repetitive, and needing intervention. Remember stuck records?

Perhaps when all this is resolved I can have a long long holiday, far, far away....

My daughter and grandchildren have arrived for the weekend, and I am looking after the grandchildren tomorrow. Another friend, M, who was widowed unexpectedly two and a half years ago, will also be here for a couple of days, and I have invited a couple of friends around for dinner tomorrow night. This is the first time I will have done any real cooking since Dr P died. It is a daunting prospect. Today I did some food shopping and have cooked the lamb Korma, and will do more tomorrow. At the same time I started another batch of cumquat marmalade, but it caught on the bottom and has had to be thrown out. Damn and blast. Obviously it was a mistake to take on too much, after all these months of inactivity. Mind and body are obviously not working effectively together.

I don't know what to do about a dessert, as the oven is not working properly. My plans of having meaningful time with the children by making a pavlova together are obviously futile. We may have to go out and buy a citron tart, at an exorbitant price.

Weekends

2011-09-25T23:26:00.003+10:00

During the week there are regular activities to be done, and these keep me active and out, and with enough social activities to keep my mood up.

But weekends are somehow different. Although I go to the market, and buy the flowers, the sour dough, bread and the vegetables, and look at all the plants I would love to have, but cannot, because my tiny garden space is absolutely full, somehow the weekends are empty, and my moods plummet quite horrifically. Life seems very empty and I cannot foresee a time when everything will get better. Nor can I decide on what course of action might be the best for me.

It will be necessary to reply to the offer made. It is not a satisfactory offer, but I need guidance, and so far, I have not had the advice I need. Waiting for it makes me feel extremely fearful. This can't be helped, and of course, other people have their own priorities, and cannot be expected to dance to my tune, although I wish they would do so. Patience, I say to myself, unconvincingly. In the meantime I keep copying documents. The ink tank ran out, so I went out to buy more. The shop sold me the wrong ink tank, and won't be open again until Monday. Then my other printer ran out of ink, so I had to go out and buy some more. When I copy the documents I get into a great muddle. I forget where I was up to. This is not at all good for my psyche. I went and looked at some of the houses on the market, and came away very depressed.

In the street nearby, for the past ten days there has been a pile of shattered glass, I am not sure from what, other than evidently some louts had smashed something, but I cannot work out what it was. I kept thinking someone nearby would sweep it up, but nothing was done. Accordingly I went out yesterday with my stiff broom and brush and pan and swept it all up, but I am none the wiser as to its source.

It is quite amazing how much rubbish is tossed onto the streets, despite the fact that rubbish bins are placed all along the streets. Hotels seem to take no notice of the empty or smashed bottles and cans which they evidently sold to their patrons. Soft drink cans abound, as do takeaway food containers. Bus stops are littered, even though bins are only a few metres away. Such things make my transmogrification into a grumpy old person even more rapid it should be.

Years ago in Victoria on the spot fines for littering were introduced, and all of a sudden streets became much tidier. Now no one seems to think anything of discarding rubbish anywhere along the street. Despite all this alleged concern for the environment, people just scatter rubbish all over the place.

Personal misfortune and difficulties can cause one to be totally disapproving of the world at large. Or perhaps it is a consequence of the ageing process.

Yesterday I went back to the cumquat trees down the road, which are ripening at a very rapid rate. Even though it is only a few weeks since I made a batch of cumquat marmalade, yesterday I went and collected enough cumquats to make two more batches. And there are plenty more cumquats. They have been falling onto the footpaths, going Splat, and being trodden on. I hate to see them wasted. So I go and gather them, even though I feel somewhat embarrassed to be seen there with my secateurs and plastic back, stretching valiantly to reach the ripe cumquats. This evening I made another batch and intend to take them to choir, to be sold as a fund raiser for the choir. I think I have run out of friends who would appreciate another jar. (Wouldn't it be devastating if no one wanted to buy this marmalade?) I spent an hour washing and slicing the cumquats. Each cumquats has to be halved and then each half has to be cut into three. All the pips have to be removed, and soaked, so as to release the pectin. Notwithstanding all this work, there are always some pips which find their way into the soaking cumquats, and which have to be tediously fished out.

Making jam is somehow very satisfying and soothing. The cumquat marmalade goes beautifully with the sour dough I buy each week. However if I keep making marmalade at this rate there will be a surplus, of which I might not be able to dispose. I have now run out of jars, which is a bother. Jars can be bought, but somehow it seems an ignominious thing to have to BUY jars. This batch will have to go without beeswax on top, as I have run out of it. Recipients are supposed to return the wax to me, but somehow this never happens. Fortunately I can buy the wax at the local arts supply store, or at least I could several years ago.

To overcome the miseries which weekends inevitably seem to bring I took myself off to see films today. In the last couple of years I saw very few films. It became too difficult to get Dr P there, and his hearing became so bad he could not follow the dialogue. So I got out of the habit. I saw Jane Eyre this morning, which I thought was good, and this evening went off to the Italian Film Festival to see the new Nanni Moretti film, Habemus Papam. I enjoyed it very much, very quirky, lots of unexpected turns, and funny as well as perplexing and sad. I kept imagining how it was filmed, how they managed to find all these elderly actors to play cardinals. It was also pleasing that I could understand all the dialogue. There were subtitles, but I did not have to rely on them. This presumably means that my Italian is improving. Small mercies.

A hint of movement at the station

2011-09-22T22:05:00.000+10:00

Early days yet, but there is some movement. Essentially nugatory, I think. But interesting. I gather I am not the only one to find this a difficult process. I also gather that there is some surprise that I have not rolled over and exposed my stomach in surrender.

We have had our concert, which went well. I sang in the main work and then went off home, to nurse my poor sore head. All the things extraneous to a good and satisfying life sprang up and smote me again on Sunday and the migraine returned worse than ever. I crept around and it seems to be seeping out and away. My daughter helped me sort out some of the paperwork, and reminded me that all this stress is self-induced, as I am taking the action into the enemy camp. This is perfectly true, so I repeat it to myself constantly. If only my heart would stop thumping so violently.

Choir is back, not that it ever wasn't, and we are now gearing up for our performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in a couple of weeks. This is hard work for sopranos as it is very high, and vocally stressful. But I think I can manage it.

My Italian argomento yesterday went well. And today's as well. Then at the Art Gallery I ran into various people and had some good chats. There are some women who catch the same bus, so that over the years we have struck up conversations and some degree of friendship. I talked to one of them while we munched on our sandwiches, and she told me her very old mother had died a fortnight ago, and we shared the grief, and, I hope, some consolation and understanding. Another friend, with whom I travelled to Italy a couple of years ago, is having to cope with her husband's failing health and need for extra care. There are many of us at this same stage of life. Then by chance I ran into a woman I met a couple of weeks ago, at a dinner, when we found we knew many people in common, so we intend to get together soon. They turned out to be best friends with best friends of one of my sisters. Such accidental encounters are both satisfying and fascinating.

They make me wonder what it would be like to re-locate and start all over again. Not easy, I think. Unlike most of my family, who have stayed put, and have had the stability of the same environment and circles of family and friends, I have moved a couple of times, and have not found the process easy, or quick. To have to do so again would be daunting. I like being able to wander around the local shops and to know those who work there, the pharmacist, the bookseller, those who sell me the spinach and fetta triangles, the coffee shop, the stall-holders at the local markets, the neighbours, my classmates. I like the choir, the lectures, the classes, my physiotherapists, the medical practice and all the other friends I have made. The network is my own, now.

Yet one cannot see around the corners. Are there joys and pleasures there, or nasty frights?

There are times when I think that at my age, I should not have to grow up any more.

Yesterday it was seven months since Dr P died, and the wounds are still open and painful.

Cacophonies and visual tortures

2011-09-16T23:17:00.001+10:00

The choir's concert is tomorrow night. We are singing a new work by an Australian composer, George Palmer, with Yvonne Kenny as soloist. We were rehearsing this evening, but I came home early sick with a migraine. The general stress level in my life probably had quite a lot to do with this, having been aggravated these last few days by demands for even more documents, but the trigger was the total abortion of the concert programme. The 'serious' work is modern, and quite beautiful and dramatic, but the other half of the programme is pop stuff. With soloists who are pop singers, who writhe and gyrate and fling themselves about generally, and whose music is amplified to torture levels, and, far, far worse, uses strobe lighting. That is enough to trigger a migraine.

I had to leave, assisted by a fellow chorister, and our choral director came around and sympathised, and it is now organised that I can come on and sing the serious work, and afterwards melt quietly away.

How do people tolerate the excessive noise levels which are inflicted daily on the unwitting and at times witless public? They cause hearing damage, and tinnitus, and probably once they all go deaf, the sounds (cannot really call it music) will be turned up to even more damaging levels.

My daughter is here briefly, busy with her work, but it is lovely to have her here. Even if I did have to go out and leave her to cook her own dinner. She has gone off to bed, and so shall I, as soon as I swallow another pill. Until I fall asleep I will probably continue to brood about excessive noise, rotten taste in music, migraine triggers, motor bike riders hooning around the neighbourhood, aeroplanes still flying overhead at 2 am, power blackouts, the cost of printer ink, pathology results, motorists going through red lights, inability to find anything, loud drunks from the local pub, smashed glass on the footpaths, and so on and so forth. Harbingers and triggers of gloom and doom.

But I shall find strength and comfort in the beauty of other music, and the goodness and kindness of true friends and family. And the true power of song.

The cumquat marmalade I made two days ago seems to be a good batch. Good enough to eat.

I shall not falter or buckle under pressure. Not if I can help it.

Immeasurable horrors

2011-09-11T21:21:00.000+10:00

Today is the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. Inevitably, the TV is full of memorial programs about these dreadful attacks. These programmes have been playing and replaying all week.

Inevitably I remember the day itself. I was in Italy, in Perugia, on a group tour, based in Montefeltro, in Umbria, and we had been driven to Perugia, where we were to visit the major artistic and historical attractions of the city. Before we had time to commence our programme, our guide received a telephone call telling him of the attack. At that stage there was little information. Just the bare facts of the aeroplanes flying into the Twin Towers. Pending further information, we decided to reassemble in about an hour. I went with friends to a cafe, where we found the staff and customers watching the TV. I asked in Italian, for information, saying we had been told that there had been an attack, and we were told this was so. We were taken downstairs, where there was another TV, and the proprietor, kindly recognising that most of us could not understand Italian, put the TV on to BBC TV, where we watched the TV footage. We knew the world would never be the same again.

Late that night, back at our accommodation, I watched the Italian TV, doing my best to understand what had happened. There were technical discussions as to how the towers had collapsed. Next morning, we had only Italian papers to read, and I had quickly to learn words I had never had previous occasion to understand. It was some days before I realised what had happened to Flight 93.

I don't want to keep watching the historical footage, to see the images of people flinging themselves from the towers, to their certain deaths. We can overindulge in horror and grief. Nothing will ever obliterate the shock of the horrific and appalling images of aeroplanes deliberately flying into buildings, bursting into flames and trapping and incinerating those within, and killing and destroying so many innocent victims. But we have to remember that all over the world innocent people have suffered and died. Of such tragedies we know little or nothing. It does not mean that the suffering and grief was less. What I do know is that there is an infinite capacity to inflict violence and suffering on ordinary people, in the pursuit of higher and broader aims. We justify what 'our side' does, and condemn what the 'other side' does. Who can say where it all starts, and how it all ends?

Hating those who have wronged us, and wreaking violence in retribution is easy. It is far more difficult to say, along with the Palestinian doctor Izzeldin Abuelaish, I Shall Not Hate. What a truly noble spirit is his. I cannot say that his is the only way, nor that global and wider concerns and actions should be avoided. But retribution cannot be the only solution. As we remember the dead, the innocent victims of ten years ago, and those who have died since, we must cling to a belief in the human capacity for good, for tolerance and for forgiveness. And do our uttermost towards reconciliation and peace.

Memories.....

2011-09-07T23:15:00.003+10:00

Yesterday I was poking around my drafts and my edits to see whether any might have been worth further embroidery, and noticed that the post on my niece's wedding had vanished. It must have happened inadvertently, so I re-posted the draft. Great events should be on the record.

Even though the post had apparently vanished, I actually found all the comments on the post, in a part of Blogger I had never previously looked at. Talk about doing so many things in a half-baked way. At least finding those comments proved I did actually post it. And when I posted it again, from my drafts (how did it become a draft when it had been posted?) all the comments jumped back to the end of the post. Most mysterious.

It was rather a bad day, as I turned up for a doctor's appointment, only to find it was for today, and then went to the dentist, only to be told on arrival that because I had an unexpected appointment a few days ago, they had cancelled this one. I am SURE that they did not tell me this, but acknowledge that I must have written down the date of the medical appointment incorrectly. My mind is not quite as high-powered as it used to be, I ruefully acknowledge. I am doing my best to rectify this.

Never mind. I walked to and from the dentist, and felt ineffably virtuous in consequence.

The correct appointment was with the dermatologist, and I had a couple of thingies removed, and various others squirted with liquid nitrogen. The afflicted parts are not a pretty sight, and they had to stay dry for 24 hours after the cutting out procedure, which meant my hair was a total disaster. My vanity is thus exceedingly offended, and I hate that.

Like lawyers and dentists, dermatologists know how to charge. What is more, I am now evidently worth having as a patient. There is value in everything and everyone, it seems. Come back in six months, they said.

The doctor's appointment today was to assess how I am going, and what, if anything, to do about it. I did not expect this to be a comfortable appointment, as the tears inevitably gush forth. It is for my own good, I expect. Partly I think it is a good idea, and partly I think I am doing as well as can be expected, and am doing all I can and should be doing. Evidently it is not enough. One of these days there will be memory transplants or replacements, which would certainly be discombobulating.

HOWEVER!

Having seen the doctor this afternoon and obtained another prescription, I hastened to the chemist. They greeted me somewhat bashfully. " We found your prescriptions" said the pharmacist, "underneath this little tray."

Halleluia and Glory Be!

So I had not dreamt it, or imagined it! It really happened. I did leave them there as I dashed off elsewhere. My memory is not (quite) as bad as I feared...although there are a number of books which I cannot locate.

Trivial though it may seem, it is some small consolation.

And I have done my Italian homework, started on my next argomento, endured an hour of gridlock in the city, sewn in most of the ends of the wool in the almost completed sweater (one sleeve remains to be sewn in) and I think/fear it might be slightly too large and that the sleeves are too long, and if that is the case what am I going to do about it, or with it? Raffle it?

I think the Productivity Commission should know about me.

Chance and coincidence

2011-09-04T23:33:00.000+10:00

Last night I went with friends to the annual memorial dinner of an organisation founded to defend civil liberties, with a local comedian as MC, who was very off-colour, and not at all funny, and the main speaker a journalist (reasonable). It was a fund raiser, to honour two of the founding members, both now deceased. Dr P was also a founding member, so that was an additional reason for going.

It was held in a very large Chinese restaurant, and it was very noisy, so conversation was difficult. We had a couple added to our table, whom none of us knew, but when I talked to them I discovered they were originally Victorians (as I am) and we knew many people in common, and as they were gregarious and very interesting we had a most interesting and enjoyable talk. They knew my brother and his first wife, and are good mates with very close friends of my sister, the mother of the bride. Ah, the amazing nature of chance and coincidence.

Today, to ward off some of the pervading gloom, I went out. Firstly, off to the local second-hand market. All of a sudden, probably due to the arrival of spring, there are many more stalls. The market was teeming with people with lots of little children. There is an amazing assortment of (in my opinion) absolute junk. Many clothes, all sorts of tizzy and fake jewellery, as well as Indian jewellery, plants and flowers, food stalls, DVDs, old machines and furniture, crockery, socks, nuts, buskers, old linen, pictures and photographs. And second hand books. Today there was even a wool stall. It is fun browsing through the books, and you never know what you might find. There is the usual array of popular fiction, and of various biographies, and there is also quite a lot of history. I have got to know some of the stall-holders, so am evidently a customer worth cultivating.

Today I found the biography of Michael Collins that I have been after for a while. Then I found a large and glossy book in Spanish on the Prado. I have bought it, but won't pick it up until next week, as I was heading into the city, and the book was too large to lug about all day. My Spanish is pretty basic, but lots of things can be guessed - a reasonable knowledge of Italian is a big help here. Week after week I tell myself I should not be buying any more books, but invariably I take no notice of myself.

From there I went into the city to attend the crochet clinic. Today there were quite a few of us, most of whom were doing incredibly complicated work. I took along the sweater I have been making from a very 1970s pattern, in a pretty mauve wool. I started it last year. As the pattern was badly written, there were many puzzles to be deciphered. I was at the crochet clinic the day before Dr P died, and went again a couple of weeks ago. Today's work was the joining of all the pieces. The seams need to be pressed, the sleeves have to be joined to the body, and then there is some final edging to be done. It looks as though it will fit, and may look quite nice. In between doing this magnum opus, I have been making more squares for next year's Knitting With Love, and intermittently working on a shawl in fine mohair. The shawl may not work out, as I think a bigger hook would have worked better, as well as a heavier yarn. Perhaps it may have to be unravelled.

Once the clinic finished I went off to David Jones to see their spring flower display on the ground floor. The place was absolutely packed, with tourists, mostly Asian, all taking photographs with their phones, of themselves as well as of the flowers. It was the most spectacular display, of orchids, native flowers including Gymea lilies, roses, lilliums, ferns and strange plants I could not identify - one was a huge purple allium, I think.

Then I went to a film, The Help, which I enjoyed very much. I recommend it. I kept puzzling about one of the actors - eventually recognised that it was Alison Janney, who played CJ in The West Wing. Sunday afternoon seems quite a good time to go to a film.

Is this really me?

2011-08-30T23:13:00.000+10:00

Having been to the dentist this afternoon, there is now a new me. Only in appearances, though. The dentist is quite pleased with himself. It has been quite fascinating observing his ability to make tiny modifications with relative insouciance and enormous expertise. It is good to be with someone who seems to know what he is doing. It may take me somewhat longer to get accustomed to my newish look. Is it better, is it worse, or is there no discernible difference? I am actually hoping no one notices until I am accustomed to it.

It has been a curious sort of day, hanging around for the appointment, and doing other things. I have trimmed the dead bits on the kaffir lime - those I can reach, that is, and I chopped and de-pipped the cumquats I picked the other day from the trees that grow at the other end of the street. Mostly the fruit is too high for me to reach, but what with this week's harvest and the contents of the freezer, there is enough to make another batch of cumquat marmalade.

I made an appointment to see the doctor so as to get all my prescriptions. And I made another appointment with the dermatologist, who removed my latest melanoma more than a year ago. Time for another check up.

Yesterday I had my breast check up. It takes a fair chunk out of the day, and a lot of sitting around waiting. The specialist seems very flat out, and told me he has done more surgery this year than in any past year. I asked was this due to population increase rather than to any increase in the incidence of breast cancer, and he said yes, it was. He was so busy that he had not had time to eat his plastic wrapped sandwich, so what did my hanging around for two hours signify? I must say that the mammogram was one of the least pleasant of my experience. I felt both squashed and stretched, and a bit bashed about. Normally it does not worry me at all, worse things happening at sea, etcetera, but perhaps the shrinkage in tissue resulting from the radiation therapy makes the whole thing a bit trickier.

The disparity in breast size now makes buying a bra a rather daunting process. I have been accustomed to buy bras in department stores, but these days the staff numbers are so reduced it is difficult to get expert help. One has to resort to unfair emotional pressure, otherwise, it would be necessary to get dressed again, ransack the stock displays, and in all probability come away either with nothing, or an unsatisfactory mistake. The previous time I went to Melbourne, my sister, the mother of the bride, took me to a Simone Perele outlet, and I actually found a bra which was flattering and which did not make me look lopsided. What a boost!

This morning I went out and bought a new printer, and I am now sookily sitting gazing at its box. I am afraid to unpack it and to investigate the mysteries of its wireless setup, and plugging it all in, and activating its software. Actually I am hoping the friends I am lunching with tomorrow will stop by and do all the hard stuff for me. They are kind friends, so my hopes are high. Otherwise I may have to wait until my daughter visits, and we can exchange babysitting for technical support.

In other news, the lawyer went to court today, and I am awaiting formal notification of what happened, but I think the other side now has eight weeks in which to respond. So I have eight weeks of fearing that what will emerge is a radical departure from facts. At this stage it is all faffing around, I think. My body does not feel as though it is all faffing around, so I hate to think how I will be when the real action starts.

Frittering away the day

2011-08-28T22:46:00.000+10:00

Some days, despite firm intentions to the contrary, just go off on their own track. This can lead the frustrated day planner feeling not quite in control of life. And who to blame for being in this quandary? Why, who else but myself, of course.

It is time for me to go to the pharmacy and get my prescription filled. But first I must find the prescriptions. The organised person would have a place for everything, and everything in its place. But at this stage of my life, things are falling through the cracks, and the cracks sometimes seem to be widening into crevices. Today, and indeed yesterday, this seemed to be the case.

A month ago, the last time I got the prescriptions filled, I had to hunt for them and indeed went and asked the pharmacist whether I had left them there. I had not, and another hunt enabled me to find them.

Not so this weekend.

So I spent the day going through all the shelves in the eating area, and re-organising it totally, and chucking out some stuff while I was at it. But there were no prescriptions to be found. This means I have to go to the doctor for new prescriptions.

How can things just disappear? It must be wonderful to be a completely organised and tidy person.

Now I wonder whether, having re-organised and tidied it all, whether I will ever be able to find anything at all. Will it stay tidy?

I had intended to do some or all of the following things:

Go to the crochet clinic and sew up my almost completed jumper. This would have been soothing and productive.
Take myself to see a film. Escapism is good therapy.
Go and buy a new printer, to replace the one that went bung in some sort of power failure, that, naturally enough, the power company has no record of, and without such a record the contents insurance probably will not cover the replacement. This would have given a sense of achievement.

None of these got done. (But the house is better organised.) Is it not strange how suddenly one can decide that this or that possession can be discarded, that it has no further role in your life? Some things are contaminated by their associations, and must be discarded. They can be shucked off, but not so the memories.

Since my return from Melbourne, apart from the usual activities, I have been hard at work on my legal issues and the required documentation. After a session with the lawyer, it is as ready as it will ever be, and so will be at the court next week. It seems that this matter will continue well into next year, and although my resolve is fairly strong, the stress is difficult to cope with.

