Since mid-December 2016, the beautiful Lesley and I have
been luxuriating in our swish two-bedroom apartment in The Ocean Reef Country Club.
It is very comfortable and located close to shops and Mullaloo Beach. In fact, after
ten months, we still feel like we are on holidays.
Last December I also gave up my part time consultancy
work with the Western Australian Principals’ Association. Since then, I have
thrown myself enthusiastically into retirement mode. Bob Hope once said he
liked being retired because he woke up at nine o’clock in the morning and,
after a full breakfast, it was time for his nap.
My life is not quite like that. There seems to be
something for me to do on most days. Lesley and I like going to Morning Symphonies
at the Concert Hall and Morning Melodies at His Majesty’s Theatre. We also like
going to the movies and enjoying coffee or a meal at various eateries. Of
course, we also keep quite busy meeting up with family and friends.
All of this is wonderful, however, I thought I needed
to put some purpose back into my life. So, at the end of September, I bit the
bullet and produced a four-page newsletter, in glorious colour, for our
community complex. It has been well received, so I intend to produce a
newsletter each month.
I call it TORCC, which is an acronym for The Ocean Reef Country Club. Oh, what an original thinker
with a devilish, rapier like wit, am I?
Publication was not without problems. After compiling
the newsletter, I started printing it and my old, very domestic printer,
immediately had a nervous breakdown and began omitting whole lines of text.
In another burst of inspired genius (I am also very
humble) I decided to take my newsletter to Office Works. I asked the girl at
the desk how much it would cost to print in colour the four A4 sheets on both sides of
two pieces of paper.
“I’ll just get you a quote,” she smiled and dashed to
nearby computerised piece of technology and started punching in the numbers. Then, she looked up, beamed at me and said, “That’ll
be $188.”
“No thanks,” I replied and beat a hasty retreat,
clutching tightly the $20 I though it may have cost me.
I went to SNAP Print. They quoted $120. I immediately
did one of my famed Elvis Presley impersonations and left the building.
I mean, printing this newsletter was to be a hobby. A self-prescribed
therapy, designed to ward of incipient Alzheimer’s Disease. It was not supposed
to send me into penury.
I called in to see my daughter, Sarah, whom I knew
possessed a more sophisticated, much newer printer than my uncooperative and
incompetent model.
It worked.
Sarah’s printer managed to print the four separate
sheets on to two double sided ones. Lesley and I stapled them together and
delivered them to the forty letterboxes in the complex, thereby bringing
sunshine and happiness to the inmates.
My major concern was that residents who had large
signs on their letter boxes saying, “No Junk Mail” or “Addressed Mail Only”
would be ringing me up or banging on the front door to complain about the junk mail I was giving them. So
far nobody has done that, which is encouraging.
Anyhow, now I have purchased a brand-new printer, so
that I do not need to trouble Sarah any more (She said it was no trouble, but I
like to be independent.)
I am just off now to take a picture of the Painting
group in the Clubhouse. They meet every Thursday.
Then I am going to take a picture of a green rubbish
bin and a yellow rubbish bin. These pictures will be part of my graphic news
story in the October issue, informing people that there is an important reason
for the different coloured bins. It has been my observation that many residents
just put whatever rubbish they have into the first bin they come upon. All part of my scheme to help save our precious earth from toxic landfill and polluted water tables.
No doubt this story and win me the Pulitzer Prize for
journalism. Maybe, even the Nobel Prize for Peace, or even Science.
I must hurry away and start preparing my acceptance
speech for the knighthood and Order of Australia that will surely follow.
Dear Reader, as you have just read, it seems the only real
exercise I am getting in my retirement is jumping to conclusions and letting my
imagination run away with itself.
Maybe, it is time for my nap.
