Walking is good.

 

Apart from admiring cyclamen we are now trying to go for our daily walks again. Over the last couple of months we were either busy getting dressed or trying to get undressed. In between we have had an  unrelenting regime, meeting with doctors, nurses, home-carers and physiotherapists. And that is apart from keeping up with provisions, paying gas bills and doing what my mother used to call ‘in between’ jobs. I have learnt so much about fashion. Believe you me, there are a perplexing variety of female  clothes with incomprehensible ways of putting them on. ( and off) Where is the neck or what are the arm openings and what are all those hanging bits about? And despite all that loose-ness in their clothes, why are the leg openings so tight and why also do the sleeves end up inside out?

So this morning it came about that we went for a walk. Not too far, as Helvi is still not as sure footed as she used to be before her crash downwards towards a concrete drive-way. We sauntered past our common drive-way where are neighbour was snipping away at the garden. He likes doing that but we wished he would allow things to grow instead of manicuring every bit of greenery in this place. But, live and let live with tolerance is the answer to cheerfulness and optimism. I am trying to stay away from grumpiness, so I greeted the neighbour with ‘doing a bit of a spring cleaning?’

We ended our walk at Bradman Cricket Oval. In the world of cricket, this oval is the equivalent in Australia of the Egyptian Pyramid of Cheops or The Great Chinese Wall. It holds The International Great Hall of Cricket.https://internationalcrickethall.com/the-bradman-museum-is-now-the-international-cricket-hall-of-fame/

Lots of buses with hordes of people all the way from India, Pakistan, Fiji, Shri Lanka and many other cricket loving countries visit this famous cricket mausoleum, and file teary eyed, past Lenin like tombs of expired cricketers. Donald Bradman is the most famous of cricketers, and new comers to Australia have been threatened to lose their visas if not sufficiently versed in Bradman cricket matches with correct dates, number of runs and Ducks mandatory.

We found a nice seat in the sun and Helvi and I really appreciated this nice park. The children and their mums were playing in a playground but noticed that the iPhone now seems to have morphed into some kind of umbilical cord. Most mothers allowed their kids to break legs or fall off slippery dips without even a flicker away from their iPhones. I would love to know what the urgency is. Should I ask?

Anyway, we walked slowly back home and our neighbour had slunk inside, happy with the day’s snipping and shortening of bushes.

We had a nice walk and had some yoghurt afterwards.

It came to $41.20 without any sugar

Grapes, strawberries and figs.

The $41.20 was the total of our shopping adventure this morning. The day started early. With the change in day-light saving we seem to get up earlier instead of sleeping longer. That sleeping-in, so desired when young, evades us now. I am always glad the night is over. Unless we have to get out shopping and walking, we generally muck about till midday in our pyjamas. Now that winter is knocking, we might consider not even moving out of them at all. We shall see!

We are still reeling somewhat from a range of TV programs whereby eating sugar has been taken under the loupe. I hope millions have watched those TV programs and the dire consequences resulting from eating sugar. It is not just obvious sugar, no it is the hidden sugar in our foods. Most breakfast cereals, sauces, micro-wave foods and almost all processed foods have  lots of sugar.  I thought that a fruit yoghurt was a fairly safe food to ingest. Wrong! That too has ladles of sugar. So have all fruit drinks. Of course, a Coke drink is pure poison. If cigarettes are addictive, the experts reckon so is sugar. The present world epidemic of obesity is all sugar related. Yet,  apart from some brave souls exposing the evils of sugar, our government is eerily quiet. “A personal choice,” they might sometimes whisper behind closed doors.

We have never been fond of sweets and apart from one spoon of sugar in coffee we never take the stuff in anything else. We cook without shop-bought sauces. I suppose those lovely Italian tinned tomatoes have some sugar, as has most bread and pasta. We never drink lemonade or soft drinks, and reckon water is as good a drink as any. But…what about wine? I thought that the sugars in grapes convert into alcohol. Is that so? I hope so. I would not like to give up my love of the afternoon ritual sitting in the garden talking with Helvi while sipping wine.

Milo knows the ritual and we bring his cushion out. A creature of habit. He sees me filling a glass with Shiraz and he bolts towards the back-yard sliding doors. He loves us doing that. So, I do hope that there isn’t too much sugar in wine, even if just for Milo’s sake.

