Letters From The Other Side from Cynthia.
Cynthia’s week of mistakes and the results of other peoples sins of omission.
Dear Del,
It was very enjoyable to hear your interesting friend’s equally fascinating story last week.
Teddy and I have been helping our friends Sue and Ned with a few maintenance jobs in the holiday units they own in a little village along the coast a few miles from Geelong.
They wanted to thank us in some way, so we agreed to allow them to pay for a luncheon at one of our favourite clubs.
We were driving to meet them for the lunch when I was sure I saw their car stopped at the traffic lights just in front of us.
The car was the right colour and when I saw their profiles I waved at them and frantically flicked my lights and to be honest, behaved in a manner which certainly lacked the dignity and lady-like demeanour a woman my age is expected to display. I just wanted to let them know we were behind them. Much to Teddy’s irritation, I kept this up until I was at last acknowledged by a wave.
We continued to follow them along the road. As we reached the turning I was mystified to watch their car drive on instead of leading us in through the gates of our destination.
After we parked I eventually realized my mistake when five minutes after we arrived, Sue and Ned stepped out of Sue’s small blue car.
The people we had been following were now probably convinced they had been tailgated and harassed by someone who was a danger to society and had kept driving well away to avoid any further contact from us.
Just another of those little lapses we parents don’t share with the family until they are of an age to understand better and not see all sorts of dark forebodings in our erratic behaviour.
During our lunch, Sue was telling me a story which emphasises how easily and innocently someone can tarnish their reputation in a small town.
Her daughter’s husband has anl accountancy practice in a country town. They are pleased with the progress of his practice and look forward to being able to afford to redecorate the large Victorian home they have purchased.
In order to save money her husband who loves a good wine, takes his empty bottles to a local vineyard to have them filled. It also helps his practice as the vineyard owner is one of his wealthier clients. I think that sort of wine is called clean skin, but I’m not sure.
Sue’s daughter became irritated when her husband would wash the bottles out and leave them on her kitchen benches to dry, for days, before taking them down to the cellar.
After asking him repeatedly to remove them and her requests constantly falling on deaf ears, she became fed up and although six months pregnant, decided to take an armload down to the cellar herself.
Half way down the steps, her arms full of bottles; she slipped, unfortunately breaking her ankle. She waited in agony for an hour or more until she was at last discovered by her neighbour who had popped in with some plant cuttings. He carefully crunched his way across the glass fragments, picked her up from the cellar floor where she lay frightened to move in case she damaged herself or her unborn child even more. Her ankle was now very swollen and turning various shades of blue.
For a few weeks she wondered why she sensed a certain attitude emanating from some of the townsfolk and shop keepers she spoke to until, as happens with most stories, it eventually returned to her. She was mortified to have a friend repeat the circulating, and now very much embroidered tale of her fall.
Embellishments to the innocent accident had become; ‘The local accountant’s wife is an alcoholic and fell in a drunken state down the cellar steps.’ Probably accompanied by a great deal of self-righteous tut tutting.
I remember visiting a small cemetery in country Victoria where the inscription on the headstone was Here Lies……..A Much Misunderstood Woman. It seemed such a sad inscription intended as a lasting rebuke to the local gossips of the small town. At least someone must have understood her.
Another friend’s father-in-law committed a sin of omission.
He loved to tinker with his car and its temperamental engine. So he dug a pit in his garage to make it easier and look very much the professional car-tinkerer.
After he had dug it, his wife went to the garage to fetch something, missed her footing and fell down the pit, bruising herself very badly.
The only sympathy she received from the tinkerer was that, ‘She should have been more careful’.
Now she was a wise lady and didn’t say very much as she knew her husband well because a few days later, after a prolonged visit to the local pub, he was forced to leave his car in the pub parking area. He walked into his garage to fetch something his inebriated brain thought he needed and fell down the pit.
Twenty-six stitches later at the local hospital and twenty-fours after that, there was a cover on the pit and the smirk of a Cheshire cat’s satisfaction on his wife’s face.
Sue and I appear to have made a mistake by trying to do the right thing.
Because many of her staff members are lazing about in the Queensland sun, Sue is short of cleaning staff.
Well I’m quite used to that sort of work because Teddy and I owned a few holiday units up near the snow fields when we lived there. I quite enjoyed the time being useful to her and we have always got along very well. Also after acquiring the new title of being a retired ‘Downsizer’ I feel a little useless in the world.
One of the guests left what appeared to us to be quite an expensive pair of earrings on top of a television so we looked up the address of the man who had booked the unit for the weekend, parcelled up the earrings carefully and posted them off Sue thought she should perhaps ring the wife of the man who had booked the unit just to let her know her earrings were on their way back. After all, they may have been a gift and she was perhaps worried about where they were.
After speaking to the wife, Sue put the telephone down very slowly and turned to face me, a look of anguish on her face.
‘Oh dear, I think I shouldn’t have done that.’
I raised my eyebrows to enquire why not?
‘She didn’t know anything about the earrings or the unit…or anything else it seems.’ Her voice wavered.
‘Whoops.’ I groaned. We mooned about the kitchen for a little while until we decided we couldn’t undo what had been done with good intentions.
We made coffee and agreed we hadn’t liked that bloke much anyway; he was very impressed with himself. His wife might be better without him if it eventually came to that end.
Next week I must tell you about some of the romantic couples Sue had stay in the units.
I can tell you it is an occupation that gives a person great insight into police forensic evidence collecting.
Cheers for now, from your very fallible ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Letter From The Other Side by Cynthia
Written By Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Dear Del,
It feels as if winter has arrived. The heaters are going and the logs in the fireplace are spitting sparks as the westerly gales puff smoke down our badly designed chimney.
I think we shall be putting in one of those fitted fireplaces that are sealed during next summer to protect our sinuses which were affected so badly during the 2002 bushfires.
It is snowing in the hills. I can only imagine how it looks and smile at the memory of the way the King Parrots visiting our garden used to take it in turns to break the ice on our bird baths each morning.
I visited Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger this morning and their little rooms were so hot I felt like an onion peeling its layers away. I must have looked quite slim after removing all my thick coats and jackets.
Uncle Rodger is busy running the footy tipping as usual and as ever there are disputes about who has paid and who hasn’t. He keeps on everyone’s tails like a bank’s mortgage department until they pay up their few cents each week.
Aunt Alice is still cross with him over the spilled varnish but can’t help looking at her new walls and furniture with some smug satisfaction.
Her mother’s silverware remains a bone of contention as the stain damaged the surface and although it has been polished, the marks are still visible.
One of the reasons I went to see them was to take a new ribbon for Uncle Rodger’s ancient typewriter. He has been badgering me to buy one for him for weeks and wonders why I’m having so much trouble locating it. I suppose at his age it is hard to grasp the idea that something which was in general use all his working life is now obsolete.
Do you realize how hard they are to buy these days? Eventually after weeks of scouring op-shops and all sorts of mixed businesses and newsagents, I went on-line and found a complete typewriter, of the same brand and 3 new ribbons for less than the shops wanted me to pay for the ordering of the ribbons alone. Uncle Rodger is very conscious of costs and I didn’t want to have to pay too much.
I felt extremely pleased with the purchase and rather proud to have found such a bargain.
He obviously didn’t have any idea of how far I had walked and how many hours were spent doing this little thing for him because he surveyed the package of typewriter and ribbons, grimaced and said. ‘I just wanted black ribbons not red and black. I’ll never use the red. That’s a waste! Besides, what will I do with two typewriters?’
I left shortly afterwards feeling a little, …well no that’s untrue,….. feeling very angry and ill used and grumpy with the world.
I had become quite fond of the small blue Olivetti as it reminded me of the first portable typewriter I had used as a cadet journalist. So I paid Uncle Rodger the money for the typewriter and after tucking it cosily into its case, stalked out.
On my original green machine, I had tentatively typed my first newspaper paragraphs which for the first few weeks consisted mainly of weather reports and short pieces about the births of babies produced by women who were deemed to be more important that the ordinary women who produced their children without any public photos and write-ups. From there I progressed to descriptions of the local Country Women’s Association’s doings which ranged from mind numbingly boring to expertly organised events and displays as well as enormous help during times of natural disasters. Weddings were also on my list of duties and to this day find I can’t work up any enthusiasm for looking at wedding photos.
Because I was a clergyman’s daughter and had lived much of my life incarcerated in a boarding school intent on teaching us to be well mannered ladies and to make us suitable marriage bait for the sons of wealthy men,( I proved an utter failure there), I was deemed to be the ideal reporter to send along to cover any religious events happening in the town. This was a mistake on the part of the editor, who at the time I considered the scariest man I had ever met, because being an Archdeacon’s daughter I had a few first hand insights into the behind the scenes lives of the local clergy and hierarchy and much of it was not attractive. In fact I had grown up with a jaundiced view of the odd, in every sense of the word, Bishop or two. It became a lesson in objectivity and the art of holding my tongue.
Eventually I progressed to accompanying the court reporter. My boarding school upbringing and my complete ignorance of the real world, especially the grimmer sides of life, resulting with me sitting open mouthed in amazement as I listened to the salacious details of the private lives of person on trials. The chain smoking senior reporter, who felt herself unfortunate to be saddled with this quite useless recruit, kept leaning across and hissing with her tobacco laden breath to ‘shut your mouth you dope’.
My education rapidly high-jumped a steep learning curve during that time and eventually I came out of my trance and remembered to write down some of what I was listening to.
No, I had decided as I reminisced while I drove away from Uncle Rodger and Aunt Alice, I would keep the little typewriter. It must have enjoyed an interesting history because it had been so well looked after.
As I drove along I noticed the car in front had one of those yellow Baby-On-Board signs dangling and flopping about in front of the rear window. I started to wonder what the point of such a sign is. Does it mean that a driver suddenly being overcome by the urge to become involved in an accident and unable to wait to go home and have their accident in the privacy of their own home, should avoid the car with the Baby-On-Board sign and crash into the car with the man with three children and an elderly mother to support instead?
That set me thinking about more signs we could dangle in front of other drivers to irritate them. How about Teenagers On Board, Free To Good Home; or Mother-in-Law On Board, Aim for Left Rear Seat.; or Grumpy Granny On Board, So Back Off; and another that would really get their attention. Deaf Passenger On Board with Blind Driver, Both Over 70..
I really get fed up with the conglomeration of signs in the city and suburbs. We are so busy looking out for signs, it is easy to forget to watch out for cars, pedestrians and cyclists (who emerge around the same time as blow flies during the early spring.)
Teddy is a cyclist so I have to keep that opinion to myself, or try to.
I have to admit country councils also put up ridiculous notices for people who suffer from an intelligence deficiency
A highway near us had about one hundred kilometres of thick bush-land and trees either side of the road. Some of the trees were old growth eucalypts which towered into the sky and had massive girths.
Sitting tucked amongst this forest, just to the left of the road was a small yellow sign which said for those who drive blindly Trees On Side Of Road. If someone else hadn’t beaten me to it, I would have eventually written the same, they wrote underneath No Kidding?
Newspaper headlines are another irritant under my skin. Our local paper couldn’t fit in the headline they wanted last week so instead they put. No Pig Flu Here.
Evidently we can’t even have the option of suffering swine fever which for some reason I can’t explain, sounds a little more dignified than pig flu.
I stopped buying the glossy magazines about two decades ago when the heads of the companies must have employed a statistician. This person who exists in my imagination only, must have been a failure at his chosen career as he came up with the number for the average I.Q of their readership to be below 90, and reduced the breadth of magazines vocabularies to about the same number of words. Of course if he had ever existed, he would be now saying he was right. I suppose that is called a self fulfilling prophesy.
The glossies do of course have a number of words they seem to consider eye catching to their chosen readership. These seem to be sex, divorce, latest, split, glamorous and the inevitable celebrity! Celebrity usually covers anyone who has been in court with a drug problem, on T.V for five minutes or in the case of many young women and the occasional older ones, who should know better, have appeared almost naked at some function only casino owners, television personalities (there’s another one) and sports stars can afford to attend.
