Children

I have almost finished the maintenance at our daughter Helen's unit. She has a large wall mirror in her bathroom and the silver backing has deteriorated around the edges of it. Fortunately this deterioration is only about 20mm in from the edges and I decided to glue a picture frame type edging around it. The only other job to do is to try and fill some deep scratches in the faux wooden flooring. I have some wood filler which matches up quite well. If it doesn't look too good she will get a flooring man in to replace the damaged boards. Unfortunately the scratched boards are in the middle of the room and it looks like it would be a big job.

Our son's car needed a brake job done and we shelled out $602 yesterday; two thirds of the value of the car. The day before that we paid the licence fees and other debts he has. We continue to hope he will make a new start to life but are not too optimistic. An amazing thing happened when he went back to his previous employer to return some borrowed cash and to get his termination certificate. The boss told him to get himself better and return to work as soon as he felt he was ready. This is probably because of the difficulty of replacing him, but never the less it is a generous offer which he has taken up.

The mechanic who did the brake job on Martin's (our) car has a profoundly disabled daughter. I saw her yesterday for the first time. She was virtually locked up in his office to stop her getting out into the workshop. She cannot speak and looks to be about 8 or 9 years of age. His wife is studying at university and insists on home-schooling her. I have made repeated attempts to get them to take her to Castlereagh School which is a free special school for such kids, but his wife is in denial about their daughter's situation. Castlereagh want her to attend school there. They have wonderful facilities and almost one to one teacher-student ratio with many teachers' aides. Even in the most profoundly disabled kids they aim to teach control and the ability to do simple things such as feed themselves. I have seen wonderful results over a year. The parents of this girl will not even visit the school. Sad.