Dog days

It's winter in Sydney, and what a winter! Bright, sparkling sunny days, warm and delicious in the sun, cold at night so you can snuggle under a duvet without getting too hot.

Because it's still getting dark early, I have moved into my winter routine. I stop work around 3.30, gather our two dogs and take them to an off-leash area five minutes' drive from home. I can work then when it's dark until it's time to cook dinner.

I could walk there, but our older dog Rose the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is twelve now, arthritic and easily tired. She's delighted to go in the car to her favourite spot, but doesn't run around with other dogs any more; she simply stays at my side or toddles at my heels and has the odd trot around.

Ellie our toy poodle is eleven months old and is delirious with excitement when I let her out of the car.

Because the parking lot is usually pretty empty on weekdays I park at the same spot, near the entrance and she's down the path and onto the grass before I've even shut the car door.

My, my, she's fast. Our little racehorse, chasing anything that moves. Pestering pigeons in the park, I paraphrase, after the song Poisoning Pigeons In The Park.

A happy soul, she easily makes friends with dogs of all sizes and ages. She has rumbled with a Briard sheepdog four times her size, and has endless fun with Cavoodles, who are apparently the dog du jour around here.  I know at least five different regular Cavoodles who frequent the park.

It lifts my heart to see her have such fun, to watch her lithe body transform from a black ball of fluff into a lean, mean, galloping machine, tail used as a rudder, ears flying back behind her head.

After the first minute or two she'll gallop back to me, do a circle and around me, and be off again. She's always clocking where I am, and always comes back to me for reassurance, pats, the odd treat.

I love doing this in winter as the days are cool and she can run like fury without getting too hot. There are fewer people there in winter and most of them have dogs; the serious dog people. Unlike summer, when you get picnickers, fisher folk, teenage lovers, sailors and heaps of kids.

Summer is a different story; muggy and hot unless the breeze is blowing from the right direction. The dogs pant and I get sweaty when we go for our walk around the point. I love the winter dog days. The coolth. The warm coat, and perhaps a scarf. And most of all the energy of Ellie.

The forgotten women - over 60, single and broke

I was thinking earlier today about three women friends who are all in the same boat: over sixty, single/divorced, childless, and with not much money or income to their name despite running their own businesses. One in particular, who doesn't own her own place, is looking down the barrel of a pretty dismal retirement, assuming she can ever afford to.

There's a theory by The Barefoot Investor that one can retire quite happily with $250K in superannuation, get the aged pension (part or full depending on your savings) and work maybe one or two days a week (both for a bit of extra cash and to keep your mind active).

That's fine but my three friends don't have $250K in super. Luckily one owns her own apartment. She also has more in super than the others, so I think she'll be better off. Let's call her Sherry. Sherry started her biz eight years ago after taking redundancy from her employer. Sherry now has a disability so will be getting financial assistance from the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Her quality of life is going to get worse as time goes on, however, so Sherry needs to assess where she is going to live as she is likely to be in a wheelchair sometime in the next couple of years.

Friend number two, who we'll call Shona, hasn't paid off her house. Her partner left her two years ago after 20 years and Shona apparently doesn't have access to her partner's super. She doesn't have enough super of her own to survive on, so she's keeping on with her struggling biz and hoping that when she reaches pension age in about two years' time she'll own her house. She's renting the house out at the moment to pay it off, and living in the granny flat.

Friend number three, we'll call her Sue, is the worst off of the lot. She had to dig into her super early to pay for major surgery. Divorced many years ago, she got a rough deal out of the marriage and has never owned her own house. Her beautician business is struggling but at 65 she's applied for the pension to make ends meet. I worry how she's going to survive in Sydney with rental prices skyrocketing. At the moment Sue is doing a long term house sit and not paying any rent. She is considering house sitting as a way of life or becoming a companion to an elderly woman. She doesn't want to move from Sydney.

