Day in the life of the widow of a Fijian talatala

Day in the life of a widow of a Fijian talatala

·         6 a.m. cup of tea and honey on toast. It’s 5 degrees in Geelong.

·         Feed guinea pigs vegetables then put Ginger Meggs and Ratu Vulavula inside a carton to bring into the lounge room near the gas heater for a couple of hours.  They huddle together,a but anxious to be away from the freedom of the large puppy pen in the verandah.

·          Andy makes porridge for three, Take four pills.

·         Watch TV news – death, mayhem, chasing Corby unsuccessfully.

·         Check emails, facebook, Addie, Age, Fiji media. Not much going on.

·         10 a.m. to the medical clinic, read the paper Addie in 4 minutes, meet the new Diabetes Educator Georgia. (Every six months have a checkup.) A long session – of nearly an hour - with a new girl learning the computer options, slowing it all down. Bit of joking to mask my mismanagement of diet, etc. BP is 150/70, way too high.

·         Back home decide to try out Andy’s swing, high, low, high, low, then when I get down I spew up into the garden.

·         Grandson calls in on the way to work and we make arrangements for one of the cars to be serviced. We are grateful that the grandsons are working full-time.

·         Make tomato soup for lunch and pick grass in the garden for the guinea pigs.

·         2 p.m.  Instead of going to the library for our Book Club we go to the cafe in James Street where they have spectacular cakes for $8 a piece. There are six of us, a wake to remember our delightful member Maria whose funeral some of us attended a few days ago. Last meeting a month ago she was with us, animated, intelligent, sparkling with wit -  but alas two weeks ago after surgery there was a setback. Her body in now back in Portugal with kin. So we mainly buy coffee and little Portuguese cakes – like French madeleines. We talk about the book of the month – The Vegetarian – by a South Korean writer. Very dark, sad, scary. It’s now a movie – art-house kind.

·         I walk a block (with a walking stick) to catch the Newcomb/Whittington bus – haven’t used the buses for two months. It’s a run to catch it  - the buses pull up about four at a time – for less than a minute -and my BP is way up as I scurry.

·         Back at home, the TV ‘Heartbeat’ is starting – small rural setting in England and the lives of the police and others. I’m a sucker for this program at present. And other English detective/forensic kind of programs.

·         Andrew has made flatbread wraps with chicken and greens so that’s my late afternoon snack.

·         On the computer I do half-an-hour of the church bulletin for next week – including a contribution by one of the women and a prayer by St Francis of Assisi which sounds quite contemporary for our modern world.  There are some good posts from the Methodist Church in Fiji. There’s  lots of comments that started with Margaret Court’s letter re definition of marriage – that really got the possums out of their hidey holes, their bushy tails shaking with anger. Plenty of bias and prejudice on both sides of the argument.  Even in the local paper there are arguments about flying rainbow flags.

·         Our angel from Christ Church Anglican has dropped in with a box of vegetables and all sorts of goodies. We are so blessed by these gifts.

·         Tea is bacon and eggs and greens.  I have now a plan for six months which includes care with diet, twice a week at the heated swimming pool, etc. And after the periscope examination in a couple of weeks, then I can find out if I have a serious illness or not – to know why I have anaemia and low iron stores, etc.

·         Tidy up the kitchen, do the dishes.  Nothing much on TV tonight.

·         Aching despite the Panadol Osteo so find the Deep Heat.

·         That’s about it for the day so it’s time for bed and listening to the ABC talkback and quiz after midnight.