It’s Christmas, you see. So Merry Christmas to you all

xxx

Back there was snow and sleet and ice

It really wasn’t very nice

The nights too long, the days too dreary

Too much work made my eyes bleary

And endless winters left me weary.

 

In driving rain, trains – always late

Would lurch and jolt; I’d fight for space

To breathe and dodge the smelly louts

With nowt to do but hang about;

They really could do with a clout.

 

Back there, beneath our Christmas tree

Were heaps of parcels, yes indeed!

But though wealth bought us gifts galore

Our lives were such an awful bore;

We knew we wanted so much more.

 

And then one day Australia said,

“Here’s your visa – go ahead,

Pack your bags and book your flights

It’s time to move to Paradise.”

You can imagine our delight!

 

And now we live in QLD

Where ‘roos and cockatoos roam free;

We sought the sun, we changed address

And though our gifts are slightly less

We’ve never known such happiness.

This is a rant about Foxtel, that monopolistic supplier of satellite TV in Australia without which I would not be able to watch my beloved Dog Whisperer, and The Husband would probably die from underexposure to international Rugby games.

They claim to give you this wonderful ability to record your favourite TV programs so you can watch them at your leisure, which is great for someone like me. I work nights, so I miss all the good stuff like Grey’s Anatomy, Hawaii Five-0 and Glee. I set them up on “Series Link” so they automatically record every week, and I have these marathon TV-Catch-Up sessions on weekends.

Well, I catch up on most of them. More often than not, either the beginning or end of the program is cut off. The automatic record function starts too late, or ends too soon and I miss those vital first and last few minutes (a little annoying on the Grande Finale of Dancing with the Stars… Who won?!)

NOTE TO FOXTEL: Send someone to the UK to see how SKY does it – their recordings start at the beginning and run to the end, even if the programs start earlier or later than scheduled! Surely it can’t be that hard to deliver the service effectively?

But that’s not even my main beef today. Oh no. I noticed a few months ago a $2 charge on my monthly bill. A-ha! I said. Get rid of the paper bills and set up a direct debit.
The Direct Debit was no problem, but nowhere in my online Accounts section did it give the option of opting out of paper bills. Believe me, I looked long and hard. So I figured the $2 must only relate to the way I pay the bill.

I was wrong. It halved the charge, so now the “Other Charges” on the bill were only $1. Still, this irks me. How many customers do Foxtel have? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions..?
So they advertise their monthly fees and then randomly tack on an extra $1 and call it “Other Charges” … times that by the amount of customers they have and realistically they could be gathering a couple of MILLION dollars every month all told, for unspecified “Other Charges”.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS REALLY PEEVED BY THIS???

I phoned them this morning. Waited through the ten-minute automated answering system until I finally got to speak to someone in India or Pakistan who would ‘answer my question so that I can have a deeper understanding of what the answer is‘…. yeah, at that point my patience wore somewhat thin.

I was right. The $1 was because I get a paper bill in the mail. I explained calmly (?) that I don’t wish to receive the thing in the mail but that nowhere on the website does it give you the option to change this, and didn’t she think this was a bit of a scam? Kudos to the lady on the other end of the line; she kept incredibly cool, as if oblivious to the sarcasm dripping from my voice and landing in a big, acid puddle on the floor. She simply cancelled my paper bill and sent a link to my email that would allow me to view my statement online (although it took a few attempts at re-wording for her to carry this information across to me, bless her soul).
She needn’t have bothered with the link. It’s the same place I was looking before. Still no option to amend how you receive your bill though.

Which brings me to my point. How many people could be bothered to phone up, talk to a computer for ten minutes and then try to communicate with an operator for whom English is a challenge, all to save $1 a month? I don’t know of any. And so the corporate giant sits and rubs its hands in glee and rakes in the dollars and we mere mortals slump in our couches and smile while we’re getting reamed.

WAKE UP PEOPLE! Phone the number and cancel those paper bills! It’s time we stood up to the monster and said ENOUGH!

I, for one, refuse to be ripped off any longer.

Next in my sights is Telstra. I have a $1.63 Credit due to me on my bill and I’m damn well going to claim it!

Here’s one to add to the list of things you don’t see every day…

A bunch of these guys came pedalling past on Saturday afternoon. We asked what happens when they stop.

“Fall Off!” they replied.

I think I might change the name of this blog to “The View From My Deck“.

What’cha think?

I still don’t know what’s the story with the lame man and his three-legged-dog but I still see them. The dog is still happy and the man still wears the same hat, although he now wears shorts, which has allowed me to see that both legs are strapped – one on the ankle, the other the knee. Which leads me to believe it was an accident that has caused his distress. Still doesn’t explain the dog, unless the dog was in the same accident.

We’re on waving terms now. Not the dog, but his owner. We nod G’day to each other if we’re in range.

I had almost given up on blogging, you know. And then certain parties (no LiVEwiRe‘s mentioned) dropped a comment in my inbox and I thought, How rude of me to just drop off the face of the earth like that.

