The Neighbour’s cat.

Neighbour’s cat

This is a picture of the cat that keeps the mice and rats on their qui vive at Harley’s property next door. Harley and his wife keep three chickens which he calls ‘his girls.’ I feed the chickens when they go away. In exchange, Harley, or his chickens really, allow us to keep the eggs.  We like a nice Pinot Grigio so a bottle from that grape variety gets thrown in with eggs. They are our best neighbours and gives a good break from the cyclamen thievery within our compound. It still riles us! Remember how for exchange in saving our Body-Corporate $10.000,- in obtaining a far more competitive quote for the exterior painting, we were hit by abuse and threats for us to move and sell-up, and the twice theft of our potted in beautiful ceramic containers, the oft mentioned and loved cyclamen!

But the cat is what I want to write about. Just forgive my regression on the cyclamen era. The neighbours next to us are not in the same group as the dusty frumpy relics of the past. She, a single mother, moved in a year ago or so. She has two teen-age sons, and two cats. One of the cats is the one in the above picture. It taught Milo, our Jack Russell a bitter lesson. When he saw the cat for the first time he went furious and tried to teach him a lesson amidst the summer daisies. The cat with one swipe did the job. Milo retreated with a yelp and one closed eye. He badly underestimated the stance of this mighty cat. The cat was not to be mangled with. From that moment Milo gave it due respect and no further issues arose. Milo often spends the nights outside and so do the cats. I suppose they met up again and made a truce, if not a good friendship as well. Our Milo was the best of friends with our cat on our farm before 2010.

It turned out that Milo almost lost an eyes with this single swipe from the cat. He still bears a mark on his bottom eye lid. It was that close. What astonished us is when the cat now takes naps on Milo’s outdoor sleeping blanket as shown in the picture. Milo knows and approves. All has been forgiven.

Isn’t that an example how nice it would be if people could behave like cats and dogs?

A good sleep

Is it true that the elderly sleep less? As much as I dislike starting an article about sleep, I wonder about it? So much depends on a good sleep. One of the first thing we ask each other; how was your sleep?  Or, how did you sleep? I know that if the answer is “terrible” we could be in for a torrid day. With the years piling up, more and more memories and life’s baggage gets stored. You wonder if losing a bit of memory is a blessing in disguise.

I have become more forgetful, especially names. It is something that worries some but not me. I have no trouble admitting I don’t know a single name of a recent Olympic champion. I remember Zatopek and Fanny Blankers Koen from the past. I don’t know the name of even a single rugby player of today.  Sport and I are Teflon coated. Water off a ducks back, and gladly so. I feel sorry for all those ex-champions having to cope with a future life without fame, all fading away into so much nothingness. Like all of us really. One ought to be thankful for lacking fame.

We have both keenly taken to a large memory calendar on which we write down future appointments. One of our first appointment will be getting quotes for air conditioning. Next, yearly check ups for doctors, poking around a bit here and there. A hearing check up. That’s all there is so far. I hope to get more interesting appointments written down soon. A date for a trip around the world on a large cruise-liner would be nice. Or, being interviewed about having won a literary competition. Oprah Winfrey talk show invitation?

So far this large desk-top calendar has just those few appointments. No dinner dates or meeting up with our PM Turnbull nor any undertaker. I wonder if he suffers sleepless nights? He isn’t a happy man anymore. Being at the mercy of the extreme charlatans of the right. He must have had a dream for change. Make Australia progressive. Pass legislation hurling Australia into the twenty first century. Even the same sex marriage bill, which most want, including our PM, is now slipping away. Why doesn’t he have the guts of his convictions and go for needed change? He might loose his Prime ministership, but he can say; I tried!

No appointment needed for the date with autumn. A few golden-auburn Liquid Amber (Liquidambar styraciflua)  leaves have arrived already. We can’t get to cooler weather soon enough. We are now troubled by having seen a very nice free-standing house opposite where we live. It has a beautiful garden and a workshop-cum extra little living space (for times during marital upheavals/differences/ enthusiastic outbursts.) It has its own men’s shed really!  I could finally make a rabbit hutch. The house itself has more space. Above all, it would allow us to get away from the Body corporate and its Strata witchcraft. No more stolen plants or bullying threats from ropable divorcées.

