Category Archives: Uncategorized

#32 Live the Dream … Revisit the scenes of a Favourite Advertisement

At the turn of this century, Tourism Victoria was tasked with promoting Melbourne, the State’s capital, by making television advertisements to showcase the city’s beauty and vibrancy.

They did it with such élan that I can still vividly recall it and have been able to rediscover the grainy, black and white footage of that promotion which cemented my love for this beautiful city. Shamelessly romantic, and set to a background of an overwrought, yet perfect rendition of the classic song, ‘Falling in Love Again’, it was a 90 second love story that ended, like so many love stories, in loss and yearning.

With the Hotel Windsor at its heart, I was smitten.

That was nearly 15 years ago. Now comes the sad news that the Hotel may have to close her doors due to financial and planning woes. The time had come for me to rediscover her, along with the best of Melbourne.

And what better way to do it than:

#32 Live the Dream … Revisit the scenes of a Favourite Advertisement

So I booked into the Hotel Windsor and, together with a friend who had generously taken me to the outback a year earlier, we explored this city all over again.

The hotel’s known as the Duchess of Spring Street and as is befitting her class, is surrounded by neoclassical architecture and buildings reminiscent of the grandeur of Europe.

Parliament House with its striking colonnade and portico and elegant street lamps sits opposite

But Melbourne is much more, of course.

Who could resist a trip into the very nucleus of her existence:

The MCG on a Saturday afternoon in August
Richmond v Collingwood.
What says ‘Melbourne’ more than that?

And close enough to see the sweat and hear the thud of toned body on toned body…

We discovered a vibrant deli tucked away just a dozen metres from the hotel:

While a coffee at Pelligrini’s is always an option:

Or a visit to Koko Black for a chocolate or four

Of course, Melbourne shouts its food credentials from on high, so dinner at il solito posto situated – in such a quintessential Melbourne manner – down some twisted stairs, into a basement, that’s off a lane, that’s off a street, was the perfect place to sample heritage and new beetroot carpaccio with mozzarella cheese and roasted walnuts:

And did I mention a meal at The European the previous day?

Of course, you’d never leave the Hotel Windsor without enjoying a cooked breakfast served in the elaborate, high-ceilinged dining room with starched tablecloths and silver cutlery.

How will I ever adjust to my life in the country now?

Oh yes, it’s happened again.

A love affair that’s ended with loss and yearning…

#30 Do Something Out of Character

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There’s a certain pleasure in doing something out of character, especially when it surprises those closest to you.

I remember some years ago how stunned a friend was to discover I loved Aussie rules football and fanatically supported a – now sadly-disgraced – Melbourne team. Or when another pal found out I boisterously sang along to Patsy Cline on long car trips. I guess nothing in my general demeanour had prepared them for this. Apparently I look more like a theatre-going, classical music lover than a yobbo in the outer who also listens to overly sentimental C&W music.

So recently, when I had another opportunity to

#30 Do Something Out Of Character

I decided to run with it. There I was in Bowral, in the New South Wales Southern Highlands and there was the Bradman Museum. Bingo!

Now I confess to finding cricket yawningly boring, but with so many aficionados of the game out there, perhaps I’m missing something. Could a visit to the museum convert me? My first surprise was discovering that Don Bradman wasn’t a tall man, if his bronze statue is to scale.

Clearly cricket is a great sporting leveller where skill and practice can trump developmental deficits

And the words of the great man were so inspiring that…

…I began to feel my life, and my character, may have missed out on something very important.

Of course, there’s a quaintness about the Don and I don’t just mean his cable-knit jumper. His noble exhortations don’t quite sit with today’s players’ tendency to relentlessly sledge their opponents and to sneer at the losing team. Not to mention all those match-fixing rumours prevalent on the international circuit…

But perhaps if I could get a handle on all the obscure terms used in cricket, like mid-on, mid-off, silly point and leg slip, not to mention cover point, I too could begin to serve my nation with courage, honour and humility.

Delightfully, the museum caters for absolute beginners, and thanks to this magnificent mural, I’ve learnt so much about cricket that I’m almost looking forward to next Summer’s season and the development of some truly magnificent personal character traits.

