My eyes are dim, I cannot see, I have not brought my specs with me

I haven't brought them with me because I lost them, and they are lost good and proper. Here is a blog extract from July last year when I lost my glasses.

Just on a whim, I thought I will check the glass lost property case within the park. The case mostly contains lost keys and car and apartment fobs, but there is a pair of glasses that look like my lost reading glasses. The case was locked but a key was in position. Alas the lock was seized and I couldn't open it.

Then I noticed a lower open ledge where more recent lost keys, fobs etc had been left. Would you believe, there were my reading glasses.

So I lost them last year and found them. I stopped taken my reading glasses with me when going out, relying on my multi focal glasses which I can read with, just not small print.

I took my glasses out with me on Thursday when we went for something to eat from a bakery which we took to the beach, bought coffee and consumed them and then went for a walk for exercise, thereby meeting the reasons for going out under lockdown. I only took them with me as while I am sitting as a passenger in the car, I can use wipes to clean my two pairs of glasses, and my phone screen before the alcohol infused wipes dry out. I slipped them back into the inside pocket of my jacket and I expect I lost them the first time I stepped out of the car near the bakery.

Once home and I realised I had lost them, I drove myself out to backtrack and look for them, including asking in the bakery. I felt it was a futile search and it was.

As I drove home, my mind was racing about getting new glasses under lockdown, with my optometrist being in the city. By the time I was home I had become rational. Mostly I can manage with my normal glasses and I have plentiful supply of $5 reading glasses at home. I will probably replace them in time but there is no rush. 

So how was I stupid enough to lose them? Milord, there are mitigating factors. Before we went out, I put on a lighter jacket than the winter one I have been wearing, the lighter one not worn since we returned from Covid free New South Wales in April or May earlier this year.. I felt inside the jacket and wow, my hand slipped into internal pockets on both sides of the jacket. I put my reading glasses inside the left hand pocket, I took them out in the car to clean them and put them back in the same pocket.

But when does a deep vertical pocket become something  a pair of glasses can slip out of? How was I to know the pocket wasn't a pocket? Photos tell you why.

I may have been guilty of being racially abusive towards Chinese clothing manufacturers, but then the jacket could have been designed in a western country, so my anti Chinese fervour may be misplaced. It is annoying but I won't be sent into poverty, nor die. No Sami, I haven't done the chair yet. Big green shed is closed.

Friday Funnies

I lost my reading glasses today, Thursday. I'll tell you more later. Some of these may amuse you or cause a grimace or a frown. I hope you see one that appeals to you. There is coarse language.

I really like this one.

Making hay in the sunshine

We are a little tired of places we go for morning brunch and exercise. Five kilometres was very limiting, ten better and now it is fifteen. While there is not a shortage of places to buy food, our criteria includes somewhere to sit without many people passing by, that is public seating as all food businesses are takeaway only. 

In the first 2020 and then the long lockdown most public seating was cordoned off, often just by the tape like that used at crime scenes. I think for the long lockdown this was eased for older people and then just ignored y all. Areas are still taped off if there is a perceived crowding problem and lack of social distancing.

Last week we drove past a pier about four kilometres from home, and I mentioned to R that I've never walked on that pier, and nor had he. I didn't even know its name.

As you can see in this Austockphoto, it is an unusual shape. A number of piers have 90 degree angles but few have this shape. It is known as Lagoon Pier. I don't know why for sure but I would guess it something to with the Port Melbourne Lagoon being in behind where the pier begins but drained and filled in long ago in the 1800s. 

We bought coffee and a ham and cheese croissant nearby and after eating and drinking we strolled out on to the popular pier. R says the low rise buildings in front are stunning and huge inside.

 

There was so much sand on the boardwalk, it was hard to know at some points if it wasn't just sand.

It was a lovely warm morning of about 21 degrees and a number of children were in the warm freezing waters. Can you see a naked boy in this photo? R opened his mouth to tell me there was a naked boy just as I clicked. I wasn't aware at the time and only noticed him once home and I only know it was a boy because R told me. As you can can see, he is hidden by another lad. I have no problem with naked kids at beaches, but I don't really want to be seen photographing them. 

Nearby at Station Pier is the Spirit of  Tasmania, its sailings suspended for a couple of days because of Covid positive below deck staff member. The day it returned it had a day and night sailing instead of just a day sailing. Not so much for passengers but freight I should think. When the ferry was suspended I noticed from home a strange white ship on the bay from home and marine radar identified it as a freight ship bound to Devonport, Tasmania from Melbourne, the same port as for the ferry. 

I suppose this is a groyne. There were many lads fishing from the pier with multiple rods. None seem to have caught anything but it was nice to see them there and not at home on their devices.

The pier's end. It was a lovely hour and half. You have to take small pleasures when you can.

Woke Wednesday

I don't really know what the woke term means. I've changed my blog profile description a little in recognition of the Aboriginal land I live upon. Does that make me woke? 

I don't think a fact by definition can be wrong. There isn't such a thing as a wrong fact. Here are some facts.

Fact: England invaded what we know as Australia. It took over Aboriginal land occupied by them for hundreds of thousands years, the invasion being by both force and presence.

Fact: England had no right to do so.

Fact: England treated those whose country they invaded very badly.

Fact: If England had not invaded, another country would have.

Fact: I am not responsible for what my ancestors may have done.

