Veuve Clicquot

Our daughter Helen, gave us a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for Xmas. We never got to open it at Xmas and last week I opened it to share with Helen and James. It was ‘skunked’, so much so it was undrinkable. Whenever we have had a bottle of cheapo bubbly in the past which was flat or undrinkable, we merely returned it to the bottle shop and took another one off the shelf. Bottle shops don't take back their Veuve without a cash register receipt. You don’t get a receipt with a present and in any case you don’t expect to get a dud bottle of $90 wine.

No amount of googling will bring up an Australian agent for Veuve, but a local bottle shop has promised to do some investigation for me later today. I might be lucky yet.

Helen and James haven’t been too lucky though. They signed up for PhotoVoltaic panels at the same time as my brother Graham and I did and we all had the panels installed on the same day. At the time the sales person faxed off the applications for the 40c per kilowatt power input to be sold back to the energy company. Bro and I got ours acknowledged, but Helen and James heard nothing and when they contacted the energy company they were told that as they had not submitted their application before the government subsidy cutoff date they could only get paid 7c per unit into the electricity grid...no arguments thanks. That makes the expense of the solar panels pretty well useless as it will take a couple of decades to pay off the panels etc at 7c per.
Fortunately my cousin Edward is the man who has volunteered his services as a mediator and he has forwarded all the documents including a Statutory Declaration saying that the application was faxed before the closing date. Hope he can get the decision reversed. Cousin Ted has an impressive track record of winning over lots of government and commercial businesses.
Don’t sell Ted a car unless you are very sure it has absolutely no defects.

Just after lunch today I noticed a Channel7 TV transmitter vehicle near my house front. I’m guessing that something of import has happened in this estate and we should see something on tonight’s 7 News.
The cleanup and repairs etc are progressing in Martin’s unit. A few days ago we opened an inspection door to check out the condition of the electric hot water system. The HWS is housed in a vertical space which services three floors of apartments. It was inhabited by about 300 Australian cockroaches (Periplaneta australasiae). They are a large species of cockroach, winged, and growing to a length of 30–35 millimetres. Martin hit them with a couple of cans of insecticide and yesterday we gave them another jolt with an insect bomb. Martin made sure that the tenants above and below knew when he was going to ‘bomb’ them so they could go out for a couple of hours. I am guessing the bottom unit has heaps of dead cockies next to their HWS.

London's Burning; London's Burning

London is burning! These riots raise all sorts of questions and the pundits have already solved the puzzle. I am really unsure about the situation there, but it looks remarkably like the G8 protests which start off with a few well meaning folk staging a protest followed up by hooded, masked hoons bent on destruction and looting.

British cops have a policy of going easy on such events. If it were in my neighborhood and the damage to my property, I’d be asking for water canon, tear gas and rubber bullets.

I wonder about insurance problems for buildings and property in these affected areas.

A letter to Joan

Joan I am watching your fav TV show; Masterchef. It is the final with a female and male cooking it off. As you know I am not into these sort of programs, but I should report back to you about the result. I doubt that most people like us would pay the big bucks for such small serves.

I must thank you for all the pantry stuff you left me. Some of it is out of date now and I used some peanuts in a curry only to find that they were rancid.....should have read the use by date. I am doing OK, but miss you terribly. Helen and James are being very supportive. I eat ...and drink, often, with them and am happy that they still want me around.

Martin is soon off to Melbourne and I will decide if this is a time to sell the unit we bought to house him. I went down to BoganVille to do some maintenance today and wish that I could get out of that situation without losing too much.

I have created a slideshow of photographs of you and us and it brings tears to my eyes every time it starts up on the computer. I love you dearly my Joan.

I’ll let you know later who won MasterChef............results just in...the gal won.

Ferals

Low-lifes are every where! Generally if one buys into a more expensive area, one expects to have reasonable neighbors, but sometimes the rules just don’t apply.

Helen and James bought their house in the same suburb as us and expected that they would have the same sort of neighbors as we have. As it turns out there is a family of ferals two doors up who are doing their best to make it uncomfortable to live there.

James has confronted them and talked to the parents who have no control over their kids and suffer verbal abuse from them. The parents admit that the previous owners of Helen and James’ house almost certainly sold because of their sons’ intimidation. A line has been drawn and things could get worse. Not good!

Similarly, the unit we own which houses our son Martin, has neighbors from hell also. His unit is in a block of about thirty units in a suburb known for its ferals. I would like to sell it when Martin leaves for Melbourne in a couple of weeks, but the housing market has crashed and I would lose too much cash. Never-the-less once I have refurbished it I will get a valuation. I don’t like being a landlord with all the attendant problems of rough tenants.

The Oxford comma

Shock, horror.....the Oxford comma has been dropped.
Firstly a lesson on what the Oxford Comma is. I have never seen it used and hopefully have never used it in error.

The 'Oxford comma' is an optional comma before the word 'and' at the end of a list:

We sell books, videos, and magazines.

It's known as the Oxford comma because it was traditionally used by printers, readers, and editors at Oxford University Press. Not all writers and publishers use it, but it can clarify the meaning of a sentence when the items in a list are not single words:
These items are available in black and white, red and yellow, and blue and green.
The Oxford comma is also known as the 'serial comma'.

Anyway, Oxford University has dropped it and just the ‘and’ can now be the standard without the comma. Whew!

Today I returned our cat Amber to the Cat Haven. It has been a very timid cat over the last four months and spent most of its day hiding from me. The real reason I got rid of it was its bad habit of urinating inside the house. I had to fill out a form with a reason for bringing it back after a year and pay a fee of $15. Good value I reckon. I used a nice Apple iBook box to take her to her new premises after drilling a peephole in the end. She didn’t whinge too much after I assured her that she wasn’t going to be ‘put to sleep’.
I did want to be on good terms with Amber, but that wasn’t to be. Over the years we have had quite a few cats and with the exception of Amber, they have all been great.

As an ex teacher I should write a smoothover report on her and mention the good things about her.

She is a very attractive cat, who has a placid manner, neither scratching or biting its owners. She should do well in new surroundings.

A large family

Yesterday I visited Joan’s aunt, Pat Wray. Joan’s sister Dorothy was also invited and by late afternoon there were about 15 family members attending. I thought this was some big event, but I was assured it was a regular Sunday gathering.