…almost

But the best bit of the visit?

Mentioning later to a friend who knows me well that I’d been to the Bradman cricket museum and having her say, ‘You? Visiting a cricket museum? You’re joking!’

#26 Explore Your City like a Newcomer

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A young friend of mine has recently moved to Milan for love – and possibly work – so is blogging about her experiences at The Impoverished Hedonist.

She’s finding the experience challenging, because the Italian city’s not the easiest place in the world to be seriously impecunious while seeking out pleasure and barely speaking the language. In addition, if the population of a city doesn’t appear to put a premium on civic pride it can be difficult for the newcomer to see beyond the superficial squalor.

But my friend’s adjusting well to the challenge by seeking out the very best, sometimes hidden, gems of Milan and its surrounds rather than dwelling on any downsides.

So thank you, D (you know who you are) for inspiring this blog entry:

#26 Explore Your City Like a Newcomer

There can be so much to like about your own city, if you just remember to look.

My place is Albury on the New South Wales/Victorian border, which has a mighty river only a minute from the centre of town:

Thanks to the wonderful River Deck Cafe at Noreuil Park for this image

And I was particularly interested to explore our newest addition, a walking/bike-riding trail that meanders along the Murray River and is dotted with the most amazing Indigenous sculptures along its length called the Yindyamarra Sculpture Walk.

The sculptures speak for themselves, nestled in the superb bushland beside the lagoons and the river:

Reconciliation Shield by Tamara Murray

***

Creature Seats: Goanna: Liam Campbell, Turtle: Sara Jackson-Edwards, Snake: Raymond Jackson–Edwards and Goanna: Jaidyn Hampton

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‘Googar’ Goanna Sculpture by Darren Wighton

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Wiradjuri Woman by Leonie McIntosh

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The views between sculptures…

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Vertical Message Sticks by Girralang (Carmel Taylor)

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Bogong Moth Migration by Ruth Davys

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‘Maya’ Fish Trap Sculpture by Uncle Ken (Tunny) Murray, Darren Wighton and Andom Rendell

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It must be somewhere! How can I not find it?

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The Bigger Picture by Katrina Weston

or for a completely different perspective:

The Bigger Picture by Katrina Weston

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by The Wagirra Crew – working on the trail

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Teaming Life of Milawa Billa (Murray River) by Yindyamarra Sculpture Walk Steering Committee

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Goanna by Kianna Edwards

Despite my missing sculpture (somewhere between the ‘Maya’ Fish Trap and The Bigger Picture) the Yindyamarra Sculpture Walk is such a delight that even this not-very-fit novice bushwalker was entranced along its length. And of course, it’s a smorgasbord for keen bird watchers.

The whippet and I even had a close encounter with a snake, who slithered away in horror faster than we did.

We would loved to have glimpsed a mammal but you can’t have it all. And we did spot something moving past us so fast it seemed to be fleeing for its life. Just a whir and a blur and a flash of colour. Possibly a mamil…

Massive accolades to Albury City Council and the Indigenous artists and community for creating this hidden gem.

The trail deserves to be hugely popular.

***

STOP PRESS

The mystery of the ‘missing’ sculpture has been solved. Although there are twelve red dots on the map marking the site of each sculpture, I could only find eleven.

But here’s an excerpt from the Council’s newsletter:

Eleven, not twelve sculptures…

#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…

#21 Rediscover the Elegance of Fountain Pens

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Rites of passage can create powerful memories, and to this day, I remember the thrill of graduating from pencils to pens in Grade 3. The day we were finally allowed to use the ink well sunk into the top right hand corner of the desk, and then practice our running writing was special indeed.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons

Ink stains on fingers meant you were up there with the big girls. A sign of sophistication much like nicotine stains were for adults in the sixties.

These memories returned recently when a friend sent me a beautifully hand-written thank you note through the post. When I acknowledged it, she promptly apologised for not having used a real pen.

