There were several items on our “Travel Bucket List” prior 2020.  But the list has changed after the 2020/2021 impacts on life around the world.

We had talked about another European River Cruise.  Assuming the weather is co-operative, you basically experience a hotel on water.  Once on board the boat, you unpack.  Then you are taken from city to city without ever again having pack or unpack until the end of the cruise.  A very comfortable way to see towns on the waterways in Europe.

My husband would love to have once more visited Italy.  This would have been to visit a major gliding centre around 100 Kilometres from Rome.  And maybe we could once more spend some time exploring ancient parts of Rome itself.

Then there is Scotland.  Or more accurately, the Scottish Islands.  Although there are still parts of the Scottish mainland we have not visited and would like to see.

Visiting some parts of Australia that we have not previously seen would also be of interest too.

BUT, the bucket list has shrunk.

It is likely that as far as overseas travel is concerned, we may make only one further trip once the world has settled down.  This will definitely include the Shetland Islands, so Scotland and the other island clusters would be part of the trip.  I thought it would probably be in 2024.  And the time of year would be up for discussion.  There is a Folk Festival over Easter each year in Shetland.  But this is not the best weather for travelling so far north.  Can we risk it?  Still Scotland seems to be in my blood and I do want to go back, and if it means Easter, then so be it.  Perhaps the river cruise will be removed from the bucket list…and maybe Italy as well.

BUT, a further change.

We may decide to go to Cologne in Germany.  The Benalla Yarn Bombers have been invited to send an item to the Cologne Yarn Bombers Festival at the end of March 2023.  If we do participate, what better opportunity is there to combine a Scottish trip with a visit to Cologne.  The timing could not be better.  It is around two weeks before Easter, so no debate about time of year for a Scottish trip and the Shetland Folk Festival.  Mmmm.  Can we do it?  Do we want to do it?   Much discussion to come with not a lot of time to decide.  And should there be a visit to Italy as well?  We will not be far away.  I don’t know if we could fit a river cruise in the same trip.  Then again, a Rhine to Danube cruise would take us around Germany.

Of course, Australian travel will be much easier, with a lot less planning involved.  We just need to decide where and when.  But will probably have to wait until we sort out the possible European travel in 2023.


Joy Shirley
​September 2022

Back at the beginning of 2021 I wrote about special moments in 2020.  How we were able to catch up with both our children – our daughter living in Queensland and our son living in Tasmania.  These two states had been closed to us.  We had met our son for dinner in Melbourne as he flew through; we met our daughter and family in Byron Bay during school holidays.  I had included that I would miss the first “As Time Goes By” class in 2021 because we were allowed into Tasmania and were booked to travel to Launceston for our grandson’s 18th birthday.  It did not happen!  Tasmania closed to Victoria for a brief period just at the wrong time.  They re-opened the morning of the birthday party, but this was too late for us to get there in time.

BUT we were able to travel to Tasmania in April 2021 – exactly two months after our original plan.  A permit was required, but this was not a problem.  We were able to catch up with the family and treated them to a special dinner as a late celebration of Luke’s birthday.  Being just a family group meant we were able to see more of our son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons than we would have done if we had attended the party.

June saw us driving north again, this time to Noosa where our daughter lives.  Queensland was open to Victoria.  So we spent a week catching up with her family almost exactly twelve months after we had last seen them.  We had to obtain a permit, and of course download check-in apps for both NSW and Queensland.  No problem here.  We did find check-in was not required for retail in either state at that time.

While we were in Queensland, NSW cases started rising.  We watched carefully to work out if and how we could get home.  Should we cut our holiday short…or add extra time to our stay?  Should we do a non-stop trip from Queensland border to Victorian border?  Regional NSW was rated as orange.   What was the risk that it would be red before we got back to Victoria?  In the end we kept to our original departure date.  As we left Noosa restrictions were announced there for the day after we left.

We had originally planned to take extra time traveling through NSW but changed our route home.  Our initial itinerary had us driving through red zones, which would in theory have been OK provided we did not stop.  But one of our accommodation bookings was in a red zone.  A new route had us turning inland much earlier.  This meant we did not manage to catch up with family in the Coffs Harbour area.  Maybe next time!

We arrived home a day earlier than planned and needed to get a Covid test within 72 hours.  We were sitting in our car for the test less than an hour after we got home.  Results were back before 11:00am the following morning.

So as in 2020, we were able to catch up with both our children during 2021, working around lockdowns and entry permits.


Joy Shirley
​February 2022

​All Saints Estate, Wahgunyah

We went to lunch at All Saints Estate recently.  The restaurant is called The Terrace and in the past was in a permanent marquis type structure.  But they are undergoing some major renovations and so the restaurant has moved to their events hall.  This is a large hall, lined with wine barrels that are still in use.

Why was this a trigger?  Well, 22 years ago our daughter was married at All Saints Estate in their rose garden, with the reception in this very hall.  While the marriage did not last, it was interesting to look around and try to remember it as it was set up for the occasion.  I could not work out whether it looked bigger or smaller.  It was hard to picture how we had set up the venue.  Memories from the past are not always as clear as we expect.  And the layout as a restaurant and tasting room were a far cry from a wedding reception arrangement, overshadowing what it would have looked like many years ago.

Northeast Victoria

But there is even more. 

Our daughter had met her husband in Wodonga; his family came from Yackandandah; they bought their first home in Chiltern. 

The weekend after our lunch in Wahgunyah we had a visit from my sister-in-law, escaping Melbourne for the first time.  She had some business to conduct in the area, as well as wanting to spend some time with us.  The areas she wanted to visit from a business perspective were Wodonga and Chiltern.  Then she wanted to visit Beechworth, with signs to Yackandandah along the route from Chiltern to Beechworth.  A long day in the car with her but seeing places and place names from twenty years ago.

So in the space of five days I visited and saw much from our daughter’s past.