We really like living in this town-house. It is convenient and so much work  Helvi put in the garden. The problem is that old trees don’t easily get re-planted elsewhere. Are we old trees? While not saplings, we don’t feel like gnarled oaks. What do you reckon? Should we move? It would be rather painless moving across the road and being able to give the ‘finger-up’ to Body Corporate/Strata witches. Mind you, retaliation isn’t an answer to bullying.

What do youse reckon?

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The police, all geared with revolver, baton, capsicum spray…

The sun is out.

The plot thickens. The police turned up as promised after we attended the local Police Station. The Déjà vu feelings accompanying our second reportage of our stolen pot plants did not escape Helvi or me. Visiting Police Stations again? Is this now becoming a ritual in our retirement? The policewoman behind the counter remembered us well. To have potted plants stolen twice within a few weeks was a bit out of the usual, she admitted. How did you go with the sensor lights? ‘Well they worked but did not deter anyone,’ The thief must have got well lit, we answered. She nodded and asked which plants got stolen and the value. ‘Cyclamen, the same as last time but not in ceramic pots.’ ‘They were housed in those white plastic mixing bowls.’ Now I know what happened to my bowl I used for pan-cake mixing, I added. This anecdote to pancakes made the policewoman smile. Perhaps she too understands pancake making and grandkids. It showed a rarely seen but warm human side to the police force. The total value would have been around $ 50.- or so, we said. They had flowered so beautifully since the last theft of the previous cyclamens. They too were stolen at the peak of their lives.

‘It’s really the threatening letter left in our letterbox more than the stolen plants which we take more seriously.’ And with a flourish I showed her the note that asked us to ‘stop bullying or sell up,’ signed by ‘owners.’ ‘This was left in our letterbox,’ we added for good measure, and emphasized the threat to our wellbeing in urging us to sell up and move. ‘At our age, we don’t easily move as when we were young,’ we demurred. We pointed out the second plant stealing must be connected. The reason for this bullying was complex. They always are of a human nature unable to give and take. I gave the policewoman some short snippets of how I fared for about twenty minutes as secretary of our Shared Housing Complex, the Body Corporate, after refusing to engage perfectly good neighbours in guerrilla warfare about parking cars.

I assume that my refusal to engage in neighbourly fights must have been the catalyst in this bullying letter-box note and subsequent plant thefts, I added, with some earlier practise in using the word ‘catalyst.’. Getting-on with neighbours is clearly not in the world that our chairperson resides. ‘So much time on hands, yet so little time left to sow seeds of misery, unhinge others,’ I told the policewoman. I thought it prudent to add a little earthly philosophy now, encouraged by her recognition to the earlier pancake bowl reference. ‘The main suspect is 84, and probably on her final few years.’ She is on borrowed time. What drives this woman to do this?

We could tell that the policewoman now wanted to wrap this up. We felt, that the essence of our concerns of the bullying, was understood. ‘We will make a report and the police will visit you in the next hour or so.’ After that we thanked the nice police woman and hurried to get some shopping done. I needed to buy some aspirin which I take on a daily basis. The taking of aspirin and a wine or beer are my only drug habits. I resist seeing doctors, and so far so good.

We drove home and once again looked at the little table outside now looking forlorn and empty of the cyclamen. We went inside and fiddled around a bit waiting for the policeman’s arrival. We were not disappointed. He arrived fully decked out as if on an Isis terrorist mission. Gun in holster, baton at the ready, canisters of what we assumed to be deadly sprays, incapacitating even the most hardened psychological disturbed maniac.

He made a report and told us he would go and question the 84 year old neighbour woman, the main suspect of the bullying note and organiser of the continuing theft of our loved cyclamen plants. The report has a number for future reference.

I will keep you, dear readers, informed.

The outlook though the window and why Ivy needs removing.

Last Saturday morning at around 10.30 I happened to glance outside the bedroom window. I often look through windows. There is nothing wrong with that. I often wonder why so many windows in Australia are covered, shutting out the possible excitement that might be going on outside. The Venetian blind had a lot to answer for.

