Child of the Tides…….

I have often wondered how I have become a solitary person in my old age, happy in my own company. But, as I think about my early life, say between the ages of 9 and 12, I recall that my family lived in a little backwater suburb of Brisbane, called Shorncliffe. It really was the end of the line.

However, its main charm was Moreton Bay, with Moreton Island strung out in the background of the bay.  When I first stood at the top of the cliff, over the road from the shabby, wooden house my parents had just rented, I couldn’t believe my eyes. My only view of water in my entire young life had ever been the muddy Brisbane River. I had never seen the sea.

Just across the road from our house and down the face of the cliff  was a little track leading down to the ocean.  Not the hurling, curling surf of the Gold Coast, but sandbanks, which stretched for miles when the tide was out. A sea of shimmering blue satin when the tide was in.

 

My life was, for ever after, ruled by the tides. Who cared about school.  Just a little break of 4 or 5 hours to learn your  ABC’s and then I rushed home to the Bay, and went crabbing, fishing, beach combing , and swimming. These were the happiest days of my life. It didn’t matter if the tide was in or out, rough or calm, there I was, alone

.  

So now, when the going gets rough, my mind takes me back to stand in the warm salt waters of the sand pools and look into the eyes of the sea anemones, clinging onto rocks, or catch a glare from an annoyed prawn, waving its whiskers, at my presumptuous invasion of its territory.

Those were the days, my friends…..

Thought for today.....

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.     -- Shirley Abbott

I used to be afraid of spiders and sharks......

As a Queenslander, these were quite legitimate fears. Now my worries are of my

bank account or credit card being ripped off. But no worries. Insecticide and swimming pool solve the spider and shark issues.

With all this bank hacking stuff going on every day, I have given some deep and meaningful thought to how I can best protect myself from the robber barons.   So, a while back , I approached my bank for a pre-paid credit card . This is one where you put your money into your bank account  first and then shop on line. I found it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be to get one.  I don’t think the banks are very anxious to give you this kind of card, much preferring, no doubt, for you to have a card you pay interest on and the retailers get slammed  too.  Double whammy, great for the banks!!! This, of courses, pushes up the prices on everything you purchase.   For me, a pre-paid credit card has calmed the anxiety of buying from unknown sites.

However, there are another couple of issues I have with credit cards. The first one is that shiny icon now on your credit cards. Just flash it into the face of the card reader, and, hey presto, the transaction is completed. No pin number or ID required. Just go for it. Lots of fun could be had with your lost or stolen card.  My bank allows no other option, I just have to take what I am generously given, in an effort to push myself into debt. Kind to a fault, these banks!!

And, then, there are the delights of the Debit Card. What a masterful stroke of evil genius.  You blithely give out your debit card number and details and, if the person is dishonest, you have just given them access to all the money you have  in the bank account tied to the debit card. And guess what? Goodbye money.

So, my thought for the day is, don’t trust anybody where your money is concerned.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend…..sings cheeky Marilyn Monroe

No, not so.  Her  teeth were her best friend.

 Having your teeth intact and healthy will stand you in good stead all of your life.   I have just visited my dentist again, yesterday, and painful and expensive as it was, and an hour’s worth of sitting on the chair, I never begrudge either the time or the money it costs me.  I am grateful that, by having taken quite good care of my teeth all my life, and been lucky, I am not among  the ranks of us oldies, who have false teeth.  I saw first hand the discomfort  with false teeth that many members of my family endured.

As witness, one day, to the strange view some people have of looking  after their teeth properly , here is what happened to me in the lift at the dentist.  A young woman came out of the surgery, got into the lift and spoke to me, complaining about how much the dentist had charged her. As I looked at her, young and well groomed , wearing lovely shoes,  I wondered how much having her expensive hairstyle had cost. Probably half the amount she had just paid her dentist.

So people, get your priorities right. Teeth first, hair and shoes second!!!!

Daylight saving…who needs it?

