Category Archives: Learn New Skills

#35 Unearth Buried Archaeological Skills

We have a brand new Art Gallery in town, but it’s no sedate country gallery any more.

Known by the acronym MAMA – for Murray Art Museum Albury, it’s a stunningly designed exhibition space with an entrance that excites the moment you step inside – soaring spaces and wonderful use of light on the ground floor…

… with an impressive staircase beside an elegantly curved wall leading to more spacious exhibition rooms upstairs:

Its new name is an inspired choice to attract locals and visitors alike, because we can now be exhorted to ‘Love your MAMA’, ‘Come to MAMA’, ‘Meet your MAMA’ and all the other combinations of warm motherhood emotions that can be evoked:

and the real clincher…

But the one I found irresistible was ‘MAMA needs you!’

Yes, MAMA was looking for volunteers. I was looking to get involved. It was a win, win situation.

So this is how I’ve ended up behind the scenes in the curating section at MAMA helping sort through the buried artefacts unearthed when the new foundations were being laid last year. I’m now officially one of ‘MAMA’S Little Helpers’. Bliss!

After a morning’s training session – admittedly quite a bit shorter than a university archaeology degree – I’m able to pretend to be an archaeologist; and isn’t delving into past civilisations a childhood dream shared by many of us?

Together with two other industrious volunteers, we sit in companionable silence – occasionally broken by one of us pointing out an interesting discovery – cleaning, sorting, grouping, bagging, tagging and recording memories from times past, which in this context, means life around Albury’s main street in the1800s.

Here’s how it works:*

Step One: Take large tubs of clumpy-looking, dirty detritus, which in this example, are called the contents of Spit 1. (A Spit, I can advise, is ‘a unit of archaeological excavation with an arbitrarily assigned measurement of depth and extent’.)

Under no circumstances mix the contents of a Spit with the contents of any subsequent Spits that will be coming your way (which are of course named Spit 2, Spit 3 and so forth).

Exhibit 1: Could this ever divulge hidden secrets?

Step Two: Transfer pieces of this unloved material into tubs of warm water and scrub gently with a soft toothbrush. Take particular care to clean the broken edges too, as these will often help identify the material:

Step Three: Rinse the now-clean items in water then leave to air dry on paper resisting the urge to place the artefacts in the sun or use a hair dryer to speed up the process.

This is where it becomes exciting as ancient Albury civilisations emerge before your eyes. (They do appear to include populations who use a lot of bottles):

Who’d have thought a tub of dirty bits and pieces would end up like this?

Step Four: Sort the pieces into matching colours or material groupings:

Then reconstruct some of the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle!

Step Five: Become excited when you find a piece of pottery with an identifying mark on the back such as this portion from the blue platter:

Become even more excited when you magnify this to realise it reads “Jabez Blackhurst– Asiatic Pheasants, and discover that Jabez Blackhurst (1843 –1914 ) was a well known Staffordshire potter.

Step Six: Commence bagging and tagging all the matching pieces of Spit 1 before moving onto Spit 2, the next layer down in the archaeological dig and which may expose even older artefacts than the contents of Spit 1:

Step Seven: Um … I haven’t been taught Step Seven quite yet, but I’m sure it will be just as satisfying as Steps One to Six.

Here are some great pieces the real archaeologist uncovered earlier, displayed like rare jewels at MAMA:

It was Agatha Christie who, being married to an archaeologist, famously quipped ‘An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets, the more interested he is in her.’

Volunteering as an archaeologist when you’re retired is not so different. You keep hoping you may discover some old artefact among the pieces you’re cleaning that will evoke memories of a long gone childhood…

*****
*You can try this at home – but it helps to be under the supervision of a real archaeologist…

#34 Renovate Painlessly

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You’re laughing uproariously now, aren’t you? Thinking that the phrase ‘renovate painlessly’ is a supreme example of an oxymoron on a par with ‘government organisation’ or ‘business ethics’.

