The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 3 January - 16 January 2022
"Sunrise over Kalorama after a night of helping out Deans Disaster Relief during the Tonga tsunami."
January 3rdWow another year, another new fresh crisp diary. This one has nice large individual pages so I can fill it with day to day events, things to do and other such waffle.Insane that the Rapid Antigen Tests are not free. Morrison should be ashamed of himself. They waste so much money on useless shit , but free R.A.T.s would be a good thing, the public would of applauded him. I help Dr Troy pack up his med kits for overseas. A sad farewell. Another incredible man helping people, I'm surrounded by good people. January 4thI have a really funny chat with my friend Deb at the charity today. We both were in stitches. Nice we all have a laugh, a good team of people , we get the job done but also a kind of respect for each other. I certainly have picked the right charity. I'd hate to work at a place that sucked.I do love when I put my favourite music out people buy it , sometimes instantly, my little cheap thrill for the day. Some great books come in today, so my area is looking pretty cool. Chat to mate Warwick about him staying for a few days, will be fun. Looking forward to it. January 5thGrey skies outside, we are avoiding most humans, while Covid has a free for all and the numbers climb.I go for a walk and try to find the right spot for Martin & Hisako's awesome Rosemary bush present. I'm still undecided. God our property has so many little hidden areas. Warwick arrives after lunch and we have a fun day hanging out. Watch late night tv, and lots of chat. Good he is here for a few days. January 6thA really lovely belated Christmas card from the Berry Twins in the UK. They always remember me, bless them.I'm working at the charity and in one of the bags I find a felt pennant for Townsville & a Magnetic Island cloth badge. I've never seen such things on the Island so i'm guessing early seventies. Of course this triggers my desire to head north and hang out at that beautiful location. Come home and the boys have been doing some stuff around the house. Good to see them hanging out together. January 7thI get up before the rest of the house & cook some bacon and eggs on toast for breakfast for us all. Squeeze the last of the oranges from my tree.The Deli is closed, but open for take aways. A customer stuffed it for them. The owner makes us some coffee so we can sit in the parklet. I have all these bags of peanuts so I make a satay dip, I add a few other bits and substitute but it tastes ok. Mark says it is passable. Lots of storms hitting NSW and flooding. A few places in Victoria get a good downpour, a mates roof becomes a shower. Sidney Poitier dies, always loved his wonderful Oscar speech. Sad news. January 8thHessies Birthday today, he 'd be 63. We miss him so friggin' much.Good to see Wendy and Doug, our belated Christmas get together. For desert i make a fruit salad with Figs in Armagnac. Just to be different. Wendy bakes a lemon meringue pie. We order Pizza in as it's easier. Big chat in the car with Wendy, sometimes I do freak people out- just a bit. I make a grand statement that it is indeed possible to love 2 people. is it really such a big deal, maybe it is. I don't know. I am what I am I guess. Google Nest is playing our songs tonight. A fun evening. We make a toast to Paulo. LOVE our presents. January 9th"Into The Wild" soundtrack is playing in our kitchen, I'm dancing with Banshee because Mark doesn't want to dance.I mail my Mum some sixpences for next years Christmas pudding. The last that I have. Luna the cat returns, it's a bit of a pain in the arse now as it goes under the house and keeps us awake. Someone is looking after it and it has escaped. I'm a bit shitted at the owners as they never bother to say "sorry we know this is a pain and you've had no sleep". Next time i'll let Banshee out to kick it's arse all the way home. I don't like being mean to it as it is a nice cat. January 10thExcited that the new Eddie Vedder "Earthling" album will be out early February. I've been playing 6 tracks, I'm enjoying them. I am biased as the Vedder man rarely can do wrong.Several emails from Andy White in Ireland. A favour and we are onto it. January 11thA typical day at the charity for me is.... slept in, up at 7.40, so rushing about like a chook without a head. Shower, shave, feed Banshee, gulp down cereal. Jump in the red beast and zoom down the mountain to the huge charity centre. Arrive around 8.00 but no sign of the manager. 