House hunting at Semaphore

On Saturday I went to Semmi to look at an older apartment on the Esplanade.  My Mum used to clean one of the apartments years ago but I had never been inside.  The unit is what you would call a fixer upper.  Lots and lots of TLC will be needed to bring it back to make it livable. The bathroom is unfortunate to say the least.  The sink and bath are the most revolting pink.  The tiles are several shades of pink, each a little more revolting than the next.  The sun-room needs relining.  All the carpet and revolting lino need to be pulled up as underneath there may or may not be jarrah floors.  I really don't think that the place has been done up since the fifties.  The kitchen is extremely basic and has cupboards in it that were perhaps made in the late fifties early sixties. I have seen fixer uppers before but this is particularly dreadful.

The place is neither Strata or Torrens title but a Company title.  I suppose that everyone has a share in the company. Evidently once you make your offer you have to meet the other owners to see if you are acceptable and that you personally have to live there not rent it out to 'unsuitable' tenants.  I have heard that this practice applies in Springfield but Semaphore; really.

The other thing I found quite confronting was that the backyard is shared as is the laundry with lovely modern washing machine and a clothes line across the yard.  I am sure that the lowest person on the totem gets told when they get to wash.  Personally I would get a laundry installed in the bathroom but then there is still the problem of hanging the washing out.

Anyway, I came, I saw, I racked off.  Herbie and I went for a lovely walk and paddle on the beach and then we bought an ice-cream.  The ice-cream was the best part.  I know Herbie loved it.

When I win the lottery Herbie and I will live at the beach but not at 1/50 Esplanade Semaphore.

Pillaged

Here I was storing little jars and packets of jam and biscuits as well as lots of other goodies when the child of my loins came over and threw them all out.  She even threw out my soy sauce which was perfectly fine even if it was a little out of date.  I don't think she believes that 'best before' is just a suggestion.  I must admit that my cupboard is tidy now and I can find things that had disappeared.  One of the doors on the cupboard falls off as soon as you look at it so that has been retired and there is still room for everything.  I like to be able to lay my hand on anything so this tidying and throwing out has not been a complete waste of time and groceries.

The next things that have been pillaged are my Telstra, Origin and Housing Trust receipts that date back to 1993.  I like to keep a record of just what I have paid so it was interesting checking out how much my rent I was charged by the Housing Trust since 1993 as well.   There was much shredding from the child and an enormous amount to whinging and moaning from me.  It was all I could do to wheel the re-cycling bin out to the street last night.  I understand that I don't need to keep every little thing but my dearly unloved Mother kept all her dockets from Malin Russell for over twenty years.  She kept the receipts because quite often there was a mistake and her payment was not entered.  She was always able to go in with her trusty receipt.

I also kept every warranty for everything I had ever bought.  Most of the things have been disposed of now so I did not need to put them all in a folder.  This folder was positively bulging so really I didn't mind going through that. The whole of my filing cabinet is practically empty. 

The most important things in the filing cabinet now are my will, my insurance policies and some family information from 1857.  As you can see I am not the only one of my family that hoards.  Of course I refuse completely the notion that I am a hoarder.  I don't hoard I conserve.  Once the child of my loins understands that notion I will be left to 'save' things again.  

I say again, "I have been pillaged."

Welcome home

Casa del Cushie welcomes the Child of my Loins.  How lovely to have the beautiful daughter at home for a holiday.  We spent most of the day shopping.  Actually she shopped and I wandered along watching her. We finally gave up trying to find something to eat at Munno Para because she is not eating bread.  We decamped to Caffe Primo and partook of good healthy food, albeit extremely expensive.

