Monday, September 29, 2008

Power Out

Kath thought that Leoine was taking Kirsten for the weekend on
Saturday 13th, but she said she couldn't and as she and Nathan
were going to Angela's 28th birthday party she asked me to mind
her.

So they caught a taxi over and dropped off at Cliff's by 8.30
p.m.and then I drove them up to Angela's. So I took the boots
that Lacy left the weekend she stayed at Cliff's.

I went in to see Anglea and wish her Happy Birthday. I told her
Cliff was puzzled by the fact she was having a 28th Birthday Party
and as i said to him "it's just an excuse to have a booze up" just
like when his team win he drinks to celebrate and when they lose
he drinks to commiserate,. either way it's an excuse to drink (he
says different!!!) (HA! BLOODY HA!)

Angela said "Love the Nanna!"

Sunday, September 28, 2008

All That Jazz

When we were at the "General Store" concert, there were flyers for a
wine and cheese night at the Monash University Student Union. Cliff
thought it might be a good night, so we went.

It was held on Friday 12th Sept at 7.30 p.m. At least that was what
I was told, when I enquired about the starting time but as it turned
out that was the time the doors opened. The actual performance didn't
start till 8.45 p.m. We went to the R.S.L as usual but got there
exactly at 6 p.m. ordered our tea and ate it and left by 7 p.m. to
get to the concert in time. When in actual fact because of the
'real' starting time we could have stayed for the raffle and played
the pokies as well. As we usually leave between 8 p.m. and 8.30 p.m.

Cliff has not been out to the Uni at all and it is 12 years since I
was last there. There are more student housing blocks. In my day
the Student Union was the last building before the car park, but now
there are three buildings between it and the car park!!

Also you no longer enter that car park from the Bibi Shell road, but
you now turn left at the first roundabout and go along the road at
the side of the Uni and there is a new entrance there to the car
park. I couldn't find it, but we were lucky and ran into a security
guard, who kindly told us to 'follow me' and he drove there and I
followed him.

The Student Union had a partition up which halved its size. So it
was a small room, with tables all set up, candles, cheese, water,
glasses, plates etc.

We went to the wine tasting table, but I know what I wanted, a sweet
white, and didn't bother with tasting other wines. Cliff had his
red wine as usual.

Our table was in the second row and after the music started we were
asked if we wanted to move up, but we said no. Personnaly I wanted
to move back a row as the band was LOUD. Too loud. It reminded me
of a rock band. In fact they were an old rock band and the first
half of the show was old rock songs! The second half ( 9.45 p.m.
till 10.45 p.m.) of the show were popular songs with a Jazz
treatment, but not really Jazz songs.

There were about 50 people there but at $40 a head that was not bad,
compared to the 80 people at the Tyres Hall at $20 a head.

Overall it wasn't too bad, just loud. The singer was Peter Coupples
who is the brother-in-law of Heather Coupples, who used to work at
ACCESS, which ran the GipsTAFE Writing Course before it was taken
over by Business Studies.

Heather and I caught up and I told her how badly the course is going
now.

There was only one other couple at our table, Grace and Ron. They
live in Warragul. He works in Traralgon and she is a nurse at a
Health Center in Warragul. I gave them 'our' business card and you
never know, they expressed an interest in books and one day they may
walk in as customers.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

And Once Again!!!

On Thursday 19th Sept 2008 I was working on my blog and e-mail
when the phone rang. It was Elise Bryne to remind me I was due
at her house at 6 p.m. for tea. The time now being 6.05 p.m.
I had forgotten.

So the last thing I did was run a full virus scan on my computer.

When I got home at 8 p.m. the scan was just finishing and it said
I had 13 minor infections on the drive so I 'performed actons'
and then was told everything was A OK. SO I turned off.

Then on Friday afternoon after TAFE when I tried to turn the
computer on, I could not get on! It would go to the blue page
and say WELCOME and when I clicked owner it would show the message
"loading settings" then it would go to the page where my icons
usually live and stay there two seconds and then switch back to
the welcome page where the message came up "logging off".

This happened about twenty times over Friday, Saturday, Sunday and
Monday so I took the tower into JB Computers of Morwell. The
gentleman informed me that Windows was corrupted AGAIN! and had to
be wiped clean, this time I got him to reinstall the printer and
scanner as the phone bill cost me $75 last time that happened.

