A Bit of a Catch Up

Seems the year just goes so fast and I can't keep track of everything going on.  We finished our Sunday Pink Ribbon ride with 90 motorbikes riding up to Campbell Town with a full police escort.  That was fun to have the traffic stopped for us on the main highways as we headed north for the 90 minute ride to the middle of the state. The bikers raised $2,000 for breast cancer and handed the check over to the Cancer Council at the end of the afternoon.

90 bikers with a police escort. It was great fun seeing all
the cars stopped for us at the intersections.

Yesterday I went to my Play Reading class where our lovely, beautiful instructor of 80+ is giving us a great lesson with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard.We are loving it and everytime we reach a reference to Hamlet we pull out the Hamlet book and read those passages too.  It is a fascinating play and we are all really getting into the comical dialogue.

Our play reading class is loving this.

After Play Reading class I decided to head out to Glenorchy which is just north of Hobart about 20 minutes. They have a very well organised Tip Shop with lots of books. I hadn't been out there in ages so scootered on out to have a look.They used to charge way too much for old second hand books. For example a battered old Penguin would be marked  $7.00 so I stopped going out there. When they didn't sell, as all of the books seemed to remain on the shelves they have now come to their senses and Penguins were only a dollar with other brand new books no more than $2.00.

I have never read a Jasper Fforde book and the other two looked
interesting. They are in an as new condition.

Two lovely vintage Penguins in good condition. Penguins No. 2491 and 2662,
first published.  These are nearing the last of the vintage Penguins as they
were published only a few years before Allen Lane's death

More for the Penguin collection. A first published Pelican about Ants of all things.
I have always had a strong interest in insects, (I know, my inner Autistic side, and
Harriet and The Cherry Pie is a first published Puffin. The first published Puffins
are quite difficult to find. This is PS 379 published in 1968.

They must have just gotten a big donation in because I found some wonderful books.  The year 2014 is going to hopefully be a year I focus much more on the books I own. That will be my challenge. No, it won't be hard and fast b/c I have learned as a blogger I evidently don't do hard and fast.  It will be an attempt. I will leave it at that.  But with the haul from yesterday I am looking forward to some of these.

I don't come across many second hand Viragos in excellent condition
in Tip Shops so picked them up. No doubt many book bloggers have
read them especially in the UK.

Today I also remembered my dad as he died 9 years ago this month. I just can't believe so much time has passed.  He used to love food so much. But he had a wife in his later years who liked to tell him what to eat.  He did need to lose weight. He did like a cocktail hour. He loved big band music and was the most social, funny person I ever knew.  I remember when I would visit we'd sneak out to the mall and eat chilli dogs because his wife wouldn't let him have them. Too fattening.  To her credit she fed him a good diet but there is a limit and he was in his mid 80's. How long does a person want to live anyway.

One day, in the middle of entertaining a friend at their house for dinner, telling some jokes, eating good food, he sat down and said he wasn't feeling well, closed his eyes and was gone.  A wonderful way to go but he left a real gap in our life.

Today I was cleaning up weeds in the back yard and came across a whole pile of rhubarb that somehow survived my attempt to cull it last year. I cut it all back, came in the house and made a rhubarb pie.

My dad always enjoyed a dessert so this was for him.  I had fun chopping up the rhubarb and added an apple b/c I was a bit short of the 4 cups of rhubarb I needed.  It came out wonderfully and we'll look forward to having a piece of it tonight in his memory.

This one's for you Dad.

So bikes, books, gardening and cooking and even time for a frisbee game with the dogs.  The time truly does goes by so fast.  So please, for today only, if you feel like having a piece of cake or pie or a beer (unless you're recovering), please do so. Life is short, pleasures can be fleeting and I hope anyone who reads this does something today they really love doing, whether it's good for them or not.