Ballet

Is this one a trigger?  I am not sure.  But maybe.  Perhaps though it is just history repeating itself.

I have just been speaking with our granddaughter who had some news.  She has been accepted into an elite dance program at her local ballet school.  This effectively involves full-time ballet/dance.  Schooling is by negotiation with her local secondary school, or distance schooling.  A lot of discipline required to keep up the studies while spending much of every day at the dance school.

Why is this a trigger – or history repeating itself?  Our daughter, her mother, also attended an elite dance program from around the same age.  The advantage our daughter had was the school she attended had a program in place for the young people involved in elite dance training.  In years 8-9 two of their elective subjects were dance, and in year 10, three subjects were dance.  Their sport was dance rather than school-based sport activities.  They spent four afternoons a week at dance classes, so only spent one full day a week at school.  Add to this all-day Saturday every week, and often Sunday as well if there was a visiting dance teacher.

I am yet to find out more of the details of what is involved for our young granddaughter.  It does seem after trying lots of different activities she has at last found an activity she is passionate about. 

Joy Shirley
​November 2021

We all find lots of things during our lives.  Perhaps the thing that had the most impact on my life was finding my future career.
​
I found the start at the beginning of my second year at university.  There it was!  The unit in my Maths subject that started me on my career path.  On my Statement of Academic Record it reads “Comp Var Pot”.  Or at least I think this was the one.  It was a long time ago, so I cannot be sure of the abbreviation, but it looks like the closest.  None of the others look like they could be the one.  It was one of the five units in my Applied Mathematics IIB subject.  It was more likely to be Applied Mathematics rather than Pure Mathematics.

Pure Mathematics was much more theoretical.  It included things like Lattice Theory and Topology.  Groups and Rings just would not describe the unit that led me to my future career.
This unit was much more an applied type of Maths.  It certainly was not things like Differential Equations or Dynamic Celestial Mechanics.  So, it must have been Comp Var Pot.  A pity I no longer have the curriculum details for 1968 as this would confirm the full name of the unit.

1968 was the first year this unit was offered at the university.  It was designed to help with the more complex problem solutions in mathematical applications.  But it gave me the idea for my future career.  Prior to this the only thought I had was to go into teaching Maths.  Fortunately, I found this other option as I now know that teaching children is not for me.

So here I am, retired after being one of the early people taking up work in the computer industry.
I started as a trainee computer programmer.  Over the years I worked in just about every aspect of Information Technology.  In one small organisation (only four people), I covered the computer operator role when the computer operator was on leave.  I worked in updating the computer operating systems in a couple of organisations.  In later years I was involved in project management, quality control of new applications, senior team management; basically, whatever was required in the various organisations where I worked.

Over the years I have seen the many developments in the industry.  We started with our programs on paper tape, then cards and eventually came on-line programming.  The size of the computers has changed.  As they became physically smaller, the capacity became larger.  But perhaps the biggest change I have seen is the demographic of people working in the industry.  I was one of seven starting work that year – three males and four females.  Yes, females in the majority.  That is not what we see today.  Perhaps it is because in the early days, there was no such thing as childcare and maternity leave.  When we started families, we left work.  This left men in the majority.  For some reason the perception then became it was a male only industry!


Joy Shirley
October 2021

So many of the “If only” times in our lives can have such positive results.  For me, I think that focussing on “If only” can be irrelevant to our lives, and in some situations resulting in just making us unhappy or depressed.  In thinking about this topic, I can only be grateful for the decisions we have made and the results that we have lived, rather than things we have missed out on in our lives.

The majority of the significant “If only” occasions that really have made a significant improvement in my life are positives.  So I have listed some of these positive “if only” occasions in our lives. 

“If only” I had stayed close to the office when travelling to Melbourne on business, instead of travelling across town to stay with my mother, I WOULD NOT have spent the last night and morning of her life with her.

“If only” we had not left Canberra to move to Benalla, I MIGHT not have joined U3A and met so many new friends.  I miss some of my Canberra friends but we can still catch up with those in Canberra when travel permits, and new friends have enriched our lives as.

“If only” we had bought one of the other houses we looked at in Benalla, I MAY not have had such great neighbours.  Of course I MAY have met just as many different great neighbours.

“If only” we had not supported our daughter in her move to Perth to train at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at 16 years old, there may have been several consequences.  She MAY have resented our decision, causing lots of tension.  But she WOULD NOT have ended in a difficult relationship which fortunately did not last.  And through several of her own “if only” decisions she would not have her current career and happy family situation.

“If only” my husband had not seen the career page in the local newspaper, our son MAY have not trained as an officer in the Merchant Navy ending up working in a job he loves, and which has given him a very comfortable lifestyle.  Of course he may have lived closer to us, but his own life could not have been as enriched.


Joy Shirley
September 2021

This was not an easy topic – I was not sure whether I had ever experienced being thrown a “Curved Ball”.  I started going back over my life from most recent to the long distant past.  I have written about the more recent events that could be categorised as being thrown a “Curved Ball”.  Things like being given a redundancy or moving around the country (or at least the south east corner of Australia).  Then it came to me – an event back in 1975.

I had a new baby and a toddler.  We had recently moved back to Melbourne when I was offered a part time teaching job at my old school.  After some enquiries it eventuated that I would need to undertake part time studies for a Diploma in Education in parallel with the work.  Apparently, this would not have been necessary under the previous headmaster due so some education qualifications he had.  I have no idea what these were – it was a long time ago and I was not involved in the process of approval apart from being required to do the study.  This was the first curved ball, but really did not cause much concern.  I was able to easily enrol in the necessary course at my old University as a post graduate student.

All was in place for me to start studies and start teaching – years 7 and 9 Mathematics.  That was when the big curved ball hit.  My husband came home from work at the end of January, just before the school year started, to inform me he was heading overseas for work within ten days!
Here I was with a two-year-old toddler, a four-month-old baby, about to start part time work and part time studies, and my husband would be away for at least six weeks.  I had some babysitting already organised, but now I had to also organise for babysitting for my evening study classes.  And we lived 25 kilometres away from the school and university. 

