Author Archives: outsidethesquare101

#18 Make New Friends

One of the ironies of retirement is that while you have all the time in the world to meet and bond with new friends, your ability to find them seems to shrink somewhat precipitously. The big wide world of exciting new people that employment casts in your direction suddenly disappears and you realise you need to act.

Yes, it’s time to

#18 Make New Friends

The sad truth is, life-long friends who’ve also retired begin to move away, to seek out warmer places, be nearer grandchildren, or follow some other dream. Before you know it, your wide circle of friends has become a small ring of friends and without care, may end up as a mere dot of friends. And you certainly don’t want to be the last one standing, friendless. So while it’s vital to keep and nurture long standing friends, making new ones also becomes pretty important.

The question is, how do you meet new people in a setting that may help form lasting bonds? What worked in past years doesn’t go down so well when you’re older. I’ve noticed that if you’re not in primary school, blurting out ‘do you want to be my friend?’ has shades of stalking.

My three BFFs in 1965, no questions asked.

They say that volunteering is a great way to meet people. But of course, it all depends on where you volunteer and for whom.

Why I would have thought that reading excerpts from a newspaper on air while cooped up in a tiny studio would increase my circle of friends is a mystery to this day.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

A really conducive setting for meeting others and building friendships…or perhaps not

Then one day, out of the blue, an old friend came up with a very clever idea. Why not build up a group of eight or ten people, meet regularly and immerse ourselves in new and interesting activities? Any activity that appeals to us. It would be a way to meet new folk, broaden our horizons and perhaps try something we’d never done before.

And here’s the clever bit. To help the group expand, each new member invites one other person – importantly, someone not well known to the existing group – until we reach the size that works for us.

The beauty of this plan is that you only have to know one other person to ask, yet before long, there are eight or ten of you all meeting regularly, having fun and becoming great friends. It works whether you’ve lived in the same place for years, or have just moved and begin by knowing only one other.

We call ourselves ‘Discovery Group’ and the person who hosts the fortnightly session chooses the topic du jour. We’ve had a magnificent array of experiences since we began. There was the ‘Learn How to Tweet’ day, the discussion about what we’d done for our ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ fortnight, the ‘Solving cryptic crosswords’ session – with a guest teacher no less – through to more traditional activities like discussing our ‘Favourite book’ or ‘Learning to make Pasta’.

But recently, we hit the jackpot when one of our inspired members suggested we hold ‘The Great Clerihew Challenge of 2014.’ Who’d have thought nine such mild mannered people would have such wicked senses of humour, and such disrespect for our politicians? Of course, it helps enormously to have a leader whose first name rhymes with ‘phoney’.

But among a slew of hilarious Clerihews, this one really took my fancy:

Vladimir Putin

Lootin’ and Shootin’

Is at it again

Invading Ukraine

#17 Indulge in Life’s Little Luxuries

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What a relief we’re not compelled to believe our Government’s pronouncements.

So if, for example, they were to tell us that the Age of Entitlement is over, we can smile in the secret knowledge that this just isn’t true. Or to paraphrase a classic line from George Orwell’s novel, 1984: ‘They can tell us anything – anything – but they can’t make us believe it. They can’t get inside us.’*

So in retirement, I’m prepared to disregard Government directives and flaunt my sense of entitlement to:

#17 Indulge in Life’s Little Luxuries

TS Eliot may have said ‘I have measured out my life with coffee spoons’ but have you noticed how we’re now expected to measure our life by ‘the cost of a cup of coffee’? This phrase seems to have entered the language as synonymous with a tiny amount of money, an amount so inconsequential, so piffling that it can barely be considered spending money. You’ll understand then, if I refer to some of these little luxuries as sometimes costing even less than a cup of coffee.

***

We have two new pâtisseries in town, Patty’s and Geoffrey Michael’s. Not cake shops. Pâtisseries. They deserve the French title, because they both produce the most exquisite little treats imaginable. A feast for the eyes as well as the taste buds.

