17/07/2026
Had a moment of panic trying to sort my phone junk and I "locked" my mountain of photos in a folder that just jumbled all my albums into a pile... sighhhh I'm technologicaly challenged now.... ( my brain was removed along with my insides 🥴).... To make matters worse I chose the same time to have a melancholy moment about how much my life has changed since April 2024 when Pooten 💩 was born and I eventually returned to a totally different world. Don't get me wrong here, I'm still grateful for every day that i wake up now and still have a home and still able to live independently (as long as all my exhausted friends don't abandon me 🤣).
But I suppose, now that I'm 70, its natural to occasionally sit in the garden, in the sunshine and contemplate my naval in the quiet.
I have been in a mood recently and doing a lot of naval contemplation but now the shop is totally and absolutely gone from my life. Last week the final evidence of its existence "Max the Magpie", painted by John Murray Artist Lighting Ridge during (I think🤔) the last of the Gulargambone Art Festivals, disappeared forever. Building Renovations were long overdue and the progress will be a great benefit to the streetscape...
But I'm old and broken and those memories now a lifetime away... so you can understand my panic when I couldn't access my photos of Max the Magpie and Memories and Mayhem back in the day when things were good and each day was a fun new adventure.
But it's not all sad... today Joyce Newton carted me in to town and all the Coffee Ladies filled our table for the first new Friday Coffee morning with Cafe 2828 back in business after a long spell. We had a ball. It was a lovely catch up with old friends, even Maude ( Blanche Creamer Howard ) put in an unexpected appearance. Catherine was welcomed as a newbie victim today and just like a flock of old birds it took us THREE attempts to circle and test all the available seating until finally settling as close as possible to our "old" table location.
It was a lovely fun morning with old and new friends but as I rolled out to the car I looked across to the old shop (normally Joyce and I would have headed over to the shop for a couple of hours) and realised finally that its all gone forever. So at home I looked for my photos of then and now but of course technology had beaten me.. but i persisted and I not only found "Max" but eventually recovered the photos of the painting of the door. So I'm posting my little collection of "then" and "now".... because at least out in FB world someone somewhere might in the future remember "Memories and Mayhem" and "Max the Magpie" with fondness of many visits and conversations.