Of course you’re right, but it seemed a neater title and more likely to catch the eye than the more honest:

#34 Renovate Painlessly (If at all Possible – Which of course, It Isn’t)

Over ten years ago, I did major renovations to my kitchen, moving from its outdated faux-log-cabin-look with incongruous lime green bench tops (what were they thinking?)

to a more streamlined modern look:

But what these cool Before and After shots don’t show is the agony of the weeks and weeks of living like this:

Recently, I decided to give my place a face lift, but being reluctant to suffer in this way again, took the easy approach and went with a simple repaint. And the good news is that you can feel like you’ve moved into a newer, larger home just by painting the ceilings, walls and skirting boards in lighter colours!

For those of us who waited patiently in the wrong queue when the skills for Choosing Design Features were being handed out, the agony of having to decide on a colour scheme has been taken away by the ever-helpful Mr Google.

Type in ‘what is the most popular colour to paint indoor walls in 2015?’ and the number one answer is ‘Antique White (USA)’. If you then ask a couple of knowledgable designer friends and the answer is exactly the same, you know you’re on a winner. Because even if it ends up looking awful, at least it’s the colour du jour and no one will dare criticise.

(As opposed to the delicate peach colour I independently chose for the second bedroom which has resulted in many comments along the lines, ‘Ah, an old fashioned colour. How quaint! It will probably come into vogue again one day’.)

So before long, and relatively painlessly, this:

magically turned into this:

And the dark hallway:

miraculously expanded into lightness and brightness:

…aided and abetted by furnishings and turning on lights, but doesn’t everyone cheat in the after photos?

Of course as everyone knows, once a bedroom has been painted, its fraying carpet and budget curtains scream in unison that they want a makeover too and what began as a relatively painless renovation becomes much more complicated.

However the whole experience of shifting furniture, rearranging ornaments and trying for a minimalist look has taught me that both tidying up and getting rid of junk can also make a home look so much better. Who knew?

If the idea of actually tidying up is enough to give you an attack of the vapours though, I’d recommend buying a very large, flat pack cupboard and finding a very talented person to put it together.

Bet you can’t spot the mess in the laundry any more…

#31 Photograph the Whimsical (and the Wonderful) in your Neighbourhood

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It began as the Humans of New York project and has now been taken up by many around the world. An intrepid photographer chooses random people in their city and takes a shot or two.

In this context, even though the idea came from the US, a ‘shot’ means a photographic one, not the other sort. The photos are then posted online, together with a short autobiographical quote from the subject. They’ve become wildly popular websites.

While the idea of approaching a stranger in this way has its appeal, I sheepishly decided that in a small city where you frequently run into friends and acquaintances, it’s a bit too confronting to attempt.

So instead, I’ve been taking my own snapshots around home but with a slightly different slant.

My latest project is called:

#31 Photograph the Whimsical (and the Wonderful) in your Neighbourhood

Once you begin doing this, you’ll never look at your surroundings in the same way again.

For example, does anyone have any idea why someone would toss two pairs of their discarded running shoes over electricity wires in a busy lane, as I photographed recently?

Urban myth has it that it may signify a place where you can purchase drugs, but wouldn’t that be too obvious? Or is it a way of recycling old shoes by turning them into “street art”, albeit not highly original?

Following this discovery, I noticed that the electronic news headlines which roll around the window of our local newspaper office each day can be inadvertently humourous.

This is either due to a misprint which changes the meaning altogether…

…or because it lacks the gravitas one normally expects from news headlines…

…this is why I love living in a regional area

A further wander around town has highlighted some of the whimsical projects our local council is fostering. In an effort to reduce graffiti, they’re covering the small electricity boxes on various street corners in the CBD with specially-protected anti-graffiti photographic facsimiles of our more iconic buildings.

So not only do we have an attractive post office…

but now we have a ‘mini-me’ post office as well (plus a whippet to help with perspective):

Or if you prefer, you can play ‘spot the imposter’:

versus

While doing some roof repairs to my home recently, workmen found this little gem tucked under the eaves. It will be the envy of politicians everywhere, taking the idea of ‘feathering your nest’ to new, literal heights as the local sparrows collect the feathers of my moulting chickens to weave their plush homes:

Can you imagine how good this would look cradling the starling’s eggs shown in an earlier blog?

Fit for a Disney Princess

And if you walk a dog often enough around Gateway Island, then one day, when the light and the weather conditions are perfect, you may capture a memorable image of Big Ears silhouetted against the lake…

…or the local wildlife might decide to put on a show for you at Noreuil Park:

“Seven Aussie Cockatoos
Each sitting on a post
Having so much fun to find
Who can SCREE…ECH the most”

The real benefit of this retirement activity is that it need never end.
Have smart phone … will shoot!

