Category: Uncategorized

In a word: Saw or Sore or Soar

In the first or second instance of the word Sore, we all know this malady can sometimes fester into something a lot worse.

Or that a person could be a sore loser

Or after spending an hour on the obstacle course, they come off very sore and sorry.  I never quite understood why they should be sorry because no one ever apologises to an inanimate object.  Or do they?

Or perhaps he was sore at his friend for not telling him the truth.

Then, there’s another meaning, saw, which can mean the past tense of seeing, that is, I saw them down by the pool.

I could also use a saw, you know, that thing that cuts through wood, steel, plastic, almost anything.  And yes, it’s possible someone might actually saw through a loaf of bread.

There are hand saws, electric saws, band saws, coping saws, and even a bread knife, all of these have one thing in common, a serrated edge with teeth of different sizes, designed to cut, smoothly or roughly depending on the size.

Add it to bones, and you have Captain Kirk’s description of his medical officer on the Enterprise.  I’m not sure any doctor would like to be addressed as saw-bones.

But then, confusingly in the way only English can do, there’s another word that sounds exactly the same, soar

This, of course, means hovering up there in the heavens, with or without propulsion or oxygen.

Yes, it’s difficult to soar with eagles when you work with turkeys.  I’ve always liked this expression though most of the time people don’t quite understand what it means.

“Sunday in New York”, a romantic adventure that’s not a walk in the park!

“Sunday in New York” is ultimately a story about trust, and what happens when a marriage is stretched to its limits.

When Harry Steele attends a lunch with his manager, Barclay, to discuss a promotion that any junior executive would accept in a heartbeat, it is the fact his wife, Alison, who previously professed her reservations about Barclay, also agreed to attend, that casts a small element of doubt in his mind.

From that moment, his life, in the company, in deciding what to do, his marriage, his very life, spirals out of control.

There is no one big factor that can prove Harry’s worst fears, that his marriage is over, just a number of small, interconnecting events, when piled on top of each other, points to a cataclysmic end to everything he had believed in.

Trust is lost firstly in his best friend and mentor, Andy, who only hints of impending disaster, Sasha, a woman whom he saved, and who appears to have motives of her own, and then in his wife, Alison, as he discovered piece by piece damning evidence she is about to leave him for another man.

Can we trust what we see with our eyes or trust what we hear?

Haven’t we all jumped to conclusions at least once in our lives?

Can Alison, a woman whose self-belief and confidence is about to be put to the ultimate test, find a way of proving their relationship is as strong as it has ever been?

As they say in the classics, read on!

Purchase:

http://tinyurl.com/Amazon-SundayInNewYork

“Possibilities” – a short story

How many choices could one person have?

Usually, from a very early age, you have some idea of what you intend to do with your life.

Those early choices of fireman, policeman, doctor, fighter pilot, slowly disappear from the list as the education requirements become clearer, and their degree of impossibility.

Then you have to factor in academic achievement or failure, hone situation, what blows life has dealt you, and your financial ability to fund any it all of your hopes and dreams, especially for that all-important university education, and even then, it has to be the right one.

Then there are the family aspirations where parents really want you to follow in their footsteps, as a doctor or a lawyer or in the military.

And if you get past all that, and everything has fallen into place, and you’re ready to head out on that highway of life, you should be fully imbibed with the knowledge and the drive to make everything happen.

…

Now I was lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling wondering at what point it all went wrong.

Right on the starting line where everything I had worked for was about to come to fruition, it had all come to an abrupt halt.

My memory got as far as driving home from a work party where we had been celebrating the company’s most recent success, and my progression to the next level of management, when a car failed to stop at a stop sign and T-boned me.

The car was a write-off. I was still not sure what happened to me, but I had heard someone say, in that murky twilight of pain medication, that if I was a horse, they would have to shoot me. It was the only thing I remembered between the car hitting mine and waking up in the hospital bed.

But that was not all the story, and I had plenty of time to mull over everything that had happened in that last week. There was a certain symmetry to it all, as if one event led to the next, and then the next, and it was the last straw, on the last day, that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

…

And here’s the thing.

