A few months after I first met Tiki, I moved to board with an elderly couple in their unit that overlooked the beach at Collaroy on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. My overweight landlady had battled ill health to such an extent that she was to inform me that she had been pronounced legally dead “five times”.
She must have possessed a problem with her salivary glands, as she always had a handkerchief, literally in hand, with which to repeatedly wipe her mouth. However, despite the ever present battle with her health, she never lost her sense of humour.
I remember her once proclaiming to me, when making reference to the fools and dolts in society, “There’s one born every minute and one dies every ten years!”
“There’s nothing wrong with me that a sharp axe won’t fix!”, was another of her expressions.
Tiki has just reminded me of another of my former landlady’s sayings, “I have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin!”