Ah, yes, a real pen. The time has come to:

…and that is how I imagine my handwriting will look when I take up a fountain pen again…

I had an opportunity to send the same friend a short thank-you note a few weeks later, so I couldn’t resist resurrecting an old fountain pen from the deepest recesses of my desk drawer, discarded there in the eighties when I thoughtlessly moved to disposable biros. All it needed, I thought, was an injection of fresh ink.

And so I was able to send her a letter that looked something like this:

So I began to think that surely, in this day and age, fountain pens work better than this. Surely they’ve found a way for them to be scratch-free and blotch-free and ink-stains-on-fingers-free.

And so it was that a quick Google search led me into a strange new, parallel world of fountain pen aficionados. Or eccentrics, if you prefer.

Did you know that it’s possible to buy a pen with a solid gold nib? And just look at the varieties out there these days:

And all I had to do was type ‘Best Fountain Pens’ to find this gem of a site with its exquisite nibs.

So the future is clear. I want a pen with a name like Montblanc or Parker or Waterman, and I definitely want a gorgeous nib.

But most of all, I want my one-hundred-and-first blog entry to be titled:

#19 Challenge Accepted Beliefs

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In the early 2000s when MythBusters first went to air, I rarely missed an episode. That there was a television show dedicated to ‘scientifically’ dispelling myths hit the spot for me.

It was created by an Australian producer – Peter Rees – which made it even more intriguing. (This was back in the day when Australia had a Science Minister, and evidence-based theories weren’t considered heretical).

Lately, though, the program seems to have involved blowing things up, and while I can understand that this would be terrifically appealing to some viewers, I’m not in the correct demographic any more.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t create my own MythBusters, it’s just that mine will be writ small.

#19 Challenge Accepted Beliefs

Recently there was a great article in the Fairfax press titled ‘Myth-conceptions’ where the author Larissa Dubeki, sought to ‘debunk’ – or not – a number of popular kitchen myths.

The first related to that important issue of Milk in Tea.

Milk in first (MIF)? Or milk in last (MIL)? Was MIF really better? Is there a discernible difference in taste, as a friend of mine attests?

She swears she can pick at twenty paces the cup where milk’s been incorrectly added after the tea is poured. So I decided to test this hypothesis.

Marking the bottom of the MIF cup with an ‘M’, I proceeded to pour two identical cups of tea, one MIF and the other MIL. After they were switched around a few times, could I tell them apart?

Spot the difference.

The short answer is … no, I couldn’t.

But according to Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry, (yes, sob, Britain has one of these) MIF creates a smoother, richer cup whereas MIL makes a cup that’s more tannic. It’s all to do with the breakdown of the milk proteins and whether they’ve been gently diluted by the tea, or been plunged into a big wall of it.

So my friend is right. Of course, it could mean that, like 25% of the population, she’s what’s known as a ‘Supertaster‘ and has a palate that’s more finely attuned to certain bitter tastes. I’m planning to experiment on her taste buds to further my scientific project, but that will be a tale for another day.

So then I turned my attention to another Accepted Belief:

‘Don’t Count your Chickens Before They’re Hatched’

Luckily, I could go right to the source to test this one. One of my lovely Light Sussex hens

Exhibit One

went irreversibly broody a few months ago, so I bought some fertilised eggs for her to hatch.

I didn’t really need any more chickens, but I thought it would be in keeping with my fun and frivolous retirement activities.

Imagine my disquiet when I picked up the eggs to discover that the seller had added a bonus three to the minimum dozen I had to take.

Fifteen little chicks, I counted. What was I going to do with fifteen extra mouths to feed on my small suburban block? And based on the law of probability, seven or eight would be roosters. What would the neighbours say?

15 (+1) eggs is ridiculous, but I couldn’t bring myself to destroy any…

So I spent the next 21 days (this species is very precise with its hatching timetable) fretting about such a huge number of chickens taking over my garden and my life, and began offering them to unwilling friends.

On Day 21, this was the sum total of hatchlings to emerge:

And it’s a 50:50 split. Dixie chick is on the left and Rex the rooster is on the right.

So it seems that you can count your chickens before they hatch – but just don’t expect accuracy.

Then there’s the popular saying ‘You Can’t Teach an Old Dog New Tricks.’ Does this really stack up?

