Author: TravellinPenguin

I’m still skidding across the floor from last week’s activities. I keep thinking one of these weeks will slow down but not yet.

LOOKING AHEAD

We are preparing to spend most of September in Cambodia and Vietnam so organising household things, eating up food or toss it out, doing final preparations on boarding for two cats and two dogs and attending to normal social activities. The pets are all going to camp in wonderful places though we’ve not told them yet.

 BOOK

I had a wonderful conversation with a friend last week and of course the topics always veer around to books. I asked her what she is reading, and she mentioned the book “The Deed” by Australian writer and GP Susannah Begbie. I downloaded it and am also nearly finished with it.

 Tom Edwards is a cranky old landowner of 10,000 acres and has four adult children he doesn’t put much stock in. One daughter is flighty, travels and is quite vague. One son has a business he is obsessed with. Then another daughter has a family with teenagers and is busy taking them to all their after school events and the last daughter stays on the farm, seemingly being the only responsible one in his eyes of her father. Then Tom, the old man, suddenly dies.

 The deed is what is announced when the will is read. None of the children will inherit a cent unless the four of them come together and in four days build his coffin, from wood on the property, to his exact specifications. Of course, all four of them squabble all the time and barely see one another and now they must cope with this enormous task. And I remind you they only have four days.

 It is a very light hearted read that I find a tiny bit tedious at times. It is also quite predictable too. This is what I always refer to as a “fluffy” book. A “fluffy” book is one that you just read and enjoy. A bit of escapism from all one must do daily.

 LIFE IN GENERAL

 Last week saw a few medical appointments. Our annual skin check is always important. Australia has the highest rates of melanoma in the world. I came out clear, but Mr. P has a few things to attend to once we’re back from our trip.

Then a notice for the bi-annual mammogram appointment came but they won’t do it now as I’m going to be away and in case they need to call me in they want me in the country. So that has been deferred to October.

We had to get Visa photos and visas for Cambodia and Vietnam and that took all afternoon one day. The travel bureau was using new software to finalise the Visas and Australia Post wasn’t doing the right thing in transferring visa photos to us digitally so that had to be redone.

We also managed to squeeze a performance by Australian tv personality and comedian, Kitty Flanagan with some friends, at the Theatre Royal. She was very funny and just what we needed to finish a hectic week.

Friday had me at the optometrist as I’ve been noticing (or is it my imagination) my glasses I purchased last November don’t seem to be doing the job. Sure enough my dodgy eye (left) is still stable, meaning I can’t see much out of it but the right eye had very high pressure and has deteriorated just a bit. So another pair of specs have been ordered and a very decent pair of prescription sunglasses. They are supposed to arrive before we head off on our trip.

I went out to the lamp store and bought a very good medical reading lamp that almost lights up the whole neighbourhood when switched on. It has this great bulb that has three settings on it. Warm light, cool light and very high bright light. I’ll be able to read real books with this light instead of always depending on Big Font Kindle and Audible with the new glasses. Very excited about it.

I just picked up a lovely book at Fullers recently that was featured in their newsletter and I’m really looking forward to reading it.  In light of having mentioned I need to read more short stories and essays this book is entitled “A Different Sound:  Stories by Mid- Century Women Writers.” Selected by Lucy Scholes who I haven’t heard of.

As you can see from the Table of Contents there are some interesting writers here. Stay tuned for how I go with this.

THE WEATHER – 11 C ~ 51 F Drizzle

On the seasonal front I am happy to report that spring is definitely in the air, and I am really enjoying it. So are the dogs who are playing in the yard for longer periods of time checking out their neighbourhood outside of the fence.  The silver wattle trees are in full bloom. The temperatures though are still a bit of a roller coaster.

 The only thing on tv that has held my interest was the Amsterdam detective series of Van der Valk. I really like this show and the Amsterdam location. But now done with it and watching a lot of you tube videos on the Kamala Harris and Tim Walz rallies in the U. S. and the Democratic National Convention is this week.

Well, I think I’ve wrapped up the past 10 days and hopefully will get some time this week to read some of your posts you put up with a couple of comments. All the best.

Laugh of the day from funniest photographs competition. I don’t know who the photographer is.

The past couple of weeks have soared by yet I feel I have little to show for them. A few gym sessions, a morning tea with a Tassie travel organisation and playing with the dogs.

I also really enjoyed a book I finished this past week.

The book…

I first heard of this author via Intrepid Angeleno’s post of Paris in July.

She discussed a different book by David Lebovitz but I couldn’t find that one. However I did find this book l’appart:  The delights and disasters of making my Paris home.

David Lebovitz was living in San Francisco and decides he is going to begin living in Paris. It is something he has always wanted to do. So he bites the bullet and dives straight in, buying a fixer upper apartment in the 11^th arrondissement.

He takes us with him as he goes through the bureaucracy of actually working with the realtor and all the other bureaucrats he must deal with. What a palaver to actually finish the process. All of this happens between his visits to cafes.

