The Joy of Work

We human beings are privileged to have many joys available to us in our spans of life.....I feel that one of the most lasting, satisfying and genuine joys is that of work. However one of the most important conditions  of this statement is that it must be work you like , it must be creative, and it must embrace one`s full activities...

 

We`re all born with certain talents and happiness in work will follow the using of them fully. Watch little children and realise their great glee glows because they`re doing a maximum of things they can do......eyes, ears, toes, legs and tongues are boisterously busy every waking moment.....

 

Diseases that usually arrive later in life like alcholism, laziness, obesity, sensuality etc. only serve to make folk happy while they`re indulging.....the rest of the time they`re bothered with bouts of depression, restlessness, self-disgust, restlessness, doubts, despair and blatant boredom...

 

Those happy most of the time are so because they have their necessary work and where someone is fortunate to find his right work it then becomes the same to him as play is to a child. Life`s extremely pleasant when it`s functioning normally.....every faculty we have begs to be used.......the brain needs to think, to plan, to organise, to project, to imagine, to reason, to compare, to reflect, to decide.....

 

When the brain has no real business  with which to be concerned we tend to load it with artificial activities such as nauseating novels, dreary DVD`s, vile or violent videos. The it`s probable that the people who are amusing their brains are nowhere as happy as those using them.

 

Our marvellous muscles demand energetic exercise - when we forget that, they regularly remind us with  rheumatism, arthritis,biliousness and gout. Every organ - the stomach, intestines, liver, heart, lungs - all insist on regular employment. If any are not employed to their full capacity, like the unions of old, they`ll go on strike when refused employment. The eye, the ear, every nerve and tendon must have work, The soul needs work - we must have someone to love, something to suffer,  something we we have to challenge and overcome.

 

A perfect hell would be.......... somewhere where every sense would subside, every appetite be gorged.....joy is a function of ardent activity - unfortunately denied to many miserable millions who, through no fault of their own, suffer every day the monotony and misery of unsatisfying work.....

 

I can`t remember from where I first got the gist of this but reckon it`s almost spot on......

 

Many and dramatically diverse are the opinons of others concerning work...........you may find some of the following quotations quite questionable......

 

"Every man`s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself (Samuel Butler ) 1835 - 1902 

"Work is the grand cure of all the maladies that ever beset mankind" (Author unknown 1886)

"The working class  can kiss my arse " (Australian Labor Movement (traditional folk saying)    

 

 

 

 

                               `till next time - 10-14 days                        '

 

 

 

 

Nifty Noosa Nostalgia

I`ll never forget the thrill I got when Boba (my wife Marge) agreed to a suggestion of mine about a holiday in Queensland...Marge was a very contented lady - quite happy to stay home, she had just retired after we sold her Croydon boutique Jolee. For quite some time  as either she or I had never been further north than Brisbane,  I`d been saying we should have a look around the Sunshine Coast.

 

After a most pleasant uneventful couple of days we arrived in Nifty Noosa and were both extremely enchanted - soon finding a delightful apartment at Sunshine Beach just 5 minutes drive from the heart of the town, coincidentally right opposite the home of Bob Ansett who I hadn`t seen for about 50 years when I was Assistant Accountant for his father,   Reg Ansett (later Sir Reg)

 

After a few days, we happened to hear that an apartment was for sale on the next floor up which we immediately  inspected - a really roomy high-ceilinged 21sq penthouse with timber-panelled walls, originally built by a master-builder for his own use ,about the same size as our Ardoch apartment. It was now owned by a Brisbane corporation who used it for executive staff holidays and we quickly decided it was for us, being on the second floor of an 8 unit complex called Wainui with magnificent views right opposite the Pacific Ocean, just a few minutes` stroll to the beach.

 

This was the start of many valued visits over a  3 - 4 year period....when we were in Melbourne it was rented to casual, carefully-chosen tenants. Marge used to invest many happy hours on the sprawling sundeck embroidering rugs for all her grandchildren while I read to her, continuing a practice carried out all our lives together and I`d draw large landscapes for future joint -   embroidering & painting,or I enjoyed fishing from 4 am till 8am, occasionally bringing home a big fat bream after checking out the beaches in  - our little yellow Mini Moke "Boba 11" or my motor-boat "Boba 111" where you`ll see me proudly standing next to her just after I`d bought her and passed my licence test...... we were called the oldest teenagers in Noosa....