Pat has 8 children, 25 grandchildren (with a couple more soon to arrive) and 12 great grandchildren. This handsome little bloke is a month old and another was born on Saturday. I think they all pity me without any grandkids. I can live with that.
Pat is in her 80s, still very bright and computer literate. She told us of a recent discovery of what she called a strange and well kept secret about her family history. This has inspired her to research her family tree and she has turned up some very interesting stuff. I can’t tell you what it is...but it is a bit spicey!

Of times past

Yesterday I collected a Mac from a chap. He said it wouldn’t get up. but I thought I might be able to coax it into life....no joy as yet.

On the way home from collecting the computer I visited my cousin Val. We talked lots and I asked about a house the family lived in in East Perth. It was a semi detached house of around 1870 vintage. owned by the government Railways and rented to railways employees. Peter, Val’s husband, worked for the Railways.

Val told a fascinating story about the neighbors and the ongoing family strife all around them. Later at home I thought about the story and rang her to suggest that she write her story. Hope she does as it has the makings of a movie. I could see the story being written by Tim Winton or the late Tom Hungerford; both wrote wonderful pieces about suburban life.

Sometimes when I think about times past I remember how we, without Google, the universal encyclopedia, got information. We weren’t wealthy enough to have set of encyclopedia and to be honest, I doubt we would have used it had we owned one. Most of what I knew then was from questioning others who did know lots more than me about most things.

I also remember the horrific arithmetical disaster of the old currency...Pounds, Shillings and Pence. Cruel teachers would set some long division ‘sums’ and whilst kids worked through them go on a world trip.

An example of a ‘keep ‘em busy’ maths lesson would be like this........

£17/13/11 ÷ 27

For the younguns, that reads seventeen Pounds, thirteen Shillings and eleven Pence divided by twenty seven. Nasty teachers could add a halfpenny to the eleven pence.

Given that there are 20 shillings in a pound, 12 pence in a shilling, there is a whole lot of ‘carrying on’ to be done.

Donation to the Cancer Council

Yesterday I delivered the cash raised at the sale of Joan’s fabrics etc to the Cancer Council of W.A.. I was not prepared for the legalities of such a donation and the questions to determine how it was deemed.

Was it in her will? Did she nominate that exact amount? etc etc.
I explained with some difficulty, that before she died, she had wished that the cash from sale of her fabrics, dies etc be donated to the Cancer Council. That sorted out, a couple of employees went into ‘The Counting Room’ .....a store room I suspect, and after two counts came back with a figure of $2,200.
I was given an interim receipt which is posted here for any people who donated money to see.
I must find out if the other money raised by the sale of Joan’s books has been donated as yet and if it is donated with reference to Joan.

Joan’s friend Juliet was the driving force in the garage sales to raise that money. My sincere thanks to her for all her efforts.

Bad Cat

Our cat has been giving me the shits. For some reason it has decided that it is better to take a pee inside the house rather than in its tray or going outside. For those unfamiliar with cat pee, as I am unfamiliar with skunk pee, it is overpowering.

The first time she did it was about two months ago and every effort to shampoo the smell out has failed miserably. She then decided that the bathroom mat was a good spot and after that she moved on to a pair of my trousers which were laid out on the bed. The trousers and Joan’s bed quilt copped it badly. The trousers have been washed and the quilt also cleaned and put out in the sun to dry and air. She is smart enough to know that I am very unhappy and is hiding from me in the three rooms I have banished her to.

Photo of Amber thinking that I can’t see her sunk into a mohair rug.

I am seriously thinking that I will return her to the Cat Haven. I can't see how I can modify her at this stage. Maybe a new owner can start over.

Bikies and a mass murderer

The Western Australian Bikies’ war is still simmering. Last night a local tattoo parlour run by one of the groups was firebombed for a second time. As I passed it on my way to the Post Office this morning,I saw a large contingent of cops, TV crews and a surly looking mob of bikies standing opposite the Tatpalour. After I had done my post...a couple of DVDs to Bernie in Canada, I returned home to get my camera and see if I could get a picture for the blog. I didn’t want to get too close to the tattooed, bearded nasties so my pic is from from some distance. Nothing to see here folks....move along. Got to be some payback coming soon!

The Norway tragedy is horrible. I taught a Norwegian exchange student at Willetton SHS in the late 1980s. We got along well although he seemed a little more mature than most of his year 12 cohort. He came across as a bit cold, which may have been because he hadn’t yet thawed out. A couple of years later he returned to W.A. for a visit and specifically came to visit me.

Back to the massacre in Norway. It is quite strange how ill prepared the government of Norway was for an act such as this. Utoya, where the youth camp shootings took place is only about 20 miles from Oslo. Even though mobile phone calls alerted Oslo as soon as the shooting started, it took police and military an hour to get there. They didn’t have helicopters capable of taking security forces and presumably couldn’t borrow any, so they drove to a point near the island of Utoya and commandeered local pleasure craft with almost disastrous results. meanwhile Breivik had 90 minutes to casually murder 85 people.

I am sure more transport and personnel are available in sleepy Perth should something similar happen here.

Probably not the time to mention it, but the island is owned by the Workers Youth League and all the youth on the island were members of the political party presently in government. I think the average Australian would worry about political youth groups. I would see it as a little too similar to Hitler-Jugend.

The Moon and space

Today the US space shuttle landed for the last time. It is the youngest of the shuttles and will now go to a space museum in LA. They are such big and ungainly looking craft and I am always amazed at how graceful they look when landing after a mission. I’ve been in quite a few ungainly landings on commercial aircraft...some have tested the build of the plane, bouncing several times along the strip.

NASA has been told that the shuttle program is too expensive to maintain and future flights to the orbiting space station will be made in a Russian rocket or commercial vehicles.

With the poor condition of the US economy I would think that there would be lots of back-room talk about pulling the US forces out of Afghanistan pretty quickly to save lots of money. Then, I guess, lots of servicemen and women would leave the military and try and seek employment causing more problems for Pres. Obama.

