Category: Winter

A photograph from the inspirational bin – 4

This is

A rainy day.

Not much of a revelation when it’s winter, but why is it when you have to go somewhere in a hurry, the universe knows, and tries to throw everything at you so you don’t get there on time?

I like to be punctual.

I’m one of those people who leave home to get to the airport hours before I have to because I know, from past experience, that if you leave at the time where you’d make it with an hour to spare, you would get stuck in the mother of all traffic jams.

I know this to be true.  It’s happened more than once to me,

If you’re not in a hurry, you get the best run you’ve ever had.  I know that’s true too, because that’s what happens most times.

It’s like when at work you’re in a hurry to get a photocopy.  The machine knows if you’re stressed and picks that particular moment to break down.  That use to happen to me more times that I’d had hot dinners.

Sorry, I needed to use that expression, which generally means a lot.  That photocopy machine, back in the days when they were huge and almost a new fad, my task every Tuesday was to copy a 3 page shipping report, 300 odd times.  Not once did I get a clean run, not in the two years it was my job.

But…

Back to the weather.

My day to pick up one of the grandchildren from the railway station.  It’s not far from our house, on any other day it would take about ten minutes, but since this is after 3 pm, I have the other school traffic to contend with, the tradies going home, and late afternoon shoppers getting dinner.

It never used to be like that.  The road was a single lane that used to be blocked by floods when it rained, there was no shopping centre, and no new estates.  In 30 years everything has arrived, the road expanded to two lanes either side, and almost continual traffic jams.

There’s a story there somewhere, but for the moment I have to take on the traffic.  Maybe once I get to the station I might have time to consider it.

It must be the (almost) seasonal change

Earlier today, or yesterday now since the clock has ticked over to a new day, I was writing a post about the weather.

Boring as hell, except it gradually turned into a rant about greed, both corporate and government,

There has to be better stuff to talk about than that.

Like father’s day.

It’s possibly the most interesting aspect of my life, having never expected as a teenager that I would ever become a father.  No, back in those dark and gloomy days I had neither the confidence nor the wherewithal to be or do anything.

I guess meeting someone, falling in love, and getting married, pulls you out of the lethargy of youth and forces you to take stock, and become someone, someone who has to have a good job that pays good money so you can get the necessities like a house and a car.  You might have these before you get married, we had the cars, but not the house.

Then you realise you need more money because you never seem to earn enough until a baby comes along, and your whole life as you knew it turned upside down and inside out.  Bad enough trying to sustain two, it’s now three.

More money, a larger house, a larger car, a damn good washing machine, and lots of nappies.  Wow, I had thought having a baby meant more than a clothesline perpetually filled with nappies.

Until another baby comes along, the cycle repeats, then one has to go to school, and a whole new money pit opens and this costs more than the annual house payments.

Then there are sports, and extracurricular activities like dancing (though we didn’t have girls, thankfully), and then kids get to be very good at sports, so, you guessed it, another money pit.  And a steadily growing grocery bill as they get larger and start eating you out of house and home.

There’s never a let-up, from the moment they’re born till the moment they leave home, and that, sometimes, can take a few more years than you expected.

Along the way you hope that your kids will respect you are their father and their mother.  Sometimes that’s a forlorn hope.  Other times children become a blessing and are always there.  At least we don’t have to travel to either the other side of the country, or the other side of the world, to see ours, and with any luck, I will see them both later today.

I don’t expect much.  My relationship with my father is strained, now, but for many years I was there for him, much more than I should according to my wife.  I don’t want for them what happened to me, so I do what I can to make sure it doesn’t happen.

But the unexpected surprise, that one thing that you never expect when this lifelong journey starts, is the eventuality of grandchildren.  Yes, it’s a natural progression in the circle of life, but often it doesn’t quite happen.

We have three granddaughters, and though I know as we get older we will not see them as much or if at all as they make their way out into a very large and far more accessible world than we had at the same time, but I will cherish those moments I have with them now.

I guess today, being mid-way through Autumn, and we’re just getting to the end of a very hot summer, being cooler than we’ve been experiencing, is not such a bad day after all, and it’s amazing that twelve hours later after feeling the gloom and doom of the world, that mood has changed, and that it took so little to change it.