I would not have been in that accident had I not taken the car. I wasn’t going to, I had intended to take the train to a friend’s place and stay there for a few days, what the boss had told me would be a well-earned rest.

Even then, I might have not taken the car, except for a cryptic text message I received from my sister, about needing to be ‘rescued’ from a bad date.

Nothing unusual for her, she was currently on a dating site binge, and after half a dozen bad experiences, I thought she had given up.

That was the thought that ran through my head as I watched her curled up in the chair next to the bed, half asleep.

Her first words, on arrival, and when she was allowed to see me, was to apologize, believing it had been her fault. She knew I hated driving in the city, so coming to get her, as I always did, had been preying on her mind, and I could see the tangible effects of it in the worried expression, and unkempt manner which was so totally unlike her.

“It was simply an accident, and could have happened to anyone,” I told her.

“You were going to Jeremy’s, I should have sorted my own problem out for once. It’s not as if I couldn’t just call up an Uber, and now look what’s happened. I’m so sorry.”

She wouldn’t accept that it was not her fault, nor would she leave until she knew I would be OK. I didn’t understand what she meant by that because in the three discussions I had with the head doctor, I was going to make a full recovery.

He had used the word lucky more than once, and seemingly the sequence of events, and other factors like the car safety features, the angle the car had struck, and where, the fact the other driver had to dodge a pedestrian, all of it played a part.

Had they not, quite simply I would be dead.

My sister and her dating were only one aspect of how my life was being driven.

Another memory returned, from that week, that of another text message, from a girl I used to know back at university.

Erica.

She was what some might have called a free soul. She didn’t conform to what I would have called normal. Her clothes sense was somewhat odd, she always looked as though her hair needed combing, and she never had any money.

And, for a while, she lived with me, in a small, cramped room ideal for single University students on a budge, but not for two. Yet, for some strange reason, she never seemed to get in the way, or mind the closeness of our existence.

In that short period, she became my first real love, but she had said that while we were together, it was fine, but she was not seeking anything permanent. Nor, she said, did she believe in monogamy. Until she left, studies completed, I wanted to believe she would stay, but a last lingering kiss goodbye and she was gone.

Now, the message said, she wondered if I was still free, and like to meet. Of course, ten years of water had passed under that bridge, so I was not sure where it would go. I hadn’t replied, and the message was still sitting on my phone.

That invitation, however, had been on my mind moments before the crash, and I had to wonder, thinking of her, contributed to it.

Then, on top of all that, there were my parents. Married for 40 years, and the epitome of the perfect marriage.

Or so I thought.

That morning, before I went to work, I had called in to see them after my mother had called the day before saying she wanted to talk to me about something.

Before I knocked on the door, I could hear yelling from behind the door, and it seemed the perfect marriage had hit a rocky stretch.

Or simply that my father had chosen to have an affair and had been caught out by the simplest of means, my mother answered his phone when he was out of the room thinking it was important work matters, only to discover it was his ‘floozie’.

No guessing then why my mother had called me. After hearing all I wanted to, and not wanting to face an angry couple I just headed on to work.

My mother had yet to come to the hospital to see me. My father had been, but he made no mention of her, or anything else, except to tell me if there was anything I wanted, all I had to do was ask. Then he left and hadn’t come back.

Then, last but not least, were the rumors.

The owner of the company I worked for was getting older and didn’t have an heir. One thing or another had managed to foil his succession plans, and in the end, he did not have a son or a daughter to pass the reins to.

With the latest success, the company was about to have a bigger profile which meant more work and plans to open branches in other cities. It was too much for one man, now in his 70s, and looking to wind down.

A rumor had started about a week before the accident that he was looking to sell, and there were at least half a dozen suitors. There was supposed to be an announcement, but it hadn’t happened while I was at work, but considering how long I’d been in hospital, and the two weeks in an induced coma, anything could have happened.

Louisa stretched and changed positions.

“You look better,” she said.

“Relative to what, or when?”

“Half an hour ago.”

I shook my head. Sometimes Louisa was prone to saying the oddest stuff. “What’s the deal between our parents. Dad was here for all of five minutes. Where’s our mother?”