It seemed like a daunting task.  But I come from a family of strong women.  I started organising the strategy.  Fortunately, my parents lived within walking distance of the school and less than ten minutes from the university.  They had two spare bedrooms.  And they could care for the children while I attended my classes at the university.

Now I think this has shown me that there is always a way forward.  The most important result though was that my father got to spend lots of time with the children.  My sister lived in Sydney and he rarely saw her three children.  At that time neither of my brothers were married.  It had given him the opportunity to get to know them as babies.  I believe they gave him a lot of joy over the remaining years of his life.
 

Joy Shirley
​May 2021

​I have been “new in town” on several occasions.  I wrote about these in 2020 but left out the most recent move.  Perhaps it is time to write about that move – the move to Benalla.
First a quick recap of the earlier moves.

There was a move from Melbourne to Canberra.  We had a one-year-old son, no way of meeting people and I was very lonely.  Eleven months later we moved back to Melbourne but only for only 14 months.  I knew with our move to Adelaide it was up to me to meet people, not wait for them to find me.

Later moves were easier – Adelaide-Melbourne, Melbourne-Adelaide, Adelaide-Canberra.  Both our children were at school and I was back working.  This meant I had opportunities for meeting people.

One last move – children grown and no longer at home, now retired and without the work environment as an established network.  It is possibly our last move.

Being retired, I was back in the position of our first move – no job giving a built-in way for meeting people, no children at school to meet up with parents.  Again I had to make the effort to meet people.

Well, maybe not quite the same.  We had a reason for moving to Benalla – the Gliding Club.  That helped my husband.  He knew some of the people and had a way of meeting others.  But I was not a pilot.

We had bought our new home in a short court (well, titled ‘Place’).  Just seven houses.  But before we knew what was happening, we had met most of the neighbours.  It was just before Christmas.  A group of the neighbours got together for a Christmas dinner at one of the restaurants.  We were invited.  We met more neighbours in the street at the end of the court.

I found out about “Rhyme Time” at the library.  They needed a volunteer for a few months.  From there I became involved in “Mother Goose”, an activity encouraging interaction between parent and child developed in Canada.  This is no longer run in Benalla, but a similar program is run by Tomorrow Today, called PEEP developed in the UK.

New opportunities opened up.  I spent part of the summer season helping in the Gliding Club Office.  My husband and I spent a couple of years helping with Meals on Wheels.  Then we found a new area for volunteering – with BPACC.  I still usher there one or two times a week.

The biggest change was finding out about U3A.  So many opportunities for learning new things and meeting people!  I have found new friends, and friends of friends.  I am always busy, either attending classes, preparing for classes, or preparing classes that I convene.

What have I learnt about being new in town?  That it is up to me to find what is going on.  That it is up to me to make the effort to join in what I have found.


Joy Shirley
March 2021

Dear Scotland,

After many years, I have fallen in love with you.

Our first visit was nothing spectacular.  We went to some of the traditional tourist spots, staying in a different place many nights.  We visited Edinburgh for a couple of nights and we visited Inverness.  We had a couple of days on Skye.  After leaving Skye, we headed south, visiting Hadrian’s Wall.  I cannot remember much of that visit.  After leaving you, we visited Ireland, where we were stuck for a few days as a result of the Icelandic volcano stopping all air traffic.  This is what I possibly remember most of that holiday touring Italy, the UK and Ireland.

It was our 2018 visit that focussed on Scotland before heading to Nova Scotia (New Scotland) in Canada.  That is when I fell in love with you.  We stayed for 3-7 days in most places.  We saw and learnt so much, I cannot identify a single highlight.

Our first stop was Perth.  Although we needed to fight jetlag a little, we managed to see quite a lot of great places around the region.  After the first night’s sleep we visited Scone Palace, The Black Watch Museum and Castle, and then Perth itself.  We did get lost but we eventually found our way back to the car.  An interesting visit was to Innerpeffray Library established in the 17th century.  This was a great collection, and we were even allowed to touch most of the books.

Our next stop was Inverness.  We had been there eight years earlier, but only had an overnight stop.  This time we were able to explore a little more of the region.  One stop when in Inverness is of course Culloden.  This time we were able to explore the field (it had been wet and miserable the previous visit).  I even found the marker for the Stewart clan, my forebears.  A standout find in Inverness itself was a bookshop – new and old books and ranging over several levels.  We could have spent days wandering and browsing.

It was as we left Inverness and headed further into the highlands that I really started to fall in love with you.  I can still picture driving up the west and north coast.  We did stay in a couple of places for only one night each, but this was part of the plan for seeing the west and north coasts on our way to catch the ferry to Orkney.

We spent five days exploring Orkney Islands.  Our base was in Kirkwall on the east of the main island.  Here we explored ruins, cathedrals and even managed a craft drive over the few days we stayed.  Our location was perfect, right on the edge of the town.  The unit we rented was a little inconvenient as it was upstairs, with the bedroom up a further flight of stairs.  Still, with such a perfect location we did not complain too much.  We even found a pub where there was a music session every night for Tim to participate in.

From Orkney Islands, we caught another ferry.  This time we headed to the Shetland Islands.  More ruins, cathedrals and craft to explore.  Our unit on the main island of Shetland was not located as close to the main town of Lerwick but was more comfortable.  One exploration was to the island of Unst, the most northerly permanently occupied island and found the most northerly home.  And we found our way south as well.  Some of the smaller islands got missed due to timing.  Highlights for me included the Shetland Textile museum and Jamiesons Wool Shop.

We finally left Shetland for a couple of days in Glasgow before leaving you for Canada.

You are my overseas love and I look forward to seeing you again at some stage in the future."


