All wrapped up

I’ve noticed a trend. Gifts being presented in gift bags. Interesting. When I was a kid, presents were always wrapped. Later I recycled wrapping paper and even ironed some of it. Yes, really! When I had small children, I used their art work to wrap presents. (The poster paint flaked badly.)

Now there is the gift bag. I knew Americans gave gifts in gift boxes. You just lifted the lid and ‘voilà’, whereas unwrapping can be a slow tortuous process, full of anticipation.

So, I’m not sure about the gift bags. One I received contained a plate of home-made shortbread wrapped in coloured cellophane, a small box containing a jewelled wreath hanging ornament, and an LED Christmas tree ornament unwrapped. Thus showing all forms of gift presentation.

I now have a range of gift bags in various shapes and designs. Is it OK to use them again? Do I just plonk things in them or should I wrap?

Christmas may be over but it isn’t all wrapped up…

Putting a price on it

[Prices used to be written on by hand.]

How much did I pay for that tin of pineapple in the cupboard? I don't know. I'd have to hunt through a pile of old dockets or something to find out. Not so in the long lost old days.

Many years ago I filled in occasionally as a check-out chick (when I was more of a chick than an old boiler) at my local supermarket - a small family owned business - so that the family could go to the footy. It was fun serving customers as they came through the checkout and wondering what they were cooking for tea with that lot or why they were buying luxury items etc etc.
When things were quiet, one job was to mark new items with the price. It was a modern shop so we had a price gun with labels. Every item in the store had a price except for when they didn't!
At the checkout there was not scanner. The price of each item had to be keyed in. Heaven help you if the finger slipped and you ended up with a total in the hundreds or thousand of dollars.
It was quite a dilemma if the item had no price. There was a huge catalogue of items printed out on large computer generated sheets (the old tractor feed type printouts) As customers queued up I'd search for the item. Eventually I gave up and simply keyed in a figure I thought was fair. Apologies to the owners and to the customers but it seemed to work. Now of course, we have bar codes and scanners. Somehow it takes the fun out of it all.

[Spot the Eudunda's price tag on this packet.]

Just be kind

How to change the world??

One kind act at a time. Most people have probably heard of the idea of paying it forward. There's the whole system of making coffee available to someone who needs it and other ways to offer acts of kindness.
Just recently I came across two incidents that set me thinking.
I was reading one man's account of his experience of sitting with a friend at a pizza place. Both of them were in Christian ministry. They'd had a rough day but sat and chatted and ate pizza. At the end of the time the waitress asked what their plans were and they said they were there for an event. She asked if it was about God. They were surprised as they weren't wearing crosses or clerical garb, nor did they piously bow their head to say grace before eating or sing hymns or rattle tambourines.
They admitted it was going to be an event about God but asked how she knew. Her reply was, 'It's simple. Your were nice to me. I figured it had something to do with God.' Phew!

Some time back I went to the local clinic to have a blood test. No appointments. Just turn up. My heart sank as I saw the number of people in front of me. But I had a book with me and waited my turn. Eventually  I headed in to find a new blood taker filling in while the regular  one is away. We chatted as she did the necessary paper work and prep stuff. Then she looked at the book I had put down with my other stuff. 'Is that a Christian book?' she asked.  'Yes,' I told her,' but how did you know?' (It didn't have a cross on it or a religious type picture. 'Oh,' she said, 'because you are so kind.' She assured me that others are impatient and  get annoyed about the waiting and so on.

Well, I know things can be tough and frustrating and annoying and I am sure Christians don't have the  monopoly on being kind although our founder told us to love one another, but  maybe something as simple as being kind can change the world. I have a feeling I've written about this before, but maybe I just need to be reminded on a daily basis.
Just be kind.

Invocation

My dictionary (Okay, it was actually Google) tells me that an invocation is the action of invoking someone or something, which isn't very helpful. It goes on to add that it is about invoking (whatever that means) someone or something.
A further entry suggests an invocation is a from of prayer requesting (invoking?) the presence of God, especially at the beginning of a religious service. With synonyms: prayer, request, entreaty. Behold the wonders of Google!
So why this discussion? It's not just that I love words and their meaning and the way they are used and change although that is partly it.

I was intrigued recently when the MC of a presentation dinner told us that since it was really a Rotary meeting we would start the meal with the invocation. It wasn't a traditional 'grace' as said before a email by many Christians but it was certainly a statement of thanks. I think ti ended by saying, 'We give thanks.' It's a wonderful thing to be grateful and to acknowledge the good things - friends and food - that we were sharing. But it made me wonder. Who were we giving thanks to? Or was it just a warm feeling of gratitude? Perhaps deep down we really  hunger to have a connection with something beyond ourselves, something bigger. Maybe it's a bit like headlines in times of crisis where people are implored to 'pray for...' What does this mean? Who to? How? Again is it a deep desire for something more, something beyond?

