Back in the time of the dinosaurs was a very wholesome and cheesy show on the telly called "The Partridge Family". A widow working as a bank teller was persuaded by her five musical urchins to help them record a song in their suburban garage. The middle child, 10-year-old Danny then recruited Reuben Kincaid as their manager. Low and behold, their song reaches the top 40, they acquire and paint an ancient bus and begin touring. The four seasons of "The Partridge Family" mixed their life on the road as a band with typical seventies sit-com situations at home.
The song "Come On - Get Happy" was the theme song for the show. This song became a hit for David Cassidy, who played oldest son Keith, after the producers discovered he could song . This song, written by Wes Farrell, Diane Hildebrand and Danny Jansen, should not be confused with another song, "Get Happy", which was actually derived from a... " gospel music theme of getting happy, an expression of religious ecstasy for salvation" (!).
Anyway, "Come On - Get Happy" was a thoroughly cheerful ditty with themes of travelling, singing, happiness and love (of course).
Sometimes, we all need the message of a thoroughly cheerful ditty to get through day to day. Following on from my Influencers post in a fairly haphazard way, we all occasionally fall into the trap of wishing for more, rather than being satisfied with our current status. Maybe, that's the secret of influencers' success - they tap into our desires. Classier clothes, a zoomier car, the job of our dreams, perfectly behaved children or a modern house with all the trimmings.
Think about the proliferation of home and garden improvement programmes on offer. With the wildest of budgets, we can all create a paradise, an oasis, a sanctuary from the outside drudgery.
Last night, on "Grand Designs Transformations", a professional AFL player and her partner rebuilt a home on a tiny block in inner suburban Melbourne. The original house cost $800 000 and the renovations for a Palm Springs meets middle twentieth century inspired makeover added $1.7 million to their bottom line.
The other half of the episode concerned a couple in another part of Melbourne who demolished a garden shed to build a quasi Japanese themed bathhouse. Needless to say, there were dramas galore with old plumbing, permits and blown deadlines. Finally, for $40 000, the blokes finished a bathhouse with a bath that was neither Japanese nor big enough for more than one person. The new garden and accessories were nicely Asian themed, but essentially, they had just built a rather expensive outside bathroom (and I am not sure if they even kept the loo!).
The previous week's "Transformations" featured a backyard in Sydney with an enormous rock face right smack in the middle. The brief was to build a pool precinct with stairs up the rock and included a pool, a grassy lawn and an entertaining area. The end result was naturally rather good, as one would expect for a price tag of $450 000. But why artificial grass? If they could afford to spend that amount of money, surely they could lay living turf and hire a lawn mowing contractor!
Anyway, after Michael and I had finished laughing at the amounts of money being thrown around, I realised we have created our own slice of heaven with our three dinky little courtyards that didn't cost nearly half a million dollars...
Even better, I realised that I had become fashionable by sheer accident. In our last re-organisation of our main courtyard, in order to maximise the space, we had divided the courtyard into distinct "zones" with our outdoor dining table and chairs as the partition. Plus, we had added two large umbrellas for shade, one which I received for Christmas and the other pulled out of storage. On one side of the table and chairs is the "day bed" and on the other side is the pool precinct and sofa.
And how did I achieve this result? I bought one new hanging basket, two bags of potting mix and two cushions for the sofa. Plus moving pot plants around with lots of heaving and grunting,a great deal of sweeping, and an almost terminal strain of my groinal socket, completing the "look" with a final dressing of the table.
The front and rear courtyards also had a tidy. Which didn't last long. Pity about the wind that has blasted through with the this severe heatwave this week. Come Sunday, I will sweep all the courtyards when the temperature drops and we can return outside to our haven once more.
And guess what, I'm happy. So come on - lets all get happy! Even if we're not the Partridge Family.
Worth practicing!
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