Joy Shirley
February 2021
 

Two positive moments stand out in 2020, although one of them was a few days long.

​Our son lives in Tasmania but works in Port Hedland in the Pilbara.  This means firstly that we do not see him very often.  It means travelling to Tasmania during the times that he is home.  And during COVID, we could not visit at all.  At the end of June, he flew back to work from Tasmania, stopping overnight in Melbourne.  This was during the time when travel within Victoria was slightly eased, and shortly before complete shutdown.  It was too good an opportunity.  We drove into Melbourne to join him for dinner.  While we did not see the rest of his family, it was a special moment in a year of restrictions.  It was the first time we had seen him since the previous October…and the last time until exactly now.  The date of the first “As Time Goes by” class coincides with our trip to Launceston to catch up with the family at our grandson’s 18th birthday!  The first time we will have seen them all for nearly 18 months.

Our daughter and her family live in Queensland.  No, we could not visit her either.  A planned trip in May was cancelled.  But that period of eased restrictions at the end of June coincided with the Queensland school holidays.  People from Queensland were able to travel to NSW, and with a permit, able to return home without restrictions.  Two road trips were quickly planned.  Our daughter and family travelled to Byron Bay for a short holiday; we jumped in our car and joined them in Byron Bay for a few days.  A special time spent with family, the first time since Christmas 2019 that we had seen them.  We managed to catch up with other friends on our way back to Victoria, crossing the border just hours before NSW closed its border toVictorians.  We could have stayed on the other side of the border, and not been in lockdown!

And our daughter and granddaughter will be in Tasmania with us.  The boys will stay in Queensland as they had a trip south before Christmas to visit the other grandparents.  So while this is being written before our trip to Tasmania, perhaps this will be a third special moment.
 
Joy Shirley,
February 2021

​I had used several triggers in previous contributions and had run out of ideas.  But the other day, as we were talking about our newly renovated bathroom, my husband and I realised that we have often undertaken renovations.  We had just said that we were not renovators when we remembered that in fact, we have often undertaken renovations.  We are just not people who do the work ourselves.

Our first home was in an outer suburb of Melbourne. We had just had our first baby and I was no longer working.  We added a garage and sealed the gravel driveway with bitumen to help keep the weeds down.  Not a major change and nothing inside the house.

We moved to Adelaide when our second child was around 15 months.  We extended the house, but I cannot remember the driving force for this.  The extension “gave birth” to a second room.  The proposed family room ended up with a second room as a study/spare room.  This was a more major renovation.

The home we bought on returning to Melbourne was a fifty’s house in Box Hill.  The kitchen was certainly dated, with little (NO!) bench space.  I used a table in the kitchen as a bench.  But eventually it had to change.  This was the first kitchen we renovated.

Then came a move back to Adelaide.  This was a lovely home with no changes required.  Still we managed to make a small change.  It had a pitched roof, with the ceiling space high enough to stand.  So we put a floor into the ceiling cavity and added pull down steps for access to form a workshop area.

In 1987 we moved to Canberra.  A year later, after selling our Adelaide home, we looked for a larger home to meet the needs of our teenagers.  Not finding anything suitable, another renovation was required.  The family room we added includes a major change to the kitchen.  So another major kitchen renovation.  Of course, it was less than 18 months later that both our children decided to leave home.  We ended up living in this house longer than any other home and ended up making another renovation.

There was a further move within Canberra.  This was a brand-new house, so really nothing to do.  We did manage a minor change – a new pergola over a large courtyard after adding some coloured patterning to the concrete.

So this brings us to Benalla.  Over the last two years we have renovated the kitchen and main bathroom.  And we have had the house painted and new carpet.  With a planned en-suite bathroom renovation for next year, we believe we will not need to do anything in the house for the next twenty years.  It will be interesting to see if this is the case.

So for a family that are not really “into renovations”, we seem to have made quite a few.

Joy Shirley
November 2020

When you think about it, there are triggers all over the place. 

Walking with some friends last week, somehow the conversation turned to young couples and marriage.  Or perhaps it was lack of marriage, as many couple do not actually marry these days.  Here was a trigger.  It started me thinking about my nieces and nephews… as well as our own children.

I have 11 nieces and nephews, all adults these days.  And there are my own two children.  All the children from the generation are in long term relationships, most with children.  From memory, I think most of these young people lived with their future partner before marriage.  I can only think of two who were still living with their parents before marriage.

My nieces are all married, including one who thought she would never marry!  And our daughter is married – her husband wanted a family but thought they should be married before having a baby.

As for the boys, that seems to be a different story.   At this stage, only two are married, although all are in a relationship.  Our son is one of the two who are married, and 18 months before marrying he had raised the question with me as to how ai felt about couples not marrying as he did not think it necessary.  He had even told his now wife that he did not belief in marriage. 

​It was an interesting exercise thinking about these young people and raises the question as to why it is the boys who are not marrying.  Although one has been interested in marrying his partner, somehow it has not happened.
 
Joy Shirley
November 2020

It came out of the blue.  Not something I was expecting.
​
Normally if my manager wanted to talk with me, he would come out of his office and talk at my desk.  It would often be about when the next software release was due, or how it was progressing.  If we were meeting in his office it was a scheduled catch up.  Occasionally it would be because I had an issue to talk through.  So I was a little surprised, wondering if there was some sort of problem that I had missed when he rang me and asked me to meet him in his office.  His office was about five metres from my desk.  A phone call was not a usual event.  When I went into his office, he closed the door.  Oops!

Firstly, for some background for people who are not familiar with recruitment processes in the Public Service.  You did not get a promotion without a formal process where the job was advertised, open to all, often to the public as well as serving officers.  If there was a temporary vacancy while someone was on leave, then another officer would be asked to do the job on an “acting” basis.  This was usually to be able to provide authorisations.  For example to approve leave applications or, rarely, necessary expenditure   If that vacancy was for more that 2-3 weeks (for example, planned long service leave) then it would have to be advertised as a fixed term acting role.