I’m sure if they went through an epiphany of some kind and began printing happier and more positive family and community related stories, the affect would be immediate on the mind set of their readers and the ripple affect would pass through our societies.
Television advertisements yelling at us with voiceovers which speak so quickly it just becomes a blur of ranting noise is another bane of our lives.
The spelling of signs and advertisements above businesses and shops leave me grinding my teeth and wanting to front the owners to ask them how they expect teachers to teach children how to spell when all around them words are misspelled and butchered.
English speaking countries all have their own individual grammar, spelling, pronunciation and accent.
Each of course, knows they are right and everyone else is wrong.
We in Australia scoff at the New Zealanders who scoff at us and we both scoff at the Americans who scoff at the Canadians, who are far too well mannered to scoff at anyone except in the privacy of their own homes. Sorry South Africa we scoff at you too, I’m not sure who you scoff at but by the manner in which you play cricket, I’m betting it is us.
When we all meet we experience great difficulty in understanding one another, although we all smirk because we know the English know they are right even though they have stolen many of their words from the rest of Europe. England, the mother of our language is the smallest of the countries but seems to have more dialects and accents within their shores than any other English speaking country…these folk, in turn have difficulty understand each other!
It really is a miracle the written version of English was ever agreed upon.
In Teddy’s family for instance, his mother’s accent is east London, his father’s
is southern Irish, his brother and sister’s are south east England but both are different and Teddy sounds as if he has just stepped off the set of a 1960’s BBC Noel Coward play.
They all lived in the same house for years and to an outsider, it’s amazing!
In Australia I’m from Victoria and the only way I can pick a Queenslander who lives two thousand miles away is he will call a suitcase a ‘port’ and sometimes for no apparent reason put the word ‘but’ on the end of a sentence.
Western Australians who live three thousand miles away don’t appear to have anything I can ever pick from their language that singles them out from Victorians.
I put it down in part to the way we all think nothing of driving a few hundred miles or so to holiday, visit friends and family or live. We are a very mobile population.
Real Estate agents have a minimal number of words which they use, STUNNING is a favourite. In fact some weeks there are so many stunning homes to visit that if you went to view more than a couple in a day you would be living in a daze for weeks afterward.
Never trust the word magnificent either as the young man writing the advertisement has usually been admiring the outdoor barbeque area and owner’s daughter lying seductively on the chaise by the pool, rather than the bathrooms, kitchens and the amount of cupboard space.
As a sometimes writer of articles for the overseas market, I find the U.K editors far more forgiving of our language differences than the U.S editors and I also find the overlap of the U.K sense of humour matches our own sense of irony and the ridiculous. For the U.S market, I have to sometimes explain it, which really takes the laugh and spontaneity out of the humour rendering it flat. Leaving the writer feeling a failure and wondering what I actually did see funny in it in the first place as well. Humour is a very difficult think to grasp. It’s like trying to hold a shadow. You see it or you don’t.
I can see Teddy standing gazing into space at nothing in particular. It is a habit which once worried me but I’ve learned his body can’t function when his brain is turning around at an enormous speed. He has been painting the facias of the house and I worry about him getting up so high but it seems he came down via the ladder and not in any painful way. He has started rocking on his heels so the wheels in his mind must be really whirring. I sense an idea for an invention being spawned.
I shall step down from my high horse Del and go and make us some lunch.
Did I tell you we are having a new kitchen fitted? Some of the quotes would have almost cleared the national debt.
I have a feeling it may be one of those renovations which are great when they are finished. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced any other sort.
Love from your ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.
Written By Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Dear Del,
It feels as if winter has arrived. The heaters are going and the logs in the fireplace are spitting sparks as the westerly gales puff smoke down our badly designed chimney.
I think we shall be putting in one of those fitted fireplaces that are sealed during next summer to protect our sinuses which were affected so badly during the 2002 bushfires.
It is snowing in the hills. I can only imagine how it looks and smile at the memory of the way the King Parrots visiting our garden used to take it in turns to break the ice on our bird baths each morning.
I visited Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger this morning and their little rooms were so hot I felt like an onion peeling its layers away. I must have looked quite slim after removing all my thick coats and jackets.
Uncle Rodger is busy running the footy tipping as usual and as ever there are disputes about who has paid and who hasn’t. He keeps on everyone’s tails like a bank’s mortgage department until they pay up their few cents each week.
Aunt Alice is still cross with him over the spilled varnish but can’t help looking at her new walls and furniture with some smug satisfaction.
Her mother’s silverware remains a bone of contention as the stain damaged the surface and although it has been polished, the marks are still visible.
One of the reasons I went to see them was to take a new ribbon for Uncle Rodger’s ancient typewriter. He has been badgering me to buy one for him for weeks and wonders why I’m having so much trouble locating it. I suppose at his age it is hard to grasp the idea that something which was in general use all his working life is now obsolete.
Do you realize how hard they are to buy these days? Eventually after weeks of scouring op-shops and all sorts of mixed businesses and newsagents, I went on-line and found a complete typewriter, of the same brand and 3 new ribbons for less than the shops wanted me to pay for the ordering of the ribbons alone. Uncle Rodger is very conscious of costs and I didn’t want to have to pay too much.
I felt extremely pleased with the purchase and rather proud to have found such a bargain.
He obviously didn’t have any idea of how far I had walked and how many hours were spent doing this little thing for him because he surveyed the package of typewriter and ribbons, grimaced and said. ‘I just wanted black ribbons not red and black. I’ll never use the red. That’s a waste! Besides, what will I do with two typewriters?’
I left shortly afterwards feeling a little, …well no that’s untrue,….. feeling very angry and ill used and grumpy with the world.
I had become quite fond of the small blue Olivetti as it reminded me of the first portable typewriter I had used as a cadet journalist. So I paid Uncle Rodger the money for the typewriter and after tucking it cosily into its case, stalked out.
On my original green machine, I had tentatively typed my first newspaper paragraphs which for the first few weeks consisted mainly of weather reports and short pieces about the births of babies produced by women who were deemed to be more important that the ordinary women who produced their children without any public photos and write-ups. From there I progressed to descriptions of the local Country Women’s Association’s doings which ranged from mind numbingly boring to expertly organised events and displays as well as enormous help during times of natural disasters. Weddings were also on my list of duties and to this day find I can’t work up any enthusiasm for looking at wedding photos.
Because I was a clergyman’s daughter and had lived much of my life incarcerated in a boarding school intent on teaching us to be well mannered ladies and to make us suitable marriage bait for the sons of wealthy men,( I proved an utter failure there), I was deemed to be the ideal reporter to send along to cover any religious events happening in the town. This was a mistake on the part of the editor, who at the time I considered the scariest man I had ever met, because being an Archdeacon’s daughter I had a few first hand insights into the behind the scenes lives of the local clergy and hierarchy and much of it was not attractive. In fact I had grown up with a jaundiced view of the odd, in every sense of the word, Bishop or two. It became a lesson in objectivity and the art of holding my tongue.
Eventually I progressed to accompanying the court reporter. My boarding school upbringing and my complete ignorance of the real world, especially the grimmer sides of life, resulting with me sitting open mouthed in amazement as I listened to the salacious details of the private lives of person on trials. The chain smoking senior reporter, who felt herself unfortunate to be saddled with this quite useless recruit, kept leaning across and hissing with her tobacco laden breath to ‘shut your mouth you dope’.
My education rapidly high-jumped a steep learning curve during that time and eventually I came out of my trance and remembered to write down some of what I was listening to.
No, I had decided as I reminisced while I drove away from Uncle Rodger and Aunt Alice, I would keep the little typewriter. It must have enjoyed an interesting history because it had been so well looked after.
As I drove along I noticed the car in front had one of those yellow Baby-On-Board signs dangling and flopping about in front of the rear window. I started to wonder what the point of such a sign is. Does it mean that a driver suddenly being overcome by the urge to become involved in an accident and unable to wait to go home and have their accident in the privacy of their own home, should avoid the car with the Baby-On-Board sign and crash into the car with the man with three children and an elderly mother to support instead?
That set me thinking about more signs we could dangle in front of other drivers to irritate them. How about Teenagers On Board, Free To Good Home; or Mother-in-Law On Board, Aim for Left Rear Seat.; or Grumpy Granny On Board, So Back Off; and another that would really get their attention. Deaf Passenger On Board with Blind Driver, Both Over 70..
I really get fed up with the conglomeration of signs in the city and suburbs. We are so busy looking out for signs, it is easy to forget to watch out for cars, pedestrians and cyclists (who emerge around the same time as blow flies during the early spring.)
Teddy is a cyclist so I have to keep that opinion to myself, or try to.
I have to admit country councils also put up ridiculous notices for people who suffer from an intelligence deficiency
A highway near us had about one hundred kilometres of thick bush-land and trees either side of the road. Some of the trees were old growth eucalypts which towered into the sky and had massive girths.
Sitting tucked amongst this forest, just to the left of the road was a small yellow sign which said for those who drive blindly Trees On Side Of Road. If someone else hadn’t beaten me to it, I would have eventually written the same, they wrote underneath No Kidding?
Newspaper headlines are another irritant under my skin. Our local paper couldn’t fit in the headline they wanted last week so instead they put. No Pig Flu Here.
Evidently we can’t even have the option of suffering swine fever which for some reason I can’t explain, sounds a little more dignified than pig flu.
I stopped buying the glossy magazines about two decades ago when the heads of the companies must have employed a statistician. This person who exists in my imagination only, must have been a failure at his chosen career as he came up with the number for the average I.Q of their readership to be below 90, and reduced the breadth of magazines vocabularies to about the same number of words. Of course if he had ever existed, he would be now saying he was right. I suppose that is called a self fulfilling prophesy.
The glossies do of course have a number of words they seem to consider eye catching to their chosen readership. These seem to be sex, divorce, latest, split, glamorous and the inevitable celebrity! Celebrity usually covers anyone who has been in court with a drug problem, on T.V for five minutes or in the case of many young women and the occasional older ones, who should know better, have appeared almost naked at some function only casino owners, television personalities (there’s another one) and sports stars can afford to attend.
I’m sure if they went through an epiphany of some kind and began printing happier and more positive family and community related stories, the affect would be immediate on the mind set of their readers and the ripple affect would pass through our societies.
Television advertisements yelling at us with voiceovers which speak so quickly it just becomes a blur of ranting noise is another bane of our lives.
The spelling of signs and advertisements above businesses and shops leave me grinding my teeth and wanting to front the owners to ask them how they expect teachers to teach children how to spell when all around them words are misspelled and butchered.
English speaking countries all have their own individual grammar, spelling, pronunciation and accent.
Each of course, knows they are right and everyone else is wrong.
We in Australia scoff at the New Zealanders who scoff at us and we both scoff at the Americans who scoff at the Canadians, who are far too well mannered to scoff at anyone except in the privacy of their own homes. Sorry South Africa we scoff at you too, I’m not sure who you scoff at but by the manner in which you play cricket, I’m betting it is us.
When we all meet we experience great difficulty in understanding one another, although we all smirk because we know the English know they are right even though they have stolen many of their words from the rest of Europe. England, the mother of our language is the smallest of the countries but seems to have more dialects and accents within their shores than any other English speaking country…these folk, in turn have difficulty understand each other!
It really is a miracle the written version of English was ever agreed upon.
In Teddy’s family for instance, his mother’s accent is east London, his father’s
is southern Irish, his brother and sister’s are south east England but both are different and Teddy sounds as if he has just stepped off the set of a 1960’s BBC Noel Coward play.
They all lived in the same house for years and to an outsider, it’s amazing!
In Australia I’m from Victoria and the only way I can pick a Queenslander who lives two thousand miles away is he will call a suitcase a ‘port’ and sometimes for no apparent reason put the word ‘but’ on the end of a sentence.
