The Life of Riley

OLIVE’S SIXTY EIGHTH POST

Olive

Morning everyone, welcome again to my blob.

Mike has just brought me some lovely stewed plums. Oh, they are delicious!

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Mike

And I’ve brought news about new eyes.

Olive

Yes, that’s amazing.

Mike

There was a huge gathering in Canberra last weekend, 1000 of the county’s best thinkers brought together by the Government to talk about the future of our fair land.

They worked all weekend to come up with their recommendations. Did you hear about that, Ollie?

Olive

I did hear something but I can’t say what exactly.

Mike

Well, it was to brainstorm new ideas.

One of the ideas which most appealed to Prime Minster Rudd, was that apparently Australia is well on the way to developing bionic vision, replacement eyes for those who are blind.

Here’s a photo taken by Renee Nowytarger for The Australian. The man in the photo is Prof. Minas Coroneo who says his team’ll have a bionic eye ready next year.
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Prof Coroneo’s an ophthalmologist who’s leading this breakthrough and developing what they call a visionary implant, so far for less than $100,000.

Of course now they’re hoping for big bucks from the Government!

I don’t know how it works but I found this diagram on Google .
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Olive

It is amazing what they can do.

Mike

An Australian scientist developed the bionic ear too. They work very well, the artificial ears, I hear.

Olive

You hear?

Mike

Yes, I hear with my non bionic ear.

Now, here’s Olive as I first told her about the breakthrough

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Mike

Now, back to what we were talking about last time. Bush walking. Have a look at this book, published in 1936.

Does it ring any bells?

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Olive

None at all. Never saw it before.

Mike

Then you didn’t know that in the twenties and thirties, New South Wales caught the bushwalking craze. A madness for hiking swept the land.

Olive

Really?

Mike

Yes, in the very years you say you loved walking, that’s when it happened. So, I’m surprised you don’t know about the craze.

Special trains left Sydney every Friday night with thousands of people on board. They were bound for the Hawkesbury and other walking areas, everyone mad to spend the weekend walking.

Here they go! (this and the following illustrations all come from the book Hiking for Health.)

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Mike

I love the guy in the lower left. He looks my uncle Francis. You met Francis.

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Olive

Well, I walked with girls from work, that was the Egg Board. Bing too sometimes, and Barnie

Mike

This book is a great read, Ollie. It’s like a window into a time before cars.

A time too when women were becoming adventurous. Look at these photos
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Mike

I want to read you this bit about Dot English and how she made herself hiking shorts, a very bold garment to wear in those days.

It says; “Dot wore a ducky (that’s a word you don’t hear any more. ‘ducky’) little pair of shorts, cutely fashioned from the dust cover of a taxi.

(Apparently people put dust covers on their cars in those days, like it was a valuable bit of furniture).

Dot had picked the dust cover up one night in Hyde Park, and then dyed the material khaki.

It was; “artistically slashed, gored and patched in the seat” she says.

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Olive

We just wore long pants. You know, sensible things.

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Mike

You look like you’ve still got your Egg Board clothes on here, Ollie.

Anyway, tell me about going up the Hawkesbury river

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Mike

That’s a great story but what about the walking part?

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Mike

You know, Ollie, I think we’ve lost something. I mean, bush walking not being as popular as it was.

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Mike

Walking’s great for fitness and we sure need that, getting fatter and fatter, as we are.

It’s low cost and low footprint. I mean, you’re not burning fossil fuels when walking, only calories.

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Mike

Also, it means people are going to be much less burden on the health system later on. That’s vital ‘cos health costs are breaking the national budget.

Our kids have lost the love of nature we had we were growing up. I used to be outside, up trees, all the time when I was young.

Nowadays kids are racing through the landscape for sure, but in the virtual country of some video game.

This is serious. If they don’t have a love nature first hand, they are not going to protect it, and it needs more protection than ever before, I reckon.

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Mike

We are raising exactly the wrong type of person, Ollie. We need outdoors types and we are breeding computer blobs.

Maybe bush walking can be a way back to nature. What do you think?

Olive

Absolutely right!

Mike

Building trails and huts for overnight walkers, keeping those trails maintained, all that is just the right sort of work we need for young people, kids who are lost and confused as so many are..

I wanted to send this idea to the Canberra conference, but didn’t get around to it.

Maybe it’s not too late. What do you think?

Olive

I’m right behind you, Mike

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Mike

A postscript from me. Sadly, Wordpress, the blog template we use, no longer allows us to comment on the comments.

