The RSL, Bowling, and the gutters now get vacuumed.

Manchurian Pear tree in front of our house (six weeks ago)

I love mid-winter. It gets cold here but the gardens are so quiet. No noises from lawnmowers, whipper-snippers, the edgers, leaf blowers, hedge trimmers, chain-saws. At no stage in world’s history has gardening become so noisy.  It reaches its zenith in mid-summer. I don’t like gardening noises. I get snappy and unfriendly. Milo too hates the noise. His ears hang down and looks frightened. Winters are for recovering from all that machinery. All machinery is hibernating and owners fiddle listlessly around the Television or, at best might tidy up the shed or do some vacuuming.

Together with my dislike for garden noises, I also hate the colour purple. Do I look like someone who likes purple? I just mention this as my Moss-vale Returned Soldiers Leagues/services bowling Club brought in purple bowling shirts. It was decided to give more credence to the sport of bowling by having members wearing shirts identifying the club and bowling. To see a group of elderly prancing about in short sleeved shirts is risqué but in bright purple it becomes circus clownery. I was asked about the purple colour before the choice was made. It was asked with such enthusiasm for the colour, I shrivelled up and acceded with the majority. I am not that brave in opposing. I only joined a year ago!

I am shirted in purple every Wednesday now. That’s when the Moss -vale club gets together. My long skinny arms don’t do anything at the best of times but in a short sleeved purple shirt I look ready for a long stint in a rehabilitation unit behind a high fence. I read on the label they are made in Bangladesh and are made of 100% acrylic. I paid an extra $10 to get a pocket stitched on it. I thought it might draw attention away from the rest of my body. I never though that in retirement and having a choice I would end up wearing purple shimmeringly shiny shirt. It also makes me sweat and smell after just a couple of bowling games.

It is different at the Mittagong Returned Soldier League Club. They wear a  green coloured shirt. It is made of 50% cotton and acrylic. It looks better. I don’t object to wearing it. I don’t understand to have two different coloured shirts. It has nothing to do with Returned Soldiers or the clubs. We are too old for two different uniforms even if it is just a shirt.

During the last AGM of our Townhouse compound, someone brought up that the gutters had not been cleaned. It is the same each year. Some have an obsession about gutter cleaning. Most trees have now been cut and any surviving leaves get annihilated by leaf-blowers. Not many end up in our gutters. And if they do, so what? Councils and many inhabitants of rural towns cut down the native trees years ago, in order to name streets after the trees they cut.

Anyway, the chairperson of our housing compound organised for the gutters to be cleaned. Within a week a huge truck appeared with a large pump. A very large stomached man clambered over the roofs and manipulated a large suction hose along the gutters. It was supposed to vacuum all the gutters clean. Looking around now. Many a truck now have signs advertising their prowess in vacuuming gutters and roofs. The world has come a long way.

And next Wednesday I will be wearing a purple acrylic bowling shirt with a stitched on pocket.

Drunk with power

Japanese Windflower

Thomas Grey once wrote,

“The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike th’ inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.”

It was always going to be an AGM that would be less boring than any of the previous ones. The furore about the public posters about the stolen cyclamen guaranteed a meeting whereby moving motions would thankfully be kept to a minimum. After arriving at 5.30 pm, Helvi and I took our seats around a large table. I immediately went for the head of the table. This would ensure that both my impaired ears were in line with whoever spoke from either side. I immediately noticed the carafes and glasses on their coasters in the middle of the conference table. The place was also heated. A sure sign that this Strata Body’s AGM was going to be a real bottler.

Five of the eight possible town-house owners, capable of voting were present and somewhat gingerly took their seats. We had anticipated that the issue of the posters was going to be kept last. There were still some issues to be dealt with, not least of all, the inevitable accepting of previous minutes of the last AGM and financial statements. I noticed that the Extraordinary GM whereby the dodgy quote for painting was dealt with together with the threat of the Strata Body Corporate losing their license, because of the irregularities of funding were exposed (by this writer) were conveniently not mentioned. The atmosphere was tense if not electrifying. AGM’s can never reach that sort of level. It’s not like a rugby game in Wales, nor like the procedure of politicians leaving the House pre-maturely and a Government losing a vote for the first time in over fifty years.

http://theconversation.com/turnbull-government-loses-discipline-and-votes-in-house-chaos-64772

At last after much wrangling the Poster issue was raised. It wasn’t a motion nor foreshadowed and I resisted the temptation to raise an objection. We were getting very hungry, and even though I drank some water, I don’t like gnawing hunger. But, and here comes the punchline. I was nominated ‘secretary’! After all that. The Poster complaint was wiped away when I mentioned we followed the police’s advice in notifying the neighbours by stapling up ‘Thief Alert’ posters. One lady had taken a large rock to the meeting, claiming it was hurled at her door as a result of my posters. She blatantly lied. I pointed out that putting up a poster doesn’t mean rocks would be hurled around.

It never stops. I am now a secretary. Unbelievable.

The ‘running of the fools’! Stressing.

Our home

It used to be a popular expression, ” you are stressing me out.” It was often used to escape scrutiny by those that are intent on seeking the truth from those who are a bit shifty in coping with the truth. The twisting and turning finally surrenders to that expression. It gives relief for the escape artists in truth.

With the issue about our Strata Title management now in full swing I decided last week-end to get to the bottom of this strange quarrel. I approached the slasher owner and his committee secretary cohort while they were busy slashing. ” Could you show me in these minutes where and how you decided to spent forty thousand dollars on re-painting”, I asked? I put the two pages of the last AGM in front of the slasher. It would be a futile and useless exercise. In the past it was almost impossible to get coherence from him. His usual way in giving an answer would be by starting to walk away. He would use it effectively and might well have been his modus operandi during his entre life. I decided to reverse by walking with him while waving the minutes in front of him. “Where is any painting mentioned, I asked again.”