Dealing with such issues, and having had to go over every detail that I have recorded or can remember, has not been easy. Nor will it get less so. The combinations of bereavement, grief, aloneness, anger, resentment, and the constant summoning of resolve, wear me out, and cast me into profound sorrow and gloom. And, it must be admitted, self pity. That must be fought. Not all is dark and drear, and there are indeed many positives. Life may be re-made and re-fashioned according to our own choices. The past need not dictate the future.

It is six months since Dr P died, which feels like a landmark. While marking off the time in my head, I think constantly about our life together - the good parts, and the bad - so that I can accept the totality.

I feel relatively all right while I am out doing things and seeing people, and keeping busy, but not so good with the solitude, which only increases the feeling of needing to retreat from the world and hide myself away. I do what must and should be done, and am getting on with things.

All this is recharging of my batteries. How did we cope before the development of the concept of recharging?

On the positive side, I went to an excellent choral concert last night. Not all my time is spent maundering.

Somehow this post was deleted, who knows how....but look, here it is, back!

2011-08-27T17:48:00.073+10:00

Mu niece's wedding

I went to Melbourne for my niece's wedding last Saturday. The wedding was not actually in Melbourne, but in a tiny town in the country which has no hotel or motel where out of town wedding guests could stay. Thus those who stayed overnight had to bed down elsewhere after a 40 minutes drive to a rather lavish hotel in a bigger town. I stayed in the same room as my sisters. They shared a king sized bed, and I had the other one all to myself. In the morning, as I crept around trying not to disturb the soundly sleeping late night revellers, I could not find the light switch, and had a very hard time getting the taps to mix the water. Turns out the taps operated in different directions, so no wonder I was confused. I am not accustomed to such higher forms of technology.

The church was very pretty - rebuilt after being burned down. There is no longer a parish priest, so it seems, that after much angst, the Authorities agreed to allow the next best thing, a woman, to run the parish. But only after they had assured themselves that she was Sound. A priest cousin came along to perform the ceremony.

My niece, as well as being intelligent and delightful, is uncommonly beautiful, tall and elegant, and she looked gorgeous, and totally happy. Her dress was elegant and beautiful, and not strapless, which to my mind is a plus. She wore her great-grandmother's veil, which was found, after some rather frantic scrabbling around in wardrobes by other family members, cleaned, mended, and a comb fixed to fasten it to her hair. The three bridesmaids all wore short black dresses, one of which was strapless.

When my niece walked up the aisle, she was accompanied by both her father and her mother. It was beautiful, and there was therefore no sense of the bride being 'given away' from one owner to another. The groom looked handsome and very happy. Everyone rejoiced in this truly happy occasion. The reception was held in the local Mechanics Institute Hall, which is now a community centre.

Instead of a traditional wedding cake, the mother of the bride and another sister toiled long and hard to make many fudgy chocolate cakes. Little bride and groom dolls, from the groom's parents' wedding cake, were supposed to have arrived, but had been forgotten, so another sister and I dashed around the shops of her part of Melbourne trying to find such a decoration. We had no luck at all. Such a task needed a lot more warning. Finally we found a bakery which had sugar roses, so we bought those and they looked just beautiful. Evidently you need a lot more notice, and should go straight to a cake decorating supplies place.

By the time we all arrived back in Melbourne on Sunday afternoon my sister, the mother of the bride, was flaking out. She was exhausted from all her hard work and all the excitement, and had picked up an extremely horrid and scary germ, epiglottitis, and was really sick. She is starting to recover, but it was very nasty indeed.

I have been loading all my photos onto the computer and reliving this very happy day.

The civil society and in defence of politics

2011-08-18T22:14:00.004+10:00

I am thinking constantly about my life, my experiences, and my present need to work out my future by means of a legal challenge. Yet while these concerns absorb me by day and by night, in the scale of things they are trivial.

My mind is inexorably drawn to the wider world. The riots in England, the wars and rebellions in the Middle East, the famine inAfrica, the routine raping of women by soldiers so that the women are forever disgraced and outcast, even though their husbands know full well their wives did not deserve either the rape or the disgrace, and what seems to be the increasing breakdown in the civil society, and the abounding selfishness. School is just finishing as I write, and the daily litany of every second word being 'fuck' is resounding.

There was a demonstration outside Parliament House earlier this week, which seemed to be characterised by extreme intolerance, nastiness and abuse. 'Ditch the witch' - apparently considered preferable to 'Get rid of the bitch' or 'She should be dragged out to sea and abandoned' - another such recommendation.

How have we come to this? This awful sense that pride in our democratic system of government has disintegrated, this disrespect for the rights of others, for the virtues of tolerance, compassion, understanding and acceptance?

What can be done? The British Prime Minister and his cohorts talk of criminality, but without the context of the just and the civil society. The Murdoch empire has done its utmost to focus on triviality and has used horrific invasions of privacy, for the sake of making the immensely rich even more indecently so. Here we campaign against a carbon tax, and advocate sending refugees back to the open seas.

Yesterday I went out for a little walk, to go to the bank, and called into the St Vincent de Paul shop. It sells quite a lot of books, so I had a browse around. So too did the man who owns the local second hand bookshop. I am not sure what he picked up.

I bought a book by Bob Carr, My Reading Life: Adventures in the World of Books. Bob Carr was the Premier of New South Wales for ten years. Before going into politics he was a journalist. He wishes he had had a better education and had had greater access to libraries and books. He discovered both, and became an omnivorous reader. He launched the Premier's Reading Challenge in 2001, a programme in which school children commit to reading as many books as possible. It gets quite a lot of publicity, and is indubitably a Good Thing.

When I got home I opened Carr's book. The first section is entitled The Silence. The first book he chose to discuss is Primo Levi's If this is a Man. It is a book I have read a number of times, and which I can scarcely bear to open and re-read.

It is incredibly painful to read. It describes, as would a witness in court, how millions of human beings were treated, suffered and were murdered, through the deliberate policy, worked out in minute detail, to exterminate millions because of their race. Carr asked, as so many must have done, about the silence of God, and asks what message this sends to suffering humanity.

Carr devotes another part of his book to the Australian Labor Party and to political journalism. He discusses Don Watson's Book Memoirs of a Bleeding Heart, and its sub-theme of the restless and self absorbed Canberra Press Gallery, and describes how one noted journalist, Alan Ramsay, told Paul Keating, the then Prime Minister, that the journalists would all be advocating a change of government, because 'We're all sick of you'. It is a sobering account.

In today's mail was The House Magazine, published by the Department of the House of Representatives. Article after article described the work of the House, and its committees. The articles described the subjects investigated by committees and what their reports contained. Interesting and informative stuff, which you would never know about if you relied on the daily newspapers. Sure, we get pro or anti carbon tax articles, and lots of rhetoric for and against. But we are far more likely to be force fed articles and incessant comments about out Prime Minister's voice, nose, clothes and hairstyles, and we have also recently been treated to some numbingly boring and irrelevant coverage of a new hairstyle for our former Premier. We get lots of coverage of Tony Abbott's budgie smugglers, cycling marathons and attendance at barbecues, and meeting and greeting the electorate. But there is little sober and factual political coverage.

It makes me so depressed I can scarcely bear to look at the newspapers or to watch or listen to current affairs programmes. Yet, in my working life, it was mother's milk to me, essential and absorbing stuff. I dealt with it for most of my working life. Ditto for Dr P, who was a professional.

Obviously it is far more important to concentrate on airbrushed photos of film stars and models, the sex life of sporting heroes, and to campaign against speed campaigns, because as well as identifying those who break the law and endanger others by driving above the speed limits, they are contributing to consolidated revenue. And we would all, especially the very rich, rather pay less tax than to ensure that we have good schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure, competent and honest government and a civil and decent society.

If I had my way I would introduce a wealth tax. It seems to me that billionaires can afford a little more tax, instead of spending their money campaigning against resources taxes.

Later in his book Bob Carr discusses Bernard Crick's book In Defence of Politics, who wrote

politics represents at least some tolerance of differing truths, some recognition that government is possible, indeed best conducted, amid the opening canvassing of rival interests. Politics are the public actions of free men.

Carr comments:

Celebrate the genius of free peoples expressed in the glorious mess of rowdy politics, the clash of interests - inevitable in any society - resolved at the ballot box, a working definition of politics and a celebratory one

I hope these thoughts are still apposite, but in my moments of gloom, I have my doubts. Is it still possible to pull together in a positive rather than in a destructive sense?

We need to think in terms of all of us and not only of our own narrow and selfish interests.

Life imitating Art

2011-08-15T22:51:00.000+10:00

I have been away for a few days, and thus without access to a computer. In my mind I compose scintillating and deathless prose, but alas, once I get home and start trying to recreate it all, the inspiration has unaccountably vanished into that well known but inaccessible place, the ether. Why did God create the ether?

It would be nice to think that one could learn from both life and art, and be able to make sensible decisions. I live in hope. It is impossible to tell whether doing the exact opposite of what seems to be the best decision would be simply to court total disaster. Heads you win, Tails I lose.

This mood is probably upon me for many reasons - past experience, innate sense of gloom, not knowing what to do, or what will happen next, and wondering, given the evidently poor decisions made throughout my life, how I can possibly improve on this record.

I am back home after a weekend away with my son, daughter, grandchildren and friends. Possibly the recounting of the vicissitudes of my life has plunged me into feelings of woe. On the other hand it may be due to the fact that I got every single red traffic light possible on the way home. This is naturally irritating.

The trip away started off very slowly, as the tunnels were clogged. The official word is congested. There is never any hint of 'congestion' before you actually enter the tunnels, after which there is no possible escape. It took an hour to be free of it and my leg got sore and aching from all the braking I had to do - every hundred metres or so. Of course, I had to pay two tolls for this privilege. So on my return trip this afternoon I decided to go the toll-free way. Then I got every single red light. However, as you Brits (apparently) say, ' Mustn't grumble' and I arrived home safe and sound, having made fairly good time. It was, however, a fairly tiring trip, and I could not be bothered going out to buy food. Thus I have been snacking and having a nice glass (or two) of wine.

My friend KP gave me house room, and he invited another friend for dinner last night, and permitted me to contribute to the meal by cooking risotto alla milanese. It is more than six months since I have done any proper cooking, so I was a little nervous about whether I could manage it, but, despite the strange hotplates, it turned out perfectly. The other friend, a former colleague, has just retired. Her mother died recently from an intractable lymphoma, and it was a hard and painful death. There was much to share, and I found the telling does not get any easier.

Another friend took me to the Antiques show. This was quite good fun. I am not all that keen on antiques, although there is some lovely furniture, and I do like antique jewellery, especially amethysts. Something to do with their colour, I think....I resisted a perfectly beautiful brooch, on the grounds that I already have an antique brooch which had belonged to my grandmother, which I very seldom wear, so why would I want another? And when you are considering the monthly cost of the legal bills, the mere contemplation of frivolous luxuries is not to be indulged in.

I came across a dinner set which was the same as one my parents used for Best. Obviously it could not be considered a real antique. Anything I remember from my youth cannot possibly be an antique, naturally. No, no. I wonder what happened to that dinner set, though.

The next day I went to the Canberra Bus Depot markets, which, evidently in sympathy with the Antiques Fair, featured lots of antique and second hand goods stalls. Evidently fur is making a comeback. I found a Hildesheim Rose silver sugar spoon, which I bought. I was given one as a wedding present, and always meant to buy some more, but it ceased to be sold in the department stores. So now I have two sugar spoons. It was an illogical purchase, as I don't even use a sugar bowl. But they are very beautiful spoons.

The children, grandchildren and I had time together, which was lovely. We went to a park, and I went with my daughter to feed her horse. I bravely patted the horse, but then it did something startling, and I leapt away. I prefer cats. The late afternoon light was clear and beautiful, and the country was lovely and tranquil, but there were no kangaroos to be seen.

This morning I visited the National Gallery of Australia, to see an exhibition of the art of Fred Williams. It was splendid.

I then set off homewards, carefully avoiding any route which might have involved new roadworks. In my ten years of absence there have been many changes, and the roads have changed quite a lot. The newspaper revealed last week that some of the new signs are too small to read, and additionally some of them are actually quite wrong. They have to be redone. Such revelations made me ponder the design and placement of signs. I noticed on my return journey that big trucks obscure the road signs, so that if you are not already acquainted with the route, you can increase the number of problems in your life without even trying.

The trouble with driving on automatic pilot is that you can miss turnoffs which should have been taken. One must concentrate. Just like real life.

Inadequacies and embarrassments

2011-08-08T23:50:00.000+10:00

Inadequacies and embarrassment are tricky subjects.

When I was a child I was accustomed to going to confession, and to confessing my sins. We had to examine our consciences against a seemingly inexhaustible array of failings and, worse, actual evils.

These days it is easy to realise that many of the things considered to be sinful were nothing of the kind. Failings, perhaps, but generally they fell within the range of normal childhood development and understanding. Children scream and yell when thwarted, feel anger towards others, and are very bad at controlling their urges. They want to be liked, loved and praised. They hate being humiliated. At least, I did. They like to do well, to be good at things. When they do something parents consider to be wrong, children do not want to be found out, let alone punished. To be discovered, or uncovered, is like having scabs ripped off sores. Sometimes, to avoid worse exposure, one rips scabs off oneself.

I don't remember my parents dishing out much praise to me, or indeed to any of us. There is no one alive who can tell us how things were in any objective sense, so all I have to go on is childish memories, highly selective ones at that. We were good if we helped our mother, and the older ones, that is my older sister and myself, were expected to do so, and the younger ones, even when they grew older, were not expected to do nearly as much. If you were helpful, that conferred a sense of virtue, although indeed, being helpful was compulsory rather than optional. One strove to be good. Examination of conscience served to reveal defects of character and actions.

My physical appearance was never anything to write home about. Mousy hair, freckles, fair skin, and frequent sunburn. Round shoulders. Bad eyesight. A plain and ordinary appearance. As for developing to be sexually attractive, that was pretty well off the agenda. Attractive girls had darker colouring. Fair skin was mocked. People remarked how greatly I resembled my father and my paternal aunt. Neither was notable for good looks, and my aunt, a truly kind and lovely person, had an aquiline nose, which my family expected me to develop. (Miraculously, I did not.)

I was regarded as a clever child, and that was a source of praise, although it could hardly have been considered to be a virtue. So I suppose it is not surprising that I absolutely cringe if I make a mistake and am found to be wrong. If I mispronounce a word, it hurts excruciatingly. This does not stop me, mind, from pointing out to my children, as well as to the ambient air, grammatical mistakes, like - well, I had better not get started....But I was never as clever as I wanted to be, nor did I achieve as much as I thought I should have been able to. Eventually one comes to accept reality rather than unfulfilled desires and expectations. Reluctantly, perhaps.

Perhaps we all try to hide our defects, and to appear to the best advantage possible. It works for a reasonable per cent of the time. At this stage of my life, it is clear that I am never going to have a fake tan, breast implants, plastic surgery, or tattoos. I am as I am. The miracles of modern medicine have left their marks and scars on my body. But perhaps the dental treatment will serve both functional and aesthetic purposes. Hope springs eternal in the human breast.

And my children and grandchildren are all beautiful.

Images from the glory days

2011-08-04T20:12:00.000+10:00

As it is said, but in another context, many years ago in the eponymous film, it is just a period of adjustment.

While I adjust to paying large legal bills, I decided it was high time I saw a dentist. In the last year of Dr P's life, it was not possible to go out of the house for long, and thus such things were deferred.

My previous dentist was a nice man, but oh, so slow. He had no dental nurse, and everything took a very long time indeed. This is bad for a person who has a rabid but highly reasonable and well-based fear of dentists and dental treatments.

What was more, he had a TV on the ceiling and horrid programmes - supposedly to calm down the patient, but in my case, merely adding to the angst.

So it was time to look around and find a new dentist. I chose one from an ad in a local newspaper. Who says that advertising does not pay? If they did, they were WRONG.

To my shame and embarrassment, I have few teeth left, and they have almost passed their use-by date. It really is time to get something done. Years of eating too many sweets, lack of self-discipline, infrequent and terrifying dental treatment in my youth, dental treatment which tended to opt for extractions, have all played their part in my parlous dental condition. I am embarrassed by and ashamed of all this.

So I fronted up to this new and very high tech dentist, to investigate the options. Implants and the like.

It will cost heaps. Very big heaps. Faced with the prospect of high legal bills, which may or may not give me the freedom of choice I require, I decided that if I am squandering (as it were) pots of dough through the city, I might as well squander some on dentistry.

When I arrived, I had to fill out a medical and general history form, which asked, inter alia, the level of my fear of dental treatment. I gave it 8 out of 10. I do not intend to be any braver than I have to be, these days. All my courage is being used up on other even more unpleasant things, and I will happily opt for anaesthetics to help me avoid physical pain and appalling levels of fright. It is very wearing and upsetting trying to be brave most of the time. Sometimes, it seems a good idea to allow yourself to fall apart.

I had to endure the head-shaking, and the adverse reflections on the state of my teeth and what had been done to them, and was then presented with the various options, all nicely tucked into a folder, complete with estimated costs, and colour photographs, for my consideration and final choices. The dentist looked at my denture and opined that my teeth would not have looked like that. "No", I said, "They didn't, but not a lot of notice was taken of what I said way back then". I said I had an old photo and that I would bring it in for him to look at.

I did so, this afternoon, and gave it to the dental nurse. 'Oh', she said, "Is this what you want your teeth to look like?" "They are my teeth", I said, "This is a photograph of me."' I could see her astonished reaction flashing around her transparent mind. There is nothing like increasing age and decrepitude to make you abandon (most of your) vanity. Grim reality, hey! Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.

Then she said, "Oh, look at your lovely thick hair". My hair is not thick, and the photo was a studio portrait taken when I was about 20, so I look much prettier and more glamorous in that photograph than I ever did or do in real life. And in those days, hairdressers teased the hair to make it as bouffant as possible. Little did I know then the uses to which this photo would eventually be put. Oh tempora, oh mores.

It had been a busy day, and I arrived home in the late afternoon, having virtuously walked from various Point As to Point Bs. (I am trying to get fitter.) The doorbell rang as I sat there enjoying some idleness.

It was the Census Collector, giving me my form, and urging me to complete it on line. I might, but then again, I might not.

In the last Census, in 2001, I was a Census Collector. It was a most interesting experience, and a lot of hard work. The pay was not commensurate with the effort required. I noted then how few young children and babies there were. Ten years on, they are ubiquitous. The young have moved into this suburb and have been nesting. Pregnancies, babies, toddlers, prams and pushers abound. You can trip over them everywhere. Especially in the cafes. There are still lots of old people living here, who increasingly need help and support services.

I went through the questions on the Census form, and feel I have slipped through the cracks. I am widowed now, having spent a couple of years as a carer, and my housing situation is anomalous. Most of the questions do not really apply to me, but they did a year or so ago. I don't know quite how to answer some of these questions. I could always do a Dr P and make up the answers, or I could stick a pin and choose that way. But no, I cannot do that. Truth is my middle name.

Things that go bang in the night

2011-07-29T23:18:00.000+10:00

There was a power blackout late at night a couple of days ago. After enduring my usual tossing and turning, while hoping sleep would pop up and bash me into unconsciousness, I was awakened by the sound of an alarm going off, and something, never to be identified, going Beep, Beep, Beep. I got up and peered around, and noticed that the time showing on the clock radio was an hour behind my watch. Having adjusted the time, I went back to bed.

Before sleep could hit me again, suddenly music began playing. I went downstairs and discovered that the CD player had started, all by its little self. I switched it off and went back to bed.

Some time after that, the room was illuminated from below. Yet again I went downstairs, and found that the computer was re-starting itself, and that the mouse and the computer no longer loved each other, and had abruptly abandoned cohabitation.

By this stage a certain amount of irritation was setting in. I flapped about with the mouse and finally got reconnected, and put the computer back to sleep. The computer was far more willing to go back into Sleep Mode than was my fractious body.

It was not possible to sleep in, as I had to get to my Italian class, and once there I found out that I was not the only person to have suffered from mysterious nocturnal electrical disturbances.

However all seemed well, until an email from the solicitor arrived later that day, and I went to print it out. It was not all good news, as I am being billed monthly, and the shock of the bill was about equivalent to the power surge and/or blackout. Never mind, I bravely thought, no pain, no gain, and one must just hope for the best.

The printer would not print. Oh Oh! Maybe the power thingy had upset it a trifle. I looked at it more closely. The On switch was not. I pressed it. Then I pressed it again. It remained unilluminated. I checked the power point, and did some jiggling there. The printer is definitely dead. Fortunately I have another printer connected to the old iMac, so at least I can still print from that. It seems rather strange that one printer should go bung, while the other one still works. I dare not complain about this, though.

At some later stage it occurred to me that my contents insurance might possible cover the replacement of the extinct printer. So I telephoned them. Not necessarily, said the insurance. Printers, they said, don't conk out because of a power surge. They are plug-in sort of beasties. (Are they?) What you must do, the insurance said, is ring your energy supplier and ask them What Really Happened that night.

So yet again, I had to grapple with a telephone menu system and select from numerous options until I got an actual person. They will check it for me, they said. It could take ten days or so.

It is probably inadvisable for me to sit around waiting for them to give me any news, which, given the way fate has been bashing me about for quite some time, is not likely to be good. Now is the time for all good whoevers to go out and buy a new printer. Just the sort of thing you want to do after getting Round 2 of the legal bills. Choosing technological things is not my idea of fun. Then there will be yet another manual to misunderstand.

I should not have gone out and bought a new shawl the previous day. Just asking for trouble, wasn't I?

Nor should I indulge in lamentations on the computer. Now motor bikes and scooters are being raced up and down the street, making a very loud noise.

Affidexhausted...

2011-07-23T22:55:00.000+10:00

Apart from it being windy, cold and wet, the wettest July ever, or in living memory, it seems, and the fact that (surprise?) the Murdoch empire has been shown to be remarkably corrupt, things here are lying rather dormant. Or can you say 'rather' dormant? I use the word because, although things are being done, it is all preparation, hard work, tedious checking, painful composition, losing things and taking forever to find them, and hoping this is all to some purpose, and will achieve the desired result. And who can say?

I am having to copy documents, double check everything, try and hold it all in my mind, and set it out as clearly as possible. It is not at all enjoyable, of course, but must be endured.

I have zapped off a draft for scrutiny and now await feedback. It is likely that many more hours of revision and clarification will be needed.