If I have three friends in my relatively small group of friends who are in this position, I wonder and worry how many more women are in the same boat? How many have been ditched by their partners for someone younger (poor Shona!)?  How many are worrying that when they retire they won't be able to pay the rent? How many will have to consider moving out of a major city such as Sydney and Melbourne, leaving their friends and maybe family, and moving to a country town where rents are cheaper but where they may miss the city life and culture?

Women's wages have always been less than that of males so women have a rough deal to begin with when it comes to saving for their retirement, on the whole.

Well, you may say, why do these women continue persisting with struggling businesses? Can't they get a job? Huh!!! Despite the government urging employers to take on the over-50s, it's VERY hard for women over sixty to get a job unless they are highly qualified. These days qualifications are everything; a single degree hardly counts any more. To be in the running for a white collar management job you need a double degree at least. Shona has part time work in addition to running her business but can't find a full-time job in the region where she lives.

This is a generation of single women who are going to find their retirement years extremely tough - particularly if they haven't paid their home off. When these women started in the workforce, superannuation contributions from employers weren't compulsory. It's likely many women will have started a super contribution late in their working life. For those entrepreneurs who have their own small and struggling business, you can bet the contributions will be lower than that paid by an employer.

I think we are going to hear a lot more about the plight of 'forgotten women' in the next ten years as they hit pension age and rents continue to rise. It breaks my heart.

Buying into Buy Nothing - confessions of a shopping addict

So Buy Nothing is a thing. I get it. We live in a very consumerist society. Advertising is everywhere; on the tv, radio, print media, social media and websites and of course emails. It's overwhelming.

Use Facebook and ads will pop up for anything and everything, usually targetted to your age and gender. Visit any number of websites and you'll find an ad for something you searched for on Google recently (I'm sure there's a way to stop my search data being used like that but I can't be arsed finding it out). Click me, they urge, go on - click!

As I have a bulging wardrobe and every kitchen utensil known to man, I committed to stop shopping on 1 July 2017 for a minimum of three months with the aim of stretching it to twelve months.

I confess to being somewhat of a shopping addict. In addition to food and toiletries, I buy clothes, shoes, makeup, books, music and sometimes household goods on a regular basis. The woman at my local dress shop calls me her best customer, although I've been 'good' lately and haven't bought anything from her for six weeks, and that was only the second thing I'd bought from her all year.

But I digress. If I can make it to three months, I can increase my Buy Nothing week by week, month by month. Little steps, regular milestones, will make it easier. Rather like someone in AA taking it one day at a time.

I can see why Buy Nothing is taking off, however. Firstly minimalism is back in vogue, so to achieve it, you need less. Then there's the problem of rubbish and landfill we in the west create.

As well as being a consumerist society, we are a throwaway society. Globalisation has seen fashion become an entity which churns out new designs on an apparently weekly basis. (In fact there is a shop at Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney which promises new stock EVERY WEEK. Ye Gods.) With low labour costs in third world countries it's easy to spend $30-$50 for a new jumper or dress, or $10 on a t-shirt. I'm guilty. When H and M came to Australia I snapped up a handful of $7 t-shirts with absolute glee. After all, white t-shirts usually only last a year or two before they go grey or attract stains even Napisan can't remove. Then into the rubbish they go, too awful to even give to a charity shop.

My goodness, the amount of clothing that goes into landfill is terrifying. How wasteful we are as a society. How greedy. How eager to flash the plastic and buy more, more, more. I feel sorry for the fashionistas who are compelled to buy the latest look, racking up their credit cards to indecent levels, wearing items only a few times before chucking or donating. Because clothing IS so cheap these days, it is very much seen as throwaway after one season.

Granted, little of my clothing gets actually chucked out. Anything still decent goes to charity, damaged clothing gets used by me as cleaning rags before finally hitting the bin.  I get many years out of my clothes as most of what I buy is either fairly classic or interesting enough not to date. I have overcoats I've had for 20+ years and they're still fine.

The human cost behind producing cheap clothes for the western world is heartbreaking. Sweatshops, dangerous conditions, working hours which would cause strikes in Australia. Look at your clothing. Where is it made? Bangladesh? India? Turkey? China? Would you be prepared to pay, say, four times more for each item if it was made in your own country under decent working conditions?