As I went out front this morning to collect the paper I saw the moon in the sky and thought of the moon landings...1969 was it? We were teaching at Kwinana High School at the time and every person in the school watched as man set foot on the moon for the first time. A moment in history!

Boy, how the money is rolling in. I received this welcome email message a couple of days ago. I think they may have me mixed up with my brother who recently bought a new VW Passat, so I guess I will have to forward it on to him. Maybe he’ll give me a few dollars from his win.

Linotype and letterpress

Sunday afternoon I watched a TV presentation about the history of printing. Having been a Graphic Arts teacher in the 1980s it grabbed my attention. The show was about a printing museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin USA and I would visit it if I had the chance.
It is a working museum with artisans assembling lead lettering and large wooden letters to do artistic printing in the mode of the time. Large headlines such as hit the press at the end of WW2 were made using wooden letters rather than lead.

When I taught Graphic Arts at Rockingham SHS, letterpress printing was well out of fashion and lithography in the form of offset printing was the go. We didn’t have to gather individual letters in a gallery to make up words and sentences and after printing, place the individual letters back in their alphabetical homes. Arduous work and very time consuming. In large printing works typeface was made in ‘slugs’ using a linotype machine. This wonderful invention was still in use in the newspaper industry up until the 1970s and some small outfits still use them. See more on YouTube here and here.

I was reminded of letterpress printing when on Friday, I received an invitation to Rick and Katherine’s wedding. The invitation is beautifully done and the print has a fine but deep impression in the paper, as it would have if it were printed by letterpress. I am assuming it is a newer form of lithography which would allow for a raised text on the printing plate. Must investigate.

My cold is improving. I found a couple of packets of antibiotics in the medicine cupboard and decided to use one of them. Cilamox (amoxycillin) is one often used for chest infections. They were prescribed for Joan, but not used.

Once again I went to Restaurant Helen yesterday to have dinner. Helen prepared Lamb Souvlaki wraps. Delish! Lamb, with a Greek salad, sour cream and chilli sauce

cold and flu tablets

I had a bad night last night with the rapid onset of a heavy cold. I had to stuff tissues in my nostrils to stem the flow of ‘the runnies’. I can’t complain when I think of Joan’s last four days.

Later in the morning I went to our regular pharmacist to get a pack of ‘cold and flu’ tablets,. The girl who served me summonsed one of the Pharmacists and he advised me that because I was on blood pressure tabs he wouldn’t give them to me. I told him thanks and went to another nearby pharmacy and straight-faced told them I am not on any medications. They had to register my ID before supplying the tabs. The government in Western Australia is reining in sales of Pseudo Ephedrine which the bad boys buy to make speed and this cold and flu stuff is loaded with it.

Our son, Martin is soon to shift to Melbourne and today I went down to his (our) unit to do some maintenance and suss out what I will have to do to easily rent it out once Martin has left.

There will be lots to do to make it rentable.

Helen and James have invited me to dinner and I am typing this on her laptop. Starting the meal with Garlic Prawns, then Rack of Lamb with roast vegetables and green beans and herbs from the garden.

A San Francisco wedding

My niece, Katherine, is marrying her man Rick in September. The wedding is taking place in their home town, San Francisco. Daughter Helen and James are travelling to SF for the wedding as are Katherine’s mother and father and a couple of their good friends Greg and Janice. Joan and I were invited, but since Joan died in late February I have not been inclined to travel and won’t be attending.

Dorothy, Katherine’s mother, is having a book of friends’ recipes printed and bound as a present. I am contributing a recipe for Ceviche. Helen is writing up one of Joan’s favourites....French Style Chicken with Rosemary, her own specialty, Quick Fish Pie and James contributed his Asian Style Pork Ribs.

My Ceviche recipe was given to me by a colleague I taught with in Papua New Guinea in the 1970s. Mario Cortesano is Argentinean. We keep in touch still.

Here is the Ceviche recipe

Ceviche

Ideally Spanish Mackerel is used to make Ceviche.

The flesh is cut into strips of roughly 8 - 10mm X 50mm lengths and put into a glass or ceramic dish.

Cover the fish with newly squeezed lemon juice. Season with fresh ginger, garlic, chillies, chopped spring onions and salt. The amount of each seasoning depends on individual taste.

The 'cooking' should take about three hours. Ceviche should be eaten at a single sitting to avoid contamination because the process does not involve heat in the 'cooking'.

VoIP and Skype

I have finished the rooftop repairs to our house and it would look pretty good to a blind man galloping past on a horse. That's not quite true...it looks good and I am pleased with it.

The garage door closer was installed and I was well satisfied with this tradesman’s work and price. He was very professional and did not leave a single piece of anything behind as is the norm with most ‘tradies’. This door closer should see me out.

I cancelled the VoIP phone service with my ISP as the quality of the reception, either at my end or for the recipient of any call was usually very poor. I was paying $20 per month in the hope that I could cancel my landline and get free calls in Aus and Internationally. Skype gives me good quality phone calls free to other Skype users and to most international phones at a cheap rate. Skype is also VoIP and I cannot understand why I cannot get the same quality through my ISP. If you would like to wade through some technical info about VoIP it can be found here. Heavy stuff!

When I was buying materials at Bunnings Hardware for my roof repair job I became aware of a little bit of discrimination, shall I call it, on my behalf. I passed a couple; a professional painter and a young sales lady in the paint department. She was offering the man advice on his selection of paint. At the time I thought that I would have sought out a male to give me such advice, but later thought how stupid that was as the male sales people were no older than she is and they would have received the same training. I have been trying to think of some sort of reverse discrimination....in what situation would I seek out a female instead of a male for advice? Help me here.

Kiribati

Our daughter Helen has a friend visiting from Kiribati a very small nation in the Pacific Ocean. Maria is working in Kiribus, as the locals call it, on an AusAID program to skill-up local people for the inevitable exodus of the inhabitants to either Australia and or New Zealand. The program is called the Technical and Vocational Training Sector Strengthening Project. At present there is no industry there. People grow coconuts and fish the ocean merely for local consumption and the population will need broader skills once they move south. They will also need to cope with a vastly different climate.
Maria

The main island of Kiribus is around 30 kilometres long and from 100 - 300 metres wide. It is situated north of Fiji and on the equator.

