Bali Day 4

We have been doing a bit of touring and lots of eating and drinking over the last couple of days. Each time we eat at a good restaurant we declare it to be the best, but then find that the next one has taken the crown. Everything here is incredibly cheap. From the Villa to the main drag in Sanur, about three kilometres, is about 8000 - 12000 Rupiah, we give the driver R20,000 which is approximately $2.00 Australian. A great meal, beautifully presented, with a few beers costs around $10A each.

For lunch yesterday we ate at a nice restaurant and enjoyed top food and icy beers and great service. Here is my mixed Sate. Helen had the same and James enjoyed a beef dish.

In the afternoon we had a driver take us on a tour of Denpasar, which is a bustling city away from the tourist areas. We looked in on the large department store, Mata Hari. As my brother Graham says..'They have the policy!' Which means that management hires only the handsome staff of which there were many. Later in our hire car I asked the driver what sort of money those young staff would be getting. He had personal knowledge of their renumeration and told us that such an employee would expect to get the equivalent of A$150.00 per month. One can only image how much take-home pay a road worker would get.

We also visited the main museum which is a magnificent traditional building housing mainly historical dioramas for Indonesia and Bali, with a goodly bit of history about the Dutch colonials.
Some pics of the Museum.

Staircase to the tower

Later in the afternoon Helen went for a massage and James and I had a couple of refreshing ales.
Helen went for the 'Wedding' package which didn't, fortunately, include the last item on the price list....whatever that is?
The last item on the price list is Ratus Vagina!

In the evening we decided to try a small restaurant in an alley close to our Villa. The food was great and James declared his fish curry to be the best he had every experienced. Helen and I shared a huge mud crab and curried king prawns. Great! The owner is a French national, elderly and I think a bit frustrated that he couldn't start a French restaurant on the 'strip'.
Today we are off to Seminyak, about A$15 away, to visit relatives also holidaying and a teacher colleague also here. Seminyak is the 'new' area for tourists.

For people perhaps thinking of visiting Bali, first impressions often don't impress. From the airport there are many dirty and run down areas and then there is the oppressive heat, which would probably take a couple of weeks to get used to. That being said, we are enjoying the place and the people immensely.

Elephants and water

All the water in houses and hotels at least in this part of Bali is ground water from bores. High water tanks provide the pressure for the water supply. We wondered why rainwater tanks are not used anywhere and figure that there is not enough yard space to place a tank. Also, most buildings don't have rainwater gutters.

I don't know where the water bores are, but there is a small construction site near 'our' Villa and in the two metre foundation trenches there is evidence of years of local landfill. Hope there isn't a water bore near that lot!


click to enlarge

When we arrived at the Villa we were advised not to drink the tap water. In the well-equipped kitchen is a smart water fountain of the like I have not seen before. From the one dispenser one can get near boiling water for coffee, room temperature water and cold water. Not a bad piece of equipment! Probably not an energy conserving piece of gear.
An unfortunate choice of names.

Yesterday on our visit to the Safari/Elephant park we shared the van and the day with an American couple. We got along very well together and will, as so many others who meet on holidays do, keep in touch.
Helen and James at the Elephant Park. A long drive, of about 90 minutes, but well worth the trip.

Bali Day One

Well, we are in Bali and settled in to our very nice villa. The flight with JetStar was good. It was reasonable rates. There is an entertainment package for $10 which gives you an Apple iPad with a variety of entertainment of movies comedy shows and games. James went for it but I spent the 3.75 hours reading and rereading their inflight magazine.

We breezed through immigration and customs and our Hotel had a man collect us and deliver us to our villa. All good.

Here are some snaps of our Villa. The main bedroom has an interesting shower with glass walls and a view to a small outside courtyard.

Bali

This Sunday morning we are flying into Bali airport at Denpassar. Bali is a very busy holiday destination and the Indonesian government will be trying to keep it that way because just the airport arrival and departure taxes @$US25 in and out, raise about $A275M a year. I haven't been able to determine how much the rest of the tourism industry pulls in, but it is big business.

