This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Tag Archives: election


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1999 Travels September 18

SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER      MORNINGTON

We had an exceedingly early start, as we had to be at a school near Berwick, by 7.30am, and that was about 50kms away. The early morning was very cold, too.

John was allocated to be a standard polling booth official, checking people’s names and address and marking them off on the roll, and handing them voting papers.

Because I’d done election work a number of times before, and knew the ropes, John’s niece had me work with her on the absentee votes and deal with those whose names could not be found on the electoral roll. We were abnormally busy as it is apparently a confusing area and many people came in to vote, thinking they were enrolled for the Berwick electorate, but in fact were in Dandenong. I think there may have been an electorate boundary change, recently?

It was a long day, and tiring. We are not used to work! John’s niece and her husband were in charge of the booth, and it ran very smoothly – unlike some I have experienced! We were out by 9pm, which is pretty good as these things go.

The drive back to Mornington was tedious, in the dark and cold.

We had a very late tea of pizza.


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1999 Travels September 13

MONDAY 13 SEPTEMBER     MORNINGTON

We left Mornington at 10am, to spend the day in our home area.

Went first to Chirnside Park to organize new glasses frames for John, as his have been broken for a while, and held together by tape. They cost $150.

We went to have a look at home. John was not happy with the state of the garden, where pruning and cutting back of plants has not been done. The pets were excited to see us, yet again.

We collected clothes suitable for the funeral, from home.

We both visited our dentist. As I suspected, my root canal filling, done in Cairns last year, is loose. He will replace it and hope that works – this is a cheaper option than treatment from an orthodontic dentist, even assuming I could get into see one. John has two big fillings to be done, one a correction of an old and worn  root canal. Our tooth works are going to cost over $2000! This puts us both into shock. John talks about just getting his teeth out and getting dentures – but that would cost nearly as much.

So we had a rather morose journey back to Mornington. We drove 106kms today.

Bought pizza for tea.

This time last week, we were at Mt Ive – and it was a much more pleasant day!

Then John’s niece, C, phoned. She and her husband are in charge of a polling booth in next Saturday’s State election, and she asked if we would work there. You bet we will! The several hundred dollars we will earn will go towards dental costs.