It isn’t sinking and the ocean isn’t significantly rising. The main concern is that the water wells are becoming salty and Kiribus is in a long drought and so, no rainfall. The ‘exodus’ when it eventually takes place is termed ‘Migration with Dignity’.

Maria has been in Kiribati for 18 months and is returning today flying through Brisbane and Nauru. She will be there for another 12 months.

More on Kiribati here.

Home maintenance

After cutting and replacing some 10 terracotta roof tiles, there is no evidence of my paint spill disaster.

I decided to make up the fancy railing myself rather than seeking out a joinery shop. It worked out well despite the fact that I have few woodworking tools here. A couple of readers confused the photo of the railing with my ladder and advised me not to get on the roof using ‘that’ ladder. It’s OK folks, I do have a real aluminium ladder albeit a bit bent from my previous fall some years ago.

The finished trim to be fitted when James helps me fix it back up on the weekend.
This is a similar part of the roof.

The garage door man came and made a few adjustment to the door mechanism and accepted $100 as a ‘cashy’. No sooner was he gone than the door started playing up again. I rang a different door man and he is fitting a new closer on Monday for an all-up price of $625.00.

I have just received the Water Corporation’s Annual Service Account.
Water is an essential and the supply to my house of clean, almost pure water, is great. But now that I am more aware of the costs of running a household since Joan has gone, I don’t know how lower income people can manage the weekly bills rolling in. In some ways I believe homeless people would not manage even if the government gave them accommodation.

You lose some and you lose some

I have noticed some peeling paint on facia on our roof, so yesterday I decided to tackle the paint job. Unfortunately, as with most jobs I take on, this small job has taken on humungous dimensions.

Firstly, at age 71, I should be banned from climbing ladders and walking about on tiled roofs. I found myself getting a bit shaky getting back down the ladder remembering a 5 metre fall I had a few years ago breaking and dislocating my shoulder. Got to be very careful these days.

As well as painting I discovered that a piece of fancy trim was rotten with dry rot. Dry rot is actually caused by dampness. I will have to get a joiner’s shop to make me a new piece. Next I managed to spill around a litre of oil based paint on the tiles at the top of the roof and naturally gravity caused the white stream to cover about ten tiles before I could race down the ladder and collect rags to stem the flow. Fortunately I have plenty of spare tiles to replace painted ones.
I know I should have called in a tradesman, but I will have saved an estimated $1,000 and I have had some very average results from ‘tradesmen’.

I have a garage door service bloke coming this morning to sort out my door closer. The closer needs an expert to stop it playing around. He charges $150 call out which includes 30 minutes service time, which I am sure will include a new circuit board or something and a couple of hours fitting time. So what I am saving on the roof will probably probably be eaten up by the garage door.

Dragonfly winter

Most of our rellies and friends know that Joan was very organised...all the fabrics etc we sold were catalogued. In the months leading up to her death she discussed things she wanted done after she was gone such as the solar roof panels. She was concerned that I would have difficulty coping by myself and to that end did lots of grocery shopping for me. It is now months since she left us and I have probably another year’s supply of groceries, laundry detergents etc etc.
Pictured is just one side of the pantry with sauces,dry goods etc

I can do my washing and when absolutely necessary, some ironing. This morning I found this beauty on my briefs on the clothes line.
Beautiful eh? Not my briefs; the dragonfly.

It seems that there is more money coming my way. Out of the blue I received this email message.

A retirement

Last week I was invited out to a group gathering at a restaurant which was to be yesterday evening. That small group work at Castlereagh Special School where I have been helping out with their computers for some years.

I begged off the invitation as I am not yet up to socialising. I now feel uneasy that I didn’t take up their kind offer because I ended up attending a function at Willetton SHS for the retirement of Peter, one of my colleagues when I taught there.

I didn’t know about this function until I arrived home at 5pm and found a phone message telling me about it. I owe Peter. He attended my mother’s funeral and Joan’s funeral and it was only right that I front up to his show. It was mostly over by the time I arrived at the school and I stayed for only an hour. I left with a good feeling of camaraderie with Pete and other colleagues I had worked with.

A troublesome wallet...and keys

In this morning’s mail (the postie delivered type) I received the Mac Powerbook battery I ordered from China. It is on charge now and I will give it a thorough test before giving the machine to a worthy cause.
An original battery goes for around A$140. and Australian after-market batteries (made in China) sell for A$70. This one cost me A$30 which included postage from HK.

This morning I went to see my GP to get some scripts for medications I take for cholesterol and blood pressure. The doc suggested that I get a flu shot seeing that it is paid for by the government. Not sure that that is the best reason to get a jab in the arm, but I did get it.

I went to the GP’s rooms with a worried brow as I had lost my wallet somewhere....where? Upon returning home I searched the house another 10 times without luck before deciding to return to the liquor store where I bought a couple of bottles of bubbly last night. I would have been very cranky if I had left it there and they hadn’t phoned me to tell me they had my wallet. One last search of the car found it wedged between the driver’s seat upright and the centre door pillar. That bloody wallet....and my car keys, are drivng me nuts with their hiding tactics.

Dementia

Frank Drysdale has died. Frank (Rev. Frank Drysdale) taught Joan at Geraldton Senior High in the 1950s. When we married in 1966, Joan had asked Frank to marry us and he was happy to do so.
We caught up with Frank at a few Geraldton SHS reunions over the years and at the last two we were made aware of his progessive dementia. To us he seemed perfectly OK, but his wife and daughter told us of his worsening condition.

Amazingly in the midst of his dementia and later Altzheimers disease, he invented an educational card game, Numero.

A good man!

Last night brother Graham and I collected our sister from Perth airport on her trip from Esperance to Colorado USA. She had about 5 hours to get her next flight to Sydney, so we had a nice Chinese meal and visited Helen and James before taking her back to the domestic airport.

I have learned quite a few things on the domestic front since my Joan died. One I discovered when ironing handkerchiefs: there are two sides to a hanky and usually one is the bright side which when ironed should end up exposed to onlookers when used in public. Another interesting thing I discovered is that bedsheets have an automatic notification of washing date. New sheets have a taught, pleasant feel to them. The autonote function lets me know that washing is needed when the sheets become entangled and clingy...is it not so?