So here I am. I have not read a blog in months. Why? Time, I suppose. When one has an obsessive personality like mine one can spend entire days on something as distracting as blog-lurking. I spent three days last week looking at photos of short haircuts. Over 3,000 in fact. When I tell people that they laugh like it’s a joke. Ha ha. Actually it’s more accurate than I’d like to admit.

But hey, I have a great new short-short haircut now.

So, as I was saying… I’ve been trying to avoid getting caught up in things that take me away from finishing my novel. The thing is now just starting to annoy me. I’m midway through the rewrites and I’ve had it. I want to get it finished and move onto the next one. What can I say? Patience was never my strong suit.
We won’t get into all the emotions that go along with it – the novel, not the patience thing. I just want it to be finished.

Hence the blog-silence.

That, plus I really don’t feel like I have much to say anymore.

But thanks for the wake-up call. I missed you too.

xx

My Mom is paying us a visit at the moment. It’s a great time of year to be in Queensland. The weather is so stable it is laughable; we have had weeks and weeks of perfect weather, with clear blue sunny skies, days warm enough to wear short sleeves, nights cool enough to snuggle under a blanket beside the heater, and mornings just perfect to enjoy a cup of tea on the deck while looking out across the sea.

We love to watch the people go by. A constant stream of dog-walkers, joggers and cyclists pass by on the promenade across the road. One man, in particular, has caught our attention. Tall and lanky, he wears dark glasses and a knitted hat, and he stops at the top of the stairs that lead onto the beach opposite our house. He walks slowly using crutches and is accompanied by a dog who, like his master, is lame in one leg.

It is not a sight you see every day – the lame man and his three-legged-dog – and something about the pair of them draws our attention. The dog always looks happy. Nobody told him there’s anything wrong and he runs like the wind across the beach, through the water, chasing the birds like a maniac. And then he returns to his owner who stays at the stairs. He appears to do some sort of rehabilitative exercises in his legs. Unlike his dog, there is an immense sadness about him. The dog doesn’t care. He sits beside him and shares his joy. Did you see me chase those birds, Dude? I’m da man!

Mom and I drink our tea in the sun on our deck and ponder their partnership. Perhaps he was in an accident? Maybe he had surgery? He definitely seems to be recovering from something, we whisper. We don’t want him to hear and he’s only across the road.
And we chuckle and enjoy watching the dog take off after another seagull.

Yesterday an elderly man came walking by. He saw the crutches, stopped, turned back and bold as brass asked the man about his injured leg. Just like that!
It was the perfect example of how differently men and women communicate. He saw, got curious, asked and got an answer… an answer that we still don’t have because we were across the road drinking our tea and not wanting to pry.

Then again, the old man probably just wanted to know what happened to his leg, while we have so many more questions… how did it happen? Why so sad?
And did you get the three-legged-dog before or after you went lame?

All good stuff to ponder while sitting in the sunshine enjoying a cuppa.

At school we were more or less forced to sign up for at least one sort of social club – a noble attempt on the part of the South African school system to get us to interact with others. In primary school I joined the chess club. In hindsight it was probably not the best decision I could have made for my social standing but then I have always been a bit of a social retard at heart.
In high school I waxed clever and joined the French Club. The teacher who ran it spent most of her time going on about her wonderful son who was a student at the private boys’ school across town, so it was the easy way out because we never really did anything except chat. Not in French either, if you’ll pardon my Francais.

After school I was finally released from my forced participation in group activities. Freedom! Fantastic.

And then I started writing. Seriously writing, that is. A solitary occupation by nature, ideal for someone like me. Except that I began to need feedback, and while random comments on a blog are great, I felt I was lacking in interaction with other writers. People who do what I do. People with informed opinions (no offense intended to you, of course, my highly valued blog-readers!)

So I found a local writer’s group and started attending their monthly meetings. The first time I read out my work at a meeting I was a bundle of nerves – terrified. What if they hated it? What if it’s shite? What if… what if… well as it turned out, they liked it. They said such nice things about my writing. More importantly, they gave honest feedback about what I could do make it even better.
That, my friends, is priceless.

And here I am, a year-and-a-half later, still going to the monthly meetings. We have a website now. And somewhere along the line I have become an integral part of the group. When our chairman was unable to attend last month, he asked me to take the meeting instead. Huh? How did that happen?! I have yet to have my manuscript published, yet here I am taking an active role in my writer’s group.
It’s good for my ego, I’ll admit. They must value my opinions, right? Which I take to mean that the stuff I read out at the meetings can’t be all bad.

And so, twenty-something years after leaving high school I have finally figured out that group activities can be a good thing. I still don’t like to get involved – I have enough in my life without taking on extra responsibilites – but when it comes to the writing group I reckon the benefits I get out of it justify the time and effort I find myself putting into it.

It turns out I may be more of a joiner than I thought I was.

But dancing is only half the job. The other half is teaching others how to do it. As it turns out I seem to be pretty good at that too, judging by the results. I take pride in the belief that I can teach anyone to dance, no matter how rhythmically-challenged they may think they are. Sometimes it just takes a little longer.