Western Australians who live three thousand miles away don’t appear to have anything I can ever pick from their language that singles them out from Victorians.
I put it down in part to the way we all think nothing of driving a few hundred miles or so to holiday, visit friends and family or live. We are a very mobile population.
Real Estate agents have a minimal number of words which they use, STUNNING is a favourite. In fact some weeks there are so many stunning homes to visit that if you went to view more than a couple in a day you would be living in a daze for weeks afterward.
Never trust the word magnificent either as the young man writing the advertisement has usually been admiring the outdoor barbeque area and owner’s daughter lying seductively on the chaise by the pool, rather than the bathrooms, kitchens and the amount of cupboard space.
As a sometimes writer of articles for the overseas market, I find the U.K editors far more forgiving of our language differences than the U.S editors and I also find the overlap of the U.K sense of humour matches our own sense of irony and the ridiculous. For the U.S market, I have to sometimes explain it, which really takes the laugh and spontaneity out of the humour rendering it flat. Leaving the writer feeling a failure and wondering what I actually did see funny in it in the first place as well. Humour is a very difficult think to grasp. It’s like trying to hold a shadow. You see it or you don’t.
I can see Teddy standing gazing into space at nothing in particular. It is a habit which once worried me but I’ve learned his body can’t function when his brain is turning around at an enormous speed. He has been painting the facias of the house and I worry about him getting up so high but it seems he came down via the ladder and not in any painful way. He has started rocking on his heels so the wheels in his mind must be really whirring. I sense an idea for an invention being spawned.
I shall step down from my high horse Del and go and make us some lunch.
Did I tell you we are having a new kitchen fitted? Some of the quotes would have almost cleared the national debt.
I have a feeling it may be one of those renovations which are great when they are finished. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced any other sort.
Love from your ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Letters From The Other Side form Cynthia
Written by Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Dear Del,
What a very windy week. I hope you haven’t experienced any damage around your home and you have succeeded in remaining flu free so far this winter.
I had cause to go to the doctor today, well of course I did no one in their right mind will go to the doctor without a cause would they? I only needed to renew a prescription but as I sat in the waiting room reading my own book having read their ancient supply of germ ridden magazines lying prone on the rather shoddy coffee tables at least four times, it occurred to me as I watched pale and snivelling people sitting next to patients with congealing smoker’s lungs, that as we shared the stew of viruses and bacteria in the room while waiting almost an hour it guaranteed further business for the doctors. No wonder they have no need to advertise.
When I first entered I sat next to the one patient I thought was free of anything infectious, because he had a very large cast on his left leg. I congratulated myself on my clever choice until he coughed.
Eventually it was my turn to see the nice young man who is my G.P. and I explained to him I just needed a prescription nothing else was wrong at all.
Needing to feel he was doing his job properly he took my blood pressure and handed out some gratuitous advice in the form of ‘Cynthia, at your age you should exercise more and try to lose some weight.’
We all have a very lopsided relationship with our doctors don’t we? They know all out intimate details and feel quite free to give us advice about all sorts of personal problems but never reciprocate by sharing their own with us .Although, he has accepted gardening advice from me and although I pay him, he hasn’t as yet ever offered to pay me. However I have been biding my time and today he complained to me he had injured a muscle some months ago and it was still playing up.
At last, the opportunity arose. ‘It’s your age.’ I stated as sagely as he blames all my conditions on my age, ‘It will probably keep reoccurring because at your age you are disintegrating like the rest of us’.
He turned and gave me the sort of look that William our psychologist son gives me when he is about to pat me on the head and remind me he will know when to sign the papers to put me away.
Never-the-less I left the surgery clutching my prescription and feeling quite pleased with myself.
From there I drove to the local shops to take part in the weekly drag race around the circuit of the supermarket isles once more. Life would be so simple for me if we didn’t have to eat. There would be so many more hours in the day in which I could do all the things I enjoy more than cooking.
Mindful of the doctor’s advice and thinking evil thoughts about the growing ranks of the food police who seem to appear on our televisions with yet more rules at least twice a week, I grabbed hold of a shopping trolley, buggy, basket whatever it is they are called officially because I call them by names that could never be aired in public or during children’s time slots on radio or television.
I was about half way down the first isle when I realized the trolley gods had once more not smiled upon me.
The further I walked the more obvious it was I had a disabled trolley. It had three wheels functioning perfectly and one at the front left which jammed at unexpected moments pulling me up with a jolt resulting in the handles almost winding me as they rammed into my waist…well where my waist used to be, it appears to have gone somewhere else lately. I keep looking in my drawers but it’s never there.
I negotiated the first aisle thinking and hoping it would stop veering left and improve as it warmed up rather in the way my joints do after a warm shower. Also, I was too lazy to go back outside where they were all rammed together in a long row by a young man who works out at the local gym. I plodded on in a sort of sideways walk holding the front of the basket with my left hand and the handles with my right.
Negotiating one of those artistically arranged displays of biscuits which are placed at the ends of the aisles to add to our enjoyment of the shopping experience and to tempt us to either impulse buy or if not, to at least help us find the walk more challenging and to hone our skills.
Shopping has almost reached the stage where it could be classed as an extreme sport.
The second aisle became much harder as there were boxes being unpacked and the amount of space left for the shoppers to fit through was narrow. As I duck-walked down toward the young woman stocking the shelves she moved to allow me to pass which I did with quite a deal of skill but unfortunately as I avoided hitting her I swept the artful display of biscuits at the end off.
It took some time to pick up those which weren’t broken beyond use and replace them back onto the display.Stacking them neatly as far from the corner as possible.
Into number three isle, the basket was becoming heavier and making my progress very slow but there weren’t any shelves being stacked so I felt relieved to reach the end with only knocking three of four things from the children’s undies and socks display onto the floor.
A young mother very kindly came and helped me replace them.
Half way down the next isle the basket developed a problem with the other front wheel resulting in the development of an erratic swerving movement from right to left which almost flattened an old lady standing in a bewildered state as she pondered the large assortment of soups on sale. I missed her with what I considered a growing expertise but knocked an entire pyramid of oranges onto the floor, these quickly rolled in all directions between oncoming legs and under shelving. I swore loudly not caring who overheard me and turned to notice the young ‘shelf stocker’ now appeared to be stalking me closely as I wove my way toward the refrigeration section and its array of glass doors.
The sight of the doors terrified me so I stopped, picked up my handbag and left the trolley where it was and walked to pick up the frozen peas. I didn’t dare approach the gleaming glass with my demonic device.
By now I was becoming paranoid and was sure if I didn’t get out of the place the manager would storm from his office where he was probably watching me on a security video as I slowly demolished his store. He would accuse me of taking part in a T.V stunt of some kind and order me off the premises.
With as much care as I could and feeling my face burning with embarrassment I made my way to the checkout acutely aware the ‘shelf stocker’ was still watching my stumbling progress. I might have known my day had not finished because in my rush to leave, I dropped a dozen eggs on the floor. They made the most stunning mess of all and I still have splatters of uncooked omelette makers all over my suede shoes and best slacks.
If Kate our dog had been there she would have lapped them up with delight as she loves eggs but of course where are your dogs when you need them?
Other customers were finding their time in the queue more entertaining than the usual fixed gaze into space most people assume as they waited their turns at the checkout.
My lass cheerfully helped me clean the eggs up as a young man with a mop and bucket arrived. Both worked feverishly all the time assuring me it was all no trouble at all and not to worry about it as I fussed and fumed over the mess. I’m sure they were really winking and smiling over the dotty ‘old girl’ as I gave them yet another story to go home and tell people about the silly old ‘seniors’ they have to deal with every day.
Eventually I was out in the fresh air struggling up the incline of the parking area still duck-walking with one hand on the front and another on the handles and stopping suddenly as one wheel jammed swerving me left and the other took over the direction swerving me to the right and zigzagging like a drunken sailor I at last made it to the rear of the car.
Grimly hanging onto the handles I kicked the wheels into angles in an effort to stop the trolley from travelling down the slope and opened the boot to lift the bags of groceries out.
As I turned to place the last one into the boot, the trolley now lightened, slowly moved gaining speed down the incline and pirouetting on its jamming wheel toward an expensive late model car parked a few metres away.
I dropped the bag of groceries not caring in the least what broke as they fell and did a remarkably fast sprint grabbing it just before the metal gouged a line of paint from the side of the doors.
Breathing heavily after all my exertions I walked the trolley, now behaving beautifully because there was nothing in it, back to the ‘RETURN TROLLEYS HERE’ docking station.
As I did this I saw a little dog which was sitting quietly waiting for his owner to come back make some friendly overtures to a woman as she passed. She flicked her foot as if to kick it.
I walked my badly designed and ergonomically disastrous basket up to her as she was about to reach for one of her own and said with a friendly smile. ‘Here have mine; I think it is just right for you.’
She looked a little uncertain but unaware how I feel about people who kick dogs, pleased me very much when she took it mumbling ‘thanks’.
While I patted the little dog, I hoped the demon trolley would give her an even worse time.
During the drive home I resolved to visit a different supermarket for a while at least until my face may have faded from their memories a little or a few other unfortunates had used the same basket.
Being so exhausted after completing such an arduous obstacle course around the shop I decided if my G.P thought I was going to get more exercise he had another think coming.
Love From your thoroughly humiliated ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia. (C)
Written by Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Dear Del,
What a very windy week. I hope you haven’t experienced any damage around your home and you have succeeded in remaining flu free so far this winter.
I had cause to go to the doctor today, well of course I did no one in their right mind will go to the doctor without a cause would they? I only needed to renew a prescription but as I sat in the waiting room reading my own book having read their ancient supply of germ ridden magazines lying prone on the rather shoddy coffee tables at least four times, it occurred to me as I watched pale and snivelling people sitting next to patients with congealing smoker’s lungs, that as we shared the stew of viruses and bacteria in the room while waiting almost an hour it guaranteed further business for the doctors. No wonder they have no need to advertise.
When I first entered I sat next to the one patient I thought was free of anything infectious, because he had a very large cast on his left leg. I congratulated myself on my clever choice until he coughed.
Eventually it was my turn to see the nice young man who is my G.P. and I explained to him I just needed a prescription nothing else was wrong at all.
Needing to feel he was doing his job properly he took my blood pressure and handed out some gratuitous advice in the form of ‘Cynthia, at your age you should exercise more and try to lose some weight.’
We all have a very lopsided relationship with our doctors don’t we? They know all out intimate details and feel quite free to give us advice about all sorts of personal problems but never reciprocate by sharing their own with us .Although, he has accepted gardening advice from me and although I pay him, he hasn’t as yet ever offered to pay me. However I have been biding my time and today he complained to me he had injured a muscle some months ago and it was still playing up.
At last, the opportunity arose. ‘It’s your age.’ I stated as sagely as he blames all my conditions on my age, ‘It will probably keep reoccurring because at your age you are disintegrating like the rest of us’.
He turned and gave me the sort of look that William our psychologist son gives me when he is about to pat me on the head and remind me he will know when to sign the papers to put me away.
Never-the-less I left the surgery clutching my prescription and feeling quite pleased with myself.
From there I drove to the local shops to take part in the weekly drag race around the circuit of the supermarket isles once more. Life would be so simple for me if we didn’t have to eat. There would be so many more hours in the day in which I could do all the things I enjoy more than cooking.
Mindful of the doctor’s advice and thinking evil thoughts about the growing ranks of the food police who seem to appear on our televisions with yet more rules at least twice a week, I grabbed hold of a shopping trolley, buggy, basket whatever it is they are called officially because I call them by names that could never be aired in public or during children’s time slots on radio or television.
I was about half way down the first isle when I realized the trolley gods had once more not smiled upon me.
The further I walked the more obvious it was I had a disabled trolley. It had three wheels functioning perfectly and one at the front left which jammed at unexpected moments pulling me up with a jolt resulting in the handles almost winding me as they rammed into my waist…well where my waist used to be, it appears to have gone somewhere else lately. I keep looking in my drawers but it’s never there.
