Underground Movement

The other afternoon I got to do something pretty unusual, I went for a tour in the Tank Stream under the city of Sydney.  This is something we have wanted to do for ages, but never had the time, or managed to get lucky in the ballot for tickets.

The Tank Stream was the source of fresh water for the first European settlers and now it is about 4 meters under the city and not readily accessible to the general public. So we rocked up at our assigned time at Australia Square( which is a Harry Seidler building, which is actually round!)

I love Australia Square, the building is so modern even after 50 years and it has a very swish restaurant at the top ( called O bar) where you can have a drink or a meal and the whole restaurant revolves 360 degrees, a great way to see the city sitting down! We went there for dinner a couple of years back when Vivid Sydney was on.



Anyway back to underground, we had to get into gear, gumboots, hard hats, hi viz vests and safety harness, attend a safety briefing and watch a video on the history of the tunnel and then we were off!

Safety briefing 

dressed to go!

Down a ladder and then we were below the city, It was quite low and we had to be careful not to bang our heads, there was quite a lot of water as there had been a bit of rain yesterday ( so much so that they had to cancel yesterday's tours, too dangerous).





The whole thing was done by convict labour, and you can see the pick marks where they were working at the sandstone. They kept to the original course of the stream which has meant that the sandstone has not weathered too much.

Our Guide was Yvonne, who is an archeologist working with Sydney Water so has conducted this tour 400 times! I thought how amazing some people's jobs are that they get to do stuff like this!

Yvonne our tour guide showing us the tunnel ahead

the tour only took in  part of the tunnel that was fairly easy to navigate we went up to the Ovid tunnel which is much smaller and narrower you can see a picture below, I declined to go in and have my pic taken, it was just a bit too confined!

The tour took about 1 hour and 15 minutes all up and it was really cool to be under the city and hearing the traffic over the man holes above.

So that's another thing ticked off my to do list, what about you have you ever been on a cool tour in your home city? 

Bleeding heart

I gave blood the other day, I am a regular blood donor and have been since I was a student nurse.My blood group is A negative. The nurse at the blood bank asked me if I had thought about donating my plasma. I looked at her quite puzzled and said don't you already take that from the blood?

Well yes they do, but there is another issue, When you donate blood they take about 470mls of whole blood which has plasma, red and white cells, platelets and they use the various components for a variety of purposes, so the total volume of plasma they get to use is really quite a small amount.

The other issue for me is that my blood type is only about 8% of the population so my red blood cells are not always that useful but if I just donated plasma they could get a much bigger volume which is of more use. Here's a link to the blood bank info http://www.donateblood.com.au/learn/apheresis.

So the great thing is that you can donate every 2 - 3 weeks as your own red cells are returned to you so you don't have to wait for the body to make more red cells. http://www.donateblood.com.au/learn#

So I've been booked in to donate plasma in a couple of weeks I'll let you know how that goes, but maybe if you haven't thought about it maybe you could be a blood donor?

FabriKate

I love being busy, I almost always have a project on the go, whether it is mastering a new cooking skill, learning to weld (really!) decorating, house renovating or re purposing old furniture. I've a couple of things on the go currently that I thought I would share with you.

First a couple of weeks ago the Significant Other and I did a "welding for beginners" course at
the Workshop Chippendale I had expressed an interest in trying this and our lovely son and daughter in law gave us a class for a Christmas present. I got to try stick and mig welding and managed by the end of the class to weld a couple of pieces of steel together. Not sure when I'll next do anything but at least I know what is involved.

I've had a old bedroom slipper chair I got from Vinnies about 12 months ago for the bargain price of $15 and I've decided to have a go and reupholster it myself. You can see in the picture it's a pretty grotty old brown velvet chair and I have plans to cover it is a pink flamingo fabric.

Here is the work in progress, I have taken off all the old fabric and am working out how the place the fabric, I think it will look quite lovely when it's done, I might even offer it as a prize for some lucky reader!

Below is a old piano stool that I recovered recently for my "Paris" room I'm pretty pleased with the result what do you think?

and yesterday I got the mother of all finds, we were visiting one of our daughters in an nearby suburb and they must have been having council cleanup because the streets were full of stuff! I managed to find these chairs which are right up my alley of mid century modern design

planning to make some funky cushion for the chairs

  and then these lampshades which I am planning to cover in the flamingo and Paris fabrics too.

