I must be a pretty dull old bugger to some, but I feel no desire for revelry. I'm Alcohol Free today and am pleased to be not drinking on New Year's Eve, a first in decades. I would be in bed now were it not for this post. I feel no inspiration to write, but am doing so because it seems appropriate, the last evening of 2014, to record my state of mind and physical health.
It was January this year when first exhibited the Rheumatoid Arthritis symptoms which presented and were diagnosed as polymyalgia by my GP in late February I think. Treatment with cortisone got me fairly pain free but my inflammation readings from my blood tests remained high and when we reduced the cortisone dose the pain returned. GP sent me to specialist who diagnosed the RA, this now was September. He prescribed an immune system suppressant drug, methotrexate (MT), which had little initial impact for the first six weeks, in fact I was worse with severe pain in the foot after taking the tablet each week (once a week dose). The MT is supposed to prevent the RA escalating and reduce the inflammation and prevent the joints degenerating. Initially I had to take increased cortisone to reduce this pain which I was not happy about as long term cortisone use has definite adverse side effects which is why I was prescribed MT, that is, it is safer with less side effects over the long term.
The specialist at the mid October consultation increased my MT dose, and told me to keep taking the cortisone as well, until the MT began to work properly which can take months. At my mid December appointment my blood tests showed reduced inflammation levels at last and doctor reduced my cortisone dose, to be further reduced in mid January, then my next appointment is mid Feb. It looks like things are moving in the right direction and I have some optimism that I will be able to function well through 2015 and into the future. Along the way in 2014 the stiffness and pain was first in my legs and buttocks but shifted to my shoulders where it has been worst, but also neck and ribs and back. The MT has a number of possible side effects which are not common such as nausea and vomiting and hair loss, none of which I have had, and long term increased potential for damage to the liver especially with heavy alcohol use, and increased risk of melanoma and lung cancer so the advice is to wear a hat, long sleeves, and sunscreen, and to give up smoking if one does, which I don't having given up in 1990.
I have followed the advice to reduce my alcohol intake, and therefore have 4 AF days a week as a rule. My liver function tests which are standard procedure when on MT have been normal, so I have relaxed a bit Fri- Sun and drink quite normally rather than just a couple of glasses a night as I did for the first six weeks. I'm hoping liver will still be fine at next Feb appointment.
The good thing is that I have started my morning walks again these last few days, not early as I would like but I'll start earlier as I feel better first thing. The weather has been kind with mild temperatures and we've had fairly regular rain and the world looks beautiful to me. Everything looks more beautiful when I walk because the mind focuses in the present without distraction and you can look around and up to the clouds and down to the earth and be alert to all the noises of nature like the birds and the breeze in the leaves and the branches and all the scents that are there if we are open to them.
Five minutes to midnight, no fireworks to scare Pip yet. I'll close before midnight and wish you all a safe and prosperous 2015. I'm full of optimism and hope. There they go, bang bang whoosh. Bye.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Boxing Day 2014
Last Tuesday our wholesaler rang in the morning.
"What are the chances of getting 20 bunches of green beech on Friday by 2pm."
My immediate reaction was, "None." Then after a few seconds I said, "Yes, I'll do that." It took me those few seconds to realize that, as much as I didn't want to pick foliage that day, Lib would be working and I'd be at the farm catching up on grass or blackberry control, so why not make a few dollars reducing a tree I'd like down a bit.
So today I started work about midday and had the beech picked well before 2pm. It was a bit wet underfoot from the overnight and morning rain, so rather than cut grass with the whipper down the back I went on a blackberry hunt, cutting and painting the cut stems with a dabber sponge bottle containing straight Round Up. These blackberries I had been seeing for weeks shooting out of garden beds and hedges but I had not had the time to do anything about them.
Now in four hours you can do a lot of blackberries when that is your sole focus and I have to say despite the difficulty crawling in under dense growth and often having to cut a hole in to get to the base of the stems, it's rewarding work. I feel good about myself tonight, that I have killed so many of the blunny things. Mind you they don't all die outright, some will re shoot probably next spring. It needs follow up or going over repetitively over time. The more regularly the better. If it is not done it would not be long until rampant blackberries took over the whole property.This will probably happen one day, after my time.
Christmas was good. My 63rd, but of course I don't remember many of them. I know I have spent the last 34 in the company of Lib, usually with all or some of her family, many times in Wangaratta at her parents', some here in Gembrook, some in Bendigo at sister Pat's, a couple in Bairnsdale at sister Margaret's. There was one in Lakes Entrance. Before that I had one with the Kelly's in Wangaratta, one with John and Nicky at Moyhu, Prior to that I have a void in my memory of several years. The parents and Meredith for some years after we moved to Emerald packed a picnic lunch and drove to the Botanical gardens in Melbourne which was deserted so they had it more or less to themselves. I never went with them. I can't really remember what I did. I think I spent a few with Rickyralph, in the bush or down the beach. The only one I clearly remember was on Mt. Terrible because it snowed heavily. Ha! A white Christmas in summer in Australia, but not really, the snow melted soon after it hit the ground.
My childhood memories of Christmas are at my father's parents' place. I didn't enjoy it. They were religious crazies who made us kids sing religious songs and I hated that, it spoiled Christmas for me. If I could have the time over I'd just say 'No thanks, Sing it yourself." There are many things I would respond differently to if I had my time over. Like at school when I was told I was going to be caned for a minor indiscretion. I submitted meekly. If I could go back I would say, "No, sorry, no way. Bye." Or when I was called up into the army, I'd tell them to shove it now. It is easy with hindsight, of course back then I knew nothing but believed I should be obedient. It took me probably a decade into adulthood to realize these things. I like to think I'm a free thinking person, but I have to conform to so many inane rules and regulations, I'm not free at all. I would like to reject more of modern society but I don't because I don't want to live a life of conflict and deprivation. It is and always will be a moral question - when to dissent or to go along with the status quo. Maybe the solution is to find more effective ways of dissenting. Hmm.
Happy Christmas and New Year to all.
"What are the chances of getting 20 bunches of green beech on Friday by 2pm."
My immediate reaction was, "None." Then after a few seconds I said, "Yes, I'll do that." It took me those few seconds to realize that, as much as I didn't want to pick foliage that day, Lib would be working and I'd be at the farm catching up on grass or blackberry control, so why not make a few dollars reducing a tree I'd like down a bit.
So today I started work about midday and had the beech picked well before 2pm. It was a bit wet underfoot from the overnight and morning rain, so rather than cut grass with the whipper down the back I went on a blackberry hunt, cutting and painting the cut stems with a dabber sponge bottle containing straight Round Up. These blackberries I had been seeing for weeks shooting out of garden beds and hedges but I had not had the time to do anything about them.
Now in four hours you can do a lot of blackberries when that is your sole focus and I have to say despite the difficulty crawling in under dense growth and often having to cut a hole in to get to the base of the stems, it's rewarding work. I feel good about myself tonight, that I have killed so many of the blunny things. Mind you they don't all die outright, some will re shoot probably next spring. It needs follow up or going over repetitively over time. The more regularly the better. If it is not done it would not be long until rampant blackberries took over the whole property.This will probably happen one day, after my time.
Christmas was good. My 63rd, but of course I don't remember many of them. I know I have spent the last 34 in the company of Lib, usually with all or some of her family, many times in Wangaratta at her parents', some here in Gembrook, some in Bendigo at sister Pat's, a couple in Bairnsdale at sister Margaret's. There was one in Lakes Entrance. Before that I had one with the Kelly's in Wangaratta, one with John and Nicky at Moyhu, Prior to that I have a void in my memory of several years. The parents and Meredith for some years after we moved to Emerald packed a picnic lunch and drove to the Botanical gardens in Melbourne which was deserted so they had it more or less to themselves. I never went with them. I can't really remember what I did. I think I spent a few with Rickyralph, in the bush or down the beach. The only one I clearly remember was on Mt. Terrible because it snowed heavily. Ha! A white Christmas in summer in Australia, but not really, the snow melted soon after it hit the ground.
My childhood memories of Christmas are at my father's parents' place. I didn't enjoy it. They were religious crazies who made us kids sing religious songs and I hated that, it spoiled Christmas for me. If I could have the time over I'd just say 'No thanks, Sing it yourself." There are many things I would respond differently to if I had my time over. Like at school when I was told I was going to be caned for a minor indiscretion. I submitted meekly. If I could go back I would say, "No, sorry, no way. Bye." Or when I was called up into the army, I'd tell them to shove it now. It is easy with hindsight, of course back then I knew nothing but believed I should be obedient. It took me probably a decade into adulthood to realize these things. I like to think I'm a free thinking person, but I have to conform to so many inane rules and regulations, I'm not free at all. I would like to reject more of modern society but I don't because I don't want to live a life of conflict and deprivation. It is and always will be a moral question - when to dissent or to go along with the status quo. Maybe the solution is to find more effective ways of dissenting. Hmm.
Happy Christmas and New Year to all.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
45 Minutes of Quiet Contemplation
Lib worked today although it was supposed to be a day off for her. After she left shortly after 6.30am I tidied the kitchen and took my vitamins and a cortisone tablet and lay down for a planned 45 minutes of quiet contemplation while the cortisone weaved its spell. At 7.30 I snapped out of my dreamy state knowing I had an hour and a bit to get the sheets and other washing done and on the line, get ready for work including load the whipper snipper and bits and pieces and then get to Nobelius Park to meet a council officer re some park business. Earlier I had said there was not enough washing to bother putting a load on so Lib suggested I wash the sheets as it was a warm day with a change coming in the evening with possible rain.
I loaded the washing machine, it was now a big load and went back to rotate the mattress. We have a wool under blanket which I took outside and shook. The under blanket drops a fine dust onto the mattress so I vacuumed it thoroughly and did the rest of the room, moving the bed and doing under it too. While I was doing this I could hear a rumbling which was audible over the vacuum noise. Ah, thunder again, I thought. Then there was another burst and it stopped as thunder does. I couldn't work out why Pip hadn't run to me in panic, but I didn't worry as I knew she was inside and therefore not doing a bolting turn up the road. A third peel of thunder, louder still, but different, then an accompanying banging which made me realize it was not thunder.
It was the washing machine having a spell of not so quiet contemplation. I rushed to the laundry to find it askew and a large amount of water over the floor. The sheets had somehow all packed on one side of the machine and put it out of balance while it was emptying spinning. By the time I got there the machine had moved about and shut its function down but had red light flashing and was making a strange alarm sound. The sheets were jammed in so tight between the central shaft and the wall on one side that they were very difficult to extract and rearrange, so I could get the blunny thing to rinse cycle and spin dry. Before I got to that I had to soak up all the water with towels.
I was 3 minutes late for my 9am appt. I had no time time for quiet contemplation for the rest of the day and by the time I got home the cool change had come. I brought the dry washing in at lunchtime when I returned and remade the bed, and the laundry floor had had a good clean to boot.
Amazing things washing machines. We take them for granted and they rarely disfunction. We've lived here for 33 years and have only had two. The first one, a wedding present from my parents, lasted 24 years. The current one has been good but has needed a repair man twice.
But before the drama today I did enjoy my 45 minutes of quiet contemplation and how good would it be if we could all do it every day, just relaxing and thinking positively about good things. Bliss.
I loaded the washing machine, it was now a big load and went back to rotate the mattress. We have a wool under blanket which I took outside and shook. The under blanket drops a fine dust onto the mattress so I vacuumed it thoroughly and did the rest of the room, moving the bed and doing under it too. While I was doing this I could hear a rumbling which was audible over the vacuum noise. Ah, thunder again, I thought. Then there was another burst and it stopped as thunder does. I couldn't work out why Pip hadn't run to me in panic, but I didn't worry as I knew she was inside and therefore not doing a bolting turn up the road. A third peel of thunder, louder still, but different, then an accompanying banging which made me realize it was not thunder.
It was the washing machine having a spell of not so quiet contemplation. I rushed to the laundry to find it askew and a large amount of water over the floor. The sheets had somehow all packed on one side of the machine and put it out of balance while it was emptying spinning. By the time I got there the machine had moved about and shut its function down but had red light flashing and was making a strange alarm sound. The sheets were jammed in so tight between the central shaft and the wall on one side that they were very difficult to extract and rearrange, so I could get the blunny thing to rinse cycle and spin dry. Before I got to that I had to soak up all the water with towels.
I was 3 minutes late for my 9am appt. I had no time time for quiet contemplation for the rest of the day and by the time I got home the cool change had come. I brought the dry washing in at lunchtime when I returned and remade the bed, and the laundry floor had had a good clean to boot.
Amazing things washing machines. We take them for granted and they rarely disfunction. We've lived here for 33 years and have only had two. The first one, a wedding present from my parents, lasted 24 years. The current one has been good but has needed a repair man twice.
But before the drama today I did enjoy my 45 minutes of quiet contemplation and how good would it be if we could all do it every day, just relaxing and thinking positively about good things. Bliss.
Saturday, December 06, 2014
Rain, Pain, Thunder, and Sweet Rest
It's raining outside. Rain into December is especially good. Lib has gone to work and the rain eases my conscience at taking the luxury of doing a blog post in the day time.
I caught the last half of my writing class yesterday, the final of the year. Fellow student Stuart read a piece about the Greek gods. I have always had trouble absorbing and remembering who is who and who did what in Greek mythology but after Stuart's piece and the thunder and rain this morning I think now I have Zeus nailed permanently as the Lord of the sky and the god of rain. It was an excellent class. Barb, Stuart's partner, read a piece about a lady taking in a refugee family in a country town. Julie, who has a young child she leaves next door at the Community Centre childcare while the class is on, read her piece about doing a photo session on the streets of St.Kilda for her course. And July read the first chapter of the book she has been writing about her and her Greek husband's 10 year project renovating a rundown hotel in Greece. Maria read a poem by Anne Sexton about her mother which bamboozled everyone but provoked much discussion and different opinion. Also present were Kerrie, John, Suzie and Judyanne. What a variety and what a great group of talented people I consort with on Fridays when I get there. I'm so glad I made the special effort yesterday even if I was more than an hour late.
I couldn't stay for the afternoon tea break up, I had to find bunches of variegated box for the 5pm pick up which I learned had been ordered when I dropped off my beech and variegated pitto foliage at the farm before I went to the class, as well as do my Friday afternoon fruit shop shopping and get my tattslotto on, and I wanted to go to Monbulk for shopping at the new Aldi after getting Gord to the post office to have passport photos taken (he's hoping to go to NZ with friends in January). We were home about 6.15pm. I was tired and quickly headed to the bathtub after putting the shopping away.
Now for the pain. I had a bad night with pain in my shoulder and an intermittent ache going down through my right upper arm, elbow, and forearm and into the wrist. Most unpleasant. I had little sleep having to move my arm carefully numerous times into new positions seeking relief. The most effective position seems to be putting my hand behind my head but after a while the ache returns so I have to change. I was pretty good earlier in the week but I guess after 5 solid days of work where my right arm gets a hammering pulling on the rope to cut with the cutters at the end of the pole in the air, it is no wonder that by Saturday I'm hurting and need a rest. And I don't mind if it's Zeus, Hewey or Jehovah I should thank but I'm grateful.
