Cynthia On Neighbours.

Letter From The Other Side from Cynthia.

Dear Del,
How have you fared in the great lottery of neighbours?

Everyone I know seems to have at least one they would delight in seeing a ‘For Sale’ notice adorning their front yard.

One acquaintance of ours has a neighbour living opposite who seems to have developed a fixation about her small innocent dog which lives mainly indoors and is asleep by 8p.m. and not allowed out until 8 a.m. Her neighbour is convinced however that the small dog, one of many other assorted breeds and sizes in the vicinity is to blame for all the barking and disruptions to her sleep. She is firing off letters of complaint to the council every other week and the council officers dutifully come rapping on the door regularly. The officers at last seem to believe she has an obsessive problem of some kind which appears to stem from years back when their husbands worked together in the same bank.

Another acquaintance is robbed of her sleep by a party animal beside her. Her walls vibrate with the pounding and the heavy thump, thump of music combining with the raucous voices of the many unsavoury types who gather to booze and stomp their nights away until the dawn.

Yet another friend moved to Ballarat to be closer to her family. She settled into a pleasant group of single story units each with a lovely little garden around them. Ballarat is noted for its cool climate and lovely gardens.
My friend’s luck ran out with her neighbour. She is an elderly widow. After years of living on a farm her children settled her into the town unit but the old lady is still terrified of fires. Because of this fear she cuts every plant in the garden down to knee level. The problem is she doesn’t just cut her own plants she hacks everyone else’s too with her blunt old kitchen knife leaving them with the appearance a Beaver has moved into the neighbourhood.
It is a constant battle for my friend to keep her away from precious young roses, camellias and crepe myrtles which have already been reduced to stumps at least once since she has been there.

Teddy and I have decided after the most recent arrival in our court we have won the wooden spoon.

In the past we have had very difficult neighbours. One in the country threatened to bulldoze the local hall flat when he became enraged with jealousy; another would pick up his rifle when he had forgotten to take his medicine and begin to take pot-shots at anything moving in the paddocks behind our homes. No innocent bird, lamb, steer or cyclist riding along the disused railway track road was safe. The police eventually took both of them away.

We moved back to the town to find we had a woman living beside us who would spend hours talking about ‘Bobby’ her weasel faced son who lay about on her couch all day in some chemically induced haze and from whom she appeared to believe the sun and moon only existed to shine on him.

When I ventured into our back garden I would creep along crouching low to keep my head down below the fence level. No matter how hard I tried, she would sense I was out there and I would be assailed with the inevitable stream of “Bobby’s’ latest gormless doings. I came to detest the sound of his name and was at the point of seriously contemplating purchasing an army camouflage suit when we moved once more.

We’ve endured the type of character who feels free to walk into our house without knocking and during the 1960’s and 70’s a couple of terribly superior know all English migrants who complained about everything they found displeasing about Australia. The complaints were aired often. This behaviour usually stems from homesickness which can really only be cured by returning from whence they came. A relief for them and those of us they leave behind.

Times have changed but neighbours haven’t. Now we have a gentleman, a retired car salesman and who still tinkers with old cars to get them just sufficiently roadworthy to be put back out amongst the unsuspecting public. He takes up sixty percent of the parking in the court with his vehicles. Endowed with a salesman’s penchant for speed talking he is always willing and able to pass on the daily gossip bulletin to any unfortunate he can corner.

Our immediate neighbours on one side are sisters who have a major drinking problem. We are often woken in the middle of the night by the flashing lights of an ambulance, police or fire brigade. They don’t seem to care which one they call they just enjoy the fuss. Mostly it is for false alarms but occasionally the ambulance drivers take them somewhere to dry out and we have a certain amount of peace for a few days. We are becoming used to them because when they are sober, they are very pleasant; they just aren’t sober very often and it is a worry when we smell gas and we know they have passed out somewhere in their unit.

In addition we now have a family who in the three months since they arrived have turned their nice tidy house, a house supplied by the government, into a rubbish tip and a few of us suspect various items of our missing garden lights, birdbaths and garden ornaments could be found amongst the accumulation of objects littering their yard. The father decided to enjoy his weekend last week and setting the sort of example to his three sons I suspect he will set for the next few years, went on a drunken rampage along the road, tossing bins into gardens and kicking and jumping on the cars a few unfortunate owners had, in their naivety, parked on the street.
The police were called by at least three of us but of course they came too late to catch him.

I hoped I wouldn’t grow into the sort of old person who would think the world is going crazy but having thought about it overnight while listening to the drunken girls next door squealing and shouting as they frolicked in the moonlight on their back lawn, I think it is too late to stop myself. I do think our part of the world is going crazy.

As Teddy has said in the past many times ‘the whole world is mad except thee and me…and I tend to wonder about thee sometimes.’