I negotiated the first aisle thinking and hoping it would stop veering left and improve as it warmed up rather in the way my joints do after a warm shower. Also, I was too lazy to go back outside where they were all rammed together in a long row by a young man who works out at the local gym. I plodded on in a sort of sideways walk holding the front of the basket with my left hand and the handles with my right.
Negotiating one of those artistically arranged displays of biscuits which are placed at the ends of the aisles to add to our enjoyment of the shopping experience and to tempt us to either impulse buy or if not, to at least help us find the walk more challenging and to hone our skills.
Shopping has almost reached the stage where it could be classed as an extreme sport.
The second aisle became much harder as there were boxes being unpacked and the amount of space left for the shoppers to fit through was narrow. As I duck-walked down toward the young woman stocking the shelves she moved to allow me to pass which I did with quite a deal of skill but unfortunately as I avoided hitting her I swept the artful display of biscuits at the end off.
It took some time to pick up those which weren’t broken beyond use and replace them back onto the display.Stacking them neatly as far from the corner as possible.
Into number three isle, the basket was becoming heavier and making my progress very slow but there weren’t any shelves being stacked so I felt relieved to reach the end with only knocking three of four things from the children’s undies and socks display onto the floor.
A young mother very kindly came and helped me replace them.
Half way down the next isle the basket developed a problem with the other front wheel resulting in the development of an erratic swerving movement from right to left which almost flattened an old lady standing in a bewildered state as she pondered the large assortment of soups on sale. I missed her with what I considered a growing expertise but knocked an entire pyramid of oranges onto the floor, these quickly rolled in all directions between oncoming legs and under shelving. I swore loudly not caring who overheard me and turned to notice the young ‘shelf stocker’ now appeared to be stalking me closely as I wove my way toward the refrigeration section and its array of glass doors.
The sight of the doors terrified me so I stopped, picked up my handbag and left the trolley where it was and walked to pick up the frozen peas. I didn’t dare approach the gleaming glass with my demonic device.
By now I was becoming paranoid and was sure if I didn’t get out of the place the manager would storm from his office where he was probably watching me on a security video as I slowly demolished his store. He would accuse me of taking part in a T.V stunt of some kind and order me off the premises.
With as much care as I could and feeling my face burning with embarrassment I made my way to the checkout acutely aware the ‘shelf stocker’ was still watching my stumbling progress. I might have known my day had not finished because in my rush to leave, I dropped a dozen eggs on the floor. They made the most stunning mess of all and I still have splatters of uncooked omelette makers all over my suede shoes and best slacks.
If Kate our dog had been there she would have lapped them up with delight as she loves eggs but of course where are your dogs when you need them?
Other customers were finding their time in the queue more entertaining than the usual fixed gaze into space most people assume as they waited their turns at the checkout.
My lass cheerfully helped me clean the eggs up as a young man with a mop and bucket arrived. Both worked feverishly all the time assuring me it was all no trouble at all and not to worry about it as I fussed and fumed over the mess. I’m sure they were really winking and smiling over the dotty ‘old girl’ as I gave them yet another story to go home and tell people about the silly old ‘seniors’ they have to deal with every day.
Eventually I was out in the fresh air struggling up the incline of the parking area still duck-walking with one hand on the front and another on the handles and stopping suddenly as one wheel jammed swerving me left and the other took over the direction swerving me to the right and zigzagging like a drunken sailor I at last made it to the rear of the car.
Grimly hanging onto the handles I kicked the wheels into angles in an effort to stop the trolley from travelling down the slope and opened the boot to lift the bags of groceries out.
As I turned to place the last one into the boot, the trolley now lightened, slowly moved gaining speed down the incline and pirouetting on its jamming wheel toward an expensive late model car parked a few metres away.
I dropped the bag of groceries not caring in the least what broke as they fell and did a remarkably fast sprint grabbing it just before the metal gouged a line of paint from the side of the doors.
Breathing heavily after all my exertions I walked the trolley, now behaving beautifully because there was nothing in it, back to the ‘RETURN TROLLEYS HERE’ docking station.
As I did this I saw a little dog which was sitting quietly waiting for his owner to come back make some friendly overtures to a woman as she passed. She flicked her foot as if to kick it.
I walked my badly designed and ergonomically disastrous basket up to her as she was about to reach for one of her own and said with a friendly smile. ‘Here have mine; I think it is just right for you.’
She looked a little uncertain but unaware how I feel about people who kick dogs, pleased me very much when she took it mumbling ‘thanks’.
While I patted the little dog, I hoped the demon trolley would give her an even worse time.
During the drive home I resolved to visit a different supermarket for a while at least until my face may have faded from their memories a little or a few other unfortunates had used the same basket.
Being so exhausted after completing such an arduous obstacle course around the shop I decided if my G.P thought I was going to get more exercise he had another think coming.
Love From your thoroughly humiliated ‘flower child friend’
Cynthia. (C)
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Letter From The Other Side. From Cynthia
Written by Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Cynthia Discovers Philosophy Isn't Her Thing.
Dear Del,
What a very exciting time you had last week on your radio programme. You certainly have some unexpected occurrences. I quite envy the variety it brings to your life.
As I told you, a friend asked me to join the U3A Philosophy class. A range of emotions passed through me as I at first felt flattered she should think I would be suitable to join in what I assumed to be an intelligent, august, and deep thinking group of people.
She had never given me the impression she thought so highly of me or my intelligence in the past. As I contemplated further, it occurred to me I may have assumed the wrong reason for her invitation. Perhaps she was motivated to ask me because she actually felt I needed the association of people able to define life’s little problems and put some perspective into the turmoil of our world.
With some trepidation I accepted and arrived at my first class. Deliberately I made my way to a chair at the back in rather the same self conscious manner an unaccustomed churchgoer likes to sit in the rear pews near the doors. Thus allowing an easy escape route and there is less likelihood of people witnessing any gauche mistakes.
My misgivings were confirmed when I looked around for my friend, hoping she would sit beside me. Instead I saw her on the far side of the large room already surrounded by others she obviously knew well. My gloom increased as I became convinced she was trying to avoid me in case I embarrassed her in some way and surmised she was now probably wishing she hadn’t suggested my attendance.
‘Welcome to the meeting.’ The class tutor began.
There was a rustle of movement as people around me took out notebooks and pens and assumed serious faces and attitudes.
The teacher spoke for a while about a personage evidently of some historical importance and of whom I had never heard. While I was trying valiantly to catch the gist of what he was saying, a male voice from somewhere to my right interrupted his flow by calling loudly. ‘I can’t hear you; I have a hearing problem could I move forward?’
Others agreed with the speaker so the instructor suggested that everyone with hearing problems move forward.
For about fifteen minutes we seemed to be playing a type of musical chairs while those with a hearing difficulty moved forward and those with good hearing moved back exchanging little snippets of information about the pros and cons of various hearing aids.
I have excellent hearing so I stayed where I was.
The meeting resumed but not for long. This time a female voice complained loudly she suffered a ‘bad back’ and now she had shifted she had lost the use of the padded chair she customarily used.
There was another smaller version of musical chairs as the padded chair from a man with hearing difficulty went to the lady with the back problem.
Everyone settled again took up their notebooks and it was announced it was time for a cup of tea.
So far, I thought I hadn’t heard much philosophy but perhaps the class included physical activities such as shifting chairs with the philosophy which would come later.
Instead of trying to balance a cup of tea and start a conversation with people I didn’t know, I went to the corner table where there were a few books the class could borrow.
I hoped to find a book in plain English which would give me some basic guidelines of what and why we were there. More gloom as I read the uninspiring titles.
Eventually and unenthusiastically, I chose a book and asked the little lady in charge of them if she had read it.
‘Good Heavens no! Do you think I have time to read every book on the table?’ She replied crossly and glowered at me.
In normal circumstances I would have returned the rudeness in spades. I held my tongue, signed my name and returned to my seat smarting from her outburst. If her attitude was an indication of an older wiser result of the classes, I felt I might skip that part of my life and go straight to my second childhood.
When the rest of the class had finished their biscuits and drinks, the meeting continued without any further chair moving with the exception of an elderly gentleman wandering from his seat, passing right in front of the teacher as he was speaking and without a word leaving the class.
Shortly afterwards the meeting ended and I returned home no wiser than when I went in.
The following week everyone sat in the same chairs and the teacher resumed his discussion which touched on Darwin. At last a name I recognised!
However a man to my left said something which seemed quite reasonable to me but must have struck a raw nerve with another gentleman on my right.
An argument, well I suppose being a philosophy class I should call it a robust discussion, arose between the men. I must have looked a little alarmed as the woman to my right whispered one man was a Marxist and the other was a Creationist and their clashes were an ongoing feature of most meetings. Eventually our tutor regained his tenuous control of the class.
Although I understood very little of what he was saying I had by now realised he was a man of great patience, stamina and knowledge and felt it was something of a duty to try and stay for at least two more classes.
So rather than endeavour to catch up with a lifetime’s study in a few confusing lessons, I relaxed, sat back and became an observer.
There was uproar with everyone having something to say during one debate when a comment was perceived to be racist. I could not hear what started the furore and was unable to distinguish who was of what opinion, but as an onlooker it was quite entertaining.
Like a sudden tornado arrives out of the plains, another row blew up between the flat earth believer and a climate change exponent when for some reason Darwin was deplored once again.
The old man who leaves early walked in front of the teacher without apologizing and the meeting closed shortly after.
I returned home exhausted but still none the wiser.
The next meeting started well, our worthy instructor spoke about some American fellow he seemed to admire but who to me, just seemed a self important, narcissistic fool who treated his wife and family as his personal slaves and shared little of the money his self glorification brought to him. But what do I know? He must have been a great philosopher to be still spoken about in our times.
So once again we went home shortly after the man walked out in front of the teacher who very briefly, for the first time, glared at him.
The following week the selfish introspective American was still on the agenda. While I was wondering why his family put up with him and didn’t just leave him to starve, an old white haired man quietly slid down off his chair onto the floor in a faint.
Approximately ninety percent of the class leapt to their feet and stood, not to help, but just to look as he lay prone on the floor murmuring he was going to be sick.
Now, I know many people particularly men, find the odour of vomit offensive but after having brought up three children one of whom could regurgitate his food in a half digested state seemingly at will, I felt quite able to deal with the small amount the old man produced.
A few other women rushed to his aid. I grabbed a metal waste bin for him to be sick in and another woman rushed to the kitchen for some water.
The ambulance was called and we made him as comfortable as possible with the cushions from the chair of the woman with the ‘bad back’.
The old man walked in front of the concerned teacher as he watched his pupil being ministered to on the hard and slightly grubby floor. At last his patience gave way and he turned to ask the man why he left early and never ever had the manners to excuse himself?
The man shrugged his bent shoulders, mumbled a reply I couldn’t hear and left. The teacher shook his head slightly and sighed. It struck me as a sigh of great resignation from a very philosophical man.
When our sick gentleman had been removed by the ambulance, I regretfully bid farewell to the teacher telling him I found philosophy to be bad for my blood pressure and would probably join the garden club. I understand gardens and have to admit, I had at times been pondering that it seemed philosophically unfair of me to use a class of such seriously minded people intent on righting the world’s warped and disparate thinking as a form of amusement and high entertainment.
So that brings to an end my foray into philosophy Del. I think you will agree I’m just not cut out for it at all.
I’ll just keep mucking in the garden and struggle on through life without getting any wiser.
Love from your not very philosophical ‘flower child friend’,
Cynthia.
Written by Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Cynthia Discovers Philosophy Isn't Her Thing.
Dear Del,
What a very exciting time you had last week on your radio programme. You certainly have some unexpected occurrences. I quite envy the variety it brings to your life.
As I told you, a friend asked me to join the U3A Philosophy class. A range of emotions passed through me as I at first felt flattered she should think I would be suitable to join in what I assumed to be an intelligent, august, and deep thinking group of people.