After Lib left at 6.30am, I took painkillers and the cortisone and went back to bed. I fell asleep to be woken at 8.30 with Pip whining at the bedroom window. She sleeps inside but I put her out earlier when I fed her, and while I was asleep the thunder and rain came. She has developed an acute sensitivity to thunder and literally goes nuts. We had a really bad night Wednesday night when the thunder went on all night and she would not stay in her bed. She scratched at the bedroom door till I had to let her in, or have all the paint removed, then she was not content to lie on the bed she had to burrow under the covers with us and go down to our feet and wriggle about. Very little sleep again.
I worked with my friends Pat and Mal yesterday morning for a couple of hours putting netting over their well cropped fruit trees and help tidy up before the fire restrictions come in next Monday. Their dog Cammie is like Pip and went nuts on Wednesday night. The difference is that he's an Irish deerhound, a very big dog. In the end Pat had to lay down with him in his bed and hold him tight but no sleep was had in their house either.
I will do little today. Maybe get some more zuchini seed in, and some basil. It's probably too wet to do a burn off as I was planning. Can't say I'm sorry.
PS Maria always starts the class with some quotes, mostly yesterday they were about Christmas. I missed that part of class but I have seen them now in the notes - here's two-
Roses are reddish,
Violets are bluish,
If it wasn't for Christmas,
We'd all be Jewish.
Benny Hill
I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calender of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
Charles Dickens
I caught the last half of my writing class yesterday, the final of the year. Fellow student Stuart read a piece about the Greek gods. I have always had trouble absorbing and remembering who is who and who did what in Greek mythology but after Stuart's piece and the thunder and rain this morning I think now I have Zeus nailed permanently as the Lord of the sky and the god of rain. It was an excellent class. Barb, Stuart's partner, read a piece about a lady taking in a refugee family in a country town. Julie, who has a young child she leaves next door at the Community Centre childcare while the class is on, read her piece about doing a photo session on the streets of St.Kilda for her course. And July read the first chapter of the book she has been writing about her and her Greek husband's 10 year project renovating a rundown hotel in Greece. Maria read a poem by Anne Sexton about her mother which bamboozled everyone but provoked much discussion and different opinion. Also present were Kerrie, John, Suzie and Judyanne. What a variety and what a great group of talented people I consort with on Fridays when I get there. I'm so glad I made the special effort yesterday even if I was more than an hour late.
I couldn't stay for the afternoon tea break up, I had to find bunches of variegated box for the 5pm pick up which I learned had been ordered when I dropped off my beech and variegated pitto foliage at the farm before I went to the class, as well as do my Friday afternoon fruit shop shopping and get my tattslotto on, and I wanted to go to Monbulk for shopping at the new Aldi after getting Gord to the post office to have passport photos taken (he's hoping to go to NZ with friends in January). We were home about 6.15pm. I was tired and quickly headed to the bathtub after putting the shopping away.
Now for the pain. I had a bad night with pain in my shoulder and an intermittent ache going down through my right upper arm, elbow, and forearm and into the wrist. Most unpleasant. I had little sleep having to move my arm carefully numerous times into new positions seeking relief. The most effective position seems to be putting my hand behind my head but after a while the ache returns so I have to change. I was pretty good earlier in the week but I guess after 5 solid days of work where my right arm gets a hammering pulling on the rope to cut with the cutters at the end of the pole in the air, it is no wonder that by Saturday I'm hurting and need a rest. And I don't mind if it's Zeus, Hewey or Jehovah I should thank but I'm grateful.
After Lib left at 6.30am, I took painkillers and the cortisone and went back to bed. I fell asleep to be woken at 8.30 with Pip whining at the bedroom window. She sleeps inside but I put her out earlier when I fed her, and while I was asleep the thunder and rain came. She has developed an acute sensitivity to thunder and literally goes nuts. We had a really bad night Wednesday night when the thunder went on all night and she would not stay in her bed. She scratched at the bedroom door till I had to let her in, or have all the paint removed, then she was not content to lie on the bed she had to burrow under the covers with us and go down to our feet and wriggle about. Very little sleep again.
I worked with my friends Pat and Mal yesterday morning for a couple of hours putting netting over their well cropped fruit trees and help tidy up before the fire restrictions come in next Monday. Their dog Cammie is like Pip and went nuts on Wednesday night. The difference is that he's an Irish deerhound, a very big dog. In the end Pat had to lay down with him in his bed and hold him tight but no sleep was had in their house either.
I will do little today. Maybe get some more zuchini seed in, and some basil. It's probably too wet to do a burn off as I was planning. Can't say I'm sorry.
PS Maria always starts the class with some quotes, mostly yesterday they were about Christmas. I missed that part of class but I have seen them now in the notes - here's two-
Roses are reddish,
Violets are bluish,
If it wasn't for Christmas,
We'd all be Jewish.
Benny Hill
I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come around, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calender of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
Charles Dickens
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Who Would Believe?
The phone rang. I could hear it from where I was. In the bath, 7.15pm, I was due at a meeting of the Friends of the Gembrook Bushland Park at 7.30. I'd defrosted the freezer that morning and taken out two mini roasts for dinner. Gord and I were batching still, Lib was due home the next day.
I thought it would be secretary Merle on the phone, with some new request to bring something to the meeting. There were two messages on the answer phone from her when I got home, and there were emails that morning. Merle's printer had broken down.
Gord brought me the cordless phone with a bit of a grin on his face, reinforcing my thought that it was Merle. I can't even wash the sweat and stench from me without being hounded, was my feeling.
"Is that Carey?" It did sound like Merle. Or did it?
"Yes," I answered in my annoyed voice.
"This is JB, but I was formerly JW." The first name didn't didn't register. I was coming to grips with the fact that this was not Merle ringing me. The second name instantly made me aware who the caller was.
"You're kidding me," I said.
"No."
I had not heard from her or seen her for more than fifty years. She was my childhood sweetheart. My first love. Yes, it was love, as far as love can be for a boy of ten years old to whom such emotions were new and not understood at all. Way back in the very early 1960's we declared that one day we would marry.
J went on to explain the why and wherefore of her call, while I listened almost incredulously. Twenty two years ago I had written a letter of condolence to her mother after I had seen in the newspaper notices that J's father had died. Her mother did not pass on the letter, in which I had included some basic info of my life and situation and my contact details, until earlier this year. J had not acted straight away as she'd had a difficult year and then hesitated, as anyone would, before dialing the number, asking herself , 'Will I or Won't I?' I am so happy that she did.
Not having received a reply to my letter of 22 years ago, I didn't know if it had been received. I had no contact details when I wrote it. I sent it sealed in an envelope in a letter to the funeral director who put the funeral notice in the the paper, asking him to forward the letter to Mrs W. As years passed I forgot about it.
But I didn't forget J. I often wondered what life had brought her, was she alive still, where did she live. I knew from the death notice that she was alive twenty two years ago and she had four children, nothing more. Our childhood romance did not endure into a new year after we were put into different classes, but for a couple of years we were close friends and shared an important part of our early lives. She told me she still had a post card I sent her from a holiday my family went on in 1961, and a handkerchief from Sydney that I brought back for her from the same trip.
For the past week we have been exchanging emails and learning of each others lives. She lives interstate and has a truly amazing story which I do not feel at liberty to speak about publicly, but the renewed contact, and the fact that I have found this lady who had a significant impact on my life in childhood, and that my longstanding wondering is now resolved, has brought me great joy.
I'm still smiling all day long.
I thought it would be secretary Merle on the phone, with some new request to bring something to the meeting. There were two messages on the answer phone from her when I got home, and there were emails that morning. Merle's printer had broken down.
Gord brought me the cordless phone with a bit of a grin on his face, reinforcing my thought that it was Merle. I can't even wash the sweat and stench from me without being hounded, was my feeling.
"Is that Carey?" It did sound like Merle. Or did it?
"Yes," I answered in my annoyed voice.
"This is JB, but I was formerly JW." The first name didn't didn't register. I was coming to grips with the fact that this was not Merle ringing me. The second name instantly made me aware who the caller was.
"You're kidding me," I said.
"No."
I had not heard from her or seen her for more than fifty years. She was my childhood sweetheart. My first love. Yes, it was love, as far as love can be for a boy of ten years old to whom such emotions were new and not understood at all. Way back in the very early 1960's we declared that one day we would marry.
J went on to explain the why and wherefore of her call, while I listened almost incredulously. Twenty two years ago I had written a letter of condolence to her mother after I had seen in the newspaper notices that J's father had died. Her mother did not pass on the letter, in which I had included some basic info of my life and situation and my contact details, until earlier this year. J had not acted straight away as she'd had a difficult year and then hesitated, as anyone would, before dialing the number, asking herself , 'Will I or Won't I?' I am so happy that she did.
Not having received a reply to my letter of 22 years ago, I didn't know if it had been received. I had no contact details when I wrote it. I sent it sealed in an envelope in a letter to the funeral director who put the funeral notice in the the paper, asking him to forward the letter to Mrs W. As years passed I forgot about it.
But I didn't forget J. I often wondered what life had brought her, was she alive still, where did she live. I knew from the death notice that she was alive twenty two years ago and she had four children, nothing more. Our childhood romance did not endure into a new year after we were put into different classes, but for a couple of years we were close friends and shared an important part of our early lives. She told me she still had a post card I sent her from a holiday my family went on in 1961, and a handkerchief from Sydney that I brought back for her from the same trip.
For the past week we have been exchanging emails and learning of each others lives. She lives interstate and has a truly amazing story which I do not feel at liberty to speak about publicly, but the renewed contact, and the fact that I have found this lady who had a significant impact on my life in childhood, and that my longstanding wondering is now resolved, has brought me great joy.
I'm still smiling all day long.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
A Week at Merimbula
I spent last week at Merimbula. We left on the Sunday in two cars, Lib and Rob in the Hyundai and Gord and I in my van. We stayed that night at the Lakes Entrance house and next day crammed into the i30 wagon, dog Pip on the back seat between the boys and our bags and 'stuff' in the the rear cargo hold and in a bubble on the roof. I left my van at the Lakes house after we mowed the grass and got away before lunch which was had on the way, delicious it was too, lamb, from a joint we had the previous night, in rolls with salad.
We'd booked at Beach Cabins, a pet friendly park, and arrived about 4.30pm. Merimbula is in NSW for readers in foreign lands and those Australians who don't know, between two larger towns Eden and Bega, and is about half way between Melbourne and Sydney on the coastal route. The management offered us an upgrade to a 3 bedroom cabin which had become available and we grabbed it.
We had 5 relaxed full days exploring Merimbula, Bega and Eden and the various beaches and attractions. By day 3 Lib announced she had found the place she wants to live in her retirement in the not too distant future. I can understand this. The beaches are great and numerous and the general feeling of the area is one of relaxed contentment. The locals are happy and friendly and I could not but be impressed by the engaging staff in the shops, the young people in particular smiled a lot and engaged in conversation readily and were helpful.
I walked early down to the point each morning and on day 2 saw two whales. Three times I saw them spout and break the water a number times as they headed south, before giving a flick of their massive tail fin and disappearing, to come up up minutes later further along. I had a good pair of binos so I had a good look at them. Humpbacks.
After they stopped appearing I walked along the rocks watching birds flit about in the trees and shrubbery at the base of the cliffs. At one point I leaned with my back against a large rock for comfort and waited patiently for a group of small birds to sit still for long enough in my view so that I could get a good sight with the binos. I could hear them busily talking to each other most of the time and would see movement but they'd move on before I could get a good look. Just when I was about to give up one appeared quite close on a small dead branch. It had what looked like a moth in its beak and was quickly joined by two others. These new two must have been fully grown juveniles as the first bird presented the moth to one then the other, each in turn taking some of the moth from the parent. It was wonderful to see and kept them in the one place sufficient for me to have a good sight. I think the were thornbills, perhaps striated, they had streaks on their breasts and were light brown, pale underneath.
So from whale watching to catching good view of small birds, I considered myself privileged. Another day I saw dolphins. Another day while walking with the boys on the scenic walk we stopped to watch a bloke casting a lure repeatedly in the shallow river below, curious to see if he caught something. A bird flew out of the bank a few feet below where we stood on the track. The another.
These little birds darted about in the tree above us for a while the one returned to a twig about 8 feet in front of us and about five feet above the ground. It stayed there for a good minute or so, with an insect in its mouth. It was a spotted pardalote, and continued to eye us off until it flew done into a hole in the ground close to our feet. Another did much the same and flew into a different hole. Robbie got a good photo of it with his smart phone, but he and Lib are still away at Lakes, while Gord and I came back yesterday (Sunday)to get back to work. I will put up the photo when he sends it to me, if he still has it when they come home.
So we had a great holiday, dampened only by the fact that Lib got booked by the cops for speeding enroute Merimbula to Lakes E, a $180 fine plus he got her for not wearing her glasses, $140, which is a condition of her licence. She was fuming. I was having a little kip while Lib drove so as to keep myself fresh for the afternoon drive home.
We'd booked at Beach Cabins, a pet friendly park, and arrived about 4.30pm. Merimbula is in NSW for readers in foreign lands and those Australians who don't know, between two larger towns Eden and Bega, and is about half way between Melbourne and Sydney on the coastal route. The management offered us an upgrade to a 3 bedroom cabin which had become available and we grabbed it.
We had 5 relaxed full days exploring Merimbula, Bega and Eden and the various beaches and attractions. By day 3 Lib announced she had found the place she wants to live in her retirement in the not too distant future. I can understand this. The beaches are great and numerous and the general feeling of the area is one of relaxed contentment. The locals are happy and friendly and I could not but be impressed by the engaging staff in the shops, the young people in particular smiled a lot and engaged in conversation readily and were helpful.
I walked early down to the point each morning and on day 2 saw two whales. Three times I saw them spout and break the water a number times as they headed south, before giving a flick of their massive tail fin and disappearing, to come up up minutes later further along. I had a good pair of binos so I had a good look at them. Humpbacks.
After they stopped appearing I walked along the rocks watching birds flit about in the trees and shrubbery at the base of the cliffs. At one point I leaned with my back against a large rock for comfort and waited patiently for a group of small birds to sit still for long enough in my view so that I could get a good sight with the binos. I could hear them busily talking to each other most of the time and would see movement but they'd move on before I could get a good look. Just when I was about to give up one appeared quite close on a small dead branch. It had what looked like a moth in its beak and was quickly joined by two others. These new two must have been fully grown juveniles as the first bird presented the moth to one then the other, each in turn taking some of the moth from the parent. It was wonderful to see and kept them in the one place sufficient for me to have a good sight. I think the were thornbills, perhaps striated, they had streaks on their breasts and were light brown, pale underneath.
So from whale watching to catching good view of small birds, I considered myself privileged. Another day I saw dolphins. Another day while walking with the boys on the scenic walk we stopped to watch a bloke casting a lure repeatedly in the shallow river below, curious to see if he caught something. A bird flew out of the bank a few feet below where we stood on the track. The another.
These little birds darted about in the tree above us for a while the one returned to a twig about 8 feet in front of us and about five feet above the ground. It stayed there for a good minute or so, with an insect in its mouth. It was a spotted pardalote, and continued to eye us off until it flew done into a hole in the ground close to our feet. Another did much the same and flew into a different hole. Robbie got a good photo of it with his smart phone, but he and Lib are still away at Lakes, while Gord and I came back yesterday (Sunday)to get back to work. I will put up the photo when he sends it to me, if he still has it when they come home.