I then sat down on Saturday afternoon (27th Sept) (as I don't watch
football and wasn't interested in staying at Cliffs and hearing
him carry on, so I had gone home) and connected everything up again
and installed the internet and then tried to find my blog. I had
started doing this at 4 p.m. and finally starting doing my blog
at 5.20 p.m. that was about 40 minutes longer than I thought it
would take!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Jazz

I have never been into Jazz. Maybe because I was born after the big Jazz era. But Cliff wanted to go and see a Jazz group performing at the Tyers Hall on Sep 6th so I bought the tickets for his birthday.

The group was called General Store, because they first started playing at Merrick's General Store on the Mornington Pensular.

At the break the members of the Gippsland Acoustic Music Club provided tea/coffee and cakes and the cakes were quite scrumptious.

Quite enjoyed the evening especially when after the half time break the singer announced she was going to give away a CD to the first person who called out who sang the song she was about to sing in the film version of the musical show, after she was finished. She began to sing "I've grown accustomed to HIS face."

I had to go to the toilet and gave the answer to Cliff but luickily was back in time as he had no intention of embrassing himself by calling out ( it would have only been embrassing if I had of been wrong!) so I called out "Rex Harrison" and scored myself a free CD!

I guess changimg the words threw a few people off, but there was one bloke who was a hare's breath behind me! I had finished the ..son and he was starting the Harr.. part of the name.

The singer called out "The winner is the lady walking along the back of the hall." Helps to have a stand out feature, like returning from the toilet!!

Of course Rex sings it about Eliza when he sings "I've grown accustomed to HER face."

It is the first time I have been to the Tyres Hall. It has acoustic boards over the walls and celing so the sound quality of the music was good.

The band featured a sax, double bass and guitar, there was no drummer but there had been one on the album.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Another Male Driver

On Tuesday 2nd Sept I was backing out of a car space in front of Curves Morwell. A thing I have done at least three times a week for 56 weeks only this time I had an idiot male driver approaching.

There were six cars all pretty close and then the next car was at the hotel. I know from past experience that when a car has arrived at the hotel I have always had time to back out.

Today I was just straightening up when the car came right up behimd me and tried to overtake. Not only that but the light had turned orange. By the time he was laying on the horn the light was red.

The only way he could have come up that fast was if he had put his foot down and floored it! What idiot does that when they see a car backing out. It is usual to slow down (After all it is a 50 zone and approaching a set of lights!) and then he has the gall to blow his horn at me!

Well I stopped at the light opened my door leaned out lokked back at him and at the top of my voice said "Do you think because your a male you f..king own the road, well let me tell you you don't? It's idoits like you who have no road coursty that cause accidents!" Then I closed my door and waited for the light to change. You should have seen the look on his face as if he never expected anyone to challenge his behaviour!

When the light chamged I speed off at 20 kms an hour till we neared the 60 zone put my left hand blinker on and moved over. He sped past me again onlt to reach the McDonald St lights in time for them to turn red! I smiled and turned left!

I think from now on whenever I encounter a bad driver I will try to get their rego number and post it in my Blog. Shame them as well as warning the public of dangerous drivers.

Cliff came out with me in the car last week end and he said he has never noticed how many bad drivers there are out there (within fifteen minutes I avoided three potenial accidents!) and Cliff had to admit it was the other drivers who were at fault and not me! ( He had thought I might be putting it on a bit thick!)

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

"View from a Window"

On the 28th May 2008 I entered The Eastwood/Hills FAW Annual
Literary competition. It closed on the 31st May, 2008.

I received a letter three weeks ago telling me that I had
been shortlisted in the Memoir section with the story of my
mother's death "View from a Window." I was very pleased but
could not attend the presentation night on Friday 29th August,
2008.

On Wednesday 3rd Sept. I received the results in the mail.

FIRST: "My Father's Forte" Kate Gilbert
SECOND: "Crossing the Pacific" Kay Richter

HIGHLY
COMMENDED: "The Madness of King Jules" Michelle Lopert
"Vanishing" Michelle Brock

COMMENDED: "View from a Window" Gloria McDougall
"The Kolinsky Sable" Laurie Forth
"A Tale of Two Tonsils" Deloy Oberg.

I would like to think that the results have been given in
order of merit. As I said to Beryl I thought at the very
least I would get a Commended so I was not disappointed.