I have started packing and whilst daughter Helen is in charge of my documents etc I have had to refer to one of Joan's previous packing lists as a reminder as to what I should pack. The list shown was for a trip we did to Singapore years ago, so I won't be packing silk shirts etc for casual Bali.

Because two thirds of this Lock family are flying on the one plane, I have left a detailed letter with my brother to take over 'if anything happens'...as my mother would say. Our son Martin in Melbourne would have a big job sorting out my estate, but would emerge out the other end a wealthy man. I don't want him to be wealthy just yet.

There is a white knuckle fliers' saying....'If it aint Boeing, I aint going'. I too would rather fly with the old team. The new boys on the block, Airbus, have built the largest ever passenger aircraft, but it has emerged that lots of cracks have been found in the important bits...the wings.

Bali Hi

Yesterday was Joan's birthday. We were going to go to a restaurant, but I didn't feel like another sombre meal and opted out.

As it happened Helen our daughter, last night, had a very vivid dream about Joan. In the dream Joan had left me and took up with another fella. She was very svelte and had a large house with two tigers as pets. Thank goodness she didn't want tigers when she was here with me.

Years ago I had a friend who turned up to work one morning very cranky and it turned out that he had dreamed that his wife had had an affair. It took him all day and a good bit of Kev counselling to convince him that dreams are just dreams.

We are off to Bali on Sunday and it is at these times I realise how organised Joan was. She would have the air travel, hotel, car rental, customs documents, local money etc all organised and all I had to do was collect my shaving gear and a few clothes and we would be off. Never did I experience any glitches when we travelled. Sure there were a few problems not of our own making, but not of Joan's.

Yesterday I received a final letter of statement of Joan's estate. It is all finalised except for a small tax return due to a late share dividend from which I am due a small cheque from the Treasurer.

Full time teaching 2012

Daughter Helen has been doing relief teaching over the last few weeks and it has built up to about 4 days a week on average. She will now have to advise those schools that she has been appointed to a school and cannot do relief for the rest of the year.

The school she has been appointed to is about 30 minutes drive from here. The only downside to this appointment is that it is a 'difficult to staff school' and that is nothing to do with with the building. It usually means the children and/or parents, can be difficult. She is looking forward to commencing there in Term2. If she can remain there for two years, then she will join the ranks of the Permanent Officers and not sweat about getting a job each year. There is a small monetary allowance for teachers who take up appointments at those schools designated as difficult to staff.

She will be teaching Kindergarten and Pre-Primary and the class size is quite small, so it could be OK.

Vladimir Tretchikoff

In my workshop I have a few wall hangings of pieces that otherwise would be dumped or stored in boxes. A couple came from our son Martin's place when he went east to Melbourne. Martin has a good eye for discarded stuff on the roadside chuck-outs which he calls 'GutterMart'. One piece is a Marx Brothers poster and the other is a print of a 1950s artist...Vladimir Tretchikoff. Martin's print is a bit damaged and so it lurks in a darker area of my shed. Tretchikoff was very popular in the late 1940s and 1950s. Thousands of houses had a print of the Chinese Girl. Wonder where they are all now? You can buy prints of Tretchikoff's works on eBay and art shops at reasonable prices.

This is a framed end of a Petrol box from the days when petrol was imported into Australia in boxes of One Gallon cans. I wonder whether they were American gallons or Imperial gallons?

How not to look a gift horse in the mouth

I get my Mac computer discards from various sources and some of them are a little precious when it comes to the actual donation time. One lot was given with the proviso that they wouldn't be sent overseas. I had to inform that source that whilst I assure people that they will not be sold but distributed to needy folks I could not be bound by any conditions of how and where I distribute them. It is really like donating your body to a University....you don't know what will happen to it and medical students may well play pranks with your bits.

A recent lot was of older Macs, all still work well, but their capabilities are more in the educational games area. I can gift them to young families with a large package of educational software. I would rather folks not give me these older machines as most of my 'clients' want reasonably fast machines to browse the internet (and find reviews of books they were supposed to read at Uni).
Oldies, but goodies.
Just when I think I will stop this project, I get an offer of a new lot of machines, then back to work. I have been doing this for around eleven years and estimate that I have refurbished and distributed free, around 400+ computers to needy folks and a couple of schools overseas.