“She left.”

OK. Blunt, but plausible. “Why?”

“Dad was being an ass.”

“Does she know I was in an accident?”

“I told her.”

“So, you’re seeing her?”

“She calls. I don’t know where she is. I think she might have gone to stay with one of our aunt’s.”

I sighed. Louise had an awfully bad memory, and I was sure one day she was going to forget who I was.

There were four sisters, mother the youngest. She had a love-hate relationship with the middle two, so the best bet would be the eldest sister, Jane. Jane was also the crankiest because she hated children, never got married, and was set in her ways.

Then, there was something else lurking in the back of my mind. Another item I’d overheard when I suspect I was not meant to be listening.

I might not have a job to go back to if the company had been sold, I might not have a home to go back to if my parents had split up, and I might not be able to do anything for a long, long time. Recovery might be complete, but it wasn’t going to happen overnight.

I had a sister who blamed herself for my accident, and an old girlfriend who wanted to see me, though I suspect not like this, broken and useless. What else could there be?

Oh, yes. Another snipped from the shouting match behind the door. And an explanation why my father had all but abandoned me. My mother had also had an affair, and his son, well he was not his son.

No surprise then I had a father who didn’t want to know me.

What else could go wrong?

There was movement outside the room, and raised voices, one of which was saying that whoever was out there couldn’t go into the room. It didn’t have any effect as seconds later, a man and a police officer came in. The officer stood by the door.

Louisa looked surprised but didn’t move.

The man, obviously a detective, came over. “Your name Oliver Watkins?”

It was, and hopefully still is. “Yes.”

“I need you to answer some questions.”

“About the accident?”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then realized what I was referring to. “No. Not the accident. About the embezzlement of 50 million dollars from the company you work for. It seems you didn’t cover your tracks very well.” He turned around to look at Louisa, “You need to leave now, miss.”

“I’ll stay.”

He nodded to the officer, “You leave now, or he will remove you.”

She looked at me, a different expression, “You didn’t tell me you were a crook, Olly.”

“Because I’m not.”

The officer escorted her from the room and shut the door.

The detective sat in the recently vacated chair. “Now, Mr Watkins. It seems there is such a thing as karma.”

…

© Charles Heath 2021

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories My Way:  The re-write – Part 6

Now that I’ve gone through the story and made quite a few changes, it’s time to look at the story

…

It had been another long day at the office for Officer Margaret O’Donnell, or, out in the streets, coping with people who either didn’t know or didn’t care about the law.

People who couldn’t cross the road where there were crossings and lights to protect them, silly girls shoplifting on a dare, and boys who thought they were men and could walk on water.

The one they scraped off the road would never get to grow up, and his mother, well, she was not doing another call on a family to give them bad news for a while.  Someone else could deal with the problem next time.

That was her day.

So far.

At the end of the day, she was glad to be getting home, putting her feet up, and forgetting about everything until the next morning when it would start all over again.

Coming around that last corner, the home stretch she called it, she was directly opposite the corner shop, usually closed at this hour of the night.

It was not.  The lights were still on.

She looked at her watch and saw it was ten minutes to midnight and long past closing time.  She looked through the window, but from the other side of the street, she could only see three heads and little else.

Damn, she thought, I’m going to have to check it out.

She was aware of the rumours, from her co-residents and also her colleagues down at the station, rumours she hoped were not true.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2024

The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to see the planets – Episode 3

Meanwhile, space is still waiting…

…

Back on the spaceship, after a last glance at the screen that had the same planets, just in a different perspective, and representing what we’re heading to:

It’s still debatable whether we’re going to get out of the dock.

The Captain requested me to go down and personally find out what was happening down in the bowels of the ship, and I’d just risked life and limb in the elevator that wasn’t working properly not 24 hours before. Now, the doors having opened, and after a huge sigh of relief, I step into the maelstrom.

The engine room, if it could be called that, looks like a shopping mall at Christmas, with the centre piece looking like a set of constantly strobing lights, and around it, people with computer pads, looking for answers.

I doubt whether any or all of the information they required was going to be in the central computer system because it was too new.

