Second-Best Luck

By Malcolm Gerloch

Fancy retirement right across the globe? Learning to speak a foreign language (Australian)? Too easy; don’t be a wuss, mite! Herein, you will find travel, exploration, how not to buy a house, how to build a harpsichord; how to cope with a second hysterectomy, coronary bypass, two different and simultaneous serious cancers. No worries; she’ll be right, mite! Consider Orshtraya on differing scales; the conurbation that is Canberra; the 90-mile straight which is just a blip in the landscape driving across the Great Australian Bite, Mite; the deeply soothing silence of the outback.

Seriously, sport: this sometimes humorous volume is travelogue, retirement manual, and medical aid, all in one. It has a sporting chance of really helping anyone terrified with recent news of cancer or other really serious illness. We all need help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398444577

Malcolm Gerloch

Dr Gerloch retired in 1999 from a career as an academic and research scientist in the field of quantum chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He is an emeritus fellow of Trinity Hall. He and his wife, Gwyneth, have since lived in Canberra, Australia. In retirement, Malcolm has enjoyed garden design, house renovation, and learning to cook in several cuisines. In 2004, he constructed a dual-manual Flemish harpsichord for Gwyneth to play and to thank her for introducing him (so late in life) to the non-scientific literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century European and twentieth century American writers. At 79, Malcolm began writing both children’s and adult short stories, as well as the present account of retirement in Oz.

Book preview

About the Author

Dr Gerloch retired in 1999 from a career as an academic and research scientist in the field of quantum chemistry at the University of Cambridge. He is an emeritus fellow of Trinity Hall. He and his wife, Gwyneth, have since lived in Canberra, Australia. In retirement, Malcolm has enjoyed garden design, house renovation, and learning to cook in several cuisines. In 2004, he constructed a dual-manual Flemish harpsichord for Gwyneth to play and to thank her for introducing him (so late in life) to the non-scientific literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century European and twentieth century American writers. At 79, Malcolm began writing both children’s and adult short stories, as well as the present account of retirement in Oz.

Dedication

It is well-nigh impossible to express my gratitude to, and admiration of, the doctors, nurses, radiologists and all other medics in Australia who have helped me over the past twenty-odd years, but I try to do so here.

I hope that they are happy to share my gratitude with my everlasting thanks to my wife, Gwyneth, and all the wonderful friends we have made in The Lucky Country where we have made our new home.

Copyright Information ©

Malcolm Gerloch 2022

The right of Malcolm Gerloch to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398444560 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398444577 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

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Acknowledgement

One person has read and reread this book nearly as many times as I have. That is my wife, Gwyneth, who I thank with all my heart for her continued criticism and love, in either order.

Introduction

I took early retirement from an academic position in the University of Cambridge in 1999 as I turned 60. My wife, Gwyneth, and I resolved to make our retirement in Australia, thereby violating an oft-cited cardinal rule that one should never retire any significant distance from long established friends, family and ways and certainly not to the other end of the earth. As I write, we have just completed twenty years out here in the Lucky Country. We wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything.

In part, therefore, this book tells our English friends and anyone else contemplating such a move, what it’s been like in Oz, but at the same time, it might be amusing for Aussies to read the views of a couple of Poms about their new home turf. Gwyn and I aren’t brave people like those who emigrate to non-Caucasian countries or even just to other parts of Europe where English won’t do it for you.

Apart from plain English and bad English, we pretend no linguistic skills and anyway, retirement is supposed to be a lazy, laid-back reward for all those years of striving, n’est pas?

I had visited Australia many times as a lecturer touting my world-shattering research and in 1996, had brought Gwyn here to see for herself. For her, it was love at first sight and she pursued the dream of retirement here as if giving a seminar on dogs and bones. So, I hope our story will bring pleasure simply as a travelogue of Australian geography, mores and language.