She had never given me the impression she thought so highly of me or my intelligence in the past. As I contemplated further, it occurred to me I may have assumed the wrong reason for her invitation. Perhaps she was motivated to ask me because she actually felt I needed the association of people able to define life’s little problems and put some perspective into the turmoil of our world.
With some trepidation I accepted and arrived at my first class. Deliberately I made my way to a chair at the back in rather the same self conscious manner an unaccustomed churchgoer likes to sit in the rear pews near the doors. Thus allowing an easy escape route and there is less likelihood of people witnessing any gauche mistakes.
My misgivings were confirmed when I looked around for my friend, hoping she would sit beside me. Instead I saw her on the far side of the large room already surrounded by others she obviously knew well. My gloom increased as I became convinced she was trying to avoid me in case I embarrassed her in some way and surmised she was now probably wishing she hadn’t suggested my attendance.
‘Welcome to the meeting.’ The class tutor began.
There was a rustle of movement as people around me took out notebooks and pens and assumed serious faces and attitudes.
The teacher spoke for a while about a personage evidently of some historical importance and of whom I had never heard. While I was trying valiantly to catch the gist of what he was saying, a male voice from somewhere to my right interrupted his flow by calling loudly. ‘I can’t hear you; I have a hearing problem could I move forward?’
Others agreed with the speaker so the instructor suggested that everyone with hearing problems move forward.
For about fifteen minutes we seemed to be playing a type of musical chairs while those with a hearing difficulty moved forward and those with good hearing moved back exchanging little snippets of information about the pros and cons of various hearing aids.
I have excellent hearing so I stayed where I was.
The meeting resumed but not for long. This time a female voice complained loudly she suffered a ‘bad back’ and now she had shifted she had lost the use of the padded chair she customarily used.
There was another smaller version of musical chairs as the padded chair from a man with hearing difficulty went to the lady with the back problem.
Everyone settled again took up their notebooks and it was announced it was time for a cup of tea.
So far, I thought I hadn’t heard much philosophy but perhaps the class included physical activities such as shifting chairs with the philosophy which would come later.
Instead of trying to balance a cup of tea and start a conversation with people I didn’t know, I went to the corner table where there were a few books the class could borrow.
I hoped to find a book in plain English which would give me some basic guidelines of what and why we were there. More gloom as I read the uninspiring titles.
Eventually and unenthusiastically, I chose a book and asked the little lady in charge of them if she had read it.
‘Good Heavens no! Do you think I have time to read every book on the table?’ She replied crossly and glowered at me.
In normal circumstances I would have returned the rudeness in spades. I held my tongue, signed my name and returned to my seat smarting from her outburst. If her attitude was an indication of an older wiser result of the classes, I felt I might skip that part of my life and go straight to my second childhood.
When the rest of the class had finished their biscuits and drinks, the meeting continued without any further chair moving with the exception of an elderly gentleman wandering from his seat, passing right in front of the teacher as he was speaking and without a word leaving the class.
Shortly afterwards the meeting ended and I returned home no wiser than when I went in.
The following week everyone sat in the same chairs and the teacher resumed his discussion which touched on Darwin. At last a name I recognised!
However a man to my left said something which seemed quite reasonable to me but must have struck a raw nerve with another gentleman on my right.
An argument, well I suppose being a philosophy class I should call it a robust discussion, arose between the men. I must have looked a little alarmed as the woman to my right whispered one man was a Marxist and the other was a Creationist and their clashes were an ongoing feature of most meetings. Eventually our tutor regained his tenuous control of the class.
Although I understood very little of what he was saying I had by now realised he was a man of great patience, stamina and knowledge and felt it was something of a duty to try and stay for at least two more classes.
So rather than endeavour to catch up with a lifetime’s study in a few confusing lessons, I relaxed, sat back and became an observer.
There was uproar with everyone having something to say during one debate when a comment was perceived to be racist. I could not hear what started the furore and was unable to distinguish who was of what opinion, but as an onlooker it was quite entertaining.
Like a sudden tornado arrives out of the plains, another row blew up between the flat earth believer and a climate change exponent when for some reason Darwin was deplored once again.
The old man who leaves early walked in front of the teacher without apologizing and the meeting closed shortly after.
I returned home exhausted but still none the wiser.
The next meeting started well, our worthy instructor spoke about some American fellow he seemed to admire but who to me, just seemed a self important, narcissistic fool who treated his wife and family as his personal slaves and shared little of the money his self glorification brought to him. But what do I know? He must have been a great philosopher to be still spoken about in our times.
So once again we went home shortly after the man walked out in front of the teacher who very briefly, for the first time, glared at him.
The following week the selfish introspective American was still on the agenda. While I was wondering why his family put up with him and didn’t just leave him to starve, an old white haired man quietly slid down off his chair onto the floor in a faint.
Approximately ninety percent of the class leapt to their feet and stood, not to help, but just to look as he lay prone on the floor murmuring he was going to be sick.
Now, I know many people particularly men, find the odour of vomit offensive but after having brought up three children one of whom could regurgitate his food in a half digested state seemingly at will, I felt quite able to deal with the small amount the old man produced.
A few other women rushed to his aid. I grabbed a metal waste bin for him to be sick in and another woman rushed to the kitchen for some water.
The ambulance was called and we made him as comfortable as possible with the cushions from the chair of the woman with the ‘bad back’.
The old man walked in front of the concerned teacher as he watched his pupil being ministered to on the hard and slightly grubby floor. At last his patience gave way and he turned to ask the man why he left early and never ever had the manners to excuse himself?
The man shrugged his bent shoulders, mumbled a reply I couldn’t hear and left. The teacher shook his head slightly and sighed. It struck me as a sigh of great resignation from a very philosophical man.
When our sick gentleman had been removed by the ambulance, I regretfully bid farewell to the teacher telling him I found philosophy to be bad for my blood pressure and would probably join the garden club. I understand gardens and have to admit, I had at times been pondering that it seemed philosophically unfair of me to use a class of such seriously minded people intent on righting the world’s warped and disparate thinking as a form of amusement and high entertainment.
So that brings to an end my foray into philosophy Del. I think you will agree I’m just not cut out for it at all.
I’ll just keep mucking in the garden and struggle on through life without getting any wiser.
Love from your not very philosophical ‘flower child friend’,
Cynthia.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Letter From The Other Side, from Cynthia written by
Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Dear Del,
Here we are back in suburbia. No more vast undulating horizons beneath the vivid blue domed skies of the Mallee, just the motley assortment of roofs and a barren forest of spindly television aerials we can see from our windows.
We called in to see Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger to find all was not happy in their little Garden of Eden. In fact Aunt Alice was not speaking to Uncle Rodger and evidently at some point had threatened to leave him.
Now at their advanced ages and the tangled details of their residency at the village Uncle Rodger pointed out it could be quite difficult for her to go to such an extreme measure although he admitted reluctantly he had upset her.
Eventually once he had calmed down sufficiently to explain to us what had occurred we understood a little of her frustration.
At the retirement village some of the crafts people have a workshop. The men make little things to sell or give away such as wooden toys, planter pots and small tables and articles which can be handy.
Uncle Rodger had been working on staining a small decorative wheelbarrow planter and was feeling very pleased with the results. He wanted to show it to Aunty Alice. Because the stain was still wet, he walked across to their unit to ask her to come to the workshop to admire his handiwork. In his hurry he forgot to put his pot of wood stain down and carried it across with him.
Just as he entered the door he tripped, just a little trip, but sufficient to loosen his grip on the tin of wood stain. It fell, plopping on its base onto the floor and sprayed up and over, the chairs and couch, the coffee table and carpet and worst of all, the sideboard on which stood in pride of place, Aunt Alice’s mother’s silver tea service.
Aunty Alice called him a dolt, a useless article of a man and worst of all compared him unfavourably with her first husband,…… long dead many years ago although from recent remarks he must be polishing his newly acquired halo quite a lot.
She is such a tiny lady but her cutting tongue has brought many a brawny man or pompous woman down to garden gnome size. Although I know there have been words she has uttered in haste and which on reflection, I’m sure she wished to retract. However as yet she shows no signs of wanting to retract any of what she must have said to poor Uncle Rodger who does feel very badly about the mess.
Of course by the time we saw it the stain was well and truly dry and it was quite staggering how much of the room the muddy coloured fallout managed to reach.
Their insurance will cover some of the damage and Teddy tried to make Aunt Alice feel better by offering to repaint the walls in a colour she liked. But the damage to the silver service is beyond us. We shall take it to one of the older better jewellery stores which still know what they are talking about and not just filled with pretty sales people who can’t even open a watch to put in a new battery for you, and see what can be done.
We took them out for lunch and Teddy suffered through eating a ‘pensioner’s special’ of crumbed leather masquerading as chicken schnitzel and the inevitable vitamin depleted watery vegetables. We think by the time we took them home they were feeling a trifle better about things and had begun to see some benefits in having the room repainted and new chairs and couch
Teddy has also been taking an inordinate amount of interest in motors which he thinks may be suitable for hovercrafts this week. I don’t know what will be emerging from his shed in the future but one of his ideas for a solar heater he invented for our last house has been written up in a glossy ‘renewable energy’ magazine. His enthusiasm levels are extremely high. I’m never sure if that is a good or bad thing but after all these years I’m used to expecting something interesting. Just so long as he doesn’t expect me to understand and listen to all the tedious details of just ‘how’ and ‘why’ they do what they do. My mind gets lost very quickly in the fog of mechanical and dimensional figures he seems to be capable of remembering.
The dogs met us with glee and much barking laced with the special reserve they always display when we have had the cheek to leave them at home to be cared for by William or Monica, both of whom spoil them as much as we do.
The reminders for their annual canine inoculation injections were among the pile of mail we picked up and I made their appointments with the usual trepidation.
Kate our R.S.P.C.A princess, is a cross breed. We have had her since we were on the farm and we think her original cruel owner bred her for hunting. It took us two years before she stopped cowering with fear each time we came home after being out even for a short time. She must have been beaten regularly. Fortunately she had the company of an old happy well adjusted Cavalier King Charles by the name of Leicester at the time who gradually helped give her the confidence to greet us without expecting to be hit.
She is however an excellent hunter and used her talents many times over the years to catch snakes, bush rats, mice and to keep the neighbour’s cat stuck up our elm tree overnight once or twice.
She definitely has some German Shepherd in her and we think some Basenji, although it wouldn’t surprise me if it was actually part Dingo. Teddy has remarked he thinks her teeth would look at home in the mouth of a White Pointer shark and the vets who have been brave enough to deal with her over the years have had occasion to agree with him.
She has never adapted to living in the suburbs very well and can still on occasion think any small white dog is ‘lunch’ on legs. It made taking her for walks very stressful until we found good open parklands where we could quickly dash off onto wide detours around any approaching ‘lunches’
After Leicester died we brought Walter home aged eight weeks. He became Kate’s puppy and she adopted him with love and showed far more patience with his antics than we could ever have dreamt of her doing.
He is a pure bred bumptious, bumbling mischievous young black Cocker Spaniel. Like most spaniels he likes to give the appearance of being a bit dumb as this allows him to get away with things like dipping his ears in your coffee and shaking it over the furniture, because you, the owner, thinks he just doesn’t understand. After having five spaniels over the years, we know they are not at all dumb just very stubborn and quite hard to train.
The day of the appointment arrived and we put the dogs in the back of the station-wagon. While driving to the vets they must have had a conversation and cooked up a scheme to confuse we humans and give the outing even more entertainment than a visit to the vets usually held in store for all of us.
Because she remembered the chaos of our last annual visit when Kate had spied a guinea pig and thought it had no right to live, we waited in the car for the veterinary nurse to tell us we could go in.
The dogs knew exactly where they were and refused absolutely to get out of the station wagon no matter how nicely we asked.
Teddy lost patience and lifted them out. He held Kate’s lead, I held Walters’ as he is much easier …usually.