So let's go on doing invocations, seeking what we long for - connection with the divine. And we will find.....

Is two enough??

I was brought up in a strict teetotal family (although I think Mum did once have a go at Barossa Pearl once - discreetly hidden in the kitchen cupboard. We knew about the dangers of drink and were not quite signed up to the Temperance Union but close. I've never missed it nor been ridiculed for not having a few drinks.
So the other night I fronted up to a presentation dinner where pre-dinner drinks were complementary. I groaned inwardly as I saw the choice of non-alcoholic stuff. Orange juice or ...orange juice. Sometimes it's lemonade. Really? There are so many non-alcoholic alternatives that are pretty in the bottle and not bad to drink and even a bit special. Orange juice? That's for breakfast.
So I saw something bubbly and thought I'd give it a go. I see friends posting on social media about the joy of bubbles (and usually think of a bath with bubbles, coffee and a good book) and as I approach the end of seven decades decided it was time for a new experience.
Oh wait a minute! I did have a glass of champagne once - in my hand, at least. I'd made friends with a fellow teaching trainee, newly arrived from overseas. She invited me to her wedding and what's more asked me to propose a toast at the reception.  I remember standing there in her friend's house and making the requisite speech while holding a shallow glass of champagne. I raised my glass, took a sip and promptly parked the glass and its contents on the  mantel piece nearby.
But back to the bubbles in a slender flute. It was drinkable and I sipped at it during the pleasant meal and the building excitement of the impending winner announcements.
It got me to thinking. I don't sleep well most nights. I nod off over my book and then am awake in the wee small hours. Perhaps another glass of the said bubbles would help. A friendly waitress cruised by and I said I'd like another one. Mind you I wasn't at all sure what it was I'd had, as it had just been on a tray poked in my direction on arrival. She seemed to know and came back later with a glass that was fuller this time, presumably because I was paying for it - only a bit more than I pay for a cup of coffee. I sipped some more as I watched a lovely friend being announced as the winner of the award. [Congrats, Margot!]
And so home to bed. Late enough to read a bit and nod off. Two glasses of bubbles under my belt or something. Did I feel happier, more mellow, sleep better. Nup. Nup. Nup. Nice try. I guess I'll just stick with the orange juice next time.

PS My blood pressure was good this morning. Should I continue the experiment??

Gallery

Some sweet person admired a colouring in picture I used with a blog recently. Thank you.
I enjoy colouring in as I described, as a way to slow down and think, and lose myself in another world. Here are some you  might like to see. I didn't' manage to set them up just as I would have liked but you'll get the idea.
Sometimes I print copies of my colouring and  make cards which I use for notes to friends and those who just need something personal in the letter box.
If you'd like to use any of these pictures, feel free. I'd be honoured. You might just like to mention where they came from. Or even just the initials GHB and date will do. No copyright, no royalties...
Enjoy!

This is one of the first colourings I did. From a free book in a newspaper. I use it to make sympathy cards. It speaks to me of new life from old.

You may notice a certain butterfly theme. I love colouring birds and butterflies and flowers. I was trying out the Inktense pencils  mentioned in another blog.

Just do it and look what happens.

This one with a background of red paper makes a super Christmas card

Roses are red or pink or shaded....

I doubted I'd want to do this one but once I decided on colours it was mindless all the way - and I liked the result. It surprised me even though it looked like wrapping paper.

Don't like colouring those fantasy animals except....

Just fun with colour - any colour that comes to hand.

Three things...

I have been reading some of the ancient wisdom writings lately. This time it is a section [Sirach in the Apocrypha] that doesn't appear in my standard version of the Bible and yet sounds a lot like the more familiar Proverbs, which many people, Bible readers or not, are familiar with. In this sort of writing one device is to make lists of three - either good things or bad. Here's an example. 'I take pleasure in three things and they are beautiful in the sight of God and human beings. Agreement among brothers and sisters, friendship among neighbours and a wife and husband who live in harmony.'

And so it occurred to me that I have a list of three thing in the last twenty four hours I have laughed out loud at three very different things.

1. I listen regularly to Chat10 Looks 3, a podcast in which Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales chat about their lives and all sorts of things.  https://www.chat10looks3.com/  I was sorting out a bit of ironing and listening as Leigh - a competent, confident modern woman described her wrestle with setting up a  new TV and speaker and then Annabel described her experience of overload and teeth problems and how if people want her to speak at something it's not fair if they say 'any time that suits you' because they need to name a date so she can come up with a reason to say no. You might just have to listen...