There are four very nice comments that have popped up since I posted last night.

From Michelle in Italy (Bleeding Expresso) Rosemary in North Carolina, Jana in California, and Pepperlady in North Idaho.

All from women and all Americans. (Michelle lives in Italy but is a yank)

It’s so nice to see that the walking theme resonates with you all. It’s time to make walking the world’s new passion, I’m sure.

In an earlier post, I described my walk in wonderful NZ and I showed you my pedometer.

I cannot recommend more highly getting a pedometer. We all love statistics, and having this walnut on you waist counting steps,
kilometres. and calories, is a great encouragement.

We are not into paid advertising, but this pedometer is a beauty. It’s made by Oregon Scientific.

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Someone recently explained to me that the appeal of baseball, which few outside the US and Japan can get excited about, is due to the fantastic quantity of statistics it generates.

So, I’m ready to reveal my recent Kms. per day for public scrutiny, here and now. I walked….

April 21….7.18Km.
22….8.12 Km.
23…6.75Km.
24…9.80 Km.

Ollie counts her steps to the dining room and back at about 300 a day. We’d love to get her doing more, but the old ankles are real swollen

Other Vital news. Amber, Ollie’s dear carer at her hostel, has got married and is in Vietnam on her honeymoon. She came to say goodbye.
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Mike

You noticed I’m playing around artistically with this photo?

. I’ve got my own blog now, all about art, and I’m making crossovers.

Remember when Ollie got her portrait painted at Patonga?

Well, the latest post on Family art Stories Rubbo family
( Google search phrase) is about Patonga.

It reprises Ollie’s visit there, and tells the story of two great Aussie artists, who, strangely give portraits away… sometimes.

You can click on the Family Art Stories title on our blogroll, higher up, to get there faster.

Bye from both of us!

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OLIVE’S SIXTY SEVENTH POST

(Don’t forget, folks, Olive loves to get comments from you.

Eric reads them to her each Friday morning at 10.30. She will try to answer questions as well.

Sadly Wordpress has disabled the ability we used have to comment on a comment in the actual comment section.)

Mike

Maria Amelia Lopez, Spain’s oldest blogger has put you on her blog, Ollie, even your movie clip.

Here’s her blog. (Her link’s on the side, folks, on our blogroll.)

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Olive

That’s nice

Mike

I’ve found out that Maria Amelia is very famous, especially in her own country.

Her fame’s comes because she’s blogging at 96, and she’s very engaged and opinionated, in the world, I mean.

More so than you. But then, you are 108!

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Mike

Here’s some photos of the President of Spain coming to see her.

His name is Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. but everyone calls him just Zapatero

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Mike

He was born in 1960 and was one of the youngest MP’s ever in Spain.

He’s very popular and it seems he gets some advice from Maria Amelia from time to time.

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Mike

No Australian politician has even noticed you, except the local ones, have they?

Olive

No, and I don’t care either.

Mike

Anyway, let’s hope we can keep in Contact with Maria.

Maybe when I go to Europe at the end of the month I can go see her, though I’ve no idea where she lives.

Now, I’ve got lots of news for you.

You know, Ollie, I wish you could still walk. I had some fantastic walking in New Zealand last week.

Olive

You can forget about that, boy.

Mike

I went to the very northern tip of the South Island, a place called Nelson, one of the oldest towns in New Zealand.
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Mike

From there I walked the Abel Tasman track, well part of it.

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Mike

They’ve got their walks very well organized in New Zealand.

You know, I think we could do a much better job here in Australia

We’ve got fantastic walks here too but you never see anyone on them except the locals.

Look at this view from our Patonga-Pearl Beach walk, right here on the Central Coast

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Olive

I know Patonga, been there many times.

Mike

Indeed, that’s where you had your portrait painted last year. (see the 21st. post. It’s a likeness)

Seems like we don’t sell our walks as a tourist attraction, not like the Kiwis do, and maybe we should

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You’ve never been to New Zealand, have you, Ollie?

Olive

No, I’d love to go, though.

Mike

Well, it’s only three hours away. I want to show you the place, the walk, everything.

But first, my niece, Chloe, asked me to take some photos to announce the Yoga class she’s giving.

We went down on Avoca beach (that’s a nice walk too) just after the sun came up.

How about these snaps to get us in a peaceful mood, eh?
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Mike

I know you walked a lot Ollie, with Bing Riley, your second husband.

Here you are on the Hawksbury river somewhere, maybe 50 years ago?