8.30 and she still hasn't arrived. So Nicole is in charge, managers not in today, possible Covid.. A bit short staffed , someone has another Covid scare as well. Some how I manage to get everything done and it's a good sales day for books, dvds, cds and blurays. We are all in fine form, each supporting each other. My baked potatoes for lunch and there are free chocolate chip cookies today. Hooray. Head home at 3.30 .I call into the post office box and clear it on the way back- Pip and Caz mail me a "Herbs + Flowers" book. A lovely presents the drawings are outstanding, I'll use this a lot, Marky pays for Pizza for dinner and I buy some icecream. I do spot some packets of Paracetamol at the local IGA, behind a sign so grab those. With the shortages happening again in Australia it will be handy to have these. After dinner chat to Dean from Deans Disaster Relief. Our talk soon turns to WA bushfires and whilst we were talking the first evacuations started happening. A reminder that it is bushfire season across Australia. Make a note to work in the yard more tomorrow around clearing leaves etc. We live in a national park so need to stay on top of it all. Watch tv with Marky till 1.00- loving Season 2 of Euphoria and Great Rail Journeys with Michael Portillo. The ones we are watching are around amazing train journeys in America. We love the deco trains the most. His Australian train travle episodes were fabulous- god we live in an incredible country. Australia, the most beautiful place on the planet. January 12thLots of fiddly things to do today. I need a coffee from The Deli at Olinda and a pie from the bakery and each it in safety of the Parklet. I buy a roast chicken and the final 3 packs of paracetamol for some friends who have missed out on them. Pay a few bills like David Jones and our Foxtel and happy those are out of the road.I tell Mark to stay at home while I do the supermarket shopping, i need to keep us both safe. Lots of 'we are out of Rapid Antigen kits' signs. I grabbed the last batch of organic mince meat , the meat area empty, same for paracetamol and lots of other stuff. I ended up getting 99% but in many cases I was taking the very last item. Crazy. We are stocked up again, not over buying but we can live with all of this for a few weeks if the supply chain crumbles. A big thank you to Woolies too for my monthly 10% because of our insurance with them. I work in the office in the afternoon. "The Verve: This is Music- The Singles" cd keeping me company. A hot old day outside but our solar is going nuts creating all that extra energy. Thanks to Ayisha , our very last belated Christmas Card for the year, arrives safely. The worldwide post is still so slow. Love all our cards this year, they filled up the entire part of the lounge room. We are so lucky to have people who send us these. Horrible Covid death numbers today for NSW and Victoria, 21 more deaths in each state. Such sad times. 42 families and friends lose a loved one. 154,000 new Covid cases. Terrible. It's like Morrison has given up. Such a cheap arsehole too, Rapid Antigen test kits should be free to all Australians. I know i keep saying it. A terrible Prime Minister. January 13thAnother stinker of a hot day. Do some charity work. Thankfully some icey poles in the fridge at work to cool us all down.I do buy a new picnic basket for some super amazing price, for a future picnic depending on Covid. I arrive home to the fire alarms at the oval ringing across the hills. They stop so hoping just a car accident and not some out of control bushfire that will kill us all. A nice night on the phone with my friend- we keep finding more and more oddball things in common. It's all so strange and rather wonderful. Marky is so patient with my time away from viewing movies. Stay up till 1.00 AM with Marky watching documentary's eating turkish bread and dip. We enjoyed the episode on John Friedrich on Australian True Crime Stories. I guess a crook that you could admire at times. We also love the first part of KISStory-the 2 parter on KISS. I dig early KISS really, really really early. Proudly say i bought their debut album when it came out. It was a bit of a flop in America originally, sold a mere 60,000 copies. It didn't chart in Australia, and their 2nd album here only peaked at #98. A hot old night at Kalorama, cooling and fans on- not too bad inside. January 14thI allow myself some sleep in time, it's been ages. Felt nice. Just a nice egyptian cotton sheet