Just look at what I was able to buy on Saturday for a special morning tea with friends:

And each of these delicacies cost a mere 0.75 of the ‘cost of a cup of coffee’.

Then I noticed from my kitchen window that the last of the Apricot Nectar roses were blooming. Why leave them out in the garden to be ruined by the rain? Isn’t a vase of fresh flowers the ultimate in luxury? And all it takes is some gardening gloves, a pair of secateurs and a little time to provide such an indulgence.

…Costing significantly less than the ten cups of coffee a florist would charge…

Now, until Cussons soaps started advertising their Imperial Leather brand as the soap for use in the bath on your private jet I considered soap was just – well, soap.

That advertisement changed my view a little, but now, it’s been ratcheted up even further. And hurrah for that. More little luxuries.

Have you heard of Himalayan salt soap? Or SoapRocks® in assorted styles and colours, like Fire Opal™ or Citrene™?

I hadn’t until recently, but now they’re officially on my list of little luxuries.

Soaps just ain’t soaps any more… but to be fair, these cost more like a cup of civet coffee than regular coffee.

And does this ring a bell with anyone?

The imprisoned ‘Good Set’…

Yes, it’s the ‘Good Set’, the one handed down from your grandmother to your mother and now to you, and forever destined to be locked up behind a glass facade, or hidden in a box somewhere upstairs, only to enjoy day release on very rare, very special occasions.

Pshaw, I say to that. Be a devil. Use the ‘Good Set’ just because you can.

And it’s a known fact that tea and coffee tastes better in a forbidden cup.

The one above costs more than the one below!

Is it just me, or is there something seriously luxurious about fur? These days, fur means faux fur, of course, unless we’re talking about a real kitten. But I even love the feel of faux fur against skin, and every time I put on my faux fur-trimmed gloves I feel … special.

I could go on for ages, adding items like sleeping on silk pillowslips, or using bathroom fragrance tapers, or indulging in a glass of Grand Marnier or Frangelico liqueur, because finding little luxuries is very close to my heart.

But the best thing is, I don’t have to sacrifice even one cup of coffee for any of these treats, because the truth is, I don’t actually drink coffee…

* The original quote from George Orwell’s 1984 was said by Julia: ‘They can make you say anything – anything – but they can’t make you believe it. They can’t get inside you.’

***SPOILER ALERT***

Unfortunately, Julia was wrong.

#16 Attend a Major Sporting Event

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The beauty of sport is that it doesn’t matter if you have the eye-hand coordination of a fish and the fitness level of a sloth, you can still get involved. And that’s because watching sport is one of life’s little pleasures, with the added bonus that as a spectator, you’re magically bestowed with all the sporting knowledge and skills you don’t have when you try to play.

Who hasn’t yelled at the television during an exciting match: ‘For goodness’ sake, I could’ve kicked the goal from there!’?

So this brings me to the next fun and frivolous activity:

#16 Attend a Major Sporting Event

By ‘Major’ sporting event, I mean something SO BIG that it has the words ‘OLYMPIC’, ‘GRAND’ or ‘NAME-OF-A-COUNTRY OPEN’ in the title.

So when generous friends bought me a ticket to attend a Centre Court match during the Australian Tennis Open last January, how could I resist?

“‘Name-of-a-Country’ Open”, “Grand”, “Slam” and “Asia/Pacific” in one hit. Bingo!

The ticket was for an evening session early in the second week, which was perfect.

The extreme weather that caused such debate during the first week was no longer a problem and being the second week, we were pretty much guaranteed players of high calibre.

My match was between the highly fancied second seed, Novak Djokovic and the hitherto almost unknown Swiss player, Stanislaw Wawrinka.

I was unkindly expecting a quick three-setter, judging that Novak would demolish his opponent in no time.

Shows you how much I know about tennis.

Early days…

By the time the fifth set began, we were on the edge of our seats, the noise level in the stadium would have raised the roof, had it been closed, and while I still waited for the inevitability of a Djokovic win, it was marvellously exciting to watch.