During the afternoon the child went through my food cupboard and found most of the food stuffs so out of date that Moses could have been eating them on Mount Sinai (I think that is the right mountain). At times I had to argue about out of date goods that were still perfectly edible.  Last time she went through my spices she threw out a brand new paprika.  Yesterday it was my soy sauce.  I have been using it but as I don't use it often it tends to last for quite a while.  The reason I was cross about the soy sauce was that we were having stir fry for tea and it needed just that little bit of sauce to give it some oomph and saltiness. I am happy that I can find things in the cupboard, as for the last few months I have only been able to use foods that were at the front.  No wonder some of the things were out of date.  The result is of course that I have a lot of room to untidy again when she is not here but also that I do not need to use one the part of the cupboard whose door hinges are not very strong.  Every now and then I have to give the nails a bit of a belt so I can open it.  That cupboard now has nothing in it.

I cooked my stir fry for tea (slight argument there about the  minced garlic being out of date, admittedly it did taste like vinegar) and made one hell of a mess doing it.  I cleaned up after tea and put all the dirty dishes into lovely hot hot water to soak.  After that we had a long protracted argument about who exactly was going to do the dishes.  I was reliably informed that I should have a dish washer.  My idea was that I did have one but that it was argumentative.  Eventually when the water was cold I had to bite the bullet and wash up myself.  I am sure there is a rule that the cook does not wash, however, this rule appears not to apply to the Child of my Loins.

As we are having Christmas in October we are having presents now.  I have a nice new Kindle to play with. I love it.  It even has a little light so you can read in bed and not disturb anyone.  As I do not have an anyone I suppose it doesn't matter.  It would be fantastic on long plane journeys though.  I am reading Sherlock Holmes at the moment.  Evidently Kindles can hold as many as 1400 books.  Hopefully I won't run out of power whilst in the midst of reading.

As there was positively nothing on the old teev last night we watched Happy Feet 2 on my computer.  My dvd player does not work so I always watch everything on my trusty laptop.  I really enjoyed the movie but as I didn't watch Happy Feet 1 I was a little confused.  Actually I am always a little confused so why should this be any different.

Today my child is going to take pictures of a friend's little girl.  There is also a lovely new puppy and lots of photographic opportunities there.  I do love puppies and of course Cate so I should not stay home but the embroidering of the faces and buttons on all my dolls calls to me.  I simply must get the ones done that are for Kel's expectant friends.  I am thinking of having a workshop for the two of us where she will stuff the dolls after I have finished the embroidery. I have made a Fat Controller for Dane.  He loves Thomas the Tank Engine.  I also bought some Thomas material and I am going to make him a little bag for his trains and cars.

I would like to go down to the beach one of the days and have a bit of a walk with the old Herb plus buy an ice-cream.  You definitely cannot go to the beach without an ice-cream.  Actually, I have so many plans that there will not be enough days to do them.

So welcome to the Casa del Cushie Child of my Loins.  I am so chuffed to see you that I am ready to burst.

Meat haute cuisine

Today I went in to the supermarket to gaze longingly at steak.  Meat is now my haute cuisine.  I can look at it and smell it but I cannot afford to buy this high end product, let alone partake of it in a restaurant.  I remember when I could afford steak, I could buy as much meat as I wanted but now meat eating is a spectator sport for me.

I remember the taste of roast lamb and roast beef, in fact anything that is roasted.  Nowadays I make a roast without the meat.  I dine on roast potatoes, sweet potato, onion and carrots plus of course some nice steamed vegetables.  I hardly notice that there is something lacking in my menu.  I make some nice gravy and that is my meat hit for the meal.

I have been informed that mushrooms are the new meat.  While I do like mushrooms I would actually like to eat a piece of meat.  Oh that's it, we used to have mushrooms on steak.  Here I am at the beginning again, lusting after steak and eating a sausage.  Yes I do say sausage: singular.  How have I been brought down to this rationing sausages? This is a sad, sad day.

I believe soon I will only be able to partake of meat in my dreams.  I will wake up crying with drool on my pillow.  It is not a stretch of the imagination that I might mistake my feather pillows for a cooked chook and the rest will be history.

Farewell meat, I will remember you fondly.  I will buy you again when I win the lottery, if I win the lottery.  