So we had a great holiday, dampened only by the fact that Lib got booked by the cops for speeding enroute Merimbula to Lakes E, a $180 fine plus he got her for not wearing her glasses, $140, which is a condition of her licence. She was fuming. I was having a little kip while Lib drove so as to keep myself fresh for the afternoon drive home.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Palm Oil....Canola?
There's a strong campaign against palm oil as an additive to food products such as biscuits and cakes and snack foods, largely because the production of palm oil is taking place in Asia where native forests- habitat for orangutans and other species whose existence is threatened - is being removed at an alarming rate causing loss of biodiversity and contributing significantly to increased carbon in the atmosphere.
I looked up a website on this and it started with the following-
I have long been avoiding palm oil in foods by reading the labeling and not buying that which has it listed. I have done this because an acquaintance whose father died of a heart attack was told by the cardiologist (ten years ago) that he should avoid palm oil as it was deadly but it is in so many foods without people being aware it's there, or that it's bad for them.The trouble is too, that many foods just say vegetable oil without specifying what plant the oil originates from and this can be in fact palm oil. And I read somewhere that some emulsifiers contain palm oil. Apparently palm oil is cheaper and easier to use. So generally speaking I avoid cake and biscuits and try to buy only products whose labels specify what oil they contain, like say sunflower oil, in the hope that I'm avoiding much palm oil and not consuming as much bad stuff, while acknowledging that no doubt some gets to me.
Sister Meredith, married to a doctor, sometimes reads medical journals that her husband subscribes to. In one of these she saw an article written by a leading cardiologist where he advised doctors not to recommend canola oil to patients as a heart healthy alternative, as in his opinion it contributed to blocked arteries. Now if you have a look you will see that canola oil is also in so many foods and is sold as a straight line cooking oil in every supermarket and store and is probably in the pantry of 90% of households. Nowhere do I see publicity that it is bad for your heart so the public is generally unaware. Canola is one of the major crops grown in rural Australia, its cultivation and its use in food manufacture and marketing of the oil is seriously big industry.
Somewhere in this there's a question of ethics. Perhaps ethics are now non existent, or only apply with precedence to economics foremost.
Probably the solution is to eat as few processed foods as you can. Raw is good, plenty of fruit and vegetables, nuts, eggs thumbs up, and a variety and moderate amount of meat and dairy food, and fish. If the obesity problem is as bad as reported lately the general population could improve diet greatly.
I looked up a website on this and it started with the following-
Palm Oil itself is not the
issue, apart from the fact that it is full of saturated fat and extremely bad
for your health.
Sister Meredith, married to a doctor, sometimes reads medical journals that her husband subscribes to. In one of these she saw an article written by a leading cardiologist where he advised doctors not to recommend canola oil to patients as a heart healthy alternative, as in his opinion it contributed to blocked arteries. Now if you have a look you will see that canola oil is also in so many foods and is sold as a straight line cooking oil in every supermarket and store and is probably in the pantry of 90% of households. Nowhere do I see publicity that it is bad for your heart so the public is generally unaware. Canola is one of the major crops grown in rural Australia, its cultivation and its use in food manufacture and marketing of the oil is seriously big industry.
Somewhere in this there's a question of ethics. Perhaps ethics are now non existent, or only apply with precedence to economics foremost.
Probably the solution is to eat as few processed foods as you can. Raw is good, plenty of fruit and vegetables, nuts, eggs thumbs up, and a variety and moderate amount of meat and dairy food, and fish. If the obesity problem is as bad as reported lately the general population could improve diet greatly.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Capricornia
Many years ago, probably more than twenty, I bought a book, I think at an op shop, titled Capricornia by Australian Xavier Herbert. I loved it. I came across another copy somewhere, I think again at an op shop at Maclean on our holiday in November last year. A week or so ago I started to read it again, the decades between reads enough to make it seem fresh for me.
It really is a great book. Although I'm only about 100 pages into the 500, I'm enjoying it immensely. It was first published in 1938 so the writing style is not modern but I find it easy to read. I think it's brilliant.
It is protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in any part or form except for the purpose of review so let me say this is a review highly recommending all Australians in particular to get hold of it and read it if you have not already done so.
Below I quote a section to illustrate my appreciation, as tiresome as copying the type is, I want to do it for you. One of the main characters is Oscar who married Jasmine and they moved onto a cattle station and had two children, Marigold and Roger.
The year of the Census (1910) was an eventful one for the whole family. The first to whom adventure came was Roger, aged one year. His adventure was the greatest one can experience. He died, or, as Oscar stated on his tombstone, was Called Home. Measles had a voice in the calling.
Bitter trouble in Oscar's home followed the death of Roger. Just prior to it, Jasmine, who was in the unhappy state into which many handsome potent women fall in the early thirties through too closely considering the dullness of the future against the brightness of the past, had been neglecting her home at Red Ochre for what was a frantic endeavour to enjoy the dregs of almost exhausted youth in the social whirl in Town. Oscar had long since dropped out of the social whirl. He would have liked Jasmie to do the same as he often hinted. But when he accused her of neglecting her child and so having been to a degree responsible for its death he did not really mean what he said. He was not speaking his mind but the craziness that the death of the potential perpetuator of his name had induced in him.
Jasmine sprang out of the mourning perhaps bitterer than his and spat at him all that which she had ruminated over for years. He learnt that he was a thing of wood, a thing of the gutter sprung from stock of the gutter (distorted reference to disreputable Brother Mark), risen by chance to be - what?- to be a bumptious fool whose god was property, not property in vast estates such as a true man might worship, but in paltry roods. Bah! His very greed was paltry. He dreamed of the pennies he could coin from cattle dung! ( Poor Oscar! He had always resisted her urging him to secure more land and buy more stock, because, not being a grazier born like the Poundamores who controlled vast Poundamore Downs on account of which they were born and buried in debt, he realized that cattle raising was a business, not a religion, and that as it was he held more country and ran more stock than was warranted by the mean trade he could do. And once he had said quite idly that he wished there were a sale for the cattle dung that lay about the run in tons.) And she spat at him something that would not have hurt a few years earlier or later, namely that he was already old and flacid, while she, who was eight years his junior, was young - yes - young! Young - and Oh God - aflame with life!
Stung to malice, Oscar jeered at her for a faded flower blind to its own wilting through pitiful conceit. She fled from him weeping. Poor blundering ass, quickly stricken with remorse, he went after her and begged forgiveness, and thus only made himself more hateful to her by being weak and her more desireable to himself by causing her to be inexorable. They were never reconciled. A few weeks after the scene, she eloped to the Phillipines with the captain of the cattle steamer 'Cucaracha', accompanied by a cargo of Oscar's beeves. Oscar was shocked, firstly by having lost her, secondly to have lost her in a manner so unseemly, thirdly by having lost her to a man he had regarded as a friend. He had taken Captain Emilio Gomez into his house as a Spanish gentleman. The fellow had turned out to be nothing more than a Dirty Dago.
Without going into detail, the book is about the early social history of Australia's north and the racial and half caste problem. To me, a privileged white born of middle class far removed from the book's setting, it is insightful and alarming. There's tragedy, brutality and prejudice as well as honesty and humour at every turn. The picture of life in the top end a century ago portrayed by the story line is enlightening and educational.
An Australian Classic.
It really is a great book. Although I'm only about 100 pages into the 500, I'm enjoying it immensely. It was first published in 1938 so the writing style is not modern but I find it easy to read. I think it's brilliant.
It is protected by copyright and cannot be reproduced in any part or form except for the purpose of review so let me say this is a review highly recommending all Australians in particular to get hold of it and read it if you have not already done so.
Below I quote a section to illustrate my appreciation, as tiresome as copying the type is, I want to do it for you. One of the main characters is Oscar who married Jasmine and they moved onto a cattle station and had two children, Marigold and Roger.
The year of the Census (1910) was an eventful one for the whole family. The first to whom adventure came was Roger, aged one year. His adventure was the greatest one can experience. He died, or, as Oscar stated on his tombstone, was Called Home. Measles had a voice in the calling.
Bitter trouble in Oscar's home followed the death of Roger. Just prior to it, Jasmine, who was in the unhappy state into which many handsome potent women fall in the early thirties through too closely considering the dullness of the future against the brightness of the past, had been neglecting her home at Red Ochre for what was a frantic endeavour to enjoy the dregs of almost exhausted youth in the social whirl in Town. Oscar had long since dropped out of the social whirl. He would have liked Jasmie to do the same as he often hinted. But when he accused her of neglecting her child and so having been to a degree responsible for its death he did not really mean what he said. He was not speaking his mind but the craziness that the death of the potential perpetuator of his name had induced in him.
Jasmine sprang out of the mourning perhaps bitterer than his and spat at him all that which she had ruminated over for years. He learnt that he was a thing of wood, a thing of the gutter sprung from stock of the gutter (distorted reference to disreputable Brother Mark), risen by chance to be - what?- to be a bumptious fool whose god was property, not property in vast estates such as a true man might worship, but in paltry roods. Bah! His very greed was paltry. He dreamed of the pennies he could coin from cattle dung! ( Poor Oscar! He had always resisted her urging him to secure more land and buy more stock, because, not being a grazier born like the Poundamores who controlled vast Poundamore Downs on account of which they were born and buried in debt, he realized that cattle raising was a business, not a religion, and that as it was he held more country and ran more stock than was warranted by the mean trade he could do. And once he had said quite idly that he wished there were a sale for the cattle dung that lay about the run in tons.) And she spat at him something that would not have hurt a few years earlier or later, namely that he was already old and flacid, while she, who was eight years his junior, was young - yes - young! Young - and Oh God - aflame with life!
Stung to malice, Oscar jeered at her for a faded flower blind to its own wilting through pitiful conceit. She fled from him weeping. Poor blundering ass, quickly stricken with remorse, he went after her and begged forgiveness, and thus only made himself more hateful to her by being weak and her more desireable to himself by causing her to be inexorable. They were never reconciled. A few weeks after the scene, she eloped to the Phillipines with the captain of the cattle steamer 'Cucaracha', accompanied by a cargo of Oscar's beeves. Oscar was shocked, firstly by having lost her, secondly to have lost her in a manner so unseemly, thirdly by having lost her to a man he had regarded as a friend. He had taken Captain Emilio Gomez into his house as a Spanish gentleman. The fellow had turned out to be nothing more than a Dirty Dago.
Without going into detail, the book is about the early social history of Australia's north and the racial and half caste problem. To me, a privileged white born of middle class far removed from the book's setting, it is insightful and alarming. There's tragedy, brutality and prejudice as well as honesty and humour at every turn. The picture of life in the top end a century ago portrayed by the story line is enlightening and educational.
An Australian Classic.
Thursday, October 09, 2014
Aunt Hatsu
A letter came from my Aunt Hatsu today. She said she was thrilled to receive my recent letter. Meredith gave me Hatsu's address (and a letter Hatsu wrote to her last March) a few months ago. Hatsu lives alone in Adelaide. She corresponded with Meredith once a year for many years, but stopped some years ago, because she was seriously ill, Meredith thinks. We thought she may have died.
Hatsu may not be my aunt in fact, I'm unsure how it works, after a divorce. She was my aunt once. She was married to my uncle Ron, Elvie's brother. The marriage produced two children. I was in Adelaide in 1977 for a Bee Congress and stayed with Hatsu in her flat. She had left Ron by then. The kids were secondary school age. That was the last time I saw them. Hatsu remarried. Her second husband has since died.
In her letter she said she's 81 now and came to this country 54 years ago, so it must have been 1960. it was exciting for us to have a Japanese aunt. After they married they lived at first at Nanna Wilson's in Ashburton. My mother had the florist shop in Sth Yarra and left Meredith and I at Nanna's place on Saturday mornings. I remember Ron and Hatsu taking us walking along Gardiner's creek and sitting on the grass. Hatsu was friendly and warm despite her limited English and we liked her. Ron was uncommunicative and always gave me the feeling that I was an irritation to him, like everything else.
They moved to Narracoorte in SA where Ron took up a teaching post, and later Adelaide. Hatsu's son, now aged 50, is an airline pilot who has not lived with her since he finished high school, I think he did a cadetship with the RAAF. He has lived mostly in Europe, and in Dubai for the last five years, and visits Hatsu about once a year or so. Her daughter lives in Melbourne but Hatsu has had no contact for a few years. Neither of these cousins of mine married. They have strong loathing of Ron.
Uncle Ron remarried to a Filipino lady and had a daughter who would be in her 20's now. His second wife left him, but the daughter was in Ron's care and they visited us a number of times at the farm over the years. I could offer a lot of information and opinion about Ron, but it would be a long post and I don't have the energy. To summarize... Ron was a very odd turkey. When I stayed with Hatsu in 1977 she told me of the bad treatment she and the kids were subjected to over a long period. It took her a long time to build the courage to leave him with nothing and no one to help her. She worked then as a casual waitress in a local hotel.
A few years ago on our Adelaide holiday I visited Ron in an aged care facility where his daughter had told us he was now resident. He was suffering from dementia and was full of paranoia about being locked up and stripped of his assets and money... Could I get him out? Lib, who was with me, says this is a common thought process with dementia onset.
After I brought this news back to Elvie, Meredith wrote to Hatsu at the old address she had to let her know where Ron was, in case she wanted to know. Hatsu resumed the correspondence and thanked Meredith. That is how they came again to exchange letters. Hatsu says she has a few good friends in the Adelaide Japanese community and she enjoys a peaceful and happy life. In her letter to me that I read this evening, written so neatly and carefully, she says she hopes I come soon to see her and invited us to stay with her and she would love to meet my wonderful wife Libby.
It was a beautiful thing for me, to read those words, having connected with Hatsu again. There's something magical about hand written letters. I had to go to Melbourne (Dingley) today and stopped at Fountain Gate for lunch and shopping on the way home. It's a total mad house, the traffic, the city. I couldn't believe the number of young people smoking outside the mall- in this day and age! The radio and TV news is full of bad news and talk of war and bombing strikes and paranoia about muslims and burquas and terrorists and fear. The only fear I feel is my little dog being killed by some big mongrel. People can wear what they like and pray to whomever they like, this is supposed to be free country, the law applies to all and that's all that matters. I'm sick of the bullshit.
My aunt Hatsu was born about 1933 in Japan and came to a country in 1960 which still had very strong anti Japanese sentiment, understandably after WW11. The cities of her country were bombed almost to oblivion. She says she can hardly wait to talk to me. Well I can hardly wait to talk to her after a break of 37 years, now that I have 62 years under my belt and a different way of looking at the world than earlier in my life.
Hatsu may not be my aunt in fact, I'm unsure how it works, after a divorce. She was my aunt once. She was married to my uncle Ron, Elvie's brother. The marriage produced two children. I was in Adelaide in 1977 for a Bee Congress and stayed with Hatsu in her flat. She had left Ron by then. The kids were secondary school age. That was the last time I saw them. Hatsu remarried. Her second husband has since died.
In her letter she said she's 81 now and came to this country 54 years ago, so it must have been 1960. it was exciting for us to have a Japanese aunt. After they married they lived at first at Nanna Wilson's in Ashburton. My mother had the florist shop in Sth Yarra and left Meredith and I at Nanna's place on Saturday mornings. I remember Ron and Hatsu taking us walking along Gardiner's creek and sitting on the grass. Hatsu was friendly and warm despite her limited English and we liked her. Ron was uncommunicative and always gave me the feeling that I was an irritation to him, like everything else.