Except that the unthinkable happened, and Stan Wawrinka triumphed in one of those magical endings you never forget. He went on to win the title a few days later.

So just how good is Attending a Major Sporting Event?

It’s good. Seriously good.

You’re wrapped up in the atmosphere, part of a wave of supporters all focussed on the same action, at the same moment. You feel like your support is essential to the players, and that you, too, are as important as the players.

And I also got to experience a screaming, roaring, very partisan Djokovic fan sitting right next to me. A fan who, interestingly, spent the entire match flicking through photos of scantily-clad women on his smart phone – which fortunately didn’t seem to worry his girlfriend – and only looked up to emit an ear-splitting bellow when he realised Novak must have won a point.

But are there any downsides to Attending a Major Sporting Event?

Only one or two, really. Having to queue between games for a bottle of water so pure, so pristine that you’re prepared to pay the equivalent of an airline upgrade for it can be a bit annoying. As is waiting … and waiting … at the bottom of the stairs, missing important play, until the organisers let you resume your centre court seat at the next break.

And of course, the other problem with such an intense, live experience is the slight let-down when you realise that you’ll be watching the remaining matches on television and will no longer be able to influence the results like you (think) you can when you’re in the crowd.

To counteract this, I invited friends around to watch the semi-final as a ‘special television event’ on my big screen a few nights later.

It had its advantages. We could chat through the points without being ordered to be ‘quiet please’, we saw all the play in exquisite close-up detail and we had puzzling decisions explained by the commentators while we ate and drank whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted without breaking the bank.

And enjoying a comfort break without having to wait for my friends to let me re-enter my television room was priceless.

#15 Compile a list of “Wake me from a Coma” items

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Imagine you were in an accident and, perish the thought, ended up in a coma. Would your closest family and friends know what could rouse you from your unplanned slumber? Would they have a clear idea of what’s so important to you that it could trump unconsciousness?

With this in mind, I’ve decided on my next fun (though hardly frivolous) activity:

#15 Compile a list of “Wake Me From a Coma” items

It’s a big ask, I know. Would it be a voice? A perfume? Music? Or something else?

It turns out to be all these things.

There were times during my search when my heart began to race, and times when it slowed to a glacial pace. There were the unexpected moments where I felt something inside me was melting. That’s when I knew I’d found what I was looking for.

There’s probably a name for the moment when an experience literally stops you in your tracks. Whatever it is, I suspect that, paradoxically, it may be the very thing that could wake you from a coma.

So in no particular order:

1. Schubert Impromptu in G Flat Op 90 No 3

I first heard this when it featured in the Australian film “The Getting of Wisdom” in the seventies, and was so entranced that I learnt to play it. For a short, glorious period in my youth I could perform it in its entirety. It still gives me goose bumps.

*****

2. A gentle scalp massage.

You’ve seen kittens purr. Now watch someone wake from a coma.

*****

3. “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from Samson and Delilah by Camille Saint-Sans

Sung by Marilyn Horne

If there’s no blip on my heart monitor at the 1’44” point, then I’m in serious trouble.

*****

4. Harry Nilsson’s “Can’t live without you.”

It turns out that I could, but it makes me feel young and in love again, so it’s in. For that matter, Starry, Starry Night – the Don McLean version – is another heart starter.

*****

5. A whiff of Diorissimo® Perfume

It was my mother’s choice throughout her life. Say no more.

*****

6. Mozart’s Laudate Dominum sung by Dame Kiri te Kanawa.

How did Mozart get it so right? I melt.

*****

7. Jesse by Janis Ian

And why has this been lost in the mists of time? At least Tina Fey, in her film “Mean Girls”, paid sly homage to the fabulously talented Janis.

*****

8. Schubert’s An die Musik

A glorious Schubert song that celebrates the beauty of music. I wish I spoke German.