Time flys

What has happened to my day?  This morning I tried a little more tidying up of Casa del Cushie.  I know once upon I time my house was reasonably clean and tidy but my clockwork appears to be running down.  The biggest problem is that I start to do something and then get distracted.  I do a bit of this and that and then settle down to do a few crafty things.  Today I shopped, tidied, fed the animals (oops forgot to feed the animals), I made the bed, moved some folded clothes from one room to another and then started to make a pompom.

While I was happily winding wool through my little pompom maker my friend rang and said she was on her way over for tea.  I had in fact forgotten she was coming.  I knew when I was shopping because I bought the ingredients for tea but as for thinking of cooking tea that certainly didn't happen.  When she rang it was six o'clock.  I thought it was about two.  Luckily for me I only had to make a stir fry and so it was ready in about fifteen minutes.  I must say it was delicious but sadly there are no leftovers.

I have a lot of things to do this week because the child of my loins if coming over from Melbourne.  I am washing some bed clothes that have been in the cupboard and seem musty to me.  I hate to think that I would be putting the child of my loins in a musty bed.  The worst thing about getting ready for her is that I have to shift all my good stuff (junk) out of the room so she can have a bed.   So what with all the work that needs doing and my incipient hoarding the hours slip past me.  I am scared that the week will be gone and nothing will have changed.  Perhaps if I don't get anything done I can just shift all the stuff from the spare room into my room on Friday.

Tomorrow I must get more things done to the house.  I must, definitely must, sort out all my wool and material.  I have to find neighbours and friends to hide things from the child of my loins. If time gets away from me I will be caught out and have to endure a lecture about spending money and so on and etcetera.

Tempus Fugit.

Misogyny

Misogyny: Alan Jones, that says it all really.
Tony Abbott might deserve a mention as well.

Mindless

I am finally losing it.  The poor cat was so nice to me yesterday and kept sitting on me and purring.  She has tangled up the bath mat and was madly scratching at it when it finally hit me.  I had taken out the dirty kitty litter dish and forgotten to bring another in.  I think it was probably over twenty four hours.  I felt so dreadful that the dear thing had held on and on.  She peed for about ten minutes.  I had to change the tray again before I went to bed.

I now have a note on the fridge to say check the kitty litter.  My new practice is to bring a clean tray in and then take out the dirty one.  I think that I am definitely descending into pre-senility.  Next thing I will be putting a note on the microwave so that I don't heat my knickers up in it.  There is nothing like warm knickers in the middle of winter.  Of course if you do desire warm knickers I must warn you that they tend to burst into flame in the midst of heating.

One of my more public displays of old person disease is to ask Donut King for a coffee and some scones.  One would have thought that the name Donut might suggest something to me.  However, it is a real struggle to remember to say donuts.  Most of the girls are used to me now and just serve me and ignore my feeble minded efforts to order.  One of the places I usually go with my friend is so used to me trying to order that they just get things done without me having to talk at all.  Thank goodness.

Today I was putting on my nice silver earrings when I couldn't find the second one.  I decided not to bother to search the top of my dressing table for the other one so went off shopping.  While I was in one of the shops the lass told me I had lost one earring.  So to make myself clear, I had put one earring in, found the other earring and then searched for the one that I had put on.  Gracious to goodness what is happening to the atrophied portion of my brain.

I have also perfected the darling thing.  "Hello darling, how are you?"   Darling is such a good word.  It sounds nice and friendly and no-one, well most people don't realize that everyone is darling because I don't always remember their names.  It also goes well with Gorgeous, My Flower, My Best Girl, My Treasure and so on and etcetera.  Yep Darl is the way to go.  The good old Aussie Daaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrllllling that's it.

While I am still teetering on the steep slope of inevitable senility I can still function in a reasonable fashion.  I just have to engage the brain before opening the mouth.  Good advice to anyone really isn't it?

Lost in the hills

I have an excellent sense of direction.  When I was eight Mum and I went on a picnic with some people from Port Augusta.  We stopped in the hills and had fresh cheese sandwiches and cups of tea.  Us kids had the best fun running up and down the hills whooping and roaring playing cowboys and indians.