But it’s not only that. When we left the UK, we were in excellent health; we had to be or we wouldn’t have been issued with a Visa by the Australian Immigration Department. It didn’t last, however, each of us suffering a variety of health issues (what a phrase that is), some pretty trivial, others very serious.

Gwyn had to undergo a second hysterectomy early on and since she isn’t an alien from outer space, that concept requires an explanation. I had to undergo a triple coronary bypass a couple of years later. More recently, I had to suffer the delights of having dental implants; hardly life-threatening but assuredly unpleasant and enormously expensive.

Much later, Gwyn had cataracts removed from both her eyes; again, the greatest pain associated with that was in the back pocket. Today, she suffers from a diminished disc in her lower back which is causing untold pain and misery. What a tale of woe, you might suppose; I’ll read something else. But, hang on, it gets worse!

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with two serious cancers (I’m not sure if there are any non-serious cancers, mind you), which have been treated with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery (twice). So, what are you letting yourself in for if you stick with this tale?

Well, straight away, let me assure you in the strongest terms that you are not going to be subjected to an endless moan. I would not do that to any reader and that includes me. Don’t forget. I have to read this stuff too! Many times over.

I must confess that all this cancer business scared the hell out of me. Despite the enormous advances made in cancer treatments in recent years, I was only too aware that I lost my mother to the disease years ago when she was only 63 and similar fates have befallen several very close friends since. Why should I not be scared?

However, I am a scientist with a scientist’s curiosity. I wanted to know and understand everything that was happening to me as it happened; preferably before it happened. That helped me enormously so I will tell you what happened and what was done about it. Personally, I think that it’s interesting for itself, but I also believe that our experiences may be helpful to others travelling similar paths.

I am well aware that traditional mores frown on recitation of one’s personal health details; it just isn’t done. However, I have had occasion to give encouragement to a couple of people who were scared in the face of two of the procedures I underwent and I believe that their hearing explanations—as long and slow as required—helped them, just as my reading helped me.

After all, doctors and nurses have but limited time to talk patients through their fears. I’m retired and have all the time in the world. And if you’ll excuse the immodesty, I know what I’m talking about; or, when I don’t, I either shut up or bluff royally.

So, I hope to entertain and to succour. And by the way, some do suggest that I have a weird sense of humour. Listen, if you can’t laugh at all this, what’s left?

Cherryade and Lamb Ribs

It’s only fair to warn you, dear reader, of upcoming descriptions of body parts and functions which might not be expected in comely reading for gentlefolk. Here is your opportunity to leave!

In 2014, Gwyn and I were staying with our friends, Daphne and Barry, in Brissy for a few days. Brissy is the Australian playword for Brisbane. In the morning of our second day there, I popped into the bathroom for my early morning pee. Sorry to mention it but it is important and I did warn you—and this is the last time I shall do so. I passed blood.

Not just a drop, you understand but a good long stream of cherryade. It’s inevitable that we blokes see these things, of course; you Sheilas might be too shy to look. But you should, you know.

The cold terror of my having cancer flooded my mind like a crashing wave.

But look; we were on holiday and planned to make a leisurely drive back to our home in Canberra over the next few days. We were booked, dammit and we had looked forward to this little break for some time. I mentioned to Gwyn in a thoroughly casual way that I’d peed a spot of blood and would check with the doc when we got home.

Only a slight glossing of the facts, really; my conscience was almost clear and anyway, we had been married 23 years (what on earth had that got to do with it, you ask and well you might—). The bleeding lasted for two days and then just as suddenly stopped.

And so, in due course, we left our friends and began the drive home. We had long been used to the vast distances involved in almost any journey in Australia—don’t forget we had arrived from the UK—but still preferred to break our journey every two or three hours. Morning coffee, lunch, afternoon tea and so to a motel and an evening meal.

Come to think about it, that’s more or less the routine at home too; we are retired, remember? So, our first night was in Grafton. The only thing of significance I remember about Grafton was that the friendly motel owner had an equally friendly cat who was eager to accept the left-overs of our lousy take-away. I mention this to show that we lay claim to being cat lovers even whilst being experienced enough to know that the puss didn’t care about the quality of the fish anyway.

