Month: January 2020

We were awoken at half past six to the alarm, which I must have habitually set. My body was racked with pain. Stiffness pervaded many of my joints. Nevertheless, I was soon engaged in a wrestle with Tiki, who had informed me that she would soon take my mind off my ailing body and then proceeded to whip me with a pillow.

We arose at eight and shortly afterwards Tiki was heard to emit an ear-piercing shriek as I threw an ice-cream container of cold water over her as she showered.

At twenty past the hour, I left the house with twenty cents in hand to purchase a copy of “The Sun-Herald” from the paperboy. Tiki, still fuming from having had her shower interrupted, called me for everything for not having helped her as she tidied up the house. I had preferred, instead, to listen to 2GB and songs such as “Shannon” by Henry Gross, which had been a hit here in the early months of this year; a full twelve months after it had entered the charts in the United States.

“Mum”, “Dad” and Wendy, along with “Mum’s” sister, Ruth, arrived at about a quarter past one. Ruth looked well, especially when compared to how she had looked when we had visited her in hospital earlier this year. She presented us with an old, but seldom used, Sanyo electric fan and a small, circular, pink-rimmed plate which, she said, was over fifty years old.

Tiki washed the dishes whilst Wendy and I dried them. Once this was done, “Dad” walked into the backyard and we combined to fill in ten post holes. Ruth wandered up to say that she was leaving, so we walked her down to her Morris 1300.

I watched the closing stages of the N.S.W. Open from Pymble. Trevor McDonald carded three successive birdies to defeat Billy Dunk at the second hole of a sudden-death play-off and collect the winner’s cheque to the value of four thousand dollars. It is the Melburnians first victory as a professional.

At a quarter to six, I turned the dial to view “Ask The Leyland Brothers”. It included a segment on the bouncing stones that are to be found on a beach to the north of Cairns.

Today’s maximum temperature was a cool seventeen degrees celsius and after we had completed our walk around the “block” we were content to snuggle up inside and watch an old repetition from the series, “This Is Your Life”, which had Mike Willesee as its compere and Smoky Dawson as its guest. The actor, Reg Hartley, also appeared and was seen to favour the foot he had struck with a golf club.

The first edition of “The Many Wives Of Patrick” screens from eight o’clock. This British comedy series stars Patrick “Father, Dear Father” Cargill as Patrick Woodford, who is hoping to divorce his sixth wife as he would like to remarry his first. It is followed at half past the hour by the film, “The Best House In London”. Produced in 1968, it stars Joanna Pettet, David Hemmings and the late George Sanders.

It has been a cool morning with a leaden overcast sky, which has culminated in some light drizzle. I visited the new branch of our bank in Marrickville for the first time. In doing so, I walked past the old Stamina clothing factory, which had been all but completely demolished since last I saw it.

This afternoon was the complete antithesis of this morning, being bright, sunny and warm. We decided to visit Nock and Kirby at Miranda Fair, where we purchased a wheelbarrow for twenty-four dollars. It had been reduced from thirty-one because its paintwork had been scratched. In addition, Tiki couldn’t resist the white indoor four-tiered plant stand at a cost of fifteen dollars.

As we could not fit either into the ‘Galant’, I decided that the only thing to do was to place the plant stand across the wheelbarrow and wheel them home. I placed paper tissues between the plant stand and the wheelbarrow and these prevented the former from being scarred during its bumpy ride. I certainly attracted some looks as I made my way home!

We have received a letter in the mail, which invites us to join the Property Owners’ Club. John Laws is a member. Another, from Cambergs, thanks us for having bought carpet from the company and informs us that if we present the letter at its store at Railway Square before the twenty-eighth of this month, we will be in receipt of a gift for Christmas.

Prior to nightfall and in our backyard, Tiki and I began to remove the farthest and largest of the mounds from beneath the lawn. Presumably, they were once garden beds and aren’t graves!

It soon became glaringly obvious that the large spade was far from the ideal tool for the job and this really tested our patience. Nonetheless, we did, eventually, view the goings-on with a sense of humour and were able to employ the use of the new wheelbarrow to transport three loads of soil; spreading them beneath the bottom rail of the partially completed fence.

It has been a pleasantly sunny, yet windy, morning. After Tiki had dried my hair, I listened to The Seekers’ new song for the first time. It bears the same melody as the group’s commercial for Trans Tours.

At half past one, on A.B.C.-TV’s Channel Two, I watched ‘Flight’: a programme of the “Scan” series for children. I helped “Dad” unload about one hundred palings from his red ute and, via the use of our new wheelbarrow, transported them up the slope to the framework of our new fence. “Dad” departed by ten minutes past five, but not before he had savoured a Scotch and dry in our loungeroom.

As I did not feel like doing any more of the digging, which I had begun yesterday afternoon, I turned on Channel Two and the “Wild, Wild World Of Animals”. It was about the animals that frequent an African watering-place. The hippopotamus can spend up to six minutes underwater before it requires the need to breathe.

“Willesee”, presented by Paul Makin, contained a segment that was devoted to a new perfume, Making Love, which one can actually taste once it has been applied. Paul jocularly renamed the perfume ‘Makin Love’.

“And Mother Makes Five” followed and, at eight o’clock, “Wilderness”, on Channel Two, followed hikers through the Himalayas to a height of fourteen thousand feet. The particularly humorous British comedy series, “Are You Being Served?”, screened from half past the hour. Tonight’s programme is actually the final one of this, the final series and centres upon the fact that the staff at the department store, Grace Brothers, is being instructed on how to become less formal.

I watched but a portion of the new British series, “Van der Valk”. Barry Foster is cast in the title role as a Dutch detective and the series features The Simon Park Orchestra’s 1972 recording, “Eye Level”, as its theme. The instrumental had reached No.1 in Britain, in 1973, and No.3, in Australia, in 1974.

“Dad” brought me an old mattock which, he informed me, I could keep. He also handed me three plastic bags of galvanised two-inch nails. I was instructed to count the number of nails that were contained in one of the bags and then multiply this total by three to determine how many nails there were altogether. My grand total came to six hundred and fifteen.

On this warm, sunny day, which bore a maximum temperature of twenty-four degrees Celsius, I transported the remainder of the mound to beneath the lower rail and from about half past one unloaded a further one hundred palings from “Dad’s” red utility. I wheeled them up to the site as “Dad” erected what he termed a ‘height measure’, with the use of two palings and a board, to indicate a distance of one foot or thirty centimetres above the top rail.

He began to nail on the palings and after he had covered a distance of about eighteen feet or six metres we adjourned to partake of an orange juice each. I employed the use of the mattock and dug a trench in which the palings would sit. Where roots or rocks were encountered, I sawed an inch or two off a paling or palings to compensate for this.

“Dad” hammered one or two nails into each paling, but before we ceased work, at a quarter past five, he ensured that every paling was securely fastened by four nails. He hit his left thumb several times as tiredness overcame him. Once the final nail had been driven home he proclaimed that the fence would last longer than he.

I rubbed Tiki’s back, firstly with methylated spirits and thence with a cream, before we retired for the night.