He increased his walking speed. So did I. I have a feeling that playing cricket might well have been his favourite sport. He walks ramrod straight. The walk of an Army General or a sports master at a girl’s exclusive high school. Of course in cricket, walking in when you are out or walking out when you are in, seems to be the essence of a sport I never got a handle on. In any case, on the news channels cricket is a sport shown where people whack at balls and walk a lot while wearing white uniforms and sloppy caps.

He had no chance of getting rid of me. I noticed the secretary woman cohort stopped her electric slashing tool. With the noise gone it turned all to seeing how this strange walk would turn out. Of course, if the walk would have continued it might well have ended in crossing the road, passing shopping centres with  perhaps finally ending up on the six lane expressway towards our capital, Sydney.

He abruptly stopped; “Look Gerard, your minutes are not the real minutes, there are other ‘special’ minutes on the AGM.” “Oh, I see!”  “Have you got a copy of those special minutes of that meeting”? “No, that’s why they are ‘special,’ he answered.” He was by now very nervous and stopped walking. The cohort started revving up her Electric slasher.

I would be amazed if the Department of Fair Trading that oversees Strata Title regulations would be impressed by ‘special’ minutes.

We shall see. I will keep you all informed.

The impetus to change in advancing years.

Aspidistra

Of course, while young we change our minds at a moments notice. The car is packed and off we go. We might just drive, stop and camp out willy-nilly anywhere.  True, that’s what the young do. You see them overlooking the sea, scanning for good waves. The surfboards strapped on the roof racks. The girl friends clambering out of the van, stretching themselves, ready for another day. Of course, at the same time, sharks are scanning the shores for those risking dangling legs suspended just above them. It must be so tempting. For them it is just another fish.

Can you imagine an elderly couple still adventurous enough to just drive off. Yes, they do, and by the thousands. The caravan is back in favour. You now see highways riddled with cars towing caravans. It is again popular as it was in the sixties and seventies. Of course, in those days camping out was possible. Now the available ‘real’ camp-sides have mostly gone. Many caravan travellers now stop over at designated caravan parks. Acres of caravans, neck on neck. A constant stream of retirees seeking out the available toilets sprinkled between the caravan sites. There are huge cars towing not just the caravan but another smaller car with bikes strapped on at the back, and a boat on top. You would think they are planning to travel down Niagara-Falls or across the plains of Mongolia instead of planning to see The Big Banana at Coffs Harbour or the performing dolphins at Mia Monkey.

Ever since our visit to Eco-village at Currumbin in Queensland, we are mulling over the experience. Should we or should we not? A village with like-wise people. Green minded individuals in common with working towards a sustainable earth.  Isn’t that a lofty goal for people still to nurture, and at the fag-ends of their lives too? You occasionally read of magic feats achieved by very old people. A man in his late eighties jumping from a plane above the Nevada dessert, strapped on the back of a formidable large woman in her late sixties wearing huge laced up military type boots. The whole episode filmed on youth-tube (going viral)

At the same time, I am now involved in a shemozzle with our town-house compound management. Out of the blue and without a word of information it has been decided to spend $40.000,- on an exterior paint job without following normal practise of consent nor of obtaining competing quotes from other contractors. We were overseas but coming back in time for the AGM, when it was decided to change the date to a day before our return. The rule to give no less than 31 days to change the date of an AGM was totally ignored like the decision to re-paint without even a single motion put to management by the committee. In short, a litany of violations of law and regulations. Of course, I submitted a complaint to the NSW Fair Trading.  We shall see!

You can see that Eco-Village is now beckoning stronger than ever before. Even so, at our age?

Should we move? Your input will be greatly appreciated.

The ‘Body Corporate AGM meeting with imposing Table.

If your life ever gets to a point where you need to take a break from neck breaking activity, intellectual (pouring over nothingness) or otherwise (pouring concrete), consider going to meetings, especially official meetings. We went to one yesterday, and I have never felt more ready for action than afterwards, any action.

As we entered the meeting room some people were seated already. There was a nod and a formal murmur of ‘morn’ from people that we see almost daily. Do AGM meetings make people change into frozen officious beings, trapped into a pre-destined kind of ‘meeting type?’ The metamorphosis from ‘normal being’ to ‘meeting being’ happens as soon as one is within the range of a large oversized table with the ‘minutes of the last meeting’ distributed out for all the members to ruminate over. The table is so large and intimidating that all seated around it immediately appear much smaller than usual.

The sensible thing to do would be to appear incognito. I wondered what the reactions would be appearing in my Batman Outfit, mask and all. A hushed silence followed with a move away from my chair? Would procedures cheer up a bit? I cannot fathom the rigidity of the ridiculous format that AGM’s or any meetings really seem to adopt.

No wonder they don’t work. There is never an excuse for doing things the most stifling, the most mind bogglingly boring way. Do they hold meetings like that in Cuba or Bali, Mexico?

Anyway, someone asked if there was a ‘quorum’ present. Yes, someone enthused. Ok, let’s start with the agenda. No, not yet. Why not? We haven’t passed the last minutes from the last meeting. Ok, they are now passed. No they are not. We haven’t asked if there are any objections to the last minutes. And so it goes on and on and zzzzzz…

Item 1 on the agenda is the report on Fire Hazards and archive fees. Ah great, really, really great stuff, can’t wait for Item 2.

May I ask you for a dance? Shall we visit the local morgue, a bit of tap-dancing, feed the ducks?

No; Item 3 now. Anyone thought of passing Miscellaneous Expenses?