It is amazing that most of our modern dietary habits have been installed by the large Multi Corporations. I remember the large Coca Cola truck rolling into our primary schools in Holland giving all children a free Coca Cola. This was during the mid nineteen- fifties. It was the beginning of the end. We seem powerless against the intrusion into our lives by those large businesses that profit from spreading premature deaths to millions all over the world. Deaths that can easily be avoided by not eating so much sugar.  The health costs eventually will force government to act and stand up to the likes of MacDonald, KFC, Cadbury and all those other perfidious multi nationals. I noticed that some school kids during sport wear caps with the McDonald logo on it. How is that possible?  Where are the protesting parents?

In those programs the large corporations were asked about their responsibility in all that obesity. They avoided it by denying the evils of sugar. The same tactics used by cigarette companies.

But getting back to our shopping bill. The $41.20 included;  a man’s flannel pyjamas (XL), a bottle of Precious Earth Shiraz,  a four pack of salmon cutlets, a bar of Dove soap, a bunch of broccolini, three avocadoes, Cherri tomatoes, a tin of Italian tomatoes and four bananas. There might have been another item but I threw away the receipt.

 

The state of affairs.

The shopping list clearly included the yoghurt. A curry without yoghurt is like a beach without sand. Yet, when I arrived home the first thing H noticed was the lack of yoghurt.
On my first trip to the super market I noticed that happiness had returned to the shoppers. The Christmas was over. A weight had fallen of the hapless shoppers shoulders. Their brows of worry over expectation by others had melted away together with the pavlova. It started with some normality returning a few days ago. There even are a few smiles. The unwanted articles were either returned or had broken already. One woman returned a very colourful box where from within and ever so maddeningly, endless Christmas jingles were still forthcoming. I can’t stop this silly music she said to the indifferent cashier who wrote out the credit ticket. The shopper was visibly relieved. She decided to get her nails done.

‘You wrote ‘yoghurt’ on the list’, H said fearlessly. ‘How come you forgot?’ I saw you writing it on the list, she added, driving home her instant recall. Lately we have been on a bender, checking on each other’s mental stage, a kind off checking our ageing thermometer. Who will be the first to crack up? This game of, who was in the lead role of ‘On the Beach’ or the name of the singer in ‘do not forsake me oh my darling?’ Remember when Deborah Kerr nearly stepped on that crocodile on ‘King’s Solomon’s Mines’? ‘No, I don’t. So, there, happy now?’ I am doomed to a bib and brace in a high chair with commode.

‘I’ll tell you why I forgot the yoghurt. As I put in my coin to retrieve a trolley I noticed a flat object shimmering behind the handle of the trolley. It was a mobile phone, or, it looked like it’. Now-a-days, the phone part is obsolete, it’s what else it does. Something called social media. Everyone is into it. You can see them huddled in isolation on street corners, on the bus and trains; all social mediating on their own. It must be so good.

After I put the mobile phone in my pocket I decided to shop the items on my list including the yoghurt. In the back of my mind I would deal with the phone later on. A quick check indicated it did not have any phone buttons. It just had one button which I pressed. A colourful screen opened up. Was it a mini TV? Perhaps it was a very fancy and expensive social media unit with lots of apps. I knew that apps and e-mail and videos are available now giving many the mobility to do lots of things ‘on the run’. One apps even lets you know where you are by GPS. Truly amazing for those lost without knowing it.

I know that any conversation with those under 50 years old have at the most 20 seconds time before interruption by this social media phenomenon. It shrieks or vibrates across all conversations with more than 16 syllables and 7 vowels. CUL8tr is now a deep conversation. A conversation with those below 30 years one just has 10 seconds to get a message across.

After I filled the trolley with the hand written listed items (bar yoghurt)with smart phone in my shirt pocket, a wild looking woman marched in shouting ‘ I lost my phone, where is my fucking phone’? I calmly lifted the phone out of my shirt pocket, proud that I was still in possession of honesty, (if not of my total recall of Deborah Kerr stepping on a crocodile in 1950) I showed her triumphantly the shimmering gadget.

Gimme, gimme it, she growled. She did manage to say a quick but grudgingly ‘thanks’ but it was more like an accusation I had stolen it. Perhaps seeing it coming from my shirt pocket got her in a mindset of theft. Gimme…again. I returned her to her social media outlet cum phone.

I went back to Aldi the second time and got the yoghurt. ‘The curry is lovely’. H, said: ‘it tastes so much better with a couple of spoonful’s of yoghurt. It softens the chilli a bit,’ she added lovingly. I fully agreed. (lovingly)