February 2025

Tomorrow is the 21st of February, the birthday of Les. One year ago, my age was 89 and five months, and Les turned 86. Les and I had last year nine months of wonderful togetherness. Then this most lovely heart of Les stopped beating, just like that. The last three months without Les have been very lonely for me.

Peter Hannemann’s Blog called ‘Weekend’

Peter published this blog in August 2015!

I am now contemplating to self-publish a book with some of my blogs and some of Peter’s blogs in it. Maybe I can for instance include this Weekend Blog from 2015. Anyhow, the following is a copy of Peter’s blog and the responses to it. Maybe you’ll find it interesting that Gerard Oosterman made a few comments to that blog nearly ten years ago. Peter turned 80 in May of that year, and Gerard turned 75 in August of 2015.

Here is the copy of Peter’s blog:

Last evening this message from my daughter Caroline came up on my FB site:

“Work for the day and the week done. Social media for the day done. Time for some dinner and a glass of red to start a rejuvenating weekend. Have a good one everyone”

What did the message say? That she was happy with her achievements of the week? It almost sounded like the Bible and that the Lord was happy when he “saw it was good” and now it was time for the Sabbath. She hoped to rejuvenate when she would face the tasks in the next week.

That is how it should be, work and rest in the right proportions.

As an aged pensioner, I do a lot of rejuvenating already and I can tell you, it is not easy. I’m using a lot of energy just doing the rejuvenating. But actually, I’m not rejuvenating art all. I’m aging whatever I do.

When I was a youngster and just starting out with my working life I too looked forward to the weekends. It was time to meet up with friends and chasing girls. On Sundays, we dressed up in our finest.

A trench coat was compulsory on a rainy day. Three friends at a local festival (I'm the one on the right)

A trench coat was compulsory on a rainy day. Three friends at a local festival (I’m the one on the right)

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Cinema was the big thing and they just invented CinemaScope. The big picture really hit us when the curtain opened. The first film of this type I saw was “The Robe” with Victor Mature. In those days, I loved historical films. Even if they were not entirely true depictions of the events, they nevertheless fired our imagination.

Now, Sundays are like any other day we try to rejuvenate. There is one exception, I refuse to go shopping on a Sunday! Still, we have to adjust some of our activities to the work life of others.

In two weeks’, time, we will take the (slow) train to Melbourne. There is no fast train as our governments don’t like working for the future and the joke is, that they call the train, “Interstate Express”.

Next Saturday we will go to the theatre in Sydney. We will see “The Bleeding Tree” by Angus Cirini. I will write a blog about it, but here is one sentence Angus Cirini says, “The primary role of government is not to manage the economy it is to allow for a healthy society to flourish.”  Well, I think governments have forgotten this lesson or they just ignore it.

Here is what the Griffin Theatre writes about the play:

“In a dirt-dry town in rural Australia, a shot shatters the still night. A mother and her daughters have just welcomed home the man of the house – with a crack in the shins and a bullet in the neck. The only issue now is disposing of the body.

Triggered into thrilling motion by an act of revenge, The Bleeding Tree is rude, rhythmical and irreverently funny. Imagine a murder ballad blown up for the stage, set against a deceptively deadly Aussie backdrop, with three fierce females fighting back.”

We have our next two weekends  covered and they are “footy-free”.

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Related

Pauly the Car19/05/2015In “Diary”

Nine Days From Now30/08/2012In “Diary”

The Long Weekend26/09/2013In “Fiction”This entry was posted in Diary and tagged Cinema in the fifties, Melbourne, The Griffin, Theatre, Weekends by berlioz1935. Bookmark the permalink.