I am conscious of being rather dismissive about Grafton and I admit right away that we hardly gave it a chance, for our motel was way out of town and we only caught a brief glimpse of the place as we made a short but deliberate detour on our way out. We shall try again sometime.

From Brissy, home to Canberra.

Later next morning, we had a pleasant coffee in Coffs Harbour and a modest but surprisingly good lunch a wee way south in Nambucca Heads. After a very short afternoon’s drive, we found our next pre-booked motel—in Port Macquarie. We like Port Macquarie. It was founded as a penal colony in 1821, one reason being the, then, dense bush all around and another being the local Aborigines’ liking for tobacco and blankets which they received as rewards for returning any escapees.

Today, it is a simple enough place with an interesting seafront, close by which was our motel and a short distance from both was a beaut little restaurant offering, amongst other goodies; lamb, beef and pork ribs. We had lamb. By now, surely, you will have got the point; we live to eat rather than the other way round.

We remember places we have visited in terms of what we ate there. I hope there’s no need to apologise. We enjoyed those lamb ribs on a warm evening at an essentially private table on a balcony overlooking lawns and Norfolk pines; a slow chomp with a good bottle of red, while watching people down below.

Unusually, we reckoned, there were no flies or mozzies to disturb us that evening probably owing to our proximity to sea breezes; and so no fly screens to dull the view.

It was only a short hop the next day to Nelson Bay. We spent a couple of nights there largely on the recommendation of the parents of a couple of friends of ours from the Old Dart. It was immediately apparent why they had liked the area so much, but it was equally clear to us that it is in the process of being spoilt by modern tourism.

We still think it’s worth a visit but we cannot rave about it. That is no reflection on our motel room which could have slept eight people easily and comfortably, nor on a downtown Thai restaurant which, though small, served some really delicious food.

After an even shorter drive, we came into Newcastle where we stayed for the next couple of days. Newcastle is a gentrified version of its former self as a coal city. Coal is still exported from there but the grime has gone. I’m sure that there will be many who bemoan the passing of the old city, but not us.

A long time ago we recognised in ourselves a liking for comfort and a touch of glitz. There are several delightful beaches in Newcastle and some pleasant streets and restaurants downtown, which are distributed amongst separate areas. It’s a fine city, well worth a return visit or two. Newcastle, by the way, is somewhat more populous than the nation’s capital, our home.

It is perfectly possible to drive from Newcastle to Canberra in one day; a fairly long drive for us, but easily doable. We didn’t. We wanted to see a couple of other places for the first time. The first was the Hunter Valley. For any Brits still with us, Hunter equals wine.

We had previously explored the wineries of the Margaret River area in Western Australia; those in the Clare and Barossa valleys and of the McLaren Vale in South Australia; a little of The Yarra Valley and of Rutherglen in Victoria (Rutherglen, by the way, is the home of sweet dessert wines which Aussies call ‘stickies’; I’ll tell you a little more about quaint Aussie lingo in due course); and we’ve sampled some offerings from the Tamar Valley in Tasmania.

Gosh! It’s only on writing down this list that I have come to realise how large wine looms in our horizon; you learn something new every day. Well, so by now, we had arrived in the Hunter. If you think I’m describing this trip in far too cursory a manner, remember what was in my mind all the while.

Just outside of the winery area is the small city of Cessnock which served us well for a coffee and supermarket later on. The Hunter specialises in Semillon wines and we had fun meeting a deservedly confident winemaker at one of the cellar door outlets. We bought a couple of bottles—and not just out of politeness. We stayed for a couple of nights in rather delightful accommodation in the middle of the winery area.

There was a small group of chalets clustered around a central café-cum-retail-outlet which latter served good breakfasts and coffee. The chalets were each divided into two apartments, one smaller—one larger, in a back-to-back arrangement which ensured privacy. Everyone had their own patio/barbecue area with views over rolling country covered with neat vineyards, and blissful silence!