The Wedding of Brian and Lili

On Friday evening I took photos (along with every other guest) at my nephew Brian's small wedding. It did present a few difficulties with lights everywhere, but there are some reasonable shots and once all the other guests give their photos to the the happy couple they should have a nice album albeit of very similar photos. I did the make-up shots; the best man fixing the groom's tie shots etc etc. The bride, Lili, had a few ideas for some other shots which could have been better executed with more time and equipment...but they did work.

Maybe I will post more photos here when I have asked the married couple for their permission.

The wedding breakfast (it seems to be called a breakfast even if it is at night) was catered for by Dorothy, Brian's mum. The name 'Breakfast' for a post wedding meal is more to do with breaking the fast.

Brian and Lili are to have a second very large wedding in the Philippines either later this year or early in 2013. Lots of rellies to witness their marriage.

Larousse Gastronomique

It is over one year since my Joan died and I have been losing my appetite for food and cooking. I seem to cook too much and then freeze the remainders which end up going into the compost bin. Time for a new plan. Supermarkets don't cater for singles like me, the smallest meat package is enough for several people, so I will divide any purchase into serve size portions and again fill the freezer with the rest. Also I could share with Helen and James, but Helen cooks more exotic fare than me.

Joan has at last count 83 cook books including Larousse Gastronomique and folders of collected recipes. Each time I search for a recipe in the recipe library I find it difficult to get what I want out of those 83 books, but when I Google a recipe I will get an immediate and specific recipe. I wouldn't have the heart to sell Joans books but I don't think anything in Larousse would interest me much. So I will leave Helen and Martin to sort that out when I go...along with lots more complex issues. Hey, I'm not going just yet!

Larousse is 'the world authority on food, wine and cooking' which is a bit insular because it doesn't discuss Asian cooking for example. Just in case you thought you would like to purchase Larousse, here is a page from the section on cooking offal.
A bit dreary hey?

Men in Film

And now for something entirely different....a fill-in because I don't have anything significant to write about.


Film buffs will probably get every one first time through.

RIP Carole

After a hard fought battle with cancer, Carole in London has passed on. She died peacefully in a Hospice in London and her son James has written of her passing. If you wish you can read it here.

Brian and Lilly

This Friday evening, my nephew Brian and his bride to be, Lilly, are to be married. It is a small wedding with just a dozen guests including me. I have been asked to take the photographs which is going to be a tricky business. The wedding is in Joan's sister's backyard at 7.30pm and that means complete darkness at this time of the year. I have done a number of weddings, but none have had me thinking things out like this one. I will today purchase some floodlights on a stand and do some experiments in my own backyard tonight. The floods will need to be softened with some filtering media and the judicious use of a flash to fill in shadow areas.

I have not shot a wedding in 15 years and I want this one to be as good as I can make it. At least with digital cameras, these days, I can instantly see whether the result is OK after each shot. In the past when every photographer was using film, there was a nervous wait to see the results after the film was processed and printed. I can also tweek the photos in Photoshop on the computer. Wish me luck.

Red Boy stolen

"They got a name for the winners in the world
And I want a name when I lose"....Steely Dan

I recently posted a story about my visit to the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition at Cottesloe Beach. The exhibition is not fenced off, but has security guards, CCTV and plenty of lighting. One of the installations (see, I can use the artists' terminology) was stolen by a young fellow just 24 years of age under CCTV cameras in a well-lit area. The cameras even captured the ute/pickup truck he was driving without a licence. It wasn't too difficult for the cops to trace our man and they found the severed statue in the roof-space of the family home. Mother, of course, was embarrassed and shamed and didn't want to be identified.

Sister Shirl's visit

My sister Shirley is staying with me this week. She is up from Esperance which is on the South coast of Western Australia. She came up ostensibly to attend a reunion of a volunteer fire brigade that she and her late husband Don were associated with. Today I drove her out to the reception centre at Jandakot Airport and went home to wait for her phone call when the show was over. By the time I arrived home there was a message on the phone from Shirl to say that the reunion was yesterday. Duh!