It is rather worrying that I keep losing things. We had asked the executors what they wanted done about a particular account. They did not reply, but the direct debit bounced. I can only conclude that the credit card has been cancelled, and that they do not wish me to continue this account. So I have now cancelled it. To do so without penalty I have to supply a certified copy of the death certificate. It took me several hours of repetitive and increasingly frantic searching before my tired brain reluctantly dredged up a memory of putting all these documents in quite another place altogether. Why did I put them downstairs in the sideboard, I hear you cry? God knows. I have been out to the stationery shop to get more plastic folders, so that I can have yet another (and I hope not totally futile) attempt to keep my papers in order. At these times I wonder, and probably not without cause, whether I have incipient dementia. My children, just don't answer this query. I don't want the answer to this. Not yet, anyway. And probably none of you are ready to care for me in my declining years.....you will probably in due course have to gird your loins, etcetera....

I managed to cancel another account, and after having to get very stroppy with the unfortunate person on the other end of the phone, she checked with their administration section and discovered that the account had already been cancelled. She enquired whether I wished to have it transferred into my name. Unable to contemplate the horrific possibility of ever having to go through their menu system ever again, I declined. Now I have to work out another telephone plan. I need first to gird my loins and grit my teeth. And probably embark on psychological counselling first. What I really need (are you out there, my children?) is an offspring who can do it all for me. But they are pretty busy themselves. And I am a grown up person. Allegedly independent and capable. Ha.

Well, I rang up, and fortunately, this particular telephone service was quite reasonable and helpful to deal with. So rather than stuff around indefinitely, and floundering around trying to choose a plan, I just opted for one. I had discovered that having cancelled the previous account, I could not make any interstate phone call. I could still make local calls. Just why this is so escapes my understanding. It will be a couple more days before I can ring interstate.

No wonder people have secretaries and accountants. It seems that one should write down every single fact and circumstance, never throw anything away, and have a master list of where things have been - or should have been - put. And thus not have to rely on an already overburdened memory, which actually used to be pretty damn good. There is enough to worry about without the fear of dementia. Maybe I should use my iPod and write down every single thing I do? I'd probably then misplace the iPod.

Then there is bad typing. My fingers keep hitting the wrong keys and inserting more letters than the words in question actually possess. Many more letters, in fact. Mostly Gs.To some extent I can blame the iMac keyboard, but the real reason is me.

I have had some feedback from my BIL. Unfortunately, he sent it to me in handwritten form on my draft, but he emailed it to me in PDF format and it is upside down. I cannot discover a way (is there one?) to turn it the right way up, so have had to print it out, and not all his comments are legible. It all has to be done promptly, as in about ten days we will be in court for the preliminary hearing. My heart is sinking and gloom pervades my every pore.

There is this to be said about dreadful weather, ie, that there is very little incentive to go outside.

In the meantime I have been going to our dress rehearsals. The concert is tomorrow and it seems it will be a good performance. The music now seems to sing itself, and it is wonderful to be able to let the high notes fly. I do love being a soprano. Even if no one else does, I like the sound of my own voice. Tell that to the judge.

It is not purple, but....

2011-07-15T22:26:00.000+10:00

I was rampaging through my wardrobe the other day, searching for the outfit I had made last year for a nephew's wedding. It needs to be altered, to fit me for my niece's wedding in August. I came across a genuine antique from my past.

It was at the very back of the wardrobe, where things I am extremely unlikely to wear ever again hang dolefully. This particular garment must be a good 20 years old.

I dragged it out. It is a size 10, and it fitted me. I stroked it and purred. I liked what I saw and felt.

It is a fur jacket. A rabbit fur, in red fox shades.

I love fur. It is so soft and smooth, so warm and snuggly. So tactile.

Years ago I used to have a lapin fur coat, which I wore until it fell to bits. It was just the thing for the Canberra winters. Furriers used to have special sales in the Albert Hall. Ah, such temptation!

Fur garments fell into disrepute, as animal liberationists campaigned vigorously against them. Furriers closed down in droves, and there was not a fur garment to be seen.

Although I observed some years later that in Europe there were still furriers and garments which were absolutely elegant, gorgeous, and glamorous. Such luxurious shops. They are not the sort of shops you'd go into for a little browse around. Much too posh. One stood gazing at the windows, and lusted after them.

Now fur trims on garments are to be seen here and there, and not all of it is faux fur. Fur is creeping back, it seems.

Sydney's climate is not really one which can justify the wearing of fur, although this mid-July is doing its best to disprove this theory. And the Canberra overnight temperature yesterday fell to about - 6.3.

In August one of my many nieces is getting married in a very cold place. But a fox-coloured and snugly fitting jacket won't go with the purple silk outfit.

My wonderful physiotherapist, Barbara, was rather teary at this week's appointment. Her cat, her beloved pet for 21 years, had cancer and had to be put down. We exchanged memories of sitting and stroking lapfuls of purring cats. And hugged and kissed each other, in mutual comfort.

It reminded me of having to put down my lovely cat Meggsie, who also had cancer and who was totally miserable. I took him to the vet, and held him as he died, then came home, and flung myself on the bed and wept. Dr P and I were supposed to be going out that night, but, unprompted, he cancelled the outing, and let me weep. Such memories re-surface unexpectedly.

Light relief from eyes out on stalks

2011-07-09T18:54:00.000+10:00

No rest for the wicked, none but the brave deserve the fair, God helps those who help themselves, and tomorrow I am going to stop procrastinating.

If I were a more methodical person, I would not be in this muddle of paper, calculations, summaries, conceptual confusion, or call it what you may. Not only must one calculate what has been spent, but one must gaze into the unknown future and make some some estimates, which can vary from wild guesses to relative probability. Where's the crystal bowl when it is needed? Will I need plumbers, electricians, painters or handymen? Last year we failed to get the air conditioners serviced, so this year it ought to be done.

I am the sort of person who chucks receipts into a box, and sorts them out only in cases of the very direst necessity. I do note down most items of expenditure, I check my credit card statements, and I always pay my bills on time, and do not run up debts. However, I cannot keep figures in my head, and nor can I move them easily around my mind and memory. This means that when I do (try to) sort them all out and make logical, tidy and methodical summaries, things fall out of my mind and I tend to forget what was there. I wish it were not so, but alas, it is indeed so, and I suppose I can always add age and decrepitude to a naturally deficient intellect when it comes to numbers. But perhaps a truer explanation is a simple conviction, born out of centuries of conditioning, that I should not have to worry my pretty little head about such matters. Logically and rationally, I do not believe this for a single second, but oh, how I would like it if someone else did it all for me. Well, this is never going to happen, and so I strive personfully to keep my affairs in order. When this task has been satisfactorily accomplished, perhaps I won't have to do it again for the foreseeable future.

I buy plastic folders and envelopes, so as to maintain some semblance of order, but the number of folders required seems to multiply exponentially. Periodically it is necessary to spread everything out all over the floor, and sort them all, and then hope for the best. Another of those little voices insists that there are better things to do with one's life, and suggests cunningly that taking a break with some music in the background and a good book is a far preferable way of squandering time. Oh yes!

The reason for all this torture is an impending appointment with the lawyer. All my financial details and circumstances must be revealed to whomsoever they may concern.

The appointment was actually scheduled for yesterday, but when the lawyer rang to confirm the appointment, I confessed that I had not finished all the financial summaries. Accordingly the appointment was deferred until Monday. Just do the best you can, she said soothingly.

So while the cleaners vacuumed, I kept a-sorting. Most things are now in some kind of order, but there is much addition to be done, and forms to be filled in.

Analysing the patterns of expenditure, I note that small and frequent food shopping has replaced the large weekly shopping expedition. Petrol costs me very little now, and it is not worth chasing discount vouchers. Pharmacy costs have fallen hugely. Overall my cost of living has gone up, now that the expenditure is borne by myself alone.

Nonetheless it seems a good idea to indulge in little treats. I have bought some new clothes. The sales have been on, practically nothing fitted me any more, and this year there were so many purple clothes being sold. The contents of the wardrobe now reveal an even more extensive range of purple garments.

I continue to buy CDs and books - in fact, I cannot seem to stop, but I am managing to read more, as there are fewer interruptions. At the second-hand market today I found the Cambridge Companion to Jane Austen, for a mere $5. It was a bargain. Cleaning costs are less, as I do not make very much mess. I keep buying wool, and am full of good intentions about using it. Anyway, there has been a month long wool sale, which simply cannot be ignored. Such bargains - the yarns are so gorgeous. How can such temptation possibly be resisted? Not many people were trying to resist, judging from the lengthy queues at the cash register, on each occasion that I popped in to see what I myself could not resist. Hordes of happy females were there, eagerly examining wools, selecting colours, with many a helpful suggestion from other shoppers, poring over patterns, and finally leaving laden with large parcels. What a sisterhood there is of crafty people. It is wonderful. Maybe yarns emit a pheromone which is irresistible to certain females? There has to be some sort of scientific explanation!

In fact I have just completed a large blanket made of crocheted squares, which will go to the ABC's Knit In annual event. The blanket looks quite good. Enough squares remain for half of another rug. Oh dear. More and more work, and more wool purchases. All sorts of spare squares sit in boxes in the cupboards, awaiting the chance to be used up in some sort of compatible mix of squares.

Last week I brought out some fine blue mohair I bought in New Zealand in the late 1980s, during a visit there for a couple of political science conferences. For years I have been wondering what I could make with this yarn, and now I have started making a shawl. The pattern is easy, and can be done on automatic pilot. Here's hoping it all works, as mohair is very difficult to unravel. Of course, I don't know how much yarn will be required, as I am adapting a pattern. Sweet mystery of life.

Intermittently I will resume work on the wisteria/jacaranda coloured wool with which I am crocheting a jumper. I am up to the shaping of the second sleeve, and then must join all the pieces and do the edgings.

Another year older

2011-07-05T23:28:00.000+10:00

It was my birthday on Monday, the glorious 4 July, and as I did not want to be all alone, I took off for a few days in Melbourne, where my three sisters took me out to lunch. Somehow, sisters are much better company than are brothers. My time and energy both being finite, I now confine my efforts to reciprocal relationships. They are so much better for the psyche. Perhaps next year my wingspan might increase.

I stayed for two days with a friend from Canberra who has moved to Melbourne to be closer to her daughters. We were colleagues as well as friends, and have travelled together, and never run out of things to talk about. She has to settle in to a new environment, and remarks that she does not know anyone who is her own age, and we (rather ruefully) remark upon the process of relocation and resettlement. It being far too soon for me to know what will become of me, or where I should eke out my (declining?) years, it is interesting to observe how others go about it. At this stage, all I can see is a large variety of difficult adjustments.

And then there is always the weather. I was a good grandmother, and went to watch my grandson's soccer match. It was absolutely freezing weather, and despite wearing three woollen layers, an overcoat, two pairs of socks, hat, gloves and a pashmina, I shivered violently for almost two hours. It was worse than the two Canberra soccer games I attended a few weeks ago. My grandson's team won, and I enjoyed the game, even though it took another hour for me to become warm. We had a pleasant afternoon, with birthday cake and candles, made successfully despite the electric mixer almost dying. Fixit has taken it (the mixer) apart and cleaned it out, and it may struggle on for another while. Yet again I blessed the day (many years ago) that my friend gave me the recipe for this now fabled buttermilk spice cake. We were a very sociable mob, in my workplace, and shared and enjoyed many recipes.

My friend and I went to the exhibition of Viennese Art and Design at the National Gallery of Victoria, which was terrific. As we arrived just after opening time, it was not overcrowded, and we were able to amble around at our own pace, and get a good look at everything. My friend bought me the catalogue as a birthday present, which was very kind of her.

The disadvantage of being away is being deprived of time on the computer. Now it is time to catch up with what the rest of the world has been doing.

Frittering time away

2011-06-28T11:46:00.001+10:00

It is a solitary time, and that is how it will be, for the rest of my life. It probably matters little where I choose to be. One does not realise what it is going to be like, before the inescapable fact and situation are upon one. Even when I enjoyed solitude and uninterrupted time, there was always a time frame attached to it, and once that time had elapsed, normal life resumed.

No more.

The sense of being alone is ever present. In some ways I have become accustomed to it, and would probably find it extremely difficult to adapt to life with another person. It does not mean that this solitariness, this aloneness, this isolation from others, is a desirable state.

I wander around, and that sense of being alone is always with me. My companion, as it were. Instead of the living, breathing, brilliant, funny, perplexing, irritating, interesting, challenging, provocative, argumentative, loving and loved person. Once breath has gone, once life has gone, so too do the other qualities fade, except in memory. Memory persists, but it too fades. I am reminded suddenly of Dali's painting The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory.

Being occupied and being organised helps, and fills the days, and I am getting more done. For some people, and evidently I am one of them, accepting the changes in life and doing those things necessary, is essential. I wonder whether others realise this, or whether they simply think I am being compulsive.

I do the re-organising bit by bit. My wardrobes are full of clothes not worn for years, as I was too fat to get into them, or the fashions have changed so that they (and I) look peculiar. Now I am pulling them out of the wardrobes, and wondering whether to get new elastic put into the waistbands, or whether to make yet another trip to Vinnies. I examine the contents of the kitchen cupboards, and discard this, and then that. I know it is a continuous attempt to take control of my life. But who can ever achieve that?

I want to see people, and yet, a little is enough, or too much. Then I need to escape to my solitude, and brood a while. In fact, the brooding is like the musical ground bass, repetitive, but harmonious and endlessly fascinating because of the way it is intertwined with the melody, and the progression of time, and life. I cannot halt it. Maybe in time it will evaporate.

Out of character

2011-06-21T23:23:00.000+10:00

I am back home from a few days in Canberra. I saw friends, children and grandchildren, and watched the kids' soccer matches. It was very very cold and many layers of clothing were essentiaI. My grandson's team has improved a lot, and he managed to get quite a lot of kicks, but apparently keeps hovering near the goal in the hope and expectation that the ball might miraculously come to him and he can shoot a goal. Apparently you are not supposed to hover around the goal area....

The younger team still has a lot to learn. My granddaughter has trouble remembering to run in the direction of the ball, and, when she does run, she interrupts the run periodically to give a graceful ballet sort of leap! Actually, the leaps are rather Bambi -like.

I have laboured in the field, or, rather, in the houses, and wrought some order out of - how to put it kindly? No, don't think I can. Anyway I have been a labour saving person, and managed to get the older boy involved in helping me. We had fun.

My friend KP was a most kind host. We went out to dinner the first night, and he invited friends over on another night. It was good to see everyone.

In a fit of heroic self-restraint, I did not buy any books at my favourite bookshops. (OK, so one of them was not open when I was in the vicinity.) Continuing my efforts to lead a virtuous life, I am proceeding to read a book which has been sitting around for over a year, somehow emitting a faintly dispirited air, and emitting pleading yelps, to just get on with it, and read it - right to the end, please. It is Frank Delaney's novel Ireland, and it is a great read, especially if you are interested in Ireland. I am, in a general sense, and am trying to improve on this by reading books by Tim Pat Coogan, whose A Memoir I have recently finished. I am actually rather put out to discover how few of his books are available in the bookshops here. It is only right to create a mini-demand.

There are plenty of things to do.

I drove back home this morning, detouring briefly to Berrima, or, as the signs say, Historic Berrima, where there is a lovely shop selling alpaca products. I whipped in and out of the shop in a mere 15 minutes and am now wearing a rather gorgeous purple alpaca tunic style garment. This results from following the policy of giving oneself little (or big) treats.

Tonight I went with a friend to see a musical Jersey Boys, all about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Now, no one would describe me as being keen on pop music, although I found that much of the music was familiar. It was terrific, with an excellent cast of singers, actors and musicians. My only complaint was that it was extremely loud, and I do not understand why a deafening level is considered essential. There will be hosts and hosts of people suffering from deafness at a rather young age. Then they will be sorry!

Still, I must not allow myself to be curmudgeonly. It was a very enjoyable night, and I am delighted that my friend talked me into going with her.

Tomorrow normal life will be resumed and I will be going to the Apple Shop to learn how to be a more effective user of my computer. Should be good.

Nothing much

2011-06-16T22:52:00.000+10:00

This has not been a good week, and the miseries have swamped me. The loins need to be girded and the teeth gritted. The jaw must be clenched, the shoulder must be put to the wheel, and the best foot put forward. I must push bravely onwards. Just like Christian soldiers, marching off to war. Tra la.

Cliches work to a rather limited extent. This is a pity, as they are so plentiful. They spring so readily to mind. Talk is easy.

I have been waiting for a phone call and it has not happened, and I am trying not to be a pest. Although I can see quite clearly the advantages of being a pest.

The remote controls for the garage door arrived, but I cannot activate them.

This is because I cannot understand the instructions, reach the control box, or see how to open it. (Let alone know what to do next.) My ladder is not high enough. The result was to make me feel quite useless.

Being a total sook does nothing to solve the problem. I comfort myself by realising that if Dr P were still alive, he could not fix it either, and would resolve the matter by getting his tall grandson to do it, or by paying someone.

As the first is not an option, perforce I must pay someone to do it and this is to be done next Wednesday. Having organised this, I have cheered up slightly. I have resolved to watch carefully and learn how to do it myself, just in case. Being useless, or relatively so, is not a good condition to be in. It might be necessary to buy a longer ladder. It has occurred to me that while the man is here he can change the light globe for me.

This afternoon I had my flu injection. I am not sure why I do this, as I have only had influenza about once in my entire life, but it keeps bread in the mouths of the doctors. I discovered that I am at very low risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, and am generally in good health, albeit stressed. Perhaps I will meet my end by falling off a ladder, and slowly dying, because no one would know about the accident, and nor could they get inside this grim little fortress. However this sounds altogether too grisly and gruesome, so I will take care of myself.

Nor has it been a totally useless week in other respects. I finally decided it was time to activate my Apple One to One membership. I could not find the subscription, so called in to the Apple shop in the city, to see whether they could show me what it looked like, so that I could search the house yet again. Wonderful people, so patient and kind: they found my receipt, gave me a new card and activated it for me, and I am to have my first lesson next week. It is time to start learning again.

I am going to Canberra for the weekend, to immerse myself in family life. Children, grandchildren, friends, a soccer game, and some social activity.

On Sunday I took myself to a film of the Covent Garden production, by Jonathan Miller, of Così Fan Tutte. For some reason, I was charged the price of a child's ticket - an arbitrary but kind decision, as obviously I do not at all resemble a child under 15 years of age. The film lasted four and a half hours, with an interval. It was wonderful. Normally I do not like operas being transposed into modern times, but this time it worked, because the opera does not depend on any historical setting, but rather on emotions and human nature. Instead of wearing lockets containing portraits of the lovers, they all used iPhones, and this was very funny. Fabulous singing and acting.

As I waited to exit from the car park, the driver of a parked car, naturally a 4 Wheel Drive, backed out of his space without looking, causing the car in front of me to reverse to avoid being hit, and that car then hit mine. Not my fault, not her fault. Fortunately, it was the veriest, teensiest scrape, and I won't bother doing anything about it. But that bastard SUV driver, who was totally to blame, just drove off into the looming dusk. How unfair is that!

It is a truism, but Life Is Like That! Worse luck.

.

The cold

2011-06-11T17:32:00.002+10:00

Snow has been falling, the mountain slopes are laden with the stuff, ski resorts are cheering, but back in the cities it has been very cold. Even in Sydney, which generally is far far far too hot.

Yes, I know, when you have nothing else to say, talk about the weather. It is, after all, an endlessly fascinating topic.

My fingers are cold, I use a hot water bottle at night, and the second mohair throw is on the bed. My house - sorry, when I say my house, I am referring to the abode from which the blood rellies of my deceased husband are eagerly wanting to evict me, is relatively short of doors between rooms, and thus is difficult both to cool and to heat. Accordingly the power bills are somewhat alarming, even though my hands are still cold. Meanwhile I sport the layered look.

At the produce market this morning I lingered over a stall selling Peruvian alpaca products. And yes, I was tempted, and I fell. Once I started looking at various products, all of a sudden other people stopped and looked too. My serious looking had created more interest. It is often the way that if one person is interested, the interest becomes contagious. One serious customer occupying the attention of the stall owner makes it safer for others to investigate without creating an expectation that they will or should buy.

Alpaca is such a beautiful fibre. It makes wool seem so very ordinary and inferior, and also makes me want to acquire vast quantities of it, and to crochet yet another shawl. All this intense desire to create things evidently springs from a need to have some control over my life.Years ago I crocheted a large and complicated alpaca shawl, in 5 ply black, and wore it to some function. When I went to retrieve the shawl, it had vanished, and in its place was a crappy synthetic mass produced shawl. Somehow this did not seem like an innocent mistake. I went back to the shop to buy some more black alpaca, but there was none. A colleague, fortunately, had the same yarn in a very dark brown, so we arranged a swap of some kind, and I made another shawl. But it is not the same. It cannot be worn with real black. I still feel bad about that loss.

And I wish I could crochet faster.

Thinking of heating the house reminds me that I had another call from someone, another person with a heavy Asian accent that was most difficult to understand, apparently peddling something to do with solar heating. Let it not be said I am against solar heating, but I have yet to ascertain what the call was all about, as this caller too wanted to speak to the owner of the house, and once again hung up on me. Clunk!

How does it come about that these callers are so badly instructed in telephone techniques? According to a fairly recent supplement in the Careers section of the newspaper, call centres are big business, and provide excellent careers for at least some of their employees. It is quite evident that the callers are obliged to follow a set script.

In the days when I had occasion to telephone people for information (or whatever) our standard practice was:

Good morning/afternoon. My name is Persiflage, and I work for the Department of Really Amateur Blogging (RAB). I need to find some information about (here insert own sort of twaddle). Can you help me with this enquiry, or direct me to the relevant area? Thank you.

Listen attentively to response, ask for alternative sources of information if necessary, thank person on telephone, leave contact details, and then end call.

Doesn't sound too hard, does it? So why does no one do it? Let alone listen carefully?

I have been (perforce) spending quite a lot of time on the telephone recently. Yesterday I had to re-subscribe to the newspaper. A letter arrived saying that the usual direct debit on the credit card had failed, and could Dr P kindly supply the details. So after exercising the vocal cords by uttering a few choice words, I telephoned the subscription number, and after a mere ten minutes managed to be connected to a person, who (miraculously, thank you, putative god) dealt with me courteously and efficiently. Of course, you may well ask why, in view of the fact that I had communicated my desire to have this subscription transferred to me, the executors could not have handled it somewhat better?

Things are falling apart. (A sympathy strike, perhaps?)

My oven is not working properly, but I will neither repair nor replace it until/unless things are sorted out. The lovely George at my local Retravision, is investigating plug in and sit on bench alternatives for me. Otherwise it won't be possible to have any roast pork or lamb. Or to heat my quiche, or spinach and fetta triangle.