9 thoughts on “Weekend”

  1. Robert M. Weiss on  said:Life goes by too fast!Reply ↓
    • berlioz1935on  said:Indeed, it does. Thank you for commenting, Robert.The perception now is, that we are on a roller coaster. The speed is increasing at an alarming rate.I can remember when the next weekend was miles away. A whole week was a vast timespan. Now, Sundays come seemingly at daily intervals.Reply ↓
  2. gerard oosterman on  said:The Robe was also one of my first cinemascope adventures, after that Quo Vadis, The King and I and lots more. I never had a trench coat but do remember wearing ties and casual coats. I have always liked week-days more than Sundays, although I did look forward to the Saturday.
    I must also admit I have never been to a footy show either, but have been to an Easter show when it was still on at Randwick.
    We saw Chekov’s Seagull many years ago, and also a one man play were the actor was laying on a bed for the entire show. I have forgotten the name of it. The actor was brilliant..Reply ↓
  3. berlioz1935 on  said:You might be interested to know, that they started to film “The Seagull” this year in New York.Let’s see what the Americans make of it.The man on the bed, was it Kafka’s, ” The Metamorphosis”?Reply ↓
    • gerard oostermanon  said:No, it wasn’t Kafka. At the time the play was very well received and it was just one male actor during the entire show. It might have been during the eighties.Reply ↓
    • Gerard Oosterman on  said: After a lot of thinking and doing some research, I finally cracked it Peter. It was a play named; The elocution of Benjamin Franklin’ with Gordon Chater.
      He might better be remembered by “the Mavis Bramston show”.Reply ↓
      • berlioz1935on  said: Gordon Chater was a great actor. The Mavis Bramston show was the best Channel 7 ever did. They should revive it. As an antidote to the stupidity of the Abbott government.

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Living on my own at my own Home

The organization HOME INSTEAD makes this possible for my mobility is drastically shrinking and without some care giving I would not be able to look totally after myself. There are just too many things that I cannot do anymore. The Australian government is subsidizing HOME INSTED to a large extant. It is said to stay at home with some help is cheaper than be looked after in a care home.

Would I ever want to go to a care home? I do not think so. What if I really cannot look after myself anymore? I want to talk to my doctor about all this as soon as possible.

Memories about our Dutch Friends

I want to write about our friends Nick Tap and Nell Tap. They were both of Dutch origin. Nell died in January 2013. I have no idea what happened to Nick. He had major health problems. There were widespread family members, including three sons.

Nick and Nell were both born ln 1933. They suffered a lot under the German occupation in World War Two. The food that the Dutch people did grow ended up on German tables. For the Dutch population there was hardly anything to eat. The children suffered severe starvation.

As I said in the previous post Peter and I liked to visit the Taps. I remember how they told us about the scarcity of food. Once a German soldier very secretly had given Nick a piece of bread. This soldier could have been severely punished for this!

A Blog from the Past – Another Friend Gone

 auntyuta  Diary, Life in Australia, Memories  January 16, 2013 1 Minute

This is about an elderly couple, both born in 1933, just a few months older than Peter is and I am. We’ve known them for ages. When we moved, we lost touch for a while. Then we found out they had moved too. It turned out they lived not far away from where we lived. Indeed, what a surprise this was! They had moved into a very beautiful new home in a village for the elderly. From then on we started seeing each other about once a month for coffee and cake and a few games of Rummy. They always enjoyed playing this game with us. We had some good times together. Both of them suffered some ill-health; we thought the husband more so than the wife. We couldn’t see them for quite some time because the husband apparently was in a bad way, so the wife said on the phone not to come and visit. Should we have made an effort to see them anyway? Instead, I always waited for them to tell us when we could see them again. I wrote them a Christmas card. They knew that we had gone overseas for a while and that one of our daughters had died shortly before we left. So I wrote in the card a bit about our overseas trip and that we were now back home again. When we didn’t hear from them, I should have made a phone-call finding out how they were. But I didn’t ring. Why do I tend to put off phone-calls like this?

Then, yesterday, we got a phone-call from one of their sons. “Mum died last Friday,” he said. I thought I hadn’t heard right. “Did you say your Mum died?” I asked. He confirmed it and explained the funeral service would be on Friday at 11 o’clock at the Catholic Church in Dapto with the funeral procession going to the Memorial Park in Dapto after the service. And he said all the details were in the Illawarra Mercury if we wanted to have a look. “How’s your Dad?” I asked. His response was that he’s very shocked. But the family is with him. They are of Dutch origin and have a large family in Australia and overseas.