Today I will visit our friend John who is in care. His dementia will probably not let him recognise me, but I am going specifically to cut his hair. Hope he does remember me.

Waltham Traveller

The garage sale is almost finished with lots of fabric etc still left over. We have decided to donate it to a couple of groups who make stuffed toys for kids in impoverished lands. Joan would approve! Already this afternoon, one group of women took a lot of fabric to make clothes for women and children who have had to make a quick getaway to a refuge from violent partners

When we were searching through cupboards etc to collect together all Joan’s stash, I found my grandfather’s gold pocket watch. It is an American Waltham watch made in 1899. It is a Traveller model which is not their top of the line, however it is rather nice and I was looking at having a new face glass fitted and a clean and lubricate. The first rough estimate for a clean was $350 - $400.
I can only guess what a new glass will cost as I believe it has to be hand made.

Time for a rethink as I am not one to ponce about pulling a gold pocket watch out of my waistcoat pocket attached to a fob chain to check the time at the supermarket.

Alternatively I could sell it as is?

'The Literary Larrikin'

After I posted my little report on the riot in Vancouver, a regular reader, Bernie, who lives in Canada, told us that the next morning around 1200 of the Vancouver citizenry turned up to do a big cleanup of the mess left by the mob. Very impressive! I wonder whether the result would have been the same here in W.A.?

The garage sale of Joan’s stash went well, but there is at least as much again for a second sale this Sunday. $1200.00 was donated by buyers and when we finalise the second sale and add the total from her books sold it should be over $2,000. Not a lot....but she would be well pleased by it all.

I am not psychic and don’t believe in it at all, however some coincidences make me think. On Saturday night I had a meal with another couple and the conversation turned to books and I mentioned a local author, Tom Hungerford. One of his books is the first collection of his short stories. The collection is called Wong Chu and the Queen’s Letterbox. I have mentioned Tom Hungerford before, because in the early part of the 20th century as a young lad, he had a couple of holidays on my grandparents’ farm at Toolibin and forged a close relationship with my mother and my uncles. On Sunday Tom died. He had had a wonderful life signing out at the age of 96.

He worked for a turbulent few weeks on the memoirs of WW1 leader, Billy Hughes and resigned, noting that Billy Hughes was as cold as sea ice, vain as a peacock, cruel as a butcher bird, sly as a weasel and mean as cat shit. I don’t think that they got along too well.

Tom Hungerford's biography has been published under the heading of The Literary Larrikin. Google Larrikin if you want a definition.

Rioting for fun

I guess I live a pretty dull life. No riots for me. Vancouver, Canada is a nice place and one would not think that the citizens of that place would riot using the excuse that their hockey team lost to a Yankee team....but they did!

Cars burnt, shops looted, lots of agro with the police and everyone smiling, cheering and filming the action on their phones. They seem to have forgotten that the damage they did is to their own property, not of the dastardly Yankees.

One little problem with the need to be seen on FaceBook and Twitter is that the cops are working their way through the rogues gallery to try and identify the culprits.
A more restrained sample of a FaceBook post by a highly intelligent chap.

A couple of facts

Today I learned a couple of things. Firstly one should not turn on the sink tap when there is a spoon in the sink.

Secondly, a fact that is not well publicised about photovoltaic roof panels. It seems that whilst our unit can produce around 1200 watts in bright winter sun, I should not expect that the Australian bright summer days will produce the same amount. The reason being that every increase in degree (Centigrade or even Fahrenheit....you remember F don’t you?) heat of the solar panels results in a proportionate reduction of power production. So when the sun is bright and the panels are relatively cool the highest yield occurs. So there! I confess that I only heard this fact this morning when talking to a tech. who was finishing off the installation of Helen and James’ system. Of course solar hot water systems work in the reverse....summer is far better for hot water production.

Joan's stash

Lots more yet to be brought out
Joan’s friend Juliet and sister Dorothy made another push to collect together and categorise Joans collection of fabrics and dyes for the upcoming garage sale next Sunday. It was Joan’s wish that they sell the collection and funds raised be donated to a local cancer support group. The sale of her craft/embroidery books brought in over $350 and we believe that the garage sale will most probably double that result.

That amount will not really do much for cancer research, but will help the group give comfort to Western Australians who need information, support and care while they fight their own battle against the disease.

Dorothy and Juliet are contacting quilting, embroidery and craft groups to let them know of the sale.

Joan would be well pleased with what is happening.

This old love

Our son Martin rang yesterday evening to say that his hot water system had ‘kacked itself’. As the landlord I could see some big problems ahead. His hot water system is in a vertical space shared by units on three floors. I drove down with the keys to the HWS cupboard. Fortunately when we opened the cupboard it was obvious that the upper floor unit’s HWS was the problem. Saved some money and problems there. The upstairs tenant was not home so Martin left a note on his front door. He is a bus driver and gets home around 6pm.

I am having the odd teary episode over the loss of my wife Joan. I’m not depressed, but when I am reminded of some event in our 46 years together it gets to me. On Thursday, I went next door to give our neighbour Judy one of Joan’s pieces of fabric art. I didn’t know it was going to end up in a sad situation, but it did. Driving down to Martin’s unit I was playing a CD of the Australian singer Lior. The first song has a beautiful chorus...

we’ll grow old together
we’ll grow old together
and this love will never
and this old love will never die

Listen to it here.

Done and dusted

All the computers are gone. They are at North Lake Senior Campus where they will be distributed by the IT department to needy students. The lounge room looks a bit bare after hosting some 16 machines. Next clean-up will be the dining area once I move all the ‘stuff’ to my workshop.

The police drama I mentioned a couple of days ago never made it on to TV. No report in the newspaper...nary a whisper. Something strange there as the police helicopter and a Channel 7 chopper flew around here for at least 45 minutes and there was a TV crew on the ground where a task-force type group of cops were gathered.

Copper Chopper

As I write there is a police helicopter hovering overhead...has been for about 35 minutes. I wish the crims would go somewhere else; that copper chopper is extremely noisy. I ventured out to see what the fuss was all about and just a short distance from our place there was a large police presence at a house. It is quite a nice house and I doubt that it is one of the drug labs we hear about too often.