Around the corner was an up-market restaurant. Well, it advertised itself as such. We thought it was OK but grossly over-priced. After a while, we formed the view that Hunter Valley Tourism tends to set charges with Sydney-siders in mind (Sydney is only a few hours’ drive away) but, at the same time, ignores the fact that their prices would buy far posher meals in Sydney itself.

As usual, it’s what the market will bear and if we didn’t like it, we knew what we could do; well, yes, we did and we bade farewell to that part of the world!

At that point in our retirement, we had lived and travelled in Australia for some 14 years. We had toured Tasmania; driven up to Cairns in FNQ (Far North Queensland) and visited the Great Barrier Reef; spent a fair time in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide; and driven across the Nullarbor to Western Australia including stays in Perth, Margaret River, Busselton, Augusta, Albany and Esperance.

We’d seen Broken Hill and the Great Ocean Road. Yet, we had never visited the Bluies (Blue Mountains to you Poms and Yanks) in all that time. So, we were determined to put that right this time even though it extended our trip somewhat. I hadn’t forgotten my haematuria (blood in the urine), by the way, but I was working on it.

We should have taken advice from our Canberra neighbours, Judi and Barry, about where to stay in the Bluies but we hadn’t. We just used Google, a map and a pin. So, we drove to Katoomba.

Katoomba is a place to drive through, not to. It has several restaurants but the best by our reckoning was pretty average; I must explain the meanings of average and ordinary in Aussie. Average means something like pretty boring and ordinary means bloody awful. We had booked at a fancy-looking, albeit old-fashioned, hotel (hotel in the British sense; more education later—).

It had looked alright on the website but turned out to be—how can I put it—rather distrait. Worn-out carpets, furniture in need of a duster here and there and a maze of corridors to get to our room. The room itself was clean but rather small, particularly surprising for so grand-looking a building; and uninviting.

Actually, it reminded me rather of some hotels I had had to suffer with my parents at the seaside in the UK in the ’50s. I have never come to terms with the seaside ever since. Anyway, enough of this; we will try the Bluies again some time but choose our locale with more care.

The next day, we drove home to Canberra by heading west from the Blue Mountains through some quite breath-taking pastoral scenery, back of Orange. We had lunched in Orange on our way up to Brissy, by the way. Orange is a long way from Sydney by British standards but is becoming a very popular, nether-suburb with some better-off Sydney-siders so that a few quite up-market shops and restaurants have appeared—with prices to match.

Overall and despite some disappointments, we enjoyed that trip back from Brisbane but, as ever, it was nice to get home!

Now, before continuing with the main story, I simply must tell you about Aussie diminutives. Most are immediately obvious like, when you are very small, you go to kindy; when a little older, you become a schoolie; later on, you may go to uni; by that time you are probably able to wipe your own botty. If your house bursts into flame, you call the firies; if you simply must get to hospital, you call the ambos. The cops are called the cops.

Those, like us, who are new to the place, are called newbies or, occasionally, newies. Those closely related to you are rellies; pollies are politicians, not to be confused with garbos who collect the refuse; tradies do the plumbing, electrics, roofing or any other sort of trade. Many Aussies have small (or maybe not so small) boats with hulls made of alloy and called tinnies.

You can buy beer in short, squat bottles called stubbies from the bottleO (off-license), outside of which you may bump into a dero, meaning derelict and often, very rudely, equated with a Tasmanian. Oh! And by the way: A convo appears to be a chinwag.

There are many more, of course, but after this incisive instruction, you should be able to work out the rest. It is rather amusing that some of these diminutives are actually longer words than those they replace. It all helps to spread the love.

Images; Braising With

White Wine

Next day, I rang up for a doctor’s appointment. My regular GP, Stephen, was on holiday so I saw one of his colleagues, Amil, almost immediately. He seemed to be a sympathetic and business-like