Now over the years I have been to a number of dance classes taught by a variety of dance teachers, each with their own particular style. It turns out, though, that I work for one of the best teachers I have ever known. (No, I’m not trying to suck-up to him – he does not even know this blog exists!)
You see, my boss has mastered the art of making it easy to learn to dance. And so I made it my goal to model my teaching style on him.
And so I began to observe.
And the first thing I realised is that I talk too much.

I know. It came as a shock to me, too.

My role-model is brutally economical with words. He uses the fewest possible to get his point across. Me? I ramble, going on and on with long explanations that are probably entirely unnecessary. So I have tried to cut back on the verbal diarrhoea.
It is harder than you might think.
However, in a flash of insight I think I unearthed the answer a couple of days ago.

The trick is to be present in the moment.

Instead of my mind racing ahead to what I’m going to do next, and keeping an eye on the clock so I fit the lesson into the hour properly, and keeping an ear on the music, and, and, and… I need to stop. Breathe. Focus on the moment and take my time to finish one thought before rushing into the next. It is something I tell my students all the time. “Slow down. Breathe. Finish one movement before you start on the next.“

Sage advice.
Now all I need to do is learn how to listen to myself.

It brings to mind a quote I used to have pinned up at my desk:

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
    – Buddha

I think he might have been onto something there.

There are so many writing blogs out there. Where do they come up with all the stuff they write about? And where do they find the time to put it all together in a way that makes it easy and interesting for others to read? Me, I spend most of my days actually writing on my novel. Perhaps I am just not good at multi-tasking. Or perhaps I am too fussy in my choice of subject. Maybe I just need to pick a topic, start typing and see what comes out.
I shall brainstorm later on said topics.
Promise.

Meanwhile, an update on my novel…
“The Truth About Lying” is coming along nicely. The first draft, as I mentioned a little while ago, is done. I have read through the manuscript in its entirety and it wasn’t nearly as crap as I thought it might be. My first round of edits focussed on the things that really jumped out at me while I was reading it through. That sorted, I am now in the rewriting phase.

One of my favourite quotes is borrowed from James Michener:

“I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.“

At this point I am focussed on breathing life into my characters and adding tension to the story, scene by scene. Most of the skill in doing this has been developed from reading the advice and tips of other writers.
Online.
There is an awful lot of information out there and you’d be amazed at how freely it is shared.

Perhaps, in time, I can learn to do the same.

When I saw him that day he was waiting for his appointment. I had just come out of mine. I almost didn’t see him but he called out hello to catch my attention as I passed by. We exchanged pleasantries. It was always good to see him. But something was off. In the few minutes that we chatted something pinged in the back of my mind. He looked dreadful. Not physically, but he seemed ravaged, haunted. I very nearly blurted out an invitation to join me for coffee but then my doubts kicked in. How weird would I look if I was wrong? What if someone saw us together and drew the wrong conclusion? We were married to other people. It seemed inappropriate.
And I did not trust my judgement. I was somewhat unbalanced myself, at that time.

So I did nothing. Instead I simply took him at face value when he replied to my concerned, “Are you okay?” with a nod.

That was the last time I saw him. Within months I heard that he was being treated for severe depression. Less than a year went by before the news shattered our small community that he had taken his own life.

I was distraught. So many things fell into place, going all the way back to a conversation we had had years before. I had not given it too much thought but I realised that even then he had already had death on his mind. What got me worst of all was knowing that I had seen that he was in trouble but had done nothing about it. Even though he had suffered with something that I, myself, had been through. The question tore at my soul: Could I have helped?

I told myself that the answer was No, that there was nothing anyone could have done.
I still do.
The alternative is unbearable.

But now I find myself faced with a new situation. A friend confided in me some time ago that she was struggling to cope with certain circumstances in her life. She asked if I knew anything about anti-depressants. We talked. At the time she did not appear to be in really bad shape. Yes, she was battling, but she seemed to be in the stage where you can pull out of it without resorting to drastic measures. This morning I heard that this might not be the case, that she is seeing doctors and is on medication. I have tried to contact her to no avail. Hopefully she will return my call soon, though.

Is this my chance to put things right?

I tell myself that this is not about me. Logically, I know that I am not responsible for other people, but at the same time I know how she feels right now. I have been there. Therefore, surely I can help.

Deep inside I am suddenly very worried about her. I let one friend down. I cannot do it again.

Today I saw one that insisted that lemons have healing properties 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy… Why? Why would anyone even put that in an email in the first place? What is the point? Are they hoping to see if it will travel around the globe and make its way back to them? Is it the digital age’s version of “broken telephone”?

Who are these people who are so bored that they make up nonsense like that?

And people, please… wise the hell up!

They all sound the same. See if any of this rings a bell:

“This is the latest discovery in xxx!”
“The source is one of the (largest/oldest/cleverist) (businesses/organizations) in the (country/world)!”
“I heard it direct from my (uncle/best friend/fourth cousin twice removed).”

Here’s a hint. You can be guaranteed that anything with
- more than one exclamation point (“!”), or
- a claim that sounds too good to be true
is Not Legitimate.

So please, please do the world a favour. Bookmark the URL for hoax-slayer.com and if in doubt, check it out.

Or just do what I do and delete the damn thing.

Thank you.