Confusion has struck once again in my life. The clocks went forward this morning. Summer is almost here!!!   I don’t know, as I am getting older, I am finding it harder and harder to adjust my circadian rhythms to and fro. 

So, new scheme.  I am going to set all my clocks, except one, forward one hour but live in yesterday’s time for the next 3 days. Each morning, I am going to move my “special” clock forward by 20 minutes, until I have incorporated this double shuffle and unwarranted messing around with time and see if that can realign my stars, so to speak. 

The Inland Revenue  is giving you a bonus……….

Here’s a scam you might not have experienced yet.

A couple of days ago, my phone rang. When the person asked for me, I replied, as I always do,  with  “who is calling?” The reply was the Inland Revenue Department!!!  Enough to give anyone a bad case of shock and horror.

But, wait there’s more. The good news was that he told me I had been granted a bonus of $6,300.00 along with 500 other lucky Kiwis, because I had been such a good citizen for some years. He informed me that every so often the New Zealand government gives away these bonuses to deserving, upright citizens like me, who had paid all their bills on time, and had no criminal convictions!!!!  Yeah, right.

Now, I am the Queen of Funny Phone Calls. I deal with them in a variety of ways for a bit of a laugh on a dull day. .  Did I miss a beat? Hell no.  I just thanked him profusely and asked him what I had to do to get the money. So he said he just needed me to take down a few notes…..but I said I would do that a bit later, and enquired his phone number, name, department etc, which he gave me and I said I would call him back. And as I was still on the original call with him, I asked him what information he would need to pay me, like bank account details, and he said he didn’t need any, as they already had everything on my file!  I politely said “goodbye” then hung up.

And so, I decided to give Inland Revenue a call and let them in on this new scam, and  they were already getting calls about this.

   

So this is a new one, but tricky. Watch out for it. ell, npoH

Why Time Management is important when you’re old……..

Sometimes people ask me what I do all day.  They don’t see me in action so, in their mind’s eye, I am just sitting around doing nothing.

 Well, for me anyway, this couldn’t be further from the truth.  When I was in business, years ago, I had to be self motivated, as I worked alone most of the time.  And now that I am in my eighties , you might wonder when ‘older’ became ‘very old’.  I certainly do.

And what does Time Management mean to some of us oldies?   You have a reason to get out of bed every morning, after you have loosely planned the first six hours or so of your day. After a lifetime of having to be somewhere on time or do something every day, having no time structure is what really does you in when you retire.  You are floating around at a loose end with the prospect looming of having nothing to do all day, so I make  the hours from nine to twelve my “mental workout time”.  I work on the computer, send some emails, do some writing, play Lumosity brain games, have numerous cups of tea and make a few phone calls.  Then its lunch, and nap time.  After I wake up, I am not much good for anything.

And so I drift off into the "Dead Dog Afternoon”syndrome.  I can’t motivate myself to do anything. Oh well, I am working on it.

We all have two lives. The second one begins when you realize you only have one.”
― Confucius

Is 80 the new 14?……..

Are the years from 60 to 90 just  this?  We now live so long that we need re-educating on just what's happening to us.  Instead of finding a life partner, we lose one. Instead of our bodies maturing, they are deteriorating, instead of looking for our career paths, we are looking desperately for something to occupy ourselves.  At least if we recognise this, we can take some action, formulate some plan.

When you are young you think you are going to live forever, but as you descend into old age, you get into the "Waiting for God "mode, you face your mortality and may become frightened by it. 

However, on a cheerier note is all of the life experiences you have had, good, bad or ugly. Never mind, at least you were here for the fun.

So the message for today is…..Enjoy the moment!!!!

Be like a Boy Scout, and be prepared…..

A few days ago, I mentioned in a post the TVNZ story of an elderly gentleman, who had the unfortunate experience of being discharged from Wellington Hospital, after an emergency admission, wearing only his shortie pyjamas, had no money with him, and was told to take a bus home.  Even on a good day, I would find it a bit daunting trying to persuade a bus driver to give me a free trip home.  