Then he hires the contractor Claude. He decides to treat Claude as his friend makes friends as he thinks it will make things go smoother and faster. Everyone around him says, “Don’t do that. It will backfire. The Frence treat workers much differently. You must be their boss!!! “

However he does not listen, taking the contractor to lunch, making him pastries and ice cream. The more he does for this guy the worse it becomes. Incompetency, lateness, no shows begin happening and only get worse and worse. Every time Claude arrives with het another excuse, David must turn over more checks. I can’t believe how gullible and forgiving he was. These moments are laugh out loud one minute and cringeworthy the next.

The apartment is not hooked up to the water main at the street. As he is living in this apartment block there is a rule that in order to get his water hooked up to his flat there must be a formal city meeting with all the other tenants in the apartment complex and they all must vote on whether they will allow the water main to be connected.

Lebovitz is a chef. He begins baking all kinds of goodies and passing them out to the neighbours, trying to get them all on side. None of them seem very friendly to begin with but it works. The water is finally connected.

I might add the book is filled with wonderful French recipes. Do not read these if hungry. You’ll need a large pantry.

Once the renovations are completed an inspection takes place only to reveal a completely disastrous result.

The flooring is ridiculous. The plumbing deep in the underground of Paris tunnels is creepy.

You really need to read this book to believe how horrific it is. The reader can’t help but shake their head and there is a lot of tut, tut, tutting going on looking at these pages.

I thoroughly enjoyed shopping with David and Claude especially at Ikea. It is a nightmare experience and so unbelievable. The way one gets served is so bad you want to close the book and never think of going to an Ikea. The bureaucracy is just lunatically bizarre if there is such a phrase. I mean really crazy.  I thought America and Australia had bureaucracy but they are really a walk in the park.

Well, I think this gives you the gist of the book. I really enjoyed it.

Check out my other life post of the week if you haven’t already here https://travellinpenguin.com/2024/08/11/spring-is-getting-closer/.

Until next time…

The past few days have been quite hectic.

On Wednesday we had to take our 10 yr old tabby cat, Cousin Eddie to the vet for a dental. He appeared to have a build up of tartar on his teeth so I dropped him off just after 8 am on the way to my Pilates class.

About 4 pm, Jane, the vet and a very close friend rang me up to say it wasn’t as smooth going as we expected.

Unfortunately he seems to have an undiagnosed auto-immune disorder and it causes the roots of the teeth to dissolve. He had a couple of teeth with holes in them that didn’t get noticed during his yearly examination. It was only under anesthetic they could be found. As a result he had to have both his lower incisors, those big pointy ones, pulled out as well as a molar. Jane was surprised to see there was little root support as the roots had dissolved.

She took blood samples and that was good and x-rays showed a bit of fading like darkness on the film. She referred to the spots as “casts”. So now Jane is getting her head together with a specialist vet and see if anything needs to happen with these “casts” on the x-ray.  After I pulled $2000.00 out of my pocket (tongue in cheek) I got to take him home.  Thank goodness for pet insurance.

Vets have so much new technology now a days compared to the “olden days” and it costs a lot of money and it is the pet owners who pay for it. Do not think pet insurance isn’t worth it if you don’t have it. I have used it so much over the years.

Cruciate ligaments x 4 or 5 with dogs. Neighbour putting down rat poison and all 5 of our pets were poisoned though cured after weeks of treatment. Snake bite to one of our cats resulted in overnighting in emergency vet office and a week in hospital only to pass away at the end.

Pancreatitis in a dog. The list goes on and on and pet insurance covered so much of it. You just never know what is going to crop up.

We are having to feed Eddie little balls of mince for a week or tuna straight from the can as regular cat food will get stuck in his wounds and stitches. The stitches will dissolve. He can’t have dry food yet either because of the sore molar. So we stand in the kitchen rolling small balls of mince, tuna and chicken pieces, the size of marbles, maybe smaller and he gobbles them down. We laugh that with all there is happening in the world we stand in the kitchen and roll mince balls.

Meanwhile our other cat Grizzy has to eat in a bedroom as he has all the food Eddie can’t have yet. Back to the vet the end of this week for his checkup.

 I managed to get to the gym three times last week which really felt good. I also had a lovely coffee with a new friend I’ve made through Fullers book groups. I really enjoy this woman’s company and we met up for a coffee and had the best chat. We have so much in common and she likes cafes and books as much as I do. Another Fullers book shop benefit. 

My trainer and I went out too after my session. We were working on balance and both of us ended up in fits of laughter on the floor. Who would think an almost 75 yr old would roll around on the floor laughing.

So all in all it has been a pretty good couple of weeks. This coming week looks to be busy so stay tuned for the next post.

Let me know how your week is looking so far. I really enjoy hearing from everyone and look forward to seeing what you are posting up this week too.

I am posting a book review of an enjoyable French book in a moment so look out for that.

See you there…https://travellinpenguin.com/2024/08/11/a-little-bit-of-paris-but-not-the-olympics/