The remote control for the garage is broken. I have ordered a replacement, by telephone, from the courteous and efficient Kate, who does indeed know to to conduct business by telephone.

One of the halogen globes is no longer working. The ceiling is too high, and the ladder too short for me to change it. The electrician will have to be called to change it for me. Perhaps it would be best to wait until more than one globe needs replacing. Economies of scale, etcetera.

Will it never end?

2011-06-07T14:42:00.000+10:00

No, it all goes on and on, and thus so does the turmoil, the rage and the tears. Every time I think I am recovering a little, I get walloped by the slings and arrows of outrageous executors and solicitors, and I would not mind dishing a bit out in return. Oner of those clubs all studded with very nasty spikes would do very nicely, but they are probably all locked up in the museum. Alas.

I am neck deep in papers, correspondence, and looking for things which were in my hand, on the floor, or very close by only 30 seconds ago. Much more than 30 seconds is needed to re-locate whatever it was. Such happenings make me wonder whether I am becoming Alzheimic, or whether it is merely the accumulated and undischarged grief, rage and stress provoked by the wicked stepfamily and their minions.

When I asked the solicitor about my being reimbursed for household expenditure for the period up to Dr P's death, I was assured that there would be no problem - just let them know - and similarly that the cost of the wake would be borne by the estate. Fine, although I would happily have paid for the wake. My family, friends and I went out and bought quantities of food and drink, and I meticulously subtracted the amount for anything not consumed at the wake. That has now been paid, after a mere 13 weeks.

However the solicitor says he is 'instructed' to get the particulars of the other expenditure claimed. This was household expenditure paid by me, ACCORDING TO OUR USUAL ARRANGEMENTS, because Dr P was no longer capable of doing anything himself, and, what was more, was in hospital and then the nursing home, soon and unexpectedly to die. I do not have all the receipts, just the note of the costs, and I am certainly not going to itemise every little detail of perfectly legitimate expenses. Like buying takeaway coffee. Or taking Dr P chocolate milkshakes. It is none of their business. They knew perfectly well what our lifestyle was like, what food and drink we had, how numerous Dr P's medications, and our normal routines. I will forego the money.

So I expect that the wicked stepdaughters, in addition to their purloining of 90 per cent of their father's cash assets, will now be enriched by their hanging on to a sum which should go to me. Well, they can have it, as far as I am concerned, and may they all rot in Hell. In fact, right now, I hope there is indeed a Hell, and I must consult my Dante to see into which Circle they should all be put. We had a little discussion at the Italian class last Thursday, about where certain other people should most appropriately be placed, and I suggested they should be cut up into as many bits as needed, and a piece placed in each location, thus excruciatingly exacerbating the torture. I tell you, in this day and age Dante would have been a scriptwriter and film maker of horror movies.

Maybe I will calm down in due course. I wrote to my BIL last night, and am in the throes of writing other stuff as required, losing relevant documents as I go, and busily finding them all, re-labelling them and re-filing them, in the probably vain hope of not falling into this state of disarray ever again. I dare not so hope. Having entered here, it has been abandoned. And not because I am wicked, either.

It is probably time I went and bought myself a takeaway coffee and a takeaway spinach something for dinner.

The ball of dark blue wool has not turned up, either. And the telephone is crackly and fuzzy, and I will have to do something about that too. Drat and darn. Or words to that effect.

Someone just rang up about solar energy, and wanted to know whether he was speaking to the owner of the house. I said No, and looked forward to the likely explication of the situation relating to the owner of the house, but he hung up on me! Small mercies.

I worked off some of my rage by a further discarding of things relating to the stepfamily. I may dump a whole lot of their photos in the garbage bin (it gets put out tonight). Or I may soften and send it COD to the solicitor.

Why I am so fixated on trying not to be horrible or bad? I know why, it is my Catholic upbringing and conscience, and its emphasis on charity. The possibly more fortunate stepfamily grew up without such inhibitions. Possibly genetically immune?

Losing things

2011-06-03T23:47:00.000+10:00

There is a piece by Beethoven popularly known as Rage for a Lost Penny. It is busy and frantic, and it does not end with any feeling of the triumph of a successful search. This piece resonates, and certainly touched a nerve. So many have had the experience of not being able to find something. And it drives you nutty.

At present I am searching for a ball of dark blue wool. It is being used to make some more crocheted squares, for the ABC's Knit In. (Or is it Knitting with Love?) Anyway, lots of people get together and makes squares, mostly knitted, but some crocheted, and then there is a big day when people get together and join them all up into wraps, or blankets. The squares must measure 10 inches.

I cannot knit, so my squares are crocheted. They are made from spare and odd balls, and are in many different colours, leftovers from previous cot blankets, and from other balls I bought so I could keep my hands busy. Assembling them into a harmonious combination is difficult, and new squares in different colour combinations have been multiplying.

Once upon a time (sighs plaintively here) it was possible to choose from a extensive array of colours. No more. Odds and sods are what is available now. Various shades of murk tend to predominate. Clear bright colours are scarce. I keep buying more balls of wool, advising myself to exercise some restraint, for heaven's sake, and fiddling with the arrangement of the squares.

I was using the dark blue to edge the squares only a couple of days ago, as I sat, peaceably enough, minding my own business, in the lounge while watching the TV. I finished the square, and now the ball has disappeared.

It is not under the chair (I have looked several times already), or in the chair, under the rug, anywhere on the coffee table, up the stairs, in the bag of wool, in the backpack I take with me to my classes, nor in any of my pockets, under the stairs, on the ironing board, near the computer, in the bookshelves, in the bedroom, in or under the bed, in the bathroom, in the cupboards, pantry or kitchen drawers. I cannot find it here or there. I cannot find it ANYWHERE.

It is driving me bonkers. The only thing which might calm me would be to go out and (a) buy the CD of the Rage for a Lost Penny, or b) buy a new ball of dark blue wool - assuming it is still on sale. At choir, I asked our accompanist if she knew and played the piece. She did, but she shuddered slightly.

Never let it be thought that squares are the only thing I crochet, even though there is a spare cot blanket in my cupboards. It is in shades of deep and bright pink and black, but as my nieces have all had boys, I don't think any of them would receive this blanket with glad cries. I think the world believes that if a male child is put anywhere near pink, his vital appendage will fall off forthwith. We cannot have that happen, can we? The risk is simply too great. So I hope someone has another girl child soon....

I have been crocheting a very 1970s style sweater, which I started before Dr P went to hospital. The wool is lovely and a gorgeous shade of wisteria or jacaranda. Very fetching, I hope. I had to pull out quite a lot of it, as I could not follow the pattern. It has been years since I tried to make anything at all complicated. The day before Dr P died I took it to the crochet clinic and the amazing expert sorted it all out for me, and said the pattern was extremely badly written, not to mention wrong.

Since then work has progressed and I am now on the second sleeve. Then will come the fun of sewing it all together, and hoping it fits. Occasionally I take the crochet to places such as choir, where a little can be done while other parts are being rehearsed. Now there are a few of us who do some knitting or crocheting. One of the choristers farms out wool and the pattern to make loose socks for people in nursing homes. The combination of making music and making things by hand is rather pleasant and links us together in more ways than one.

I expect the only way of making the wretched missing ball turn up is to buy another one.

Ignorance is not bliss

2011-05-27T21:49:00.000+10:00

It is about time I set about improving my computer knowledge, as I have not been able to cope with documents sent to me in pdf format. While I can print them out, I cannot change their contents. So instead of getting on with the main tasks to do with my future, I am floundering around trying to sort out this technical problem. It is the sort of thing likely to provoke wild sobs, bashing brains out, swearing a lot, and is a substantial waste of time.

When I bought the new iMac, because of Dr P's feebleness it was not possible for me to activate the One to One subscription, which would have been some help. Now that three months have passed since his death, I can probably manage it, except that most of my time is having to be devoted to producing documents and financial records, and working out my monthly expenditure. Ugh!

I need someone to show me how to do it, kindly and patiently. And to write it all down, for future reference.

Somehow the simplest things seem to take such a long time to do. Sometimes I wonder whether senility is rapidly approaching, and there is moreover the lurking fear that I may not be the only person who has this suspicion. I hope the problems are merely the effects of grief and stress, and that they go away soon. In the meantime, I watch SBS's Letters and Numbers, only to find that my performance has sadly deteriorated. At least I can still spell, although my typing is quite appalling. For this latter defect I blame the wireless keyboard that comes with the iMac, which is incredibly tiny and makes it very easy to hit additional keys. Many of my words contain an additional letter - g in particular and thus much time is spent correcting ubiquitous errors.

When I was younger I tried to do a typing course at night. I'd go out after feeding Stomper, leaving her to the care of her father, and would come home feeling I had not progressed very far. Stomper, being a perfect baby, did not play up for her father at all, but she stayed wide awake until I returned home. Every other night she went straight to sleep. I never did achieve a typing speed. This seemed to matter little at the time, and it was not until multi-skilling was introduced into the Public Service generally that all of a sudden we had to do our own typing, without ever having been taught properly to do so, and then get to learn computers, which were then in their very early stages, without having any very adequate training. However, it did seem that multi-skilling did not work in reverse, and thus we gained but did not lose tasks/skills.

In the meantime, I am not a pretty sight. I banged the side of my forehead on the corner of my sister's car door, when I opened it to retrieve a parcel. I now sport an increasingly spectacular and technicolour black eye. This is what comes of loving the colour purple. People are asking me what happened to the other fellow.

As loading photographs onto my blog has somehow become more difficult than it used to be, I have no intention of trying to load a photo of my black eye.

My computer obviously realised I was writing about it, and today shut itself down without my authorising it to do so. This was about the fourth such occurrence, so I rang the Apple Help, and was connected to Ben, from Devonport. The Apple Help centres, I now know, are in Brisbane and Devonport, and while we waited for the computer to do as it was told, we had a pleasant discussion about how lovely Tasmania is.

It turned out that my computer needed its installation DVD to be re-loaded, as all manner of things had gone wrong, and for good measure, we repaired its permissions as well. It is now working much faster, and obviously I should act much more promptly when problems occur.

It has been a busy day, as I went to a film with friends, Mrs Carey's Concert, which was very good, and showed what can be achieved by wealthy private schools with excellent teachers and very talented and privileged pupils. The music education is quite incredibly good - and far exceeds what it was like in the dim distant past when I was at school. We had dinner together afterwards, and I am just home, and preparing for an all day choir rehearsal tomorrow. Unless I rise early and am very organised, I won't have time to get to the market and buy flowers.

Let's talk about the weather, and what it does

2011-05-25T15:40:00.000+10:00

Not for very long, though. It is COLD! Canberra and Adelaide were very cold. Melbourne was mild, but, back home in Sydney, the mild spell is over and I have had to turn on the heating. My fingers are cold, my shoulders tense up as I try not to shiver.

But the camellias have started to flower. In Canberra flowering does not start until early spring. My sasanqua camellia has been flowering for weeks, and is nearing the end of its season. When I got home there were several open blooms on my pink camellia japonica (which was planted so long ago that I can't remember its name, and the red one, which has struggled since it was planted to survive a couple of searing summers, has a gorgeous and perfect flower. I did what I seldom do - I picked them and they are floating in a couple of bowls. They are thawing slightly a part of my sad and frozen heart.

Usually I buy flowers at the local produce market, but, having been away, I have had no flowers in the house for weeks now. Dr P always thought it was a total waste of money to buy flowers, but eventually he gave up grumbling out loud about it.

Before I moved here, I seldom bought flowers, as there was usually something to pick from my garden. Here there is so little room that the only things which bloom rampantly are the self-sown nasturtiums, the red and green alstroemerias (which drop sticky stuff around), the rather insignificant flowers of the lemon verbena, and the Chinese star jasmine.

I generally buy liliums, or alstroemerias of the hybridised kind.They last well. Sometimes I lash out and get the Asiatic scented liliums. Some people do not like the scent, but I think it is delectable.

I think that once I know what I am doing, ie where I will be living, I will plant something in memory of Dr P. Something flamboyant and argumentative, and spectacularly gorgeous. I can't get him a memorial rose: I never managed to grow roses at all successfully. It will have to be able to thrive anywhere, and be something long-lived. If I stay here, a rampant scarlet bougainvillea could be just the thing. If elsewhere, a strong informal double red camellia could be a good choice. Or a blazing red callistemon.

For myself, I'd like a formal double camellia. If I get through the next year, I think something beautiful and perfect might be merited: as a recognition of my attempts to be a good and loving person, and a kind of absolution for past errors, omissions and failures.

Known and unknown destinations

2011-05-18T17:21:00.000+10:00

Having travelled twice now in the last 12 weeks, and being about to set off again, I ponder the nature of travel, physical and emotional.

With physical travel, you decide on a destination, arrange it, and then do it. You know where you are going, how to get there, and how to return. You decide on what to do while you travel.

Emotional travel, if one can so label the process I am undergoing, has no such certainty. The journey commences without volition. You know not where you are going, how you will travel, what you will do during the process, how you will recognise the destination. Neither do you know whether the destination will be temporary, indefinite or lasting. Sometimes the weather is clear, while at other times, one is shrouded in a very murky mist, with no clear path, and where the choices are uncertain, confused, and just as likely wrong.

The moods can vary between desperate sadness, uncertainty, confusion, irritation, anger, self-pity and resentment to a dull and deadening ache. Or it can happen that the clouds lift somewhat, that company, love and friendship can bring comfort, gratitude, joy and simple pleasure. Nothing is fixed, nothing is lasting. Not yet, possibly not at all. That is how life is, after all.

My time with my friend was good, with many experiences and memories to share. We talked all the time, went to the theatre and to a concert, and saw friends and former colleagues of Dr P. She was widowed two years ago. She is a person of great courage and resolution. Her husband was younger than mine. Theirs was a immensely happy marriage, and a meeting of true minds. His death was unexpected. Dr P's death, while sudden, meant that he did not linger longer in physical and mental weakness and confusion, which was fortunate for him. While we loved each other, we were very different in age, interests and abilities. As well as the good times, there were misunderstandings, and disputes, which inevitably have muddied the waters of grief. It is impossible to say whose path has been the most difficult.

How can such things be measured?

It is necessary to attend to a few things before travelling again to see many of my family. One of my brothers is having a significant birthday. It seems that quite often men are unable to organise a celebration, and thus the task has fallen to his sisters. I will see my elder daughter and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and great-nephews. There will be discussions with my brother in law about how things are going, and what to do next. Perhaps these will make my heaving stomach settle down a little, and enable me to set to work on the next process and get it all done. I hope so.

Forays into other climes

2011-05-12T00:00:00.000+10:00

Here I sit rugged up, with a heater nearby, and feeling quite cold. Yesterday I returned from several days in Canberra, where the temperature dropped to minus 5 overnight. Yesterday's day temperature reached only 11 degrees. Suddenly the weather over much of the southern and eastern states has become extremely cold, and there have been early and heavy snowfalls in the mountains. And it is only May.

Fortunately a combination of optimism, prudence and foresight prevented me from chucking out all my cold weather clothes when I moved here. I took my very warmest old clothes, including my purple woollen coat, and wore many layers. But still I shivered.

It was a comforting and comfortable visit, spending time with my son and daughter and their children, and many old friends too. The autumn air was clear and bright, and the city looked beautiful. Being with family and friends felt very healing.

I stayed with my dear friend H, in her warm and comfortable home, with an electric blanket on the bed. She has two cats, Fred and George, who are brothers. It was lovely to sit and talk together with a lapful of purring cat. These cats are well known in the neighbourhood as they range far afield and H is always getting calls from concerned and helpful people who ask has she lost one or other or both of the cats. H was widowed eleven years ago, and it was good for both of us to share experiences and emotions. (There seem to me to be many more widows than widowers. Perhaps I am encountering the wrong sort of random sampling.)

We met about 30 years ago - I had to add it up - when I was on an exchange programme at her workplace. She is a warm, loving, competent and intelligent person, with a kind and generous heart, and has hordes of friends. She was busy rehearsing for a concert of combined choirs, including the choir I used to be in, on Sunday, as part of the Canberra International Music Festival. I went to this concert, and saw many of my chorister mates. It was a wonderful occasion. The choirs performed the Requiem by Victoria, one of my favourite composers, and sang the premiere performance of a Requiem by our Australian National Treasure Peter Sculthorpe, now aged 80. It was a wonderful work, a true Requiem, intensely emotional and deeply moving, which brought tears to my eyes. After the concert, while lots of us were having coffee, I was able to approach the composer and tell him how wonderful his Requiem is. Once upon a time when contemporary music was played, I found it difficult to enjoy or appreciate, but I find the later Sculthorpe works to be profoundly beautiful.

It turned out that it was possible to see another old family friend. She is the widow of one of my father's old friends, and they were very kind and loving to me over the years. Her husband died 17 years ago. She is 88 now, and still lives by herself, albeit with some help from family and carer services. Essentially she manages most things, although she no longer drives. She seems to remember everything, and is writing very detailed memoirs. They will be worth reading. While I was visiting another friend who lives nearby, I asked to use her telephone directory to check the number. My friend knew her: their families were friends and colleagues, and when I visited my old friend, she told me she had known my younger friend since she was born. The connections and complexities of human relationships never cease to be amazing.

Of course, it did not take very long after my return yesterday afternoon for everything to spring up and beat me around the head and shoulders. Some things will have to wait, as I am taking off again to Adelaide. This will be much better than agonising and worrying, and letting things agitate me.

For everything there is a season, and a time and purpose under Heaven. Sufficient unto the day thereof.

Life mimicking art

2011-05-04T23:16:00.000+10:00

Despite my lapse into abject misery for much of last week, which must surely be related not only to my bereavement and general plight, but also to the departure of my daughter and granddaughter, somehow or other I have been getting on with things.

I went to the opera study group, which had an excellent speaker on the early operas of Verdi. He commenced by saying he could do without Wagner, because he totally loves and admires Verdi. He played plenty of the music, demonstrating its quality, and made a most convincing case. He also revealed that he owns practically every single CD ever recorded of all the Verdi operas, some 1500 CDs (!) and also has 400 DVDs. He noted that his wife thought this collection was somewhat excessive, but justified it on the basis that the singers are all different. As indeed they are.

He managed to make me feel that my own CD collection is quite modest, really, although most other people might not agree. (I did manage today to get in and out of the CD shop without actually buying anything. I am not quite sure why I even allow myself to go inside...) The speaker convinced me that I should listen far more carefully to these operas, but tonight I am listening to Handel.

After the opera group I had lunch with a friend, who always cheers me up and who is a lot of fun always. When I got home I tackled the telephone situation again and it has been fixed. That's a relief. In due course I will tackle again the relatively minor matter of discovering whether any accounts have been transferred to my name, or whether things will just be switched off. At least when I talked to the telephone company they did not require a copy of the death certificate.

In the evening a Canberra friend and former colleague came here. She moved to Melbourne late last year to be near one of her daughters, and came to Sydney for a meeting, and we arranged to have a meal afterwards. I had expected we would go to a restaurant, but it suddenly occurred to me that there was no reason why we could not eat here at home, So I actually cooked dinner, which was rather nice, we had no restaurant noise to contend with, and had the whole evening in which to talk, to discuss her relocation, my woes, news in general, and to enjoy each other's company. What is more, we may even make an overseas trip together later in the year. We have travelled together before, but she really likes cruises, as she hates having to pack and unpack all the time, and on a cruise you only unpack and pack at the beginning and the end. Mind you, she takes her own pillow when she travels....Whereas I feel that being trapped on board something you cannot get off at will, or slope off easily to do your own thing, would give me the heebie-jeebies. So there is something to look forward to...

I whiled away the morning by making another batch of quince jelly, which took slightly longer than I expected, and which managed to boil over while I dashed upstairs to do something, and was rather messy to wipe up. It was finished and in the jars in the nick of time. This was just as well as I had finally made an appointment with Nick, my foot and leg physiotherapist. I had not seen him since just after my return from Spain last year, and what with everything since then, have neglected all the exercises I should have been doing each day. He has put me into much better shape, and exhorts me to do yoga.

Classes resume tomorrow, there is a concert to go to in the evening, and on Friday I will drive to Canberra, and see children, grandchildren and friends.

Getting out of bed in the morning is not necessarily a good idea

2011-04-29T17:01:00.011+10:00

Last week I went to the crematorium to discuss what to do with Dr P's ashes. I think I have decided what to do, but will wait for some time before making and acting on the final decision. Later that afternoon the funeral parlour director telephoned me. The bill for the funeral has not been paid, and they were about to start debt recovery proceedings. I explained the situation and referred them to the solicitor.

After Dr P's death I was assured that, despite the assets of the deceased estate being frozen, banks and funeral parlours do have arrangements by which funds are released to pay for the funeral.

Payment has not been made. This upset me greatly. I feel that Dr P's memory is dishonoured.

A letter came from the department which deals with Dr P's superannuation (and with my spouse benefit) asking for details of the Executors, who have not yet contacted them. This opened my tear gates and produced a huge flood.

I have sent all the bills to the solicitor, as I was advised to do, and I don't know what the hell they are doing. I am now referring creditors to the solicitor. His last communication advised, in a rather punitive way, that they will cut off all accounts as of 1 May. I have been asking for all these accounts to be cancelled, so that I can meet my own liabilities, but there is no intimation of how I am to establish my own accounts. I expect I will muddle through somehow, and in fact I have managed to transfer one of the phone accounts to my name - but not the other - because I lack legal standing. You'd expect that the merest civility, or standards of professionalism, should cause some propriety in dealing with me, notwithstanding any action I may be taking to exercise my legal rights. It seems I was wrong.

Are the executors/solicitor are being incompetent, or merely thoughtless, cruel, heartless bastards?

Yesterday the telephone stopped working. I was attempting at the time to establish an account in my name, and the systems was one of the worst I have experienced. Voice recognition systems, etcetera.

When I realised that the telephone was not working, as every number I tried to ring gave an engaged signal, I managed to get connected to the telephone company to report the fault. One of their staff tried to talk me through unplugging telephones, cables and the modem. I could not follow what she meant, and suddenly the tear gates flooded yet again, and kept on and on. The staff member stopped trying to instruct me and was most sympathetic. She assured me that all calls would come through my mobile and that by tonight the problem would be fixed. I was glad I was not the person having to deal with me. It must be awful to have someone on the other end of the phone suddenly cry hysterically and become totally incoherent as well as incompetent.