Perhaps that’s what life is really all about.

Family.

It must be the (almost) seasonal change

Earlier today, or yesterday now since the clock has ticked over to a new day, I was writing a post about the weather.

Boring as hell, except it gradually turned into a rant about greed, both corporate and government,

There has to be better stuff to talk about than that.

Like father’s day.

It’s possibly the most interesting aspect of my life, having never expected as a teenager that I would ever become a father.  No, back in those dark and gloomy days I had neither the confidence nor the wherewithal to be or do anything.

I guess meeting someone, falling in love, and getting married, pulls you out of the lethargy of youth and forces you to take stock, and become someone, someone who has to have a good job that pays good money so you can get the necessities like a house and a car.  You might have these before you get married, we had the cars, but not the house.

Then you realise you need more money because you never seem to earn enough until a baby comes along, and your whole life as you knew it turned upside down and inside out.  Bad enough trying to sustain two, it’s now three.

More money, a larger house, a larger car, a damn good washing machine, and lots of nappies.  Wow, I had thought having a baby meant more than a clothesline perpetually filled with nappies.

Until another baby comes along, the cycle repeats, then one has to go to school, and a whole new money pit opens and this costs more than the annual house payments.

Then there are sports, and extracurricular activities like dancing (though we didn’t have girls, thankfully), and then kids get to be very good at sports, so, you guessed it, another money pit.  And a steadily growing grocery bill as they get larger and start eating you out of house and home.

There’s never a let-up, from the moment they’re born till the moment they leave home, and that, sometimes, can take a few more years than you expected.

Along the way you hope that your kids will respect you are their father and their mother.  Sometimes that’s a forlorn hope.  Other times children become a blessing and are always there.  At least we don’t have to travel to either the other side of the country, or the other side of the world, to see ours, and with any luck, I will see them both later today.

I don’t expect much.  My relationship with my father is strained, now, but for many years I was there for him, much more than I should according to my wife.  I don’t want for them what happened to me, so I do what I can to make sure it doesn’t happen.

But the unexpected surprise, that one thing that you never expect when this lifelong journey starts, is the eventuality of grandchildren.  Yes, it’s a natural progression in the circle of life, but often it doesn’t quite happen.

We have three granddaughters, and though I know as we get older we will not see them as much or if at all as they make their way out into a very large and far more accessible world than we had at the same time, but I will cherish those moments I have with them now.

I guess today, being mid-way through Autumn, and we’re just getting to the end of a very hot summer, being cooler than we’ve been experiencing, is not such a bad day after all, and it’s amazing that twelve hours later after feeling the gloom and doom of the world, that mood has changed, and that it took so little to change it.

Perhaps that’s what life is really all about.

Family.

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Inspiration comes from the most unlikely sources

And this was one of those times.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that is rapidly disappearing in our collective memories, we came down from Brisbane to Melbourne for a wedding, perhaps the last for this family for quite some time, this being my wife’s brother’s last daughter to tie the knot, so to speak.

And like someone said, as with births, weddings and funerals, it turned into a family reunion on my wife’s side of the family.

But there were extra benefits…

We got to meet the extended family of the groom.

And, we got an insight into their friends, the thirty-something, footloose and fancy-free acquaintances that had been off and on a part of the bride and groom’s life for about 15 or so years, and most of who had been to London, for various stints, and who are now scattered across Australia, and other international destinations.

I have to say that these people were quite interesting.

As an older person, I didn’t have much in common, so I followed one of my father’s old adages, if you’ve got nothing to say, shut up and listen.

And as a writer, I did something else, observe.

It was an eye-opening experience if nothing else, and a rather interesting look into what it might be like as an unmarried reasonably well-off thirty-something. For starters, you didn’t have to worry about the price of drinks, or how much you drank. You can just up and go anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. For a few minutes there I was starting to feel envious.

It was sometimes overindulgence, but I noticed it was never to the point of becoming what some refer to as legless. Noisy perhaps, crude at times, yes, but in reminiscing, it was a curious phenomenon that they had all “hooked up” at some time or other.

