These Christmas/New Year festivities have thrown me off my routines such as going to the pool and putting the garbage bin out on Thursday night. Not that we produce much garbage and the bin is not even half full, but I am missing that relaxing bath in the warm-water pool, so today we'll play catch-up and drive to the Bay for an afternoon spent in the warm pool.
Of course, no visit to the Bay is ever complete without a visit to the two op-shops, Vinnies and Salvos, where I always search their bookshelves for some hidden treasures. Perhaps the new year will surprise me. Not that there are many surprises left after the last thirty years which have been as predictable as day follows night. What a letdown after the previous thirty years which had been crammed full with excitement.
These days, excitements have given way to shocks, such as when the phone rang this morning and a stranger's voice said, "Is this Peter Goerman? This is Amanda, Doug's daughter. I'm sad to tell you that my dad passed away in the early hours of this morning." SHOCK!!!
Doug and I had become friends almost as soon as had stepped off the ship in 1965 and gone to Canberra to join the ANZ Bank. Shortly afterwards, I had become a member of the Youth Hostels Association, of which Doug was a very active member. While he was committed to Canberra through his work with the public sevice, I travelled the world but maintained our friendship through letters and postcards and the occasional visit back to Canberra, and renewed it in 1985 when I came back to Canberra to finally settle there. A sixty-year long friendship!
We last met in May 2024 - see here - and I had meant to travel up to Canberra several times to see him again but something else always turned up and so I postponed and postponed again. I learnt my lesson: DON't POSTPONE! IT MAY BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SEE AN OLD FRIEND!
Instead of visiting the op-shops, I visited K-Mart to buy myself a black tie for the funeral. Buying a black tie is the other thing I have been postponing, always hoping that the next funeral would be the last, but it seems I will be needing it more in the months and years to come.
P.S. I just read this post again and can't believe what I'm reading! What, a whole eighteen months went by and I couldn't manage another trip to Canberra which is a mere hundred kilometres away? There was a time when I would've clocked up six different jobs in as many countries in the same time! What happened to me? Oh yes, of course, I completely forgot: I'm now almost as old as my good and now dead friend Doug!
