Aging... but not gracefully

Well, I guess I have gotten used to the phone calls offering funeral insurance or life insurance and asking if we have made plans for our retirement etc. I guess that is ok; everyone should make some sort of plans for these events.

However what gets me is when, instead of getting toy catalogues in your mailbox for Christmas shopping, you get catalogues about buying things like raised toilet seats, magnifying glasses for those difficult small prints... They also have toenail cutters you can use standing up and recliner covers. These are only a few of the things you can buy to make your old age comfortable. I get that one will eventually need them but I don't feel like I am there yet. Somehow they must have sussed out that I am getting there though.

This week was bad in that sense. I had a conversation with a little old lady sitting waiting for her ride, leaning on her walker, and several times she slipped in "we" when she was talking about something that referred to her and me, like"Yes, it really is hard for us to get up that hill these days". She was talking about a little incline up to the next road. After a while I asked her how old she was and she said: "90". So now I am in the 90"s crowd!

Then I was on the train into Sydney and a kid stood up for me!!! It was so sweet and polite and thoughtful, but up to now I have stood up for my elders. Gosh, what is happening?

I also raised the age level a lot last week end when I went to a barbecue. It was a friend's 40th and the  average age was that and down and a lot of little kids. Most people seem to have kids quite late these days and there were quite a few couples in their 40s with babies.  The drive home takes about an hour and I left in time not to have to drive in the dark or even worse at dusk because I can't see very well then. OMG, I am getting old!!

I guess it's time to go out and buy a Honda Gold Wing (it is known as a couch on wheels)! When we are out and about traveling, we see many people our age touring on comfie motor bikes, recapturing their youth maybe or living the dream that they've always had.

Hot springs and tall ships

Good morning! It's Monday morning and hence it is blog morning!

The week was quite hot, up above +30°C (today it is very chilly though) and we have got the pool going again and have had a few delicious dips. I just love being in water; the weightlessness is magic.

Also magic were the hot springs we discovered on our latest trip. We didn't even know about them so it was really an added bonus. The one in Lightning Ridge is very hot, around +40°C so you feel like your skin is peeling off but after a while it is great. However, you shouldn't stay in too long though; you would probably pass out. 

This was our first experience of the Artesian Bore baths. We went there after dinner,  and then home and slept like babies.  Sorry about the bad quality of the photo.

The baths are mainly frequented by Eastern Europeans sitting in large groups, chatting around the pool, especially in the evening (it's open 24/7, and it is free).  One of the ladies started talking to me in her language, and I realized I probably looked a bit Eastern European.

I went into Sydney a few days ago for the big Navy Parade. There were 3000 sailors parading through Sydney from the ships moored in the harbour for the Fleet Review. They all looked a little bit the same after a while until the Indonesian Navy came by. They were a happy lot and lifted the sombre atmosphere a little.

After the parade I went to Darling Harbour to see the Tall Ships and I was mesmerized watching a young girl climbing up and un-doing the sail on Little Endeavor. It was worse than a circus act. I hate heights so anything like that makes me break out in a sweat. I couldn't leave until she was safely down again.

This bridge opens up in the middle and permits the tall ships to sail into Darling Harbour.  Hubby does miss the monorail which crossed this bridge and also opened up though.

Now I must go out and see if my tomato plants have grown since last night, so cheerio for now.

More Outback

When you drive in to Lightning Ridge you are met by this Big Emu called Stanley but it was not the only emu we saw. The real ones were everywhere along the road, fortunately not as roadkill which was the case with wombats and kangaroos, but standing there serenely looking at passing cars.

The emu, or the DHINAWAN, is very significant to the Aboriginal people. He takes the role of the father, mother, teacher and provider. The female emu lays the eggs and the male emu sits on the nest of eggs until hatching and then raises the chicks until they can provide for themselves. The emu is also a totem for some families in the area.

Our first venture on Sunday was to the local market where we met a very interesting American lady who came to LR over 20 years ago and was involved in the Historical Society. She told us many interesting stories.

One thing I always try to find out when we are traveling around Australia is if there are any of my fellow countrymen there. In this case yes, she told us of The King of the Swedes and how there was an article published in a Swedish newspaper that led to a few Swedish families moving to LR to try their luck. 

Astronomy monument with different flags to honour astronomers from these countries

In the afternoon we went on a bus tour and the guide was a goldmine, oops, I should say an opal mine of information. He told of us "Alex" a Polish miner, who had been imprisoned for over 4 years for murder, here in Australia, but after being completely exhonorated he came to LR to mine. He was also interested in astronomy and built this monument in honour of Copernicus, a fellow Pole. It is all built in concrete all made possible because he had befriended the concrete truck driver and got all the left over stuff when the driver cleaned his mixer. He was also an expert tequila distiller using all the cactuses growing around his home. Sadly the still exploded and he died leaving many miners at a loss. He was the only one who knew how to make tequila!

This castle was built completely by hand, stone by stone by Amigo, using material from his mining. After almost having finished it he had had enough and now he lives behind it with his 63 cats which he feeds from road kill that he collects and barbecues for his cats.

These are four of the sixty three cats.

Just wanted to add these last photos as well. They show how every bit of scrap metal and other things are used to make these living quarters and some people live there for years. Some were more like a normal house and according to the guide had all the mod cons. They lease the land and in most cases build as they go along, so no mortgages and then it is just the yearly fee for their claim. Sounds very tempting!

This the church with the dunny conveniently located outside, all in corrugated metal.

On the road to Lightning Ridge

We are out and about again, traveling, this time the goal of our trip was Lightning Ridge. It is a place I had read about and wanted to see. They mine for opals here and apparently it is the only place where you can find black opals. Generally opals are the national gemstone of Australia and black opals are  unique to NSW.

The trip here took almost 12 hours but we had a few stops on the way. One was a pit stop in Gulgong and it just so happened that it was "Welcome back to Gulgong" Day. So there was a market and a parade, which was lots of fun. Everyone paraded, the Golf Club members, the farmers, some herding sheep and some driving tractors, the motorbike drivers, the veteran car drivers, the camel-farm people, and kids from school etc. It was charming and made you feel like you wanted to live and belong to  such a community rather than being part of a big faceless mass in a big city.

The trip after that  went quite quickly though, maybe because hubby took the opportunity to teach me binary numbers.  So once I got the knack of it he told me a number that I had to give him in binary.

After a while we had to give up on that and play another favorite game - thinking of animals starting with an A and so on. This time we tried to do it in French. We have lived in France for 28 years but after being away for 3 years it seems that our brain have atrophied. We couldn't think of anything beyond 'chat et chien', it was pathetic.

The Outback is great! People can be a bit special, in fact it is almost a must. They have all come here for a reason, usually to find the big opal and get rich but it is also a life style. So many have given up their previous jobs to come out here and stake a claim. I was surprised though, to learn that of the miners, the female miners, then the families were in majority before the male miners. I really thought it was a male "thing" but clearly I was wrong.

We are staying in a B & B called Sonja's guesthouse and it it very nice and comfortable and it will be almost sad to leave tomorrow.

It is bedtime, after a full day out and about, of which  I'll tell you more later. So goodnight from Lightning Ridge, apparently called thusly after lightning struck and killed a farmer and his dog and his 600 sheep.