#28 Be a Judge at an International Horse Trials Event

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Thank goodness for friends. Because without one particular, close friend I would never have been asked to volunteer for my latest outsidethesquare experience:

#28 Be a Judge at an International Horse Trials Event

The truth is, although I had a few riding lessons as a child, I know little about horses and even less about eventing, dressage, cross-country jumping (have I got that right?) and other horse-related topics.

Fortunately, when you volunteer to help out at International Horse Trials, (and doesn’t that sound important?) lack of knowledge doesn’t matter a whit. As long as you’re prepared to sit by the finish line for a few hours and pencil-in the times called out to you by a fellow adventurer with a stopwatch, you can still pretend to be a ‘judge’.

If only I needed a CV these days, this latest experience might just clinch me a job.

And so it was that I found myself seated right here, pencil and paper at the ready, eager for horses and riders to brave the final jump of their cross-country round at the Albury Wodonga International Horse Trials over Easter this year.

I cannot write with any authority on the calibre of the horses, even though they looked magnificent to me:

Nor can I comment on the skills of the riders, even though their courage in facing solid jumps almost as tall as I am took my breath away.

There were the nail-biting moments:

Will she…?

Of course she will!

And horses with riders who seemed to fly over the barriers:

There were other fun moments, too, like riding an old jalopy around the course…

…handing out tea, coffee and biscuits to the real judges and watching their faces light up with thanks.

And who could refuse the chance to get their hands on a real walkie-talkie and use words like ‘Roger’ and ‘Over’?

When you help out at events like these, you realise the massive amount of work that goes into making them run so seamlessly. What a brilliant organising committee the Albury Wodonga Equestrian Centre has.

I can’t wait for next year.

I wonder if they need people with proven pencilling skills to judge the dressage…?

#25 A Journey ‘From Source to Sauce’

#22 ‘Attend’ a Webinar

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Here’s a question to ponder: if you don’t have to leave home, can you be said to have attended an event?

I considered this as I logged into my latest frivolous activity,

#22 ‘Attend’ a Webinar

before deciding that placing inverted commas around the word should cover all possibilities.

Some of you may be wondering what this newly concocted word ‘webinar’ actually means.

Think seminar for introverts. A place where you can learn about an interesting topic in real time, ask questions and make statements, but where you remain out of sight and out of earshot of the presenter, comfortably ensconced at home watching it live on your computer. A seminar where you have all the power.

There are several advantages to registering for a webinar rather than a seminar:

you can attend in your pyjamas
you can eat and drink during the presentation
you can check your emails, take a phone call or update your twitter feed, should you have one…
you can take a short nap
you can make loud comments with no one telling you to shush
You can type in questions or comments so the presenter knows you’re still there and might even mention you by name, and
you can leave if it all gets too boring.

What’s not to love?

With the experience of ‘attending’ at least four webinars under my belt, I can now postulate they can roughly be divided into four categories:

The Hard Sell
Serious and worthy
Helpful and earnest
Fun and frivolous

The first category should probably be avoided, unless you really want to commit to an outlay of $298.99 per month for 6 months to buy something that will probably never work for you like it works for the persuasive salesperson running the webinar.

…love the selfless afterthought…

One of my earliest webinars was with the Tax Office, learning how to be a good trustee. A very serious, very worthy, if somewhat dull topic but surprisingly well done and helpful, if you need to know how to be a good trustee.

Then I tried one on ‘How to Sleep Well’, but as the speaker still hadn’t joined the webinar 20 minutes after the advertised start time, I surmised she’d overslept. I left feeling a little jealous and with no helpful or earnest advice about sleeping.

But the prince of webinars was the one where I was taught the ins and outs of using Twitter. I use the term ‘I’ literally, as it turned out that I was the only attendee.

Mr Twitter was ever-so-helpful and answered all my typed questions and responded to all my comments, which are easy to submit:

But after about 20 minutes of the scheduled 60 minute webinar, this ominous message suddenly appeared on my screen and contact dropped out:

Uh oh.

So much for thinking I had all the power.