During the week she got me to take her to a large shopping centre to buy some bras. I have never accompanied anyone buying bras before and suddenly I was by myself and couldn't spot Shirl anywhere. I didn't realise that it is not as easy as buying a seven pack of underpants. Apparently they have to be carefully selected and fitted. Taking into account the airfare for Shirls Perth reunion, those bras were very expensive.

In the time I waited I could have bought a suit, had it altered and selected a new pair of shoes and an assortment of socks.

Shirl is returning to Esperance tomorrow and that will give my liver a bit of a rest as we have been doing the rounds of family drinkies.

I get an infrequent visit by neighborhood cat. It is a sleek black one with a white tip on its tail. It doesn't hesitate to come in the house and check out all the rooms and any cupboards left open. We get along fine and I reckon it is the best pet I have ever had....no feeding, no veterinary fees etc etc.

A distant friend

My Cyber-friend Carole in London has been moved into a hospice. Her son has written of the move on his mother's blog, which can be found here. She has had a rapid deterioration in her situation over a relatively short time and it is most likely that she will pass away very soon. I sincerely hope that her passing will be peaceful. I know that thousands of people die every day around the world, but Carole, through her kind words and thoughts for my Joan in her fight with the BigC has become a close friend.

This morning when I opened my email program I found a message purporting to be from The Commonwealth Bank NetBank. It informed me that a successful money transfer had been made for the amount of $1,580.00 to someone I did not know. I figured it was a scam and didn't click on the link provided, instead rang NetBank and they informed me that it was indeed a scam and by lunchtime EST, there had been approximately 500 calls to netbank about this email message. I am unsure what would have happened had I clicked on the link, but it probably would have been an expensive move.

Here is a screen shot of the email message.

A good word for Bigpond

Joan's sister Dorothy recently had a scare with a positive from a breast screen. She was able to have a Lumpectomy which removed the cancer and one lymph gland . A follow-up consultation brought good news and her oncologist is confident that they had been successful. She will be having a week's worth of radiation and be on a daily medication for 5 years.

There are many bad stories about Telstra/Bigpond's help line for computer worries. Over the weekend I had the job of setting up a wireless modem for a friend of my brother. The modem is a BigPond modem about the size of a packet of TicTacs. I was having all sorts of difficulty which was my own fault. I repeatedly typed in her email address which was hand written on a piece of paper. Un-noticed by me was a period/full stop between her first and second names. It must have looked like as bit of fly poo to me and so I hadn't keyed it into any of my attempts at creating the account. Sooooo, I decided to ring Bigpond help. I was talking to a young fellow in the Phillipines and eventually after he made several attempts to activate the account he asked me to take a careful look at the email address again. There is was. He entered that correct address and it was up and running. At that stage I asked him for mail details such as incoming mail server etc so that I could set up Apple Mail for her. He probably correctly assumed I was a complete dummy and told me to sit back and he would remotely set up Mail and anything else I wanted help with. Sounded good to me and I watched as things were moved around on the screen remotely from an office in the Philippines. I do know about several applications to do this, but I have never seen it done. A very pleasant young guy who was worthy of some award.
Thanks Bigpond.

Sculpture by the Sea 2012

Yesterday we, Helen, James and I visited Cottesloe Beach to view the Sculpture By the Sea exhibition. Joan and I had been to each of the yearly events since its inception. There were many 'installations' as the arty call them and some were really quite clever. My choice was the windmill which was a very modern chrome piece with a number of propellers of different lengths rotating on different axis at different speeds. More mechanical beauty than 'art'! Cottesloe Beach is a very popular beach without the large waves of beaches further along the coast. The Indiana Tearooms looks over the beach and is also the the boatshed of the Cottesloe Surf Lifesaving Club.

I took lots of Pics and here are a few. I couldn't remember the actual titles of each and so have called them as I saw them. Should have bought a catalogue.

click on the pics to enlarge them.

correction?

Graham, my 'sub-editor' of the blog has corrected me on my assertion that President Obama's appointment of four Republicans to his cabinet could not happen in Australian politics.