I heard this week the television show ‘Neighbours’ will turn twenty- five this year. I’ve never watch a single episode of it but I wonder if it has followed the degeneration of our neighbourhoods faithfully or if it puts a nice shiny gloss on Australian life in the pretend neighbourhood the actors live in?

Where did our dreams of love and peace go? Maybe it is our decade which is to blame for this awful spiral of descent into such ugliness. Do you think it will ever be undone Del, I hope so?
‘All the world needs is love’, we sang. Bother that, we need more law enforcement, respect for each other and self control.

Love from perplexed ‘flower child' friend
Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side from Cynthia.

Baby Boomers Take Blame Again.

Dear Del,

This letter to you is not the only one I have written this week.
Usually when politicians are making observations and pronouncements I try to stay calm but not this week.

This week we were told our country will have to work harder and people will now be required to delay their retirements for a further few years in order to pay the overburdened economy as it struggles to afford the ageing baby-boomers.

Evidently our population must explode and triple during the decades ahead.
I seem to be having my toes crushed by groups of young women pushing baby carriages wherever I go, so I think on the whole the fecundity of our young is quite sufficient thank you very much. Especially as I hear other people complaining about the over crowding of the schools and the amount of money parents are paid by the government for producing the occupants of the schools and prams by doing what came naturally to all the former generations who were never paid for the effort.

Our grandparents were told to ‘populate or perish’ following WW1, our parents and the thousands of immigrants who arrived during the 1950’s and 60’s made up for the years of WW11 and we were all the result.

Our most sincere apologies to our younger folk and to all the people who follow us, we didn’t set out to get older or really mean to, it just somehow happened as they will find in time when it happens to them.

A decade ago when we were still in the workforce we were being castigated by the then government into feel guilty for ‘taking the working places that the young people needed’. We were urged to finish careers with early retirement or made to feel so doddery that our working hours were soured by the decidedly unpleasant treatment of our upwardly mobile younger colleagues.

Much of the skilled work force, the teachers, the nurses and other professionals and tradesmen retired with very small pensions because the idea of superannuation or superannuation pension funds had not been introduced until we were half way through our working lives and therefore we had little time to build up a nest egg which would sustain us in our later years.

Now, once again it is the older ones getting the blame for the country’s woes and being forced to stay in work longer.

I suppose walking frames will be handy if we have to work as shelf stockers and walking sticks are useful if we need to become law enforcement agents of any kind. We could trip the bandits up instead of having to chase them. I hope they contemplate giving extra toilet breaks in consideration of some our aging plumbing problems.

I know I am exaggerating but only a little because I do feel aggrieved after working for almost forty-eight years, always paying my taxes and always putting a little of my spare time back into our community. Those who follow us will be forced to remain at work longer, supposedly by learning new skills.

It would be nice if some of our younger folk could put the time and effort into learning any skill at all. Perhaps they could start by finding what it is like to get out of bed before noon. The next logical thing perhaps would be to wash, not just their bodies but even their clothes. It might be an innovative and novel idea which could appeal to some.

Older people already form part of a vast army of volunteer workers in the community (which save the various government bodies an enormous amount) and many are still supporting, ill or physically disabled children or spouses. Which again saves the rest of the community taxes. Others our age of course have dissolute children who are too lazy or greedy to leave home and make a living for themselves.

Even Uncle Rodger helps the widows at the retirement village with their investments and tax problems and could at 94 still teach some of the young suits in the city quite a lot. Although, I have to admit I think the bank staff when forewarned by his deep voice booming along the pathway as he approaches their doors, quickly draw straws over which member is to deal with him. However I doubt that has much to do with his age it is a lifetime’s characteristic I think.

Once more our generation is being blamed for the hospital crowding. Nothing is mentioned about the lack of hospital funding and the duplication of health administrations.
There seems to be a bottomless pit of money available to build monuments to sport and the parliamentarians who authorize them, but when money is needed for caring for the mentally ill, the aged, the dental systems etc, etc it isn’t there because we oldies are evidently using it all up.
The unfortunate thing for us is we shall not live to see how these same theorists and decision makers who retire with enormous bonuses and pensions fair when they leave office as they age. Although of course, because of their guaranteed pensions, they will be able to afford to pay for lying about in private nursing homes on the Gold Coast…that is of course, if the Gold Coast hasn’t been washed away by the rising sea levels by then.

Oh dear, I’ll try to be cheerier in my next letter.
Your old grumpy flower child friend,
Cynthia.

Letter From The Other Side from Cynthia.

Dear Del,
The New Year has swept us along in vacation mode. The tourists and holiday makers arrived sporting their best tourist and holiday clothing. This naturally sets them apart and makes them immediately recognizable to the local residents. The shorts, the constant flapping sandals, the bikinis covered with gauzy little wispy shirts, the multicoloured hats and the modish bags and sunglasses, which probably cost more than an average mortgage payment, make them stand out before we even hear the rather loud and often rude comments they seem to feel free to express in public in our streets but would never repeat at home.

