Tweet from Tim Michell (@tim_michell)

Tim Michell (@tim_michell) tweeted at 9:50 AM on Mon, Aug 05, 2013:
Residents at two aged-care facilities in Monash have taken to Youtube to protest the sale of the sites. Watch here: http://t.co/GRWC84zgnB
(https://twitter.com/tim_michell/status/364171471217627136)

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Sydney in December: a visual poem

Tall buildings surround every scene

People hurry on by

Or sit to watch the world go by

Or marvel at design feats
From many years before

And worship or console others of like spirit

Create and design to the joy of others

To celebrate traditional fests

Or display collections for ponder or purchase

Before seeking a breeze and shelter from nature

;

Or seeking to satisfy curiosity about days gone by

Reflecting of bonds formed in long gone times

And dreaming of climbing to higher places

To view the world from another perspective

Or just getting on with the job at hand

Improving, measuring for the sake of all

Or gathering under white umbrellas with like minded folk

And having a say to make it better

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always remembering loved ones recently departed

And staying in touch with those dear and true.

Photographs by GVNicholas
(Creative Commons)

Cappuccino etiquette

A spoon is essential. Good coffee a must. The spoon is picked up and slowly and gently scoops a little froth and a touch of chocolate. This is taken from the edge of the cup with the back of the spoon facing the rim so as not to disturb the appearance of the coffee. Slowly, slowly and deliberately the spoon is raised to the mouth. Taste slowly and enjoy. The joy of the coffee is still to come. The spoon, slowly returns to the cup. This time a more generous scoop of the spoon is made around the full rim of the cup, and the spoon once again raised slowly to the mouth enjoy. Repeat if necessary to remove froth from the rim of the cup or mug. This avoids an embarrassing chinostache later. Keep the appearance of the coffee as intact as possible. Now slowly raise your coffee cup and sip slowly. Enjoy.

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All photographs taken by GVNicholas

City Gloom

When I walk along the City street
A smile passes me by
I wish I was that person

The morning sun struggles through the morning’s grey gloom
Traffic noise cuts the air sharply
Pollen irritates
Cigarette smoke abhors
The homeless not yet moving as workers march on by

The load feels heavy
Each facet weighing more than the one after or before
Heavy, Indefinable, Unwanted

A man with a smile passes me by
A joke perhaps?
Or recatching a night of love
Maybe thoughts of a day to come
A genuine smile
Real, Desirable

As his smile passes me by
His inner happiness extends
Penetrating the city gloom

My load has weight
My load is hard to carry
When I next catch a glimpse of a smile passing me by
It will penetrate the gloom
I will find memories of a joke
A moment of love
Or think of good things to come

When I walk along the city street and a smile passes me by
I’ll pass it on

Buses, bumps and blogging

My calendar for today shows an appointment, but I am sure I can find more interest in my day. Maybe even progressing in my never ending quest: finding clothes to suit the mature, bumpy, professional woman. And blog writing – a challenge to write about some of what I see and do.

11.15 am
I have made it to a coffee shop, survived the been through the, “Can I justify the muffin today?” routine and the same answer: “No: twice as easy to put on weight and twice as hard to take it off”. The coffee is very average, so to speak, and I am thinking I should have gone straight to a clothes shop – but which one?

A nearby explorer is fascinated with the purple dinosaur behind me:  climbing, touching, feeling, familiarising.  Imagine a purple friend your size that has complete tolerance of your every investigation – even when you stray to the yellow animal across the way. The explorer’s Mum has decided to allow a ride and the flashing lights and whirring of a purple machine convince me to swallow the last of my boring brew and move on. If I was a more confident blogger I would ask if I could take a photo…

12.25
A soft cooling breeze is drifting from the sunshine into the shade where I sit. I have misjudged the time it would take to walk from the shops to my appointment location. It is surprising how little traffic noise is penetrating the park from the main road nearby. The quiet is drowned by the noise of bulldozers and workers. Behind me the remains of Anzac wreaths browning in the sun are a sad sight.

I had one success at the shops in a venue I never expected to have success in. Now the dreaded task of matching my new long and patterned skirt with tops – oh I do so hope there is a match in my wardrobe at home otherwise I will need to venture out on more shopping trips.

1 pm

Blogging in waiting rooms beats reading another episode of ‘What Brittany Did’, ‘What Brittany Did Next’, or ‘Buckingham Wars: vol 3. Camilla and Kate’.

2.30 pm

Green tea, sushi and a decision to make: keep shopping or beat the peak traffic home? The shops are busy and noisy. When will I next have time to shop? Will I waste my time looking? Won’t they have great lines for the young and thin but nothing for the mature and bumpy? Other mature and bumpy women have clothes so there must be delightful garments somewhere! Somewhere! Decision: follow nose and see what happens!

3.30 pm

Today I changed a pattern of behaviour. Everytime I have travelled to Box Hill I have driven and paid a hefty amount for parking. Today I am travelling by bus and train costing, thanks to my Seniors Card, $A3.60! There were a few delays on the route this morning, but hey, I had allowed extra time for shopping and it was good blogging time.

The train home is the school run. Noisy, each student getting louder than the other. Happy, squealing sounds. A splattering of sunglasses identify older passengers wanting protection from the day’s glare. There are the mobile devices – students and younger adults mainly. Older adults are sitting, relaxing, sitting, staring.  I am sitting contentedly in the middle of it all – blogging.

4.20 pm

Writing about what is happening in my day has taken my mind away from ongoing stresses.  I have been focussing on what is around me and how I can write it.  I have been learning how to use my mobile WordPress app. I have seen things in my day I may not have seen otherwise.  Those things I missed today as I mobile blogged I may not have seen if  I had been drawn into the stresses in my life.  It has been fun.

Note:  I am disappointed that the photos I took using the camera link through the app did not save. I had expected that using this link that the photos would appear in the draft.  This not happening I expected them to appear in the Gallery on the phone.  Not so.

Bucketing with The Big Green S

My S for Senior!

This last week I used my Seniors Myki for the first time. Great. $3.60 to get into the City on work days – such a saving on the $11.08 I used to pay! But I am pleased to have a big green S on my train ticket? I think not.

Senior is a work with many applications in the English language: of higher rank or position, the older of two, in a higher level and an elderly person. Perhaps ‘senior’ as used on the Myki card should have a new definition e.g. a mature person:
1. with a zest for life, 2. who is a seeker of new experiences, or 3. spreading wisdom

We could have a space on our seniors’ Myki to fill in our own definition of Senior. With personal identities for phones and such like why not a personal identity for our Myki card? No elderly person stuff for me!  A proactive verb would be the go:  creating, exploring, developing, adventuring, escaping, questing, appraising.  Go on create a new verb. Here we go – bucketing – as in a bucket list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bucket_List).   I could write ‘Wise woman bucketing life by train’.  Or maybe not.

As I set off on my first day I wasn’t thinking about bucketing life but rather whether the new card was going to work and whether the security guards were going to pull me up to see my sparkling new Seniors Card.  All went smoothly.  I was disappointed that the security guard who seemed to study me carefully as I came through the gate at Flinders Street didn’t pull me over.  ‘Damn,’  I thought, ‘He thinks I look 60!’.  Time to go and write that Bucket List.

Blogging

So here I am writing a blog. Why I ask myself.  To see where it leads me, I answer.