*****

9. A live reading by James Mason. Or Gregory Peck.

Who wouldn’t wake for the mellifluous voices of these two? Alas it will never happen again, so I may have to settle for George Clooney by my bedside…

*****

10. A 1940s rendition of “You are my Sunshine.”

My father taught us this on the drive to school many years ago and we’d belt it out when we were all in a happy mood. It makes me smile every time I hear it.

So there’s my very personal list. It’s by no means exhaustive, but it’s a start – and the search has been such fun.

#14 Celebrate the Ordinary

#13 Rediscover your Creative Side

#12 Play a Game You’ve Never Tried Before

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When I mentioned my retirement in the “About” section of this Blog, it wasn’t the complete story. While I retired from my substantive position some time ago, I still work about half a day a week from home for a Tribunal where I interact with lawyers. This explains why I sometimes use odd words like “substantive” in an otherwise normal sentence.

The job involves regular telephone link-ups with other Tribunal members around Australia, but once a year we have a conference at some gorgeous location where we spend two days, among work duties, catching up with each other in person.

And it was at this year’s conference where I had a chance to find another fun and frivolous activity:

#12 Play a Game You’ve Never Tried Before

The conference was held at Lancemore Hill set in the Macedon Ranges, an hour north of Melbourne with…

breathtaking views.

And during our downtime, we had the choice of an invigorating walk up to the aforementioned breathtaking views, an invigorating round of golf, or a game of Petanque.

Now I had no idea what Petanque was, but as it didn’t have the word ‘invigorating’ before it, it sounded like the activity for me.

Alas, I had a hard time convincing anyone else to join me in a mystery game. I hadn’t realised that persuading others – especially those who are not retired – to find fun and frivolous things to do might take some effort on my part.

But bless Lancemore Hill. It turned out that the activity was actually called Pinot and Petanque and as they delivered the Petanque equipment to me, it was accompanied by a bottle of Pinot and four glasses.

Suddenly, I had too many playmates for Petanque.

So what is Petanque, you ask? Well, it’s Boules, the popular French game in which you throw heavy metal balls down a strip of ground or lawn trying to finish closest to a jack, which is also known as a cochonnet or “piglet”.

Apparently, it’s the heavy balls that are called boules, while the game itself is Petanque. Pronounced something like Pe-tonk.

So … French!

Image courtesy of Viernest

May I say that an afternoon spent playing Petanque with colleagues while drinking a glass of Pinot is a delightful way to bond? And the sound of clinking glasses and laughter from the lawn led to more and more players joining – and more and more bottles of pinot disappearing. Suddenly, it was one of the more popular pursuits of the afternoon.

It so happened that I was idly looking through eBay on my return home when what should I find but a set of boules for sale not a suburb away from where I was about to visit.

A set of boules for a starting price of $5.00. Yes, $5.00.

I just had to have them, even though they ended up costing me …all of $7.52

My very own set of boules with their little piglet

However, as I started practising in earnest, one slight drawback to this new activity emerged.

While everyone’s heard of tennis elbow, I think there just might be a condition called Petanque shoulder…

#11 Embrace your foibles

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When Jenny Macklin entertained Annabel Crabb recently on Kitchen Cabinet (ABC TV) Annabel commented on Jenny’s “exceedingly organised spice drawer”.

A text – from my sister – suddenly appeared on my iPhone:

“She calls that an organised spice drawer?”

I understood what she meant. She was, of course referring to my own spice drawer.

Jenny had no system going whatsoever. A few handwritten labels carelessly stuck on the top of mismatched jars, no sign of alphabetisation, no ability to see the label and the spice simultaneously. Who was she kidding?

…now this is an organised spice drawer

So as well as admitting that I may have a very mild case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (or perfectionism, as I prefer to call it) I’ve decided it’s time to give in to it and rather than be embarrassed, claim it as a fun and frivolous pursuit:

#11 Embrace your foibles

Once you give yourself permission, there’s no knowing where it will end.

