Dollars & Sense – Simple Pleasures

The other day my daughter had a meeting in the City so I went along for the ride.

Brisbane is located on the Brisbane River and the Riverside precinct is a large Café and shopping area located on the edge of the river. There are ferry and boat terminals located alongside as well as two paddle steamers berthed there, they take people on morning and afternoon tea cruises up the river as well as lunch and dinner cruises so as you can imagine the river is busy and ever changing.

We had morning tea in one of the Café’s and then strolled along the esplanade, finding to our surprise a modern looking catamaran which was powered by solar power alone and was travelling around the world to show what could be done with alternative power such as the sun.

We returned to the same Café for lunch, as we fancied the menu which we had looked over during morning tea. It is so relaxing to sit overlooking the river and watching people strolling, jogging and biking, obviously they take the opportunity during their lunch break to exercise and I can’t think of a nicer place to do it.

After lunch my daughter left me to attend her meeting and I ordered another cup of coffee and continued to watch the people and the river, I felt so relaxed and at ease and wondered to myself why I didn’t do this more often. I saw mothers pushing babies in a pram running or walking and one well dressed business woman in medium heeled shoes on an electric scooter, what a neat idea and a much more eco friendly way to get around the city.

After finishing my coffee I sat on a bench to watch the passing parade, not long after three young Asian holidaymakers came by wanting to have a picture taken with me, I never realized before that I was a tourist attraction. Once they had their photo and left an older gentleman came by and wanted to know if he could join me on the bench and we had a very interesting chat until my daughter arrived to collect me to go home.

On the way home I told her how much I had enjoyed the day and felt invigorated and relaxed. I asked her why we did not do this more often, our lives are so busy that these simple pleasures seemed to be lost in the rushed life we seem to lead these days and when you think about it, these kind of breaks would help to relieve some of that stress and did not cost us much.

Whilst making dinner that evening, I thought back over my seventy six years of life and realized how times like the one I had just experienced stood out as special memories that never seem to fade with time. What surprised me more than anything was just how few of these I had.

I have become determined to regularly schedule times like these into my life; after all I may not have many more years to be able to do this. My family need more of them as well, so all of them will be included from time to time, so they can look back when they are seventy six and have many more of them to reflect on. The grandchildren also need to learn that special times do not need to cost a lot of money but the memories will stay with you forever.

Coleen, Capalaba, Qld, Australia