So, now for the meeting with my manager (a Senior Executive Service Officer band 1, the lowest of the highest level of officer in the Commonwealth Public Service).  He started by informing me that due to some major problems in another part of the organisation, he was being transferred for several weeks.  It was out of the blue that I was to fill in – “act” in his job for the period.  No advertisement to fill the job temporarily.  There was no time.  This was Friday, and he was moving to the new role on Monday.  The administrative process for me to act in his job would be actioned immediately.  No advertisement of a vacancy, no recruitment process.  Just a meeting on Friday to take up the job on Monday.  So you can see why this was an “out of the blue” experience.

I ended up working in the job for over seven months.  It was one of the most rewarding roles I had while working in the Australian Public Service.


Joy Shirley
September 2020

​Right Here, right now I am working through my TODO list.  I am a bit behind.  My routine went out the window.

When our outside activities came to a halt in March, I set up a routine that roughly followed my normal activities.  Routine, I decided, would help me keep active.  And it would give me something to look forward to each day.

So my COVID19 routine was:

Every weekday morning walk around the lake.
Monday afternoon – something to do with writing.  This covered the two U3A writing classes – Creative Writing and “As Time Goes By”.  I added to that writing classes from the Australian Writers’ Centre.
Tuesday afternoon – watch a film.  This covered my BPACC volunteering.  It gave me a film to write about for the Film as Literature class.
Wednesday morning – Sit down and read in place of “Play Reading” U3A class, although the class was only once a week.
Wednesday afternoon – Knitting.  This replaced knitting at the library.  It could be knitting for one of my projects, or a knitting course to pick up new skills or improve old ones.
Thursday – Our normal routine was to go out exploring or go further afield for things we could not buy in Benalla, and always go out for lunch.  So we headed out to find some takeaway for lunch, supporting local cafés.
Friday – this was shopping and lunch with friends.  We still needed to buy food for the week, and for the afternoon I decided that I would try to make calls to friends and family.
 
So how did I do?  And why am I behind on the TODO list?  I am still trying to do all the things on the list, just not necessarily with the original timing. 

The Yarn Bombing event “Benalla Rugged Up” came along.  There was a lot of organising required – applications to prepare, planning under the current restrictions etc.  At least it was knitting related.

I am still watching a film at least once a week – just not on Tuesday afternoon.

Writing seems to happen as and when I feel the urge…or when I need to get some writing done for U3A writing classes – like now, Saturday afternoon.  And I have done some Writing Courses, including one this month that has a daily challenge…mmmmm…not meeting those challenges every day.

Reading on a Wednesday morning – well that is not happening.  But I am reading every day if only in bed at night.

We are still buying a takeaway lunch once or twice a week.

Friday calls to friends or family tends to happen whenever convenient rather than Friday afternoon.
 
I am still doing everything at some stage during the week.  But this does not explain why I am behind.  “Benalla Rugged Up” activities are on hold until it is time to remove the decorations.  That no longer is taking up time.  The reason that I am behind is that we are in the process of purchasing a new car.  A lot of time on-line for insurance quotes, arranging a temporary increase on my daily payment limit to pay for the car, paying for the car, cleaning out my car so that my husband can move things he needs into it – I get the new car!

But I am nearly there.  I have written some emails.  I have sent off the U3A Newsletter contributions for the two classes that I convene and have kept running.  I have cleared my things from the car ready for my husband to move his things in.  And I have written my “As Time Goes By” contribution for August!  Now for the daily writing challenge and I am up to date.

Joy Shirley 
​August 2020

​My mother had a favourite tea set.  This was Royal Albert crown china made in England.  It has a fine china cup which she preferred to many of the more modern sets that were quite thick which she did not like.  It has a very pretty pink rose pattern.  The pattern was called American Beauty.  Apparently 'American Beauty' is a deep pink rose, bred by Henri Lédéchaux in France in 1875, and was originally named 'Madame Ferdinand Jamin'.

Mum used this tea set for her cup of tea every day for many years.  They were not kept only for special occasions.  With such constant use a number were broken over the years, but she always took the effort to find replacements.  The newer ones have changed the pattern very slightly, although using the same pattern name with the same pink roses.  Or maybe it is just that they are newer. 

In looking at them today, many of the cups have faded, with the gold trim almost invisible around the edge of the older cups.  The saucers are slightly less faded and the plates still seem to have most of the gold trim.  I think that they were only pulled out when there were guests.

This set has not been used for over twenty years now, but I cannot bring myself to pass them on!

​Joy Shirley

Joy Shirley

​*This story was submitted in response to an 'Ideas Piggy Bank' writing prompt.

​'I grew up in' a family of six – two parents, three siblings and me.  I was the third child, with an older sister and an older and a younger brother.  So we were two girls and two boys.

We first lived in Healesville – well outside Healesville.  It was a “five mile” drive.  Apart from our grandparents’ guesthouse, and some holiday flats our parents owned, there were no other houses or people around.  Occasionally there were other children at the holiday flats, but I can remember only one.  Most of the time there were just the four of us.  We were one another’s play mates.  We were one another’s only friends.  We did sometimes visit cousins on a farm in the region, or they visited the guesthouse up the hill.  But we only had our siblings for company most of the time.  We had lots of land to run around and play.  As we were young, I am not sure that we even missed having other children around.  But this is from the perspective of number three in the family.  My two older siblings were at school, so perhaps they did have other playmates and friends.