2. I have a stack of library books to read and the top one is now Richard Glover's 'A Land Before Avocado' in which he describes Australian society between about 1965 and 1975 when coffee was International Roast and his Dad's cooking involved a lot of tins - as per the recipes. If you remember Apricot Chicken, you'll get the drift.

3. I'm also reading [one book at at time is never enough] a book by Adrian Plass and Jeff Lucas, Christian authors, speakers and, dare I say, comedians. They are not at all sanctimonious and are very real about doubts and fears. One of them describes the practice in some circles of shouting loudly for evil personified to be gone as if  shouting, and using Renaissance language ['Be gone' rather than 'Go away,'] would do the trick. With apologies to both the religious and non-religious amongst my three readers.

One of those Proverbs says 'A merry heart maketh good like a  medicine' or in not Renaissance language, 'Being cheerful keeps you healthy' or the GHB [that's me!] version 'A good laugh is good for the soul.' I hope you get your share of good laughs today.

PS The picture has nothing to do with the text. Just that some of you (well, at least one) liked my colouring pic last time so I thought I'd add one this time. Maybe a whole gallery next time...
Oh, and  if my colouring  makes you laugh, that's fine: just don't tell me.

So much more than coloured pencils and gel pens

I had an ah-ha moment today!
Some years ago I joined in the craze for colouring in. I never did much of it as a child and so was intrigued by the move to 'adult' or 'mindful' colouring. My involvement was aided and abetted by my beautiful daughter.People say to me, 'I met your beautiful daughter today,' to which I respond, 'Which one? I have two beautiful daughters.' Invariably it's the local one. But I digress.
The younger beautiful daughter gave me a colouring book and some wondrous Derwent pencils such as I hankered after as a child but never had. Mind you I think I really like Faber Castells these days but then of course there are the Jasart and the cheap shop tins and the gel pens and the Derwent Inktense (Said daughter gave me those as well.)
So  tentatively I started colouring. For three years or so I enjoyed a colouring group meeting in The Lakes coffee shop (this is not an ad but I do recommend it) on the shores of beautiful Lake Bonney. The two friends who started it taught me that there are no rights or wrongs about colouring and not to be afraid to make mistakes. Smudges can be part of the whole piece.
And so every day I sit and colour. Sometimes it's fairly automatic colouring of patterns or mandalas. Other times it's half way artistic. But it slows me down and gives me time to think, to dream, to connect with something more than me. Sometimes it's mindless and sometimes mindful, whatever the day needs.
And then this morning in amongst my colouring I was reading from Joan Chistitter's book The Monastery of the Heart and found this.

So the colouring fad may be past its peak - not so many pencils and books in the cheap shops now, but what it does for me is the thing. I'd include it in the list here amongst sacred images, music etc. It helps me to be still and aware of the very presence of God. Phew!! And to be mindful of the needs of those around me.

NOTE: big thanks to those two who showed me the way in colouring. You know who you are. Both names start with C.

and to my daughter who maybe realised just what I needed. Her name starts with B...

What an inheritance!

It's five years since my Mum died,aged 95. This is in memory of her. [Photo: Mum and Dad sometime before 1980.]

When we moved to the country the first time - in 1971 - we were amazed at the number of nicknames. I knew Aussies called people with red hair Blue and tall people Stretch and  shortened or lengthened names to become Bazz or Freddo or Jilly, but here everyone seemed to have a nickname.
I never did know Spont's real name and only knew that Splint was Ian because that's what his wife called him.
In some cases nicknames to be a family institution. We encountered Ferg. Fair enough. It was short for Fergus. Then we discovered his sons were also Fergs. I think they had real names because at least one of them was on my class role as Neil or at least I think that was it; he was always Ferg....

I've never really had a nickname at least not one I ever heard the schoolkids calling me. I do know my Mum once told the gardener that I was BB (Bossy Boots) because i sorted out about paying him when she was no longer doing well. My family called me Glen and my sisters flirted with Spud for a little while when I was a small child, but neither of those was for public consumption.

Recently I caught up with my oldest grandchild. He's nearly twenty-three and we were joking that he is now older than his father was when he was born. When we talked of the possibility of great grandchildren (not yet!) the darling boy looked  at me and sweetly said, 'Then I guess you'd be Old Gran.' Phew! I'd not thought of that.

He was the first great grandchild for my Mum. When he was very little she leant over and said to him, "I suppose I'm your Old Gran then,' and it stuck. Our grandies all have memories of Old Gran and they are fond  memories. Even when she got to be old she knew they were special and she loved to see them. She was generous and caring.

