A new earworm

An earworm is a tune you can't get out of your head. I am rather prone to them, But my latest one is a lulu, it is a line from a cantata written by Vincent Lübeck in 1728 in North Germany. My autistic brain comes up with some weirdly intellectual stuff. The cantata is Gott Wie Dein Name.

The line that keeps coming to me is:

Und deine Fusstapfen triefen von Fett

Its a line from the Psalms but I won't translate it as it sounds absurd to modern ears

It is on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/O_Lhz-t6JF8

A b*rthday lunch

Anne is having a b*rthday soon so I put on a special lunch for her today. We have a formula for special meals: I get in a dozen French cutlets and she supplies a dozen Sydney rock oysters. The oysters she brought today must have been very fresh as they tasted divine. I can never figure out why people drench oysters with sauces etc. A fresh raw oyster has a taste that cannot be improved.

The weather was hellishly hot -- 37 degrees -- so I took my big electric frypan out on to the verandah where we always get a breeze. So Anne cooked there in a lot more comfort than she would have if we stayed indoors. I have a big pine table on the verandah so we could both cook and dine there

And Anne cooked the cutlets to perfection -- both tender and tasty -- and I had fresh bread to go with them. I opened a COLD bottle of Tyrrells Verdelho, which went down really well with the cutlets. And I even got out my best crystal goblets to drink out of. I ended up having two glasses of wine instead of my usual one.

We finished up listening to music as we usually do. We listened in comfort under air-conditioning. I put on Taras Bulba by Janacek, which Anne liked.

B*rthday flowers

A disappointing experience with Uber Eats

The disappointment started as soon as I logged on. They did not have an option to add in something from a nearby shop. Doordash has that service and I do use it.

I ordered from Taco Bell and that was bad too: The chips were cold, the Taco was doughy and I got the wrong drink.

In summary I will not again use Uber eats or Taco Bell. It's a pity because I quite enjoyed tacos when I was in Mexico and the Southern USA. What I got from Taco Bell was weird by comparison

Janacek and a double breakfast

The cafe "MK Bower" is in Stones corner at the far end of the restaurant strip

https://mkbowercafe.com.au/ at 433 Logan Rd.

It has a big and very tempting menu and provides outdoor seating as well as indoors. So Anne and I went there this morning. I particulary like their "Off Grid" breakfast. It is only $21 but is so big it is a challenge to eat it all. As well as the customary bacon, eggs and toast, you get two sausages, gourmet baked beans and a dish of chutney. So it is two breakfasts in one.

I failed to eat all of mine but Anne got through just about all off hers. She is a moderate eater in general but can eat up when she likes it enough. And we sat in the shade outdoors so it was a memorably good breakfast.

Then after breakfast Anne asked me to put on the Jancek Sinfonietta, which she had seldom heard in the past. It is a very clangourous piece with lots of brass so is a bit much even for some classical music lovers. I think I introduced her to it as I have aways liked it. It is basically an exciting piece of music. It was written in in 1926 so is "modern"

Anne loved it so I went the next mile and also put on for her Janacek's Glagolithic mass, which is quite similar to the Sinfonietta. Anne liked that too. When it finished it was such an experience that we agreed we could not put on anything appropriate to follow it. I must try her out on Taras Bulba next week

Anne and I normally relax in bed while listening to music but the Janacek interested her so much that she got up several times to have a close look at what the orchestra was doing. The show was from the Czech Philharmonic via YouTube


Leos Jancek

So we had a morning together that it would be hard to beat

And Jenny is coming over this evening bringing dinner so that will really cap a good day for me

The SIT, a most remarkable institution

Would you believe a fully accredited college situated at the end of the world that charges no fees, offers degrees up to doctoral level and is headquartered in a town of only 54,000 people? And it even has a respectable score in the world university rankings

Such is the Southern Instiutute of Technology, headquarterd in Invercargill, New Zealand. Invercargill is about as close as you can get to Antarctica and still live a normal life. As Invercargill is close to the sea, its temperatures are moderated somewhat, nothing like low Candian extremes

I have family in town at the moment who live in Invercagill so that has sparked my interest in the SIT

The SIT has a number of campuses in addition to the one at Invercargill, notably one at Queenstown and a small tentacle at Christhurch. And all of them are "free" to NZ citizens. They also have around 2,000 overseas students who pay, but mostly not very much -- around $US15,000 per year. The overseas students come mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines, which are warm countries. Invercargil must be a shock

And the SIT has a rank of 400+ in the world university rankings. Not bad when you know that is out of about 11,000 colleges worldwide. The major NZ universities score around 200+ but none are up to the standard of its big neighbour. There are two Australian universities in the top 50 worldwide. I went to one.