I guess there will be something on the news tonight.

I managed to sell the leftover rolls of turf from Helen and James’ place. The bloke who is taking it cannot pick it up, but is willing to give James $20 for delivery and $4 per roll. Better than having to take it to landfill.

Yesterday I contacted a government Senior High School close to here which caters to a lot of newly arrived immigrants from places like Somalia. I figured that many of them could use a computer and to that end the school’s IT man visited and took away 10 machines and will collect the rest this afternoon. He will distribute them to worthwhile students, get their story and take their pic so that I can place them on a photo site enabling the people who kindly donate their machines to see where they have ended up.
Refurbished and ready to go

Lawn Vs Rocks

Yesterday we finished preparing ground and laying the lawn. It looks good, but there are 16 rolls of leftover turf to try and get rid of. Later today I will make up a few handbills to place on shopping centre notice boards. Could be lucky!
The previous owner of Helen & James’ house obviously didn’t like lawns and in several areas which we changed back to lawn he had covered the ground with old carpet and then covered the carpet with about a ton of river stones. They have just gone to a landfill site

Joan’s rose bush has had its first flower. It has a lovely scent.

Of lawn and fabrics

Yesterday James and I finished off the lawn laying project at Helen and James’ house. It is not a huge area of lawn, but it replaces a bed of stones which was very difficult to walk on and not much good for Ruby their dog to roll on. It looks great, but unfortunately James miscalculated and ordered far too much lawn. It is quite expensive and today I will put a notice up at the local shopping centre to see if they can sell the remainder locally at half price.
Alternatively James will build more lawn areas as an alternative to the rock gardens the previous owner established. The lawn is a buffalo type called Sir Walter and even comes with a certificate of authenticity....Wow!

Also yesterday Joan’s sister Dorothy and Joan’s friend Juliet continued with the sorting and grouping of Joan’s huge stash of fabrics. They will need another day of sorting before it is all ready for a big garage sale. Amongst all the fabrics and craft stuff they found a genuine fur. Joan had bought it years ago to make Teddy Bears. Helen liked it, but these days it is not politic to wear genuine fur.

In the afternoon, I received a phone call from an aboriginal lady I gave a computer to about three years ago. She tells me it has lost all her games. I will drive north of the city on Monday to reload games. I will take another iMac with me in case hers has decided that it is time to retire. This is the first time anyone has chased me up for a ‘warranty repair’ on a machine I have given away.

Prohibition

It would seem that the state government of Western Australia will look again at the problem of indigenous communities in the state’s north. Alcohol is the scourge of these communities and quite a few have banned the sale and importing of alcohol. This has resulted in large numbers of outstation people moving to camps outside larger towns so that they have access to grog shops.

This is a little ditty from prohibition times in the U.S.
Yesterday we had a gathering at Margaret’s house with the usual suspects. Lots of needed laughter with one gem from Ralph; an ex-airforce friend.

The Alcoholics Calendar

Rumday
Boozeday
Wenchday
Thirstday
Dryday
Shaterday
Chunday

I've won!

will not be writing the blog any more as I have just won 950,000 British pounds in a lottery I didn’t even buy a ticket in. Just pure luck, I guess. With all that cash I shall hire a ghost writer to carry on with LFR.
Click the image to enlarge

Or maybe I will write until the cash arrives.

I have decided to give Helen our breadmaker, It is a bit long in the tooth and also I can’t seem to follow the instructions to get a nice loaf. I have been buying a nice commercial loaf at $2.00 which lasts me almost a week without growing penicillin mould. Joan would program the breadmaker to deliver fresh, hot bread at 7.30am on bake days. I’m OK on computers, but this breadmaker has me foxed.

Climate change

Went for a counter lunch with a lifetime friend Jack, today. As usual too much food, but lots of good conversation. When he dropped me back home I found that I had a power blackout. It has been raining heavily and I thought that may have caused it, although in the 7 years we have lived here we have had only one previous blackout. I openened the meter box and reset the tripped mainboard switch. A little while after, it tripped again, so I rang the solar installers and they will come tomorrow and investigate.

Last night I watched a wonderful movie 'The Station Agent'. Well worth a look if it is at your local library. 8/10 from me.

We are just getting into winter here and now that I have the solar array on the roof I want some sunshine to reap the rewards for being a Greenie. Here in the west of Australia we have a very mild climate and even winter brings many sunny days.
Unfortunately it is getting very dry and the climate doomsdayers say that it is going to get worse...soon. Last evening there was a discussion on SBS TV with an American scientist versus about 60 climate change skeptics. He held his own and I think there were quite a few skeptics who were swayed by his answers to their questions. I figure that most, if not all the people on the program will be gone before it can be shown that climate change is not just an aberration of the norm.

Halal

Yesterday my job was to be around when our (my) solar panels and inverter was installed. The whole installation by a team of four men took around 2+ hours. Then I followed the team around to Helen and James’ house to do the same. When their house was finally connected a bit of sun poked through the clouds and their standard meter was running backwards. Good sign!
Looking at the panel on the inverter one can see the input change with cloudy or clear sky. The inverter is quite a large beast and it has piggy-backed a large heat sink. I guess there is quite a lot of heat produced converting the incoming to 220/240 volts.

Last night on Four Corners on ABC TV, there was an expose of the cruelty of the live cattle trade. The report was specifically about the trade with Indonesia. The live cattle trade with Egypt was suspended years ago because of the cruelty carried out there. The argument is that they must be live to assure consumers that they are slaughtered according to Muslim rites.
Surely those rites must not condone the horrid treatment given to the cattle. I felt quite sick with what I saw.

It is time that Halal slaughter is done humanely in Australia, supervised by Imams and frozen meat only be exported.

PS. If you can stomach it, here is an edited version of some of the cruelty.

More on waste water

Click up both images to enlarge

In today’s paper there is a follow-up article with a graphic explaining how waste water is refined and placed in the aquifer for further filtration. In the same paper a letter to the editor tells us that it is impossible to filter out hormones and consumers will ingest them as do battery chickens. As it happens Australian battery chickens have not been fed hormones for some 20 years. The hormone for growth story is still around as an urban myth. At the moment just 6% of Perth's waste water is used to recharge our groundwater reserves.