As usual he is correct and this is the reason that I have welcomed his sub-editorial role. I imagine that most bloggers have a sub-editor. It is good to have constructive criticism. The little I know about politics, does however, make me a little cynical about such appointments.

See his email to me on the subject......

Kev  You said in your blog that one thing you will never see in Australia is the kind of bipartisanship that saw Pres Obama appoint four Republicans to his cabinet.  Of course, the US cabinet members all come from outside the legislature (Congress), or if they are in it, they resign before their appointment.  In Australia, to become a member of cabinet you have to be a member of parliament and usually a member of the governing party or coalition, though that latter bit is not required.  You would have to, at least, guarantee that you would support the government in votes in the parliament.  Sometimes members of the parliament change sides, though it is very rare.  Remember when Cheryl Kernot of the Democrats joined the Labor Party?  It turned out later that she and Gareth Evens were having an affair at the time.  Billy Hughes was a member of three parties (Labor, UAP and Liberals-I think it was those three) during his time in parliament.  When asked why he had never joined the Country Party he famously said that he had to draw the line somewhere.  When Kevin Rudd became prime minister, he appointed Brendan Nelson as Ambassador to the UN, Alexander Downer to a special role with the UN on Cyprus and Tim Fischer as Ambassador to the Vatican.  That is an impressive form of bipartisanship.  John Howard was known for his obsessive overseeing of all appointments his government made to ensure the appointee had no Labor connections, however remote.  Graham

Early tomorrow we are visiting Cottesloe Beach to view the Sculpture by The Sea exhibition.  Joan and I visited it every year it has been held.

Some good news

Daughter Helen is starting to get relief teaching work. She now has two regular days at a nice school for the rest of this term, plus usually another one or two days when people ring in sick (or tired/hungover). She is pretty happy with that amount of work.

I rang the agent who is looking after my unit at Orelia. I had not heard from her since the tenants had a small fire in the unit destroying the stove. The tenants went out leaving a plastic cutting board on the hotplates which were left on. Fortunately, downstairs neighbors noticed the smoke and had to break the door down to put the fire out. She told me that the insurance company finally replaced the door yesterday and the stove would be replaced very soon. There is a $200 excess on the claim, but the tenants have accepted blame for the fire and are happy to cough up the $200. Good tenants!

Today I contacted Student Services at Murdoch University to offer refurbished computers to this year's new lot of students. They were keen and I have to make up a flyer and get it approved before putting it on a student notice board. I have had previous Murdoch students take machines and been very happy with them.

Helen and James and the kids (their dogs, Ruby and Rosy) are coming around to my place this evening for a curry meal. I have cooked two different curries and they are very nice. I still have to prepare some condiments to accompany them. The dogs aint gettin any curry.

Politics.

Well, it's all over. The attempted coup-d'etat of the office of Prime Minister has failed and we are back to boring old government. For a while there I felt a little like a third-world citizen. A bit exciting actually!

I don't know much about politics and I confess to knowing little of the politics of other countries. Australia has a British Parliamentary System and it seems to work reasonably well most of the time. It is said that we don't elect our Prime Minister as the U.S. elects its President, but by the time the election is underway everybody knows who will be the Prime Minister depending which side of the two major parties wins.

We don't have a first past the post system; preferential voting is used here. Check out Preferential Voting if that interests you.

There are two major political parties and a few minor parties and a handful of independents. The current government is able to govern only with the support of a few independents and a minority party who have pledged their support by demanding trade offs with their own agendas.

One thing you will never see in Australian politics is a bi-partisan gesture as done by Barack Obama the U.S. President, when after his election, he appointed four opposition party members (Republicans) to cabinet posts in his government.

Australia is a big place and we have a population of only around 22,000,000 and that doesn't count the 50,000 illegals here.

One year

Yesterday, the first anniversary of Joan's death, passed with a few tears all round from me and Helen and James. We set a glass of bubbly for Joan on the dinner table.

I received messages of condolence from quite a few of our friends including a wonderful poem written for me by our friend Joy.

It is said that the first year is the hardest.