The outlook through the window is somewhat marred by a paling fence opposite the drive-way passing through our housing compound, or condominium as it known by in the US. We have planted a jasmine against the fence which helps to soften the look of the paling fence. However, we know that the Chairperson, the Secretary and the Treasurer of our Body Corporate are ardent lovers of exposed paling fences. We are therefore in the minority trying to install some beauty and making the best of the ugly paling fence by trying to get greenery to grow up and hide them. The paling fence is a revered type of architectural structure by believers of privacy. Privacy is absolutely set in stone by most people. A much loved emotional stance. It must be defended by hook and crook against anyone who dares to infringe on it.

The paling fence is a kind of barrier between properties, a border but without guards looking for smugglers or refugees. Sometimes it causes friction when a ball happens to cross this boundary. Nasty neighbours have been known to refuse to throw the ball back. In shared housing complexes, the parking of cars and shared paling fences have been known to cause endless wars between maniacally ‘privacy’ seeking neighbours. The popular image of hanging over the fence by neighbours talking to each other is a myth but it makes us look a bit better. Only last week a 68 year old neighbour got murdered by his 73 year old next door life long enemy. The Newspaper described the neighbourhood as ‘a close knit community.’ The article included a photo of a tear-stained woman holding a little teddy bear as proof. The murder was a result of an (illegally) overhanging branch of a tea-tree.

As I said earlier, I was looking through the upstairs window. I noticed a determined looking Chairperson and her equally sharp looking Secretary walking by. An ominous sign was that the Chairperson was holding a garden clipper with the Secretary following her with a small barrow. What were they up to? They stopped right opposite our house and both crawled through some shrubs. The Chairperson is in her eighties and the Secretary in her fifties or so. When they reached the paling fence it came clear what they had conspired to achieve. It was some unwanted ivy that was growing up the fence. It was not to be tolerated. Within a minute they had cut the bottom of the ivy and started to rip it off the paling fence. Such dedication. And it was Saturday afternoon!

We had resolved to not give any oxygen to Body Corporate disputes since last time, when one of them, we know it was the Chairperson had left a threatening letter in our letterbox on behalf of ‘owners’ suggesting we sell up. We let the ivy be taken. Let them relish their nastiness. I was upset but restrained an urge to a dual strangulation. Instead I took the new cordless vacuum cleaner from the room’s corner and switched it on. Helvi noticed I was upset and my usual spirited and enthusiastic vacuuming was obviously lacking. My face was long and the spirit murderous.

She said, ‘why get upset, Gerard?’ True, it is only a trivial matter. The vacuuming did give some respite and seething anger did abate a bit. Even so, I consoled myself with a fervent hope that Alzheimer will soon get to the Chairperson. The sooner the better.

Helvi, as always remained sensible. I said, ‘how come you always stay so calm?’ ‘You give so much more than I.’ ‘So true, she said wickedly and smiled.’ ‘Let’s just plant more Jasmine.’

This Body Corporate life.

The hostility by some of my fellow residents of our housing complex sometimes borders on the plain silly. On my approach they turn around or start coughing. Of the eight homes four are lived in by owners and the other four by people renting. Of the owners, we are the only couple. An item on its own a solid reason for their chagrin. The other three ‘owner homes’ are occupied by bitter divorced women. The husbands are probably still running or celebrating their lucky escapes. The eldest, apart from being bitter, divorced, and eighty-three years old is also the ‘chairperson’ of the ‘committee’ in charge of implementing the rules of the common held property. She does so with the fervour of Stalin. The Chairperson makes a big difference between owners and renters. She is also English and hints at being Prince Philips illegitimate daughter.

It is sometimes thought that in ageing people soften up and become less hostage of their nastiness or being mean-spirited. That’s not really true. Those with so much time on their hands still needs their attention to be focussed on something. They can’t just dwell on misery or relive past spousal battles. Those with nasty character traits will sharpen them and exercise those skills in doing harm to others. They have all that time. Readers might remember my twenty minutes career in being secretary of the same committee of our housing complex. I resigned when I was expected to write nasty letters to my fellow residents (the renters) about non-existing car parking problems.