They moved to Narracoorte in SA where Ron took up a teaching post, and later Adelaide. Hatsu's son, now aged 50, is an airline pilot who has not lived with her since he finished high school, I think he did a cadetship with the RAAF. He has lived mostly in Europe, and in Dubai for the last five years, and visits Hatsu about once a year or so. Her daughter lives in Melbourne but Hatsu has had no contact for a few years. Neither of these cousins of mine married. They have strong loathing of Ron.
Uncle Ron remarried to a Filipino lady and had a daughter who would be in her 20's now. His second wife left him, but the daughter was in Ron's care and they visited us a number of times at the farm over the years. I could offer a lot of information and opinion about Ron, but it would be a long post and I don't have the energy. To summarize... Ron was a very odd turkey. When I stayed with Hatsu in 1977 she told me of the bad treatment she and the kids were subjected to over a long period. It took her a long time to build the courage to leave him with nothing and no one to help her. She worked then as a casual waitress in a local hotel.
A few years ago on our Adelaide holiday I visited Ron in an aged care facility where his daughter had told us he was now resident. He was suffering from dementia and was full of paranoia about being locked up and stripped of his assets and money... Could I get him out? Lib, who was with me, says this is a common thought process with dementia onset.
After I brought this news back to Elvie, Meredith wrote to Hatsu at the old address she had to let her know where Ron was, in case she wanted to know. Hatsu resumed the correspondence and thanked Meredith. That is how they came again to exchange letters. Hatsu says she has a few good friends in the Adelaide Japanese community and she enjoys a peaceful and happy life. In her letter to me that I read this evening, written so neatly and carefully, she says she hopes I come soon to see her and invited us to stay with her and she would love to meet my wonderful wife Libby.
It was a beautiful thing for me, to read those words, having connected with Hatsu again. There's something magical about hand written letters. I had to go to Melbourne (Dingley) today and stopped at Fountain Gate for lunch and shopping on the way home. It's a total mad house, the traffic, the city. I couldn't believe the number of young people smoking outside the mall- in this day and age! The radio and TV news is full of bad news and talk of war and bombing strikes and paranoia about muslims and burquas and terrorists and fear. The only fear I feel is my little dog being killed by some big mongrel. People can wear what they like and pray to whomever they like, this is supposed to be free country, the law applies to all and that's all that matters. I'm sick of the bullshit.
My aunt Hatsu was born about 1933 in Japan and came to a country in 1960 which still had very strong anti Japanese sentiment, understandably after WW11. The cities of her country were bombed almost to oblivion. She says she can hardly wait to talk to me. Well I can hardly wait to talk to her after a break of 37 years, now that I have 62 years under my belt and a different way of looking at the world than earlier in my life.
Saturday, October 04, 2014
Busy Week
Last Sunday Lib myself and Gordon attended a family gathering at the Box Hill Cemetery at the grave of my grandparents Edgar and Annie Wilson. Poppa, as we (me, Jod, Meredith) knew him, was officially Walter Edgar Wilson, and he died in 1956, and Nanna was Rhesa Annie Wilson. She died forty years after him in 1996.
Edgar served in WW1 and our cousin Bruce organized this get together of some of the Wilson clan to place a tile with a poppy on it on Edgar's headstone. The tiles were available through the RSL to commemorate the service of those soldiers who returned home and got on with their daily lives. Bruce who served in Vietnam learned of the tile through the his involvement with the RSL and the idea came to him to invite descendants of Edgar and Annie to the grave to stick the tile on the headstone.
The idea was well received and five of Edgar and Annie's grandchildren attended and some of their spouses, children and grandchildren. We had lunch at nearby hotel and it was a rewarding day for us all to catch up with family we hadn't seen for many years.
It was the first time I had visited my grandparents' grave. I was most impressed by my relatives that I had not seen for many years. It was a great day for me and I'm sure Edgar and Annie would be proud of us.
Last night I attended the inaugural Gembrook Beekeeper's Club meeting, the Bee Gees. It was to be held in the new restaurant, The Independent, but they could only give us a reservation at a time later than we wanted and only at minimum price of $50 a head for a meal so we had the meeting in vet Tom's clinic and Tom bought us all pizzas. it was an interesting night and I'm happy to be part of it to share my delight of the natural world.
Today I had my van booked in for a service at Berwick in the morning and had a doctor's appt in the afternoon followed by appt for ultrasound scans on my shoulders at Casey Hospital. Tomorrow Lib and I are attending a lunch celebration in Monbulk for a friend's 80th birthday. I had a gout attack Tuesday and Wednesday which I think is caused by the new RA medication I'm taking, hence my visit to the doctor today (I see the specialist again on 15 Oct). On top of all this I have been busy workwise so I've hardly had time to scratch myself.
Edgar served in WW1 and our cousin Bruce organized this get together of some of the Wilson clan to place a tile with a poppy on it on Edgar's headstone. The tiles were available through the RSL to commemorate the service of those soldiers who returned home and got on with their daily lives. Bruce who served in Vietnam learned of the tile through the his involvement with the RSL and the idea came to him to invite descendants of Edgar and Annie to the grave to stick the tile on the headstone.
The idea was well received and five of Edgar and Annie's grandchildren attended and some of their spouses, children and grandchildren. We had lunch at nearby hotel and it was a rewarding day for us all to catch up with family we hadn't seen for many years.
 |
| Meredith, her grandaughter Evie and Lib are obscured at rear. |
Last night I attended the inaugural Gembrook Beekeeper's Club meeting, the Bee Gees. It was to be held in the new restaurant, The Independent, but they could only give us a reservation at a time later than we wanted and only at minimum price of $50 a head for a meal so we had the meeting in vet Tom's clinic and Tom bought us all pizzas. it was an interesting night and I'm happy to be part of it to share my delight of the natural world.
Today I had my van booked in for a service at Berwick in the morning and had a doctor's appt in the afternoon followed by appt for ultrasound scans on my shoulders at Casey Hospital. Tomorrow Lib and I are attending a lunch celebration in Monbulk for a friend's 80th birthday. I had a gout attack Tuesday and Wednesday which I think is caused by the new RA medication I'm taking, hence my visit to the doctor today (I see the specialist again on 15 Oct). On top of all this I have been busy workwise so I've hardly had time to scratch myself.
Sunday, September 21, 2014
Where Have 45 Years Gone?
I drove back from Lakes Entrance today, by myself, listening to CDs, and sucking on a new Life Saver every thirty km. That's my tactic to stay awake when driving a distance. It gives me some focus on the odometer as I make the Life Saver last as long as I can, so that there's less k's to wait till I can have a new one.
I went down to Lakes on Thursday evening after a busy day working. I was by myself because Lib and Gord went down on Tuesday. I listened to a 'Gordon Lightfoot Live' CD on my way down for starters, followed by Anne Murray, singers who go back to the late sixties and my adolescence, and whose songs evoke such powerful memories when I have some solitude and the time to listen, two blessings that I rarely have in recent memory.
It was 'If You Could Read My Mind' that kicked me off into a weekend of nostalgia and overview of my life. A self indulgence? Yes. But it was like an uncontrollable force that took hold of me and held me captive right till this very moment, and will stay during the coming night I'm sure, alone again as I am. It will take the urgency of Monday work and responsibility to snap me out of it I think.
My mate Rickyralph and I broke the chains of our conservative middle class family and educational institution and sought adventure, driven by adolescent romantic love we did not understand, having fallen in love with the sisters Morton, and rebellion against the nutty constraints, rituals and prejudices of the society of the time. We could not conform to the expectations of us. We sought excitement and experiment, and found trouble without meaning to. It was a turbulent time we were both lucky to survive. Popular music was big at the time and our generation tapped into it as an expression of awakening and freedom. There would be dozens of songs from the time that could spark such feelings in me, but 'If You Could Read My Mind' would be right up there.
Anne Murray had a hit song around the same time, 'Snowbird', which was not a favourite then, but after buying a number of her LP's in the late 1970's and becoming a big fan around the time I met and married Lib, when I hear 'Snowbird' now it takes me right back. And the fact that we lost our little 'Snowie', whom I often referred to as 'Snowbird', recently, no doubt added to the emotions that flooded me. Anne Murray's 'Highly Prized Possession' gives me goosebumps still.
I left home at 4.30pm, and after 3 and a quarter hours driving/think time remembering girls I loved, now ladies I still love, despite not having seen them for decades and probably never again, arrived at Lakes for dinner of lamb and salad wraps. I thought of friends whom I rarely see but will remain friends forever, and several who have passed on, some well into old age, others far too young. My father, Lib's parents, my friends' parents, most of whom have gone. I thought of football teams, teammates, the great fun I had at Ormond Cof C with a special bunch of people, and again at Greta after a break of five years while I pursued beekeeping.
I first went to the Lakes house on Feb 1 1981, the first day of our honeymoon after the wedding the previous day. We went there with our babies, our children, our friends, we have been going there every year since. All of these memories flooded me for three days. We went for a walk to Lake Bunga on Saturday morning. I have never seen the trees and shrubs and birds looking so beautiful... multiple shades of green and flowers of yellow white and pink on wattle, clematis and aristides?, and pea flower and craggy old banksia stumps with amazing bark and shape. We cut the grass and did house maintenance, all joy and pleasure not work. I could hear the sea in the background, a profound sound that did nothing but enhance my mood.
On the drive home I listened Simon and Garfunkel who continued the spell over me. The herds of cattle looked fantastic on the back road. The grass has never seemed so lush. The red gum trees and yellow box warmed my heart and along with the flowering red box and roadside capeweed made me think of my fortunate involvement with beekeeping and the many wonderful people from that part of my life. I cannot recall enjoying driving so much. It's great to be moving through the countryside seeing so much beauty and forgetting all the nutter stuff of politics and war and propaganda and elections.
Forty five years have passed so quickly. When I was 17, I wondered what it'd be like to be old, there's a line in S+G's Bookends.."How strange is to be seventy". I'm not all that far off finding out first hand. I always thought it'd be great to have a whole lifetime to look back over. Let's hope I keep my mental faculties so that I can.
I went down to Lakes on Thursday evening after a busy day working. I was by myself because Lib and Gord went down on Tuesday. I listened to a 'Gordon Lightfoot Live' CD on my way down for starters, followed by Anne Murray, singers who go back to the late sixties and my adolescence, and whose songs evoke such powerful memories when I have some solitude and the time to listen, two blessings that I rarely have in recent memory.
It was 'If You Could Read My Mind' that kicked me off into a weekend of nostalgia and overview of my life. A self indulgence? Yes. But it was like an uncontrollable force that took hold of me and held me captive right till this very moment, and will stay during the coming night I'm sure, alone again as I am. It will take the urgency of Monday work and responsibility to snap me out of it I think.
My mate Rickyralph and I broke the chains of our conservative middle class family and educational institution and sought adventure, driven by adolescent romantic love we did not understand, having fallen in love with the sisters Morton, and rebellion against the nutty constraints, rituals and prejudices of the society of the time. We could not conform to the expectations of us. We sought excitement and experiment, and found trouble without meaning to. It was a turbulent time we were both lucky to survive. Popular music was big at the time and our generation tapped into it as an expression of awakening and freedom. There would be dozens of songs from the time that could spark such feelings in me, but 'If You Could Read My Mind' would be right up there.
Anne Murray had a hit song around the same time, 'Snowbird', which was not a favourite then, but after buying a number of her LP's in the late 1970's and becoming a big fan around the time I met and married Lib, when I hear 'Snowbird' now it takes me right back. And the fact that we lost our little 'Snowie', whom I often referred to as 'Snowbird', recently, no doubt added to the emotions that flooded me. Anne Murray's 'Highly Prized Possession' gives me goosebumps still.
I left home at 4.30pm, and after 3 and a quarter hours driving/think time remembering girls I loved, now ladies I still love, despite not having seen them for decades and probably never again, arrived at Lakes for dinner of lamb and salad wraps. I thought of friends whom I rarely see but will remain friends forever, and several who have passed on, some well into old age, others far too young. My father, Lib's parents, my friends' parents, most of whom have gone. I thought of football teams, teammates, the great fun I had at Ormond Cof C with a special bunch of people, and again at Greta after a break of five years while I pursued beekeeping.
I first went to the Lakes house on Feb 1 1981, the first day of our honeymoon after the wedding the previous day. We went there with our babies, our children, our friends, we have been going there every year since. All of these memories flooded me for three days. We went for a walk to Lake Bunga on Saturday morning. I have never seen the trees and shrubs and birds looking so beautiful... multiple shades of green and flowers of yellow white and pink on wattle, clematis and aristides?, and pea flower and craggy old banksia stumps with amazing bark and shape. We cut the grass and did house maintenance, all joy and pleasure not work. I could hear the sea in the background, a profound sound that did nothing but enhance my mood.
On the drive home I listened Simon and Garfunkel who continued the spell over me. The herds of cattle looked fantastic on the back road. The grass has never seemed so lush. The red gum trees and yellow box warmed my heart and along with the flowering red box and roadside capeweed made me think of my fortunate involvement with beekeeping and the many wonderful people from that part of my life. I cannot recall enjoying driving so much. It's great to be moving through the countryside seeing so much beauty and forgetting all the nutter stuff of politics and war and propaganda and elections.
Forty five years have passed so quickly. When I was 17, I wondered what it'd be like to be old, there's a line in S+G's Bookends.."How strange is to be seventy". I'm not all that far off finding out first hand. I always thought it'd be great to have a whole lifetime to look back over. Let's hope I keep my mental faculties so that I can.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Good Luck
Lib was helping me pick bunches of forget me not flowers in Gembrook Bushland Park the other day as she is on holidays.There was a crimson rosella chatting away and feeding happily on the flowers of a pittosporum bicolor as I worked underneath. Then the unmistakable splat on my head came and Lib said "What's up," in answer to my muffled expletive.
"A rosella dropped a big one on my head."
"Oh," Lib replied, That means good luck."
A little while later I heard a cry of anguish from Lib, and an expletive."What happened," I courteously inquired.
"I walked into a branch while bending over picking, it went straight into the sore on my head."
"That means good luck," I said.
I thought of this today while I was picking there, on my own this time as Lib has gone to Lakes for a few days. On the way back I called at the PO to collect our mail and there was a lovely card from a friend in Melbourne for whom Gord and I did a gardening favour a few weeks ago. As well as some kind words of gratitude there was a couple of Tattslotto tickets for next Saturday's superdraw so I hope there is some good luck in the wind.
"A rosella dropped a big one on my head."
"Oh," Lib replied, That means good luck."
A little while later I heard a cry of anguish from Lib, and an expletive."What happened," I courteously inquired.
"I walked into a branch while bending over picking, it went straight into the sore on my head."
"That means good luck," I said.
I thought of this today while I was picking there, on my own this time as Lib has gone to Lakes for a few days. On the way back I called at the PO to collect our mail and there was a lovely card from a friend in Melbourne for whom Gord and I did a gardening favour a few weeks ago. As well as some kind words of gratitude there was a couple of Tattslotto tickets for next Saturday's superdraw so I hope there is some good luck in the wind.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Vale Snowie
Our little Snowie was killed on Sat 6 Sep by one of a neighbour's great danes/cross? She was thirteen and a half years old and had a wonderful life. She's the third dog we have buried in our garden over the 33 years we have lived here, and another, Pip Mk2, a blue heeler German pointer cross, simply disappeared one night at 14 years old and was never seen again. She must have gone off to die, knowing her time was up. She was arthritic and incontinent and I was almost to the point of taking her to the vet for our final goodbye, instead waiting as she was still enjoying her food and basking in the unseasonable sunny August days. But the nights were cold with heavy frosts and it was on the third of these in a row that she took off.