Now, Wellington, while a very pleasant city in Summer, a  tropical paradise it ain’t.
Right now, it is Spring, and when the winds are not howling up from the Antarctic, the rain is pouring down, with the odd small earthquake thrown in to add a little spice to life.  

So, here is a word of advice on being prepared for unexpected trips like this.  My hospital visits became almost a shuttle service by ambulance a couple of years ago.   I am now a seasoned traveller and I always have a small bag packed, just in case.  In it, I put things like toiletries, comb and small mirror, etc and a set of clothes to wear home, as well as night attire and slippers or shoes.  I have a small radio and earphones, cellphone  and a few dollars  Then, when the unexpected need arises, the ambulance crew just picks up the bag and it goes with me in the ambulance.  I also have a file with a list of my doctors, current medications, medical notes, family contacts etc, which makes admission to the hospital go a lot faster. The reason I take a change of clothes is that I usually arrive in hospital in my pyjamas and need clothes to go home in.


Do this, and on that unexpected day, you’ve got it covered.  

“The hardest thing of all is to find a black cat in a dark room, especially if there is no cat.”

― Confucius

Thought Bubble…….

The colour of radio stations.

As a very young person I lived in Queensland. I seem to recall that, in Brisbane, we only received four radio stations, 4BC, 4BH, 4QR and one other whose number escapes me.  Well, to cut a long story short, I always associated the radio stations 4BC and 4BH with colours. 4BC was blue and 4BH brown. Years later, when I casually mentioned this to a friend, he was astounded and thought I was  crazy.  Maybe I was. I never thought there was anything strange in this notion of colours applying to radio stations. Then some years ago, I saw a television programme which said that there were people like me all over the world, who associated words with colours. I only ever associated two.  Do you know any people who have this ability? 

Thought for the day....

“I am not an originator but a transmitter.”
― Confucius

Rangitoto Island Hauraki Gulf New Zealand 

The volcano on my doorstep….

When I first visited Auckland, some fifty years ago, I was absolutely blown away and astonished at the sight of a volcano rearing up out of the Hauraki Gulf. This is the site of the City of Auckland.

 The volcano is called Rantitoto, which erupted out of the sea quite suddenly about 600 years ago.  Luckily for us Aucklanders, it is dormant, at the moment. It’s visible from anywhere around the harbour and from most high points of the city.  Much as I love Auckland, at the first sign of smoke coming from the volcano, I am off!!! Those high points, may or may not be, volcanoes as well!!! Some definitely are.

 There are said to be quite a few volcanoes dotted around Auckland. However, they all appear to be quietly sleeping. Maybe this why New Zealand is such a quiet place. Shssss!! Don’t wake the giants.  Talk about living dangerously.  Also, I couldn’t believe that practically the whole of this magnificent waterfront was taken up with tatty container wharves and concrete silos, full of who knows what.

However, now, Auckland is quite a different place. Gone are the small store front shops which once lined the main thoroughfare.  Queen Street, where the only tall building in Auckland was the 20 storey Air New Zealand building, built in 1972. Here’s a comment I found from Auckland Libraries:

1 January 1972 The small whirlwinds which are occurring near the top of the Ferry Buildings are apparently being caused by the Air New Zealand building disturbing the air flow. How’s that?

My, my, what a difference now. High rise apartments, fancy hotels, rejuvenated waterfront , flash shops. And Auckland City has to be one of the cleanest cities in the world, green trees, pleasantly wide footpaths, and diligent sweeper uppers. Lucky me. 

The Golden Casket….

Last night I was watching an item on TVNZ News, about an elderly man being unceremoniously discharged from the Wellington Hospital. The nurse told him to take public transport back to  Palmerston North where he lived, quite a distance from Wellington,  and the fact that the man had arrived in the Emergency Room of the Wellington hospital wearing only his pyjamas, and had no money with him to pay for  a bus, evoked little sympathy from hospital staff.   Eventually, the problem came to a head and was resolved,  and the man was flown by Air Ambulance back to his home.  During the flight, he suffered another attack of his heart problem and was re-hospitalised in Palmerston North for four days.