So I may not have a nickname but I would be proud one day to be Old Gran. What footsteps to follow. What an inheritance...

Paired off

I was putting on eyeliner and the phone rang. I went to check and was soon engaged in conversation with a friend. It was some time later that I realised one eye had had the treatment and the other one hadn't. It got me to thinking. Why are we so insistent on things matching?
Pairs of socks, pairs of earrings, pairs of shoes. I know some people who just buy heaps of black socks so they always have a matching pair. I worked with someone who went off to do  some training only to discover that she was wearing one black shoe and one navy blue one. They had slightly different height heels, so she used it as an excuse to go off and buy a new pair in the lunch hour.
On the other hand - or foot - our children had a teacher who had a fleet of court shoes of the same style in different colours and she chose to wear one red and one blue or one yellow and one green.
So maybe I'll deliberately do make up on one eye and not the other or wear earrings that don't match . Endless possibilities.

Later. Just a thought: Many of us wear rings on our fingers. My wedding ring is on my left hand but I don't have a matching one on the right hand. I wear a total of six rings and they are all different. How does that work?

What do you call...

No this isn't the lead in to a joke but a serious question. What do you call those little bits of paper that float around on my desk with important bits of information? True confession here: I hate filing and so recently when I stared clearing paper on my desk it was easy to throw away the stuff that was no longer relevant. Not so easy to  know what to do with the cute poems, cartoons and nice messages from family.
Then there were the scraps of paper. Important things like the name of a guy who is good at fixing grout according to friend, the hairdresser who might work miracles with my hair, the name of the new people I met - and their cat (It's really important to remember the name of people's cats), the note to check for the payment from that sort of dodgy lot who offered the refund. And so it goes.
Yes, I know the young and trendy write that stuff on their phone and I have been know to do that, but technology can let us down in a spectacular manner - see an upcoming blog about that and a previous one and another one a while back and...

So I now have a little pile of scraps of paper held together with a paper clip. Seriously, surely there is a name for them.

Suggestion:  Conforgetti - little pieces of paper about not forgetting.
All other suggestions will be considered.

How are you and all that jazz...

Louis Armstrong's song Wonderful World has the lines
   I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
   They're really saying I love you
Really?
It's just a greeting, isn't it. How do you do? or How are you? or How ya goin'?
They say it at the supermarket as they cruise past with no intention of waiting for the obligatory
 'Fine thanks.'
 I have a friend who always says, 'I'm terrific.' Really ? Is he the supreme optimist?
Winnie the Pooh has a line that goes something like, 'When people ask me I always say Very well thank you and how are you today?*
That's the expectation isn't it?
But what if the answer is really, 'Shit', A friend tells me he used that answer and the person who asked how he felt was astounded.
Sure I have been known to use how are you as a greeting and then later into the conversation say, 'Well how ARE you?'
So do we need to take time to really let people tell us how they are? And if so to be ready to listen. I didn't make tit to morning tea after church this week because someone began to tell a freind her story and I was there too. Long after the other woman left I was still hearing the story and sharing a little  of my own.
So now I do know some of how that person is, and I do care about it and what she is facing, and I do want to pray for her and keep in within my thoughts. She laughed and smiled and is determined to be positive, but maybe some days are shit and she needs to knwo that she can tell us how she feels.
So maybe Louis is right that to asking how you are is a way of saying I love you.

*Here is the correct version!

 ' If people ask me,
    I always tell them:
  "Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say."
   If people ask me,
   I always answer,
  "Quite well, thank you, how are you today?"
   I always answer,
   I always tell them,
   If they ask me
   Politely...
  BUT SOMETIMES
  I wish
      That they wouldn't.'

AA Milne

All gone...

