The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 25 May - 14 June 2020
Staying Covid safe at Montage cafe - Olinda
May 25thI notice my tiny orange tree at the back of the property has 39 oranges growing on it. Yeah of course I counted them. Strange as it is only a week till Winter.The Bathroom repaint continues, it's all the fiddly bits that slow us down. It will take longer then i expected but that's ok, the final result should be pretty good. I walk down to the post box in the cold and dark to mail our friend Fenella a card. I don't mind these walks into the darkness. I'm sending her card ahead of the present, as I don't expect the box to arrive on time but the card might. May 26thCutest Quarantine moment comes from Clark Colt & The Quarantine Kids.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XzvB6lsrzs May 27thI'm working on the Archives today. Sarah Michelle Gellars "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" coat... which is still in amazing condition.We found this very cute Buffy- opps Sarah Michelle tv advert when she was 4 years old and it was for Burger King..... soon after McDonalds banned her for life. Some may say that is a good thing. Explains why she has such a healthy waistline! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ss7_5PSnyA Afternoon we spent painting Marks bathroom, all the walls now done, just leaves the roof. It's looking good. Neil Finn turns 62, I do drop him a line. Happy Birthday to Allen too. May 28thI have a tiny bucket of old house paint brushes that i was a slack tart and just didn't wash them out so all dried and chunky. So I'll use this special gel mix in the hope I can resurrect them. I just hate throwing things away and good paint brushes can be expensive.I balance on the ladder with a roller working the roof while Mark paints some of the fiddly windows bits. A bit of a clean up but finally, the bathroom is complete. May 29thDon't you hate that lame shit on Facebook where people believe their names mean something. Such bullshit, lets be real it's never going to say your name means "You are a disloyal fat dumb bitch that everyone hates" or 'Your penis is the size of a peanut and you talk crap"- . Good grief do people really believe this rubbish. So pathetic.I win $70 on lotto, so a bit thrilled by that. I rarely take a ticket but nice to have a win when i do. Chat to my Mum and we both confess we miss Peppermint Crisps chocolate bars. The Australian Federal Government is refunding $721 Million worth of 'debts' paid back via the Liberals ridiculous Robodebt disaster. Another failure, no human oversight-just a computer algorithm -they still won't apologise to people for the stuff up. All hell is breaking out in Minneapolis 8000 protesting on the first night over the death of George Floyd. The National Guard called into Minneapolis. You get the feeling America might explode. Trump has been strangely quiet, even on Twitter, probably locked away in his bomb shelter. May 30thHappy Birthday Fenella. Relieved that the birthday parcel, wrapped in my hand screen paper arrived, you just never know if you can trust Aussie Post in a Pandemic. The birthday card, mailed a few days before hasn't yet- I rest my case.I decided to bake a roast for dinner with loads of vegies form our garden. It's been awhile since i cooked one, really enjoyable and not an ounce of fat on it. I'm going to keep my Facebook page to 1500 friends. Too hard to handle any more- so it reached 1500 and I'm ignoring any other 'Friends' requests for the moment. May 31st"Operation Buffalo" was on the ABC tonight- enjoyed it, think it is a 6 parter. We are also watching lots of stuff on Watergate via the History channel. Still shocked that President Gerald Ford gave Nixon a presidential pardon in 1974.Good to see Space X have a successful launch today. It reminded me that I have to start on drawings around MIMS space ship for her Dance performance at our house when she visits. Bowies "Space Oddity" will be the music. Space IS the Place! June 1stA nice cold start to Winter, it was Zero up here at 1.00 this morning.We enjoyed "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" , we watch it every few years. I love that Anjelica Huston appears as an extra in the scene where the boat returns to the jetty from the fishing trip. Cool movie. Montage is open again with seating limitations. It's my 1 hr escape, still in some sort of lock down but I call in for a takeaway coffee. I spot Mary & Sandra -i'm convinced that Mary bunkered down in a sleeping bag out front waiting for it to open. I didn't sit today, still attempting to be good- but had a chat and really nice to see them both. Happy Birthday to Marks brother Stephen-he's a good bloke - not sure how he is enjoying being a Senior. Ha! A huge rain storm hits the mountain in the afternoon- bits of road flood and the water tanks are over flowing. When it's over I go for a little 1 hour hike along the Thompsons Track. No people , loads of fog , I do like my own company at times. June 2ndInteresting documentary on the Black Death and recent skeletons found while they were working on new underground rail links in England. One of the areas they were digging out was an area for mass graves around the Bubonic plague. After doing some dental check (teeth tend to hold the virus etc for so long) looks like the Black Death was really spread via Pneumonic Plague not Bubonic. The original infection was Bubonic but it changed to Pneumonic- people coughing up blood and spreading it via the air. Fascinating, especially now with Covid being spread through coughing etc.I felt a bit sad tonight when my Mum said "The World Is Shit". I was a bit speechless, as she sounded so sad. A cold wet foggy day, we both lived in our Pajamas all day. June 3rdGDP figures in for the Jan/Feb/March quarter for Oz. Down 0.3% but the real drop will be the next figures for April/May/June- they expect