That would have been 2003 which I know because we got Snow in October in 2001, on Robbie's 14th birthday. We did this because Pip was twelve tears old and looking like she was nearing the end of her life and we were concerned that losing her would be a body blow to the boys who had grown up with her as a rock solid reliable companion. I saw an ad for JR /Japanese Spitz cross pups in the supermarket window and she was six months old when we picked chose Snow, the runt of the litter, and brought her home.
Snow settled in instantly and got on great guns with old Pip, who became rejuvenated. It added some valuable time to Pip's life I'm sure. After Pip disappeared we were a one dog family until Lib brought Pip Mk3 home as an eight week old pup on the 2nd August 2007 ( That's a good thing about blogging, you can go back and check things like I just did).
The two little dogs have been very much a part of our lives since. Snowie was never any trouble other than going AWOL a couple of times during severe thunderstorms when we weren't home, both times she was taken in by kind hearted people who cared for her till they could locate us. She was an outside dog, she didn't ever really want to be inside (except during thunder storms or on fire cracker nights or when shooters were discharging shotguns fairly close to our house).
She was a free spirit who stayed close to the house but did take a little walk in the street most days, harmlessly. In later years she took to visiting our friends Steve and Ann across the road regularly, a habit which contributed to her demise. Steve and Ann moved out last January and the new owners have two massive dogs which are usually confined in their back yard. On the fateful day last Saturday week these dogs were with their owner in the front yard when Snowie wandered in. The large dog grabbed her before the owner had realized what was happening. I was out. When I came home there was a note on my front door to ring my neighbour's mobile. They had had to go out but he told me the bad news and I went and collected Snow who was in a cardboard box at the top of their drive. We gave her a ceremonial burial in a beautiful place in our garden and I'm forever grateful that we were blessed with Snow as a family member for 13 years.
That would have been 2003 which I know because we got Snow in October in 2001, on Robbie's 14th birthday. We did this because Pip was twelve tears old and looking like she was nearing the end of her life and we were concerned that losing her would be a body blow to the boys who had grown up with her as a rock solid reliable companion. I saw an ad for JR /Japanese Spitz cross pups in the supermarket window and she was six months old when we picked chose Snow, the runt of the litter, and brought her home.
Snow settled in instantly and got on great guns with old Pip, who became rejuvenated. It added some valuable time to Pip's life I'm sure. After Pip disappeared we were a one dog family until Lib brought Pip Mk3 home as an eight week old pup on the 2nd August 2007 ( That's a good thing about blogging, you can go back and check things like I just did).
The two little dogs have been very much a part of our lives since. Snowie was never any trouble other than going AWOL a couple of times during severe thunderstorms when we weren't home, both times she was taken in by kind hearted people who cared for her till they could locate us. She was an outside dog, she didn't ever really want to be inside (except during thunder storms or on fire cracker nights or when shooters were discharging shotguns fairly close to our house).
She was a free spirit who stayed close to the house but did take a little walk in the street most days, harmlessly. In later years she took to visiting our friends Steve and Ann across the road regularly, a habit which contributed to her demise. Steve and Ann moved out last January and the new owners have two massive dogs which are usually confined in their back yard. On the fateful day last Saturday week these dogs were with their owner in the front yard when Snowie wandered in. The large dog grabbed her before the owner had realized what was happening. I was out. When I came home there was a note on my front door to ring my neighbour's mobile. They had had to go out but he told me the bad news and I went and collected Snow who was in a cardboard box at the top of their drive. We gave her a ceremonial burial in a beautiful place in our garden and I'm forever grateful that we were blessed with Snow as a family member for 13 years.
Thursday, September 04, 2014
Rheumatoid Arthritis
My GP, not happy with my blood test results after many months of treatment with prednisilone for the polymyalgia, referred me to a specialist some weeks ago. I fronted a few weeks ago and he increased my medication which gave me some relief and new energy and I returned for a second appt yesterday afternoon, after having more blood tests on Monday in preparation.
He had no hesitation telling me yesterday that the tests show I have rheumatoid arthritis. He prescribed another drug, methotrexate, which takes 6 weeks to kick in so he left me on the prednisilone also for the time being. Apparently the methotrexate has less side effects long term than the prednisilone, and may not have any if I'm lucky. It can damage the liver and I'm advised to have only light alcohol intake.
I have not yet had time to research all this properly yet and so I don't know how I will be affected into the future. RA can be aggressive with rapid degeneration of joints and muscle tissue causing severe cripplecreek, or it can be mild and go into remission and flare up here and there. I don't think I have much choice but to follow the medical advise and hope that early intervention will prevent serious deterioration, as I'm told can be so. Nobody can be sure where we end up from here, especially in the longer term. I'm on the way down it seems but aren't we all really, it's just a case of when.
I'm not complaining, there are people given terminal diagnosis every day for all manner of cancers, I'm fit and well except for some pain and some lack of agility which is manageable.
My next appt with specialist is in six weeks - I promise not to talk of this till then, it bores me witless so it must you too and I would like to write about other things. I have been very busy as usual but have managed to gather enough firewood for next winter already as well as catch up on some pruning and tidy up. So much more yet to do and no doubt I'll always be very busy until I have a radical change of circumstances which could happen within months or may not for a few years. We just have to see how we go, there are many considerations.
He had no hesitation telling me yesterday that the tests show I have rheumatoid arthritis. He prescribed another drug, methotrexate, which takes 6 weeks to kick in so he left me on the prednisilone also for the time being. Apparently the methotrexate has less side effects long term than the prednisilone, and may not have any if I'm lucky. It can damage the liver and I'm advised to have only light alcohol intake.
I have not yet had time to research all this properly yet and so I don't know how I will be affected into the future. RA can be aggressive with rapid degeneration of joints and muscle tissue causing severe cripplecreek, or it can be mild and go into remission and flare up here and there. I don't think I have much choice but to follow the medical advise and hope that early intervention will prevent serious deterioration, as I'm told can be so. Nobody can be sure where we end up from here, especially in the longer term. I'm on the way down it seems but aren't we all really, it's just a case of when.
I'm not complaining, there are people given terminal diagnosis every day for all manner of cancers, I'm fit and well except for some pain and some lack of agility which is manageable.
My next appt with specialist is in six weeks - I promise not to talk of this till then, it bores me witless so it must you too and I would like to write about other things. I have been very busy as usual but have managed to gather enough firewood for next winter already as well as catch up on some pruning and tidy up. So much more yet to do and no doubt I'll always be very busy until I have a radical change of circumstances which could happen within months or may not for a few years. We just have to see how we go, there are many considerations.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Awesome
A famous golfer once said of his day's work at the British Open, something like,
"I was in awe of myself today."
I can't say that I have ever been in awe of myself, but I have been in awe of nature and the beauty around me as the sun comes out and the birds sing lately. It's great to hear bees humming in the blossom and see buds swelling and bursting with flower and new growth. There's colour on the ground and on trees and shrubs and the blue sky is exquisite, and so was this evening's sunset.
Awesome beauty indeed.
"I was in awe of myself today."
I can't say that I have ever been in awe of myself, but I have been in awe of nature and the beauty around me as the sun comes out and the birds sing lately. It's great to hear bees humming in the blossom and see buds swelling and bursting with flower and new growth. There's colour on the ground and on trees and shrubs and the blue sky is exquisite, and so was this evening's sunset.
Awesome beauty indeed.
Monday, August 18, 2014
AS WINTER BECOMES SPRING
The days grow longer, there’s more birdsong, lawnmowers come
out, and many footballers put away the boots till next autumn, while others
prepare for last games in finals in a frantic bid for the premiership.
Due to Gordon’s involvement I had occasion to see several local
games this season, the first being an away game for Gembrook/Cockatoo at
Powelltown a couple of months ago. We left home early in misty light rain to
reach the venue by the time requested by the coach, 10.30am, a tad early I
thought given the 12.10 start for the reserves. The oval, behind a huge sawmill
with mountains of sawn stacked timber, was easy to find.
An U18’s game was in progress, between Mt. Evelyn and
Powelltown, as Gembrook/Cockatoo did not field an U18 team. Intermittent rain
and sleet fell as I watched the lads from Mt Evelyn give the locals a good
touch up by about thirty goals to two. I could not help but be impressed by the
endeavour of both teams which continued right through the final quarter despite
the freezing muddy conditions. I asked myself, who would do it? But then I’m
over sixty.
The Ressies warmed up on a patch of grass outside the ground
as the U18s kept it up till the final siren. It was raining steadily and they
were all getting thoroughly wet before the game even started. The rain eased
then stopped and the game got underway with great enthusiasm and yelling and
calling. Soon it was obvious that the Powelltown Demons had the upper hand and
they slowly mounted a winning lead that continued to a one sided win. Again, I
could not but be impressed by the Brookers who kept trying to the very end
despite the lopsided score line, and the camaraderie and good sportsmanship
evident between the teams at the end of the match.
We stayed for the senior game, the rain holding off for a
while. Both teams showed good skills in another spirited contest. As the game
wore on Powelltown got the upper hand, the rain came back, and the skill level
dropped off as it became a muddy slog.
Over the next weeks there were games at King Lake with snow around
the ground and kids throwing snowballs, more rain and blizzard winds, and games
when the Ressies did not score at all. Through all of this the players
continued trying their hearts out, and shared moments of joy and celebration,
at scores or good efforts, and always congratulated their victorious opponents.
Fittingly, they won the last game at Thornton with only 17 men on the field and
no interchange.
In one of the coldest and wettest winters I can recall, I am
full of admiration for the young and not so young men who braved the elements
and showed their obvious love of footy, which plays an important role in our
society.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
It's a Dog's Life
This little one is about the luckiest dog in the world I reckon. A great mate. I sing to her,
"I love how you love me"
She gives a wag of the tail.
"I love how you love me"
She gives a wag of the tail.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Coughing Up
We, that is Lib, Gord and me, all have head and chest colds. Gord's is the worst, he's had it for many weeks and his cough that must be driving him crazy. Lib and I aren't so bad and have only been overcome this past week or so but the cough is irritating and detracting from good sleep.
I heard on the radio that it's been the best snow season since 1981. I remember 1981 well; we came to Gembrook in July from Wangaratta to a house without carpets and curtains and indeed no electricity for two weeks. It was freezing and I would say this winter has been the worst since for prolonged cold and wet. We've had lower temperatures and more thick frosts in other years but this winter has been cold and wet for a long period. Hard on man and beast. I was fortunate to have a good stock of firewood including some really old dry stuff.
The days are stretching out a little now and birdsong in the mornings is building. The temperature was a little warmer yesterday and today with some sunshine, even a few blowflies down the chimney to buzz and bang on the windows. it'll be 4- 6 weeks till I close the chimney vent and finish with the open fire till into next autumn when the cold returns. I'm gathering some wood for next year as I prune and remove some trees at the farm and tidy up here.
Cough and splutter we may well and suffer aching muscles and crook backs, but the work goes on. As does the paper work. I've spent late nights catching up on three months book work to do the BAS and end of year collation.
I'm not complaining. To use a popular saying going round at the moment, it is what it is. I picked wild violets today and some daphne and geranium. It was total pleasure. I'm proud of my work and my family's work, especially Lib.
PS. I heard today that Tony Abbott said any Australians going overseas to fight in conflicts would be punished.
Surely he doesn't mean ADF people, so he means, I suppose, depending on his endorsement or condemnation of the conflict, Australians are lauded or punished accordingly.
Violence is violence, it is what it is. Murder is murder.
I heard on the radio that it's been the best snow season since 1981. I remember 1981 well; we came to Gembrook in July from Wangaratta to a house without carpets and curtains and indeed no electricity for two weeks. It was freezing and I would say this winter has been the worst since for prolonged cold and wet. We've had lower temperatures and more thick frosts in other years but this winter has been cold and wet for a long period. Hard on man and beast. I was fortunate to have a good stock of firewood including some really old dry stuff.
The days are stretching out a little now and birdsong in the mornings is building. The temperature was a little warmer yesterday and today with some sunshine, even a few blowflies down the chimney to buzz and bang on the windows. it'll be 4- 6 weeks till I close the chimney vent and finish with the open fire till into next autumn when the cold returns. I'm gathering some wood for next year as I prune and remove some trees at the farm and tidy up here.
Cough and splutter we may well and suffer aching muscles and crook backs, but the work goes on. As does the paper work. I've spent late nights catching up on three months book work to do the BAS and end of year collation.
I'm not complaining. To use a popular saying going round at the moment, it is what it is. I picked wild violets today and some daphne and geranium. It was total pleasure. I'm proud of my work and my family's work, especially Lib.
PS. I heard today that Tony Abbott said any Australians going overseas to fight in conflicts would be punished.
Surely he doesn't mean ADF people, so he means, I suppose, depending on his endorsement or condemnation of the conflict, Australians are lauded or punished accordingly.
Violence is violence, it is what it is. Murder is murder.
Friday, July 25, 2014
Heritage Walk
Emerald's Heritage Walk was launched on Wednesday this week. A joint venture between the Emerald Community House and the Emerald Museum it came about through the energy of the ECH who applied for a small grant in the Museum's name and did the planning, while our museum committee provided the information and worked with the graphic designer to produce the brochure and signs.
The end result was excellent. I had little to do with the nuts and bolts of it but as president of the committee I was required to make a small speech at the launch, one of four speakers the last of whom was the Mayor of Cardinia who then cut the ribbon.
In my talk I thanked the attending MPs and councillors and all who contributed, using a list of dot points prepared for me by our wonderful part time museum officer employed by council (for six months only, probably one off). I had been away at Lakes Entrance in the two days prior, building a post and rail fence on top of the new big retaining wall for safety reason, and would have struggled preparing a talk in those circumstance as my mind was fully engaged with friend carpenter Willy from Phillip Island who met me down there. It was a small job only but by the time you get down there and organize and buy the timber, do the job and tidy up it was a two night stay. Men off the leash, fun, but I returned Tuesday night exhausted. Gord came and I needed him to share the driving on the way home, I was falling asleep.
I added a personal experience to my talk. In 1999 (I think) We were on holiday at Lakes Entrance and to cut a long story short Gord had a burst appendix and peritonitis after ill health for two weeks and visits to doctor and then hospital which was not picked up by the varoius medicos till I took him to the clinic in LE after his condition was worsening not improving. He had to go to Sale hospital where he had emergency surgery that saved his life. We stayed in Sale for a week, and got to know the town quite well, having previously only ever driven through it.
Because of this, we stopped in Sale on future trips for meals or shopping and a bit of nostalgia. Some years ago I came across a Heritage Walk there, and took the brochure back to our committee, who were impressed but already had plans to do this in Emerald. Finally it has happened which is rewarding. When I saw the Heritage Walk in Sale my thoughts were immediate - the people of Sale are proud of their town, their community and the history. This is an important thing to demonstrate to visitors and the new generation coming through.
The other speakers on Wednesday talked of how this heritage walk is stage one. The RSL and the Village Committee are working on an ANZAC Walk to be completed for next year's centenary. The RSL has a grant from the federal government of many $thousand.