As the weeks pass we gradually become more and more frustrated by our favourite parking spaces being taken up by their expensive cars and the overcrowded shops where they idle about scattering sand and disconcerting the male shoppers as they try not to stare at the acres of flesh on show.

Some of us take a perverse and rather cruel delight in watching their skin tones change from rare through to underdone and eventually to crisp and burnt.

I have never understood the pleasure people seem to find in lying about on the beach slowly frying themselves and leaving it each day looking like freshly crumbed cutlets, or beef Wellingtons, as the sand sticks in layers all over their bodies.
Despite all the health warnings, many still think a suntan the most essential thing to take home with them.


I have a friend who volunteers at the local tourist centre and she is a fund of interesting and funny stories.

She loves working there because of the variety of people who come in for information but is constantly amazed at the difficulty some folk from overseas have in grasping the size of our land when they come from a smaller country.

Last week, a couple from Japan requested to hire bicycles. This wasn’t any problem even though it was nearly three in the afternoon.

After supplying them with the bicycles she enquired their destination and was dumbfounded when they said Canberra. As the cycles were supposed to be returned by 6 p.m. she tried to explain it wasn’t possible.
They smiled and using rather fractured English pointed at the map showing the seemingly short ride to Canberra from here.
Well, by comparison with a ride to Sydney, Darwin, and Perth etc it is because it only measured about an inch on the map! She tried valiantly to tell them it was a five hour drive on the freeway travelling at 110 kilometres and hour. They nodded vigorously and set off pedalling up the road despite her protests.
Somewhat crestfallen and not wishing to lose face by admitting their mistake but looking utterly exhausted, they returned the bicycles the following day.

The feast of summer sport has been very entertaining. Although defeating the Pakistan cricket team became a little boring until at last the twenty-twenty games brought forth a new and vigorous team which gave us a most exciting competition last evening. We won by a run but both teams were wonderful. I much prefer a real contest.
The Australian Tennis Open has been in full swing and here again a British player, freshly arrived from the cold northern winter, spent a day practicing in the sun without his shirt on and remarked on the day of his big game he felt as if his back was on fire. It seemed rather lax on the part of the management if they made no attempt to warn him of what he was going to suffer.
Mind you, I remember warning Teddy’s father about doing the same thing and he wouldn’t listen and suffered for a week afterward.
Some holiday makers were roused from their dreaming reveries by having to evacuate because of the new Catastrophic Fire warning which has come into force on days of high winds and over 40 degrees. It seemed to create more confusion than the old style of the generally held popular opinion of ‘run like hell when you see smoke.’
The problem is of course having experienced them; it is too late to run or drive even if you can see to drive anywhere and even if you know where you are going, fires don’t follow roadways or find fences any sort of barricade.
Perhaps we shall all become accustomed to it by next year.
Summer so far has been benign for us but other parts of the country have experienced many days above 40 degrees and still others were inundated with floods which were large enough to cover a few medium to small countries.

Teddy has a new project. After pricing retail solar hot water heaters he muttered about the house for a few days and eventually decided he can make one for us much cheaper.
He found heaven in the form of a scrap metal yard specialising in builder’s supplies and waxed lyrical about all the wondrous things he had seen there for quite an extended time.
At the moment we have in our yard what looks rather like a silver lined canoe and various pieces of copper piping.
The noise and sounds of industry emanating from his shed have been loud and a bit too constant some days.
On other days he has been toiling over small boards of wiring similar to the things you see come out of the innards of mobile phones and computers.
I have not asked too many questions…we have been married to long to make that mistake, as I know the reply would be very long, very involved and a little like Humphrey’s long-winded replies in the show Yes Minister after which the minister would ask for it again in plain English. I just nod wisely and make what I hope are encouraging sounds.
However, I did protest when he used a grinder which sparked so much it set off some of the house smoke alarms which in turn set both dogs barking madly and of course because he was wearing ear pads and he is deaf anyway, he couldn’t hear through the din of the grinder, the alarms and the dogs as I tried to make myself heard by yelling at him to stop.
Today I was enjoying a granny-nap which my doctor has advised me do more often when a toxic smell woke me. I opened every door and window and turned on the fans to clear the air.
‘Nothing to worry about at all.’ said my hero. ‘Just a malfunctioning and burnt out battery’
So much for quiet times and relaxing.
I hope the year has begun well for you Del and you have enjoyed some peaceful moments under your apple tree, think of me sitting under mine….in the fresh air away from ‘malfunctioning batteries’
From your ‘flower-child’ friend,
Cynthia.

In rememberance of 7th Frb' twelve months ago, the many who died, the 2000 homes lost and the domestic and wildlife animals gone forever.

Cynthia will return soon.

Cynthia will return soon. She is amusing herself watching birds and trying to relax before 2010 catches her up in another whirlwind of activity.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL.

The Pelicans and I have been enjoying quiet evenings.