And as for 'the middle aisle' in ALDI - oh, oh, oh! What a joy! The bits and pieces I have bought cheaply, such as weights and gym clothes, or a warm throw for the living room for a tiny $15, fill me with acquisitive delight. For I AM acquisitive, and it's something I'll have to overcome. I don't need more stuff. The majority of us don't need more stuff.

But.

It's not as if I'm in my 20s and have just moved out of home and have to buy or acquire household goods on which to sit, or kitchen utensils and pots. I have it all. Mum left a house full of 'stuff' when she died and I'm still selling or giving away things in an effort to make the place less cluttered.

I'm going to find this Buy Nothing lark hard work I think. I have unsubscribed from various shoe and clothing email lists so I don't get tempted.

So if I'm buying nothing, what are the exceptions for me? Which non-nothings will sneak into the house aside from food etc for us and the animals?

• Toiletries and cosmetics. I don't buy many cosmetics but I'm not going to go without an eyebrow pencil when my current one dies (local supermarket, $14, and seriously good).  And I don't go mad on toiletries like I used to 20 years ago. I estimate in the next 3 months I will have to buy toothpaste, soap, 1 bottle each of shampoo, conditioner, Nuxe Huile Prodiguese and Nutrimetics Nutri-Rich Oil as these are my staples and I'm running low on them. 
• Nails. I like having nice nails. It's a pick me up luxury that costs me about $40/month.
• Hair. Yes, my foils cost money but damned if I'm going to go grey.
• Books. But only e-books as they are cheaper and don't take up physical space, or I'll rejoin the local library and borrow.
• I may have to get supplies for my business such as paper and ink for the printer, but then I've always been frugal with my business.
• Gifts for others' birthdays. Unless I have something I can make or something new I can regift. There are 3 birthdays I have to cater for so I'll have to be canny.

And that's it. For the next two and a half months at least. Wish me luck. Hope I can conquer this shopping addiction and be a Buy Nothing person.

When good cats turn bad

I mentioned in a recent post my cat friend Fred. Fred has been an angel to look after in my fill-in-for-a-friend cat sitting business. He has a reputation for turning aggressive at the click of a finger, but I haven't seen it.

Until today.

Poor Fred. His owner is away for another 9 days, and he's feeling lonely and starved of his owner's affection.  I walk inside and he immediately head butts my legs. I talk to him, stroke him, pick him up and cuddle him.

Marion the cat sitter told me not to trust him. I haven't ignored her; I've simply come to my own conclusions and watched him carefully. I thought I had his measure. Thought I had the balance of affection just right.

Today I sat on the sofa as soon as I got there (my third day doing this as I've become more confident with this tricky boy) and Fred happily jumped on my knees, purring ecstatically. He purred so hard saliva dripped from his mouth onto my jeans, and I held him and stroked him and talked to him, and importantly, gave him the 'cat kiss'; that slow blink that tells him I'm not a threat. I thought we understood each other perfectly as he slow-blinked back at me and we stayed happily together for five minutes, until he turned and bit my hand.

Not hard, you understand. It was a gentle bite, the sort cats give you when they can't decide whether they want to sit on your knee or not.

So I took my hands off him and still kept talking to him in a quiet voice, soothing and calming, mentioning his name every five seconds and putting in "good boy" all the time, too.

Fred got off my legs and I could finally get around to fixing his food for the day.  He followed me into the kitchen, head-butting and happy.

I decided to do a visual check of the flat for furballs and vomits - you know what cats can be like. Fred followed me, chatting happily and meowing me details of his life. Clearly he slept in the main bedroom with his owner, as the duvet was cat-rucked and he jumped onto it demonstratively.

I checked the room and turned to walk out. And Fred pounced.

Gawd, my left leg has copped it from cats this week!

He grabbed it with both front legs and tried to sink his teeth in. Bless demin. Good old jeans. I felt his claws and teeth but he didn't break any skin.