 

However I`m now paying for my happy hours standing in the ocean surf fishing by my necessary constant visits to skin specialists. One morning I forgot to lock the front door at 4am and when I returned we discovered we`d had an unwelcome univited visitor who took about $850 in cash and uninsured jewellrey...we were most grateful she didn`t awaken....

 

Nifty Noosa was extremely popular with 2 or 3 grandchildren who flew upon their own for school holidays - we`d meet them at Maroochydore Airport, about a half-hour`s drive away...we made some wonderful friends there many of whom we`re still in touch....

 

About 18 months ago my niece Geri Lazarus and husband Greg had just bought an apartment in lovely Little Cove and they kindly invited me up for a few days while they were considering plans for refurbishement and Geri & I soon flew up -  with Greg following a little later. The siting of this sprawling apartment is truly superb - very high up, naturally nestled among tall trees full of twittering beautiful birds, who, in fact we had to "Shoo" away from the sundeck where I`m initially penning these few lines on the sunny Sunday morning of our return to Melbourne.

 

We`d only arrived on Wednesday night but by the time we left, after 3 full days I`d been fortunate to catch up with 10-11 friends, rapidly exchanging highlights of the 12 years we`d been away. One lady, now 73 originally from Horsham in NW Victoria... ( we`d known her for 58 years )was a junior salesgirl Marge had employed  in her first boutique...another lady from Croydon now living in Noosa told us every time she visited us Marge was busy knitting or embroidering........

 

Another friend told me his 15 year old granddaughter wanted to know if I still did "Magic" - a game I started with my own children 60 odd years ago - hiding a little treasure, then pretending to blow away a burnt match which "disappeared" as I guided the child by saying "warmer" or "colder etc. till the hidden treasure was found. And then I had the most pleasant surprise of being reminded by quite a few fiends of their appreciation of my paintings of old sailing ships on tiny seachests I`d given them but completely forgotten........`

 

 

                                  `till next time

Meeting GreatGrandchild No.9

I arrived at Flinders St Station 20 minutes after my tram ride from home in time to catch a train earlier than had been arranged with Grandson John meaning I`d be at Rosanna about 40 minutes earlier as this train travelled express to Clifton Hill. I was pleased that on reaching Rosanna I remembered the way to walk as I`d only travelled by train once before - a few years ago..

 

Just before turning into his street, quite a long one, with Yuki & John`s home right at the end,I realised with a clammy clutch of fear - that if they came to meet me as a surprise, I might miss them as car access to the station the way I was walking was not possible!  If this occurred they could be waiting for me for nearly an hour while I was waiting at their front door, so I instinctively increased my  pleasurable pace and walked about 100m more and then suddenly saw John walk towards his car....he turned and saw me waving furiously and shouting and immediately waved back and walked up to meet me with his usual infectious happy smile rapily allaying all my fears.

 

We soon went inside and I got my first glimpse of Leo Naori (Japanese for rain - there was light rain when he arrived in the garden...), then after hugs with Yuki and 22 month-old Clancy, I had my first long cuddle.........meeting a new member of the family is always very special, as I`ve found with all children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren...... From the first time I cuddled my 65 year old son Peter I felt that "this what immortality is all about' and I`ve been fortunate to have experienced that 26 times.........

 

Then John rang Virgil in the city and on his way home, just 5 minutes away he collected me for a quick cuddle with Julie and Alkira, greatgrandchild No.8, who intially said "No, no!" when I opened my arms to her - it was virtually our first meeting since I`d flown to celebrate her safe arrival her in Oslo when she was born, I was now, after all a virtual stranger however she was smart enough to change her mind when I introduced her to a little teddy bear in a tiny dress I`d brought with me...........

 

Virgil and Julie were most fortunate to have their compact roomy little home awaiting them after it was found by the family prior to their departure from Norway. After a most enjoyablei little afternoon tea, as the time was now 4.15 Virgil took me to the Station for my return trip home making use of the time to get busy with my pen and pad I carry everywhere so as not to waste a second of my limited time on earth......

 

                             `till next time - in about 7 - 10 days.....