Lucky that we have nice immediate neighbours who also happen to rent. They are busy and go to work each day. They sometimes pop in, exchange the latest gossip. They too are aware of the bitter divorcees and their obsession with trivial. It gives us no greater subject to regale upon than to speculate what next rule they will dig up from the Strata Law manual…They have meetings whereby they have Strata Law readings. Lately, the subject of ‘gardens’ have been perused. A letter was sent. “Three dead plants have to be removed opposite the common-held garden of the Oostermans.” A clear war declaration and reprisal for refusing to cross swords with my neighbours about parking, ( by-law 33d) Narrow-mindedness is increasing with age.There is nothing much we can do about it.

You have now been ‘encrypted.’

Yesterday wasn’t a good day. I received a bill from our energy supplier. This same supplier, AGL (Australia Gas Limited) enticed us with a quarterly deduction of $5.- if we paid our bills ‘paperless.’ Going ‘Paperless’ is now the latest fad sweeping the world. You can tell, by the confident strides of people on the world’s pavements who now go through life totally ‘paperless.’

A common question and a good way to start social intercourse at parties is to ask, ‘are you paperless yet?’ Or, less common and sometimes seen as a bit of a friendly reminder or slight rebuke; pardon me Sir, your lack of ‘paperless’ is showing. At those internet quick sex of Romance and Introduction websites, some now ask to show their PL status. ‘Gent, 68 years of age, fully PL and NS, NG, ND desires a nice fulsome woman with some desires to go PL, seen as an advantage but not necessary for a jolly relationship.’

Yesterday was also the inauguration of our latest acquisition, a mini-pizza oven. We always wanted to get back into pizza’s and pizza cooking. This pizza oven fits on a table and made in Mexico of stone. We bought some special hardwood kindling. We thought we would first try out some marinated Angus Porterhouse with foil wrapped spuds and a couple of red capsicums.

This was before the ‘not so good’ came about. Let me explain. I usually hold off going to my computer to check e-mails or the latest hurricane making landfall. The coffee and early mornings’ spousal natter always takes precedent. After the ‘how did you sleep’ with ‘how often did you go to the toilet’ gets over, we heave ourselves from the sofa. Milo knows the ropes and precedes us going upstairs. Milo is followed by Helvi and then me. We switch the computers on. Milo slinks under our desk. It might be another two hours before we take him for his walk. He knows and resigns to this routine. He still gets miffed why this takes so long.

After I perused the news and open the inbox for a flurry of messages to blacken up my screen. I delete many, especially the enticements for Twitter and Facebook paraphernalia. I do answer most of the kinder posts and gradually follow the black list of inbox mail to the very bottom. One of the E-mails was by AGL to pay a bill and take advantage of doing so ‘paperless.’
‘Download your Statement,’ it urged me on, in its devious and pernicious manner. It also said; Thank you! (including the exclamation mark) THAT should have been a warning. But, I am not the sort of man that picks so niftily up on the mind of criminals. True, I do pick up deviousness in Strata monsters and have a well developed sense of people drunk on Body Corporate power, but for serious internet crime, I remain pure.

As soon as I pushed the ‘download’ on the AGL bill, all hell broke loose. I was asked to ‘run’ and ‘open’ the statement, but no statement came. I pushed again and again. Then a warning popped up to draw my attention that my files hade now been locked and encrypted. I needed to pay money to unlock my files within 72 hours. If not paid within that time, the amount would be doubled. I was given an ultimatum. It also infected my home-screen with the above message. I could not get out of it, no matter how I closed everything or re-opened again and again. I was so furious and spent hours googling for an answer. There are lots of help lines and web- sites. They too are often Malware/Ransomware sites. It is a mine-field out there. Microsoft did not give me much hope. They did say that many just pay up and get their files back.

Anyway, I have an American Friend from California. A man who from way back was interested in computers before they even came about. He steered me by phone to do this and that but mainly go through a very long scanning process. Each time I had pressed the ‘download’ button I invited the ransomware virus. It finally went and my home screen is again showing Milo. There was still time to fire up the Pizza oven and it was fantastic. The meat and spud just timed perfectly. The capsicums nice with just a hint of charcoaled skin.