Passionfruit

I have a jungle area of my yard with Passionfruit vines, Paw Paw and Lemon.
The Passion vines have gone feral and I hope the neighbours on two sides are pollinating the flowers to get a good crop for themselves. I don't seem to have a lot of bees here and so I do the job myself with a soft brush.

How things have changed in my lifetime! When I was a lad I remember newspaper and radio stories about the sudden disappearance of a Soviet political character from the lineup on the balcony at a parade of goosesteppers. Another story that featured for some time was the phenomenon quite unknown to us in the west, of the Workers Creche in the Soviet Union. Now we have both. Our Prime Minister is about to be challenged by the bloke she deposed a couple of years ago....and the childrens day care centre (creche) is all the go in western society.

The Big C

This Saturday is 12 months since Joan left us. We do not need a special day to remember Joan, she is in our thoughts every day. Helen, James and I will get together and talk with our son Martin who now lives in Melbourne

Dorothy, Joan's sister, rang me a couple of days ago to tell me that she had been diagnosed with a malignant lump in her breast. She is to have a Lumpectomy tomorrow and the surgeon has told her that as it is a stage one cancer, the Lumpectomy and some followup radiation will give a good result. Hope he is right.

I have mentioned before, Carole, who lives in London. She gave great support to us during Joan's fight against cancer. She has also been battling cancer and now it has suddenly spread to her bones and another organ. She has only months to live and whilst I try and offer comfort, I find it hard to gather suitable words.

Carole's blog can be found here.

A bright young gal

I recently delivered a Mac laptop and a printer to a young Aboriginal gal. She is young....probably about 20 and has three children, two in school and one babe. I am unsure of her situation, but she is being looked after by a welfare organisation and is housed, at least temporarily, in a large block of units. She has never used a Mac computer before but seemed to grasp the basics of the operating system in minutes. She told me she was off to buy a USB modem the next day and I am sure she is on line now. The welfare agency told me that she wanted to return to studies and complete her education. Hope it works out for her.

Hyundai Elantra

I had my car serviced yesterday. It is the 1500 kilometre service which is free. I delivered the vehicle to the service centre on Tuesday afternoon so that mechanics would have more time to try and sort out the stalling problem I am experiencing.

Early Wednesday afternoon I received a phone call to tell me that the car was ready to collect. When I asked if they had fixed the problem I was told that the mechanics could not get it to stall and so they had reset the parameters on the gearbox and the fuel system and that will almost certainly cure the problem. Then came the 'silly old bugger' statement telling me that if it hasn't fixed the problem I should bring the car back and drive it with one of their mechanics in the car to see if I was driving it in way that was causing the problem. Bloody hell! I don't think I can win on this one unless I leave the car with them to let a mechanic take it home over a couple of days so there is a good chance the problem will present to him/her.

Late News: The problem is still there and I am getting very frustrated with the inability of the service centre to fix it.

StopPress: I have just received this email message, so I will do as my brother Graham did....get rid of this car and collect my BMW and the 1 million British Pounds.

Daughter Helen got her first day of teacher relief yesterday. Usually relief teachers get most of their work during the winter months.

Junior technician jobs

The remote control showing the rubber function buttons.

In my bathroom I have a remote controlled heater light and exhaust fan. It must have been installed after the hard wiring had been done. It works well!
On Sunday evening I came home from Helen and James' place after helping them with their fish pond and having a few beers. A few??

After eating some supper I fell asleep in a chair waking at 10.30pm. I went to my en suite bathroom and turned on the fan and the heater light and then dropped the remote controller on the floor damaging it so that it would not turn off the fan and light. Damn! I tried turning off the mains lighting circuit and turning it on again...no go, the heater light was still on. I figured that I could get a ladder and remove the heater bulbs, but the fan would still be running.

So I dismantled the remote and found that a battery contact had fallen out of the circuit board. How can that happen? I repositioned the battery contact and it worked well enough to turn everything off. The next morning with steadier hands and a soldering iron I re-soldered the contact back in place and it is back in good working condition.

Underneath of the circuit board showing the re-soldered battery contact.