A trip to the Reject Shop recently resulted in a magnificent find: small rectangular plastic trays perfectly proportioned to fit the very narrow width of bathroom cabinets. And better than that, they came in different lengths.

This gave me the chance to carefully measure the dimensions of the cabinet and work out all the possible permutations and combinations of tray sizes needed for a perfect fit.

I’m really on a roll now . Why not reorganise under the sink, too?

But wait, it gets worse.

While in the Reject Shop, I found these drawer dividers, so now my jumpers can be separated by colour.

Opening this drawer creates a frisson of excitement … for mild OCD sufferers

Another little foible of mine is taking a photo of food I’ve cooked, so I can compare it to the original photos in the recipe book. (Well, okay, not just compare it, but actually attach it to the cook book.)

Roast veggies from the recipe book

…

Come and see the real thing…

So it turns out that traits I’ve always found slightly annoying (I mean, what’s the point in counting steps every single time I walk up or down them?) can be turned into something that’s fun, or if not fun, at least frivolous.

Though I haven’t worked out yet how counting steps can be put to good use. By my measure, regular exercise by climbing a certain number of stairs is neither fun nor frivolous…

#10 Keep Backyard Chickens

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This blog entry was supposed to be called #10: Attend a Major Sporting Event, because I was lucky enough to be given centre court tickets to the Australian Tennis Open in January for my birthday. Alas, life had other ideas. An acute hand injury just after Christmas required emergency surgery and put me well and truly out of action for several weeks. The trip to the tennis, and my next blog, became a forgotten dream.

No matter, as there’s always another Fun and Frivolous event to fill the void:

#10 Keep Backyard Chickens

This activity has become somewhat de rigueur, I know, but in my defence, it began over three years ago as a rescue operation for two anonymous chickens that a neighbour was about to kill due to their poor egg-laying habits.

In my mind, I’d named them Scarlet and Nancy, after the Scarlet Pimpernel and Nancy Wake, because they were about to cheat certain death. Unfortunately they suddenly turned up their toes – literally fell off the perch – before I could save them.

Come to think of it, this probably explains their previously poor egg-laying ability.

By this stage, though, I was enthused enough about owning chickens to construct a chicken coop with the help of Rentachook who provided the flat pack and plentiful instructions to get started:

The chicken coop takes shape

This also led to building a fenced area so they could wander in the garden, – within limits – fertilise the lawns and keep the area pest-free. How easy was this going to be?

Soon after two new ISA brown chickens joined the family:

Naturally they were named Scarlet and Nancy

A crash course in chicken husbandry taught me that chickens want food, on tap, 24/7 so I bought an inexpensive feeder and filled it with layer pellets which they could access easily.

Before I knew it, I was also feeding the entire sparrow, pigeon, dove, starling, magpie, peewee … you get the picture … population of the surrounding district, who’d evidently sent out the word: “Smorgasbord, guys, all you can eat over at Number 525.” The bill for chicken feed became anything but chicken feed.

Enter GrandPa’s feeders, the best invention to come out of New Zealand since pavlova. (Only kidding. Grandpa’s feeders really are a New Zealand innovation). Sure, the initial cost was quite high, and it took several weeks of s-l-o-w training before Scarlet and Nancy got the hang of it, (remember, chickens have tiny brains) but my chicken-feed bill has dropped so precipitously that I’ve paid for it several times over and I can go on holidays with a free conscience knowing there’ll be plenty of food for them.

“You first…” “No, you first…”

In fact it’s so good, I bought one for friends who also have chickens. Thoroughly recommended!

Finally, the girls began laying, and how exciting it was to gather their eggs and see them mature from the initial tiny pullet eggs to super sized ones:

For the first twelve months, I religiously locked them up every night to prevent foxes attacking them. Even though no fox has ever been seen so close to the centre of town, everyone will tell you they’re out there, just waiting… waiting…

Then one night I was away and forgot to protect them. Expecting a scene of carnage on my return it was a relief to discover they were doing fine. Since then, they’ve had free run of the garden.