All is well, but it came close to murder.

The 3d printer and boudoir items to sulk with.

It had to come. Aldi is selling 3 Dimensional printers. Of all the quirky things that are selling in their middle isles! Last week it had self lifting toilet seats, foldable wheel chairs, a drone with spare blades, and boxes of Allen keys. The Allen keys are needed to assemble the toilet seat, the drone and wheel chair. I often notice the shopper picking up products of which their use remains totally baffling and mysterious. They proceed to look it up on the notice board to read what it actually is. Afterwards the gaze travels back to object and turn it around fondly, happy in the new-found knowledge of the totally useless product. Many then use the mobile phone to transmit the good news about this mysterious product back to a spouse or partner, possibly for approval.

Of course the real shopper buys it regardless.  They don’t care what it is.  That is the magic of clever commerce and mindless shopping. In any case, this week it is the special 3D printer. It comes with different coloured spools of what looks like very strong shark-fishing line.

I must admit that if the choice last week was between buying the self-lifting toilet seat or a drone, I would have gone for the drone. The idea of a need to be propelled upwards in an upright position after the use of the loo, fills me with dread. It seems like only yesterday I was soaking off postage stamps from my parents letters and neatly arranging them in my album. This was way back in the serenity of Holland, back in Rotterdam and the use of postal stamps. I still have the album in which I could add extra pages. The pages were held together by screws and nuts. Some of the stamps date back to the 1800’s.

In fact, I was fantasising about hovering the drone by remote control, while hiding well out of sight, menacingly over our Body Corporate ‘bad neighbour’s’ backyard, taking pictures of her while cutting down more of her garden, or worse, slashing other peoples’ gardens. I must desist.

Is the 3D printer the start of a new era as the computer or internet were experienced so many years ago? Jets are flying with components made by 3D printers and the printing of artificial limbs and body parts is becoming the norm. It is actually called ‘additive manufacturing.’ It makes replacing broken items now within the reach of everyone. I suppose I could use it to make soles for my shoes or a replacement for the broken battery holder for the remote control of the TV.

Soon our lounge room or office will store the 3D printer in addition to computer, normal printer, phone and files,  errant laptop, a cooling fan and column heater, chairs, books on computers and virus detection, boxes of discs and lonely chargers, and of course miles of cables and power extensions going in all directions. Some people have  3D printing another 3D printer as a replacement or spare.

In social situations, we will mingle around and after a couple of drinks, ask how the 3D printing is going. A brave man might well mention in a jocular fashion. ‘You are looking very nice today, Mavis.’ ‘Are you wearing your new 3D’s today?’ Mavis was known to have started a small business 3D printing lingerie with matching boudoir items to sulk with.

No doubt mobile 3D printers will come about and people will be seen crossing the street all terribly busy with the 3D printing of boxes of hot chips with 2l coke or a quick coffee. On line 3D dating will be eagerly exploited. Photos of blokes proudly showing 3D printed  additions. Girls will advertise showing 3D printed cleavages with proportionally alluring  3D printed hips.

It will come about.

 

The Virginia Creeper versus Solar guard.

Just glorious.

The Townhouses, Units or even Villas ,if you like, are pleasing to look at. They are simple and without pretension. That’s why we decided to buy one and move in. The architect or designer avoided the temptation to put in Tudor, Cape Cod, English cottage, or absurd Mediternean touches. They all have a small entrance. When one squints, it could even pass as a front-porch. During torrential downpours the front doors will stay dry. However, if the entrance was any smaller it could well be called an overhanging eave.

The area that we live in is proudly Australian or English in origin. It is rare that one hears a foreign accent. It was a very traditional area for the well-heeled and warm retired from Sydney to move to. The climate is cold in winter and pleasant in summer. Many houses have brass names screwed on the front gates reflecting a  Scottish or English Heritage with names either ending in Brae or starting with Rose. It is not unusual to sometimes notice an elderly gentleman wearing a double breasted dark blue jacket with brass buttons, especially leaving the Sunday morning service with a smiling Reverend shaking hands with some of his more solid members of the congregations. We are somewhat out of the loupe, which would not be the case if we lived in Sydney. Not that the locals are not friendly. There is just this slight draw- back when our accents are noticed but  in most cases it is immediately followed by a friendly demeanour.