Fact: My parents and their parents and their parents were born in Australia. 

Fact: I was born in Australia. It is my country, the only one I know. The only one my family knows.

Fact: Nowadays Australians come in many shapes, sizes, colours and looks. 

Fact: Our Aboriginal people do not like Australia Day on the 26th of January, or Invasion Day as they call it, when the first fleet of ships from England arrived to Australia. Why isn't it changed to a date more agreeable to those whose country England invaded? 

This is Australia. If you don't know, I live in the green state called Victoria on the right down the bottom. Below is our island state of Tasmania, above in yellow, New South Wales, in green above, Queensland. To the left of Victoria and New South Wales in pink is South Australia. Above that is in orange is the Northern Territory, which is not a state and South Australia kind of governs it even though NT has its own government. The big yellow state is Western Australia. Its capital city is Perth with over two million people and it is the most remote large city in the world from a similarly sized city, with probably Melbourne or an Indonesian city being the closet with a population that exceeds that of Perth. 

The Dead

There was an interesting recent newspaper piece where a minister of religion urged us to call people who have died as dead, and not passed, passed on or passed over. I am with him. People die and become dead. Maybe in their lives they have passed a kidney stone but just passed? So weird. It is a softening word but really, is it needed? Isn't it better to say someone has died and confront the reality?  Express death how ever you want. I am not telling you what to do, just how I see it.

R worked with Albert in the 1970s. I began working with Albert in the 1980s and continued to work with him until I chose retirement in 2019 and he was forced to retirement the same year when he was diagnosed with dementia. 

While still working, he would plaintively wail, what will I do with myself if I retire. (He could just have become a lazy and spoilt self indulgent bastard like me).

Albert had two sons and a daughter. I don't known the daughter but his youngest son, slim as rake, worked in our local bank in the 90s. His older son was a muso and a drug user. Taking after his mother, his skin was pale and he was very nice looking with very long tied back hair. Smoking hot, I would say. Now the bank son is fat and old, and the older son, short curly grey haired but still handsome as an older man.

Albert was a hard worker and earned lots of money and was very generous with money. But his last few years were spent in public housing and he was kicked out of the matrimonial bed to the couch by his wife who he would lecture about her gambling, drinking and smoking. His wife was also Indian but very white looking. 

His two sisters live in England and Albert was a passionate Tottenham Hotspurs supporter. He always intimated he came to Australia from England, without ever saying so but the funeral online as we watched told the truth.

Albert grew up in Park Circus in Calcutta, a posh area for Anglo Indians. I've worked with many Anglo Indians who grew up in Park Circus. I expect he was part educated by Catholics before his parents moved to Perth when he was young and then Australian educated. He moved to Melbourne on his own in the 1970s and built his life.

He was Catholic and attended St Francis church in the city, but in more recent years he and some of his family became born again Christians. Being born again did not change Albert's interaction with us.

There is a YT clip of Albert being interviewed by the great nephew of our friend, Brighton Antique Dealer. Albert was born in 1942 but in the interview he said without the blink of an eye, 1946.

Early this year we saw Albert when we were brunching in Prahran Square. His normally perfectly groomed and black dyed hair was long and straggly and the colour was growing out. I am looking for a barber to cut my hair, he told us. I ran into him two weeks later in Balaclava and he told me the same story of not being able to find a barber.

I am awaiting a response from a former workmate as to why he died but gee we will miss running into Albert when we are our and about. He would so often catch us in Myer while we were clothes shopping. This was Albert at the age of 77 when he retired.

I also learnt this day that the most marvellous ABC 3LO, now ABC Melbourne broadcaster Mary Adams died. She came to Australia from Palmerston North in New Zealand and was one of the last of ABC's broadcasters with a posh and sublimely mellow voice. Her diction was perfect and she rarely made a mistake.

With late Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Monday Mondegreen

Debby of  Life's Funny Like That recently mentioned The Beatles song Eleanor Rigby. It was covered by an Australian band called Zoot and I prefer Zoot's version over The Beatles version. 

However, I do recognise that Paul McCartney? has better diction than Daryl Cotton. My mondegreen when hearing of Zoot's version was 'Eleanor Rigby picked up the rights in  the church where a wedding had been'. After listening to The Beatles version it is of course 'Picked up the rice'. Zoot's version has a long instrumental intro. I skipped forward. I have a low boredom threshold. 

Sunday Selections: Orderly

Joining with Elephant's Child and River for Sunday Selections. While EC's partner may have designed these nice straight layouts, EC will come along and spoil them with random additional plantings, maybe pots or even hanging baskets. Ok, it is not really a good link to connect some photos, but I tried.

Orderly planting of elm trees in Fawkner Park. Why not some daffodil bulbs randomly planted between them? 

Orderly but temporary tubs of trees and I think portulaca. The portulaca has been there for two years and not flowered. Maybe I am wrong about them being portulaca. Some colourful annuals between the pots might be nice. Petunias would be nice, but it is too early yet.

Nature wins over humans with this tightly clipped hedge still managing to flower prolifically. Wouldn't a random collection of spring flowering bulbs in front of the azaleas look nice?

A sleek and small modern cafe nearby has these marvellous retro lamps. How about some pots of hanging geranium in between them?

Ok, not much of a post and I am expecting a biff over my ears from EC, not so much for what I said, but the poor post.