It is a cloudy, sometimes overcast and humid morning. The temperature at ten o’clock is already thirty degrees Celsius. To add to this unpleasantness one has to consider that because of daylight-saving it is really only nine o’clock! I had to heat the water in an electric jug in order to wash the dishes properly because the element in the archaic, supposedly instantaneous electric heater on a wall of the kitchen became spent the other day.
Early this afternoon I began to watch the keenly contested men’s final in this year’s New South Wales Open of tennis which was played between the Americans Roscoe Tanner and Brian Teacher. Whilst this was still in progress I turned to Channel Two’s coverage of the Test from Perth where one commentator described the batting of Steve Rixon and Bobby Simpson, as ‘living with luck’.
My elder sister, Penny, and brother-in-law, Warren, arrived at half past three. The pair had travelled by train and looked to be tired and drawn. We partook of drinks in our backyard, beneath the shady rubber tree. When I pointed out the green macadamia nuts growing on the tree opposite us, Warren, who would crawl across hot coals for a one-cent coin, began to forage beneath it amongst the spiky leaves and found a surprisingly high number of nuts from the the tree’s previous crop.
He attempted to break them by employing the edge of a section of paling, but as this proved to be an exercise in futility I returned from the garage with a hammer. Even then, the nuts weren’t easily cracked!
We shared the kernels between the four of us as we watched more of the Second Test. Australia fought back to post a score of three hundred and ninety-four, which is just eight runs shy of India’s first innings. Bobby Simpson, at the age of forty-one, was by far the major contributor having amassed one hundred and seventy-six of these.
Channel Seven’s news at six o’clock showed the latest footage from the bushfires in the Blue Mountains. In the men’s final at the tennis, Roscoe Tanner defeated Brian Teacher in five sets. The women’s final was won by the Australian Evonne Cawley (nee Goolagong) who defeated her British opponent, Sue Barker, in straight sets.
“Hawaii Five-O”, at half past seven, includes among its guest stars, Patty “The Patty Duke Show” Duke and the late Lane Bradford, whom, as an actor, became synonymous with the genre of westerns.