This is not the first time I have repaired remote controls and I thought I should pass on to readers a little info on fixing a problem which often presents as remotes get a bit old. On the remote are the rubber function buttons which when manufactured have a metallic pasted-on surface which when pressed, contacts a corresponding part of the circuit board completing a circuit for that particular function. When the remote gets old and has been used lots, that metallic surface on the rubber button deteriorates. I have glued small pieces of aluminium foil where the metallic paste is/was and if the glue is one which will stick to that rubber surface, things are back to normal. Fiddly work, but most rewarding when you are finished. Don't be shy about having a go....there is nothing inside the remote to bite you. If your remote isn't easily opened (secured by screws) then it is a bit of a fiddle getting inside it....see here http://www.ehow.com/how_5834201_open-tv-remote-control.html

The rubber buttons with alfoil glued on...it works! These fixes are born out of a need to save money and it is hard to change that attitude in old age.

Bring out your dead 2012

This week is Bring Out Your Dead in this area and all manner of discards are put on the verge for council collection. My neighbours had a huge pile of stuff, but that is almost all gone, taken by the bower birds who drive through the district looking for goodies. I must confess to grabbing a very nice late model Canon printer from a pile of techo stuff a few doors from my place. I got it home and found that the ink carriage was jammed because someone had tried to remove a cartridge and the printer decided to return the carriage to its start position with the cartridge not properly seated and protruding causing the jam. A ten minute job and the printer is running like a Buick.
Yesterday Helen and James emptied out a fish pond and cleaned up the tangle of stringy algae and fungal growth. When the pond was empty we noticed some decidedly nasty looking bugs and they were removed from the pond. Only later did we realise that they were the nymph of the Dragonfly. Helen was a bit upset because the Dragonfly is one of her favourites. The Dragonfly breeding season is probably not yet over and we may yet see some homegrown Dragonflies. When I was young in the 1950s, Dragonflies were colloquially called Horse Stingers. Doubt if they do sting and if they did they would probably sting people rather than horses. PS: Google says that they don't sting but can bite.

Helen recently invited me over to dinner and she was trying to replicate a dish; one course served at her cousin Katherine's wedding in San Francisco. The dish was created by the chef Alan Wong.

I am not sure of the name of the dish but it was lovely.

It is chilled tomato soup with a Parmesan chip and toasted Kalua Pork sandwich. Delicious!

The Boer War

My cousin Val and I have had an interest in family for many years and one thing which interested me greatly was my grandfather and his brothers' service in South Africa during the Boer War. I have his discharge papers from 1902 which noted a gratuity of Five pounds. Was that a reasonable reward for serving King and Country?

All the documents are written in copperplate handwriting by the same person. Even the signatures are written by the same person...not my grandfather. We have wondered if it was because many volunteers would have been illiterate? In Papua New Guinea in the early 1960s I witnessed labour recruitment for plantations where illiterate natives touched a pen and the recruiting person wrote their name. Was that what it was?Click image to enlarge

On reflection I came to the conclusion that the original documents are kept in the National Archives in Canberra and the documents given to the servicemen were copies.....hand written by a scribe in copperplate in a time before photocopiers were even thought of.

My grandfather and his brothers returned to Australia at a time when it was thought the war was over and re-enlisted when it flared up again. It must have been very exciting stuff, or living in country Australia at the time must have been extremely boring.

Grandfather and his brothers were in a unit called Kitcheners Fighting Scouts. I am sorry I didn't talk to him more about his experiences in S.A..

Harry 'Breaker' Morant was recruited from South Australia and along with another Australian was executed for taking part in the murder of a couple of Boers and a German priest who had witnessed the killings. At the time and even today, it is felt that 'The Breaker' and his mate were executed to placate the Germans who were thinking of joining the war on the side of the Boers. Recent attempts to clear their names have failed.