Testing the fabric to see what it could look like

Test driving the flamingos!

so as I get the projects done I'll put them up for you to see.

Do you have any projects on the go?

Do you like a bit of DIY?

how old are you feeling?

I'm getting a bit annoyed at some of the ads on the TV and radio that seem to think that if you are "over 50" you've got one foot in the grave, "no longer working full-time" (I wish)  and spend all your time worrying about your pre-paid funeral!

So I asked myself, how old is old? Then I went to the source of all knowledge,  the Internet and found this study which basically says old age is relative, the older you are the more generous you are in your assessment of what is "old".

OK I get it, I recall being a 20 something ( not that long ago, I'm not that old!)  and thinking people of 40 were ancient and served no useful purpose in the world, and god forbid they should even think of having sex, that was for young people!

Obviously people over 50 are a very attractive market, and I'm not talking about our good looks!

The number of businesses targeting the "grey" consumer is increasing; here is a list of what I found just by doing a quick search.....

Over 50s Insurance | Apia.com.au

Over 50s Resorts 

Scenic Tours Australia With Fun Over Fifty For Seniors 

Fitness for the over 50′s

Dresses For Over 50s 

Join a club for over 50's Aussie Over Fifties Seniors 

Over 50 Retirement Home

Over 50s Retirement Living & Villages | For Sale, Rent ...

plus a plethora of over 50's dating sites, in my search it pulled up   29,800,000 RESULTS ! 

Older singles are getting frisky on ‘Tinder for seniors ...

To me the thing is how you perceive your age , 

• how you feel "mentally"  (about 18 most days!)  

versus 

• how old you actually are (your biological age)

although I subscribe to Christian Dior's model of age

Women are most fascinating between the ages of 35 and 40 after they have won a few races and know how to pace themselves.

Since few women ever pass 40, maximum fascination can continue indefinitely.- Christian Dior

• and then there is how others see you;  How old you look? do you "look your age" or are you "not bad looking for your age"  or "don't look your age"  or have you "not looked after yourself"

Then the issue arises how what is age appropriate behaviour, clothing, attitudes. 

Since our life expectancy has increased over the last century our perception of "old  has changed but I'm not sure some of our attitudes have considering my previous rant above. My grandmother died in her late 50's to me  she was an "old lady", whereas I now do not consider myself  "old ", and realistically we are not as "old.  Our health is better, we have more opportunities to keep participating in life and most of us are now working in careers that allow us to work way past the "retirement age" ( what is that now ?) and hence my indignation at people over 50 being considered "old". 

At the current cost of housing in Sydney I will be 80 before my mortgage is paid off! So I can sit and dream of 0ver 50's not working full time, over 50's resorts and holidays for seniors, for now I'm planning to be one of those most fabulous women who refuse to be defined by age.

Here are some over 50's  poster girls for you 

so how old are you feeling today?

Culture Vulture

I feel a bit of a fraud at the moment, because I'm not actually the Glenquarry Goddess at the moment, we are taking a sabbatical in the city of Sydney ( for various social and work reasons, but don't worry we will return to GG central in the future) so in the meantime think of me more like the Sydney Siren!

One of the things we have really taken advantage of being in the thick of things is to take a subscription to the Sydney Theatre Company for 2016. We always used to come up and see plays now and then but for this year at least we are seeing about 75% of the entire season.

Last Saturday we had the pleasure of seeing King Charles III. I remember seeing the posters for this play when I was in London a couple of years ago but never got to see it there. I must say it was very enjoyable and though provoking. The basic premise is that QEII has "passed on" and Charles is now the king, but his first royal duty to sign a bill that is designed to limit the power of the press to invade people's privacy. Charles refuses and a constitutional crises ensues. The playwright has paid homage to Shakespeare in referencing some of his more famous characters such as Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet and large parts of the dialogue are in blank verse.

It also address the issue of celebrity with Kate and William ( you know who!) who are considered "better" for the throne given their popularity.

The whole scenario played out quite realistically  in the and I could imagine that something like this could very well happen in the future.

One thing I have observed is the audience demographic at all of the plays we have been to so far, and I ask.....


"Where are the young people?"

The audiences are predominantly middle aged men and women and the absence of younger people is quite obvious, I asked the Significant Other about this and we pondered why is this so?

Is it the cost?
Are young(er) people not interested in the theatre?
Are the plays not of relevance to them?
Can they not leave their technology for long enough to see a play?

Just a thought.