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Olive

Oh, we loved it, Bingie and me.

Mike

I know you used to get off at Berowra Station because here’s a photo of you on that station with some friends, though you don’t seem to be dressed for walking.

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Olive

Is that me?

Mike

It surely is.

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Olive

We used to hike down to Berowra Waters. I caught a 8 pound (18 kilos) flathead there once, on a 7 pound line too!

Mike

Really? How did you land it?

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Ollie

What a story! I’m on the rocks, yer see. I’m struggling with the fish, trying not to break me line.

There are some men around but they’re no use. So, I sing out to Bing, he was some ways off,
“Help! Bingie, bring the gaff.”

Bing comes leaping over the rocks, then gets down on his tummy and reaches out with the gaff and somehow he hooks it.

Mike

did you eat it?

Olive

We was staying in hotel at Berowra that time. Now, we wasn’t going to give it to the hotel people, so we gave it to a family with three kids.

They cooked it and invited us all for dinner. There was enough for everyone, it was so large.

Mike

Do you remember hearing about the Great North Walk?

It’s a famous trail which still exists today, all the way from Sydney to Newcastle, and it goes through Berowra Waters.

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Olive

I can’t say I do. I know we walked from Berowra to the next station up the line. What’d that be, Mike?

Mike

Cowan?

Olive

That’s right, Cowan

Mike

Then you MUST have been on the Great North Walk.

See here, I’ve marked the Great North Walk trail from Berowra Waters to Cowan.

You must have been on it, Ollie! I like the idea that you were, anyway.

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Mike

It’s my dream to do the whole walk.

Olive

Well, you can.

Mike

Did you camp overnight, you and Bing?

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Olive

Well, we didn’t go that far though we did sleep in rock caves a couple of times.

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Mike

I want to walk it all. So far, I’ve only done bits round Patonga. …..

But I was telling you about going to Nelson, top of the South Island, New Zealand and walking from there.

I flew from Christchurch in a smallish plane over mountains which’d cut you up like a saw if you came down in the wrong place.

I thought they made beautiful patterns, though

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Mike

This is Nelson from one of the surrounding hills

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Mike

It’s quite an old town for New Zealand and rather English-y looking and…

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Mike

…with a beautiful little river running through it.

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Mike

I found an old tree in Nelson, a Eucalypt, planted in 1857, 41 years before you were born and grown considerable larger

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Mike

I walked and walked, first on Nelson’s surrounding hills, overlooking the sea.

I had a pedometer, a thing you put on your belt to measure how far you’ve walked

It’s a great encouragement to do long, long walks . Here, it’ s showing Kilometers.

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Mike

Push the button and it shows steps. You’re supposed to do 10,000 steps a day for good health Did you know that, Ollie?

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Olive

Really, so many?

Mike

Walking gets very addictive with this gadget on your belt. It’s not hard to make 10,000.

So, there I was, up and down every hill round Nelson. One spot was marked, the Dead Centre of New Zealand.
What a fantastic view there was from up there.

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Mike

I walked all day, at last coming back to the port

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Mike

In the evening it was magic

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Mike

I was famished. Way below, I saw a place to eat right on the water.

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Olive

That must have been nice.

Mike

It was but getting down almost wrecked my knees.

Hunger rushed me, you should always come down slowly, legs bent, I had knee pain all the next day.

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Olive

Did you have oysters?

Mike

I don’t like oysters, Ollie, surely I told you that? Slimy things, Ugh!

You know what was strange though, the seagulls floated just off the end of the restaurant, waiting for scraps in a pool of light

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Mike

Here’s the map of the Abel Tasman track which I started the next day.

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Mike

I didn’t walk the whole thing, which takes about three days, just parts of it.

You can get dropped off by boat, water taxis…….

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Mike

Or the bigger beast which I took

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Mike

We rode along the coast, past marvelous outcrops and the rock they call the split apple, at last coming on the beach and my walk’s beginning

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Mike

So I started my walk…
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Mike

The path is mostly fine white sand.

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Mike

I found I was sharing the track with strapping lasses of Danish or German origin

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Mike

who overtook me on the curves

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Mike

There’s lot of sea kayaking done along the Able Tasman, and they go up the rivers too.

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Mike

The Abel Tasman is mostly a coastal track

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Mike

But sometimes you have to climb high and your legs ache.

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Mike

You can break the walk, stay overnight in huts which are pretty basic.

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Mike

I did six hours of walking that day, from Torrent bay to Marahau.