We left Healesville when I was five.  Our first home in Melbourne was a four-room house.  This comprised two bedrooms, a lounge room, and the kitchen.  There was a passage down the centre, the bedrooms were on one side, the lounge room and kitchen on the other.  Although that was not how the house was used – Mum and Dad used the lounge room as their bedroom.  Otherwise we would not fit.  The kitchen was our kitchen, lounge, even bathroom of a sort.  This was an old metal baby’s bath, with water heated on the wood stove – girls first, boys next, and after we were in bed, Mum and Dad.  This house was in the middle of a huge expanse of uncleared land – mostly shrub on sandy soil.  The driveway to the house was quite long.  Could it have been around 500 metres, or possibly even longer?  No other houses within sight meant again that there was just the four of us as playmates.  Although by this time we were all at school, so did have other socialisation opportunities.  Given the size and location of the house, sleep overs and other visits by friends from school just did not happen.  So again, our only playmates were the four of us.  But we had plenty of land to run around.

I was eight when we moved Mt Waverley.  It was a newish area with only a few houses.  I think ours as the third or fourth in the street.  But this time there were other children around.  There was bushland over the road.  So with our extended group of playmates, lots of places to run and play.

Of course over the years, more and more houses were built, we all grew up, had our own friends, lived our own lives.  But we grew up in a family of six, always with lots of open space around us!

Joy Shirley

June 2020

​There are many turning points in all our lives.  Some are more extreme than others.  For me there are the usual changes that life brings.  Leaving school and heading to University; leaving university and starting work; marriage, first home, first baby.  All reflective of life for many.  Nothing outstanding or different.  But certainly representing changes in direction.

Then there was the first interstate move – Melbourne to Canberra.  Did it change my life?  Was it a turning point?  There was a second baby.  And I have written previously about the lessons I learnt from spending a lonely 11 months in Canberra.

There were other interstate moves: Canberra to Melbourne; Melbourne to Adelaide; Adelaide to Melbourne; Melbourne back to Adelaide; Adelaide to Canberra; Canberra to Benalla.  Again I have written a few times about retirement and our move to Benalla.
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Perhaps a significant turning point was both children leaving home within six months.  Our daughter went to Perth to study at the Western Australian academy of Performing Arts.  Our son headed to the Australian Maritime College in Launceston.  So there were no visits for a meal or to get Mum to help with the washing, stories others whose children had moved out told.  I had always thought that when I no longer had a need to care for our young people, I would be able to concentrate on career.  But it was a bigger mental and emotional shift that I had expected and it did take some time to make the change.  Perhaps a contributing factor was that they were quite young – our daughter was only 16 and our son 18 when they headed off to train for their future careers.  It was certainly a turning point in our lives as we learnt to be just the two of us again.

But recently, there has been a new “turning point”.

I have been learning about short row knitting.  This involves turning the knitting before reaching the end of the row – a turning point.  Then doing this in subsequent rows making each row shorter that the previous row.  Eventually you need to knit across the full row, past all the “turning points”.  Many years ago I had taught myself how to do this, but the on-line class I have been working through has shown so much more about how to make these turns, and how to hide them when finishing the shaping by knitting across the whole row.  The only method I knew was called “wrap and turn”.  Now I know about “yarn over”, “Japanese” and “German” methods for short row knitting.  I also know how to use this technique in shaping shoulders so that they are more even and easy to join.  And there are further lessons still to cover with more ways to use “short row knitting”.

So I have come to a turning point in my knitting – learning about different “turning points” in knitting.
 

Joy Shirley
​May 2020

“You cannot know what life will bring, but sometimes taking a risk brings great rewards.” 

These were the last words from a piece of fiction I wrote a few years ago – on the topic of risk.  But it is true in real life.  There are many risks we take, some minor, others major and life changing.  The two major risks that we have taken in recent years (10-11 years) were retirement and moving to Benalla.

Firstly, retirement.  It had not been the plan at the time.  Tim had been planning to retire at the end of the year, by which time he would be 61.  I had said that while I was contributing to the organisation, while I was achieving something, then I would stay.  One of the major issues was that it was not clear as to whether we would have enough to live on if we both gave up work at the same time.  And what would I do with my time?  On the other hand, I was working some long hours in a role that was in some ways quite stressful – I was tired.  It was up to one of my teams (and so final responsibility sat with me) to confirm that new computer applications were ready to “go live” in the ATO.  Certainly the final decision was not with my team, but the decision around yes or no would be made on our assessment.  We had to confirm the teams building the systems had done everything, including that the systems were working accurately.  Think about the Centrelink problems recently.  If we got it wrong, the ATO would have had the same level of public criticism.
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The offer for both of us to take a redundancy at the same time came out of the blue on a Friday afternoon preceding a long weekend.  So we had a weekend to decide whether to look further into what the redundancy would mean for us.  At our ages it did mean retirement.  We decided to “wing it” and accept the redundancy packages we were offered.  And it has worked well for us.

Of course, then there was the question as to what to do in retirement.  Another risk: sell up in Canberra and move to Benalla.  This provided a couple of pluses, but some negatives.

Our daughter and her two children lived in Melbourne.  This move meant we were much closer and able to see them more regularly as well as help if necessary.  And the largest Gliding Club in Australia was right on the edge of the town for Tim.  But what could I do with no work and basically knowing no-one in town?  But we did it anyway.  And between voluntary activities around town, and joining U3A, I have a full life.

So the unknowns we risked were:

• Could we live on the income streams that we would be receiving?
• What would a move to Benalla mean financially and socially?

But we did it and have not looked back.


Joy Shirley
​April 202

​I was a bright student at school.  Maybe not the top student in the class, but not far from it.  My favourite subjects were the Sciences and Maths.  Back in the 1960s this was not a usual track to take for the girls.  And to be a better student than all the boys in the classes was just not on.

We had a male teacher for the extended Maths class and for Science, both subjects that I was taking.  He did not approve of females taking these subjects.  And he did not approve of working mothers – they should be at home.
 
So Mr R did not approve of my mother – why not “barefoot and pregnant” in the kitchen?  And he did not approve of my choice of subjects. 

