Category: My Diary

Tiki and I arose at half past six. I was taking my dirty socks to the laundry when I stopped off at the toilet and thinking that they were a used tissue, threw them into the bowl!

The morning was beautifully sunny but the temperature was a cool eleven degrees Celsius as we drove to work.

It cost me eighty cents for a single red rose at the new florist, Shire, on President Avenue, in Caringbah.

“Australia’s National Parks”, features Bob Raymond taking the viewer to those in the Northern Territory, which includes a visit to the Olgas and Ayers Rock. At half past eight and also on Channel Seven there is another programme in the series, “Policewoman”. Tiki lay sound asleep on my lap for more than half an hour and the dead weight of her head and shoulders meant that my legs were numb by the time she awoke.

It has been windy and somewhat cold.

On “Willesee”, at 7.oo p.m., ‘Colourland TV’ of Melbourne has come under scrutiny for allegedly charging customers around one hundred and fifty dollars for a four years’ warranty, on a make of television set that it sells, when the manufacturer offers a three years’ warranty for free.

The Western Suburbs ‘Magpies’ defeated Canterbury-Bankstown by eight points to five, this afternoon.

We walked to restaurant, Brandys’, at Sylvania Waters, where Tiki embarrassingly told the waitress that I am on a diet, designed to lower my cholesterol. The manager appeared and obligingly said that he would do what he could.

As an entree I was served thinly sliced smoked salmon draped over a lettuce leaf, with a few capers spaced around it at intervals. Tiki, in the meantime enjoyed a prawn cocktail.

Tiki’s main course consisted of fried barramundi served with baked tomato and zucchini while mine was a dish which contained veal, accompanied by some lightly cooked tomato and zucchini.

Dessert, for me, was strawberries with passionfruit. Tiki, of course, fared far better as her pears, in ice-cream, were literally smothered in a chocolate topping.

The bill, with us each having had an orange juice and a coffee, came to twenty-four dollars, which we thought was a little excessive although the restaurant did possess a pleasant ambience.

After walking home in the cold, beneath a cloudless sky, I learned that “Stanley Rio” ( paying $1.40 on the tote for the win and $0.55 for the place; per a unit of twenty-five cents) had won the pacers’ final of the Inter-dominion, at Brisbane’s Albion Park; in a time that has set a new record. He is the first “Enzedder” to win the event on Australian soil since the outstanding “Cardigan Bay”, in 1963.

American “Red” Adair has plugged the blow-out in the oilwell in the North Sea. Tragically, almost thirty million litres of oil had already leaked from the well before he was able to do so.

The first day of autumn is as bad as the last day of summer! Torrential rain has drenched Sydney, with two inches falling in one period of fifteen minutes. Although the maximum was nineteen degrees Celsius, this evening it has fallen to fifteen, which is eight degrees below the seasonal average. The rain continues to fall.

“The Dick Emery Show” screened on Channel Seven, from 7.30 p.m., followed by “Love Thy Neighbour”, at eight o’clock. Bill Collins introduced the film, “The Heist” (1971), from half past eight. It is set in Hamburg and stars Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Gert Frobe and Scott Brady ( I laughed when his character drank L.S.D. and died. Not because I’m a sadist but because his acting, at that moment, triggered amusement in me).

Australia won the Second and final Test, at Eden Park, in Auckland, by ten wickets and the series by one win to nil.

 

At my place of work I talked with an auburn-haired Greek cleaner, who emigrated from Rhodes twenty-three years ago. She is married to an Australian-born Greek and they have two daughters and a son.

There were one hundred and forty-nine guests at the party to celebrate their elder daughter’s engagement, at a cost of eighteen dollars per head.

The family is soon to move from a house on General Holmes Drive to a house of two storeys, with a pool, in Sylvania Waters.

As a cleaner, the lady in question works for twelve hours per day on six days of the week.

 

Some heavy rain has fallen and consequently the maximum temperature struggled to reach twenty-one degrees Celsius.

It took us an hour and forty minutes to drive from Caringbah to St. Peters. All of the telephones were out of order, at work, because of the unrelenting torrential rain.

Former Australian left-arm fast bowler, Alan Davidson, was the guest speaker at this evening’s function, held on the behalf of Rotary, at the St. George Sailing Club. He related a brief history of cricket and then reminisced over some of his on-field experiences, which for the most part centred around an English counterpart, namely “Fiery” Fred Truman, and the late Australian wicketkeeper, Wally Grout. Former St. George and ‘Kangaroo’ hooker, Ian Walsh, was a member of the audience. Tickets were sixteen dollars and fifty cents a head.

I came upstairs at 2.00 p.m. and watched the last half an hour of the film, “Hold On”, from 1966. It features a British pop group of that era, Herman’s Hermits, its leading singer, Peter Noone, and the American actress and singer, Shelley Fabares. Shelley appeared as Donna Reed’s daughter, Mary Stone, in the popular television series, “The Donna Reed Show”, and also had a No.1 hit, in 1962, when she recorded the single, “Johnny Angel”.

The outstanding mare, “Surround”, was defeated by “Bonfield”, this afternoon, when attempting to win her eleventh race in succession.

Daylight saving ended in the early hours of this morning when clocks were wound back by one hour. It has been hot, steamy and humid .

We ventured to the Village Cinema Centre, which is located on George Street, prior to 4.45 p.m. The opening film, from 1970, was “Bedroom Mazurka”. College students want Max, the virgin, to become the new dean but, in order to do so, he firstly has to marry. However, Max discovers that he is not the marrying kind and becomes a ‘stallion’, instead.

Following the interval, the audience, which was close to capacity, witnessed “If You Don’t Stop It…You’ll Go Blind”, from 1974. As the film nears its conclusion, one of its cast, portrayed by Keefe Brasselle, sings a song in which the words fucking for love (or something similar) are repeated over and over. It is certainly a far cry from the part he played in “The Eddie Cantor Story”, which was produced in the early 1950s.

“If You Don’t Stop It…You’ll Go Blind” possesses its funny moments (in fact, I had to exercise much self-control to stop laughing disruptively at one of the skits) but, in general, is pretty base.

Afterwards, we dined at McDonald’s to avoid the surcharge, of fifty cents each, imposed at the Parisienne Pussycat.

After watching “Willesee” from 7.00 p.m., on Channel Seven, we turned our television’s dial to Channel Nine, at half past the hour, to observe “Happy Days” — Henry Winkler’s character, The Fonz, is concerned about the standard of his fighting of late — and “Laverne And Shirley”. Thence we returned to Channel Seven, at half past eight, for Episode 7 of “Rich Man, Poor Man: Book 2”.