When it was time to go Mum was not to be found.  As I have said I have a wondrous sense of direction but the parent could get lost walking around the block.  Everyone started fluttering around but I knew just where to find her.  I remember them calling out to me about getting lost.  Hah!  There was no chance of that.  Mum was just over a couple of  hills and wandering aimlessly around.  One hill to her looked just like any other.

I don't think I got a very good reception.  I seem to remember that they were cross because they thought I would get lost as well.  Mum was embarrassed and not very grateful either.  I should have been given a medal. Come to think of it with how badly I got on with my mother over the years it would never have occurred to me not to find her.  When we lived in Woodville she never knew the way to go to Auntie Dossie's.  I was only four and always directed her round the corners and over the railway line.  Let us say that she did not have the same internal compass that I do.

A friend of mine also has the same sense of direction as Mum.  She is a walker and goes off in a group once a week.  They take the train to one of the beaches and then walk along and back to the railway station.  If the ladies decide to go to the toilet one of them has to wait for May because as sure as anything she would walk off in entirely the wrong direction.  One time she took the dog to the vet and when she went to pick the dear old thing up she turned right instead of left and ended up at the town centre.  All she had to do was to turn left and then take about twenty steps, turn left again and she could practically fall over her front gate.  Her hubby being used to her as he was drove along Main North Road and found her at the lights waiting patiently for them to change so she could take the dog to the Town Centre.  At least this is what I imagine she was trying to do.  The poor old dog was on its last legs and this little trip probably hastened its end.

It is an amazing thing to have a compass embedded in your head.  I can always depend on it except when I am thinking about something else.  I do tend to start driving somewhere and end up somewhere else that I usually go.  That of course is not the compass being broken it is the sign of the pre-senile mind going into automatic.  Concentration is the key to that I think.  

Knittaholics of the world unite

Here I am sitting surrounded by millions of balls of wool.   I have gone into a knitting frenzy and even though I have multiple balls of wool I buy more each time I go to the shops.  I have a small wheelie bin full of wool.  My unit next to my chair is covered in layers of ball of wool.  There is wool on the floor next to my chair and many many balls of wool and little knitted dolls all over the kitchen table.

Help me!  Hello I am Cushie and I am a knitaholic.  Help..................................................me.

The internet hypochondria for dummies

This morning I woke up with a headache.  Before I took a couple of panadol I decided to google headache. I checked and found out I actually had either incredibly high blood pressure or a potentially fatal brain tumour.  Not wanting to take the advice of one site I trawled through as many sites as I could and my prognosis was not at all good.  Rather than high blood pressure I was convinced that I definitely had cancer.

Every time I get sick I always google and each time I find that I have cancer, multiple sclerosis or every other disease known to mankind.  I have found it is not a good thing to tell the doctor about your findings.  Doctors want to be the person who diagnoses.  They do not appreciate self diagnosis, especially when aided by the world wide web.  They simply send me off with a flea in my ear and a prescription for reflux, my usual blood pressure medication or tell me to take the panadol I could have taken this morning before I went on my internet journey.

I know that I am a hypochondriac and always have been.  I thought that I was bad enough when I just had a family medical book but now with the endless advice from my computer I have turned into Hypochondria Woman.   I would love to do a course from the  "Hypochondria for Dummies" syllabus.  I could earn a Bachelor of  Hypochondria and later a Master of Hypochondria.  Tactfully no-one will mention the 'Dummies' part of the equation.

Anyone can read a text book or check out an internet site but in reality only doctors who have studied for years can actually diagnose.  Give your imagination a rest and ask someone who really knows what they are talking about.  Don't be a 'Dummy'.  I am hereby stating that I won't look anything about health on the net any more, I will wait until the doctor actually hands down his decision.  Repeat after me, I do not have cancer, I do not have the bubonic plague, I do not have TB, I do not have MS.  I do not have a degree and don't know what the hell I am talking about so I will make an appointment with a real person not something that runs on electricity.