We dragged, pushed and pleaded with them to go through the doors as other owners with their obedient dogs sitting smugly at their feet, watched with undisguised amusement at what must have seemed to them our inept ability to train our pooches.
Harry the vet put a muzzle on Kate and she glared at him, her long fine legs and body quivered in disdain.
I quivered nervously wondering just when she would make her move and show him her marvellous teeth.
Teddy lifted her onto the examination table and to our delight she stood still for the examination almost until the end when a quiet growl at Harry indicated she thought he was becoming far too probing in intimate areas for her comfort.
He pronounced her fit and well, slipped the inoculation into her neck area quickly and she was lifted down from the table with much sighing and feelings of relief from us all. Once her muzzle was removed she even deigned to eat a liver chip.
Teddy walked her out to the car noting how she sashayed her backside provocatively at a slobbering Boxer she had noticed appreciating her elegance with interest.
Walter up to this point had watched the process from his position on the floor without moving. He now refused to be helpful in any way. Our usually friendly, well to be frank, over friendly thirty kilo fellow, became a limp heavy bag of dog meat I couldn’t lift up onto the examination bench.
Harry walked around the table to pick him up and stopped before he bent down, saying ‘That is a most unfriendly stare.’
I looked down at Walter to see he was now sitting upright, his body rigid and his dark eyes glaring at Harry. Never in his two years of life have I seen him take up such a threatening posture.
Harry produced the muzzle once more. Once he was sure it was done up he lifted Walter onto the table. He never took his eyes from Harry’s face and turned on the table to watch his every move pirouetting quickly if he moved behind him and growling quietly.
It took all my strength to hold him still for his examination. I talked to him telling him he was a ‘good boy’ and saying all the things he liked to hear even though at the time none of them were true. He chose this moment to pee the litre of urine he must have been holding onto for just this occasion over the table where it spread slowly to the edges to run down onto the floor splashing my shoes and I guessed Harry’s as well. The rest he paddled in spreading it even further across the surface.
Pleased with our reactions as we tried to get our feet out of the dripping stream, he swept his bushy tail through the rest and plastered it onto our clothes and faces.
As out attention was diverted, this was the moment he chose to lunge at Harry trying to bite him through the muzzle. When that didn’t work, he sat in the mess looked up at the ceiling and in the style of the leader of any pack of wild dogs, howled at the top of his lungs.
I now suspect this was to call Kate back into the examination room to give him some aid.
Instead Teddy returned just as the inoculations were put into Walter’s neck by a wet and frustrated Harry and just as the stench from Walter’s anal glands filled the room.
Our embarrassment was complete. We knew Harry would have to clean himself as well as the room down before he could see any more of the waiting patients.
At last Walter was lifted down and offered a token peace-offering of a liver treat.
Now as I said, he is a spaniel and anyone owning one will know they will usually eat anything put in front of them or anyone else if given the chance, their gluttony is legendary. Walter loves liver chips but not on this day. No! To complete his Jekyll and Hyde act for the day, he crunched it once and spat the rest out onto the floor amongst the urine he had already spread across the tiles.
Teddy took him out to the car while I sheepishly paid the bill thinking I should offer some sort of peace offering to Harry for Walter’s behaviour but I was too ashamed to speak and dared not meet the eyes of the mother of a young child who I think voiced the thoughts of everyone in the waiting room. ‘They were naughty dogs weren’t they Mummy? Ruffy would never do that would he Mummy?’
I gritted my teeth as I paid the vet nurse all the time thinking that saintly Ruffy would probably be the small white variety which make Kate think of a light tasty lunch..
By the time I returned to the car both dogs were playing happily in the back of the wagon and I stank as much as they did. Our clothes which often have a light dusting of dog hair were by now covered with almost as much fur as the dogs as it stuck in clumps to the urine soaked patches.
I suspect ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ are still sniggering out in our backyard. My only source of solace is to know that the mobile dog-wash lady is coming to-morrow. If she catches sight of our clothes she may offer to put us through with the dogs.
Unfortunately Del, I haven’t told you about the philosophy class today, all I will say is that it appears not to have been of much benefit to me as yet, I’ll know more when I write to you next.
I need to go and rearrange some of the dust in the house as well as having to do a rather large load of smelly, hairy washing.
Love for now from your ‘furry flower-child friend’
Cynthia.
Elizabeth. M. Thompson.
Dear Del,
Here we are back in suburbia. No more vast undulating horizons beneath the vivid blue domed skies of the Mallee, just the motley assortment of roofs and a barren forest of spindly television aerials we can see from our windows.
We called in to see Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger to find all was not happy in their little Garden of Eden. In fact Aunt Alice was not speaking to Uncle Rodger and evidently at some point had threatened to leave him.
Now at their advanced ages and the tangled details of their residency at the village Uncle Rodger pointed out it could be quite difficult for her to go to such an extreme measure although he admitted reluctantly he had upset her.
Eventually once he had calmed down sufficiently to explain to us what had occurred we understood a little of her frustration.
At the retirement village some of the crafts people have a workshop. The men make little things to sell or give away such as wooden toys, planter pots and small tables and articles which can be handy.
Uncle Rodger had been working on staining a small decorative wheelbarrow planter and was feeling very pleased with the results. He wanted to show it to Aunty Alice. Because the stain was still wet, he walked across to their unit to ask her to come to the workshop to admire his handiwork. In his hurry he forgot to put his pot of wood stain down and carried it across with him.
Just as he entered the door he tripped, just a little trip, but sufficient to loosen his grip on the tin of wood stain. It fell, plopping on its base onto the floor and sprayed up and over, the chairs and couch, the coffee table and carpet and worst of all, the sideboard on which stood in pride of place, Aunt Alice’s mother’s silver tea service.
Aunty Alice called him a dolt, a useless article of a man and worst of all compared him unfavourably with her first husband,…… long dead many years ago although from recent remarks he must be polishing his newly acquired halo quite a lot.
She is such a tiny lady but her cutting tongue has brought many a brawny man or pompous woman down to garden gnome size. Although I know there have been words she has uttered in haste and which on reflection, I’m sure she wished to retract. However as yet she shows no signs of wanting to retract any of what she must have said to poor Uncle Rodger who does feel very badly about the mess.
Of course by the time we saw it the stain was well and truly dry and it was quite staggering how much of the room the muddy coloured fallout managed to reach.
Their insurance will cover some of the damage and Teddy tried to make Aunt Alice feel better by offering to repaint the walls in a colour she liked. But the damage to the silver service is beyond us. We shall take it to one of the older better jewellery stores which still know what they are talking about and not just filled with pretty sales people who can’t even open a watch to put in a new battery for you, and see what can be done.
We took them out for lunch and Teddy suffered through eating a ‘pensioner’s special’ of crumbed leather masquerading as chicken schnitzel and the inevitable vitamin depleted watery vegetables. We think by the time we took them home they were feeling a trifle better about things and had begun to see some benefits in having the room repainted and new chairs and couch
Teddy has also been taking an inordinate amount of interest in motors which he thinks may be suitable for hovercrafts this week. I don’t know what will be emerging from his shed in the future but one of his ideas for a solar heater he invented for our last house has been written up in a glossy ‘renewable energy’ magazine. His enthusiasm levels are extremely high. I’m never sure if that is a good or bad thing but after all these years I’m used to expecting something interesting. Just so long as he doesn’t expect me to understand and listen to all the tedious details of just ‘how’ and ‘why’ they do what they do. My mind gets lost very quickly in the fog of mechanical and dimensional figures he seems to be capable of remembering.
The dogs met us with glee and much barking laced with the special reserve they always display when we have had the cheek to leave them at home to be cared for by William or Monica, both of whom spoil them as much as we do.
The reminders for their annual canine inoculation injections were among the pile of mail we picked up and I made their appointments with the usual trepidation.
Kate our R.S.P.C.A princess, is a cross breed. We have had her since we were on the farm and we think her original cruel owner bred her for hunting. It took us two years before she stopped cowering with fear each time we came home after being out even for a short time. She must have been beaten regularly. Fortunately she had the company of an old happy well adjusted Cavalier King Charles by the name of Leicester at the time who gradually helped give her the confidence to greet us without expecting to be hit.
She is however an excellent hunter and used her talents many times over the years to catch snakes, bush rats, mice and to keep the neighbour’s cat stuck up our elm tree overnight once or twice.
She definitely has some German Shepherd in her and we think some Basenji, although it wouldn’t surprise me if it was actually part Dingo. Teddy has remarked he thinks her teeth would look at home in the mouth of a White Pointer shark and the vets who have been brave enough to deal with her over the years have had occasion to agree with him.
She has never adapted to living in the suburbs very well and can still on occasion think any small white dog is ‘lunch’ on legs. It made taking her for walks very stressful until we found good open parklands where we could quickly dash off onto wide detours around any approaching ‘lunches’
After Leicester died we brought Walter home aged eight weeks. He became Kate’s puppy and she adopted him with love and showed far more patience with his antics than we could ever have dreamt of her doing.
He is a pure bred bumptious, bumbling mischievous young black Cocker Spaniel. Like most spaniels he likes to give the appearance of being a bit dumb as this allows him to get away with things like dipping his ears in your coffee and shaking it over the furniture, because you, the owner, thinks he just doesn’t understand. After having five spaniels over the years, we know they are not at all dumb just very stubborn and quite hard to train.
The day of the appointment arrived and we put the dogs in the back of the station-wagon. While driving to the vets they must have had a conversation and cooked up a scheme to confuse we humans and give the outing even more entertainment than a visit to the vets usually held in store for all of us.
Because she remembered the chaos of our last annual visit when Kate had spied a guinea pig and thought it had no right to live, we waited in the car for the veterinary nurse to tell us we could go in.
The dogs knew exactly where they were and refused absolutely to get out of the station wagon no matter how nicely we asked.
Teddy lost patience and lifted them out. He held Kate’s lead, I held Walters’ as he is much easier …usually.
We dragged, pushed and pleaded with them to go through the doors as other owners with their obedient dogs sitting smugly at their feet, watched with undisguised amusement at what must have seemed to them our inept ability to train our pooches.
Harry the vet put a muzzle on Kate and she glared at him, her long fine legs and body quivered in disdain.
I quivered nervously wondering just when she would make her move and show him her marvellous teeth.
Teddy lifted her onto the examination table and to our delight she stood still for the examination almost until the end when a quiet growl at Harry indicated she thought he was becoming far too probing in intimate areas for her comfort.
He pronounced her fit and well, slipped the inoculation into her neck area quickly and she was lifted down from the table with much sighing and feelings of relief from us all. Once her muzzle was removed she even deigned to eat a liver chip.
Teddy walked her out to the car noting how she sashayed her backside provocatively at a slobbering Boxer she had noticed appreciating her elegance with interest.
Walter up to this point had watched the process from his position on the floor without moving. He now refused to be helpful in any way. Our usually friendly, well to be frank, over friendly thirty kilo fellow, became a limp heavy bag of dog meat I couldn’t lift up onto the examination bench.
Harry walked around the table to pick him up and stopped before he bent down, saying ‘That is a most unfriendly stare.’
I looked down at Walter to see he was now sitting upright, his body rigid and his dark eyes glaring at Harry. Never in his two years of life have I seen him take up such a threatening posture.
Harry produced the muzzle once more. Once he was sure it was done up he lifted Walter onto the table. He never took his eyes from Harry’s face and turned on the table to watch his every move pirouetting quickly if he moved behind him and growling quietly.
It took all my strength to hold him still for his examination. I talked to him telling him he was a ‘good boy’ and saying all the things he liked to hear even though at the time none of them were true. He chose this moment to pee the litre of urine he must have been holding onto for just this occasion over the table where it spread slowly to the edges to run down onto the floor splashing my shoes and I guessed Harry’s as well. The rest he paddled in spreading it even further across the surface.
Pleased with our reactions as we tried to get our feet out of the dripping stream, he swept his bushy tail through the rest and plastered it onto our clothes and faces.