Whatever happened to paper manuals? Oh, sorry, that was so twenty first century.

I felt like I was walking against the tide until I see the Chief Engineer, hands in pockets, not look in the least perturbed.

No, he’s not Scottish. To be honest, I’m not sure where he comes from, I hadn’t got acquainted in the short time we’ve all been aboard.

He sees me coming, and I’m surprised he knows who I am.

“Captain send you?”

He broke away from one of his assistants, and turned towards me.

“He could have just asked you himself,” I said.

He shook his head. “He doesn’t work like that. Prefers the personal touch.”

“What’s happening?”

“Everything and nothing. New modifications are not infallible, but it appears to be just a glitch. The builders are on it, so we’ll have an answer soon.”

“Your opinion?”

“Doesn’t pay to have opinions, only answers.”

A wave from the other side of the room was accompanied by a change in the strobing lights, and a different sound.

“Good news,” he said. “By the time you get back to the bridge, everything will be fine.”

The activity hadn’t lessened given the resolution. “You sure?”

“Nothing’s written in stone. Try crossing your fingers.” With that he left me, and I headed towards to the lift.

…

© Charles Heath 2021

“Trouble in Store” – Short Stories My Way:  The re-write – Part 5

Now that I’ve gone through the story and made quite a few changes, it’s time to look at the story

…

Alphonse, the shopkeeper, had stayed too long missing his opportunity to sell up and retire.

By the time he had been ready to call it a day, his wife had got sick with cancer, and it had taken all their retirement funds to keep her alive for another six months, when despite the doctor’s best efforts, she died.

There was nothing left, and unable to find a buyer for the business he could not just close the door and leave.

There were complications.

Like right now.

The sideline he’d basically forced his way into was always going to come back and bite him.  Selling a little weed on the side to the upper classes forced them to downsize after the global meltdown had turned into a range of products, the worst of which was ice, the result of taking too much very evident by the boy on the floor.

It was only a matter of time when one of the more edgy clients came in and started making demands with threats.  He was asked to sell low to get the customers hooked then forced to raise the price and stop supplying those who couldn’t pay.

It might be a good plan from their perspective but from his, at the coalface, it meant nothing but trouble.

Which is why he was now looking down the barrel of a gun.

This wasn’t the shopkeeper’s first hold-up.  In fact, over the years there had been a dozen.  But only one got reported to the police, and that was only because the robber was shot and killed.

He’d taken a bullet that night, too, which, from the police point of view, made him a concerned citizen simply defending himself.

The rest had been scared off by the double-barrel shotgun he kept under the counter for just such emergencies.

The young punk who came into the shop with his girlfriend had pulled out the pistol and told him if he reached for the shotgun he’d shoot him.  The kid looked unstable, and he’d backed away.

When the kid collapsed, he should have gone for the shotgun, but instead, he thought he could get to the gun before the girl realised what had happened.  She wasn’t an addict and clearly looked like she was only along for the ride.  Her look when the kid pulled out the gun told him she’d known nothing about her partner’s true intentions.

But, he wasn’t fast enough, and she had the gun pointing at him before he’d got past the counter.

From one pair of unpredictable hands to another.

Like the girl, he was just as surprised when the customer burst in the door, just before closing time.

The situation might have been salvageable before the customer came in the door, getting the girl to go along with the robbery being about money, but there was no denying what the kid on the floor’s problem was.

Damn.

He had to try and salvage the situation simply because there was a lot of money involved, and other people depending on him.  He looked at the boy, on the floor, then the girl.

“Listen to me, young lady, you would be well advised to let this man go as he suggests.  And, please put the gun down before someone gets hurt.  Your friend needs medical help, and I can call an ambulance.”

The girl switched her attention back to him.  “No one’s going anywhere, so just shut the hell up and let me think.”

The storekeeper glanced over at the customer.

He’d seen him come into the shop once or twice, probably lived in the neighbourhood, the sort who’d make a reliable witness, either a lawyer or an accountant.  Not like most of the residents just beyond the fringe of respectability.

If only he hadn’t burst into the shop when he did.