Since my talk I have done more thinking. I remember being in the Sale hospital waiting anxiously while Gord was in surgery and seeing a plaque on a donation board for a wing of the hospital built in I think the 1920's or 30's, something like, Donation by Margaret Lyon in memory of her only son Leonard who was killed at Albertville France in 1916. I was moved by this, that this lady in commemoration of her son had made a donation to a hospital that was at that moment saving the life of my son.
We already have Avenues of Honour, the shrine of remembrance and a War Memorial in Canberra. I would prefer to see the large amount of public money spent on a better purpose such as a hospital. God knows how many millions are being spent on centenary ANZAC Day and I think the example of Margaret Lyons would be a good way to go.
The end result was excellent. I had little to do with the nuts and bolts of it but as president of the committee I was required to make a small speech at the launch, one of four speakers the last of whom was the Mayor of Cardinia who then cut the ribbon.
In my talk I thanked the attending MPs and councillors and all who contributed, using a list of dot points prepared for me by our wonderful part time museum officer employed by council (for six months only, probably one off). I had been away at Lakes Entrance in the two days prior, building a post and rail fence on top of the new big retaining wall for safety reason, and would have struggled preparing a talk in those circumstance as my mind was fully engaged with friend carpenter Willy from Phillip Island who met me down there. It was a small job only but by the time you get down there and organize and buy the timber, do the job and tidy up it was a two night stay. Men off the leash, fun, but I returned Tuesday night exhausted. Gord came and I needed him to share the driving on the way home, I was falling asleep.
I added a personal experience to my talk. In 1999 (I think) We were on holiday at Lakes Entrance and to cut a long story short Gord had a burst appendix and peritonitis after ill health for two weeks and visits to doctor and then hospital which was not picked up by the varoius medicos till I took him to the clinic in LE after his condition was worsening not improving. He had to go to Sale hospital where he had emergency surgery that saved his life. We stayed in Sale for a week, and got to know the town quite well, having previously only ever driven through it.
Because of this, we stopped in Sale on future trips for meals or shopping and a bit of nostalgia. Some years ago I came across a Heritage Walk there, and took the brochure back to our committee, who were impressed but already had plans to do this in Emerald. Finally it has happened which is rewarding. When I saw the Heritage Walk in Sale my thoughts were immediate - the people of Sale are proud of their town, their community and the history. This is an important thing to demonstrate to visitors and the new generation coming through.
The other speakers on Wednesday talked of how this heritage walk is stage one. The RSL and the Village Committee are working on an ANZAC Walk to be completed for next year's centenary. The RSL has a grant from the federal government of many $thousand.
Since my talk I have done more thinking. I remember being in the Sale hospital waiting anxiously while Gord was in surgery and seeing a plaque on a donation board for a wing of the hospital built in I think the 1920's or 30's, something like, Donation by Margaret Lyon in memory of her only son Leonard who was killed at Albertville France in 1916. I was moved by this, that this lady in commemoration of her son had made a donation to a hospital that was at that moment saving the life of my son.
We already have Avenues of Honour, the shrine of remembrance and a War Memorial in Canberra. I would prefer to see the large amount of public money spent on a better purpose such as a hospital. God knows how many millions are being spent on centenary ANZAC Day and I think the example of Margaret Lyons would be a good way to go.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Wet and Cold
I hear rain on the roof. A familiar sound commonly heard over the past four weeks since I last posted. It has been an extended wet and cold period, broken only by the odd day or two when there has been no rain or drizzle. At these times the wind has cranked up ripping through like a scythe of cold chilling man and beast.
Suffer I have with the polymyalgia not abated. I have had awful days, and nights, interspersed with some good ones, usually after treatment of one sort or another including five sessions of acupuncture, the latest today, and more chiropractic. The lady who gave me the Shiatsu massage four weeks ago has not been available in July and my booking for a soft tissue massage after hot sauna in Emerald was aborted due to power failure during a blizzard with gale force winds.
The rain tumbles still, heavier now. Through all this I have continued to work to the my best capabilities, slowly and carefully of course. Mornings are painful till the panadeine and prednisilone kicks in making afternoons easier.
With this tale of woe you will see why I haven't blogged. It's not any fun at all to talk about it and it robs you of the interest and desire to share thoughts. I know I am a pain in the arse and the whole event bores me to tears.
So let me tell you about my acupuncture man as he has become a friend to me. He lives in Berwick and works from his house. He's university qualified and has worked learning also in China. He is of Chinese father and Maltese mother. At some point his father met his mother in India. He is married to an East Timorese lady and he has two daughters. His wife was a refugee. He was born in 1977 and he barracks for Nth Melbourne. He has an interest in the punt. We discuss all these things and more while I lie on a table in my underpants as he sticks 18 needles into me, in my arms and legs and chest and shoulders, before he leaves me in quiet dozing and dreaming. It's most pleasant. He comes back and heats up some of the needles with some sort of burning stick, although he did not do this today, he left me for twice as long as usual.
When I first rang him I asked him did he think he could help with polymyalgia.
"I think I can help with anything," he replied.
How many visits will I need to make?
" Three to six," he said.
"I'll give you three for starters," I told him.
I have booked in for a sixth next week. I want to trial this right through. Nothing has cured this weird affliction but I am coping and working and fulfilling nearly all my commitments if falling behind on work at the farm which doesn't really matter when I consider the stage my career is at - nearly at the end.
I am disgusted with politics and many things outside my sphere of influence so I choose not to waste one minute of my time on them.
Rickyralph is five ahead of me in the footy tipping. There's still enough rounds for me to catch him, remembering last year I swooped in the last round from 3 behind to do him on the post. Extraordinarily, Lib is leading and twelve ahead of me and I concede that is an unassailable margin.
Suffer I have with the polymyalgia not abated. I have had awful days, and nights, interspersed with some good ones, usually after treatment of one sort or another including five sessions of acupuncture, the latest today, and more chiropractic. The lady who gave me the Shiatsu massage four weeks ago has not been available in July and my booking for a soft tissue massage after hot sauna in Emerald was aborted due to power failure during a blizzard with gale force winds.
The rain tumbles still, heavier now. Through all this I have continued to work to the my best capabilities, slowly and carefully of course. Mornings are painful till the panadeine and prednisilone kicks in making afternoons easier.
With this tale of woe you will see why I haven't blogged. It's not any fun at all to talk about it and it robs you of the interest and desire to share thoughts. I know I am a pain in the arse and the whole event bores me to tears.
So let me tell you about my acupuncture man as he has become a friend to me. He lives in Berwick and works from his house. He's university qualified and has worked learning also in China. He is of Chinese father and Maltese mother. At some point his father met his mother in India. He is married to an East Timorese lady and he has two daughters. His wife was a refugee. He was born in 1977 and he barracks for Nth Melbourne. He has an interest in the punt. We discuss all these things and more while I lie on a table in my underpants as he sticks 18 needles into me, in my arms and legs and chest and shoulders, before he leaves me in quiet dozing and dreaming. It's most pleasant. He comes back and heats up some of the needles with some sort of burning stick, although he did not do this today, he left me for twice as long as usual.
When I first rang him I asked him did he think he could help with polymyalgia.
"I think I can help with anything," he replied.
How many visits will I need to make?
" Three to six," he said.
"I'll give you three for starters," I told him.
I have booked in for a sixth next week. I want to trial this right through. Nothing has cured this weird affliction but I am coping and working and fulfilling nearly all my commitments if falling behind on work at the farm which doesn't really matter when I consider the stage my career is at - nearly at the end.
I am disgusted with politics and many things outside my sphere of influence so I choose not to waste one minute of my time on them.
Rickyralph is five ahead of me in the footy tipping. There's still enough rounds for me to catch him, remembering last year I swooped in the last round from 3 behind to do him on the post. Extraordinarily, Lib is leading and twelve ahead of me and I concede that is an unassailable margin.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Massage
I had a Shiatsu massage today by a local practitioner ( my friend Hanna's daughter). It was wonderful. I fell asleep and dreamed but was fully aware of every touch. Amazing!
I cancelled my scheduled chiropractor appt to do this and I have to say that I have not felt so pain free for six months. Pain free is not right perhaps, there is still discomfort /pain but my whole being seems to have loosened up. It is a great feeling and I hope it lasts.
Off to bed now, hopeful that I will have a good sleep undisturbed, and wake up feeling as good as I do now. Mornings are usually pretty crappy and I'm tired of it. I was going to try acupuncture but bumped into Sue while I was digging over some ground at Hanna's to plant garlic, the discussion about my polymyalgia leading to the appt today.
I have not had the time or energy to blog much lately, i have many things to attend to all the time and my condition slows me, so that I cannot do all that I wish.
But let me assure my friends that read that right now I feel FANTASTIC, and have renewed belief that I will soon, or a little later, be shod of this thing that has dragged me down.
I cancelled my scheduled chiropractor appt to do this and I have to say that I have not felt so pain free for six months. Pain free is not right perhaps, there is still discomfort /pain but my whole being seems to have loosened up. It is a great feeling and I hope it lasts.
Off to bed now, hopeful that I will have a good sleep undisturbed, and wake up feeling as good as I do now. Mornings are usually pretty crappy and I'm tired of it. I was going to try acupuncture but bumped into Sue while I was digging over some ground at Hanna's to plant garlic, the discussion about my polymyalgia leading to the appt today.
I have not had the time or energy to blog much lately, i have many things to attend to all the time and my condition slows me, so that I cannot do all that I wish.
But let me assure my friends that read that right now I feel FANTASTIC, and have renewed belief that I will soon, or a little later, be shod of this thing that has dragged me down.
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Robert Flower
I just now watched a highlight reel of Robert Flower.
There have been many great footballers I have seen. There has been none better than Robert Flower.
There have been many great footballers I have seen. There has been none better than Robert Flower.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Thought for the Day
I came across this quote on 'Daily Reckoning Australia', which somehow or other sends me daily emails.
Food for thought.
And more, from a make believe address to US college grads from the same source-
"Australia is already
completely over-invested in housing. It’s ruining the economy and destroying
the quality of life for millions of people. It’s creating a ‘rentier’
economy where the only way to get ahead is collect the rent on a property.
Nobody produces anything. But more importantly, a whole country can’t get rich
and stay rich by selling houses to each other."
And more, from a make believe address to US college grads from the same source-
"Memorial Day and higher education
have a lot in common: You have to ignore the particulars to appreciate them.
Take out the inconvenient details. Remove the embarrassing facts. Often what is
left is sterile nonsense.
Every Memorial Day editorial tells us
our veterans fought for ‘freedom’. Yet in not a single one of America's wars
was an enemy preparing to reduce our freedom.
The huns wanted Alsace, not
Pennsylvania. The Philippines intended no subjugation of Indiana. And what
about the Nicaraguans? Nobody even remembers the shackles they were meant to
clamp onto American wrists. But after every victory, we know what happened
next: The doughboys and grunts came home to higher taxes and more prohibitions.
What you learn in college is the way
things are ‘supposed’ to work. But few things in real life are as simple as
they're ‘supposed’ to be. Our government is not run by the people for the
people. Government is merely a way one group of people — the insiders — take
advantage of other people — the outsiders.
You can call it democracy or
dictatorship; it hardly matters. It can be gentle and broadly tolerable...or
brutal and widely detested. What makes it a government is it has a monopoly on
the use of violence; ultimately, the insiders use it to get what they want.
As for the economy, you have learned
about our capitalist system. You have been told that it needs regulation by the
SEC, the Fed, the Department of Justice, the FDA, the FTC and other agencies to
keep the capitalists honest. You have been lied to.
It's not a capitalist system; the
feds took the capital out 40 years ago. Now, it depends on cronies and credit.
It's a corrupt system — the product of collusion between industry and the
agencies meant to regulate them. Its real purpose is to transfer more wealth
and power to the insiders.
Economist William Baumol understood.
He noticed that goods-producing
businesses — such as an automaker or a maker of a widget — could achieve high
productivity growth, thanks to labor-saving automation and supply-chain
efficiencies. He also noticed that productivity stayed more or less static in
service-sector jobs, such as nursing and teaching. (Basically, a nurse needed
to spend just as much time with a sick patient...and a teacher needed to spend
as much time with a student.)
Despite this, wage increases in
service-sector industries — education, healthcare and government — tended to
keep pace with wage increases in industries where rising wage growth was
justified by growing productivity.
That's part of the reason your TVs
are cheap...but your healthcare has become so expensive. Not only is healthcare
largely protected from competition and distorted by third parties who pay the
bills, including the government and insurance companies, but also wages for
healthcare workers rise, even though productivity stays more or less static.
This also helps explain why a
university education is eight times more costly than it was in 1978...even though
you're still getting more or less the same education. Also, as I explained on
Friday, college was optional to a decent income in the 1970s. Now, it's almost
obligatory.
When everything is rigged, the
riggers have the money and the power. Lobbyists, lawyers, accountants,
administrators: Whether you want to take a business public...or just build a
house...you come face to face with someone who can stop you, with paperwork,
legal razzmatazz and nauseating administration. You need to play the game, too."
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Footy Comment
I get annoyed watching AFL games because of the deplorable inconsistency of the umpiring, and the blatant errors umpires make.
I saw a shocker in the round 9 game between Fremantle and Geelong, first quarter I think, before I fell asleep, or maybe I woke and saw it later in the game. The footy was kicked across to a Geelong defender who was not far out from the goal Geelong were defending. It wasn't a good kick in that it was given too much air by the the kicker, giving a Freo player a chance to intercept. He ran straight at the Geelong player who was looking at the ball in flight, interfering with him in the contest and causing him to spill the mark.
An obvious free kick to Geelong, so obvious in all the five decades plus that I have followed the sport. You can't spoil a bloke going for a mark by running at him front on and into him without having eyes on the ball and attempting to mark. In any level of the game, a basic no brainer.
I can't understand how any umpire could have not payed the free kick. To make matters worse, the Geelong player went down and the Freo spoiler picked up the ball and ran in and kicked a goal. I could not believe what my eyes saw. It was so bad. No umpire could have missed that unless he wanted to for some reason or motive unknown to me.
So many people, commentators and fans, rave on about AFL being the best game in the world. I always think well, no it's not. The rules and umpiring buggers it up. It's not the greatest game in the world. I have followed it all my life and I can't make head nor tail of the umpiring. 'Push in the back', 'prior opportunity', 'pulling the ball in while on the ground', 'chopping arms', 'shepherding in the ruck', 'he ducked his head', 'deliberate out of bounds', they all seem to be payed on the whim of an umpire sometimes, and not others a few minutes apart, let alone from game to game.
I still watch, but really, I can't follow the umpiring. It's crap.
PS AFL attendances are down, people are complaining about many things, as well as the umpiring, including the extra charges for reserved seat ticketing, and the ridiculous food and beverage prices. These things were evident many years ago and the paying public has been gouged for so long, I can't understand why there is suddenly noise about it now. It was manifest decades ago when the chairman of the AFL was also owner of Spotless Catering, the firm with the catering rights at the MCG then, and now. The rot really set in on the reserved seating with the building of the Telstradome now Etihad stadium and seems to have spread like cancer. I don't go to the footy anymore. Maybe I'll stop watching it on TV too one of these days. It's really only the night games I watch, till I fall asleep.