I’m told there’s a cafe just across that bridge. Can it be true?

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Mike

It is true! Heaven for tired legs.

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Mike

Never will lentil soup ever taste as good again!

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Mike

Many, it seems don’t make it, leaving sad relics along the track

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Mike

and so home, with stories for you and katya and Ellen

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Mike

Our walks are just as good, Ollie.

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We too could entice the hard hiking Swedes onto our trails I’m sure!.

Come on foreign folks, you strong legs with Euros.

Just behind those modest cottages, starts the Patonga walk and there are no traffic jams.

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Olive

We’re exhausted, Mike

Mike

True, Ollie I don’t know when to stop.

But I’ll tell you one thing, Ollie, I’ve lost ten kilos since New Zealand and you can’t sneeze at that.

With the pedometer came a seductive little book, Walking yourself thin. I took them at their word.

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OLIVE’S SIXTY SIXTH POST POST

Mike

Last time we made a big effort to write to Maria Amelia, Spain’s oldest blogger

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Olive

You and Michael tried to teach me Spanish too.

Mike

Indeed, Michael Galovic was a great tutor for you, Ollie. Anyway, to our delight, Maria has answered in detail.

She’s even got someone to do a translation, so it’s come to us in English. We think Maria’s answer is important enough to put it all here.

Olive

We are so sooooo happy to have her answer.

Mike

One piece of sad news. Wordpress, which runs this blog template, meaning the structure, has changed the format radically and now there’s a lot I have to relearn in order to post.

It’s like going into the supermarket and finding they’ve re-arranged everything, except about 10 times worse.

Not only can’t you find things, you don’t where to look.

Why do they torment us like this? Don’t they realize it’s hard for us oldies to lean these things in the first place?

At least, it would be nice to have the option to continue with the old template, but no, it’s been swept into the dustbin of computer history.

2.3.3. has been crushed, erased by 2.5

Anyway, enough grumbles, here’s what Maria Amelia wrote, without any photos.

Maria Amelia writes;

Ma’am, I am amazed that, given your age, you are doing better than I am. I see somewhat as best I can out of one eye, but out of the other, I see very little, very badly.

I manage to get by because, up close, I am able to see pretty well.

I am amazed that you, at your age are still so pretty, and that you wear that hat so well, like a young 15 year old girl. You are very likable.
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And this man is teaching you Spanish (Michael Galovic) No one can teach me English so I cannot respond to you in English.

I marvel at the fact that you are 108 years old, because I know that I will not reach 100. I am already noticing what is happening to me. I have bad blood circulation to my brain.

But If I stay still, I get very restless and that is what kills me. I want to be involved in everything. Even if my head hurts, I want to be part of it.

If I were calmer maybe I too would make it to 108. But I will not reach that. I will not even make it to 100. I don’t know what will happen this winter. No one in my family has lived as long as I.

In order to live so long, you must have had a great deal of tranquility. Furthermore, you’re doing so well for your age, and with that hat that looks fantastic on you. And you are so funny when you talk!

That gentleman who is with you, (We don’t know if Maria is referring here to Michael, who has only visited Olive once, or Eric who goes each week) does he have something with you?

He is very handsome, has a good presence, and has such patience to go visit you every week.

Today, I went out to take a walk through the fields and I was left feeling very calm. But my feet swelled up a bit.

But I see you very well, even with younger looking hands than me. You have neither arthritis nor poor circulation. You move your hands, your wrists. I see agility in that body. You do not look your age.

So you are the oldest blogger. I started first, but within a matter of months you were online too. And you don’t have any relatives to keep you company? Children? Grandchildren?

Well, I would like to greet you in English but I don’t speak any English.

Many people write to me from Australia, I wanted to find out where it was and everything. It is a very beautiful country. You are in a good place. If you were speaking Spanish, we could talk a great deal!

Continue to maintain yourself looking so elegant. 108 years old. If I were to reach there……….

Here in Galicia the oldest I know of is 105. But no one else.

So pleased to meet you and my regards to the gentleman who accompanies you for keeping you company and for typing for you. (that must be me, Mike)

Because an old woman appreciates it when someone does a nice thing for her.

I send you a kiss. You even sang in Spanish for me, which amused me very much.

So ends Maria’s greeting.

Now, here is Olive in the green hat which Maria admires so much. (I actually bought it for her in a St. Vincent De Paul shop)
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Here’s Olive in another green hat, not so elegant.
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And here is Olive dancing. Maria likes dancing too.
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