The courses listed on the Invercargill campus offer a wide range of technical subjects plus some degree courses. You can become a degree-level nurse, teacher or accountant, for instance

You could certainly do worse than to take courses from SIT. They are fully recognized by the NZ accreditation authorities

Proof that I am uncool

At age 80, food is a major satisfaction for me. I miss out on some of life's pleasures but food remains. And something that has always been part of that for me is a cooked breakfast. If there is someone at home to cook me a breakfast that is fine but if not I have always gone out to a nearby cafe and ordered bacon & eggs etc. So that is a pretty conventional breakfast

But I have excelled myself lately. I now get all my solo cooked breakfasts from McDonald's via the Doordash delivery service. It costs me about the same as a cafe breakfast and is a lot more relaxed and convenient. So below is the docket I got with my most recent breakafst.

All the cool cats spit on McDonald's from a great height but I see that as mere snobbery. The various ingredients that were once denounced by the "experts" -- fat, salt, and sugar -- have now been rehabilitated by epidemiogical research. Fat is now good for you, excess salt is excreted and if sugar is bad we are all dead. So I am very relaxed about my uncool liking for a McDonald's breakfast

A quiet New Year

I am pleased and rather surprised that I have made it into 2024. When you are as old as I am each new year seems a privilege -- even a quiet one

My New Year's eve was not very social. I had a pleasant breakfast with my son Joe but that was it. I had no visitors in the evening. But I had a lot to do with end-of-year blogging so that was no problem. I kept busy. I didn't even get up to watch the fireworks. You can see some of them from where I live.

Today I am scheduled to have lunch with Jenny but nothing else so far. So I am looking forward to lunch. I had a very good breakfast courtesy of Doordash and McDonald's

Pink beauty

The Crepe Myrtle tree nearest my back door has responded prolifically to all the rain with a great mass of pink blossom

Another surprise visit

Today I got a pleasant surprise. I answered a knock on my door to find Anne there.  We had discussed meeting today but Anne had a busy day ahead so it was not arranged.  But a gap came up in her schedule during the day so there she was on my doorstep at 12 noon.  The opportunity to see me came up suddenly so she just got into her car and came over straight away.  I gave her some lunch and we spent a couple of hours together  which I greatly  enjoyed

So I  am rather pleased to be someone whom at least some ladies feel free to visit at will

Come to think about it, another lovely lady called on me unannounced a few months ago.  Also a very pleasant surprise.  I will not mention her name but she is a very old friend

Boxing Day reflections

A very quiet day for me so plenty of time for reflections. The torrential weather prevented anyone from visiting me so I for once spent the day with no company at any time.

Now that I am 80,I tend to look back on my life and think about its ups and downs. Thanks to a series of kind ladies however it has mostly been a happy life with very few downs. My one big regret is that I am not married. I have had 4 marriages so that has clearly always been my aspiration. So I have failed at that goal. My compensations have been large, however. I have had some remarkably good relationships and still do. I have in my life at the moment 4 very kind women. I say something about each of them in my annual personal report but I think I might add to that here.

Jenny and I met 40 years ago, married shortly after that and split up 30 years ago. But we have always remained in close touch and have in recent years ended up in close to a married state again. We dine together four nights a week and she accompanies me to all my medical appointments. And that has been a big emotional support to me. She does love someone else in a very platonic way but he loves his ex-wife so I come an honourable second. I am grateful for that. The man she loves is also an old friend of mine so there are no hard feelings about it.

And as well as an ex-wife in my life I have an ex-girlfriend: Anne. We have known one another since Sept 1, 2005 and were an item for 14 years after that. She now has a good quasi-marriage with another man. They live together. Unusually, however, she insisted from the first in her new reltionship that she would continue to see me regularly. Her new man did not like that at all but she gave him no choice. To save his feelings she normally sees me on Saturday mornings only, while he is attending his Seventh Day Adventist church. So the surprising thing is that she still wants to see me and that I want still to see her. But we do. There are still loving feelings between us so it is a romance, though now a very unusual one. So our relationship remains an important emotional support to me.

I am however not done with an ex-wife and an ex-girlfriend. I also have a close female friend to help keep me happy. My current girlfriend is Zoe, a native of Srbia who left that place aged 45 thirty years ago. We are hugely incompatible in all sorts of ways but from our first meeting we liked one another and the relationship rapidly develped. We have been seeing one-another for two years now. She lives out Ipswich way so that is a long way from where I live, making it around a 40 minute drive every time she wants to see me. So for a long time she would would see me only 2 or 3 times a week. Lately, however, she has been seeing me more frequently than that. There is no doubt of her feelings for me now. Our incompatibilities are still an occasional source of friction but they don't disrupt the pleasure we have in seeing one-another for long.