Last week I decided to delete a photo of a list I'd taken for future reference and in the twinkling of an eye deleted all the photos on my phone camera. Oops! How? I asked myself that many times. Didn't it warn me with that 'did you really mean to' sort of question? Was it just too weary as it was about to run out of battery? Were the gremlins inside my phone being spiteful?
So what to do? Well, it turns out I still had the downloaded stuff and the favourites like my son and his fifteen (at last count) motorbikes, the family Christmas photo, my grandroo Roody and so on. I had saved some to Google photos and was able to retrieve some back to my phone for bragging purposes - this is my granddaughter in the wondrous dress she created last year for the young fashion designer awards, this is the colouring in I did, the focaccia bread I made, the rose in the front yard. You know how it goes.
Then I mined messages - in and out - for important photos shared. It seems most of them were not that important.
Now a week later, it's fine. I'm not sure what else I've lost but I'm okay.
It got me thinking. I have about a handful of photos of my Mum (born in 1919). There is a cute toddler, one of her with her hair all the way down her back before it was cut in her late teens, a wedding photo and a few with us as babies. (Less of me since I'm the third child.)  In her day cameras were rare and photos were often taken by professionals or in a  studio. It seems common for there to have been a photographer in the street as I have a few pictures of family members walking arm in arm along a city footpath.
So what will happen to the zillions of photos we snap every day? How many will survive? The technology with be obsolete. Will we print them all and will they last? Who will sort through them all when our time is up?What will remain
One of my friends is on an overseas trip. It's fun to see her photos on Facebook. Tourists seem to take so many photos since most of us have a reasonable quality camera in our hand as part of our phones. I remember seeing a tourist take photos of about twelve historic plaques. Would he read them when he got home. Surely he wouldn't expect someone else to look at them That would be even worse than my dear Dad's boring slide evenings (one of our family friends curled up and went to sleep as soon as the lights went off.)
Now I have discovered it's so easy to take a photos of a notice or a recipe in a book and I even know one person who takes a photo of the page number where she is up to in a book, Those things will be deleted at some stage perhaps, but what happens to all the photos? Maybe memories .....

Have a good weekend.

' Have a good weekend,' they say. Well thanks, but...

I didn't do that well when the first baby came along. It seemed Ike a 24/7 job when I had been used to sirens marking the lessons and breaks during the day and, despite a hefty load of marking and lesson prep, there were weekends that came right after Friday.
I found it so hard that I contemplated writing a book called  No weekends to warn others of how they might feel when it just went on night and day -  the feeds and nappy changes and burping and crying. (Often it was me crying not just the baby.) Fortunately others have written the book and people are more aware of post natal depression or simply not coping in those early weeks.

Now I read The Advertiser on line where the morning blog tells me we'll cope together with Monday. What's wrong with Monday? And then tells me we're half way through the week on Wednesday and on Friday we're nearly there. What? I'm retired. I don't work Monday - Friday 9-5 as this assumes. Neither do a lot of the rest of the population, I suspect ,what with shift work etc. So one day follows another. I recall my parents in law saying that they only thing that distinguished one day from another was the fact that Thursday was bin day. Right!

I find myself again in the world of no weekends and long weekends are nothing to look forward to.
So when people wish me a good weekend I try to smile benignly. And yes, Thursday is bin day.

Grace: always more

I was driving in Adelaide recently and saw a truck with the logo Grace: always more.
How good is that, I thought.
Grace is a common enough word. It's name still used now, even as it was over 100 years ago for my  Auntie Grace - great-auntie actually, long dead. Her name was Grace Lilian - the only one of her 10 siblings who only scored two names. There was Percival George James and my grandma Evangeline Sarah Olive, commonly known as Sadie.. And Amazing Grace, the song, ) has been almost done to death. Great words...
   Through many dangers, toils and snares
   We have already come.
   T'was grace that brought us safe thus far
   And grace will lead us home,

...but sung so often we're almost immune to their impact.

So that truck made me think. About grace. About God's grace. And I thought about some of my family. One of my daughters (People say,' I met your beautiful daughter usually referring to the one that lives nearby to which I say, 'I have two beautiful daughters.'

Well, the younger one has a guest accommodation palce at Deep Creek.

The Sanctuary    https://www.stayz.com.au/holiday-rental/p9191560
 Blatant advertising here!

This property is large with a dam and frequented by kangaroos which guests love to watch. In the recent summer when things were very dry and there was no water in the dam, the kangaroos came looking for the water bowl put out for the birds and could be seen slowing lapping. The shortage of grass was noticeable and they even resorted to eating the rose bushes. Ouch!

My daughter and her bloke live nearby on a smaller property and just before Christmas last year adopted a little kangaroo called Roody (Roodolph - get it?) who needed a home. He needed nurturing with bottle feeds day and night and time snuggled in his pillowcase pouch near to them. We celebrated Christmas with the whole family there and Roody even appeared in the annual Christmas family photo.

Now that he is bigger, does he need to seek water from the bird bowl or eat rose bushes? No way. He has everything he needs and more. He enjoys being inside with his people, he is often hand fed with treats (within the proper guidelines for his well-being, of course) and has is very much part of the family.
The kangas at The Sanctuary have what they need and mostly get by okay. Roody has found a forever home and has what he needs and so much more. That's Grace. God's Grace is like that. Grace: always more.

Now about that truck. I was intrigued to discover it was the slogan of a removals company. Hmm!