As out attention was diverted, this was the moment he chose to lunge at Harry trying to bite him through the muzzle. When that didn’t work, he sat in the mess looked up at the ceiling and in the style of the leader of any pack of wild dogs, howled at the top of his lungs.
I now suspect this was to call Kate back into the examination room to give him some aid.
Instead Teddy returned just as the inoculations were put into Walter’s neck by a wet and frustrated Harry and just as the stench from Walter’s anal glands filled the room.
Our embarrassment was complete. We knew Harry would have to clean himself as well as the room down before he could see any more of the waiting patients.
At last Walter was lifted down and offered a token peace-offering of a liver treat.
Now as I said, he is a spaniel and anyone owning one will know they will usually eat anything put in front of them or anyone else if given the chance, their gluttony is legendary. Walter loves liver chips but not on this day. No! To complete his Jekyll and Hyde act for the day, he crunched it once and spat the rest out onto the floor amongst the urine he had already spread across the tiles.
Teddy took him out to the car while I sheepishly paid the bill thinking I should offer some sort of peace offering to Harry for Walter’s behaviour but I was too ashamed to speak and dared not meet the eyes of the mother of a young child who I think voiced the thoughts of everyone in the waiting room. ‘They were naughty dogs weren’t they Mummy? Ruffy would never do that would he Mummy?’
I gritted my teeth as I paid the vet nurse all the time thinking that saintly Ruffy would probably be the small white variety which make Kate think of a light tasty lunch..
By the time I returned to the car both dogs were playing happily in the back of the wagon and I stank as much as they did. Our clothes which often have a light dusting of dog hair were by now covered with almost as much fur as the dogs as it stuck in clumps to the urine soaked patches.
I suspect ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ are still sniggering out in our backyard. My only source of solace is to know that the mobile dog-wash lady is coming to-morrow. If she catches sight of our clothes she may offer to put us through with the dogs.
Unfortunately Del, I haven’t told you about the philosophy class today, all I will say is that it appears not to have been of much benefit to me as yet, I’ll know more when I write to you next.
I need to go and rearrange some of the dust in the house as well as having to do a rather large load of smelly, hairy washing.
Love for now from your ‘furry flower-child friend’
Cynthia.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Letters From The Other Side. From Cynthia.
Written by, Elizabeth .M. Thompson.
Teddy and Jim confront a few stinging problems.
Dear Del,
The Pepper Tree I’m sitting beneath was growing here when we owned this land back in the 1970’s. The boys used to play in its branches and shade pretending to be various heroes, making up games or jumping on the entrances of the Bull-ants nests to see how many they could get to come pouring out in defence of their home.
A soft pungent smell and the fine lacy leaves with their strings of delicately coloured pink berries belie the stoic nature of this lovely species we see dotted around the farms.
Nearby, the old tractor which also formed part of the children’s playthings is still quietly rusting away. The enormously heavy steel wheels blister and flake slowly in this dry air. Even the grilled metal seat and steering wheel remain in place. A myriad of insects crawl in and out of crevices and holes around the remaining engine parts content in such a safe weatherproof home in which they must have been breeding without disturbance for almost a century.
I wonder who it was who purchased it so long ago and brought it home bursting with pride to show his family and neighbours. How they must have marvelled at its power and ability to replace the team of horses which had previously pulled the ploughs and tilling machines.
What dreams and plans he would have enjoyed and what depths of despair must have followed when drought and fierce dust storms ripped out his crops and blew them away.
I wonder if it may have been illness, or war or falling markets which eventually forced him to pack up his family and belongings to walk away from his dreams leaving his beloved tractor as his only memorial. I wish it could speak to me of the past.
There I go becoming all maudlin again; my imagination getting the better of me as I worry about someone I never knew. Maybe the poor man just became fed up and decided to join a circus or married an heiress or better still, he may have inherited a pile of money and moved to another richer area. Let’s hope so.
This has been a week when someone with more knowledge of entomology than we possess would have been very helpful.
I’m not sure if you remember Del, but Teddy has until we moved to the coast, always kept a beehive just to supply ourselves and the family with honey and to help pollinate our orchards.
Many families in this area, because they have largely intermarried quite a bit over the years, have inherited acute reactions to bee stings. So if a hive swarmed in an inconvenient place, which they have a habit of doing when there are not many large trees around, people would call on Teddy to remove them. Sometimes, the bees choose places like tractor tyre hubs, chimneys, veranda posts and beams, unused barbeques, the tray of a parked utility truck or even the branch of a shrub which is just outside someone’s door.
Usually during swarming time, they are quite quiet and easy to handle so Teddy would come with a Super, as the boxes that bees are housed in are called, and he would collect the hive and take it back to our place to be added to ours or to be destroyed. People have to have a licence to keep bees and the number of hives a person can keep is strictly governed.
Jim had just such a swarm not far from his machinery shed door, so they left a box nearby with something tempting in it to attract the swarm’s attention and in a little while, the docile group obligingly settled in the box.
That evening it was very still, quiet and moonlight so the two men feeling very pleased with the easy collection of the hive from the machinery shed, decided to carry it up to the dam where they could be left to do what they wanted without causing any problems.
Bees unlike humans stay in at night, so the men wearing only protective gloves, carried the box carefully up the track to the dam. The night was so still we could hear their voices very clearly as they chatted and walked.
Jim must have inadvertently lifted the box up a little from the base as they are not usually attached and a few bees crawled out. Not happy at being out in the dark and the chilly air away from their mates, unbeknown to Jim they crawled up his sleeves.
The “Ouches, OH!” and “Bloody Hells.” carried clearly down to where we women sat. We raised our eyebrows at one another, smirked in the way the female of the species does when we know our men have made yet another mistake, and went indoors for soothing creams and tweezers for removing the stings.
Fortunately Jim’s reactions were pretty slight, so feeling emboldened by his bravery and wishing to use Teddy’s help, he suggested they tackle a problem he had with a shearers hut in a paddock a couple of kilometres away.
Evidently the man who reads the electricity supply meter was refusing to go within cooee of the shearers hut because he claimed the bees were too bad. Jim said he thought it seemed to be a pretty big hive and didn’t think he could tackle it on his own. Teddy offered his help, of course!
The next phase of bee removal swung into action the following day.
The two men dressed themselves in an assorted mixture of protective gear, gloves, hats with netting over them down to their shoulders and necks and arms covered carefully, overalls tucked into socks and a couple of plastic fire fighting jackets which they thought would not be attractive to the insects. Teddy knew some smells can really upset bees but wasn’t sure which ones. They hoped the plastic coating would be too slippery for them to bother settling on for too long.
We women stood about making clever remarks and giving advice which of course is part of our function as loving wives. To be direct and remark we thought they were making a mistake or would regret going off in the truck looking as if they were about to set off to raid a lost ark or two, we thought we would save until we were proven right…once again.
Teddy admitted later, that from the moment they arrived at the shack they both realized the job would prove challenging, as our esteemed politicians are apt to say when they really mean impossible.
It was obvious these aggressive squatters had taken up far more of the shack than just the meter box. They were now in possession of an entire wall having found places to get in between the wooden weatherboards and the plaster walls.
The men sat in the security of the utility cabin discussing strategy and assault plans on the hive which from its vigorous behaviour, showed they were not in the mood to invite visitors into their home and would repel any attempts to share any honey for scones later that day.
The fellows rather nervously opened the ute’ doors and stepped outside, closing the doors quietly. Bees sometimes don’t like sudden noises or movements; it would certainly attract any of the scouts which act as guard dogs for the hive.
Once more they carefully checked one another’s apparel for any cracks in their defences.
Fortunately they had two smoke guns but obviously because it was so large, the smoke guns would be more for personal and moral support than have any chance of quietening down the entire hive.
Teddy said he hadn’t ever seen a hive like this. The bees were very dark in colour and obviously very alert because the first scouts began a frenzied sound letting the rest of the hive know they detected intruders.
The assault began.
Teddy said the cracking as they hit against his hat sounded like handfuls of pebbles being hurled at his head.
Involuntarily Jim moved his hand defensively against them and the bees began a frenzied attack as more and more of them poured out of the crevices of the building and hurled themselves against the hard plastic fire coats the men wore. The noise grew as the constant pebbling sounds increased and the humming inside the walls of the shack rose in volume as the rest of the swarm became increasingly excited. The humming built to such a crescendo the men were gasping and feeling trapped inside the defences they wore which by now, felt incredibly flimsy.
‘Bloody Hell, I’m out of here!!!’ Jim yelled.
‘Me too.’ Teddy agreed thankfully.
It was at this moment, they realized they had a dilemma. They couldn’t get back into the cabin of the truck. They would be followed by the bees and by this time their hats, shoulders and legs were becoming covered with the frantically angry creatures trying to sting them through even the thick gloves they wore.
Teddy too afraid to open his mouth muttered through clenched teeth something about seeing an Alfred Hitchcock movie with a similar scenario. Both men with the same thought, turned and took off back along the track at a greater speed than they had run for decades. The utility could stay where it was.
Stopping for breath, they used their smoke guns to gradually deter determined individuals clinging to various areas of their clothing. Looking back up the track they could still see the ominously dark cloud of excited bees still swarming dementedly in enormous numbers around the shack.
This is where in my imagination I pictured the victorious insects cheering, however bees do such a thing, and poking their proboscises out, all the while giving one winged gestures of rude defiance toward out departing husbands.
Still puffing and shaken, the men walked home, occasionally stopping to smoke a tenacious tenant intent on having its revenge from their clothes.
Once they arrived back at the farmhouse, it was obvious to us they had been very frightened and so being the caring wives we are, we left saying anything unsympathetic until the following day.
Both men had a few stings. Teddy sported a couple on his left wrist where they had somehow crawled in under a glove and his wrist was fat very swollen and stiff.
Jim’s left cheek must have been stung at least twice as the weight of the bombarding insects allowed them near enough to settle and sting. He looks very lopsided today and is eating and chewing very carefully and slowly and peering at us rather malevolently at times from beneath a very fat eyelid.
Smiling at some of Margaret’s very humorous asides has, for one reason or another also seems to have been a problem.
Teddy’s wrist is still swollen but the worst of the pain has gone and it is at the very itchy stage as the sting venom gradually disperses. Their language about the squatters in the shearers shed is graphic and quite unrepeatable, but it is clear Jim will have to buy a couple of relocatable homes for his shearers this year.
That evening after the bees having repelled the two mighty invaders and gone to bed satisfied with their days work, we drove the men back to retrieve the truck.
Jim is now considering his list of options for the shack’s future and it appears to be a short list which includes, an expensive payment to a professional company of pest exterminators which, by the time they travel all the way here, would cost Jim more than the shack is worth, or a lighted stick of gelignite, or a Molotov cocktail, after the fire restrictions are over for the summer of course.
It is as well Margaret and I didn’t say all the very clever and tediously superior things we had thought of while we tended to our husbands because the following day Margaret needed something from the cupboard in which she keeps her preserves.
‘Cynthia, quickly, fetch the spray.’ She yelled from the hallway. I grabbed the nearest pest spray and ran to her aid thinking she had a spider in her cupboard. She harbours a deep dislike toward them.
Instead of the spider I expected, her cupboard was a seething black mass of ants running over, around and across every shelf, bottle and jar of her preserves. Fortunately the jars and bottles were all sealed and the contents safe but it was obvious she had a complete and very sexually potent queen who had been enlarging the nest at a great rate.
Our meal was forgotten as it took us two hours to remove the jars, wipe them down, all the while trying to stop the little blighters running up our arms, and make sure the entire cupboard shelving was clean. At the same time we needed to keep killing the escapees trying to get away to other parts of the house.
They were only a small breed but they could run exceptionally fast. I suppose having six legs helps.
Eventually we found the nest and when we thought about it later, they couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place. It was in the top of a coffee making machine Margaret hadn’t used in a couple of years and will probably never use again in case she embarrasses herself by serving crunchy coffee with dead ants floating on top.