it to be massive. Australia is already in a technical Recession. The first Recession in almost 30 years.June 4thDoc Neeson from The Angels has been dead 6 years today. I played some of the recordings we made of the bands live shows from 1979. Amazing gigs. We miss ya Doc.My friend Alison tells me that Steve Priest from The Sweet died today too age 72. RIP. I am driving a Cherry Red coloured car today - very funky. We had to go to our Apple computer shop, Miss Banshee managed to remove some of the keys from my lap-top. I keep telling that cat to stop sending emails. June 5thI'm in my car and have ABC radio on (774) and Kathie Sullivan is being interviewed about her new book, on the complete works of aussie artist Brett Whiteley . It sounds great, will have to buy a copy. I only met Whiteley at the Sydney gallery the once, thanks to our Art teacher. Of course my old home town has the distinction of being the place where he died- Thirroul beach Motel- 15th June 1992- opiate overdose. For years I had a bit of a crush on Arkie-his daughter .June 6thI see Joe Biden has clinched the US Democratic Presidential Nomination. Joes certainly off to a good start, ahead of Trump is every Poll. Some by 14 points and around 55% . Hillary never had 55% in any of her Polling. I bet this has shaken up Trump - Good!June 7thI sit outside Montage and wait for Josie & Pete to arrive. Josie volunteers at a Charity store and has found me two almost new white bed sheets which I'm painting into backdrops for Maddison- and what a bargain-$3 for both. I give her $5 towards the charity, $3 seems way too cheap. I'm stoked as they are perfect! I can't wait to start painting.June 8thA blood Moon tonight, the creatures outside are sure active. It's sending them into a bit of a frenzy.Have a chat to Peggy in America, and wish her all the best for her Birthday. We love ya mad Dog! June 9thSunny day but the air has a bite to it. Like you are not allowed to get warm from the Sun in Winter. I stand on the spot and suck in those golden rays.I chat to local Wendy about helping with some of her Dads slides for his funeral. She runs a "Hidden Treasure" place -which i avoid as I know I'll bring some of it home. I'm trying for "less" in our lives. June 10thI head up to Montage to buy some cream -regular and sour cream, thought I'd get a take away coffee , but Mary and sandra inside so I sit (at a distance) and we all catch up. Way way too much laughter.I'm back to working on the various bits & pieces for Maddies little production. I've almost finished the main Mars landscape- a combination of Ultra Pave-paving paint- Terra Cotta and a big mix of Solarguard low sheen- slate grey- gives it a nice Mars hue. Some more spray cans tomorrow so adding some silver into a few white pieces. I was determined to have a Blue Earth... to go with Bowies "Planet Earth Is Blue" line... so dug around and found an old deflated Yoga ball that by good fortune is blue. So I hand painted a Red Australia on it-and it even looks like Oz! Took a few test snaps with some of the mould grot and I'm leaving it on the ball.. they look like tiny cloud shadows or islands. I'm tempted to put a "You are here" arrow on it.. we shall see. Mark wanders in and out all day, inspecting it and chopping wood. Adding some ideas around light levels and other things-I always listen to him. He doesn't think I do, but yeah, value his comments. June 11thAnother Sunny day but Kalorama Oval covered in frost , was all set for a few laps but it's icy slippery, so just some walking instead.I call into Spotlight- and I'm now the proud owner of a glue gun. Noel from the Enz was showing me the many uses of them so it was a must have. I also grab a bag of eyelits for edging work-to tie up the backdrops. Mark finds some cool Space Cloth badges and also some MIM letters for our nieces Space Suit. Plus a big saving using my Old Lady Spotlight VIP card. This had to be my bargain shop for the week-so cheap. We arrive at Montrose for a Picnic lunch with buddy Kim. She's such great cook, the food was wonderful - still kept a sensible distance but this made our day. June 12thI find an old photo of myself as a young kid in my favourite cowboy hat. It is a bit blurry but i figure it might be good for my Facebook audience.Mark has the fire roaring tonight and we are up for a game of Pool. He wins, but it was a rather epic few games. A fine effort from both of us. The Jukebox is playing, time for it to get a new needle, which I can do via America, so I'm told. June 13thI open a little storage box in the garage and find some old Boomerangs of mine. One especially is fantastic , given to me by my Grandfathers brother Ted in 1972!!!!! He (and his wife Edna) spent time with the Kunja people in Cunnamulla and they gave him several Aboriginal presents. So I take the main Boomerang to Kalorama oval and enjoy throwing it- a few returns which I successfully catch. Catching a Boomerang is very important , it can do some serious damage if you stuff it up. I love the exceptional artwork on these too.I'm home in time for a call from Enz bassist Nigel Griggs. It was meant to be a short chat but an hour later and we are still talking. I have some Granny Smith Apples so I make an Apple Pie from them. Cut the pieces larger then I usually do - it's pretty good. Nice to have that warm apple pie in Winter. The last 3 days we have had the largest number of new Covid infections (worldwide) since this thing started. Now that's a worry! June 14thI was going to sleep in today but we ran out of bread so thought I'd better get up and bake some. Banshee seems to be wanting food earlier in Winter, maybe she is trying to put on some weight - so no chance of having a sleep in.Nice to chat to Miss K in Pittsburgh , I'm keeping Mum to Mark that she has a Covid facecover that has Rolling Stones tongues on it -he will be envious. I certainly am! On that note-stay safe everyone. xPG |