I am still trying to get a handle on why the locals in our compound were so hostile to getting things done logically and with reasonable care and diligence. One remembers the Body Corporate and Department of Fair trading during the height of the dispute about painters. I am beginning to think that our own heritage might have something to do with it. The sheer numbers of Continental Europeans that were soaked up elsewhere did not happen here in Bowral. This area always remained solidly conventional and stoically conservative and very loyal to the Queen of England.  Don’t mention the idea of a Republic here. Even the meat pies here are  graced with Royal awards and ‘Princess Diane had a pie in this shop’ blessings.

It has its rituals and unwritten laws of behaviour and compliance. There is order in neatness of gardens and short clipped glorious lawns with obligatory Camellias. We all obey the laws of nature strips at the front on which the garbage bins are put out in strict order and  times. Not a day before and always removed back out ofsight within an hour of garbage being collected. The dogs are walked with the obligatory plastic bags tied to the leash. We greet each other and say ‘morning’ or ‘good-day’.

I am just mentioning it while contemplating a lovely Virginia creeper. It is the last one. All of our eight townhouses were planted originally by a landscape expert and like the townhouses did have some unity and simplicity. However, some years ago all the planted Virginia creepers were taken out. One can still see the suckers clinging to some walls. However, our creeper defied the odds against the hands ripping the item out and survived. We keenly look forward to Autumn. The Virginia creeper shows its height of beauty during fall, in its splendid exhibition of burn orange to crimson red foliage.

We have  been told that this creeper and it’s friend the ivy are capable of causing havoc and worse, to lower the ‘value’. Value is a word that our neighbours often use. Ivy and all creepers will wreck and damage walls and fences, they said and took them out. The painting was all talked about in maintaining value. We happen to mention that we like ivy and also our Virginia Creeper. We further said we prefer the wall left unpainted if it means removing the last of the creepers. I noticed the look of someone as if we were praising something odious or very brown in colour. I added that perhaps some of the paint could be left behind for us to use if the creeper dies.

We wait with some trepidation when our wall with its creeper will remain unpainted.” Over my dead body”, Helvi said.

We prefer the creeper to a coat of PVA acrylic, even if the paint is called ‘Solar Guard’.

We will placate as much as possible, and at the Christmas party that someone always organises, I will add some extra chilli to the marinate of the chicken wings.

Lots of Chilli and loads of Spanish garlic.

The Strata-Plan. ( A re-post due to great demand.)

Pardon me Madam; your Body Corporate is showing

Sometimes, it is true, storm clouds gather in Strata-Titled communities joined at the hips by the regulations of The Body Corporate. They say, and many historians agree, Australia really got on its own when land ownership was denoted by giving parcels of land ‘Title’. This is how the name of “real Estate” came about. I remember my father being very puzzled when, after arrival in 1956, he assiduously queried the name of ‘real estate agent’. Are their estate agents that are not ‘real’, was his logical Dutch question?  Apparently before ‘Title’ people just put pegs in the ground and claimed it as belonging to them. People squatted by putting down their swag between the pegs and went to work tilling the soil, had babies and went to sleep in between. The document of Title was called Torrens named after a pioneer of Title, Mr Robert Torrens. Robert lived to a ripe old age of 94 and is buried at Rookwood. It is claimed the last words he uttered, were, ‘ I am feeling as Crook as Rookwood.’

However, and this is the crux of this little piece, when many arrived and populations grew faster than Torrens Titles could accommodate, many wanted to share the same block of land on the one single title. This was first used by large Italian migrant groups. We all know that ‘en famille’ around the’ tavola’ and forever ‘en casa’ is what makes Italian lives tick and has so for thousands of years. Not for them the world of segregated privacy and gloomy darkness with the enforced separation of the Robert’s Torrens Title.