Looks like it had all got too boring for Mr Twitter…

#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…

#6 Become an Extra in a Film or Telemovie

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Have you ever hankered to have a moment, however brief, on the big screen?

If, like me, you’ve no discernable acting talent, this has probably seemed like a pipe dream, but now, I may have found the solution:

#6 Become an Extra in a Film or Telemovie

Extras don’t normally speak, so voice projection skills aren’t necessary. In fact, extras play such an unimportant, unskilled role in the background that they’re barely noticeable until – and this is the vital point – there are no extras present and it becomes glaringly obvious that something important is missing. That ‘something important’ is definitely a skill I thought I could bring to any film.

So when a recent advertisement in our local paper called for extras for the filming of a telemovie called ‘Cliffy’, I immediately put up my hand.

The film is about Cliff Young, a 61-year-old, unheralded potato farmer from Western Victoria who became famous when he won an ultra marathon race (or shuffle as it turned out) from Sydney to Melbourne in 1983.

His tortoise-and-hare approach to the race, where he beat out all the other showier, younger but ultimately slower contenders, was a real feel-good moment for the nation. Here was a chance to snatch a small role in a classic telemovie and live the dream.

After completing the registration forms, I awaited The Call from the Extras Casting Director. When it came I was slotted to play an audience member seated in a television studio as ‘Cliff’ was being interviewed after his race win.

So I plucked my best 1980s-style jacket from the back of my wardrobe – no need for me to visit the wardrobe department on set – and arrived ready for action.

And waited.

Because that’s what extras do. They wait.

Finally my moment arrived, but rather than play a part of the audience, I became what’s known as a “featured extra”. I was to stand in the background pretending to be a studio manager ‘chatting’ to another extra, as the actor playing Cliff was about to go on set for his interview. A real acting role!

My new colleague clearly had great acting aspirations too.

During the repeated shootings of that 10-second scene, he gesticulated in such an exaggerated and unusual manner that I just stood there open-mouthed, perplexed at what he was doing and wondering if I should be doing the same. So I did.

I now have an uneasy feeling that we’ll both end up on the cutting room floor…

***

STOP PRESS

I didn’t end up on the cutting room floor!

If you look very carefully behind Cliffy’s shoulder in this shot from the film, you’ll see the vital role that extras play.

The final word in vanity searches…?

#5 Improve Blogging Skills

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I couldn’t believe my luck. A few weeks after creating this blog and wondering what on earth I was doing, along comes the best workshop ever: How to Write a Killer Blog (and build a loving on-line following) run by Suzi Taylor from ABC Open. So here was my next activity.

#5 Improve my Blogging Skills

It was part of the local Writer’s Festival and was exactly what I needed. A small group of very enthusiastic people at various stages of their blogging careers all providing generous input. It was hugely inspiring.

If you want a killer blog, it helps – not surprisingly – to have a clear idea of why you’re doing it. One of the most helpful messages Suzi gave us was that:

“The main thing with blogging is that it’s FUN! It shouldn’t be a chore.

So define what ‘success’ means to you, as a blogger, and aim for that.”

This got me thinking and I realised that I wasn’t really looking to build a huge blogging community with lots of followers. Recent research has led me to acknowledge that I’m an introvert.

The thought of linking to my Facebook page (that would be my non-existent Facebook page) and my Twitter account (ditto) so I can exhort people to read my blog is about as appealing as going alone to a very noisy late-night party full of strangers.

So now I know: I just want to blog for the fun of blogging. Doesn’t really matter if no-one reads it.

Phew.

That takes a lot of pressure off me.

I wonder what the record is for the longest time anyone’s had a blog with no followers?

outsidethesquare101

101 fun and frivolous things to try in retirement: a single's guide

Category Archives: Learn New Skills

#35 Unearth Buried Archaeological Skills

#34 Renovate Painlessly

#31 Photograph the Whimsical (and the Wonderful) in your Neighbourhood

#28 Be a Judge at an International Horse Trials Event

#25 A Journey ‘From Source to Sauce’

#22 ‘Attend’ a Webinar

#13 Rediscover your Creative Side

#12 Play a Game You’ve Never Tried Before

#6 Become an Extra in a Film or Telemovie

#5 Improve Blogging Skills