I could test this one easily too, thanks to my old dog Ziggy. He’s a whippet who’s pretty good at catching a frisbee, but very bad at dropping it back at my feet.

He’s very bad in other ways, too, like stealing food by counter-surfing:

and subtly threatening me to get what he wants:

Would I dare refuse?

So, to be honest, I didn’t hold out much hope of retraining him:

Ziggy keeps his frisbee

But several training sessions later, we finally arrived at this position:

By George, he’s got it. Sort of …

So maybe that old adage is a bit of a furphy.

Come to think of it, a week ago, I didn’t know it was essential to hold an i-phone horizontally while videoing (it’s something to do with the 16:9 ratio of screens), nor had I ever uploaded a video I’d shot to YouTube. I didn’t know how to take a screenshot of the video, nor did I understand the importance of setting it to public viewing rather than private before posting it into a blog entry.

Hey. It looks like you really can teach an old dog new tricks.

#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.

#14 Celebrate the Ordinary

#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…

#7 Enter competitions

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What is it about the human psyche that convinces you whenever you enter a competition or buy a raffle ticket that you’re going to win? I mean, deep down, if you were honest with yourself, you’d realise the odds are totally against you. But just the thought of scoring something for nothing creates such a frisson of excitement that I’ve decided it’s an essential part of any list of fun activities. So:

#7 Enter competitions

This isn’t a new venture for me. Some sixteen years ago, I won a trip to New York, flying business class and staying at a 5-star hotel on Fifth Avenue for a week with $1000 spending money.

I‘m not joking.

It was the most magnificent holiday of my life. However, it stopped me entering any more competitions for several years. As a prize, it was – well – un-toppable.

But with that now a distant memory and with time on my hands, I’ve been revisiting the heady days of entering competitions.

People who regularly win prizes say there are certain tricks to increasing your chances. The big Jackpot lotteries are fine if you like dreaming large, but with the odds of winning them somewhere around 1 in 20 million, the emphasis is on ‘dreaming’ here. No, they recommend trying smaller, perhaps local competitions, especially if there’s a bit of effort involved. Apparently the 25-words-or-less type of competition cuts out a lot of potential entrants who don’t get around to thinking up a slogan, so this shortens your odds.

Reading the free local newspaper a few months ago, I found an article about renovations being done to a well-known hotel in the main street. As a piece of journalism, it wasn’t all that fascinating – until I hit the last line. They were offering a $100 dinner voucher for the person who emailed them with the best name for their planned roof-top restaurant!

My frisson came back. How many people would read this slightly dull article to the very end? And then think up a name for the restaurant? And then send it in? I figured I had about a 1 in 4 chance of winning this voucher.

It seems that no one else read the article to the end, no one else came up with a name, so together with 6 friends, I enjoyed a delightful $100 meal on my birthday in the rooftop restaurant when it opened. (And fortunately, not named after my suggestion)

Then I was visiting my local bakery a few weeks back when a sign said that if you put your name and address on the back of your docket and left it in the box on the counter, you had a chance of winning 3 bottles of wine.

When they didn’t actually print out and give me a docket for my purchase, I realised that would probably reduce the playing field quite a bit, so the next time I bought bread, I stood my ground, insisted on my docket, filled out the details and dropped it in the box.

Bingo! The next week I got a call to say I’d won 3 bottles of wine. Clearly I was their only demanding customer that week.

Of course, there’ll be endless times when you don’t win anything, but even then, there can be surprising advantages.

For almost a year, I’ve been entering a monthly competition where I have to take a photo of myself in my garden for a particular horticultural company. No luck in the winning stakes of course, but I’ve now realised that I have twelve months worth of terrific photos of my garden in all its seasonal glory.

A clever friend recently told me about snapfish, a website that allows you to convert your photos into all sorts of products, ranging from photo albums, cards, wall art and the like for very reasonable rates. So now I plan to turn my twelve losing entries into a calendar of the garden.

It’s just a pity that I’m holding up the company’s gardening product with a silly grin on my face in every photo…

outsidethesquare101

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