I called into the new Kinmond Creek Nursery at Tewantin to pick up a couple of olive trees.

I’ve read somewhere that more than one olive tree is deemed an orchard and therefore a tax deduction and just to bring you up to speed, my New Year’s resolution was never to wash my black 4WD and I have achieved that.

It is now a chocolate brown 4WD.

While I was there, picking up my new plantation, a rogue employee with a modicum of wit wrote on the side of my car in the dust – “4GY rocks my world”. Very funny, nursery boy.

My silent admirer
I was sitting alone at the window table at the Chopping Block Café in Buderim having my usual large pot of tea and pumpkin soup, secretly hoping to be recognised by someone on the footpath. Okay so I’ve got an ego, is that such a bad thing?

A lovely lady with slightly greying hair walked past and then took two steps back and waved at me through the glass. Luckily, I remembered I was eating steaming hot soup at the time and didn’t wave back with spoon in hand. I simply smiled and nodded.

Suddenly her face came alive as if she had had an idea, her finger went into the air and she came inside the café and up to the counter.

Moments later she approached me with a note. It read, “My name is Annette, and I am deaf, I signed for you on television once, I hope you remember’’.

“Yes,” I gushed, “I do remember, you were wonderful.” She smiled, put her hands across her heart and signed that she had a lot of love in her heart for me. I did the same. She turned and disappeared across the street back into her silent world. It was nice to meet you again, Annette.

How Stella got her phone
Nearl 17-year-old Stella needs a new phone and, like all teenagers, she needs it NOW.

As a father I’m okay with this as I really want to be able to contact my teenage daughter whenever and wherever she is, 24/7.

So it was off to the Plaza for us and what an experience that was because just like the Bermuda Triangle where people disappear for no reason, there is what’s known as the Nokia triangle. You’ve got Optus opposite Telstra and Vodafone beside Optus.

We stroll into the Telstra shop, she points immediately to a silver phone and states “this is the one I want Dad”. Believe me, I would have bought her anything just to get out of there.

I stood there for a while with that “please help me" look on my face when a lady came up and put my name on a queue and asked me to take a seat with the others.

Me being me I immediately turned to Optus behind me, they may say yes more often but their queue was twice as big, probably because they are so easy.

I looked in the Vodafone store and there were only two people. I ran across the triangle, elbowing people out of the way, I stood in their doorway, put my arms in the air and said “For God’s sake someone please take my money now and let me go home as soon as possible”, which they did with a free phone and a $29 cap.

Age will not weary them
But unfortunately it does – particularly me. The question is, why did I miss the third and deciding State of Origin match on Wednesday night?

I mean I have seen every game and never missed one. Until I turned 58, that is.

Here’s what happened.

I was staying in the Mary Valley on Wednesday night when there was a power blackout at about 6 o’clock.

I bought some candles and started lighting them and putting them in old beer bottles and sauce bottles.

I spied a half full Grandfather Port bottle on the shelf. I dutifully poured the port out into several glasses and stuck the candle in the top of the bottle and lit it.

I sat there praying that the electricity would come back on in time for the State of Origin game, and here’s where I made my mistake.

I drank the rest of the port, fell asleep in the lounge chair and woke up at midnight surrounded by flickering candles like Kate Bush at a séance saying something like “who, what, where?”

And then it dawned on me.

Game three had come and gone while Pops Dunn had nodded off.