So I may not be married but I still do pretty well for companionship and I am profoundly grateful for that.

I have seen and experienced a huge number of things in my 80 years, including big changes in almost everything, from gramophones to DVDs. I am very pleased and satisfied to have been there -- to have seen and experienced it all. I probably have a few years left to me but I can already say, in the words of a famous Bach cantata, Ich habe genug

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL WHO COME BY HERE TODAY

I gave both Anne and Zoe bouquets of flowers as Christmas presents. See below. The one for Anne was Christmas-coloured gerberas, quite unusual. But Anne helped me to pick it. I did not give Jenny flowers as she is getting other things.


For Anne


For Zoe

Our Christmas lunch was between 12 and 3pm. It was a quiet affair, principally due to the absence of kids and grand kids overseas. Present were Jenny, Joe, myself and a couple who are good friends of Jenny. The principal food was ham off an actual ham and roast pork. Dessert was Pavlova. Neither Joe nor I talked much but others made up for that

Zoe paid me a visit between about 5pm and 8pm. Neither of us were hungry so we mostly just lay about. So I got some Christmas kisses and cuddles, which I enjoyed

Vego Persian

Zoe has noted the praise I wrote about the "Saffron" Persian restaurant and felt that I should take her there. I pointed out that the place is best known for grilled meat so that might not suit her -- as she is an extreme Vegan. She was very keen to see what I saw however so I took her there. They did have two vegetarian offerings so we ordered those. She was not really happy with those items but it ended up as a reasonable lunch

The lady with the bosom waited on us again -- dressed this time in close-fitting clothes. The bosom could therefore be evaluated. I guessed DD

A very social day

Around noon my old friend John H. brought me over some lunch, a mild curry his wfe had cooked. It was very good.

We mainly talked about church matters, out of deference to his conversion from Anglo-Catholicism to Roman Catholicism. He has walked the Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. So he takes ceremonial religion seriously. He Left about 1pm

Then at around 2pm, Zoe arrived bearing a salad lunch, of which I had only a small part. After lunch we just lay down cuddled up in bed, which I always like. She left about 4pm

Then at at round 6pm, Jenny arrived, bringing a dinner of some excellent chicken kebabs and salad. She stayed to around 7:30pm

The modern marvels of food delivery

Uber Eats began food delivery in August 2014 with the launch of the UberFRESH service in Santa Monica, California. It set off a revolution. There are now food delivery services worldwide with a number of organizations offering similar services. The one I use is DoorDash, also of American origin but now well entrenched in Australia.

Now that I no longer drive I have become a regular user of their services and greatly appreciate them. For $20 I can have a freshly cooked meal delivered to my door as soon as half an hour after ordering it. And the charge for delivery included in that $20 is only about $3, which I regard as a bargain. Compared to getting in my car and driving to the source restaurant it saves me a lot of time and probably money. And I get a very wide choice of restaurants, ones I mostly was previously unaware of. I even use them to give me cooked breakfasts on occasions

So it is not as big a deal as the invention of the steam engine but it is a modern marvel nonetheless. And it is all the work of profit-seeking companies with no government involvement: Capitalism at its best. I shudder to think what a government-provided service would cost.

She's back

A certain person who no longer wants me to mention her on this blog materialized at my place this afternoon. It was good to see her after a 3 week gap.

A Persian lunch

I wanted to treat Anne to a special lunch so I took her to the "Saffron" restaurant at Stones corner -- run by Zoroastrian Persians. As I usually do there, I ordered the combination platter for two, which was huge and impressive as usual: 3 different kebabs plus rice, salad and chips. Persians are masters at grilling meat

Lunch was 12 noon but Anne and I normally see one another for 9am breakfast so Anne came over around 9am anyway as we had a few things to discuss. While we were waiting for lunch, I put on a lot of Sibelius for her, which she liked

A triple treat

I had today arrangements to have lunch with Anne and dinner with Jenny. But today was also Zoe's birthday so she came over at mid-afteroon with the idea of us having coffee and cake by way of a celebration. We could not think of a nearby cakeshop that would be open at that hour so we went to McDonalds and had iced coffee, something we both enjoy. We spent a couple of hours together in total so I had pleasant times with three fine ladies in the one day. I think that qualifies me as a lucky man

From Anne's big trip

I had my usual pleasant Saturday morning with Anne and we tried to find on her phone ANY picture of her on her big trip. As the photographer, all her photos were of other things and people. We finally found one of her, however -- from when she was in Normanton. As you will see, she too is a doggy lady. That's a sculpture of a crocodile behind her

A very social time

Anne came over between about 9:30 and 11:30pm yesterday for a chat and a trip to the Japanese restaurant for brunch. The food there is always first class. I am hoping for more Thursday morning visits from her.