The reason I am writing this post is that I would like to make a suggestion to Mr. John Key, Prime Minister of New Zealand. This outlines one of the most successful hospital fund raising events in the last two centuries……

The Golden Casket, ever heard of this?

You would have, if you were from Queensland back in the day.  This was the lottery run by the Queensland Government, since 1916. It has made a hugely positive  effect on  the Queensland economy, public health system and  community.

The very first Golden Casket Lottery was run in 1916, and was called that because the jackpot prize of Five Thousand Pounds was actually in a small jewellery box called a casket. And, as cash prizes were prohibited by law, would you believe, there was  five thousand pounds worth  of solid gold. Yes, you read right, solid gold, not cash,  actually in the box presented to the winner.

My suggestion to Mr Key is that we could have a special Hospital Lottery run once a week, with all proceeds going the hospital and health systems. There could still be a “Wheel of Fortune”, with some hospital taking off a large prize each week, as well as benefiting from the rest of the profits. No dilution of these funds should be allowed. Let all the other good works funded from the lotteries continue from the main source.  I am willing to bet that most Kiwis would gladly buy a five dollar lotto ticket each week for something that could have a profound influence on our health system.

So, how about it, Mr Key.  Worth a thought?

 “We don’t need no education” sings the group, Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall

Okay, and that is pretty well what you are getting under today’s education system.

A few years ago, I discovered that my eight year old, bright, intelligent and willing young granddaughter couldn’t count or do arithmetic.  She had had around three years of “primary education” and couldn’t add, subtract, or divide. And as for the Times Table, forget it. 

Now, I have had no formal training in teaching, so I went back to the basics of my own education.  In the olden days, we  were taught reading, handwriting, and arithmetic, a touch of geography thrown in if you were lucky, and a bit of history, which was totally incomprehensible to me. I attended a very small State school in Queensland, and as my education came to an abrupt end at around fourteen, that was it. However, I can still recite the Times Table, I can outwit my grandchildren at “mental arithmetic” and I have read widely all my life. As for the handwriting, well, I am sure a chicken could do better!!! 

At this tiny school, beginners were issued with a “slate” and a “slate pencil”. The slate was just that, a square piece of thin stone, around the same size as your iPad, and the pencil could have passed for a stylus today. Talk about pre-Babylonian!!!! This was what you learned to write with and do “sums” on for the first couple of years. And of course, your eraser was a wet “slate cloth”. Later on, we were promoted to pencil and paper.  However. I might add, that the Queensland education system was widely recognised as the best in Australia.

So, back to basics. Where did I start with my granddaughter’s problem.  I bought myself a series of teaching books readily available at the bookstore, and went right back into the first stages of the learning of mathematics. And I do mean the beginning. After that, we spent one hour a day for a year on this project. She learned the Times Tables by rote, and today can certainly hold her own in the other math fields, and gets top marks in Maths and Science.

Message for today. Don’t trust the education system to “educate” your children. If you aren’t satisfied with their results, get yourself a few books on the subject, and have a crack at helping your children yourself.  And keep it simple, remember …..reading writing, and arithmetic.

My world through the looking glass……

 I have noticed lately that, the more I use my i-Pad,  the more I feel as though  I am looking through the screen into an entirely different world.   In fact, I now think that this little machine is my virtual best friend, but like Alice in Wonderland, I had better be careful that I don’t fall down the
rabbit hole !!!

 You might well ask just what is it I do that makes me open the curtains and take a good look at what is going on around me.  Well, the BBC World Service  is my favourite radio channel, and from there I get all sorts of information about what’s going in the world.  Its very easy to sit here, in little old New Zealand, clean, green and in the most part, quiet, but out there I can see it’s a rough and ready existence in the world for many of us oldies.