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15 thoughts on “Another Friend gone”

auntyuta EditYour sister, Peter, is a very courageous woman!

backonmyownEditI’m so sorry for the loss of your friend, Uta.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks, Pat.Reply

catterelEditThat is very sad news – and must have been a shock. But you mustn’t blame yourself for not being in touch. My sympathy, Uta.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks very much, Cat, for your comforting words. Our thoughts are very much with their sons and families who are spread all over Australia, and especially with the husband who’s left behind and who’s very sick himself.Reply

Three Well BeingsEditI was thinking this week about the number of people I know who are in various stages of grief right now. When we know so many who have lost dear friends and family it is very hard. My best to you.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks, dear Debra, for your kind words. At my age there aren’t many people still alive who are older than I am. When we came on the boat to Australia Peter and I were just about the youngest couple on board with children. Now, where-ever we go we’re nearly always the oldest! I can’t believe that next year I’m going to turn 80. But this is how it is!Reply

berlioz1935EditI agree with everything you have to say in your blog, “Another Friend gone”. But don’t worry AuntyUta, they wanted their privacy and did not feel like entertaining or discussing the state of their health.What we have now is the good memory of being together with them often. Her passing reminded me of the German movie “Cherry Blossoms” where the husband was the one in bad health, but still his wife passed away before him.Life is like that, that it throws up new problems suddenly and all we really can do is hoping that we can cope. For me the prospected of being separated from each other after our long marriage is a horrible one.Reply

auntyuta EditThanks, Peter. 🙂Reply

Zen and Genki EditI’m so sorry to hear of your loss, Aunty.Reply

auntyuta EditThank you, Anne. This death notice was a bit of a shock for us.Reply

WordsFallFromMyEyes EditDeath. Shock. It’s always a shock: there/not there. And you had written and not heard from her. She was alive when you wrote, now not. It truly is such a shock.I hope you are coping okay. I did not realise one of your daughters had died just before you went overseas. I am sorry for that too, Aunty Uta. I have only had one death in my life that mattered – none of the others did. So I haven’t really experienced it much. It really would just – yes, simply, shock.Reply

auntyutaEditThanks, Noeleen, for commenting. We went to the funeral on Friday. This was the very hot day, 45 Degrees in the early afternoon! Still, a lot of people had come to the funeral. A lady, who used to be their neighbours and who’s well into her eighties now, had come too. She used to be a good friend of ours too. But we hadn’t seen her in more than twenty years! She talked to us after she had talked to the grieving husband. It was as though we had only seen her yesterday. Than we talked to the husband for a bit too. One of their sons who is our son’s age, came over to us for a little bit. He explained that his mum had been left for the past three years with one rather sick lung. There’s a big name for this sickness which I can’t remember. This was before the church service,which was a Catholic Mass. One section of the church was packed full.
In the afternoon of that Friday Peter and I went to Wollongong for a scheduled Body.Cooperative meeting. Nearly all the home owner residents turned up for the meeting despite the heat. Since Saturday the temperature is back in the twenties.
Peter and I had a very quiet weekend. From next Thursday on we’re going to be very busy again. Peter’s older sister, who lives in Austria, is back in hospital again. It looks like she’s not going to make it much longer. I think the family is prepared for this.Reply

berlioz1935EditIt looks we had a bad trot with funerals lately. But at our age we have to expect that. The previous generation is gone and now it is us, our friends and so on.My sister is in a bad shape, but she is still smiling and she thinks the medical profession is crazy to want to prolong her life. In fact they have with great skill since the mid-seventies. But now, she has enough.Reply

Screaming

In the middle of the night, I woke up screaming.I had felt the pain. It had been very real. I was sure I had been falling out of bed and was lying in agony on the floor.

It turned out I was lying in my bed. It had been only a dream that had made me scream like this.

Soon I went back to sleep. But not for long. Waking up again I felt very unhappy for my friends had been so very silent. Why would they not talk to me? But then I realized that they had not been with me at all. It had been just a dream. In my dream, which seemed so very real, I saw the whole family: The parents Doris and Karl-Heinz, and the children Gudrun and Michael. Karl-Heinz had died years ago in an accident. Gudrun was dead too. She had died from cancer.

After all this I finally went to sleep quite well without another bad dream.