…

© Charles Heath 2016-2024

Searching for locations – Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia – 1

I’m not going to spark a debate over what a holiday is and what isn’t, but …

We received an invitation to stay for a few days with my brother-in-law down at a coastal resort city, what is known as the Gold Coast, not far from where we live in Brisbane, about 70km north.

Not far, but some say far enough.

We come down every now and then, but before Covid, and before I retired into a more modest lifestyle, we used to stay once a month at the Gold Coast Hilton, dine at the restaurant and get luxurious massages at Eforia.

That was 2015, and this is 2023.

We are staying in a two-bedroom apartment right on the water, and it could not be better than that. Right now, I’m looking out the windows at what could only be described as an idyllic sunrise breaking over a relatively calm ocean, with the sound of waves continuously breaking on a pristine beach.

It’s just after 7 in the morning, and there are a lot of hardy souls taking their morning constitutional, some with exuberant dogs frolicking as they do at the waterline.

I’m not one of them. The thought of tackling the three fights of steps to get from the apartment to the ground floor is not so daunting going down. It is the going back up that’s the killer.

I did that trip six times yesterday moving stuff from the car to the room. By the sixth, I was done. The rest of that afternoon was watching the rain come in from the sea and towards the late afternoon, a rainbow that came with it, practically ending right on the beach in front of us.

No pot of gold, though.

The difference between staying in a hotel room and in a fully functional apartment is the fact you can cook your own food.

Whilst the nightly rate is basically the same for the room, not having to dine our every lunch and dinner can save a fortune.

The added benefit is that if you are doing this in another country, you can spend some very interesting hours in their supermarkets, or just markets looking at the different types of food they have.

We have done this in England, Italy, France, and China, to name a few. By far, the most fascinating was China. We couldn’t read the labels, so it was guess what’s in the packet.

Or not!

Of course, when on holiday, a must-do is to see the sights. After all, you don’t go on a holiday just to sit in the room…

…or on the balcony watching the waves roll in, or watch the clouds go by.

Given that neither of us is very mobile, it’s usually exactly what we do, but being with others, we will be doing some other activities.

Besides I’m one of those people who like to have a food theme whilst away, like the quest for the best meat pie, a quest for the best friend battered fish, or the best-fried potato chip.

Since we are by the sea, there will be a fish and chips moment, and though in this world of convenience, even fish and chip shops get their food in plastic bags, there are still some who batter their own fish and cut and cook their own chips.

The delight will be to find one and then savour every mouthful.

I’ll let you know if I find one.

On the other end of medical mumbo jumbo

Who could imagine that one visit to the local hospital could fuel a medical nightmare?

Aside from the original suspicion I was having heart problems, doctors started lining up appointments for an endoscopy and colonoscopy, though I suspect these were for a different malady, and the main event, an angiogram.

I didn’t have heart problems though it was possible I had angina, the reason for the angiogram, but I did have acute kidney failure which was interesting, to say the least, and possibly attributed to ipBrufen, though it was impossible to say if the medication for psoriatic arthritis, a venomous little pill called methotrexate, was or was not a contributing factor.

But is was great to learn that my psioratic arthritis could lead to heart attack, and lung issues, a few problems my original arthritis consultant conveniently forgot to tell me about.

No sooner than I was released from the hospital after this first set of maladies, I was back three or four days later with hospital-acquired pneumonia, a devil of a problem that requires some very invasive searches for the type of bug so it could be treated properly.

It led to five days of antibiotics, a considerable inability to breathe without help from an oxygen mask, and several CT scans with and without dye to get a better look at the problem.

If only that was all that was wrong with me.

The CT scan showed up a lump or lesion on my right thyroid which led to further investigation, an ultrasound, a biopsy, and a visit to the surgeon to be told it had to come out.

But that’s not all.  No, I didn’t get a set of steak knives for being one the first ten this week to be diagnosed with anything, I was told my PSA reading was twice the average for my age, a clear indication I might have prostate cancer.

Wow.  Just to sort of news you need to hear before the weekend.  Worse perhaps than a rainstorm when camping in a floorless tent.  I had to now wait for the results of a new blood test.

Ok.  I get it that things are bound to go wrong when you get older, but what I object to is everything going wrong at once.