I saw a shocker in the round 9 game between Fremantle and Geelong, first quarter I think, before I fell asleep, or maybe I woke and saw it later in the game. The footy was kicked across to a Geelong defender who was not far out from the goal Geelong were defending. It wasn't a good kick in that it was given too much air by the the kicker, giving a Freo player a chance to intercept. He ran straight at the Geelong player who was looking at the ball in flight, interfering with him in the contest and causing him to spill the mark.
An obvious free kick to Geelong, so obvious in all the five decades plus that I have followed the sport. You can't spoil a bloke going for a mark by running at him front on and into him without having eyes on the ball and attempting to mark. In any level of the game, a basic no brainer.
I can't understand how any umpire could have not payed the free kick. To make matters worse, the Geelong player went down and the Freo spoiler picked up the ball and ran in and kicked a goal. I could not believe what my eyes saw. It was so bad. No umpire could have missed that unless he wanted to for some reason or motive unknown to me.
So many people, commentators and fans, rave on about AFL being the best game in the world. I always think well, no it's not. The rules and umpiring buggers it up. It's not the greatest game in the world. I have followed it all my life and I can't make head nor tail of the umpiring. 'Push in the back', 'prior opportunity', 'pulling the ball in while on the ground', 'chopping arms', 'shepherding in the ruck', 'he ducked his head', 'deliberate out of bounds', they all seem to be payed on the whim of an umpire sometimes, and not others a few minutes apart, let alone from game to game.
I still watch, but really, I can't follow the umpiring. It's crap.
PS AFL attendances are down, people are complaining about many things, as well as the umpiring, including the extra charges for reserved seat ticketing, and the ridiculous food and beverage prices. These things were evident many years ago and the paying public has been gouged for so long, I can't understand why there is suddenly noise about it now. It was manifest decades ago when the chairman of the AFL was also owner of Spotless Catering, the firm with the catering rights at the MCG then, and now. The rot really set in on the reserved seating with the building of the Telstradome now Etihad stadium and seems to have spread like cancer. I don't go to the footy anymore. Maybe I'll stop watching it on TV too one of these days. It's really only the night games I watch, till I fall asleep.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Growing Up
It is time Australia grew up as a nation.
I heard it today from radical ex PM Malcolm Fraser in an interview. I think I came across it on Grist.
He has written a book soon to be published. He says Australia has never made its own foreign policy, being firstly a puppet of Britain from Federation up to after WW2, then the US since.
I agree entirely. He goes further, saying over the last 20 years the US has taken our sovereignty and we need to take it back and distance ourselves from US foreign policy, including kicking them out of Pine Gap and the Darwin base.
It is time we grew up. Make our own decisions. Become a citizen of the world, not a US sycophant.
Talking about growing up, ANZAC DAY 2015 should be our last.
Move on, grow up. It's myth and a nonsense from a bygone time.
Grow up Australia.
"I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we are shocked with cannibalism." Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister (1898- 1978)
I heard it today from radical ex PM Malcolm Fraser in an interview. I think I came across it on Grist.
He has written a book soon to be published. He says Australia has never made its own foreign policy, being firstly a puppet of Britain from Federation up to after WW2, then the US since.
I agree entirely. He goes further, saying over the last 20 years the US has taken our sovereignty and we need to take it back and distance ourselves from US foreign policy, including kicking them out of Pine Gap and the Darwin base.
It is time we grew up. Make our own decisions. Become a citizen of the world, not a US sycophant.
Talking about growing up, ANZAC DAY 2015 should be our last.
Move on, grow up. It's myth and a nonsense from a bygone time.
Grow up Australia.
"I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we are shocked with cannibalism." Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister (1898- 1978)
Friday, May 16, 2014
Cousin Bruce
Cousin Bruce rang me last Friday night. He's going on a six week holiday to Russia. Moscow and a trip on the river to St Petersburg, I think he said. Good luck to him. I have very little desire to go anywhere as a tourist but yes Russia, I would like to go there.
One of the good things about blogging, for me, over the years I have been doing this, is the contacts I have had from people from my past who I think, unless I blogged, I never would have heard from again. Somehow Bruce came across my blog. We have exchanged a few communiques by way of email and Facebook, and now, tired as I am, I bring myself to desk to tell my friends of Bruce my cousin who is the son of my mother's oldest brother Ted (of two), who is 65 this year, in fact I believe his birthday is in three days and I must remember to give him my best wishes for that on Facebook where I heard of it.
We have a strong connection, Bruce and I. We share the same grandparents, Edgar and Annie Wilson. Edgar was born in 1893 and Annie, nee Pitt, in 1897. Edgar, if I'm correct, died in 1957 or 58. I have vague memory of him sitting in a chair in his house in Ashburton. I was scared of him, he was huge and old. He smiled and tried to befriend me, but I had none of it. As he died when I wsa young I have always regretted this. I wish he had lived longer and I had got to know him. From what I have learned of him, he was a great man. Nanna Wilson i knew so very well. We spent a lot of time with her as children and she came to our house in Mt Waverley every Tuesday, by train 4 stations from Darling station to Mt waverley when we were kids and did our family's ironing. When we were young she was there when we came home from school and later she left before we got home and always left a packet of fruit tingles for each of us on top of the fridge which we as kids looked forward to enormously when we came home from school. This went on for years as Elvie worked in her florist shop and was not at home when we came home. Later Nanna Wilson came to live with Elvie at Chamomomile Farm in 1973 so we knew her very well till she died in 1996 aged 99.
Elvie's brother Ted was married to Alma and they had two boys, Bruce and Colin, and later a daughter Rhonda a few years younger than me. Colin I think is is one year older than me. They lived in East Malvern, about ten minutes away from us at Mt Waverley by car, but the families had little to do with each other growing up in the 1950's and 60's. I think the boys were quite academic, Melbourne High school ? and Colin became a teacher. Bruce was called up for National Service in 1969 and did a term in Vietnam with the Transport Corps.
As cousins we have never had a close affinity nor much to do with each other. I may have seen them once or twice in forty years, perhaps at Ted or/ and Almas funeral some ten or more years ago. Ted and Alma visited us regularly at Chamomile Farm through the 80's and 90's and I got to know them better and liked them a lot. Ted was a tall man as was his father, as is Bruce. I missed that gene, which would have made me a ruckman.
I am pleased that Bruce has contacted. He has purchased a memorial tile from the RSL for our grandfather Edgar as a returned soldier of WW1, to commemorate the centenary of ANZAC next year, and wants us all to together at Edgar's grave in Box Hill to put the tile on Edgar's headstone. What a wonderful idea, and a graet way for the family to get together and restore ties after so many years of disassociation.
Well done Bruce, who didn't know my father Lyle had died 7 years ago till he read my blog. I apologized that I had not told him.
One of the good things about blogging, for me, over the years I have been doing this, is the contacts I have had from people from my past who I think, unless I blogged, I never would have heard from again. Somehow Bruce came across my blog. We have exchanged a few communiques by way of email and Facebook, and now, tired as I am, I bring myself to desk to tell my friends of Bruce my cousin who is the son of my mother's oldest brother Ted (of two), who is 65 this year, in fact I believe his birthday is in three days and I must remember to give him my best wishes for that on Facebook where I heard of it.
We have a strong connection, Bruce and I. We share the same grandparents, Edgar and Annie Wilson. Edgar was born in 1893 and Annie, nee Pitt, in 1897. Edgar, if I'm correct, died in 1957 or 58. I have vague memory of him sitting in a chair in his house in Ashburton. I was scared of him, he was huge and old. He smiled and tried to befriend me, but I had none of it. As he died when I wsa young I have always regretted this. I wish he had lived longer and I had got to know him. From what I have learned of him, he was a great man. Nanna Wilson i knew so very well. We spent a lot of time with her as children and she came to our house in Mt Waverley every Tuesday, by train 4 stations from Darling station to Mt waverley when we were kids and did our family's ironing. When we were young she was there when we came home from school and later she left before we got home and always left a packet of fruit tingles for each of us on top of the fridge which we as kids looked forward to enormously when we came home from school. This went on for years as Elvie worked in her florist shop and was not at home when we came home. Later Nanna Wilson came to live with Elvie at Chamomomile Farm in 1973 so we knew her very well till she died in 1996 aged 99.
Elvie's brother Ted was married to Alma and they had two boys, Bruce and Colin, and later a daughter Rhonda a few years younger than me. Colin I think is is one year older than me. They lived in East Malvern, about ten minutes away from us at Mt Waverley by car, but the families had little to do with each other growing up in the 1950's and 60's. I think the boys were quite academic, Melbourne High school ? and Colin became a teacher. Bruce was called up for National Service in 1969 and did a term in Vietnam with the Transport Corps.
As cousins we have never had a close affinity nor much to do with each other. I may have seen them once or twice in forty years, perhaps at Ted or/ and Almas funeral some ten or more years ago. Ted and Alma visited us regularly at Chamomile Farm through the 80's and 90's and I got to know them better and liked them a lot. Ted was a tall man as was his father, as is Bruce. I missed that gene, which would have made me a ruckman.
I am pleased that Bruce has contacted. He has purchased a memorial tile from the RSL for our grandfather Edgar as a returned soldier of WW1, to commemorate the centenary of ANZAC next year, and wants us all to together at Edgar's grave in Box Hill to put the tile on Edgar's headstone. What a wonderful idea, and a graet way for the family to get together and restore ties after so many years of disassociation.
Well done Bruce, who didn't know my father Lyle had died 7 years ago till he read my blog. I apologized that I had not told him.
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
Photo Enquiry
An email came yesterday from Signpost Editor Jean saying a lady contacted her asking if she could have the photo of Keith and Barb Thomas that accompanied my article in the April edition. This lady is a long standing friend of Keith and Barb and she now lives in Ballarat but was sent the magazine by K+B's daughter.
Of course I was happy to oblige. I enjoy feed back from my Signpost writing most of which is positive but not always and one comment about my April Gembrook column was that it was "obviously done in a hurry and it didn't flow at all."
I'll post them here; I'm struggling to blog lately for one reason or another so this a way to do it despite my tiredness.
Of course I was happy to oblige. I enjoy feed back from my Signpost writing most of which is positive but not always and one comment about my April Gembrook column was that it was "obviously done in a hurry and it didn't flow at all."
I'll post them here; I'm struggling to blog lately for one reason or another so this a way to do it despite my tiredness.
A Horse Tale With Twists
Keith Thomas went to Dandenong Market one Friday in 1975.
“I’d never owned a horse but always wanted to, so I bought one. We had a good
back yard and there was a vacant block across the road, and paddocks nearby
where we lived in Mt.Waverley, but buying the horse led to buying 32 acres at
Avonsleigh.”
“I rode horses as a boy. They wandered around the Hartwell
and Burwood Reserves, which were not far apart. I don’t know who owned them, if
anybody. They were easy to catch and ride.”
Born in 1938 Keith attended Hartwell Primary School before
Box Hill Tech. His first paid work was after school with a boot maker when he
was ten years old. His job was to blacken the soles and shoes. His grandfather
worked in a timber yard in South Melbourne and Keith worked there in school
holidays.
“It was hard work. I was 12 years old but was expected to
keep up with the men. I left school at 14 and started as an apprentice joiner
at Burwood Timber Mills. I finished my apprenticeship with a staircase and
shopfitter, and then I was self-employed doing mainly renovations.”
Keith did National Service in this period, and met his wife
Barb at a church dance and they married in 1961. He joined Barb’s family’s
business, Campbell and Heaps, which manufactured blinds and had a timber yard
and hardware and steel interests. Keith started on the factory floor and
finished up 15 years later as Production Operations Manager.
Keith and Barb moved to Avonsleigh with their girls Kerryn,
Lisa and Joanne, along with the horse, ‘Carn’, short for ‘Come on’, and ten
head of cattle. “As it turned out, Carn had crook legs and wasn’t much good so
I sold him and bought other horses, the girls all had a horse. We were active
members of the Macclesfield Pony Club and had happy times at working bees and
events. We bred a few horses and broke them in.”
Keith commuted to a sign making firm in Melbourne for twelve
months then became Victorian sales manager for a concrete underlay and plaster
company before concentrating on breeding squab, eating pigeons, for Chinese
restaurants in the main. The business grew to 1000 pairs till disaster struck
in one swoop.
“We were wiped out overnight by poisoned birdfeed. It was a
devastating loss. We won legal action, but finished up broke.”
They sold their Avonsleigh farm and bought 340 acres of bush
at the end of Ure Rd at Gembrook in 1981, and rented a house in Emerald for a
couple of years till they built. Keith was now a contractor tractor slashing
for Melbourne Water around Melbourne, which he did for 6 or 7 years.
Before leaving Avonsleigh Barb had gone to the Newmarket
Stock Sales and bought two semi-trailer loads of sheep from drought areas for 20
cents a head.
These were slowly transported to Gembrook where there was
feed, but the flock was decimated by wild dogs which were numerous. Keith and
Barb’s interest turned to cattle, firstly Hereford then Angus. Many years of
hard work followed, fencing, clearing and improving pasture, always with problems
of samba and fallow deer, wild dogs, wombats and feral humans.
Keith explains, “A 3km stretch of fence along the Bunyip
State Park Boundary, five strands and electrified, I built three times. After
the second time it was cut to small pieces and totally ruined I sat in the
paddock and cried. We had equipment stolen from the tractor and dozer and dirt
tipped in fuel tanks. Someone resented our work. The police did annual aerial searches
of the property and the surrounding bush over the years and found a number of
marijuana plantations, including a very large one of hundreds of mature plants.”
Keith was lucky to survive a heart attack in 2001, after
which followed bypass surgery.
In 2002 while rounding up cattle, Barb was dragged under a rolling
Land Cruiser tray truck. She was caught in the wheel rut lengthwise and it went
right over her, including her head. It went up a rise and came back down, she
got her head out of the way but it went across her this time. She suffered
cracked ribs, punctured lungs, a fractured sternum, hip and collarbone, and
spinal damage. Keith, finding her 15 minutes later, ran 300 metres to the house
to phone the ambulance. He was so out of breath and when he took the phone from
the wall and rang 000 he couldn’t speak. When he could the ambulance took 40
minutes to come.
“I had to dig Barb’s hearing aids from her ears with a pen
knife. She was conscious, in agony. It was a terrible 40 minutes. The ambos
called in the helicopter which took her to St Vincent’s.”
Keith and Barb sold their Gembrook property in 2008 and now
live in Emerald where Keith keeps budgies, parrots and finches as a hobby and
Barb is active at the Emerald Art Society. They have 8 grandchildren, and many
memories to reflect on.
 |
| Keith and Barb Thomas |
Gembrook Column - Written Word Works
Wonders
The Signpost February edition included my profile of Emerald
resident Stuart Mills who migrated from the UK in 1983. Editor Jean contacted me
to say she’d had phone call from a lady at Caroline Springs who was excited to
have located Stuart and left her phone number.
I rang the lady who explained that her father and mother had
been in Australia staying with her for a month or so and her father attempted
to find Stuart with whom he went to school. He knew Stuart lived in Emerald but
had no contact details. Stuart wasn’t listed in the phone directory but he rang
another ‘Mills’ thinking they might know him. They didn’t, but said they’d keep
eyes and ears open, and took the Caroline Springs phone number in case.
The lady from the ‘Mills’ house in Emerald was reading
Signpost soon after and there was the article on Stuart. Stuart and his old
school friend had not seen each other for 55 years. Neither knew each other’s
wife but on the day Stuart’s friend with his wife knocked on Stuart’s door, the
wife said to Stuart’s wife Marlene, “My goodness, I know you.” The two ladies
also, like their husbands, had not seen each other since childhood.