I have been reading a couple of books by widows, on their experiences. One, A Widow's Story, is by Joyce Carol Oates, an author whose novels I have never read. Her husband died unexpectedly after a short illness. Theirs had been a long and very happy marriage, and her description of their lives, his death, her bereavement and grief, is heartrending and memorable. There is much which resembles my own experience.

I borrowed from the library a couple of books on grieving. They did not help. Too anecdotal, too general. Too wise. I returned them the next day. I know I am doing everything I can to cope, that time will heal - but I want to rant and flail, to hit out, to upbraid, to make them hurt as I hurt, to abuse. All the academic understanding of the various stages of grief does not help. When friends commiserate, somehow it feels necessary to minimise the pain and distress.

I want comfort, to be held, soothed, and to be rid of the anger which is part (so they say) of the grieving process, and which also springs from the badly drafted will, which takes no account of nor makes any provision for the circumstances confronting me. How could he treat me so?

So I wept very bitterly and long, and there is no end in sight. There may never be a resolution, and whatever happens must be borne.

Easterzacking

2011-04-25T23:37:00.000+10:00

For the first time in many years, I did not cook an Easter dinner. My daughter and I decided it would be a good idea to go for a ferry ride, and Easter Sunday seemed a good day for it. We travelled by the local ferry to Circular Quay. The ferry staff on board warned us that because on Sundays there is an all day fare to anywhere and everywhere for only $2.50, huge crowds take advantage of it, and that there were hundreds of people planning (as we were) to go to Manly. And so it proved to be.

We wasted some time by buying ourselves some gelato, raspberry for me, strawberry for my daughter and Mango for my granddaughter, but nonetheless managed to get onto the next ferry. It was a a lovely trip, and everyone was most obliging and friendly. We were part of a massive (mostly foreign) tourist expedition, intent on going to Manly, one of Sydney's famous beaches.

You might think that sensible people, when planning to go to such a famous beach (we are assured that this is so) would think about taking a towel and swimming costumes. We did not, probably thinking that it was not warm enough to swim. We had reckoned without the boundless enthusiasm of an almost six year old girl, who stripped to her undies, fortunately before wetting all her clothes, and then splashed around with similarly minded children, while we sat on the beach, soaked up the ambience, fresh air, chucked stale crusts to the rapacious and agile seagulls, and enjoyed the sunshine. It is an ocean beach, but yesterday the only waves were those generated by the littlies. We managed to get onto the returning ferry, packed like the proverbial sardines, and then missed the ferry back to our area by a whole minute, and had to take a bus instead.

Today was Anzac Day, which coincided with the public holiday of Easter Monday. Thus tomorrow is another public holiday. It rained overnight. We wondered what to do today, to entertain the child, and then decided we would go to the Art Gallery. This was a classic example of Not Thinking Things Through. The bus we caught goes to the Art Gallery. Not today, however, at the time we chose to travel. We coincided with the Anzac Day March, which goes all the way along a main city thoroughfare, George Street. It was not possible to cross George Street or to reach the Art Gallery. So we stayed and watched the Anzac Day March. This is something I had never done before. Years ago I had gone to the Dawn Service in Canberra, as my choir was singing the National Anthem. I am not at all militaristic, and have had little sympathy for commemorations or celebrations of war. I find it appalling that world leaders have been so willing to unleash mass slaughter and suffering on their own populations and on those of other countries, and think very many - although by no means all - of the wars which have been fought over the centuries cannot be justified.

Although my father was in the Navy, and fought in the Second World War, around Papua New Guinea, he never really talked about his experiences during the war. We knew he had been in the Naval Intelligence service, under General MacArthur, until he asked to go into active service, during which he was wounded, and had been washed overboard, lost his glasses, which he had to replace at his own expense, out of his far from lavish naval pay. I remember him in uniform, and there being a gun in the house for some time, but he did not talk about it to us children, and I don't remember his ever taking part in Anzac Day remembrances. Maybe we were just too young to take it all in - I was a war baby, after all. Anzac Day was always been notable for the amount of drinking that went on after the March - and this still is a feature. To some extent Anzac Day fell into some disfavour, but then its popularity revived.

My father would have been 100 this year, and there are very few survivors now of the Second World War. My two uncles also served in the Armed Forces, and they too are dead. Even the Vietnam War is a long time ago. My husband did not serve, being an Enemy Alien, and only 15 when the war began.

We found the March very moving: there were so many different groups participating, and so many old men, and women, and obviously much community involvement in the event. It took a long time, and the crowd was attentive and responsive. We all paid tribute to the men and women of Australia who served their country.

I am glad we were there today.

The Active Grandmother and how to be kept occupied

2011-04-21T00:18:00.000+10:00

Becoming accustomed to my present condition is a lumpy and bumpy process. It jerks and lurches. Last week I was starting to feel as though some degree of recovery was possible. But the nature of things is that that wild lurching in all directions happens.

My daughter and granddaughter have been with me, and that has been good. I cared for my granddaughter while her mother went off for a couple of days hard work. I worked hard myself, as it is years since I did a couple of days of child-minding all by myself, and it must be admitted that I am rather out of practice. Living with an elderly husband, whose tolerance for small children not biologically related to him was, shall we say, minimal, did not help. He growled at them. However, she is a dear little girl and I dote upon her, and she loves me. She loves her pretty dresses, and swirls around in skirts, loves purple and pink, and dress-ups and decorations in general. Eventually I may manage to persuade her that it is not necessary to be a princess or a fairy or to wear pink in order to be feminine. Softly softly catchee monkey.

We went out for coffee and gelato each day (we are now regular customers), and went to the park, and read stories, and she watched TV and DVDs. Intermittently I struggled with the vicissitudes of my present existence, but it was good to abandon them in favour of a rich fantasy life and for some dedicated grandmothering. We played Snap, she became a playful kitten and did a lot of miaowing, drew quite a lot and made things out of plasticine. In fact there are plenty of bits of plasticine here, there and everywhere. The cushions are all over the place, and nothing stayed tidy. She got up before me and helped herself to Coco Pops without milk, and generally managed to get through an astounding quantity of food.

I never really believed that my kids would like anything I had taken a while to get to enjoy myself, but unlike my fussy grandsons, who are carbohydrate junkies, my granddaughter and her brother are remarkably adventurous eaters. My grandson decided from a very young age that if someone else were eating something, it must be good, and he was entitled to his fair share. My granddaughter is pretty good too, and, in addition to sushi, cutlets and chicken legs, polished off large quantities of raw vegetables: carrots, celery, capsicum, snow peas, beans, cucumber, tomatoes, broccoli, although she totally avoids potatoes. I was impressed. Having watched my mother diligently boiling and then mashing vegetables for the successive babies, and never believing that it was in any way palatable, I was a lot less adventurous in what I offered my own children. It has to be said that serving up raw vegetables for the evening meal is a remarkably labour saving method of feeding children.

I read her stories, and we investigated what she has been learning at school, and I am very impressed. She certainly understands what she is doing and learning, and wants to talk about it. She has twouble pwonouncing her Rs, and so I wead her Margaret Atwood's book Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes, and last night we did lots of pwacticing of words starting with R and she wepeated words like red, run, river, rabbit, rodent, rose, radish, ridiculous, rubbish, rifle, racing, and rhubarb weally vewy well. She knows how to do it now, and knows she knows. And her mother and I are teaching her to say So and So and I instead of Me and So and So. Never let a chance go by.

She missed her mother, though, and was very glad to have her back yesterday evening. So was I. They have gone home, but are coming back on Friday and we will have Easter together. That will be nice. Tomorrow I buy Hot Cross Buns. I am a purist. I don't eat Hot Cross buns before Good Friday. Standards must be upheld.

Bracing thoughts

2011-04-10T18:05:00.000+10:00

Last week I had to have a medical test, and decided to hang around until the results were ready. Just in case they showed an inoperable brain tumour. Or some such. They did not. All is clear.

So there were a couple of hours to kill, and they were killed by a lengthy browsing of the nearby trendy shops. It is a few years since I saw any of them. There used to be a good fabric shop, from which I bought much of the fabric which still lies awaiting a good occasion, and a lovely button shop. Having done such an extensive tidying up, and thus knowing full well how little I need either fabric or buttons, I gave all such temptations a miss.

I found a bookshop, where I picked up Kate Atkinson's One Good Turn. I did not remember having read this, so promptly bought it.

Later, at home, I raced through the book, found I had indeed read it, but could not remember very much at all, and then kept re-reading it for the next couple of days, to try and get all the clues and work out what had really happened. As a reader I am too hasty, impatient, careless, and fail to take note of the significant parts. Such rueful but realistic reflections make me wonder whether these failings are characteristic of myself overall. I have a daunting and gloomy suspicion that this is indeed so. My school reports probably made comments like "Fails deplorably to observe what is going on" and 'No grasp of details" and "Too wrapped up in her own little world". No one ever kept my school reports and so I shall never know for sure the awful truth.

After the book purchase, I continued the browsing.

I found a shop which sold cards. One immediately spoke to me.

Aha, I thought, this is what I need. I bought it, took it home, removed the cellophane.

The fine print below the figure states:

Message inside card reads:

Pull yourself together.

This is what was inside.

What a tease!

Moping and maudlin meanderings

2011-04-07T22:49:00.000+10:00

No, that's just a tease. I do like alliteration. And flogging myself, as well as dead horses.

I am home from my Thursday activities, the other Italian class and for the Art Gallery lecture. I missed these last week because of the nasty migraine, and the intervening week has been characterised by lethargy, self-pity, and inattention to essential activities. In response, my stress levels dwindled to tolerable levels. Yesterday I wrote the long-forecast letter to my BIL, and accordingly the levels shot straight back to being extremely unpleasant and disagreeable. Oh well! I am putting together yet another package to go to the Other Side.

Just to illustrate, with chilling realism, how stress, grieving and other moaning-causing conditions can affect efficiency and effectiveness (adversely, of course), I have been typing all these things on my old iMac. This is because it has my CD-Rom Italian dictionary, which the new iMac spat out, and Word. While I was house-bound, I was not able to go and learn about Pages, on the new iMac. My dear daughter, the racing photographer, during her last visit helped me buy two external disk drives, which she then connected to the two computers. Since then, the old iMac has been slower than the wet weeks and the long-drawn out grieving process, and the time between mouse strokes and effective action has become truly tedious. You could file all your nails while waiting for action, and use quite a few rude words too. Therefore the typing of the correspondence, combined with the constant need for editing and correction of typing errors, took an exceedingly long time. Just like my mental processes, in fact. Is the old iMac telepathic?

Now, one reason I kept the old iMac was that it has Word, but also many other things like my pre-new-iMac photos, and I did not want to lose any of these. Almost as soon as the new iMac was up and running, and as soon as we managed to get the wireless connection working, the old iMac conked out. It turned out to be the logic board, a mysterious part of which I had never heard. I sent it off to be repaired, at hideous expense. It should be clear from this decision that I am not an economic rationalist. Perish the thought.

When, over a month later, it was returned, it suddenly occurred to me that the new iMac has a thingy called the Migration Assistant. This makes the computers talk to each other, and instructs it to copy everything on the old one across to the new one. Programs, documents, photographs, the lot. Somehow or other, I managed to use it, and the old data was sent to a new user on my new iMac. This was undoubtedly a good thing. The next minute, almost, the logic board died yet again, probably from shock, at the user having managed to do this little magic trick. Fortunately, the repair job was still under warranty, so they came and took it away again and fixed it. After another month. Around here, evidently, concepts such as the speed of light have little relevance.

Once it was back, I fell into the habit of typing on the old iMac. Obviously I had forgotten I had transferred all this stuff to the new computer, and therefore had Word.

Yesterday, after doing all this tedious typing and editing, which reactivated the previously described stress levels, it suddenly occurred to me that I was not thinking very effectively, or using my brains. Suddenly, I asked myself why did I not go and activate the other user on the new iMac. So I did. It has Word, the Italian dictionary, and it works much faster. It is obviously time to activate my Apple One to One lessons, and have a go at learning how to use the new you-beaut machine more effectively. Now that I am no longer housebound, it is high time I did so. In other words I am fast running out of excuses for inaction, stupidity, and typing mistakes.

The package to the Other Side will be sent tomorrow, just as soon as I have typed a list of the contents. You can't be too careful. Today's mail had another couple of overdue bills. You can see the circumstances under which torturers learn their loathsome trade.

My daughter and her children have been with me all week, and I have been doing a lot of child minding, with plenty of cuddling, which has been good all round. Although I am not being a very entertaining grandmother quite yet, let alone a good cook, we have had a very pleasant time. My daughter has been working very hard and long at her photography, and her talent and perseverance are most impressive.

While the traditional and time-honoured babysitter, aka the TV, was on duty this afternoon, I made quince jelly. It made me feel better, it looks and tastes good, and is the most delectable colour. The grandchildren really like it. However, the yield was only seven small jars and I may have to make some more. Quinces are in season. Hail to the future.

Mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

2011-03-31T19:37:00.001+11:00

Yep, that's me. Pile on the cliches. I'd like to cheer up, but it won't happen for some time to come.

I am not very good at being depressed. Usually I can't stand it, so I have to cheer up.

But this is different.

Of course it is different. And the prospect of it going on and on, with a whole lot of unpleasantness from the other side, and having to counter it, and, one hopes, to be able to sing We shall Overcome in triumph and conviction, is somehow incredibly daunting.

Pile on the cliches. Fling self on bed and burst into wild sobs. Sit on bus while tears trickle down face. Listen to music, much of which has the same effect. Buy shares in tissue companies? Buy black clothes and appear sombrely dressed? Take used spectacles into shop, and say brightly husband won't be needing them any more?

It can indeed be very tedious. Yesterday it was my turn to present the argomento at the Italian class. It took me forever to write it, and much re-writing as well. It was to have been last week, but another of the class could not come for the next two weeks, and so she jumped the queue. I had done some of the re-writing, and then went to print it out, so that everyone could follow it, and note the inevitable and numerous corrections. The printer went a bit haywire and page 3 came out blank. I fiddled with the layout, and then the colour ink tank ran dry. I did not realise that colour was needed in order to print black. The argomento had to be emailed to my newer computer, so that I could print out from that one. And after all that, I did not need it that day.

Never mind. The argomento was too long, so I had the chance to edit, correct and rewrite. It all went quite well. The major errors we all make are in the use of prepositions. Some verbs take a preposition if an infinitive verb follows. Some don't. But which verbs, and which prepositions?

Just as the class was finishing, my eyes went wonky and a migraine came upon me. That put paid to my vague plan to go and see a film on the way home. I did go to choir for a while, as the conductor wanted to 'voice' us all, to place us in what she considers to be the best possible position for the overall sound. Once that was done, I went home.

The migraine persisted, so I missed the day's activities, instead spending much time in bed, taking painkillers, trying to sleep, while feeling very extremely sorry for myself. Eventually I went out and bought some food, and have been sitting around watching crap TV - the sort which enables you to sit back and wonder how some people can be so idiotic. (Feed the inner grump. Not so inner, either.) Wondering why idiot females put their two to five year old daughters into beauty pageants, with teased, curled and back-combed hair, replete with tiaras, spangles, frills, bows, ribbons and flounces and MAKEUP, and then get all hostile and bitchy because the ill-begotten judges gave the top prizes to other children. (I can tolerate only ten minutes of such a programme, then I have to find some other sort of mindless junk.)

Thoughts to cheer myself up:

I don't have to buy daggy shorts, t-shirts and underpants any more.
Nor do we need copious quantities of orange juice.
Shopping takes much less time, and weighs much less.
Trips to the pharmacy have become much less frequent.
There is considerably less housework and washing to do.
The physical burden is much less.
Bathrooms and toilets stay clean.
I don't have to hurry home any more.
I can make lengthy telephone calls without being harassed.
All the worry, anxiety and grief, have made me lose a lot of weight. I don't recommend this as a technique, mind.

And

He was lucky not to live on getting worse and worse. He really was.

On the other hand:

He is dead.
I miss him.
We cannot hold each other any more.
The house feels so empty.
We can't discuss politics any more.
Election night was much worse than it would have been had we watched together.
My mind keeps going into What If mode.
There are so many decisions to be made.
The year ahead of me will probably be quite atrocious.
I have to write another letter to my BIL giving details of all the bills and checking which ones I need to pay.
A reminder came for the funeral bill.

Reality stares me in the face. And bites and mauls me.

The little things

2011-03-25T23:15:00.000+11:00

At Casa P there is still much to do. One thing leads to another. Having disposed of many books, I have been reorganising the whole book collection. This takes time and much thought, and as it is not possible to carry many books in an armful, there has been much going up and down the stairs. Books can be sorted according to subject, and also according to size, and it was not possible to get it right straight away. It is nearly all done now.

The biographies are mostly together, but about half are upstairs, and the rest downstairs. The art, gardening and music books have all been moved around, and the children's books are now in what used to be Dr P's study. It does not sound very logical, but I think the grandchildren will get used to it. Fiction is here, there and everywhere. Somehow fiction seems to need to be organised by size of book, as well as by author. Much arrangement is determined by the height of the shelves.

Years ago I had shelves made which are quite deep. This was to accommodate the fabric, sewing and craft collection, which all live in plastic boxes. Some of these have been moved to the hall cupboards, thus tacitly acknowledging that they will be infrequently used. The occasional peep, and the wistful thought that I really should do something about all of these things...Then there is all the wool, but it seems that using the wool is more likely that using up all the fabric. Now that Stomper is sewing, perhaps more fabric can go her way.

Anyway, the point about the deep shelves is that a lot of the fiction is shelved therein. Actually it is shelved three rows deep, which means finding anything is far from easy.

Sometimes I get waylaid by looking at the books. One such book is a volume of English constitutional documents, which was Dr P's, not mine. I have kept it, as it has some very fundamental documents. One such was the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829. George IV had fits about assenting to this, thinking it breached his Coronation Oath. I'd always thought it rectified a most unjust and discriminatory legal situation, but when I flicked through it quickly, I found that it contained all sorts of qualifications, and required various oaths to be sworn for this, that, or the other thing. The attainment of equal rights in our societies has been a long and arduous process, and we should hang on to them fiercely and proudly.

(There is a state election tomorrow, at which the government is certain to be almost totally defeated and is likely to lose practically all its seats. Dr P and I used to watch the TV all night as the results came in, being election junkies from way back. We watched the British election all day, and then our own federal election in August. We watched with a friend who was staying overnight. Dr P, who was very good with election statistics, stayed on the ball all night, while we watched this absolute cliffhanger. An election night all by myself will be difficult.)

Reorganising the books led to the tidying of the CD collection. This meant going out and buying more plastic boxes. Somehow I came home with a box for DVDs and had to go back today to change it. More hassle. I have also been going through all my own documents, so that they are better organised, and this, I fervently hope, will enable me to find things and not to get disorganised EVER AGAIN.

But as I remarked at the start, it is the little things that can get to you. I sent all the unpaid bills across to the solicitor/executors, and have not so far heard about the payment of the bills. Yesterday a reminder notice for the electricity bill arrived, and my BIL recommended I pay it, so as to ensure that the power stayed connected. I telephoned this morning to pay the bill and to try to get the account transferred to my name, for whatever period remains to me in this house. I have no legal standing to change the account, and the executors must do it - but of course no one has contacted me to organise anything like this. Then I tried to pay the bill and it would not accept my credit card. I wound up in floods of tears. I then telephoned to see whether there was a problem with the credit card. There was no problem, so I walked up to the post office and paid it there by cheque. Fortunately, I found my chequebook, which was with Dr P's credit card. I need to know whether Dr P's credit card has been cancelled and what will happen to the bills he paid by direct debit. It seems that banks will release money to pay the funeral parlour, but not money for the other bills incurred before death.

My computer went off line yesterday and I spent a lot of time trying to work out why. Apple told me my settings were fine, and told me to check with the ISP. It took four transfers before I got to the appropriate part of the company. More tears. At least telling them you have recently been widowed softens their attitudes somewhat. Evidently you have to make the system work for you. Finally I was told there was a lot of interference on the telephone line. I went and unplugged a few of the telephones, and this apparently fixed it - or perhaps a miracle was worked from On High. If so, intervention could have occurred slightly earlier, so as to spare me this particular stress. Whatever. Perhaps someone needs to come and check all the telephone connections.

On the positive side, the first payment of my spouse's pension was made.

Let me recommend to the world in general that joint bank accounts make life much easier for the surviving spouse.

Unclogged?

2011-03-19T23:00:00.000+11:00

Possibly the sheer number of necessary things to do after a death keeps the adrenalin up, but eventually the adrenalin wears out, and exhaustion sets in. As do many other emotions.

I have been going through all Dr P's files to find all the documents which must be handed over to the executors. This has been a most laborious process. It was also something of a start-stop process, as eyes start standing out on stalks, and the tired mind starts bounding straight off the matter being dealt with, and confusion sets in. It was also essential to take copies of anything that might possibly affect me.

As things were cleared out and shelving spaces freed, I moved things around and rearranged books and other things. It has been exhausting work, and emotionally draining.

We had separate finances, so essentially his affairs were his business, and I neither interfered nor pried.
His records did not go back many years, as when he moved to this house he chucked out heaps of his documents and records. I saw him do so. I know that there are no records of some things.

On Thursday a courier came to take the files and documents away. There had been intimations from the other side that I was not being sufficiently expeditious. After all, it was almost three weeks since the funeral. I have had other, doubtless far more trivial, things to attend to, such as replying to condolence letters and other correspondence, spending a couple of hours on the telephone to find out why my keyboard would not let me type anything, sorting out some of my own affairs, getting certified copies of the death certificate and sending them to whomsoever needed copies, returning the disabled parking sticker, and the panic button equipment, and even doing such frivolous and unnecessary things like going to choir and to classes, and talking to family and friends.

The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages sends one copy of the death certificate, and does not bother enclosing a leaflet explaining how to get certified copies done. Why can't they just provide you with a few spares? I had to ring up and find out what to do, and go through one of these dreadful phone menu systems. I have yet to do anything about arranging for the placement of Dr P's ashes. They will keep, it seems.

My solicitor, my BIL, has given notice that a claim will be made against the estate, on the grounds that Dr P did not provide appropriately for me. It is inappropriate to go into the details and circumstances here, but according to a legal opinion provided last year there are good grounds for contesting the will.

Unsurprisingly, the notice given met with an immediate hostile, indeed a vicious, response. Having been told within two days of the funeral that the WSDs intended to sell the house as soon as possible, I was very upset, as I did not feel it was possible for me to decide on my future so quickly - where to live and in which city. The immediate response was to enquire whether I intended to pay a commercial rent if I stayed in the house in the interim?