Then last night Jenny came over and cooked us a dinner of red meat plus lots of salad. She had decided to stay overnight so we opened a bottle of Tyrrell's Verdelho. Wine with dinner is a rare treat for me these days

This morning Jenny will be driving us to breakfast, venue as yet undecided but probably Buranda.

And this evening I am expecting to see Zoe. She came off the plane from Srbia a few days ago with a bad wog so has not been fit to travel up until now. It will be over 3 months since I have seen her so I am looking forward to it

AFTERNOON UPDATE

Zoe arrived at around 3pm. She looked surprisingly good, I thought. She has always looked good for a woman in her 70s but she looked at least as good as ever despite her heavy cold. Maybe her stay in Srbia was good for her. She did miss the Brisbane winter by going there in mid July.

She really should have stayed away from me for a couple more days to complete her recovery from the virus but she has been back in Brisbane since 26th and we both felt uncomfortable at waiting so long to get back together.

Sadly, we could not kiss as the viral load I would get from that would be too risky altogether.

She arrived asking for a salad lunch so I took her to Nando's for a Mediterranean salad, which she likes. I ate only half of mine but she polished off the remaining half. So I fed her well. We then went to to MacDonalds for an iced coffee each

After we got home, all we did was have a big lie-down in bed together. She went to sleep for most of it, which should have helped her recovery. She went home at her usual 7pm -- looking rather more lively than when she arrived

She brought me back a souvenir of her trip. See below. She and I both like and collect oil lamps and the one below is the smallest we have ever seen. She got it in Turkey. But it is fully functional. I show it beside a 50c piece for scale. It is just over 4" tall

A big Pow Wow this morning

Anne has recently returned from her big caravan trip around Australia. So was that the end of her caravanning? She was thinking of one more trip but I told her that another trip would upset me. I missed her during her recent trip so I would not like another trip. She agreed with my view and has now sent the Toyota Prado (used to tow the caravan) to her son for him to sell. He is very cluey so should do that job well. He estimates that we should get back the $70,000 we spent buying it plus perhaps a little more

Anne and I also agreed to a change in our meeting arrangements. We will continue as before to breakfast each Saturday morning but will add a breakast most Thursdays. I am really pleased about that

After our big discussions, we went to Buranda as usual for our breakfast

A gastroscopy

I had a gastroscopy today which took up most of my day, one way or another. The doctors were searching for the cause of my anemia and thought that I might have leaking varices (enlarged blood vessels) somewhere in my stomach area. I didn't. I was all normal down there.

So that is rather good news but leaves the cause of my anemia unexplained. It would normally signify low levels of serum iron but my iron levels are normal

An amazing sort of a day

Yesterday was good for me in both personal and political ways. The decisive defeat of the referendoum in Australia and the decisive expulsion of the Left in NZ were the political highpoints but there were some good personal highpoints too.

For the last couple of days I had been troubled by a gammy hip -- one of the nightmares of the elderly. But Ibuprofen had been helping with it so I took some more at 7am. And by 10pm the hip was no longer gammmy. If someone had prayed for me over it, it would have been accounted as a genuine miracle from the Lord. And the cure is still in place this morning.

And Anne arrived at 8:30am and drove us to the Buranda coffee place. And we did well there. We both had favorite breakfasts with coffee that cost me surprisinly little. With deductions and discounts, the bottom line was $37.45, a very old-fashioned price. I am "not short of a bob", in the old Australian idiom, but I still like to get value for money. I give half of my disposable income to a charitable cause and I like the results I am getting there too

And before we left Buranda, Anne and I managed to snag some Portuguese custard tarts for our morning tea -- one of our favorite rituals. While there I also bought Anne a small bunch of flowers, including some red roses.

Then I decided some Nandos chicken was what I fancied for lunch. So after some time trying to navigate food ordering via the internet, I finally managed to place an order with Deliveroo. And the food arrived still warm. Again I was pleased at my spend. They charged me only $5 in addition to the cost of the food

And I had a nefarious scheme in mind for that night. I have been rather regretful that my "days of wine and roses" seem to be over so I thought that by giving Anne roses and having a glass of wine with Jenny over dinner I would be able to defy that limitation. Sadly, however, Jenny was too unwell to have any wine

So I decided to have a "Jimmy Woodser" (drink alone). I had a of glass of very nice Rosemount Traminer Riesling as a nightcap. So I did have at least one more day of wine and roses