There was one other girl in the Maths class who was perhaps marginally better than me, or at least she more often had higher mark on the tests. We sort of swapped who got the higher mark.  The boys in the class hardly ever managed to beat us.  In other words we were making waves by not sticking to the more traditional “girly” subjects.

Mr R tried to convince my mother that I was not able to do these subjects.  With a Chemistry subject he told her that I would not succeed by learning by rote.  Oops!  I was never any good at learning by rote which is why History with names, dates and places was not my subject.  The problem was that I had not understood that topic.  I do not want to judge his skill as a teacher but was it a failure to explain well enough?

There was some conflict in my report at the end of Form 5 (year 11).  Mr R suggested that I was not coping with the extended Maths.  The teacher of the basic Maths commented that it was the exact opposite of his experience with my grasp of Maths.  I now have a Bachelor of Science degree majoring in Maths.

There was a time in year 11 that he was not happy with me.  We were conducting a Chemistry experiment.  I forget all the details except that it involved a test tube and creating a gas.  It required us to place a finger over the top of the test tube.  My finger was not big enough so one of the boys held the test tube.  He assumed I did not know what to do and told me not to rely on the boys.  In fact I had been telling them what to do!  When I explained the problem, he brushed aside the problem telling me to use something else on the top of the test tube.  He never acknowledged that I knew what I was doing.

Mr R could not accept that girls could do the same as the boys, and sometimes actually do better.
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'Making Waves' by being as good or better at what had been thought as the male subjects.

​Joy Shirley
​March 2020

Fiesta             Celebration; event
Festivity        Celebration; event
Festival         Celebration; event

So what is a fiesta of festivities?  Among different definitions of the words, two stand out as being the same for fiesta and festivity (as well as festival).  These are a celebration or an event, the same definition for each of these words. 

We have many celebrations and events in Benalla every year.  Of course the two we talk about are the Wall to Wall Festival and the Benalla Festival in November.  They are named festivals, with included celebrations and festivities. 

But there are so many other events that take place, so we really should be celebrating all our events – we are a town with a fiesta of festivities.

But do you know about them all?

There are some that are promoted heavily – the Gold Cup in September and the Benalla Show in October.

We hear about several community events – the Walk to D’Feet MND; Walk & Wake Up to Dementia.

Earlier in 2019 we enjoyed The Source Benalla, an innovative event that explores our region and connects people with fantastic opportunities available right here in our own back yard.  And it provides the platform for the great producers, distillers, brewers, makers, and community groups to reach out and connect with the public all in the tranquil setting of the Benalla Botanical Gardens.

We have a range of forums that are organised by various groups around our town. The most recent was the Age Friendly Community Forum

We should not forget the monthly Craft and Farmers Market – a time when many of the community and visitors enjoy our lakeside.

All of these are events… are celebrations, celebrations for fun, celebrations of what we can achieve, celebrations of what concern us and celebrations of what we are trying to change around us.

We see the results of the Yarn Bombing in August that brightens up the town in the last month of winter.  'Benalla Rugged Up' is becoming an annual yarn bombing event which came about in 2018 when thinking about something that could involve the community at a quiet time of the year - winter.  At the end of winter the streetscape has little colour and the yarn bombing brings colour to the street.

And there are others that very few know about.

Did you know that there is a Strong Wool Sheep & Wool Fair in May each year?  This is a celebration of sheep and wool grown in the North East of Victoria, and it is held in Benalla. 

And we must not forget the events that are in some of the smaller communities that make up Benalla Rural City.  Swanpool are active with the Bald Archies in previous years, and more recently the SCRAP exhibition in winter.  As part of the Benalla Festival, many of these communities get involved with their own events – Tatong Art Show and Great Big Garage Sale, Moorngag Mower Mania, Goorambat Scarecrow Art amongst many.

There are exhibitions all over the town.  There is the Migrant Camp Open Day, special events at the Art Gallery and at North East Artisans.

The library has weekly events for children, special events during school holidays, book readings and writing workshops.

And there are other celebrations – festivities.  We each within our families and friends celebrate special occasions.  Amongst our family and friends there have been several celebrations of 70th birthdays in the last twelve months – those of us born in 1948 to 1949.
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We are a town of events and celebrations, so let’s celebrate and rejoice that we have such a wide range of events that we can enjoy in Benalla – a fiesta of festivities – a celebration of celebrations.


Joy Shirley
​October 2019

I have not found a significant “If only” that really would have made a significant improvement in my life.  So I have listed some “if only” occasions that did not mean much or more often resulted in a positive result. 

“If only” I had stayed close to the office when travelling to Melbourne on business, instead of travelling across town to stay with my mother, I WOULD NOT have spent the last night and morning of her life with her.

“If only” we had not left Canberra to move to Benalla, I MIGHT not have joined U3A and met so many new friends.

“If only” we had bought one of the other houses we looked at in Benalla, I MAY not have had such great neighbours.  But I MAY have met just as many different great neighbours

“If only” we had not supported our daughter in her move to Perth to train at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts at 16 years old, there may have been several consequences.  She MAY have resented our decision, causing lots of tension.  But she WOULD NOT have ended in a difficult relationship which fortunately did not last.  And through several her own “if only” decisions would not have her with her current career and happy family situation.

“If only” my husband had not seen the career page in the local newspaper, our son MAY have not trained as an officer in the Merchant Navy, ending up in sound relationship and working in a job he loves, and which has given him a very comfortable life style.

So many of the “If only” times in our lives can have such positive results, or repercussions that really do not matter.  For me, I think that focussing on “If only” can be irrelevant to our lives, and in some situations resulting in just making us unhappy or depressed.  In thinking about this
topic, I can only be grateful for the decisions we have made and the results that we have lived, rather than things we have missed out on in our lives.