Aside from learning what appeared to be a new “language”, there was also a running theme that at one time or another nearly all of them had lived with the groom in London for a period.

It got me thinking.

It would make a good story.

It was just trying to find a context, other than a wedding, that would bring them together, one where a series of vignettes that involved each of them, in turn, could bring the story of that person to life.

In this case, but not so much the reminiscing, it was the wedding.

What if it was an untimely funeral?

Trying to find joy in the midst of a very sad occasion.

I’m sure this has been done to death many times, but after hearing a lot of happy memories, it seems to me that in this case, it could be uplifting.

Yes, the ideas need a little work, but it’s firmly there in my mind.

Perhaps when I get back home, I might just start writing.

Inspiration comes from the most unlikely sources

And this was one of those times.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a time that is rapidly disappearing in our collective memories, we came down from Brisbane to Melbourne for a wedding, perhaps the last for this family for quite some time, this being my wife’s brother’s last daughter to tie the knot, so to speak.

And like someone said, as with births, weddings and funerals, it turned into a family reunion on my wife’s side of the family.

But there were extra benefits…

We got to meet the extended family of the groom.

And, we got an insight into their friends, the thirty-something, footloose and fancy-free acquaintances that had been off and on a part of the bride and groom’s life for about 15 or so years, and most of who had been to London, for various stints, and who are now scattered across Australia, and other international destinations.

I have to say that these people were quite interesting.

As an older person, I didn’t have much in common, so I followed one of my father’s old adages, if you’ve got nothing to say, shut up and listen.

And as a writer, I did something else, observe.

It was an eye-opening experience if nothing else, and a rather interesting look into what it might be like as an unmarried reasonably well-off thirty-something. For starters, you didn’t have to worry about the price of drinks, or how much you drank. You can just up and go anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat. For a few minutes there I was starting to feel envious.

It was sometimes overindulgence, but I noticed it was never to the point of becoming what some refer to as legless. Noisy perhaps, crude at times, yes, but in reminiscing, it was a curious phenomenon that they had all “hooked up” at some time or other.

Aside from learning what appeared to be a new “language”, there was also a running theme that at one time or another nearly all of them had lived with the groom in London for a period.

It got me thinking.

It would make a good story.

It was just trying to find a context, other than a wedding, that would bring them together, one where a series of vignettes that involved each of them, in turn, could bring the story of that person to life.

In this case, but not so much the reminiscing, it was the wedding.

What if it was an untimely funeral?

Trying to find joy in the midst of a very sad occasion.

I’m sure this has been done to death many times, but after hearing a lot of happy memories, it seems to me that in this case, it could be uplifting.

Yes, the ideas need a little work, but it’s firmly there in my mind.

Perhaps when I get back home, I might just start writing.

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

…

Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

…

Will it be time to get on the plane yet?

What I wanted to say is the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but the truth is, it’s probably just me.

If it’s possible, and seeing it’s the only time we can go away, as we live in the southern hemisphere, it seems logical to go north.

OK, that’s probably not as rational as it sounded in my head a few seconds ago, because where we’re planning to go it’s about minus 16 degrees.

Where on earth could it be that cold, other than the north pole?  Lake Louise.  Canada.  Somewhere up in those snow-peaked mountains.

Why do we want to go there?

Because it’s there.  Because we have been there before and it literally took our breath away (notwithstanding the severe cold).  And, no doubt after we’ve been there in the dead of winter, we might have decided we won’t want to go back?  Who knows.

But…

Oh, yes, there’s a but…

I need some good background for a story I’m writing, and if you’re going to do the winter thing, or the white Christmas thing, when your Christmases are usually 40 degrees Celsius in the shade, then Canada is the place to do it.

Aside from the fact, we might run into Detective Murdoch (from Murdoch Mysteries) in Toronto, and, definitely, the Maple Leafs, yes, I can see myself saying ‘go leafs go’, whilst sipping on a large glass of Molsen beer.

Then, perhaps we’ll go to New York for a week.  Perhaps everything will be still shut down, but maybe not.  Hopefully, there will be snow in Central Park, or, if not, the squirrels, and if not them, perhaps a movie star or two walking their dog.

One can always hope.