Here is a scan of adverts on the back page of a theatre programme from 1961. Ads have certainly changed since then. Western Australia has also changed. In 1961 there was only one major brewery in W.A. and most of the beer drunk flowed from the Swan Brewery. The advert did not even mention the Swan Brewery but in one of the sketched there is a bottle of Swan Lager on a table. Subtle eh?

Today is John Wayne’s birthday. His epitaph featured a piece that he himself wrote. Nice!

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself into our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

Last Thursday was just four months since my Joan died.

Joan, Amber and Ravens

I have been inviting Joan’s friends to visit and look through her clothes and shoes. I had no idea she had so much even though the walk-in robe was/is a mass of colour not associated with my drab wear.

Masses of clothes and shoes have been taken by friends who are not only very happy with their selection, by feel good about keeping a few things of Joan’s. I am thankful too that I won’t have to take it all to the Good Samaritans. There will still be quite a lot that will go to charity.

A couple of days ago I wrote about our cat Amber being unfriendly and the possibility that she would have to go. This morning, as if Joan has warned her, Amber is being quite nice. She has rather a Pavlovian existence, conditioned to wake me at around 5.45am and yowl until I get up and give her some food. I hope to break this habit by making a self feeder filled with food that is not her favourite eat. That way she won’t necessarily get too fat, but will keep off my case every morning.

This morning I put out on the lawn, a plastic meat tray with scraps for the morning Raven visit. Through the kitchen window I watched as a Raven circled the tray about ten times, obviously suspecting that this black tray was some sort of trap. Eventually the bird gingerly flipped the tray over and ate the contents from the lawn, away from the tray. I recall as a young lad on my grandmother’s farm that I could go out onto the verandah with a broom and point at crows in the field without any reaction, but if I did the same with a ‘pea rifle’, (.22 calibre) the crows would take flight. Smart buggers!

The West Australian newspaper this morning had a typical journos sensationalist beat-up headline.
Click to enlarge to read the article
We will not soon be drinking sewerage, but eventually getting water from what is called the Gnangara Aquifer to which has been added almost pure water from treatment plants which will be further filtered in the aquifer.

Cats and Lobsters

I have just stumbled across Oprah Winfrey’s first of her final three shows. I had to turn it off after a few minutes. The audience looked like about 5 or 6 thousand in a foot ball-like stadium. The fans could be easily convinced had she announced that she was in fact a reincarnation of Mary Magdalene; many of them would have gone for it.

Maybe not.....they might be hoping that she would give everyone there a BMW. Crass stuff!

Our cat has developed some strange behaviour patterns. I had reason to yell, and scream at her recently when she urinated on a heap of computer cables in the house. Now she is quite happy to be friends in my bedroom but in the room that I gave her a bit of grief in she sees me in a different light and runs scared when she sees me. We have not been good friends since she came into our household and I am thinking that she may have to leave.......maybe to a friend who has a lobster boat.

That should get a few comments.

Joan's Rose

Today, in accordance with Joan's wishes, we planted a rose bush intermingled with her ashes. I was happy to have the pot placed at Helen and James' house as they are more likely to last longer than me and I do have a track record of neglect of rose bushes. Helen also told me that my ashes could join with Joan's when I go. When we had finished the planting Helen gave Joan, and the rose, a glass of champagne. A few tears were shed.

Jesus and Mary in Kingaroy

Today is the start of the end of the world. Apparently it will end at 6pm U.S. time....not sure if that is East Coast or West Coast time. If it is East Coast time we in Western Australia have until 6am tomorrow to finish off all the grog in the fridge.

I don’t think it will happen, as recent reports tell of a couple who live in Queensland declaring themselves to be Jesus and Mary....it seems reasonable! They have purchased a large property and as many 40 disciples have purchased adjoining properties to be near Jesus and Mary. A few couples were interviewed on TV and they seemed to be of above average intelligence. I see a compound in the future and possibly a Jim Jones termination of the faithful. As he (Jesus) says, many people have claimed to be Jesus, but I am the one.
For the short list see here.

How come Jesus selected Kingaroy of peanut fame to settle down. What's wrong with W.A.?

Check out JC and M here.

Dinner Fail

Wednesday evening I decided to go unhealthy and cook fish and chips. Just about everything I cook now is unhealthy. At the local supermarket the seafood trays had ‘fresh’ scaled and gutted fish which looked OK to me, so I bought a couple to fillet at home. I also bought a packet of frozen chips. This was going to be good!

I preheated the oven and opened the chips only to find they were sweet potato chips. After almost ten years in PNG eating sweet potato or yams because of the lack of real spuds I had to force myself to even try a few chips......Nah! The fish was also lousy.
I broke another of Kev’s rules which says don’t buy fish when the head has been removed. Sunken eyes are the giveaway for non-fresh fish. Consigned to the compost bin.
I started to read a book Joan gave me a few months before she died. I was a bit busy then and only yesterday took some time out to finish it. The story is narrated by Death himself. The Book Thief is a great read. I recommend it.

More from the drawers

When we returned from our six year stint in Papua New Guinea at the end of 1975 our son Martin was hospitalised in Fremantle Hospital’s infectious disease ward with typhoid.
It was quite a shock as the last case of typhoid in Western Australia was in in the 1950s or 60s (?).

When we left Popondetta in PNG for our final flight back home we stayed over for a couple of days in Port Moresby with friends before flying south to Sydney. We had a few days in Sydney and because of a baggage handlers’ strike had to fly to Perth on an Air India 707. That plane and the general cleanliness in the cabin was a bit of a shock and later I thought that it was the source of Martin’s sickness.

During our previous leave from PNG we had purchased a wonderful old colonial house in Bicton and of course, when we moved back in all our friends and relatives came to welcome us home and take a look at the house.....around 60 people in all.

Less than a week after our return Martin got sick and listless. We went with him to a GP who was unsure what the problem was and suggested we watch him carefully. A couple of days later we returned to the GP and he immediately had Martin admitted to Fremantle Hospital and the next day or so test results showed he had Typhoid.

Every person we had had contact with over the previous three weeks had to be contacted and tested by Public Health. That included the friends in Port Moresby. The PNG Health Department had an investigation as it was thought that the Popondetta fell within the three week contact/infection period. No one tested positive.
We, however, had to remain isolated from the general public.