More blessed to give...

So, yesterday was the church garage sale. We haven't had one for about five years but wanted to raise some money to finish painting the church before the centenary in October. 'Let's have a garage sale,' someone said. Ron thought that was a good idea and away he went, getting it all sorted. Everyone knows how it goes. All sorts of stuff was donated, and the blokes worked hard bringing in trailer loads.
As I did some publicity I discovered that people of my age were more keen to get rid of stuff than buy it, and I didn't sort out anywhere near enough of my stuff.

But the day came and so did the buyers. So many stories of wonderful transactions and bargaining. One of our team had a ball looking up stuff on Google and discovering some items that were 'collectables' and worth a motsa. The pews from the recently closed neighbouring church went like hotcakes. Evidently they are currenlty a 'thing'. Someone asked for vinyl records so my husband nipped home and brought back all ours - some more than 50 years old, but all gone now. And so it went on.
I mostly hid in the kitchen dispensing good 'frothy' coffee, chai latte, hot chocolate and generally pretending to be a barista. But at one stage I escaped. A little girl was standing in front of the fluffy toy collection, Every Op shop and garage sale has them and they aren't much in demand. As I stopped near her, she shyly asked about one little character with big eyes. I asked her if she liked it and she said she did but that she only had $6. I picked it up, 'Here you are,' I said, 'It's free.' Later I saw her carrying it lovingly under her arm and it was then I realised it was a lot like the free gift of grace God gives us....

Who's that?

What sort of car do you drive? Who would know?  Family? Friends? Well, if you live in a small town, everyone knows.
For many years we lived in the main street of a town in the mid north. (Home of Golden North ice-cream if you want to know its name.) From my kitchen window I could see cars drive past on our side street and would know immediately who it was
If I was outside in the garden or chatting in the street then of course, I would wave. No need to see who the driver was; the car was enough to make the connection.
When we moved to the city I vividly recall standing on a friend's porch when a car went by, so i turned to look and see who it was. Not a clue! Way too many cars in that suburb for me to know the driver. I realised I was not in the country now.
After several years we again live in a small town. I've realised how I quickly I know who is at church by the cars parked outside. And of course I wave as cars go by. There are a few common types like our son-in law's white Holden station wagon but even then there is usually some ID other than the number plate.
One of my fellow singers usually parks next to me on rehearsal night. She wasn't there when I got there last week. At least I didn't think so. Turns out she has a new car. Same make but a different colour. So I didn't recognise her!
I am a bit more anonymous around town as we live close to shops and church and so I often walk. People don't know me by car. Besides we are in the process of getting a new car and so are using an old one that isn't often seen around town. So when I 'm driving it and wave, nobody responds.
Maybe I could get my name on the rego plates ...

Flushed with success

During the week our pressure pump died. For you city types, it's the pump that makes sure our rainwater is delivered with enough pressure to be useful. I was standing in the shower with hair lathered up when the flow of water slowly diminished to a thin, cold stream.
After much head scratching and dismantling of the old pump it was decided a new one was required.
So for most of the afternoon there was water in the tank and a bit in the pipes and that was it. And I began to ponder. How much I take for granted that lovely stream of hot, clean water, on tap. So many in the world have to cart water daily from a communal source and heat it over a fire.
It's not so long since, even in our part of the world, things were different. My Dad used to fire up the copper so Mum could wash with hot water every Monday and he'd do it on Saturday night and bucket water in to the bathroom so we could all have a bath. (Yep, once a week, all in, one after the other.)
One of my older friends told me that when she came to the Riverland  during the infamous 1956 flood things were pretty basic and that for a whole year she kept herself clean with just a basin of water. No shower or bath.
During my afternoon of no water I thought about toilets as well. I've always had a flush toilet even if it did have a chain to pull and the paper was of dubious provenance.
The house we live in now has a lane running along the back - commonly called the dunny lane - to make access easier for the poor dunny man who emptied the dunny cans from the lavatory located near the back fence.
I wonder about using about using precious, drinking quality rainwater to flush the toilet and love visiting my sister's loo, which has a wondrous system where there is a small basin over the cistern. You wash your hands and the water then runs into the cistern for flushing.
Before too long the new pump was installed and all was well. How grateful I am. A simple flush is a wondrous thing.

What to say when those phone calls come...