It was an extraordinary large Italian family who just all wanted to remain together on the one parcel of land but living at close quarters. The name of this very large family was Signore et Signora, ‘Strata’. After seven years of marriage they had nine children. Both papa and mamma were very busy and fertile.  The family included many uncles and aunties, many of indefinable ages. They were born so many years ago, they simply never thought of the passing years. They just wanted to be able to see any new bambinas and sorellis at any given time of the day. A beehive of life and birth with the occasional death celebrated at Rookwood with copious amounts of Chianti with lots of calamari and prawns. It has to be said though, in respect for those dearly departed; many aunties would dress up in black. Some had also forgotten who they were mourning for, but that’s how Italian families functioned best. It was all a bit of a tradition and many had died so long ago. Mourning and feasting were always very close, almost the same. Both involved the intake of good food and plenty of it.

That’s how it was around the late nineteen fifties or so. They called their multi families property, the Strata en Casa.  Officials that visited this large community of Italian migrants felt it needed a more formal and Anglo name and decided on Strata Title. And that’s how the term ‘Strata Title’ was born. It was incorporated into statutes and made into a stern law. Soon many communities followed suit.

However, and we all know when ‘however’ is used, it is usually followed by a disclaimer or worse, some kind of dreaded bit of news. When the Strata Title was used and incorporated by those not used to communal life in order to get a foot-hold in a cheaper form of ‘real Estate’, (are their Estates that are not ‘real’?) it now is a “Title” thick with possible stirrings of discontent. Some people do not hold to common values and shared Strata ownership and insist on doing Torrens Title things. In other words, they want to do individual things on shared communal property.

Many annual Body Corporate meetings are now steeped in anger and misgivings about differences between both forms of Title. Both Mr Robert Torrens and the Family Strata used to live harmoniously together.

Not anymore now. Or so it seem and it has come to pass.

A dastardly plot that might just work!

home

It struck like a bolt of light from the sky. It happened at 6.45am as I was putting on my socks. This is usually my first duty. I can’t make a good coffee without wearing socks and slippers. Helvi loves walking around bare-footed. I often rebuke her for checking the latest happenings in the garden during frosty mornings. It makes me ill looking at those bare feet crunching around the crystalline hoar-frosted cyclamens or violets. I insists she gets socks on before any coffee! I suspects it behoves her seeing me all puckered, concerned and anxious.

Here now is clear-sighted bolt from the heavens. Why don’t I take on the job of chairman in our Strata Plan? The present chairperson is an 82 year old lady who is not familiar with e-mail and computers. So far she has done an admirable job but is under pressure from the rest of the executive to agree to the painting of this compound. They are just trying to wear her out, pushing to agree verbally to all sorts of schemes of intrigue and conniving. It is the last thing a retired person on her own would want to be part off.

She visited us last night and is obviously all stressed out. The investigation into how things have been managed by our inept Body Corporate manager is scaring her. We have tried to calm her. It is no-one’s fault but the Corporate Manager who failed to have given an accurate report of the last AGM. Not a word or motion reflecting even the idea of having spoken about any painting. Someone is cooking the reports and to think we are paying real money for that!

I will suggest to her, to relinquish her chairperson job and nominate me to fill the job till the next AGM when new nominations for positions might be called for. I would be an excellent replacement. Drunk with power I will get a cane and keep tapping it assertively in front of the other town-house owners. Up and down I will be tapping.  Any illegal disappearance of greenery will immediately be followed by lining up all owners in front of the letter-boxes and give them a severe dressing down before marching them back to their dwellings.

All camellias with their rotting flowers will be dug up and banished forever. Native sedges and Hebes will become obligatory. All windows must be uncovered during day but blinds and curtains will be allowed back in over the windows between 7pm and 6.30 am. Solar panels will become obligatory but paid for by Strata-plan, after enough money has been raised and collected in the quarterly fees. All residents will be encouraged to dance outside  their front door whenever more shocking news will be revealed about our bumbling Tony Abbott’s Government. ( if that’s what they call it).

A special  prawn barbeque will be put on when the polls on the Liberal National Party go down even further. Volunteers might be called for to put prawn shells behind hubcaps of cars known to belong to foolish LNP followers. A creative composing of tone-poems will be asked for, reflecting our concern for the world’s ecology and climate change. In the meantime Sibelius’ Valse Triste will be played through the Shire’s town’s vans with loudspeakers.

That will be all for now.