Then the media circus got into gear. Daily phone calls and visits to get some tidbits to pad out the story. In all there were 12 newspaper articles in the one newspaper.
Click to enlarge the image

After 5 weeks in the infectious disease ward, Martin was discharged and returned home for good. Whew!

50 years ago

Today, May 16th, is exactly 50 years ago that a group of 60 trainees, selected from all states of Australia, landed in Rabaul in what was then the Territory of Papua & New Guinea.

We were the second batch of teacher trainees rushed through to bring fast tracked education to remote and isolated schools throughout the ‘Territory’. The big push was in answer to the United Nations criticism of Australia’s progress in bringing PNG to Independence.

Of the 60 trainees on my course, I was the second youngest at 21 years of age. Many friendships were formed and I still keep in touch with four of that group. A good friend during training and since, is Jim Meehan who is still teaching at Batchelor College south of Darwin. Batchelor College is not as one would think, a college for batchelors. The town of Batchelor was named after a politician.

Only one successful reunion has been made. Many of the 300 plus teachers were in their 40s and 50s at the time of training and have since died. The reunion in 2010 in Queensland’s Gold Coast rallied only about 20 attendees which included two of the original lecturers. They looked in better condition than most of the teachers there.

Growing old gracefully is a myth.

Modesty

Every day that I find more of Joan’s personal stuff I am amazed at how modest she was.

One envelope had programs for 16 plays which she acted in from high school to university and beyond. Our walls do not have Joan’s degrees framed and on display. Other documents show that she was editor of her primary school newsletter and the front of house for university productions. She was a Prefect at Geraldton Senior High School; etc etc.
Joan, probably at Bridgetown Repertory Society performance circa 1964

A couple of our friends would wax lyrical about Dylan Thomas and his classic ‘Under Milk Wood’. Joan never mentioned that she acted in Under Milk Wood in the 1962 Festival of Perth. I would have milked it to the max had I been in her shoes.

Here is a photo of Joan when I first met her at Bridgetown High School where we both taught. I cannot believe that she selected me to be her lifetime mate; and now I am alone.

Growing up

I have been searching through drawers for some software for one of Joan's sewing machines and found some quite wonderful stuff. There are a couple of notes our kids wrote to us when they were quite young.

The first one was after we made a trip to Bali, Indonesia, with our children. One night we were walking along a footpath and Martin fell into a smelly drain which was open with the metal grate set aside. He was stuck with his arms supporting him until I managed to lift him out. As we struggled to extricate him a street vendor was trying to sell me some silver jewellery. I told him to POQ. Martin didn't much like it when back home we told the story to all our visitors....and so the note.
Helen's note is a much earlier one and I think we told her that we might get a new daughter if she didn't do her chores. Martin once told us that he was going to run away and live at the tip in a cardboard box with the seagulls.
Joan has lots of interesting bits in places around the house and I am reluctant to dispose of them.

Ruby the Destroyer

Over the weekend I dined at Helen and James’ house. Helen made a great Fish Pie.

Here is the recipe....

On Saturday I helped James and Helen collect their ‘island bench’ from a furniture place. Very heavy. I fell backwards helping unload it from James's ute and cracked my head on the concrete driveway. No damage, but a note to myself..I am no longer a young bloke. Ruby the destroyer made a thorough inspection, probably with the thought of eating it. She is still a puppy, and eats anything and everything including stones in the garden. She is particularly fond of cat poo.

This cartoon could well be about Ruby.

Mothers day passed with a few tears.

A scaredy cat

Our cat, Amber, usually spends some time outside in the yard, but something...probably the aggressive black male cat which cruises through our yard, has spooked her and she won’t venture outside. So now she is a full time house cat. That could be a good point if I try and give her away. She was given to Joan as a lap sitting companion during her sickness, but that never happened. Amber remained either timid or aloof.

She does, however, watch me wherever I go around the house. Yesterday I was about to take a shower and went out to the kitchen to bring a phone into the bathroom should someone call. I was naked and Amber showed no emotion to this most unattractive sight; she continued to look at my face only. Strange? I scared myself when I looked in a full length mirror upon returning to the bathroom. Cats don’t seem to give TV a second look either.

I noticed that the price of dried coffee beans (parchment) in Papua New Guinea is for Robusta K4 per kilo and Arabica is K7 per kilo.

Those prices are not at roadside in villages and are factory door prices. Also the exchange rate for Australian$ to PNG Kina is $A1 = K2.6. Hard work for not much reward.

Theft by Lewy Body

Our friend Joyce rang and told me of her visit to see John, her husband, in care. He was as usual unaware of her visit and after some 20 minutes she went to leave when he called her back.

She wrote this of her sad visit.

Painful Memories..

Is there an end to the sadness of heartache

When all around are reminders of happier days.

The love of music that takes you to a special place

Alone, and wishing it wasn’t always this way.

He sits in his chair, unable to walk and barely talk.

A beautiful man who gave his all to life and family

Most times now too difficult to break into his world

As his tired body drifts into untroubled dreams.

We watch and wait for signs of recognition

Willing his face to light up for just a second

Validating that his life with us can still be remembered,

Those eyes that once spoke volumes, now lifeless.

Just as it seems he is trapped in a dark passage

He sometimes comes back to life, as we know it.

Uttering aloud words that are very clear, to remind us

He still has thoughts and feelings of bygone days.

Today was a sad day, with words now etched upon my soul.

“Why wont you stay – this has to change,”

“All I want to do is teach and talk my head off,

But no one can understand me”

“Where are my family?” he said.

And who could possibly have believed

These memories were still within his mind.

I cannot think of a worse imprisonment.

Joy Rowe

30^th April, 2011

Over the years John has been in care, I have visited him and often not really had a glimmer of recognition of my presence. John was an academic at a local university and a good friend. Lewy Body Disease stole his character and personality.

Today, I and a friend, went to visit Bronwyn Owen who taught us in the 1940s. She recently celebrated her 102nd birthday and whilst she was chatty, we doubt she really knew who we were. When we visited her on her 100th birthday she recalled both our families and remembered all the names.