When we lived here we didn’t ever have much television because the reception signals were very unpredictable and affected by distance and weather conditions. They hardly need it now really because there are very few dull moments.
We leave for home to-morrow, I would love to turn left and keep going across to the mountains to our last home but we won’t, that is another part of our past. Probably if we did, we would find they having problems at children’s birthday parties and outdoor events because of a European wasp plague.
It’s been great fun and I hope we don’t have anything more than a few silver fish and earwigs to deal with for while. Still, even down near the coast, the insects are a hardy and prolific lot.
We shall have to visit Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger to make sure they are not feeling neglected and I have been asked if I would like to join a philosophy class.
I’m not sure I would be able to add much to such an august and seriously earnest gathering, but it may be interesting to go and see for myself.
The friend who asked me if I would be interested has been going for many years and enjoys it immensely, although she does seem to be getting very short tempered these past few months. However, on the whole I would think people who join such groups must be calm, introspective and easy to get along with. What do you think?
Perhaps, some of the calm will rub off on your old ‘flower child friend’
Until then,
Love from Cynthia. ©
Written by, Elizabeth .M. Thompson.
Teddy and Jim confront a few stinging problems.
Dear Del,
The Pepper Tree I’m sitting beneath was growing here when we owned this land back in the 1970’s. The boys used to play in its branches and shade pretending to be various heroes, making up games or jumping on the entrances of the Bull-ants nests to see how many they could get to come pouring out in defence of their home.
A soft pungent smell and the fine lacy leaves with their strings of delicately coloured pink berries belie the stoic nature of this lovely species we see dotted around the farms.
Nearby, the old tractor which also formed part of the children’s playthings is still quietly rusting away. The enormously heavy steel wheels blister and flake slowly in this dry air. Even the grilled metal seat and steering wheel remain in place. A myriad of insects crawl in and out of crevices and holes around the remaining engine parts content in such a safe weatherproof home in which they must have been breeding without disturbance for almost a century.
I wonder who it was who purchased it so long ago and brought it home bursting with pride to show his family and neighbours. How they must have marvelled at its power and ability to replace the team of horses which had previously pulled the ploughs and tilling machines.
What dreams and plans he would have enjoyed and what depths of despair must have followed when drought and fierce dust storms ripped out his crops and blew them away.
I wonder if it may have been illness, or war or falling markets which eventually forced him to pack up his family and belongings to walk away from his dreams leaving his beloved tractor as his only memorial. I wish it could speak to me of the past.
There I go becoming all maudlin again; my imagination getting the better of me as I worry about someone I never knew. Maybe the poor man just became fed up and decided to join a circus or married an heiress or better still, he may have inherited a pile of money and moved to another richer area. Let’s hope so.
This has been a week when someone with more knowledge of entomology than we possess would have been very helpful.
I’m not sure if you remember Del, but Teddy has until we moved to the coast, always kept a beehive just to supply ourselves and the family with honey and to help pollinate our orchards.
Many families in this area, because they have largely intermarried quite a bit over the years, have inherited acute reactions to bee stings. So if a hive swarmed in an inconvenient place, which they have a habit of doing when there are not many large trees around, people would call on Teddy to remove them. Sometimes, the bees choose places like tractor tyre hubs, chimneys, veranda posts and beams, unused barbeques, the tray of a parked utility truck or even the branch of a shrub which is just outside someone’s door.
Usually during swarming time, they are quite quiet and easy to handle so Teddy would come with a Super, as the boxes that bees are housed in are called, and he would collect the hive and take it back to our place to be added to ours or to be destroyed. People have to have a licence to keep bees and the number of hives a person can keep is strictly governed.
Jim had just such a swarm not far from his machinery shed door, so they left a box nearby with something tempting in it to attract the swarm’s attention and in a little while, the docile group obligingly settled in the box.
That evening it was very still, quiet and moonlight so the two men feeling very pleased with the easy collection of the hive from the machinery shed, decided to carry it up to the dam where they could be left to do what they wanted without causing any problems.
Bees unlike humans stay in at night, so the men wearing only protective gloves, carried the box carefully up the track to the dam. The night was so still we could hear their voices very clearly as they chatted and walked.
Jim must have inadvertently lifted the box up a little from the base as they are not usually attached and a few bees crawled out. Not happy at being out in the dark and the chilly air away from their mates, unbeknown to Jim they crawled up his sleeves.
The “Ouches, OH!” and “Bloody Hells.” carried clearly down to where we women sat. We raised our eyebrows at one another, smirked in the way the female of the species does when we know our men have made yet another mistake, and went indoors for soothing creams and tweezers for removing the stings.
Fortunately Jim’s reactions were pretty slight, so feeling emboldened by his bravery and wishing to use Teddy’s help, he suggested they tackle a problem he had with a shearers hut in a paddock a couple of kilometres away.
Evidently the man who reads the electricity supply meter was refusing to go within cooee of the shearers hut because he claimed the bees were too bad. Jim said he thought it seemed to be a pretty big hive and didn’t think he could tackle it on his own. Teddy offered his help, of course!
The next phase of bee removal swung into action the following day.
The two men dressed themselves in an assorted mixture of protective gear, gloves, hats with netting over them down to their shoulders and necks and arms covered carefully, overalls tucked into socks and a couple of plastic fire fighting jackets which they thought would not be attractive to the insects. Teddy knew some smells can really upset bees but wasn’t sure which ones. They hoped the plastic coating would be too slippery for them to bother settling on for too long.
We women stood about making clever remarks and giving advice which of course is part of our function as loving wives. To be direct and remark we thought they were making a mistake or would regret going off in the truck looking as if they were about to set off to raid a lost ark or two, we thought we would save until we were proven right…once again.
Teddy admitted later, that from the moment they arrived at the shack they both realized the job would prove challenging, as our esteemed politicians are apt to say when they really mean impossible.
It was obvious these aggressive squatters had taken up far more of the shack than just the meter box. They were now in possession of an entire wall having found places to get in between the wooden weatherboards and the plaster walls.
The men sat in the security of the utility cabin discussing strategy and assault plans on the hive which from its vigorous behaviour, showed they were not in the mood to invite visitors into their home and would repel any attempts to share any honey for scones later that day.
The fellows rather nervously opened the ute’ doors and stepped outside, closing the doors quietly. Bees sometimes don’t like sudden noises or movements; it would certainly attract any of the scouts which act as guard dogs for the hive.
Once more they carefully checked one another’s apparel for any cracks in their defences.
Fortunately they had two smoke guns but obviously because it was so large, the smoke guns would be more for personal and moral support than have any chance of quietening down the entire hive.
Teddy said he hadn’t ever seen a hive like this. The bees were very dark in colour and obviously very alert because the first scouts began a frenzied sound letting the rest of the hive know they detected intruders.
The assault began.
Teddy said the cracking as they hit against his hat sounded like handfuls of pebbles being hurled at his head.
Involuntarily Jim moved his hand defensively against them and the bees began a frenzied attack as more and more of them poured out of the crevices of the building and hurled themselves against the hard plastic fire coats the men wore. The noise grew as the constant pebbling sounds increased and the humming inside the walls of the shack rose in volume as the rest of the swarm became increasingly excited. The humming built to such a crescendo the men were gasping and feeling trapped inside the defences they wore which by now, felt incredibly flimsy.
‘Bloody Hell, I’m out of here!!!’ Jim yelled.
‘Me too.’ Teddy agreed thankfully.
It was at this moment, they realized they had a dilemma. They couldn’t get back into the cabin of the truck. They would be followed by the bees and by this time their hats, shoulders and legs were becoming covered with the frantically angry creatures trying to sting them through even the thick gloves they wore.
Teddy too afraid to open his mouth muttered through clenched teeth something about seeing an Alfred Hitchcock movie with a similar scenario. Both men with the same thought, turned and took off back along the track at a greater speed than they had run for decades. The utility could stay where it was.
Stopping for breath, they used their smoke guns to gradually deter determined individuals clinging to various areas of their clothing. Looking back up the track they could still see the ominously dark cloud of excited bees still swarming dementedly in enormous numbers around the shack.
This is where in my imagination I pictured the victorious insects cheering, however bees do such a thing, and poking their proboscises out, all the while giving one winged gestures of rude defiance toward out departing husbands.
Still puffing and shaken, the men walked home, occasionally stopping to smoke a tenacious tenant intent on having its revenge from their clothes.
Once they arrived back at the farmhouse, it was obvious to us they had been very frightened and so being the caring wives we are, we left saying anything unsympathetic until the following day.
Both men had a few stings. Teddy sported a couple on his left wrist where they had somehow crawled in under a glove and his wrist was fat very swollen and stiff.
Jim’s left cheek must have been stung at least twice as the weight of the bombarding insects allowed them near enough to settle and sting. He looks very lopsided today and is eating and chewing very carefully and slowly and peering at us rather malevolently at times from beneath a very fat eyelid.
Smiling at some of Margaret’s very humorous asides has, for one reason or another also seems to have been a problem.
Teddy’s wrist is still swollen but the worst of the pain has gone and it is at the very itchy stage as the sting venom gradually disperses. Their language about the squatters in the shearers shed is graphic and quite unrepeatable, but it is clear Jim will have to buy a couple of relocatable homes for his shearers this year.
That evening after the bees having repelled the two mighty invaders and gone to bed satisfied with their days work, we drove the men back to retrieve the truck.
Jim is now considering his list of options for the shack’s future and it appears to be a short list which includes, an expensive payment to a professional company of pest exterminators which, by the time they travel all the way here, would cost Jim more than the shack is worth, or a lighted stick of gelignite, or a Molotov cocktail, after the fire restrictions are over for the summer of course.
It is as well Margaret and I didn’t say all the very clever and tediously superior things we had thought of while we tended to our husbands because the following day Margaret needed something from the cupboard in which she keeps her preserves.
‘Cynthia, quickly, fetch the spray.’ She yelled from the hallway. I grabbed the nearest pest spray and ran to her aid thinking she had a spider in her cupboard. She harbours a deep dislike toward them.
Instead of the spider I expected, her cupboard was a seething black mass of ants running over, around and across every shelf, bottle and jar of her preserves. Fortunately the jars and bottles were all sealed and the contents safe but it was obvious she had a complete and very sexually potent queen who had been enlarging the nest at a great rate.
Our meal was forgotten as it took us two hours to remove the jars, wipe them down, all the while trying to stop the little blighters running up our arms, and make sure the entire cupboard shelving was clean. At the same time we needed to keep killing the escapees trying to get away to other parts of the house.
They were only a small breed but they could run exceptionally fast. I suppose having six legs helps.
Eventually we found the nest and when we thought about it later, they couldn’t have chosen a more perfect place. It was in the top of a coffee making machine Margaret hadn’t used in a couple of years and will probably never use again in case she embarrasses herself by serving crunchy coffee with dead ants floating on top.
When we lived here we didn’t ever have much television because the reception signals were very unpredictable and affected by distance and weather conditions. They hardly need it now really because there are very few dull moments.
We leave for home to-morrow, I would love to turn left and keep going across to the mountains to our last home but we won’t, that is another part of our past. Probably if we did, we would find they having problems at children’s birthday parties and outdoor events because of a European wasp plague.
It’s been great fun and I hope we don’t have anything more than a few silver fish and earwigs to deal with for while. Still, even down near the coast, the insects are a hardy and prolific lot.
We shall have to visit Aunt Alice and Uncle Rodger to make sure they are not feeling neglected and I have been asked if I would like to join a philosophy class.
I’m not sure I would be able to add much to such an august and seriously earnest gathering, but it may be interesting to go and see for myself.
The friend who asked me if I would be interested has been going for many years and enjoys it immensely, although she does seem to be getting very short tempered these past few months. However, on the whole I would think people who join such groups must be calm, introspective and easy to get along with. What do you think?
Perhaps, some of the calm will rub off on your old ‘flower child friend’
Until then,
Love from Cynthia. ©
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