BASTILLE DAY

Why should we not celebrate Bastille Day, the national day of France? We are the French class of our small community! Twelve or more of us, most of whom have been studying the French language for seven years or so. Some of us are not too bad at speaking French. We are from all walks of life, with all of us ‘getting on’ in years.

GUEST SPEAKING

It was quite exciting. I had been invited to be one of the speakers at a large function for 200 carers of the aged ethnic community in Queensland. My brief was to speak of sensuality and the elderly. Having written the book Sex in Your Seventies, I suppose I was the logical choice. But perhaps nobody realised what a hoot my speech always is!

I was eleven when the Second World War began in 1939, and seventeen when it ended in 1945. A lot happened to me during those six years.
My father had left the dairy farm at Buccan three years earlier and settled at the Dunellan Estate, now Greenslopes, in Brisbane. A clever young man, he had worked to get his credentials, and was just establishing himself in the building industry. When war was declared, we feared that he would be called up in the army, as he was an officer in the Army Reserve.

Last year Logan Village celebrated 150 years of white settlement. This year, it was decided to keep that spirit alive, and have another heritage festival. Just one day, Sunday 14th September...last Sunday.

I played quite a large role last year, being the guest speaker at the Heritage Dinner at the local hotel. During proceedings, my second book about Logan Village was launched by the Federal Member. The book, titled 'Knee Deep in Logan Village' is a trilogy, written in the voices of my grandmother, my father and myself. It is about life as it was lived in those eras.

I forgot to inform Sue, my near neighbour and friend, that I was going whale-watching that day. Maureen and I were to leave at 6am in order to get to the pier at 7am. I usually phone Sue each day at 8am, whereby she knows I am okay. It is her way of checking on me, and I am so fortunate to have her concern. But she and her husband had been absent for a week, and I was sort of out of kilter a bit. I just plain forgot in the excitement of my outing.

HE’S ONLY A MAN…

How sad it is.
He made much of me in my capacity of being a great help to the community. I felt really valued as a member.
The phone calls were many, and e-mails frequent, all very jolly and jovial…and a little bit flattering. I quite enjoyed them, not taking them seriously, but smiling the while. I suppose they made me feel young and desirable.

All is now pretty good. I had a left knee replacement in October, and I am only now starting to appreciate the operation. I had been in considerable pain and was limping all the time.
It has been quite an ordeal. I had expected it to be painful, but it seemed to go on for so long that one felt one was becoming a whinger!
The anaesthetic must have been marvellous, because one minute I was sitting on the edge of the operating table chatting nervously, the next I was in recovery, having had the operation. The attention was good and I felt I was coping well.

Sometimes the computer seems to go crazy.

Somewhere on my website, I had my e-mail address. My old address at Hotmail is now inaccessible, and I have a new one of: doreenwendtweir@gmail.com

Please feel free to contact me on this address if you are experiencing any difficulty in placing an order or similar.

Even I could not find this on my website. Doreen

INSIGHT

When I accepted an invitation to be part of the forum on the SBS program ‘Insight’, I thought it was just a matter of flying to Sydney, playing my part in the taping of the program, returning to my hotel and coming home the next day. No so.

The subject matter being discussed by the forum is whether sex involving seniors is a taboo topic, especially for the young (and more). Because I have written the book ‘Sex in Your Seventies’, it was presumed that I would have an opinion on this. And I certainly do.

I was delighted to be asked to express my views!