You know the ones. Where they ask if you are Mrs Bad-ger when you said, 'This is Glenys' or when there is silence and funny background noise before they answer.
There is an alarming increase in these calls. Some are raising money, some offering an investment opportunity and some are downright scams which unfortunately people fall for and loose heaps of money.
Our answering machine mostly sorts them out as no-one seems to want to leave a message with our sweet grandson whose voice is on the recorded message. I get more calls to my  mobile than to the fixed phone although even the  mobile is susceptible. But sometimes I am expecting a call from someone and pickup.
My first response is to assure them that I am Glenys as I've said and that Mrs Badger is my mother in law, dear and cherished but long dead.
When they plough on there are questions to ask them: Who are you? Where are you ringing from? What is the weather like where you are?
Some ask politely how I am and I am tempted to tell them the whole story of the aches and pains and the  frustration with the insurance company and about the lack of rain. I did try this recently and they hung up in my ear. How rude!
A while back, in a coffee group an elderly lady, ie older than me, told me with a twinkle in her eye some of her suggested responses.
1. Can you hurry up because I am in the middle of something important. [Actually she was more specific than that but I'll leave it to your imagination.]
2. Can you be quick because i am robbing this house.
3. Are you the person who ordered 250 tubas? If you give me your address I'll send them to you?
Others simply let the caller rabbit on until they realise no one is listening and so it goes.

We also got to discussing who would make these calls. Who was so rotten as to try and trick people or maybe so desperate to earn a few bob that they would take on the job on behalf of the big bosses calling the shots and making the money.
So the other night when I picked up the phone and encountered a female voice which i really had trouble hearing, I let her talk for a minute and then asked her name. When she told me I said to her that I thought it was sad that she had such a nasty job and that I wished her well - and I did.
I don't know what she was wanting to sell or push, but I decided to leave her with a blessing rather than a flea in her ear.

On the buses -

- or in this case, on the tram. Or a babe in the woods. Or a country bumpkin is bewildered.

So we were in the city and had been dropped off by car, confident that we could make our way back to the suburbs by public transport. We'd done it before (once or twice). Armed with our Seniors Card we'd been on the bus and knew the drill.
Although we knew it was free on off peak time, we were prepared to pay the extra to stay in town to visit the art gallery. We'd done it before. Headed to the front door of the bus, waved our Seniors/Metro card and been told how much cash to pay for a paper ticket which we then inserted into the cute machine for the beep of approval.
Mind you, one time when it was just after the appointed off peak time, the driver just waved us on telling us to take a seat. I  guess sorting a ticket was too much trouble for him.
So there we were in King William Street and realised we could catch the tram. What could go wrong? So there we were clutching our Seniors cards and I had my purse with small change and....
The tram went whooshing  along the platform and stopped so we had to enter the very last door. It was before 4 pm but the thing was crowded. We peered at the instructions and saw that it was free to ride to Victoria Square. There was a ticket validating machine but we only saw a couple of people use it. When we got to Victoria Square the announcement said that from there on we needed a validated ticket. Where to get one? We were standing swaying and holding onto a pole with not a chance of getting to the driver who I thought would sell us a ticket. Nope - the drive is blocked off in their own little world unlike on the buses. We spotted something about a ticket machine and maybe the picture was about getting a paper ticket . The arrow pointed forward and there was still  not a hope of moving forward to where it might be.
Eventually we got off at our stop in a moral quandary. We really would have been happy to pay but how to do that escaped us. We use public transport so rarely that I haven't wanted to load money onto my card but we didn't have the process for getting the paper version. My conscience is not happy. When I saw a tram the next day I just wanted to throw money at it.
On a sweeter note, I stood balancing precariously next to a pole which I clutched desperately ,but after some people got off there was a seat next to a young woman, so I sat down. She looked at me, stood up and said it was so 'my friend' could sit next to me. There is a sign saying seats need to be relinquished for old geezers like us but no one had moved until she did. How lovely!

Lying about

Whenever I hear someone say they are laying somewhere I wonder whether it is eggs they are laying. The verb 'to lay'  needs an object ie you need to lay something. An egg or your burden. ('Gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside...')
English is messy. While I  may lie in my bed today I will tell you that yesterday I lay in my bed. That's the past tense, folks, and I admit I do quite a bit of lying in my bed.
The usage of 'lay' as present tense with no object eg 'I enjoyed laying by the pool.' or 'I love laying in my bed reading a book' is so ubiquitous that I realise I am probably fighting a losing battle, but old pedants don't give up without a fight. I have wondered whether people feel a bit shy of saying they are lying ie telling fibbers. They don't want people to think they were telling tall stories by the pool or in bed when in fact they were just lazing about.
What to do?
I might just go and do some more lying in bed, reading a book, not telling fibs at all.