 Being old can be tiresome.  How can you make your aging body do what it’s told?  Find your mind slipping too?  It's time to take control and make decisions on brain training.  I wish I could say that I have a physical exercise programme too, but I just count walking around the house as my daily workout.  I also chase the dogs, have an occasional game of ball with my grandchildren, and water the plants.  Sounds strenuous, doesn’t it? 

 And talking about kids, my grandson asked me an interesting question. He asked me if my body had shrunk so much that my skin didn’t fit it any more!!!  Now, that’s a thought for us wrinklies.

 One of the most useful sections of my i-Pad is the Notes.  I use this as a thought catcher. As my mind runs a bit like a roadhouse rat, thoughts come charging through one ear and out the other, so I quickly tap them into Notes, where I allocate the important stuff with a triple AAA rating.  These are the things I try to do first, once they are identified as being important.  Many people just trundle through their day, and never take a moment to recognise the most important thing that needs to be done.

 If you just do that one task, then you are 95% ahead of the game.

What about a credit system, like Barter Card, for instance, for people who do voluntary work?

There is a ton of untapped talent out there. People of all ages can find themselves under-utilised, from young school leavers, unemployed people, “baby boomers”, and the elderly.     Why not harness this treasury of untapped talent and get all hands back on deck, doing something, and giving back to the community. A system like this should not be allowed to affect the Government benefit they are paid.  There are tens of thousands of hours of study and practical working experience just being thrown onto the rubbish dump of “old age”. Wake up!!!

There was a recent story on TVNZ, about a shortage of long haul truck drivers here in New Zealand. One truck fleet owner was reported as scouring the retirement homes to look for people who could drive these big trucks. Okay, this wasn’t voluntary work, and the people who took him up on his offers would no doubt have their pensions reduced by the government.  Why can’t people over the age, say, of 70, who keep on working, keep their pensions and their wages?  They will pay taxes on both and so contribute to the overall benefit of the community.   I am sure there are many professional people out there thrown into the limbo of wasted time and lost talent. I knew an accountant who was so desperate at the retirement blight on his life, that he re-opened his practice, just to get some relief and human contact going.

And how about the retired health professionals, like doctors, nurses, other trained and qualified health professionals, not to mention teachers., who all cost millions to educate. There are a myriad of people out there who could do a few hours a week.

So how about it, Prime Minister John Keys. Election issue next 2016? 

Re-sole my mind….

Okay, a few holes are appearing here and there. But my mind is an old friend and fits me comfortably like a pair of much loved, much worn, shoes.  There’s still too much wear left in it for me to let it wither away and die from intellectual neglect.  Even in this “throw away” society, tossing out your mind is a step too far. And so, on with my brain training, and continual struggles to master the computer.  And when I say “master”, I do mean “master”.  I am not going to let any tangle of wires and keys and electronic circuits put me in my place. What does it think I am? The village idiot? 

And so, while I am still able, I will go on writing, chatting, and thinking.  And just enjoying being me.

If you are lonely, start a blog.

 I live with my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren,but, really, my life is quite separate. I have a  little unit on their property. While I always see the family every day, most of the time they are busy with their own lives, so sometimes I don't get to talk to anyone all day.  I just wave as they leave to go to school and work.

That’s not to say I am entirely on my own, not with two great galumphing dogs in the background. I have had no experience with dogs in my life, yet I seem to have acquired the wellbeing of these mutts.  The biggest one, Obie, is black, very large, with long white fangs and a lovely smile.  He doesn’t take kindly to strangers, so I guess you would call him my bodyguard. After all, he is dressed all in black and only needs a black pair of sunglasses to complete the picture!! He has no social graces, having come to us too late to be really socialised, and he is a sneak thief. No food left lying exposed on benches will escape his snaffling intentions.