and cool in my room. Banshee returns and sleeps next to me. I eventually rise, and drive off to IGA just for a few more basics. Too many people at Montage so I avoid grabbing a coffee. I do run into Jen & Bruce which is always fun. Home by 12.00.Both excited and a tad fearful around tonights Steve Kilbey (Plays The Church singles) gig at Thornbury Theatre. It's been postponed so many times we are rather amazed it's actually happening. Going to take our P3 masks as well as our regular, just seeing how Covid safe it is. It's probably our last major outing for many months-well maybe a surf trip to Paradise Beach. It still seems strange that this is the same Steve Kilbey that lived around the corner from my parents house. Steve's dad and a very young Steve would come into my parents BP garage. Who would of thought that he'd go on to be lead singer and songwriter of one of my favourite bands. Small world. A good night but a tad pissed off at the Thornbury Theatre, no real Covid spacing between seats. Lots of people commented on that. The lady at the door was a rather useless ninny. Steve was great, the worst part of the band was Barton Price. Don't get me wrong he has talent but is so wrong for The Church songs. No subtle side to him at all. Someone called him the Bam Bam drummer (such as in Flintstones). Big thanks to Mum and Sis for the excellent tickets. A huge lightning storm plays out before us on the drive home. We get back to Kalorama just in time. The heavens open up. January 15thWe drive to Andys, and track down the hard drive with songs and take it back to our office. If the music he wants is on it we'll send it to Ireland so he can work on some songs seeing Covid stole his live shows. It's great to see Amy the goat again , and i come prepared with Apples.We call into IGA at Olinda, i grab the very last packet of Paracetamol to mail to my Mum in NSW as all the supermarkets in Wollongong have ran out. How crazy is that. Mark waits outside and is chatting to the other Peter & Mark and their 3 doggies. Good that the 2 sets of P&M's catch up even in a safe Covid, mask covered world. I tell a mate that tonight the world is doing it's washing and watching free porn, meanwhile I'm looking up Slavic demons for a friend. Welcome to my world. Maybe i can call up a demon to do my washing-that would be good. Our friends Facebook page is doing really well. "Deans Disaster Relief". 565 "likes" and so many great comments. He does all this amazing work, it's an honour to have him in our lives. If you want to show support for something really positive this year, go to the Facebook page and simply give it a "like" yes it's that easy. I'm aiming to help get him 600 "likes" by the end of this month, so if you are reading this, please take a few seconds- it is such a good thing to support. I'm thinking of taking some active role around this exceptional Relief Foundation down the track, that's if Dean feels confident in my skills. He is someone I'd love to work for. So another reason to like the page. It could be my next job. HA! https://www.facebook.com/Deans-Disaster-Relief-106069081897874 By early evening I get to see Deans Disaster Relief in action. The Tonga tsunami and the underwater earthquake. Mark comes down to the office too and we focus on stuff till 5.30 AM Yes the entire night. We get a lot done, and I know Deans passion will see him commit to this disaster over the next week too. Finally we depart the office and head to the house. At first I thought our neighbour had left their main outside lights on but no it was the sun rising! I take a photo with Trudi's cockatoo present in the picture. So the entire night focused on this , I get why Dean loves it. To help people in such circumstances is an exceptional thing, and hey one day we might be the people who need a hand again. January 16thI'm fried, try to sleep in but my brain is still racing. Deano has had some nutty amount of coffees. Marky is awake and looking after the cat. We all check in and hear the latest on the disaster. Finally the news channels are running info. Who gives a flying fuck about some spoilt stupid tennis player that lies on entry visa's and stuff, he doesn't deserve all this attention, there are people suffering in the Tonga tsunami, and an english woman (Angela Glover) has died during the disaster. There is a distress beacon going off at two of the low lying islands. The Ha'apai group. Our thoughts are with you Tonga.On that sad note , I'll sign off. Stay safe all of you and lots of love PG |