After a response by my BIL, a further letter arrived, intimating I may have removed or discarded documents. This inference is grossly offensive as well as absolutely false, so a withdrawal and apology have been requested.

I would have thought that the past year had been sad and stressful enough, but evidently, and as expected, things can always get worse. If only I could be left to grieve, and to sort out my emotions, to recover physically, it would not be exactly easier, but it would not be as bad.

I know it will all take time, and that I am doing all the 'right' and sensible things, and that healing and recovery will be gradual. This knowledge does not take away the pain, the bereavement, the conflicting emotions, the stresses, and the feeling sick all day and night long. It will be a long haul.

Perhaps this is why, in fantasy land, people fall into magical sleeps for three hundred years or so? It does not sound all bad to me.

Bereavement and its aftermath

2011-03-11T22:59:00.000+11:00

Where to start?

It has been a period of such conflicting emotions, constant work, much talking, and cannot be readily or easily categorised.

I have woken to find myself weeping, morning after morning. Mourning and mourning. About all the good things and all the bad things. While much was good, and while the love endured, there were many times when I did not think I could see it through. Partly I did because we did love each other, and wanted to be together. Partly I did because my options were limited, once I resigned from my job and moved here to live with him. And that meant there really was no going back. And, in truth, I was the one who made the compromises and the sacrifices. He was not a man to compromise or to change his mind. It took years for me to rebuild my life, to make friends and to make a life of my own. Because we were very different in interests and personality, I had to do things on my own. I did things with him, but he did not do things with me. It was necessary to struggle in order to maintain friendships and family connections. As time passed it became more and more difficult to keep up those friendships, and the visits to other cities became infrequent. He was afraid of flying, and so was reluctant to travel with me. And as real old age set in, he lost the energy and the interest. He became very deaf, and social occasions eventually became rare events. Apart from the love, there was pity and sympathy. As well as aggravation and annoyance. I am no saint.

The last year was very difficult indeed, and as his physical and mental decline increased, with substantial memory loss and confusion, it was easy to lose sight of the man he had been. He became incapable of managing his affairs. While I grieved for this, and mourned the loss of the man I had married, the practical difficulties, and the need to make all the decisions about his care meant that I bore this burden substantially alone. Somehow I had to find the strength, and to become assertive towards a man who had mostly overridden my opinions and preferences, and who did not understand the meaning of compromise. I did find the strength, but it was not easy, and I doubted myself continually. It was always easy for him to browbeat me, but I did learn, needs must, to resist and to persist, to initiate and to make decisions, and eventually I became capable of withstanding the pressure and the disagreements.

In his last year, in many ways I think he did come to understand my true nature better, and to appreciate the care I gave him. This is a consolation. I think he was a person who found it difficult to feel and express emotion. This dated from his boyhood, when he arrived in Australia at the age of fourteen and was promptly put into boarding school, while his parents established their business. When war broke out they became enemy aliens. I always thought it was significant that he retained so few memories of his childhood before arriving in Australia, and think that perhaps the change in languages somehow shut off his early memories. I think he thought you could buy love, and did not understand that while temptation could be aroused it was in truth no substitute for the real thing, for the giving of self and the acting of love. He meant well, but money was very important to him, and I think he never did understand that money and love are not synonymous.

It is necessary to do many things after a death, but I won't describe this process now. Suffice to say that it is nearly all done, after much hard work, and what happens next seems sure to be an epic. I will need all my strength and that of other people too.

Halleluia

2011-03-02T18:22:00.000+11:00

Dr P's funeral was held last Friday.

Because as a family we are not keen on pomp and circumstance, and because I like plain speaking, truth telling, honesty, facing facts, and evocative, expressive language which does honour and justice to reality, I wanted a plain and simple funeral service, with eloquent speakers. All these things we achieved.

Helping me with the arrangements with the funeral director were my second daughter and my second youngest sister. Two of Dr P's daughters also contributed. Fortunately we agreed on most things: a secular service, a plain coffin, flowers on the coffin but not elsewhere, the coffin being in place and not carried in, and no button-pushing or curtain covering at the conclusion. Dr P wanted to be cremated, but his ashes will not be scattered. The celebrant visited me to find out more about Dr P, and I set about choosing the funeral music.

Music is an essential part of my life, and Dr P was constantly bombarded with my choices, and he got to like quite a lot of it. Because I am a chorister, I do sing a great deal of sacred music, and when I am dead, I want some of it at my funeral. There was some debate about the musical choices, and a compromise was reached. I will say only that even atheists can display a remarkable degree of bigotry.

But most important was the choice of speakers. I chose his oldest friend (another doctor), a distinguished academic friend, and an eminent friend. His second daughter spoke last of all.

All spoke well, and truly evoked the man, his qualities, personality, achievements and warts. And all. One friend commented to me that she could see from those speeches why I fell for him. I first met him in 1970 and always liked him.

We had a good wake, at the house of true and good friends, and we organised and catered for it between ourselves. I believe in wakes: like funerals, they help people come to terms with the reality of death, with grieving and with acceptance. They are cathartic.

My sisters, daughters, son and friends were magnificent, and an enormous comfort and support to me. Dr P got quite a good turnout, from all walks of life.

Some family had to leave that evening, but two sisters stayed on, as did my son, who stayed until Sunday, and did much to help me. He has untangled all my electric cables, and done many other filial things.

There is much to be done and I am working very hard at everything. I am sad, feel heavy and leaden, sick and tense, and somewhat beset by fate, circumstances, the step-family and the will.

But I know I did what should have been done, cared for him as best I could, met the challenges, and loved him, despite many things and vicissitudes. I hope I can continue to be resolute and honourable, and not lose myself. The next months will certainly be difficult, and not merely because of bereavement and grieving. My life will change, and not all choices will depend on my wishes and preferences.

Nonetheless, I have a sense, like the American slaves after emancipation, of being 'Free at Last'.

Vale Dr P: his last day

2011-02-22T23:51:00.001+11:00

To write is pain. To remember is pain. To forget or to obliterate is worse.

On Sunday, knowing that old friends were to visit him, I had a sort of day off. I went to the crochet clinic, and then saw a film, after which I went home by bus, and then drove straight to the nursing home, and stayed with Dr P for almost two hours. He enjoyed seeing his friends, the widow of a friend, whose life he saved, he said, by diagnosing a rare illness she suffered from, and one of her sons, another former colleague. These families were close for many many years, but as they aged, contact became rarer.

I had telephoned to let them know Dr P was in the nursing home and she organised her boys forthwith. Another friend had visited him on Friday, from Adelaide. They used to share a house and were good friends for many years. This friend intended to visit Dr P again on Monday, but it was not to be.

His catheter had been changed earlier that day, which he said was most unpleasant. When I left Dr P on Sunday evening he was in pain, not in the lower back, but around the shoulder area, which evidently was not relieved. The nursing home telephoned me twice during the evening and told me he had been given a a morphine patch. I thought all would be well, and there was nothing I knew of to indicate otherwise.

During the night his condition deteriorated, and they sent him by ambulance to hospital at about 4 am. The nursing home rang my mobile phone, which was downstairs, and I knew nothing until I checked the mobile in the morning and found the message. I telephoned, and was told he had gone to hospital, but it was not clear whether he would be sent back again. I was unable to contact the friend who was shortly to pay his visit. While I hesitated about where to go, a doctor rang me from Emergency to tell me of his condition. He had an infection from the catheter, had gone into toxic shock, his pulse and blood pressure were extremely low, and there were indications of heart attacks. Treatment of one condition could cause further problems with others. The doctor told me that if it were his father, at such an age and with such conditions, he would not choose intensive interventions. I drove immediately to the hospital and on arrival saw the doctor, and another one. I telephoned his daughter, and the doctor spoke to her. She came to the hospital and he son arrived some time later. Another doctor from the Intensive Care came to assess Dr P. The risks of intervention were high, and would most likely be futile. We decided against intervention.

When I arrived, Dr P was conscious and aware, but intermittently. He knew me, and where he was, and I told him he was very ill. He responded to my words and my touch and caresses. Gradually he became comatose, and failed to respond to any stimulus.

We knew he was gravely ill, and would not recover, but did not realise his death was imminent. They took him to a ward, in a single room, and within 20 minutes he died. I held him, stroked him, kissed him, told him gently that we were with him, and loved him, recollected our good times together, thanked him for our life together, and told him it was all right for him to let go.

There were two exhalations, and then no more.

We stayed with him for over an hour. His daughter telephoned her sisters, one of whom had booked a flight to arrive next morning. Then his daughter and grandson left, and I stayed longer with him, still stroking him, until I was ready to have him prepared for the mortuary. I helped wash him, and clothe him, farewelled him, and then drove home, to begin the task of telling people of his death.

He was my husband and I loved him, and I mourn him greatly. I am glad he was spared a lingering death, and more suffering. It is three weeks since he was taken to hospital. We knew then that he would never come home again, and that our life together was over. We could not know then how little time remained.

It remains to endure until his funeral on Friday. It will be a good one, I believe.

Requiescat in pace

2011-02-22T01:07:00.000+11:00

My husband, Dr P, died this afternoon in hospital, with his daughter, grandson and me by his side.

Should this all become a TV soap?

2011-02-17T22:25:00.000+11:00

Yet another exhausting day. BUT! there were good bits, both yesterday and today. I went to my Italian class, having missed the first one last week.

We meet in a cafe, as the class at the community college was cancelled prematurely a couple of years ago, and some of the students wanted to continue with our excellent teacher Barbara. We made private arrangements with her. We found a cafe which was happy for us to meet there once a week, and we made sure we had a late breakfast there, so the cafe made money out of us. We have become quite close, in varying ways, and helped our teacher when she had a problem with getting her daughter's passport.

I had persuaded my friend Nora to join the class. She and I met on a jury, which lasted almost seven weeks before we were discharged because we could not agree on a verdict. (On the third trial the defendant was convicted of murder.) We, including her husband, have become firm friends and they have come over to help with my occasional computer crises. Nora can always think of a topic to write about, whereas I agonise and always wind up doing it at the last minute.

I did not get to the first class, because of expecting Dr P to be moved to the respite care nursing home, but I got there yesterday. We are meeting at a new cafe, as the other one is in a building to be demolished shortly. There is a new class member, and as reasonably advanced students of Italian are not all that numerous, we get to know each other.

Naturally I had much debriefing to do, and it was good to have all their support and sympathy, especially when I spat bile about the WSDs.

This morning there was the other Italian class, and I was supposed to summarise and comment on Cantos 1 and 2 of Dante's Inferno. Another friend offered to do these for me, but we compromised by my doing Canto 1 and with her doing Canto 2 (and 3 and 4). As all my activities are done intermittently and on the run, it took until late at night. I went to choir and left at supper time, thinking to get home early, but due to roadworks the trip took twice as long as usual. I managed to produce a piece I was pleased with, and my kind friend did wonders with her three Cantos - she was a professor of literature and totally erudite and wonderful, with the kindest of hearts. I love her.

I wrote my piece on my old computer, which has a CD-Rom of English and Italian loaded on it. I cannot get the new computer to accept this CD-Rom, and have not been able to start my computer classes at the Apple Store in the city. Every so often the old computer dies, and its logic board has been repaired twice. I thought it had died again the other night, but I think I must have switched it off.

When I returned to the new computer, the mouse/mice totally died, so there I was, unable to execute a single command. Oh horror! I switched the mouses/mice around, replaced the batteries, tried to reconnect, put all the plugs into different USB ports, all to no avail. Finally I resorted to the standby technique of switching the computer off and then back on, and an Apple mouse was finally recognised. Why does switching on and off work??? I do not understand.

The new and you-beaut Magic Mouse remains totally and resolutely useless. I was given to understand that if I switched it on (having been shown how to switch it on) and stroked and patted it a trifle All Would Be Well. After the Italian class I bought an ordinary wireless mouse and it works, praise be given! The stroked Magic Mouse remains totally frigid, and it is time I went and did some classes - which I have not been able to do, what with it being impossible to leave Dr P alone in the house).

After the art history lecture I caught the bus home, and then drove to the nursing home, where I found Dr P looking glum and lugubrious. I had an email from Vixen telling me to bring a radio for Dr P (there have been radios, with headphones, there all week which he has not wanted to use.) She also suggested the old TV be taken across to the home for him. This is a really stupid idea: it is large, too large for the room, it is a cathode ray tube TV, and it would not have digital channels. I replied saying all of this, and that I had already obtained quotes and made delivery arrangements. She also suggested his old computer be brought to him so he could play his card games on it. It is about nine months since he stopped playing these games, as his mind cannot think them through any more. I could just imagine his rather small room cluttered up with large TV and very elderly computer.....Good one, Vixen!

He is still carrying on about how I just want to make changes for change's sake. I did my best to soothe him, saying if he did not want to move, he would not be made to do so. All the while a woman with dementia was screaming. He did not like the noise. Had he gone to the other nursing home, he would not have been in a secure dementia ward, and would have been mixing with people less seriously afflicted, but he is no longer capable of understanding this. He likes to play the blame game.

I told him he should have a TV in his room, and that I would buy one and have it delivered. Shortly afterwards Vixen arrived, and despite the email and my reply, brought with her a large ghetto blaster.

Some time after I arrived home another Vixen email appeared, copied to her sisters Jinx, Junx, and Kinx, saying the staff 'kept asking her' why he did not have a TV, and suggesting he have one forthwith. I replied that I had already told him I would get one, which was probably why he responded positively to the idea, but that evidently he had forgotten the conversation.

She makes my blood boil, makes me spit chips, infuriates me, drives me crazy, and I believe she is trying to make it appear that she is the one doing everything and that I need to be pushed and goaded into action. Funny that the staff have not been asking me why he does not have a TV! Who can you believe?

I must stay calm, and have another glass of wine. Tonight I made some pesto and actually had an evening meal. And it was good. Now I am listening to glorious Renaissance choral music, including a piece by Victoria, Ne timeas, Maria, which our choir will perform at our next concert.

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.

I just looked this up, to make sure I got it right, and found out, inter alia, that the words for the song The Lost Chord, by Arthur Sullivan, were actually written by John Keats, in The Eve of St Agnes. I never knew that! You live and learn. It is never too late, and my savage breast is indeed becoming calmer and responding to the beauty and tranquillity of the music, and the glory of the singing. It heals and uplifts both body and soul.

This is one of the many reasons why I went back to choir as soon as I could. Choir is better than a TV soap, any day.

Tune into the next exciting episode

2011-02-15T23:37:00.009+11:00

All our drama has been going on for about a month now, but it seems longer.

Dr P's first few days in his respite care nursing home were difficult. He was confused, forgetful, and did not know where he was or what day it was. Furthermore, he was adamant that no one had been to see him or been in any contact with him. Much soothing and firmness were necessary. It really was like dealing with a two year old having a tantrum. I kept wondering had I done the right thing, and kept investigating alternative nursing homes. I saw another few. Vixen visited him, but not while I was there. Let's face it, she is an interfering bitch, and she keeps demonstrating this all too clearly.

One of our friends came with me to visit a nursing home on Friday. We both agreed it was lovely and that I could feel very comfortable if Dr P were to go there. I had seen several others in the meantime. It sure fritters away the putative leisure hours. The only snag with this place is that there was no single room available. However Dr P would have been second in line for any single room vacancy. Of course, people have to die in order for there to be a vacancy. Friend K and her husband visited Dr P at the weekend, and she hated the nursing home. She is more sensitive and squeamish than I am, and flinched at the secure dementia ward situation. I look reality in the face, and value truth and honesty, try to not mind the unpleasant aspects of illness and ageing, and aim to get on with things. I agonised about the decision, but then it seemed to me that seeing more people would do him good, as he sparks up quite a lot if he has good company. I decided to move Dr P.

Yesterday I went to visit him, and to let him and the nursing staff know. Vixen was there when I arrived, and I asked her to wait so that I could tell her personally. Big mistake. She was very hostile and had not the sense or sensitivity to voice her views to me separately. Did I say she was a bitch? And VERY ugly. Ugh! Like onomatopoeia, appearance mirroring personality and character. Dr P was upset, and said he did not want to move. He was settling in and getting to know the staff. I discussed it all with the Deputy Director of Nursing, and then went home and agonised, ringing a couple of friends to seek counsel.

Eventually I decided to return in the early evening, to say that if he really did not want to leave the nursing home, I would leave him be. Although I feel like a bit of a wimp, it did seem to me that as he was the one in care, he should have some rights. So I saw him again in the evening and he said he did not want to move. I reassured him that I would not force him into anything. His condition has improved in the six days he has been there, and they are looking at his pain management, and the staff have been good and attentive. And there is the possibility of change if it all does not work. The other nursing home is holding the vacancy until Friday. I have sent a general email to all the family but I would bet my bottom dollar that Vixen will have sent a hostile and misleading email ahead of me. So be it.

Next week I will change the locks on the house. Would it not be lovely if I never had to see any of them ever again?

My second daughter and her children visited at the weekend. It was lovely having them. When the children were told that Dr P was not there, they were very pleased, as he has never been one to tolerate small children. Indeed, I understand he was one of those fathers who just just disappeared without notice or notification. They rode up and down his stair lift with gay abandon until somehow they made it stop working. We had a lovely time together. I had not seen them since August.

In between visiting spouse, nursing homes, and attending to telephone calls, I have been cleaning out cupboards. Video tapes, not touched since we moved here more than ten years ago. Old decrepit phones, answering machines and fax machines. Medical books dating from the 1950s. Old medicines, and the contents of Dr P's bathroom cupboards. The rubbish bins are full this week. So we remove parts of our history, and our records. Sad, but inevitable, and it helps me feel that I am managing my life, and can get myself in order and organised for whatever happens next. People tell me that I have done well, and in many ways, I have indeed done so. But there remains sorrow and desolation, and immense pity, for Dr P and all the other old people thus afflicted. I wander around this large and empty house, and flit from one activity to another, to distract myself from my sore and sad heart, and I hope that life will get better.

Snowflakes

2011-02-10T00:03:00.000+11:00

This afternoon Dr P was transferred from the hospital to the nursing home which had the respite care vacancy. I went over earlier and did all the paperwork. He arrived later than expected, as the hospital sent him across to the major hospital for various tests, and it seems they are twiddling with his medicines. He was quite cheerful, and lucid when he arrived, despite a long and complicated day.

He has his own room, and his own air conditioner, and he has a nice window, and has two chairs in the room. He does not have his own bathroom, but it is just across the hall, and as he needs help to get there, it does not matter. The staff seem good, kind, cheerful and pro-active, and they brought me a pot of tea while I waited for Dr P to arrive. I hope these first good impressions are the real thing. The Nursing Director and I bonded over our divorce experiences!

Vixen went there yesterday, whether to inspect or to assert an essential role for herself I do not know, and thought it politic not to press for information. She appears not to have impressed the staff at the other hospital. Probably she never went to charm school. But on reflection, neither did I! Nature, not nurture?

I have been very sad and miserable for the last few days, adjusting to being alone in the house, and occupying myself by tidying up shelves and cupboards, cleaning out the genuine antique collection of medicines, and sorting out Dr P's clothes, deciding what he needs in the nursing home. It felt as though I was cleaning out and disposing of the possessions of someone who had died. It was awful, and I wept all over all sorts of things as I worked. Such work helps with all the mixed and conflicting emotions.

Friends have been very good, now that I have managed to talk to my friends instead of dealing principally with the stepdaughters. Word has spread to various of Dr P's former colleagues, who live in other states, and they have telephoned and been terrific. Other friends visited him yesterday. He has always enjoyed their company, and they told me they stayed for 45 minutes and he talked and talked and was really lucid and on the ball. What really helps is people having real conversations with him: then his mind snaps back into focus and he engages with the people and the topics of conversation. Let us hope he gets many such visitors.

Now that he is in respite care I can check other nursing homes and try to work out what offers best care, and compare costs.

As to costs....

Dr P's solicitor rang me yesterday morning with the news that the stepdaughters have agreed to return the purloined money to a trust fund with the solicitor, which will pay for any accommodation bond. I wish I had been privy to those conversations and communications, as it seems likely that they may have been made to feel the impropriety and greed of their actions in getting Dr P to write those cheques. I was most explicit in expressing my views to him. I was told that Dt P had expressed the intention of giving money to the others to balance the loan he gave to the youngest. But the point is, he never did so while he had the capacity, and they used his mental incapacity, feebleness, and desire to be loved (for what he gave rather than for what he is) to get that money. Corruption, greed, rapaciousness, exploitation and deception.

I feel a fierce joy and sense of vindication, but absolutely no gratitude or thankfulness. I am as angry with them as ever, as the very idea of exploiting an 87 year old man not in possession of his faculties, and declining visibly day by day, fills me with rage and horror.

And my rage, determination, care and love have forged in me a steely ability to make decisions, protect myself and Dr P, and to work in ways which have achieved what should not have had to be an issue. They have seen my mettle.

I owe a great deal to my wonderful brother in law, my solicitor, who has acted on my behalf (and of course for Dr P's benefit too) with his wonderful legal ability, strategic ability, firmness of purpose and focus on results. I did not expect this result. I take some credit for it, in being able to express my outrage to Dr P's solicitor. He expressed no opinions, but he must have shared some at least of my views to have been able to reach this result. And I have an undertaking that nothing will be done by them without my consent. I think they have had the fear of God put into them. So to speak.

It seems that on rare occasions snowflakes can indeed survive in hell.

Tempering the temperature and soothing the fevered brow

2011-02-05T23:15:00.000+11:00

Dr P is still in hospital. He is better than he was, and his pain is definitely less. He switches between lucidity, confusion and forgetfulness. There is a respite care bed being kept for him until Monday, but it is uncertain whether it will be reserved for him after that. I might get some idea after the doctors' rounds on Monday morning.

He was in a four bed ward, with three other men. The male sex is really very odd. Not one of these four men said a word to any of the others. Had it been a female ward, greetings would have been made, and names and details exchanged. Not this lot. Dr P wanted the ceiling fan on, and then the other three suddenly protested loudly. That night Dr P said he got no sleep, as at least one of the other patients yelled and groaned loudly with pain. I'd heard him yell myself, and he certainly made a lot of noise, poor thing.

This led to Dr P wanting a single bed room. He was advised against this, as there are only two single rooms, and that part of the ward is not air conditioned. It faces west, and gets all the afternoon sun, and as we are having a rather unpleasant heatwave, it has been extremely hot in that room. He moved anyway, despite advice, and got very hot, distressed and confused.