The lack of foxes in the area is probably helped by the presence of my black whippet Ziggy who tolerates no intruders, a noisy dog called Leo over the back fence who tolerates – well, nothing at all, really – and in particular, Next-Door’s cat who, when not on their roof coolly staring down at Scarlet and Nancy from on high in a rather intimidatory manner, is crawling the gutters outside my house, staking out her territory:

“Just keeping an eye on my property…”

But now, the girls are over 3 years old and as any true chicken aficionado will tell you with a slight sniff, “ISA Browns are only bred to be egg-laying machines for 18 months, then they get culled or die of exhaustion.”

This means the girls rarely lay these days, but I’ve had great eggs for almost three years and the best avocado harvests ever, thanks to the soil underneath the trees being aerated, bugs and fungi being gobbled down and fertiliser being applied daily, direct from the source.

So I think they’ve earned the right to live out the remainder of their days in the front garden at 525.

May they Nest in Peace

#9 Take a Road Trip

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Aah, road trips. Doesn’t the very phrase conjure memories of student days where long summer holidays meant jumping in the car with friends, turning up the radio as Simon and Garfunkel went to “look for America” and heading off somewhere fun and new, preferably near water?

Of course, I didn’t have a car in those days, wasn’t much of a swimmer, and was way too shy to take off on such adventures, so I actually have no memories of anything as exciting as a youthful road trip, but at least friends’ stories and Simon and Garfunkel gave me a taste of it.

But finally the time has come: to re-create the free-spirited younger life I never really had the first time round:

#9: Take a Road Trip

My sister and I had planned for some years to head over to Western Victoria and the Grampians to dine at the renowned Royal Mail Hotel restaurant in Dunkeld, so when Sydney friends had the same idea, we decided to do the Western Victoria Road Trip and meet them there.

Mt Sturgeon, Dunkeld

But best of all, we realised it could be a nostalgic trip by catching up with old friends and relatives on the way and revisiting our birthplace at Ballarat.

Sturt Street Ballarat was never like this when I grew up there…

I’m delighted to report that nostalgic road trips are as enjoyable as I imagined. Reuniting with old friends is like eating crumpets and honey in front of an open fire on a cold, wet night. So comforting, so warming.

The company was wonderful throughout our trip – and so was the food.

There’s a lot of quirkiness to be found on road trips, and in Australia, this often seems to revolve around animals. Trentham, in central Victoria, is keen on wombats:

But they also seem to like animals not normally found in our climes:

Panda and friends opposite the wonderful Red Beard Bakery in Trentham

And who could go past the larger-than-life kookaburra in Dunkeld?

I also learnt about lychgates on this trip, when friends told us of their plans to construct one as an entrance to the property they’re planning to build in Trentham. I love it when you hear about something for the first time, then you keep hearing about it or seeing it and you wonder how you got so far in life in such ignorance.

Lychgates originated in England and were built to shelter coffins awaiting the clergyman at the entrance to a churchyard, but despite the name, they don’t necessarily have a gate attached to them. Here’s an example I found, with much excitement, in Hamilton, just 2 days after finding out what a lychgate actually was:

My first sighting of a lychgate-style entrance…

But blow me down, upon arriving back home and boring all my friends with tales of lychgates, I was told that not one kilometre from my home was a perfect example of one at the entrance to our pioneer cemetery – replete with a gate:

A beautiful example of a Lychgate – a few hundred metres from home!

But the massive hedge with the word Bolinda carefully sculptured into the side took the prize for the quirkiest sight on the trip.

Why is “Bolinda” meticulously carved into this hedge?

And in another of those “you hear about something for the first time, then you keep hearing about it or seeing it” moments, I came across a billboard on the Tullamarine freeway as I returned home that screamed www.bolinda.com.

Now this website belongs to a publishing company, but is it related to my hedge located somewhere between Dunkeld and Hamilton?

You’ve got to love a good mystery!