I was driving back from the Tuggeranong Hyperdome this morning, my head full of lyrical language which I was dying to put down on the computer screen. Tales, when told that would put the great efforts of Dickens and Verne to shame and launch me into the stratosphere of writers to a point where no one reading my blog would ever be able to read anything written by another due to the unremitting brilliance of my storytelling which I would have relayed to my masses of followers in such lustrous terms that it would have been pointless for anyone else to compete.
Of course I may be exaggerating the extent of excitement and incandescent brilliance which I possess as a mere writer of a blog but suffice to say when I returned home and made a cup of coffee and stole the last piece of Toblerone which I have been gnawing at bit by bit for the last week, scoffed down a banana and finally sat down to partake in some creative activity, all vision and passion escaped from my soul and my enthusiasm appeared to be deflating like a week old balloon left over from a child’s birthday party.
No matter. I am here now and you will just have to be satisfied with my plodding prose and boring interpretation of the stolid events which are a part of and sometimes blight my life.
It’s not all bad news though. The reason I was at the Hyperdome this morning was to pay off the last cent of the breakneck tour of Europe Linda and I are partaking of in September. I don’t normally carry over $5000 dollars around in my pocket, in fact I never do but as we had left it to the last day to pay and my credit card limit doesn’t extend so far, cash was the only option left.
Now I have always been a little social phobic. Life as a 19th century lighthouse keeper or a castaway on a desert island may have suited my temperament more than what has been made for me in these modern times but there is nothing I can do but go with the flow. Of course this doesn’t mean that I don’t attempt to get out of face to face contact with the rest of society when I have the chance. Rather than doing the intelligent thing and go to the bank to retrieve the aforementioned cash which was required, I have, for the last two nights stopped off at the automatic teller in Mawson on my way home to access the maximum amount allowed in a single transaction.
Mawson at night is quiet and lonely and with some imagination could be regarded as spooky so as I parked and left the car on both occasions I took a furtive glance around all the while trying to look calm and composed, as if I wasn’t scared witless at using an ATM in a quiet shopping precinct at 10pm at night.
It was fine the first night but last night there was a pair of local ruffians smashing bottles in the carpark opposite but as they were some distance away partaking in an act of which Neanderthals may find immature I figured I would take my chance and completed my transaction and retired to my sedan without having to fight my way out of the Woden Valley.
And so I found myself walking through the shopping centre this morning, on my way to the Flight Centre office to see the lovely Rochelle who is organising things for us from this end, again looking, and watching, waiting for any of the local ferals to jump me and complete a lucky day by mugging a man with quite a bit of cash on him. Fortunately and unsurprisingly, I made it through unscathed. That being said, I will take better care and pay by a different format next time.
So the first part of my trip planning is complete. Now I just have to scrape together the money for an airfare and several days travelling around the UK after our “European Whirl” is finished.
I am at an age where I have worked a long time and saved a bit and the realisation has hit me that my Euro adventure may be my one shot in the locker to see many of the places I have but dreamed of viewing. If I died without ever seeing the lush countryside of Germany or the wonders of Rome or the lights of Paris then I would believe I had wasted much of the opportunity which the great deity has afforded me and short-changed myself. So, price be damned, I am going. I may have to keep sorting mail for another fifty years as a result but heck, we only live once and I have none to leave my money to.
And so my day continues, and after the unusual flurry of activity which required me to be out and about this morning the tone of the day has returned to normal and my stomach is reminding me that lunch must be near and I will climb the crow’s nest and see exactly where it is and what it contains.
So, it is a lovely day outside here in Canberra and I will move myself on and wish you all the best as I go.
Until next time.
Of course I may be exaggerating the extent of excitement and incandescent brilliance which I possess as a mere writer of a blog but suffice to say when I returned home and made a cup of coffee and stole the last piece of Toblerone which I have been gnawing at bit by bit for the last week, scoffed down a banana and finally sat down to partake in some creative activity, all vision and passion escaped from my soul and my enthusiasm appeared to be deflating like a week old balloon left over from a child’s birthday party.
No matter. I am here now and you will just have to be satisfied with my plodding prose and boring interpretation of the stolid events which are a part of and sometimes blight my life.
It’s not all bad news though. The reason I was at the Hyperdome this morning was to pay off the last cent of the breakneck tour of Europe Linda and I are partaking of in September. I don’t normally carry over $5000 dollars around in my pocket, in fact I never do but as we had left it to the last day to pay and my credit card limit doesn’t extend so far, cash was the only option left.
Now I have always been a little social phobic. Life as a 19th century lighthouse keeper or a castaway on a desert island may have suited my temperament more than what has been made for me in these modern times but there is nothing I can do but go with the flow. Of course this doesn’t mean that I don’t attempt to get out of face to face contact with the rest of society when I have the chance. Rather than doing the intelligent thing and go to the bank to retrieve the aforementioned cash which was required, I have, for the last two nights stopped off at the automatic teller in Mawson on my way home to access the maximum amount allowed in a single transaction.
Mawson at night is quiet and lonely and with some imagination could be regarded as spooky so as I parked and left the car on both occasions I took a furtive glance around all the while trying to look calm and composed, as if I wasn’t scared witless at using an ATM in a quiet shopping precinct at 10pm at night.
It was fine the first night but last night there was a pair of local ruffians smashing bottles in the carpark opposite but as they were some distance away partaking in an act of which Neanderthals may find immature I figured I would take my chance and completed my transaction and retired to my sedan without having to fight my way out of the Woden Valley.
And so I found myself walking through the shopping centre this morning, on my way to the Flight Centre office to see the lovely Rochelle who is organising things for us from this end, again looking, and watching, waiting for any of the local ferals to jump me and complete a lucky day by mugging a man with quite a bit of cash on him. Fortunately and unsurprisingly, I made it through unscathed. That being said, I will take better care and pay by a different format next time.
So the first part of my trip planning is complete. Now I just have to scrape together the money for an airfare and several days travelling around the UK after our “European Whirl” is finished.
I am at an age where I have worked a long time and saved a bit and the realisation has hit me that my Euro adventure may be my one shot in the locker to see many of the places I have but dreamed of viewing. If I died without ever seeing the lush countryside of Germany or the wonders of Rome or the lights of Paris then I would believe I had wasted much of the opportunity which the great deity has afforded me and short-changed myself. So, price be damned, I am going. I may have to keep sorting mail for another fifty years as a result but heck, we only live once and I have none to leave my money to.
And so my day continues, and after the unusual flurry of activity which required me to be out and about this morning the tone of the day has returned to normal and my stomach is reminding me that lunch must be near and I will climb the crow’s nest and see exactly where it is and what it contains.
So, it is a lovely day outside here in Canberra and I will move myself on and wish you all the best as I go.
Until next time.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 