Welcome and come on in. Let’s get settled with a cup of tea or coffee and we’ll have a chat. How is your weather? Australia is in the midst of a heat wave. The tour down under bike race was cancelled for two days because it was dangerously hot. The Australian Open Tennis however, was not cancelled and players had to perform in temperatures above 40 degrees celsius. Novak Djokovic and Gael Monfils both complained, one saying he was dying on court. There is talk of reviewing the extreme temperature rule but not until this years event is completed. Naturally with this level of heat with the addition of wind fires are breaking out but hopefully they will be quickly contained. What is more frightening is the number of parents leaving their little children locked in cars. On one day alone ten children had to be rescued and yesterday another four with one now in hospital in a serious condition. Every one needs to be aware that heat kills. Check your elderly neighbours. Give pets ice in their water. For us here on the Sunshine Coast where we expect hot weather, we have been let off lightly with so far only two days of extreme heat.
If we were having coffee I’d tell you that we have been putting up shade cloths so that we can walk on the tiles out by our pool and sit at the table there. Without shade it is impossible. We started off with one sail but that didn’t give us the coverage we needed so we ordered another. With age any project we do seems to take on a slapstick element to it. Neither of us have the hand strength any more to open a soft drink bottle let alone cut wire with wire cutters. (I even had to return a fly spray to Aldi because neither of us could depress the spray button. It must be faulty we thought until the cash register girl easily pressed and got a spray which filled the shop. I demonstrated my powers and she gave me my money back). Every swage we did had to be undone and the list goes on but finally we have our sails up and they work well.
© irene waters 2018
If we were having coffee I’d tell you that I took my mother to see the film “The Post.” with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks produced by Steven Spielberg. The film was based on a true story about the Washington Post, the first ever female publisher of an American newspaper and secrets about the Vietnam War. I have poor attention span when watching films or television and it really has to grab me from the start and keep that grab going for me to stay awake. The start worked but then it became a bit slow for me and off I went to sleep. I don’t think I was asleep for too long and the rest of the film was good. It is interesting too, watching history you remember. My Mum and the other lady we took both loved it in its entirety. One aspect I really enjoyed seeing was the inside workings of newspaper printing. My ex brother in law used to be a typesetter – a job now no longer in existence. It was wonderful revisiting this process and wondering at how much times have changed.
If we were having coffee I’d tell you that I am in the process of installing an automatic watering system. My husband told me not to do it but I never do what I’m told so I purchased the equipment needed without telling him and started the installation whilst he was at golf. He was not as upset as I had expected him to be but he also refuses to learn how to use it so when I thought 2:00 was minutes and was in reality hours he had no idea how to turn it off (if he would have done anyway) and used it as an ‘I told you so’ of the pointlessness of having a system. He will come round. I haven’t quite finished but will by the time we head off on our cruise to New Guinea ( 19 days 5 hours and 5 minutes).
If we were having coffee I’d tell you that nothing else has happened in my life. I am writing, reading and trying to get fit. A hint I was given for helping with my eating was that a slice of pineapple a day will stave off cravings for sweet things. I have been doing this and I have to say I don’t feel the same need I did before and have cut them down.
Enough about me. How was your week? Has your weather been warmer/colder, wetter/drier. Have you read any good books or seen any good films? Thank you for dropping in for coffee, it is lovely to see you. Thanks to eclecticali who is our host of the weekend coffee share.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 