I've noticed that favoured weekly TV programs now seem to pop up about every three days and years last for around six months despite the constraints of COVID. I remember a time when birthdays and Christmases took an age to roll around but not now. I wish time could have passed this rapidly when I was doing playground duty or sitting captive in a staff meeting where things that could be said in 20 words or less were said in 200 then repeated with minor variance three more times.
And speaking of COVID and classrooms, how glad am I to be retired when I look at what teachers have had to endure these last two years and not just teachers?! Bouquets to everyone who has keep society functioning and brickbats to the brats whose appalling behaviour prolonged lockdowns and killed so many people. And I'm not even going to start on a particular nest of fuckwits in our federal government!
So moving on...
Pete and I have had a quiet year, most of it contained within the Shire of Hornsby although I did have numerous excursions to my dentist at Redfern, my endodontist in the city and an oral surgeon in Chatswood, all lovely folk... but! Most of Peter's medical needs were attended to via Telehealth but you just can't Zoom a root canal, a filling or an extraction.
We did, however, manage to get to Melbourne during a delicious window between lockdowns. We spent a night in Tumut en route and being autumn that was just lovely. Interestingly enough everyone else seemed to have the same idea. Motel rooms were all booked out a fortnight ahead but I managed to score the very last pub room with an en suite. I don't sleep anywhere that's not within a couple of metres from a toilet! The Tumut Broom Factory is apparently now the only manufacturer of genuine Australian made millet brooms so go there, buy one, buy three! We did.
We stayed with Uncle Russell in Melbourne. He's not actually our uncle and isn't even too much older than us but he possesses the wisdom and charming eccentricity of a much loved old uncle, hence the courtesy title. And along much the same lines I hope we fulfilled the wise and eccentric but not really related uncle roles when we met our gorgeous Claytons great niece Tessa for the very first time. The reason for the trip was to attend her first birthday celebration which was a real treat as was that evening's catch up with the Southern Cawthornes; my cousin Zelda and her daughter and grandchildren Tanya, Liev and Amalia. What a brilliant time we had!
No visit with Uncle is ever long enough but we'd already driven him crazy and redesigned a chunk of his garden which was great fun, especially our three visits to Poynton's Nursery in Essendon. It's a gardener's paradise with the most amazing variety and quality of stock all overlooking the Maribyrnong and just along from a classic Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony incinerator. And being as we are fans of all things Griffin-Mahony our return stop was in Canberra where we spent a couple of nights, did the galleries and enjoyed a few of nice restaurants.
https://cawthorne54.blogspot.com/2021/05/tales-of-subaru-southbound-2021.html
That was it for travel. I had booked ten days away in August to visit lovely Aunty Joan on the Queensland Sunshine Coast with a couple of nights in Armidale on the way up and Brunswick Heads and Port Macquarie on the way back but much as I can break droughts simply by erecting a tent it seems I can now lockdown whole local government areas and even entire slabs of states just by planning to visit them. First it was Armidale then all of South Eastern Queensland followed by five LGAs on the North Coast of NSW. Sydney was also in lockdown by that point so we couldn't leave the Shire of Hornsby anyway then just for a little extra value adding beautiful Aunty Joan died the day before we would have left.
Which brings me to a very important matter: Will you people please stop dying?! We lost five of you in just three months. First there was the extraordinary Anne van der Kley who left so many people right around the world wanting more. Then there was my former boss Lance Richardson who went off just after his 90th birthday with a glass of wine in one hand and a Caramello Koala in the other. Way to go Lance! Then came Peter's gorgeous Aunty Joan who I claimed as my own within minutes of meeting her years ago. My extraordinary cousin Des was next, the most positive man in the entire world. He lost both legs and both kidneys but got replacements for all and had a glass that was so half full it was overflowing. And last of all came Peter's sister Debra who he loved more than I can tell. Deb was recovering from a very nasty fall and things were actually coming on quite nicely when she went off to bed one night and died with a TV remote control in her hand. So enough you lot, no more!
But back to the land of the living...
Peter's squint surgery wasn't a success but was well worth a try because it might have been. Both eyes are now aligned but double vision still occurs if he looks up or down and this would worsen if he was to go ahead with the second stage of the surgery and have the drooped eyelid lifted. On a positive note, he can now manage without the patch at home but needs it when he goes out, especially to rehab. And speaking of such things, that's going well thanks to excellent therapists and the amazing Lori who is Peter's support worker. She attends with him and comes for four hours every Wednesday to do follow up. We couldn't manage without Lori or Lars our garden maintenance chap who does things we can no longer attend to and does them well.
My glute has been a literal pain in the arse and all points south of there on the right side but I'm slowly getting there with the help of a new physiotherapist. My former one retired so the quest is on to ensure that all of our new healthcare supports are at least 30 years younger than us.
Pete was quite literally full of shit in the middle of the most recent lockdown so had four nights in a private suite at Hornsby Hospital where they went at him from both ends at the same time and finally cleared the blockage. Between the pico-prep and the enemas thank goodness for everyone's sake that he had his own bathroom. Too much information?
Jan and Tony are managing remarkably well. Jan has had two operations on vertebrae in her neck over the last 12 months to free up nerves that were being compressed by calcification and denying her proper use of her hands. If you need a good neurosurgeon we have a name for you and trust me, we shopped around. You don't cut one of mine until I'm sure I've found the best! Mind you, there was no time to go through an interview process when the hematoma on her leg turned nasty in early November with a repeat performance a month later, it was the first surgeon off the block. All appears to be sorted now.
Bruce is fabulously well and loved lockdown. He had his two favourite beings in the entire world to himself and the tucker just kept on coming. Six Million Dollar Chook Hazel Hawke finally had the green dream mid-year after a great deal of medical intervention over six of the seven years of her quite blessed life. Then our matriarch Oodgeroo left us a week ago while I had her at the vet getting antibiotics for a chronic throat condition. She suddenly fitted and it was all over in minute. Hell of a way to save on a vet bill! Our Girls are part of the family so although Hazel and Oodg are gone they're not forgotten. The others are all fine as the two turtles are and the three pigeons.
Not so the fish though with their numbers down from around 200 to possibly just a dozen thanks to evil raven bastard Russell Crow who treats their pond as his own private larder. It's topped with 50mm galvanised mesh but that just provided a fishing platform through which he stuck his head and went for it. That's when Lars came up with a simple solution I should have thought of years ago; lift them mesh by the height of a paver and see what happens. It will probably take a million years for Russell's descendants to evolve into long-necked ravens so we're good for now.
But is a million years of evolution now even possible? I regard our coal-fired federal government with contempt and despair and I'm not sure a Labor victory at next year's election will herald much in the way of improvement. The Glasgow Climate Change Summit was just a shit show so temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise. The profit of a few is at the core of everything but come the tipping point there will be no more profit to be made.
And with that, my friends, I wish you all Happy Holidays and a COVID-free New Year - personally at least. Yes, Holidays! There are lots of them around this time of year, not just the obvious one which should actually be celebrated in the northern summer. It's highly unlikely that Joseph and Mary would have been quite literally hauling ass to a census in the middle of a Palestinian winter but never allow fact to get in the way of a good story.
Peace, love and mung beans baby
Glenn, Peter and Bruce, et al