Joy Shirley
September 2019

Take a deep breath.  Tell myself “I can do this”.
This is what I find I need to do before attempting something that is outside my comfort zone.  Where I am afraid I will fail.  That I am not confident I can do.  Where I am not sure where to start.
The latest example was the management of the yarn bombing, “Benalla Rugged Up” event.  I had not planned on being the one to do this.
The easiest part of the project is the knitting.  There are many people who are happy to contribute in this way.  But the actual co-ordination and establishment of the process is the part that no-one wants to do.
People who had been involved with the co-ordination for the inaugural event in 2018 were not able to help this year.  I had been away for most of the preparation time and the installation in 2018, so did not know what process should be followed.
The crunch point came at the end of May when we returned from a trip to Queensland.  Very little progress has been made while we were away.  Was I the only one who wanted the event to proceed?
I was afraid that I could not do this.  I was also afraid that many people would be disappointed if it did not proceed.  They had already worked hard to produce the decorations. 
So, take a deep breath.  Tell myself “I can do this”. 
There was documentation from 2018.  So taking one step at a time, I started the process.  There were letters to write, funding to find, event approval from the council to obtain.  And we needed somewhere to sort the materials donated.
“I can do this” ... one step at a time. 
The Gliding Club provided accommodation for the sorting and preparation of the donations.
We needed volunteers for the installation.  Last year we had assistance from the ANZ bank as part of their community support activities.  Could they help again?  The answer was yes.  Another step completed.
We could apply to the Council for a Community Support Grant to cover installation costs.  We needed to find an organisation to sponsor our application.  This was not easy, but eventually we found an organisation.
We needed insurance – public liability and volunteer.  Again this took some effort, but eventually we had this in place.
And we needed to apply to the Council for approval to run the event.  This included things like a Risk Assessment and an Emergency Plan.
It was in talking with a Council Officer to work through the event application that I realised what I had been doing was managing a project.  I had been a Project Manager during my professional life.  I was doing was something that I had experienced previously as far as process was concerned.  It was just in a very different context.  So I relaxed.  Everything was falling into place.
We achieved what we set out to do.  And I followed the mantra “I can do this” … one step at a time.


Joy Shirley
​August 2019

"My Happy Hens"
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These are my happy hens!  Why are they Happy Hens?  The story is that many years ago, people had hens running around their yards.  This contributed to making happy homes.  These hens fulfil the same function for our homes.

Happy Hens is a popular Dunedin attraction that creates hen-themed products, beautifully handmade from their New Zealand workshop. Cruise passengers and passing locals tend to fall in love with the Happy Hens products for the sense of joy they impart, their original, bold designs are recognisable everywhere.  The Happy Hens phenomenon is largely due to their shape and original, distinctive designs and the fact that every culture relates to Hens and Chickens

They come from the Otago region of New Zealand, near Dunedin.  It was while visiting friends that I “met” the happy hens.  After the hens are made, they are hand painted, often in the colours or style of a real hen breed.  So these are Ancona hens

For some time I have had extra hens stored away for gifts when I think someone needs a lift in their lives.  And of course I have given them to our children, and as gifts for special occasions.  I do not know if it made for a happier home for these friends, but it certainly made me happy to be able to give.  Of course thinking about my happy Hens also reminds me of our friends in Dunedin who we very rarely see.
 
A Pie Plate ... and "Mum's apple pies...."

I was thinking about my mother and the family tradition around her apple pies.  Her practice was to make several pies and have them in the freezer ready for use.  This meant that the mess made when making her pastry was made only once.  And she always had an apple pie in the freezer to pull out whenever we visited.  They varied in size, and these are a couple of the plates she used to bake them. 

This reminded me about watching her make pastry when I was a child.  She made a slightly flaky pastry.  It was in the time when cooking was done using dripping, the fat and juices exuded from meat in cooking, used for basting, for making gravy, or as a cooking fat, rather than the cooking oils favoured today.  To make the pastry Mum would roll out the dough, spread dripping over the dough, fold the dough, roll it out again spread more dripping etc until she was happy.  But this was no ordinary dripping.  Fresh dripping bought form the butcher was too clean and hard.  It really needed to be seasoned a bit by use.  This gave it more flavour as well as meaning it was easier to spread.

So, this is one of the plates that she used for these pies.  I was sure I had a couple of others in different sizes but could not find them.


Joy Shirley

​TIME – a Cruel Mistress?
 
My daughter and I seem to have a different concept of time, or maybe it is just a different approach to time.

Jemma’s approach is more “just in time”, but I like to be a bit more prepared than that in most situations.

As a very young child, barely two years old I think, bedtime was not necessarily sleep time.  She was happy to go to bed at the set time, and then sleep when she was ready.  So bedtime was book or colouring time.  It was not unknown for me to take a colouring pencil and book out of her sleeping hands when turning off her light.  We jokingly said the child was born to be on the stage.  Little did we know!  Her first love was ballet.  She trained at tertiary level, with a Tertiary Diploma in dance from the WA Academy of Performing Arts.  She did not end up performing a lot but did have a career in dance teaching for several years, which involved competition and concerts to co-ordinate.

As she grew up, I was often frustrated as Jemma just did not seem to understand that to be ready on time meant actually getting ready!  I remember one occasion when I practically threw her into the car, no shoes and socks, hair unbrushed so that we could get where we were going on time.  In retrospect, this was part of her ongoing approach – just in time was good enough.
As she progressed at school, this still seemed to be her approach.  If she had a project to complete, it was always late on the night before it was due.  Late nights to complete the work did not worry her.  What was particularly frustrating for me though was that she always got good marks for her work!

Even as an adult, she will still not have the same sense of time.  She will often still be up early in the morning “completing something”.  As she works from home, it is always tempting to work into the early hours, or she might be finishing a piece of crochet, or just reading a book.

Overall, I do not think that Jemma is a mistress to time; she manages to achieve all she needs to on time.  In general her children are at school on time, at their various activities on time.  And she completes the work assignments on time.  It is me who found time a cruel mistress in my frustration over her approach, but I do need to accept she is who she is.


Joy Shirley
​May 2019