I wonder, and obviously so does the nursing staff, what administrative genius approved the air conditioning of half the ward, but not the rest of it. The hospital is an old building, and used to be a general hospital but now is partly for rehabilitation, and I am not sure what other conditions it deals with. It is understaffed, and missed out on approval for additional staffing, as it does not do acute care. But it does have many old and decrepit patients, and they are very labour intensive, what with constant calls for bedpans, being helped to move around, and frequent calls for help of one kind and another. I have been very busy with Dr P during my visits, soothing, calming, explaining, reiterating, fetching and carrying, reciting the sequence of events, fetching drinks, tissues, nurses, pans, etcetera.

His room was so hot yesterday that I wondered what I could possibly do to cool it down. I thought about my windscreen protector, which has suction caps to keep it on the windscreen, and went to the local bathroom shop to see whether they had any suction caps, They did, so I bought two, and went home, to retrieve a roughly window-sized piece of blockout fabric that had been used to keep heat and light from the window above my bed. The bedroom is on the top level and faces east-west, and gets fearfully hot. Possibly the architect did not know that hot air rises, nor did it occur to him that better climate control is achieved by putting the windows on the north side. Perhaps I could have had a prosperous career giving out advice about such elementary facts.

I sewed strips of elastic to fit over the hooks. Alas, the suction caps failed to suck, so that was a waste of $26. Grrr!

This morning when I got to the hospital one of the nurses was up on a ladder tying the blockout fabric to the top of the window. That certainly helped, although the piece of blockout was not quite long enough to cover the window. In the afternoon I brought in a towel and used my handy packet of safety pins to attach it to the blockout, and thus cover the window. There were three fans in the room all working very hard. I think the temperature today must have been close to 40 degrees C. Is it not amazing that family must resort to such expedients?

To help the patients cope with the lack of air conditioning, patients were moved into the TV/lounge, dining area, which is air conditioned, and Dr P and an old lady were parked there all day. The old lady obviously has dementia and she apparently keeps stripping off all her clothes, so there she was curled up naked from the waist up, and doing her utmost to remove her disposable pants. This happens all the time. Dr P was fretting that he had no buzzer to summon help when required, but the staff assured me that they were in and out constantly.

As well as researching/ringing, visiting nursing homes, in between visits to the hospital I have been paying some attention to tidying up Dr P's desk and sorting his documents, so that his stuff can be taken to a tax person to do his tax return for last year. Or I sit around meditating about the rest of my life. And sending emails to the step-daughters, before suddenly remembering that there are members of my own family, and friends I should ring. There are the legal and practical issues to deal with too, aided by my excellent brother in law. He is in contact with Dr P's solicitor, who visited Dr P today and who realises that Dr P cannot handle his affairs any more, and that there are matters to be resolved. I suggested that the stepdaughters should give the money back, to pay for an accommodation bond for a nursing home. My sister thinks that there is a snowflake's chance in Hell of this happening. I think she's right.

No rest for the just. The wicked continue to thrive.

My emptier house

2011-02-02T18:15:00.000+11:00

Here I sit at home by myself. Dr P is in hospital. Although we struggled through the weekend, by Monday afternoon, Dr P went up to his room early, in case he could not get there later. He had his meal there, and then his medicine and we hoped he would settle for the night.

Again, he was in considerable pain, and wanting more and more pain relief. Nothing seemed to give him more than very slight relief. When I went to him in the morning, his head and shoulders were on the mattress and the rest of his body out of the bed with his feet on the floor, and he was unable to move. I checked how many more pills he had taken, and it was more than I felt was advisable. while I had not left him any of the stronger ones, he still had paracetamol and tranquillisers. Because he used to be a general practitioner he still thinks he knows it all and does not listen to or heed arguments, statements or facts to the contrary. He is exceedingly stubborn and obstinate.

I walked up to the surgery and my GP was already there, and so we briefly discussed the situation. She confirmed my opinion that he should go to hospital. Accordingly I rang for the ambulance and they came within a short time and took him to hospital. I followed by car.

There followed a long day, during which his pain was evidently very severe. I had to leave him to visit a nursing home, which does have a respite care vacancy available. In between being with Dr P I kept phoning about places. Eventually the Emergency people arranged to send Dr P to our local hospital, which these days does not function as a comprehensive hospital, but which does have rehabilitation and a few other functions. There do seem to be a number of old and decrepit people there. Dr P is in a four bed ward.

Today he is much more comfortable. He's had urinary retention so that is being treated and the cause investigated. He will be there for some days - no one is mentioning how long, but his hospitalisation will give me the time and breathing space to investigate options and places for nursing home care.

When I got home, about 6.30 pm, there was a telephone message from Vixen proposing to visit her father the next day. I rang her and told her about the crises and the hospitalisation and the likely consequences. She told her sisters, so I had a couple of phone calls and email messages last night. This morning I sent them all a comprehensive account, and have had replies from two of them. Vixen went to the hospital last night but her father was asleep. The staff told me this morning that she had been there, and had wanted to be informed of all his medical details and to be involved in the arrangement for his discharge. I agreed to the medical information being provided, but not to her having any involvement in his discharge or subsequent care. The social worker and I have talked and she knows my reasons, and was horrified by what she was told. I am next of kin, and none of them has rights over his care and future.

There were many phone calls to make last night, to notify my children and my sisters. My brother in law talked to me, and he rang this evening to report on his conversation today with Dr P's solicitor, aimed at warding off any further nefarious moves by the stepdaughters, during which he disclosed the obtaining of the cash assets. I hope they all get a huge fright, spokes in their works, and of course their just deserts.

I have seen my GP, and this afternoon a friend and I visited a local nursing home. Dr P is now on their waiting list, but it will indeed be a wait.

The bed sheets have all been washed and changed, and the house tidied a little. In between all the comings and goings, the researching and the fact-finding, and the decisions, I must come to terms with all the changes in our lives, and what is in all probability, for practical purposes, the end of our lives together. Relief and grief are mixed, with much anxiety about the future, but the absence of the immediate physical caring responsibilities and tasks does relieve much of the tension.

Overwhelmingly, I feel so very sad.

Three bad nights

2011-01-30T14:24:00.000+11:00

We have had three bad nights.

In the evenings Dr Ph was not able to get to his feet. Getting him upright, upstairs and into bed was very difficult.

Perhaps his last fall caused some deep muscle bruising. Although during the day he was able to stand, in the evenings it was too painful.

The first night somehow we managed, but he was distressed, confused and irrational, and kept wanting to take painkillers. He has no memory of what he has taken, did not understand that it takes time for the drugs to work, and altogether was very difficult.

It was sufficiently alarming for me to ring our medical practice next morning to ask for a home visit. It did not seem possible that I could get Dr P up the steps to the garage, and to the surgery. That evening one of the general practitioners, the doctor I usually see, made a house call. She made some recommendations about when and what medicine he should take, and we decided to simplify toilet arrangements, to minimise the amount of walking needed. It was again very difficult to get him to bed, but eventually we managed it.

On Friday night he could not get up from his chair from the dining table. I kept trying different things, like tilting his chair forwards, but he was in too much pain to get to his feet.

After about 45 minutes I decided to use his panic button - a service we have subscribed to since his spinal surgery in 2005. It has been used only a couple of times. After waiting a little longer to see whether his painkillers would enable him to get to his feet, I pressed the panic button and asked them to send an ambulance. Two hefty blokes were what we needed, In my view.

The ambulance arrived, without any hefty males. Both paramedics were female, nice young women. I should not have been surprised, as one of my nieces is a paramedic. They managed to get Dr P to his feet, pursed their lips at the difficulties our house presents to the infirm, and helped get him upstairs, and settled into bed. Having checked him over, they realised that the physical weakness was the major problem. In their view it would have been sensible to take him to hospital, but what would have happened, most likely, is that he would have been kept there overnight, and then sent home next day. I decided to keep him home but that if further problems arose during the night I would get the ambulance back and he could go into hospital.

Friday night, or indeed the whole weekend, is not the best time to need to go to hospital, as the emergency services are in all probability overloaded with drunks, people injured in fights, or accident victims. And it would have been uncertain whether he could have been admitted to a place for respite care, as naturally the administrative staff are not on duty at weekends.

By the time I went to bed I was so fraught I could not sleep, so wrote instead. When I got up, I let Dr P sleep, and a friend came to be watch over Dr P while I walked up the the surgery - which is just around the corner, and asked for further advice and help. I was really upset, and used up quite a few of their tissues.

Another doctor rang some time later, and gave me further advice.

Last night it was difficult to get Dr P to bed but eventually we managed it. I have asked for Dr P's regular GP, who has been on holiday, to make a house visit, and I will talk to Sandra, the service provider, to try and arrange respite care, and probably permanent care too. She has already organised for a carer to come on Wednesday evenings so I can go to choir, and we had planned to discuss respite care. Of course, it is uncertain whether any will be available. We are not the only ones who need it.

Dr P's rate of deterioration seems to be accelerating. The stress on me, both physical and mental, is also increasing, and I don't think we can keep going like this for very much longer.

Crocheting and crotchetyness

2011-01-26T20:07:00.003+11:00

After some years of making cot blankets with granny squares, for sundry grandchildren, nieces and nephews, their babies, and those of the children of close friends, I have recently turned my hook to making a garment. The excellent wool shop in the city had a sale and I managed to get to it, while the visiting stepdaughters used the opportunity afforded (!) by my absence. Perhaps they would reimburse me the cost of the wool? Obviously a bargain.

Having bought quite a lot of wool, the next question was what to use it for. At these sales you have to buy the wool by the packet. In all probability there is more, or less than would be needed for any one item, but the scraps can always be made into yet another collection of granny squares.

It is unfortunately true, given that I cannot knit, that the patterns for crocheted garments are often really and truly daggy. There are lovely shawl patterns, but I have plenty of shawls now, and made a rather lovely one last year from a variegated mohair of purples and pinks. It was necessary to revisit my extensive collection of crochet patterns accumulated over the years - that is, from the last time crocheted items were actually fashionable. (This was when my children were really very very young.) Finally I decided on a pattern for a jumper/sweater using shell patterns. I started on it. My tension seems to be incorrect, and thus whether it will actually fit me, or any other possible recipient, is a moot point.

It has been many years since I made anything substantial which actually used a pattern. My pattern reading skills have atrophied. Much puzzling, many mistakes, and much unravelling ensued. The instructions for decreasing for the sleeves were most perplexing. Having decreased, which row was I to do next?

On the way to my physiotherapy appointment last week I dashed into the wool shop, which also runs classes and clinics, to seek help. That was given and gratefully received. Finally I have reached the stage where the shoulders must be shaped. This brought me to a halt. Possibly after six or eight attempts, I might work it out. In the meantime I have started on the front, which I can get to the same stage.

When I first began crocheting, I had help from a colleague, who was most expert and obliging. Now I do not know anyone who crochets. At choir there are some ardent knitters, who get through a few rows while the other voice parts are being given particular attention. One soprano organises the knitters to do bed socks for the elderly, and there are other projects on the go. But there is not a crocheter in sight, other than myself. I am hoping that I might be able to get to one of the crochet clinics at the shop, which start in a week or so. It might happen, if a friend can come and Dr P-sit. Crochet pattern reading may be an activity which impedes the disintegration of brain cells, and thus worth persevering with, (even if I have just ended a sentence with a preposition).

I made crocheted dresses for my daughters, ponchos, many shawls, jackets and odds and sods. The dresses were very pretty, I thought. Much time was devoted in the days when my first husband worked for one of the Federal ministers, and thus was absent from dawn to midnight. It felt good to be making something, and to be using my hands. Wool shops abounded, with many gorgeous yarns. I bought patterns, specialist magazines such as Mon Tricot, and any crochet book that I happened to find. Then all of sudden crochet fell right out of fashion, wool shops closed, people stopped knitting and life as we knew it changed. Just like that! It got to the stage where finding a complete range of colours for the granny squares rugs became a feat for the crocheting Hercules.

Much of the wool is still in my cupboards, mothballs and all, waiting for inspiration to strike. I have a a lovely book by Sylvia Cosh, from which I made a most ornate and multi-coloured jacket, (but unfortunately made it rather too long, and these days it does not go all the way around my body). It is made of mohair, which is rather too warm a yarn for this climate, but I fantasise about making another (larger and shorter) version. I used to take the crochet to work. In those relaxed days we had morning tea, and could get a bit done there, and it was not frowned upon to take handiwork to meetings. Those were the days, eh!

Vixen visited this morning. We had the usual conversational pattern. Boring. Identical to that of the last visit. I fetched the crochet and worked on it, perhaps sending out the subliminal message about the essential tedium of the discourse, that the crochet pattern is much more interesting, and far more intellectually challenging than the conversation. Miaow.

And while watching the tennis (the Australian Open is on and getting very exciting) I can get quite a lot done. This shells pattern advances quickly, despite all the unravelling.

I wish I could as easily unravel parts of my life, and finally get the pattern right.

Losses

2011-01-24T22:22:00.000+11:00

On Friday the co-ordinator of our service provider took me to inspect an aged care place. It was very good, a pleasant ambience, but had no vacancies for short term respite care, and only one possible vacancy for a permanent place, with extra services. Apart from the daily charge, a bond of $400,000 would be required.

Had Dr P's rapacious breed not cleaned out the 90 per cent of his cash assets, this would not have been a problem. It would still be possible, but with a lot more trouble. I don't mean here to cry poor. The fact that they have taken assets which should have been preserved to meet his needs complicates the situation. It feels quite complicated enough, just dealing with the daily doings. There is no time to think, or to work through anything systematically.

In the co-ordinator's opinion, Dr P will need to go into care this year, and probably sooner rather than later. His geriatric assessment is not until late March. She will take me to look at another place next Friday. It is early days, and there are many other places to look at. It does seem that short term residential respite care will be very difficult to get, or to plan for.

We have four hours subsidised respite care a week, and anything extra is charged at commercial rates. I have decided to get such additional care so I can go back to choir and to at least one of my classes. Singing is very good for the spirits.

On Saturday night Dr P tried to get to the toilet by himself, telling me that he thought he could manage it. But he fell, very heavily. His falls are very scary. I did succeed in getting him to his feet, having learned to work out the best technique. He had to move backwards, get himself into an almost sitting position, edge towards the steps between the two rooms, and then lift his bottom onto the lower step. From there he was able to grasp the hand rail and I helped lift him from his left side, so that on the count of three we got him to his feet. He was, of course, very shaken, and very sore. I expect he will come out in some livid bruises. When he falls he seems unable to think through the moves necessary to get to his feet. Actually, generally he has lost the capacity to think through moves and sequences of actions.

When I got him upstairs, I made him use a walking frame, that has been supplied by our service provider. They are not totally satisfactory, as they make the user lean forward instead of being able to stay upright, and they have to be moved forward after a couple of steps. However, I think they will be better than the combined use of his walking stick and his hanging on to my arm. We will, I think, need a second frame, so that we have one of each level. He needs to sleep on the other side of the bed, which is closer to the bathroom.

It is not safe to leave him alone in the house, unless he is asleep, in which case I can make brief trips to the local shops.

Dr P keeps telling me how good I am to him, and in one way this is true. I am good: I do what is required, what is necessary, I try to think ahead and to plan. I feel very sorry for him, and in most ways he is remarkably uncomplaining. His back is painful, and he takes a lot of paracetamol. He forgets what he has taken within minutes. He has no real comprehension of what it is like for me.

My heart is sore and bitter, at the lack of past appreciation, the lack of sympathy from him about his daughters, and at the fact that they carry none of the burden and will inherit all his estate. Oftentimes I feel begrudging, and that the love and affection is evaporating. I have the heavy load, all the work, all the decision making and planning, the worry, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week after week. It never lifts. It feels like thick and stifling fog, with a pressure beating down on me. I am so tired and stressed. And I am much too sorry for myself, and must struggle to overcome this.

Essentially I have lost the person he used to be. I must not lose myself as well.

Pedestrian matters

2011-01-17T22:52:00.000+11:00

Now that my food shopping time has become so limited, the things that cause delays are much more apparent. And they matter more. No longer is it possible to do the shopping in a leisurely and considered manner, let alone have a little browse or to indulge in some temptation. Traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, the time taken to park the car, the order of the shops visited, the length of the queues at the supermarkets: all these things add to the duration of the shopping expedition. There is also the issue of the pedestrian traffic.

Today while one of the carers looked after Dr P, I rushed off to do the food shopping. As I also wanted to look for a few new garments for Dr P, I went to the centre which sells cheap unfashionable men's clothing. Dr P has never managed to look very well dressed, partly because he is a very large and overweight man, and partly because it must be acknowledged that he has little or no aesthetic sensibilities. I have totally abandoned any efforts to make him look good. What he needs now are easy clothes - easy to put on and off, and easy to wash and care for. So he wears shorts and T-shirts. The shorts all have elasticised waists, and the T-shirts are the plain cotton basic sorts.

I came home laden with sundry new garments, but I think the shorts may be a size too large, and will have to be changed. This is what comes of being in too much of a hurry: obviously it rots your memory for the measurements of the best beloved. It gives you a horrid migraine too.

What with the extra shopping to be done, my time was even more limited than usual. I had to be back before the carer's time expired, and in time for my hairdresser's home visit. I went through the supermarket as quickly as possible. You cannot get through supermarkets with the speed of light, alas. They are designed to slow you down and to confront you with temptation for unnecessary purchases. There is always someone to dodge, or in whose way you find yourself, however innocently and inadvertently. Then there is the checkout queue. Which queue to join? It is difficult to get the shortest and fastest queue.

Off to the the fruit, vegetable and delicatessen shop. Half way through I changed my mind and wound up purchasing only two items. That was a bit of a wasted effort. Then to the fishmonger and then the butcher. The butcher took a bit longer as they had to cut up into nice thick chunks (at least I hope he have done so) the cut of beef I wanted, so I can make a nice Sri Lankan curry. It is quite a good butcher's, run by Chinese, who address all the female shoppers as 'Signora'.

In between all this I wended and weaved my trolley around the complex. I got stuck behind a couple of women who ambled in a wavering line right in front of me and who caused quite a pedestrian traffic jam. No one could get past them. The reason for the wavering line, apart from sheer inattention and imperviousness to their surroundings, was that one of the women was wearing very high heels, and thus was teetering along extremely unsteadily. It is bad enough pushing a trolley (with these specially designed wheels which go in completely opposite directions) laden with all the heavy stuff, such as orange juice, mineral water, milk, and detergent, downhill and around corners, without these people in the way. When I had finished, I had to push the increasingly recalcitrant trolley up a long ramp with a steep incline to get to the car park.

Let's face it, Woman is a beast of burden.

I am reminded of all the images of primitive tribes, where the men stroll along carrying only their spears, while the women lug along everything else, children included, and probably having to balance things on their heads too. The natural order of things?

But I do wonder why it is that so many people do not look where they are going, or take some care not to get in the way of other people. There used to be a simple rule - keep to the left. Not any more, it seems.

Tomorrow is Dr P's 87th birthday. I will bake him a cake.

Floods and reflections

2011-01-14T13:01:00.000+11:00

Sometimes the world is not a very happy place. Australia has been subject to severe floods - I'd say devastating except that now seems to be an overused word.The personal, social, and economic effects are, and will continue to be immense. There have been deaths, personal tragedies, loss of all possessions, houses, means of transport, infrastructure, jobs etcetera which are simply dreadful. People are working together to help, to rescue and to rebuild. There is so much that is admirable and extraordinary, from ordinary people, police, emergency services, the defence forces, the public service, transport workers, the medical profession, passers-by, friends, relatives, strangers. They deserve our praise and our support.

However I feel as though I have an axe to grind and and some spleen to vent.

It is mostly about journalists, who evidently cannot help themselves from exuding their personal and political prejudices, while ventilating their extensive packages of cliches and platitudes, and deep emotional responses. There have been nasty criticisms of the Prime Minister Julia Gillard, for not being a mirror image of the Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh. In my opinion both leaders have performed very well, and have given full information to the people, local and national. Both are seeing people, seeing and assessing the damage, working extremely hard (as one would expect) to ensure that whatever is necessary and possible is being done. A little respect is in order. Invidious and untrue comparisons are odious. We should not allow our personal political opinions and/or prejudices to overcome a rational and proper assessment of the situation. Oh yes, it is such fun to be negative about politicians. However, they are out there, doing their public duty. They too could be included in the collective self-satisfaction and praise about how wonderful we all are, how well we pull together and how we are obviously the best nation in the world.

And I read of the appalling damage caused by floods and mudslides in Brazil where about 450 people have died. Let us remember these unfortunate people too.

Dark woods

2011-01-04T23:22:00.000+11:00

It has been such a miserable, angry and anxious time that I feel desperate to think of something funny. Where are wit and good humour when you need them? Lurking way beneath the seething and boiling emotions, and keeping well out of the way, they are, not to be scattered on the wastelands of life. My mind is full of darkness.

One of my Italian classes has been studying Dante’s L'Inferno, which is not exactly the easiest of works to come to grips with. Apparently Dante is still a fundamental part of Italian education, which makes me admire the Italians even more, for the value they place on their cultural history. Most of us in the class use a dual Italian/English text, lavishly furnished with lovely erudite notes, and explanations of the symbolism, the classical sources, the mythology and the history. I also use the Dorothy L Sayers translation. How I admire Sayers’ erudition and linguistic ability, and the sheer brilliance of her writing. I also use another Italian edition which is useful, as it gives the modern Italian words for many of the archaic words. Using several translations rather than one provides me with greater understanding, especially in the very complex parts.

Actually after a while you start to get the hang of the language, how the words used to be, and the verb forms, and it gets easier. Not easy, though, just not as difficult. While I am something of a compulsive researcher, I also tend to do it at the last minute and by the seat of my pants. Others conscientiously translate every line and have worked out the entire meaning, but I tend to read and translate it, and then during the class I work out which part I will be required to comment on, and make it up as I go along. Fortunately, I have a couple of (possibly unfair) advantages: I grew up Catholic, know a lot of the theology, and have a good knowledge of the history. We are up to Canto 23 of L’Inferno, and I find it amazing just how many horrors Dante has imagined: truly dreadful and appalling punishments. I keep thinking it can’t get any worse, but of course it can, and does.

Possibly in this day and age, Dante might not have worried about creating great literature and would have gone straight into the creation and realisation of horror movies. (Imagine the Harry Potter films with significant contributions from Dante!) Except that obviously he did care enormously, passionately, hugely about the sins, the wrongs of his time, which he categorised in minute detail: the sinfulness, corruption and evil, particularly those appertaining to the Church, the Papacy, the rulers and the contenders for power of the city states, particularly in Florence, from which he was banished, never to return.