I turned and shook my finger at him and snapped, "No!" and he immediately backed off. I suspect I was heading into "his" territory, his sleeping room, and made a note not to do that again.

He was still a bit swishy-tail while I cleaned his litter tray, but was back to smooching against me before grabbing my leg again in the living room. This time no claws or teeth, just a firm grip from his strong little legs, and I had the "No!" going at him before his legs were all the way around mine.

His owner has since told me he gets over-stimulated with too much affection; he does it with her too!

So it's a hard call. I want to give Fred the affection he needs while his owner is away, but not to the point that he attacks me.  He looks for me now every day and cries when he hears my step, as I go to his elegant flat at much the same time each day.  He engages with me, makes lots of eye contact, and is desperate for a cuddle and snuggle.

There are pills marked 'for emergency only' if Fred has a real conniption and goes truly violent with me, but I have left them on the bench for today. I'll see how he is tomorrow.

In a way he reminds me of a Siamese who shared my life for 13 years; another boy who loved a cuddle but would use his teeth.  Maybe so much ecstasy is too much?

Does your cat turn aggro after a cuddle?

Today I got smacked by a cat

I'm helping a friend out at the moment. She has a cat sitting business; she goes into people's houses and feeds their cat/s while they're away, cleans litter trays, plays with said felines etc. My friend - let's call her Marion - is finally having a holiday after seven years of running her business and building it up from scratch.

Today I had two visits to make. One was for a cat I'll call Fred. Marion warned me he can turn aggro for no reason. "Never turn your back on him," she warned, but Fred so far has been a snuggly, purry angel of a cat. I've got him for the whole two weeks and hope I don't need to resort to the emergency pills on the kitchen counter. Fred lives in a posh suburb in a flat right on the water. He has views to die for (not that he appreciates them I suspect but I'm sure his owner does). He greets me at the door and flops at my feet, rolling back and forth in delight. I have long conversations with him as I clean his bowls and other paraphernalia, and there's never a hint of aggro. I do watch his eyes. If a cat's pupils suddenly turn big and round - watch out and take cover!

My second visit was one closer to home for two Ragdoll cats, Sunny and Shadow. Marion had a warning about Sunny. "He may rush at the door when you arrive and he can be territorial." Another Fred! Anyhow, Sunny was very pleasant to me and I was happily patting him and talking to him. Shadow was hiding as he apparently does. So I put food down while Sunny purred at my feet. I cleaned the litter tray. I went to find Shadow upstairs and Sunny trotted at my heels.

Unfortunately he was TOO close to my heels. I checked the upstairs rooms (no sign of the little bugger but apparently he can hide only too well) and turned around.

Only to stand on Sunny's foot.

He screamed.

I screamed.

He pounced on my ankle and gave it his best shot with teeth and claws. Luckily I was wearing boots, it being winter here after all, and I only have a small scratch to show for it.

I apologised, in the softest, warmest voice I could. I sat on the steps in front of him and held out a hand, offering a gentle pat.

Sunny narrowed his big baby blues and hit my hand with a front paw. No claws, but his body language said it all: Fuck off, lady. You hurt me.

Tail swishing furiously, he followed me down the stairs. Not a limp in sight, thankfully. But no, just slapping my hand wasn't enough.

With every step I took with my left foot (the one that landed on his paw), he grabbed my ankle and bit my boot. His tail was swishing like a metronome. This was one seriously pissed off cat. I don't blame the poor little thing; I felt dreadful for stepping on him.

As I was inching my way across the living room Shadow flew down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the hall, disappearing into a front room.

Well, at least I could SMS the owner that I had visual sighting of the elusive Shadow!

Sunny wasn't letting up. I shuffled, cat attached, to the scratching post trees with toys attached to them. Thankfully one had elastic and I pinged it and pinged it and bounced it until his attention went from my foot to the toy.

With one bound, I was free!

With two bounds I was out the door with a huge sigh, still feeling awful for poor Sunny.

I have two more days feeding the pair of them. I hope Sunny has forgiven and forgotten by tomorrow. But I'll wear different shoes just in case.