Bees and blowies

About a year ago I had a 'tradesman' extend a kitchen exhaust fan duct through the roof and finish it off with a 'Chinaman's hat'. As summer came on, every time I cooked a curry or some other food which had a strong smell, blowflies came down the duct and even got through the fan blades and mesh filter to get into my kitchen. So I decided to convert the hat to a beekeeper's hat and fashioned a screen of flywire around it to keep the flies out. When I went up on the roof (silly old man) I noticed that the tradie, an Irishman, had not bothered to position the Chinaman's hat and the duct so that it would be standing vertically. It doesn't really matter as it cannot be see by anyone else, but it is sloppy workmanship. I will have to see how long before the screen clogs up with grease.
The Irish Leaning Tower of Chinaman Beekeeper

I have cooked a curry since I attached the flywire and it seems to be working.

Daughter Helen and James came around for dinner a couple of nights ago and Helen spied a Turkish loaf of bread I had bought. When she asked me what it was like I had to tell her that it was a bit stodgy. She then told me that it was a Home Bake pack and I should have cooked it. Live and Learn!

Helen has had only one offer of relief teaching as yet...this morning. By the time she picked up the phone the Deputy Principal at the school had hung up. She immediately rang back to say that she was happy to do the job, but the message went to the school switchboard and the deputy had already returned to his office and missed the call. Helen also missed the job. She is not desperate for cash yet and I am able to help out if things do get that way.

The Spudshed

On Sunday afternoon Helen, James and I drove to Jandakot Airport and visited the 'Spud Shed'.....along with about 1,000 other shoppers. The large carpark was almost full and inside it was a struggle to manoeuvre a shopping trolley around between produce and shoppers who looked like Myer sale-day fiends. This particular Spudshed is open 24/7 because it is on Commonwealth land surrounding the airport and does not have to comply with state trading regulations. I guess if I were to return to the Spudshed it would be at 2am when things would probably be less frenetic. OK, there are some bargains there.....but the checkout queues are long and I noticed some folks getting a bit 'testy' when people in the queue sent partners off to continue shopping.

A couple of observations......The meat is so so. I bought some casserole beef to make a curry. When I opened it at home it had more than its fair share of gristle and ropy bits. Somehow, such a crowded bargain-basement establishment attracts cheats. We noticed fruit and nuts being consumed before arriving at the checkout and the trays of mangoes were being re-packed by customers who wanted only the really good ones despite large notices requesting that they not be swapped around.

I'll spend the extra few bucks and shop locally.

My newish car is now due for its first service @ 1500 kilometres. I am still having problems with what I now believe, is a fuel delivery problem at low speed when taking off. I noticed that when the tank is almost empty the problem is much worse, so when I deliver the car to the service centre I will ensure that the tank is low so that the mechanics may experience the problem. Previously I have not been able to show the service centre what happens and they have suggested that I am just an old fart and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the car. I will arrange for the car to stay overnight if the problem does not occur during the service. Morning startup usually presents the problem.

Relief teaching

The school year has started and my daughter Helen has not been appointed to a school for the first time in seven years. She is a 'Temp' and has not secured permanent status with the W.A. Education Department. Becoming a permanent employee with the Education Department these days is quite a business. There are basically three methods available to get permanency. One is to 'go bush' to a country town for a few years. This path has some disadvantages because the preferred country postings on the coast are usually filled by teachers who have become permanent residents in these places. If she were to get a wheatbelt town posting, there is also the chance that after the usual three years there it would be difficult to get a placement back in the city. There are many teachers in this situation.

Another method is to opt to teach for three years at a disadvantaged, hard to staff, school which is not a great option. And the last avenue is to apply to one of the newly created 'Independent' government schools. These schools can recruit staff independently of the Education Department's staffing department. I imagine there are cases of 'friends' getting employment at lots of these schools.

Helen has delivered her resume to around 40 schools within 12 kilometres of her house putting her name down for relief teaching. At the beginning of the school year there is not much work for relief teachers as most staff do not take 'sickies' for a few weeks into the term. She should start to get work later in Term 1.

I had a most pleasant visit by my cousin Ann and husband Doug from BC in Canada. They stayed overnight and we had a BBQ with daughter Helen, hubby James and brother Graham. Yesterday we went for lunch at the Fremantle fishing boat harbour and had a drive around the interesting spots around Fremantle and up the River to Mosman's Bay. They visit Australia about every 2 -3 years.