It is such an enormous contrast to the moral relativism, uncertainties and secularism of present western society. I'd rather be alive now than in Dante's time. But while we have gained much, there are also losses. One such loss is that the knowledge and understanding of the past and the accretions of western civilisation have in many respects been diminished.

Our class has a long way to go, as we do only half a canto at each class. But there are lines which never fail to bring tears to my eyes.

Canto 1: the opening lines: (Dorothy L Sayers)

   Midway this way of life we’re bound upon
   I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
   Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

   Ay me! How hard to speak of it – that rude
   And rough and stubborn forest! The mere breath
   Of memory stirs the old fear in the blood:

   It is so bitter it goes nigh to death:

And then the closing line of L’Inferno:

   E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.

   Now we came out and once more saw the stars.

I wait in hope for the sight of those stars.

Have a go! And now, Yes, it has gone!

2010-12-31T14:35:00.000+11:00

Every time I start thinking I can cope and that they will all be gone in a few days, something happens that socks me in the eye. I had, foolishly, thought that Dr P's daughters would have been satisfied with the money they'd got only a few days ago.

But wait! There was more. Money to gain, that is.

After the last very large transfer of money from him to them, lo and behold, they have done it again. Yesterday's little effort removed three quarters of the remainder of his cash assets. They have helped themselves to 90 per cent of it in all. Cheque butts neatly filled in by the WSD. This took place while I was out of the house doing the food shopping.

Don't they ever think that he might need to have ready access to cash, if he needs, as he surely will, to move into a nursing home?

I was so outraged when I discovered this latest raid that I remonstrated vigorously that it was unconscionable and reprehensible of his daughters to demand and take this money, but all I got was a mumbled response about his evening up what he had given initially to one daughter as a loan, which was to have been deducted from her share of the inheritance. And then further comments that I was jealous, grasping, and wanted his money for myself. He was very abusive to me.

They MUST realise that he is incapable of handling his affairs rationally! Surely they are using that very fact. These women, all with high incomes and amounts of property, have been here day after day, while he has asked them time and time again, with only a few moments between his questions, where they work, where they live, what they do, who are their children and how old are they, while haring him ask me has he had his daily medicine, minutes after he has swallowed it. And then presumably they would claim that he has the capacity to manage his affairs. Well, a mere 6 months ago he would not have given away all this money. They, of course, are all returning to their various foreign countries and of course do nothing for him of practical use. Bloodsuckers, they are.

Dr P does not have an appointment with a geriatrician until late March, and the Guardianship Tribunal will not act without a medical report.

This morning after his shower he could not walk unaided back to the bedroom and it took all my efforts and strength to get him the several metres from the bathroom to the bed. It was all I could do to keep him upright. My mind raced ahead to the possibility of admission to a nursing home sooner rather than later, and how it could all be arranged. He has recovered somewhat. Who knows how he will be tomorrow and in the future?

The WSD and family leave tomorrow, all missions accomplished. Thanks Dad!

Where did I put my cheerfulness?

2010-12-28T23:17:00.000+11:00

I am sure I left it somewhere around, but I am damned if I can find it right now. How pathetic!

There is probably a land not far away characterised by really soggy heaps, into which you trip, fall, wallow and struggle to escape from. That is where I have been and perhaps still am. Where bogs suck you under, and sap your strength, and the capacity to hope.

My daughter visited me, and she was terrific. Although I don't think I was able to fully rejoice in her presence and support, and fell apart quite a lot, I was so glad to have her here, and she helped with Dr P and the latest stepdaughter, her partner and children. Now she has gone back home, and I miss her acutely.

Tomorrow brings more stepdaughters and step-grandchildren.

However. We went out for a walk while Dr P had his nap, and visited the Red Cross Op Shop, where she picked up several rather snazzy pieces of clothing for remarkably little, and a pair of purple sandals too - they probably won't be very comfortable but they are purple and look nice. And I picked up a very colourful sundress, for when Sydney reverts to its usual summer horrors - a loose and floaty thing which does not look too bad at all. My daughter was very impressed by the quality of the local op shop - one of the few local places which was open yesterday.

We had to hang around all day yesterday waiting for SD4 to turn up. Firstly they suggested coming here at 9 am. No, I said, Dr P won't be up and ready by them. 10 am then? Yes. At 11 she rang to say they were running late, and would not arrive before 12. Some time considerably after 12, she rang to say they would more likely arrive about 2 pm. About 3.20 they rang to say they were out buying a car seat for the 2 year old and might arrive by about 4 pm. At 5 pm they still had not arrived, so we went out for a walk along the foreshore, where we observed a couple of fishermen toss a microscopic toad fish back into the sea. SD4 has young children and they have just arrived from a week's holiday in Thailand, but it occurs to me that they could have thought ahead to the need for a folding cot and a car seat, and perhaps one of them could have tried to do something about it in the morning.

My daughter and I had hoped to get into the city for an hour or two, to get to the wool shop, which has been having a sale, but never made it. Of course, I am not sure that it was open, and I am of course sympathetic to the exigencies of small children. But still, my daughter was here for only one full day and it would have been nice to have got out for a little while instead of hanging around watching the clock.

Whinge, whinge, bitch bitch. My needs are not their needs. I know that. I am just determined, so it seems to me, to be as miserable and unreasonable as possible about all of this, gloomily thinking that the rest of the week will be even worse, with the return of the WSD and family. And when I get into this mode, it convinces me that I have an infallible propensity for stuffing up my life and for making the wrong decision all the time. And to feel exceedingly trapped, and that I can do no better.

I must haul myself up by the scruff of my neck, gird my loins, grit my teeth, put my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel, and just do better. Just because the weather has been extremely soggy is no excuse for me to follow suit.

I need a a nice crochet project, possibly with purple wool. This might help me cope with the tedium and repetition of their conversation. Surely the mind is far better occupied with the complexity of crochet patterns than with the available alternatives. I reckon so.

Some people might use the word depredations. I couldn't possibly say.

2010-12-22T18:50:00.001+11:00

It has been a stressful few days, despite the tranquillisers. The visitors have been so very keen to see Dr P, and eager for me to go out. I smelled large rats - and I had to deal with lots earlier this year, but where there is a will there is a way. Except some people don't want to wait for the will, and so they have managed to extract some prior advantage. Three fifths of what is readily available, to be precise.

Well, it is his money to give away or keep as he pleases, and none of it was ever intended for me. While I do not think he is capable any longer of understanding or managing his affairs, his lucidity, memory and capability flash on and off, so it is not possible for mere non-medical mortals to ascertain the exact level of competence or incapacity. And the appointment with the geriatrician is not for another three months. What's the point?

So I am not doing anything, and hope not to even mention the war. Dr P has said nothing to me so far, and I wonder if he will.

Another tranquilliser combined with some wine should help. And perhaps takeaway dinner. No point slaving away over a hot stove. Nor is there any point dwelling on what must be endured, except that I wonder about so many questions. Except that right now I'd like to be out of here, and far, far away.

While the rats were gnawing away at the substance, I met a friend, whose husband is also declining. We had a lovely time lunching and talking. We travelled to Italy together in 2009 and had a great time, and we thoroughly enjoyed the recollections of the trip.

Perhaps symbolically, there was a total eclipse of the moon last night, but in Sydney it was almost over before the moon rose, and because we are on the downside of a hill, with terrace houses and tall trees obscuring the view, the moon was full and white by the time it rose into sight. I wish I had seen it.

Plagues of locusts, and the elephant is still in the room

2010-12-19T11:59:00.000+11:00

Many of our farmers, already severely afflicted by years of drought, and now of extensive floods, must also now contend with plagues of locusts. I feel for them - I really do, and have always done so, but now sympathise with redoubled fervour, and increased understanding. For I feel similarly afflicted by pests which arrive uninvited and wreak havoc and destruction all about them.

We did have a couple of days break, during which nobody visited.

When the WSD arrived, I explained to her that she should keep her visits short - about an hour. Longer than that, I said, was liable to provoke more tiredness and confusion. It is not about you, I said, and it is not about me: It is about your father. And please ring to check when you want to come again.

So she stayed almost two hours. And came back later that day, and told me that I 'was crowding her'. I let them alone for most of the time, but now waft in and out as I please.

Next morning she was back again, and so was Vixen, the SD1, and again they stayed for longer than I'd specified. No conversation at all was directed to me. A text message arrived from my brother, who has low grade prostate cancer, and I told Dr P that his PSA levels had fallen and that he would not, as expected, have surgery soon, neither of the SDs even clucked, let alone enquired. This is quite typical: when the diagnosis was first made, and I told Vixen, she just looked straight through me. (I run these little tests and checks from time to time to see whether their operating systems are functioning as normal. They always are.

I ducked out to go to the pharmacy, and on my return found Dr P had put himself to bed. He was tired. Then they left. The same thing happened yesterday when I went shopping with a friend. Her wheels, her agenda. I had no control over the duration of the expedition. When I returned, Dr P had been in bed for one and a half hours.

Yesterday we had another visit. I directed some conversation to her from time to time, but there was never a word from her to me. I offered her a drink, which she declined, but when I went out for 10 minutes to get milk and some cake and hot chocolate for Dr P, she made herself a drink in my absence.

She evidently has real problems dealing with mothers, mother's partners, or her father's wives. Her mother's partner is to have surgery next week for bowel cancer. WSD apparently does not speak at all to her stepfather, and 'may make a day trip' with the kids once they arrive. The kids' grandmother gets perhaps several hours with her grandchildren. Nice.

Vixen and Cubs have departed for their month's overseas holiday. Bliss. The WSD will be here most days, her family arrives on Monday and they will be around for most of the time until 1 January.

This week I needed to do some double checking on Vixen, and I have to say you cannot keep a good researcher down. With the help of a good mate, another chorister, I found what I needed. She was amazed. 'I know her', she said. 'She is awful! I cannot stand her. I have had some run ins with her. Is she his daughter? Ooh!'

Nothing like some independent verification!

Earlier this week I decided I needed chemical help, and at my request the GP prescribed tranquillisers. I am taking one each morning, and the heaving and heart thumping have subsided to what the sea watchers describe as a mild swell. The GP wrote a referral for Dr P for the local Geriatric Clinic, but so far no one has answered the telephone.

What I find so awful about all this is the worry that I am turning into a nasty, horrid, begrudging and resentful person. Negative and hateful thoughts besiege my every minute. My mind swirls and cannot relax or let go. Oh, to be free of it all! And I miss my own family and far away friends. Today my family is having the annual Christmas picnic, and for the second year running, I cannot be there. This blog is a kind of outlet, but really what I yearn to do is to unleash some abuse. And I must not do so: it would do no good. I know this, but still long to try and make them feel as bad as they make me feel. They never would, of course. I must instead concentrate on detachment and the art of the possible. Dr P does not know the half of it, and naturally takes his children's part. Although he does appreciate the care I give him, I miss the true sympathy and understanding he neither feels nor knows how to give. I wonder whether I will ever get the chance to repair my life and to become once again my natural self.

More woes, relatively speaking

2010-12-14T23:30:00.000+11:00

Just when you think life is complicated enough, up pops another complication.

Here I am, in the midst of unpleasant visitations, with tortured slumbers, and heaving stomach, and all of a sudden I discover that I cannot turn off the back right burner on my cooktop. As it is a gas burner, this is a worry. Well, I suppose even if it were electric it would be a worry. We managed to turn it off, and next morning I rang, or started to ring people to try and get it fixed. After being advised that I should contact the service department of the manufacturer, I rang them and was transferred to a firm which does all their service work, and I have to wait until 23 December to get it fixed. I hope that if it needs a new part, they will bring it with them. How extraordinary to have to wait two weeks for a service call. The first thing they tell you is how much a service call, plus the first 15 minutes will cost…and the answer is plenty.

So I have covered the faulty burner and its control with foil and pasted up a note saying Do Not Use, crossed my fingers, and started to wait and to hope.

When I made the hideous error of moving here, the kitchen boasted a rather awful electric cooktop. You know, one of those which thinks it knows better than the cook. They switch themselves off and on. They ignore any attempts you make to regulate and control the heat. Thus any real control by the cook is impossible.

I used to make fudge, using a rather delicious recipe, which avoided sickly-sweetness with the addition of cinnamon. I also used to make toffee, and cocoanut ice. You could not make fudge or any other confectionary on this abortion of an appliance, which was obviously designed by a non-cooking man who had never taken the trouble to reflect upon the various applications and use of heat. It was impossible to dissolve sugar without it partially boiling, no matter how careful you were, and as anyone with a bit of nous knows, if sugar boils before all the crystals are dissolved, the whole mixture recrystallise as soon as it cools. A simple rule of chemistry, eh?

In the olden days, and even now, recipe books failed to give such elementary information. Indeed, I remember reading the advice that if home made jams or preserves smelt or looked funny, never to taste them, just to chuck them out straight away. They never said why, and thus most omitted to warn the hapless cook/reader of the toxicity and dangers of botulism, which is likely to be fatal if tasted. Now, of course, it seems that botulism is every female celebrity's best friend. O tempora, or mores. Being a dedicated, not to mention compulsive researcher, I quickly discovered the reason to avoid tasting suspect looking/smelling preserves, and thus have survived to transmit the warnings. I like to know why is it so.

You could not cook a stir-fry dish on electric hotplates either, because the hotplate kept deliberately cooling itself down. Evidently it understands only the concept of the average temperature. (With the gas one, you can cook a stir fry: the only problem is that it invariably sets off the smoke alarm, and that is likely to trigger a heart attack.)

After several years of putting up with this rubbish, I managed to get the gas cooktop installed and have been a much happier cook ever since, although I stopped making fudge because eating it makes you put on weight. This happens anyway without eating fudge, I regret to say. Especially if you binge on peppermints, as I am wont to do.

However I am presently in a phase of not eating sweets – with me it really is either total binging or total abstinence, and what with all the stress, anxiety and sick feelings, some weight has actually fallen off. Which goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining, so to speak.

Why cannot we have silver linings without the horrid black clouds?

Crowded House

2010-12-08T15:12:00.000+11:00

Would anyone like to come and stay with us? Come join the throng!

In addition to the visits from Vixen and Cub, SD3 (the one who offers to stay while I go away, but who opined that one night with Persiflage is more than enough) arrives Thursday night and is planning to stay here for three days. The WSD, or SD2, is arriving Saturday morning and 'will come and see you, Dad, on Saturday morning'. She has to work for a couple of days elsewhere, but was to return until departing on 19 December. Now, it seems, oh frabjous day, that her husband and children are also coming from USA and visiting us, Perth, Melbourne and Canberra, and no date of departure has been mentioned.

I had mentally fixed my endurance to last for a week to ten days, but it will be longer. SD4 and family arrive on Boxing Day, but probably will not stay more than a couple of days. Vixen and Cubs will be away for a month, and that should help me relax a little. I hope.

Vixen and Cubs were here yesterday and Dr P put on one of his most impressive lack of memory performances to date. Of course, they have no idea how to talk to him to stimulate him: their conversational skills are limited to the recital of their doings, and there is never any mutuality in their discourses. Even Dr P used to admit that they were heavy going. Other visitors manage to converse - con being Latin, of course, for 'with'. Dr P brightens up considerably during their visits. Naturally.

I am thinking of getting a T-shirt inscribed with the injunction 'Please continue to ignore the elephant in the room'.

I think my second daughter and children are making a surprise visit this weekend, and I hope my nursing sister will come during the following week, her work roster permitting.

Will it be possible to suggest, I wonder, that no one should stay for, or expect to be present for a meal? Even if they go out and buy it all? I expect not.

There is more than enough for me to do without having to worry about feeding them, or having my kitchen invaded.

In all my spare time, I have organised a handyman to come and replace the drawer handle broken when Dr P fell on it, to insert the light globe in Dr P's bathroom, to install a new doorbell, to glue back the shelf in my shower recess, and a few other little things. On Friday someone is coming to inspect and give an opinion about getting Dr P a new shower recess.

Oh, and I made the Christmas Cake, which is now sprinkled with brandy, wrapped and hidden away, against the probable depredations of Dr P. The cake took most of the day, not to mention the time it took to find all the ingredients. Eventually they were obtained from about six different shops. I mentioned last year that the quantities packaged have been reduced, so that extra has to be bought in order to have the quantities specified in the recipes. Upon my growling about this yet again to friends, it was pointed out to me that this is actually due to a filthy capitalist plot by supermarkets and suppliers, to reduce quantities instead of raising prices. Ice cream, for example, now comes in 1.8 litre containers instead of 2 litres. When I whinged to the salesperson at one shop, she raised her eyebrows, but at another shop, the more pleasant and helpful assistant said she thought it was all due to the decline in the number of people who make Christmas cakes. And it is certainly true that years ago the health food shops would have a complete array of cake ingredients, according to several recipes, but now there is relatively little on display.

But back to the cake. This recipe uses semolina rather than flour, and I had almost got to the final stage before I realised that I had not added the semolina Almost a disaster, but thanks to my lovely spurtle and the risotto stirrer, all was added and well blended. The cake cooked successfully and smells fantastically good. and I have just remembered that because the cake contains 12 egg yolks but only six stiffly beaten egg whites, I now have 6 additional egg whites and thus will have to make a pavlova.

At least making the cake gave me a feeling of accomplishment, unlike most of the rest of my life at present, which is characterised by deep gloom, a heaving stomach, and a a plethora of nasty, mean and spiteful thoughts.

Being positive and pleasant is greatly to be preferred as a mode of being.

Feeling very aggravated over this, that and the other thing

2010-12-01T22:49:00.000+11:00

It is odd how changes suddenly become apparent. We had a busy morning yesterday, with an appointment with the audiologist. One of Dr P's bridge mates was coming to visit shortly after the appointment, and we left the house early so I could do some grocery shopping while Dr P sat in the car. This enables me to use his disabled parking sticker. Of course, it all takes longer than you think to get Dr P into the car and out, and accordingly the whizzing around the supermarket had to be done with the speed of light. I asked the young man ahead of me in the queue if I could go before him - 86 year old husband has to be at an appointment in 10 minutes, and the young man kindly agreed. Then I wondered how I was going to get the trolley and groceries across to the car and back in time, but then spied a young man on the staff reorganising the shopping trollies, and asked him to take the loaded trolley to the car and then to return it. He agreed, so we got to the appointment on time. And I did not even have the contemplate abandoning the trolley in the street.

I think it must be the first time that I have asked for this sort of help, but can see it won't be the last. And both people were kind and pleasant about it.

Once at the audiologist, it transpired that we (I) did not remember that we should have brought the old hearing aid with us, so I left Dr P there and drove back home and found it. The new mould is now in place, and Dr P had a hearing test, and it was explained to him that everything would sound loud to him for a while, but his brain and therefore ears would adjust. We (I) have ordered a set of wireless earphones for the TV which should mean the the volume can be turned down a bit. Hurrah.

We got home just in time to receive Dr P's mate, and so I left them together (one to one conversations are easier for the deaf) while I dashed out to the pharmacy, dropped off some dry cleaning, paid the rates, bought some bread and cake treats, and a coffee for myself.

After the friend left I gave Dr P some lunch, and as he suddenly got rather shaky and confused, made him go to bed for a sleep. A regular routine with lots of rest seems essential.

I am considering ways in which Vixen could actually be more helpful, in ways other than the planning and execution of bathroom renovations. She could buy the rather peculiar large Edison screw light globe which the idiot who did the lighting in this house put in Dr P's bathroom. The bathroom has a very high ceiling, and I do not feel confident about clambering up and down ladders, reaching for the ceiling. I got the grandson to remove it, forgetting that it was actually a globe and not a fitting. The replacement will probably be available from a large hardware store like Bunnings and it would take me about an hour to get there and back. Did he offer to buy the globe and return to install it? Silly question. No. Did I ask him? Another silly question.

Actually, forget all that. I will just get it done myself.

On Sunday I got my hair cut and coloured, having deferred yet again the decision about whether or when to let nature take its course. My hairdresser is a sweet young woman who has a young baby. Before I went on my trip, I ran into her in the street, and she told me she intended to leave the salon, which is just around the corner from us. She gave me her contact details, and said she would happily come to the house. As I was worried about leaving Dr P alone, we arranged for her to come to our house. While we were upstairs, Dr P called. He had fallen in the kitchen, very heavily - enough to break off a handle on a kitchen drawer, and could not get up. Simone and I managed to get him up, so I did not have to get emergency help, or go outside and look for help from a neighbour. Poor Dr P has a couple of nasty scratches on his back, a big lump and a large and angry bruise. Just as well I was at home - but he still fell!

My hairdresser told me that she left her job because the owner of the salon had completely neglected to pay the compulsory superannuation component of her wages during the eight years she worked there.

What a lot of utter bastards there are in the world. She has reported him. Good.

So that was yesterday. Last night there were Defence Force 'exercises'. These involved lots of helicopters, which flew over our house at 10 to 1 am, and then flew around some distance away until about 1.30 am, but nevertheless they made enough noise to keep me awake and to get stressed about lack of sleep, etcetera. Not happy, Jan. I wonder how many people had their sleep disturbed. These exercises featured on all the News reports.

All this was more than enough to wake my Inner Grump. Actually I am not so sure that the Grump is still an Inner one. It has come right outside today and is giving out some grief.

We have had quite a lot of rain, and in Sydney this really manages to stuff up the flow of traffic. The carer rang to say that she was running very late. Not to worry, I said, I will wait until you arrive, and it does not matter if I run late too. It seems that lightning struck the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and this caused problems with the trains. Many grumpy commuters complained. I suppose they all think the government should have stopped the lightning from striking the Bridge. Of course.

My BIL rang this afternoon and sent me the draft of a letter he is sending to Vixen. Oh boy! What a compelling document it is. A real paper scorcher! It should cause quite a lot of perturbation. And frizzle her hair. Good.

Dr P was very disagreeable this afternoon, so the Inner/Outer/Total Grump pounced and bit him and (so far) is Not At All Sorry. Grrr. Seethe.

It was partially soothed by making Pesto and eating it with pasta. Dr P had to make do with Bolognese sauce. A couple of glasses of red wine did no harm, either. I have prepared my Dante for tomorrow morning, and while I sit here grumpily typing, I am listening to some lovely Rossini. Although I probably need some really grumpy, angry and disagreeable music. I can't think of any, though.

Apart from the letter, my daughter sent me a lovely card and parcel, along the lines of Don't let the Bastards Grind You Down. Thank you, darling daughter.