I think being alone needs to be addressed in some way, and as I am not a particularly social person, joining the various clubs that are available to senior citizens is not the way forward for me.  No, now that I am becoming  a “blogstar”, I feel that I have lots of contact with other human beings.  Blogging always seemed to me to be a mysterious art form, something like magic, but it is not.  It is really easy to set up. Get a techno savvy person to do the initial work if you don’t feel happy doing it yourself, and start posting.

You could be surprised at the valuable knowledge you have accumulated over the years. Maybe you are a potential cooking blogstar or a gardening blogstar, or who knows what hidden talents are waiting to come to the surface.    Don't worry about nobody reading it.....you are speaking of your life, and you are listening and remembering.

I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

Franklin P. Adams

“no matter how busy you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”
― Confucius

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
― Confucius

The age of innocence lost, and airport security……..

I was watching a television documentary one night about airport security.  I am glad, in one way, that I did all of my travelling twenty years ago, when jumping on a jet meant just that.  A short waltz through the luggage scanner,and,  hey presto. You could just go to the waiting area and board your flight.  Looking at the program I wondered if the authorities can possibly find any more indignities to heap on the heads of the passengers.

 And this program about airport security triggered a memory from sixty years ago, when I was a child of about ten, and I remembered  how trusting the Americans were way back then.

My grandparents lived in a Brisbane suburb called Bulimba, in a house just across  the  road from the Brisbane River.  Around 1943, after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbour, the Americans officially joined in  World War Two.  They had a lot of their fleet based in the Pacific theatre of war where they were engaged in the battle of the Coral Sea, off the North Queensland coast.

 Brisbane was the port of refitting, rest and regrouping, and, from time to time,  I would look across the river and see that the odd battleship or gunboat had dropped anchor  and was tied up at the big wharves on the opposite  side  of the river.

 As part of what would have been an early  version of "winning the hearts and minds of the population", the Americans would hold open days on which anyone who wanted to could go aboard any of the ships which were in port.  Long queues of people would form as everyone was anxious to see the fleet that had come to save us.  And save us they did.  The Australian government, in its infinite wisdom, had decided not to defend Queensland above "the Brisbane Line", and the rest of Queensland was going to be abandoned to the Japanese invaders.

 Anyway, as I was staying so close to these ships, I went aboard many of them and even got to go down into a submarine one day.  What a magnificent adventure for a ten year old .

 To this day, in those of us who are still alive and can remember, there is a deep and abiding affection for the brave Americans who won this important battle and literally saved us from a horrible fate.  Just near our house, there was an unofficial graveyard where the remains of the planes, lost in battle and salvaged for scrap, were dumped, awaiting recycling.  Their shattered remains were piled up, torn and broken,  the nose cones still brightly painted with the names the brave pilots had given to their planes.  

The smile on the face of a sparrow…….

You don’t believe me, do you?  I’ll bet you have never looked closely enough at these pesky little birds to notice their peculiar quirks. Neither had I until, recently, when I generously bought them a bird bath. 

 You would think they would have been highly delighted at this gift from me, but no.  They regarded it with disdain. They flew over it, around it, and under it, but would they get their feet wet?  Hell no. They preferred having a dust bath in a little patch of dirt.   I dutifully changed the water, and watched hopefully from my bedroom window, but nary a bird could be seen drinking or wallowing in the bird bath. Ingrates, I thought. 

At one point, I considered giving up my philanthropic gesture to nature, and decided to  reclaim it and turn  it into a very nice planter .  However, that day, miracle of miracles, a lone sparrow flew down and landed on the edge of the bath.  As I looked, he dipped his beak into the water and took a long drink.   When I looked again, there suddenly appeared a lot of sparrows, the first bird was a trail blazer. 

Now, just because you cant see a sparrow’s  teeth, that doesn’t mean he is  not smiling. I feel I am a great success with my bird bath, and now there are different types of birds coming in, too.

The moral of this story is .....Summer is edging closer and another El Nino weather pattern is forecast. It would be great if you could remember to provide water for our bird and animal friends, particularly if you live in a heat stricken part of Australia