Perhaps when we stop the aging process a lot of these issues will go away, but I fear not.  The human body is surprisingly robust for quite a long time despite our attempts to test it to the limits of endurance.

It is advice too late for me to make sure my misspent youth is not wasted on being stupid or believing I’m indestructible.  The plain truth is, we are not, and I didn’t get the memo.

Now, I guess, it is time to actually do everything, or as much as I can, before I start to deteriorating further and not be able to do anything.  I have a few good years before arthritis sets in and makes life more difficult than it already is.

I’m not going to waste them.

Coming soon – “Strangers We’ve Become”, the sequel to “What Sets Us Apart”

Stranger’s We’ve Become, a sequel to What Sets Us Apart.

The blurb:

Is she or isn’t she, that is the question!

Susan has returned to David, but he is having difficulty dealing with the changes. Her time in captivity has changed her markedly, so much so that David decides to give her some time and space to re-adjust back into normal life.

But doubts about whether he chose the real Susan remain.

In the meantime, David has to deal with Susan’s new security chief, the discovery of her rebuilding a palace in Russia, evidence of an affair, and several attempts on his life. And, once again, David is drawn into another of Predergast’s games, one that could ultimately prove fatal.

From being reunited with the enigmatic Alisha, a strange visit to Susan’s country estate, to Russia and back, to a rescue mission in Nigeria, David soon discovers those whom he thought he could trust each has their own agenda, one that apparently doesn’t include him.

The Cover:

strangerscover9

Coming soon

 

Searching for locations: The Mary Valley Rattler, Gympie, Queensland, Australia

I have a passion for visiting transport museums, to see old trains, planes, buses, cars, even ships if it’s possible.

This has led to taking a number of voyages on the TSS Earnslaw in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Many, many, many years ago on Puffing Billy, a steam train in the Dandenongs, Victoria, Australia.

The steam train in Kingston, New Zealand, before it was closed down, but hopefully it will reopen sometime in the future.

The London Transport Museum in London England, which had a lot of buses.

The Workshops Railway Museum in Ipswich, Queensland, where once the many steam engines were built and maintained, and now had only a handful of engines remaining.

However, in the quest for finding and experiencing old transportation methods, we came across the Mary Valley Rattler, which runs out of Gympie, Queensland, Australia.

The ride begins in Gympie at the old Gympie Railway station, and as can be seen below, is one of the relics of the past, and, nothing like the new more modern stations.  Thankfully.

If you’re going to have a vintage train, then you have to have a vintage station.

The Class of engine, seen below, is the C17, a superheated upgrade to the C16 it was based on, and first run in 1903.  This particular engine was built in 1951, although the first of its type was seen in  1920 and the last of 227 made in 1953.  It was the most popular of the steam engines used by Queensland Railways.

The C designation meant it had four driving axels and 17 was the diameter of the cylinder, 17 inches.  It is also known as a 4-8-0 steam locomotive
 and nicknamed one of the “Brown Bombers” because of its livery, brown with green and red trimming.

Also, this engine was built in Maryborough, not far from Gympie by Walkers Limited, one of 138.

This photo was taken as the train returned from Amamoor, a trip that takes up to an hour.

The locomotive is detached from the carriages, then driven to the huge turntable to turn around for the return journey to Amamoor.

This is the locomotive heading down to the water station, and then taking on water.  After that, it will switch lines, and reverse back to reconnect the carriages for the trip to Amamoor.

The carriages are completely restored and are extremely comfortable.  It brings back, for me, many memories of riding in older trains in Melbourne when I was a child.

The trains, then, were called Red Rattlers.

This is the locomotive climbing one of the hilly parts of the line before crossing over the Mary River on a trestle bridge.

This is the engine at Amamoor near the picnic area where young children and excited parents and grandparents can get on the locomotive itself and look inside where the driver sits.

And, no, I didn’t volunteer to shovel coal.

This particular locomotive spent most of its working life between Townsville and Mount Isa and was based in Cloncurry, Charters Towers, and Townsville, before being sent, at the end of its useful days in the late 1960s, to the Ipswich Railway Workshops.