Stories

Stories don't exist until they are told....
Over the last few months I have had the fun of editing transcripts of interviews for the Barmera Library Oral History Project. This mean reading the stories of real people in our community, some of whom are still alive and others who have died. The interviews were originally oral and I sometimes refer to the recordings to clarify parts of the transcript which are unreal. And so I hear the voice of women and men describing their experiences, their stories.
The wonders of Google have  enabled me to put together some of the pieces that are missing or unclear eg the varieties of grapes that used to be grown in earlier days, the names of the first principal of the local high school, famous for being a league football player.
Each story details the background story of the person - their parents, where they were born, what brought them to the area, what role they payed in work life, home life and during events such as the Depression, the wars and, the 1956 flood, what school was like, what the town was like and so on.
The stories have many similarities  - hard work, hard times good times. But each is unique. I listen to the voices and fall in love with each of them, marvel at their resilience, love the turn of phrase that marks their conversation.
Just recently we celebrated Easter and I marvelled yet again at the stories of those who encountered the risen Christ. The reaction of each of them - Mary Magdalene in the garden, the couple on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and many others - was to tell their story. They ran back to the others to say,'We have seen him.' What if they hadn't?
What if the stories of the Barmera people were not recorded, what if families don't tell the stories of life and love and faith.
A story only exists when it is told....

My Life with Bob

I have been reading the book My Life with Bob. When I first went to collect it from the library I was thinking it was more about the homeless man with a cat, but that was a A Street Cat Named Bob. This Bob wasn't a cat at all but an acronym for Book of books. The author (Pamela Paul) started using a journal to record the books she had read when she was a teenager. No reviews or details of plot just date, title and author. Now why didn't I do that?
I've been an inveterate list maker over the years. Back in the seventies and eighties I kept a record of how many eggs my chooks supplied - enough to sell - and how many times a night my babies woke up - lots and for years. I used to keep a graph of my weight and gave that up as a bad job years ago. When I paid money to join the gym in the mid nineties I kept a list of every visit to make sure I got my money's worth - and I certainly did.

So why not a list of books I've read? I've been a reader all my life and now I'm beginning to have trouble remembering which books I've read. Several times I've started keeping track and given up (like many an attempt at writing a diary). Once upon a time the library had  a history of books borrowed, which would have gone some way to tracking my reading, but now with the wonderful Onecard system I order books from all over the place and read them avidly and then forget what I've read.

Of course some books are memorable. I doubt I'll forget Kerry O'Brien's A Memoir which in hardback is about six centimetres  thick.Annabel Crabb suggested that if you put it together with a few other memorable tomes including Shane Warne's story you should be able to reach any shelf in your kitchen!
In my retirement I have the enjoyment of reading many hours a week, but without a list of what I've already read, and with my sometimes dodgy memory, there is the real possibility that I will only need to have about five books and cycle them round and round. Now there's a thought....

Decisions, decisions, decisons.

A snippet of a song I remember from my youth suggested that 'in the first third of your life you chose your work, your faith, your wife,' (Or maybe it's a figment of my imagination since I can't find it anywhere on YouTube.) And maybe those choices are not so vital these days when people change work more often and few get the  gold watch after being in one job for years. As for choice of spouse or faith?? When I was a child  'making your decision' was church shorthand for deciding to follow the way of Jesus.
But there is no doubt about it, choices are tricky. What to wear int he morning. Maybe that[s why uniforms are so good. No need to think.

When confronted by an extensive menu I sometimes wish the waiter would simply say, 'You should have this.' And I believe some restaurants do that. If you front up to eat, you get what the chef has decided to cook that day. Of course many of us remember the predictable daily menus of our childhood culminating with the Sunday roast. It jsut made life easier when you made tuna mornay on Tuesdays. And I remember the person who told me, as part of a group icebreaker ('What did you have for breakfast today?') that every morning she ate muesli and soya milk with a banana.
There are bigger choices. A friend is trying to decide on a new car. What will be best for her future needs? How can she be sure she doesn't buy a lemon? Is tossing a coin a good way to decide or because you like the colour?

Oh and there's an election coming up. We have the responsibility and privilege to elect our leaders. How best to do that? Donkey vote. Informal vote in protest?
None of us can avoid decisions. Some small and trivial with little consequence. (In our house even Would you like a cuppa? seems to take some deliberation but I digress.) Other decisions have major implication for future life or finance. What to do?
Many years ago when faced with a decision about our son's future education, a wise woman suggested that we make the decision prayerfully and then move on in faith. How can you ever know if you really made the right choice? I have often quoted her and I wonder if she ever realised the impact she had on my thinking. Seek out solutions, do the research but in the end ti's a mater of following your nose (led or the Spirit of God?) and moving forward in faith.