This feel good story on the power of print prompts me to ask
readers of Signpost if they can give me information on Doug Twaits. Doug was an
Emerald resident in the 1950’s after marrying Dot Fisher, sister of Dr
Bottomley’s wife. Doug lived in Middle Park as a child, was Australasian
featherweight champion wrestler before WW11 and served in Nth Africa, Greece
and on Crete with the 2nd 7th AIF. He was three years in
Stalag 383 as a POW. After moving from Emerald in the 1950's he returned in the 1980’s. He wrote a bird column for the Trader newspaper. He died in 2001
in a car accident aged 86.
I’m researching to produce a book on Doug’s life. Please
leave your phone number with Signpost if you have information or anecdote.
I've had a lot of feedback re Doug Twaits and must get cracking on the biography that his widow Lynne has asked me to write. While looking for the above photo I came across one of me and Pip with her 'bucket' on recently so I conclude with that.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Meeses
I was doing some work on the computer a little while ago and I looked down at something near my feet which must have caught my eye by its movement. A beautiful black mouse it was, close enough for me to grab if I was quick enough. Of course I didn't try and the mouse disappeared into thin air at my slightest move.
There's a fridge in the shed not connected to electricity where I store food for my bird friends and a big rat jumped out the door I leave slightly ajar so as it doesn't go mouldy inside. Frightened the BJ out of me.
The cold had come in quickly and i'll need to do some vermin control. I can't find the mouse and rat traps I had in the laundry. They were always in my way so I put them somewhere else and now I can't remember where I put them. Lib hates me using poison as if I do there seems to always be a stinking rotting carcas somewhere that is hard to locate.
We have lit the fire this past two evenings, weeks earlier than usual.
There's a fridge in the shed not connected to electricity where I store food for my bird friends and a big rat jumped out the door I leave slightly ajar so as it doesn't go mouldy inside. Frightened the BJ out of me.
The cold had come in quickly and i'll need to do some vermin control. I can't find the mouse and rat traps I had in the laundry. They were always in my way so I put them somewhere else and now I can't remember where I put them. Lib hates me using poison as if I do there seems to always be a stinking rotting carcas somewhere that is hard to locate.
We have lit the fire this past two evenings, weeks earlier than usual.
 |
| Some compensation |
Saturday, April 12, 2014
A Tough Week
Tiredness creeps over me, vine like. I saw the doc on Tuesday. He wants me to stay on the same dose of cortisone for another three weeks, then reduce from 5mg daily to 4 for three weeks then see him in six from now. I had a couple of good days during the week but yesterday and today have not been good.
It was quite a busy week work wise and I had to speak out on Wednesday night, a guest speaker to the Camellia Society, the subject bees. My friend Keith who asked me to do it ages ago, and his wife Jenny, picked me up and drove me to Melbourne. I had a bit of a power point thing done but I didn't do very well, losing the thread of my talk quite badly. I didn't get home till nearly midnight after a very busy day, a day that tested my normally good nature. Frustrated that I was made so busy and unable to take time to prepare during the day, I savaged a couple of people verbally who didn't deserve it, which was not good preparation, and counter productive to all else.
That's it, no more speaking for me. No more more many things for me. I'll fulfill my obligations as president at the Emerald Museum which does involve some extra effort outside the comfort zone. That runs till July 2015. I have been so tired this last couple of days, the warnings are there for me.
I was stiff and sore this morning. Lib and Gordon went to Seville to watch Gembrook play in the first round but I stayed home. The good thing was that the sun came out after 3 days of rain and overcast, so I went out onto the deck in shorts only and did my yoga exercises and basked in the lovely sunshine. It really did free me up and I was much better in the afternoon.
My dreams are still rampant every night. People from all periods of my life turn up in them in the most bizarre circumstances, some of which should be so horribly frightening but it doesn't leave me affected much. In one I was with the first fleet that settled in Australia and there was not enough food and starvation happening, and I was given the job of killing the newborn. Maybe I'm going nuts.
It was quite a busy week work wise and I had to speak out on Wednesday night, a guest speaker to the Camellia Society, the subject bees. My friend Keith who asked me to do it ages ago, and his wife Jenny, picked me up and drove me to Melbourne. I had a bit of a power point thing done but I didn't do very well, losing the thread of my talk quite badly. I didn't get home till nearly midnight after a very busy day, a day that tested my normally good nature. Frustrated that I was made so busy and unable to take time to prepare during the day, I savaged a couple of people verbally who didn't deserve it, which was not good preparation, and counter productive to all else.
That's it, no more speaking for me. No more more many things for me. I'll fulfill my obligations as president at the Emerald Museum which does involve some extra effort outside the comfort zone. That runs till July 2015. I have been so tired this last couple of days, the warnings are there for me.
I was stiff and sore this morning. Lib and Gordon went to Seville to watch Gembrook play in the first round but I stayed home. The good thing was that the sun came out after 3 days of rain and overcast, so I went out onto the deck in shorts only and did my yoga exercises and basked in the lovely sunshine. It really did free me up and I was much better in the afternoon.
My dreams are still rampant every night. People from all periods of my life turn up in them in the most bizarre circumstances, some of which should be so horribly frightening but it doesn't leave me affected much. In one I was with the first fleet that settled in Australia and there was not enough food and starvation happening, and I was given the job of killing the newborn. Maybe I'm going nuts.
Sunday, April 06, 2014
A Dog's Life
Lib has gone to work just now, not that it's a working day for her, nor will she be paid, but there is something she wants to do out of hours or something she wants to talk to the weekend staff about whom she does not normally see. She left quietly perhaps not finding me very communicative as I was trying to do some basic yoga exercises that her sister Pat sent me on facebook in the hope it may help my stiffness and soreness which has returned steadily as I have reduced the cortisone, now down to one 5mg tablet a day this past week. Activity is again painful and I am not in the best of humour much of the time. I see the quack again next Tuesday and it will be interesting whether he recommends I continue at 5mg for a while, further reduce to 2.5, half a tablet, or increase to give me some better relief again. He may send me for blood tests again and probably it depends on how much pain I tell him I'm in. Pain is pain and difficult to quantify verbally. I am in less pain than I was before the cortisone started but putting my trousers and socks and boots on is not an easy thing nor working at anything but slow pace measuring movements and work goals accordingly. I loathe being unwell.
Back to 'A Dog's Life', Lib took 'Pip' with her to the nursing home. She loves going with Lib to see the oldies and performs with all the excitement and tail wagging happiness that Jack Russells can. The oldies love to touch and pat her and Lib says even the crazies who are for the most part aggressive to staff and other residents just melt and are so gentle to the little dog. It must soothe their soul with some long gone happy connection with pets back in their childhood.
Pip is seven years old this year. She's had a number of narrow escapes. She ate snail bait from a tin in my van once, and has had a couple of close calls from traffic. This year she disappeared into some scrub at the back of a shed at Hanna's where I grow things, in pursuit of a rabbit. She had not reappeared when I was ready to go and I could not find her. Earlier I had heard muffled barks from underground from the direction of the shed but now nothing. Going around the shed whistling I thought I heard faint whimpering from under the shed so tried digging here and there but I had no idea where she might be. Rather than dig for hours fruitlessly I whistled and whistled, thought I heard more faint whimpering, but if I had heard it it stopped and there was no Pip and no noise at all, just deathly quiet.
It seemed I had lost my wonderful Pip. I slowly resigned myself that she'd been bitten by a snake or crushed by a wombat as there are numerous wombat holes at Hanna's and she is always down them. I had been warned that wombats were well known to crush small dogs to death against the burrow wall after they becoming tired of intrusions. The snake scenario seemed more likely, it was during all that hot weather, and I had always been a little ready for Pip to go that way as she is so adventurous and always fossicking about in the scrub for rabbits or under rubble or wood heaps. And JRs being totally fearless I always thought she would go a snake if she came across one. And there are snakes around there and a few dogs have been lost around Gembrook this year to snakes.
So I was trying to build up my resolve to leave and go home with Snowy only, imagining Lib and Gordon's grief at the news. I knocked on Hannah's door and told her that I it looks like I'd lost Pip as she was out helping earlier with all my whistling and calling and listening and looking. We were looking down the grass path to the scrub and the shed when out came an exhausted Pip completely covered in red dirt coming towards us. You can imagine my huge relief.
When I washed all the dirt from her later I saw she had lost fur from the top of one front paw and the same from a few toes on a back leg and i assumed this had scraped off in getting out or her predicament backwards somehow. A couple of weeks later this was not growing back and the dog was licking there much of the time and it looked inflamed and sore so I took her to the vet. The vet gave us anti inflammatory medication and antibiotics but there was no improvement so I went back and Tom vet put one of those buckets on her head to stop her licking, gave her stronger medication and an injection to kill mites that cause wombat mange. The bucket lasted four days before Pip managed to make it tear to pieces on her never ceasing hunting cavorts, but the licking cycle was broken and the hair has grown back.
Snow had a serious and persistent ulcer on an eye in Jan/ Feb before Pip's drama so we were up and down to the vet for months it seemed but all is well and both dogs are fit and healthy.
We are luckier than our next door neighbours. Week before last they lost there Rhodesian Ridgeback hit by a car in the main street. They returned from work to find the dog gone. Neighbour Tom had hit a wombat in his car on the way home and the car was severely damaged and had lost its water as Tom drove home and the engine was damaged, so Tom couldn't go looking for the dog. The vet rang him next morning as the dead dog in the vacant block opposite his clinic was reported to him and the dog was microchipped so he found the owner.
Tom and kath had no idea why their dog had escaped but I knew. About 2pm that day someone started firing a shotgun in the farm behind our street. I happened to be home and suddenly Pip and Snow were scratching at the door to get in. At this stage I had not heard shots and thought there must be a thunderstorm brewing in the distance that I could not yet hear. Soon it was obvious and the firearm which must be an automatic shotgun was booming for about half an hour intermittently with multiple shots then a break then more. I know not why whoever it was was shooting at this time of day and in this manner as every rabbit for miles would have been well in hiding. It was, in my opinion, irresponsible hooning with a shotgun that would have terrified every dog in every yard for kms.
I have voiced my annoyance to the police and landowner. The police was a dead end, apparently I should have reported it when it was happening so they could come out and see the person doing the shooting. As if they'd still be there. My suggestion that the police contact the land owner by phone to discuss the pros cons of vermin control and discharging firearms close to residential area was met with the response that they'd rather go to the scene when it was happening and talk to the shooter in person, in case it was an illegal shooter. Whatever suggestion I made to this guy in the new $8 million police station in Emerald he had a negative attitude in response.
The landowner, via office staff, said that someone had permission to shoot and destroy vermin on their property and it was entirely legal.
Nothing can help my neighbours who loved their dog and had put in two years raising and training it. We were lucky it wasn't ours.
Where is common sense gone?
Back to 'A Dog's Life', Lib took 'Pip' with her to the nursing home. She loves going with Lib to see the oldies and performs with all the excitement and tail wagging happiness that Jack Russells can. The oldies love to touch and pat her and Lib says even the crazies who are for the most part aggressive to staff and other residents just melt and are so gentle to the little dog. It must soothe their soul with some long gone happy connection with pets back in their childhood.
Pip is seven years old this year. She's had a number of narrow escapes. She ate snail bait from a tin in my van once, and has had a couple of close calls from traffic. This year she disappeared into some scrub at the back of a shed at Hanna's where I grow things, in pursuit of a rabbit. She had not reappeared when I was ready to go and I could not find her. Earlier I had heard muffled barks from underground from the direction of the shed but now nothing. Going around the shed whistling I thought I heard faint whimpering from under the shed so tried digging here and there but I had no idea where she might be. Rather than dig for hours fruitlessly I whistled and whistled, thought I heard more faint whimpering, but if I had heard it it stopped and there was no Pip and no noise at all, just deathly quiet.
It seemed I had lost my wonderful Pip. I slowly resigned myself that she'd been bitten by a snake or crushed by a wombat as there are numerous wombat holes at Hanna's and she is always down them. I had been warned that wombats were well known to crush small dogs to death against the burrow wall after they becoming tired of intrusions. The snake scenario seemed more likely, it was during all that hot weather, and I had always been a little ready for Pip to go that way as she is so adventurous and always fossicking about in the scrub for rabbits or under rubble or wood heaps. And JRs being totally fearless I always thought she would go a snake if she came across one. And there are snakes around there and a few dogs have been lost around Gembrook this year to snakes.
So I was trying to build up my resolve to leave and go home with Snowy only, imagining Lib and Gordon's grief at the news. I knocked on Hannah's door and told her that I it looks like I'd lost Pip as she was out helping earlier with all my whistling and calling and listening and looking. We were looking down the grass path to the scrub and the shed when out came an exhausted Pip completely covered in red dirt coming towards us. You can imagine my huge relief.
When I washed all the dirt from her later I saw she had lost fur from the top of one front paw and the same from a few toes on a back leg and i assumed this had scraped off in getting out or her predicament backwards somehow. A couple of weeks later this was not growing back and the dog was licking there much of the time and it looked inflamed and sore so I took her to the vet. The vet gave us anti inflammatory medication and antibiotics but there was no improvement so I went back and Tom vet put one of those buckets on her head to stop her licking, gave her stronger medication and an injection to kill mites that cause wombat mange. The bucket lasted four days before Pip managed to make it tear to pieces on her never ceasing hunting cavorts, but the licking cycle was broken and the hair has grown back.
Snow had a serious and persistent ulcer on an eye in Jan/ Feb before Pip's drama so we were up and down to the vet for months it seemed but all is well and both dogs are fit and healthy.
We are luckier than our next door neighbours. Week before last they lost there Rhodesian Ridgeback hit by a car in the main street. They returned from work to find the dog gone. Neighbour Tom had hit a wombat in his car on the way home and the car was severely damaged and had lost its water as Tom drove home and the engine was damaged, so Tom couldn't go looking for the dog. The vet rang him next morning as the dead dog in the vacant block opposite his clinic was reported to him and the dog was microchipped so he found the owner.
Tom and kath had no idea why their dog had escaped but I knew. About 2pm that day someone started firing a shotgun in the farm behind our street. I happened to be home and suddenly Pip and Snow were scratching at the door to get in. At this stage I had not heard shots and thought there must be a thunderstorm brewing in the distance that I could not yet hear. Soon it was obvious and the firearm which must be an automatic shotgun was booming for about half an hour intermittently with multiple shots then a break then more. I know not why whoever it was was shooting at this time of day and in this manner as every rabbit for miles would have been well in hiding. It was, in my opinion, irresponsible hooning with a shotgun that would have terrified every dog in every yard for kms.
I have voiced my annoyance to the police and landowner. The police was a dead end, apparently I should have reported it when it was happening so they could come out and see the person doing the shooting. As if they'd still be there. My suggestion that the police contact the land owner by phone to discuss the pros cons of vermin control and discharging firearms close to residential area was met with the response that they'd rather go to the scene when it was happening and talk to the shooter in person, in case it was an illegal shooter. Whatever suggestion I made to this guy in the new $8 million police station in Emerald he had a negative attitude in response.
The landowner, via office staff, said that someone had permission to shoot and destroy vermin on their property and it was entirely legal.
Nothing can help my neighbours who loved their dog and had put in two years raising and training it. We were lucky it wasn't ours.
Where is common sense gone?
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