DNA Ancestry test

Today  I received the results of my Ancestry DNA test.  It is nothing too exciting.  I figured that as both sides of my family; the Locks and the Lees emigrated to Australia from England around 1900 the results would show a Western European/Irish connection.  The lower part of Britain including Somerset is highlighted and that is where the my Locks originated.   Before that no clues.

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The possible relatives shown are contactable

but mine are rated as possible/probable relatives (40% at best)

Both of my families emigrated to the Australian

east coast and then moved to Western Australia.

Of interest was a list of approximately 8,800

probable distant cousins with an email portal

to contact any one, or all of those named. I have

already mailed one person with a familiar name.

A few of the many.

Holter Monitor

This morning I had a Holter Monitor attached to areas near my heart to record heart rate and rhythm over 24 hours.  I had previously had an ECG (electrocardiograph) which showed some abnormalities.

I am having this test to get answers as to whether my heart beat/rhythm is likely to put me in Stroke country.      Results tomorrow.

Gopher repair

A friend has had a small accident on her Gopher (Go For).  A plastic shroud has been broken and I am doing a rough repair job on it.  Should be back in action in a couple of days.

I am not sure what these things are called in other places, but I believe Gopher is an Australian description/name.

This is the first time I have driven a Gopher and I am looking forward to owning one in the not too distant future; not!!

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A few more old pics

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HMS Adamant and subs

Fremantle Harbour 1945

                                         

US subs and mothership

Fremantle 1945

                                   

British migrants disembarking

at Fremantle 1947

HMS Victorious departing with Australian

war brides

  

                               

Citrus

My lemon tree is producing hundreds of juicy fruit and I have been giving them away to friends.  Last year it bore so much fruit a branch broke off.   I guess I should prune it back sometime.

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I also had a Tahitian Lime tree in a pot and of course, it eventually became root bound.  So, I dug a hole near the lemon tree, prepared the ground and transplanted it.  I was worried that it might not like that treatment, but with constant heavy watering it has survived well and is showing new flowers and small fruit.

Just a few photos

Just a few photos...Click to enlarge

My father with Helen

and Martin at a Haus Tambaran

1973 Sepik District, PNG.

1923 Bugatti at Molsheim  Auto Museum France

Fred C Ainsworth USN supply ship

Fremantle Harbour 1945

Kalgoorlie goldfields.

Exchange Hotel Kalgoorlie

Western Australia

Personal Effects

I have for some years subscribed to a daily edition of The Writer’s Almanac.   It is a quite wonderful birthday call on writers and poets.    It is a free subscription and I recommend it to you.

I am not big on poetry, but the following is my all time favourite.

Personal Effects

By Frannie Lindsay

For once not arguing,

we divide among ourselves

the things she left; her mother’s mothers’s

swan brooch, her pilled and odorless

brown coat, sturdy Timex,

the night shirt she mended

with clashing thread.

The morning before, I sat

by my mother’s bed

to ask her what she would like

the paper to say about her

life. It was like bring read a story 

backwards, the reader becoming 

the child afraid to fall asleep.

With the shift nurse helping 

and some baby oil, and trembling

the way he did the day he slipped it on,

my father bends over 

the quieted body I thought I saw breathe,

and slides off her wedding ring.

Styptic Pencil

A few days ago I cut my face shaving.   Even resorting to the Norman Gunston method, I could not stop the blood flow.

Norman Gunston

So I patched the cut up with tissue paper and went to a pharmacy to buy a Styptic Pencil, which as I remember from years ago,  could stop an arterial haemorrhage. 

It worked immediately and I was reminded of the generic name for a Styptic Pencil; a jesus stick.  Even though I am losing some words at my age, the sudden very sharp pain of the JS being applied brought back a loud JEEESUS!

Costly non-electric clothes drier

In January 1975 we were on leave from Papua New Guinea and decided to buy a grand old colonial house in the suburb of Bicton.  We were the second owners of this house which was built in 1897. 

At the end of ’75 we returned to Western Australia and moved into our house.  It was still partially furnished with some interesting pieces including a piano, appliances, furniture and personal letters and diary of the previous owners.  A simple clothes drier was in the laundry and I have found the same one on a site in the USA for sale for AU$ 942.00.  It seems that the drier is almost 100 years old and still in good shape.  

'Tell 'em they're dreamin'

Joan gets a new resting place

Yesterday we; daughter Helen and I, transferred soil from a plant pot to a larger pot and planted a new rose in the new pot.

The original pot’s soil contained my wife Joan’s ashes and in shifting the pot in the garden, roots were damaged and that rose eventually died.   We visited a nursery and found an identical rose, planted the rose in the larger pot.  Had a glass of champagne with Joan and Helen reminded me that when it is time, I shall join Joan in the new pot.

The rose is an ebb tide florabunda 

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New rose

The original rose

Farewell Albert

My long time friend Albert passed away last Wednesday.  We had know each other for 55 years  starting when we were Heads of our respective primary schools in Papua New Guinea.  My school was on a beach around 15 miles from Albert's, and on weekends I would often cycle along the beach to spend time with Albert in his one room accommodation.  After a few years we both transferred to different areas of PNG, but caught up again each time our paths crossed back in Australia.  Albert lived in Sydney and I live on the other side of Australia in Perth.  In recent years we regularly kept in touch with Skype and Apple FaceTime.  

About a year ago Albert was diagnosed with Leukaemia and we talked up until a week ago; he from a palliative care unit.   He was 78, just a year older than me.

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Albert in 1962 in Papua

Western Australian elections

Well, the state elections for this state of Western Australia are over and the Labor party has won in what has been correctly called a landslide.  The incumbent government of the Liberal Party took a punt on joining with a very controversial party, One Nation, in a preference deal.  One Nation  is a Donald Trump style baby party with the party’s leader, Pauline Hanson espousing Donald Trump like pronouncements about race issues, vaccination and an embarrassing praise of Vladimir Putin etc etc.

A major road project commenced in the lead up to election day is to be cancelled in the next couple of days.  

The controversy about this road project is a fair bit of NIMBY (not in my back yard) both from for and against people.  The project was a plan to ease trucking traffic on a highway and extend a freeway road through some wetlands and through a suburb with a six lane highway estimated to serve around 5,000 trucks a day. 

Part of the bush-land clearing for the 5 kilometre freeway extension known as Roe8.

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6 years

Saturday 25th was the 6th anniversary of my dear wife Joan’s death.  

Is 'anniversary' the right word?  Anniversary sounds like a celebratory word.

I miss her terribly and still feel her presence in our house.

Martin, Helen, Joan and Kev. Circa 1985

Sladjana

Today I met a young lady named Sladjana who is physically disabled with Transverse Mialitis.  She is 19 and virtually paralysed from the neck down.  She was visiting a lady who was her long time carer and accompanied by a young community support worker. 

Sladjana is known as Budgie to her carers.   Her wheelchair is amazing. She can control it with a chin control and when using her laptop she has a remote control mouse giving her all the actions of hands and mouse. There are other aids on the wheel chair such as breathing assist etc etc. 

I am unsure what actually I was invited along for, but I believe I may have interested her in writing a blog about her condition and her day-to-day struggles and wins.  I directed her to my blog and will wait to see if she likes the idea and wants help setting one up.  

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'Budgie' with computer mouse control

With community support from Clover

Budgie is intelligent, computer literate and artistic.

Regular medical checkup

Over the last week I have had some regular medical tests done....bloods and heart ECG. 

The blood test had a couple of pointers....cholesterol up; iron up and slightly elevated blood pressure even though I take a drug for hypertension.  

The ECG let my GP know that there is problem with irregular heart beats.  He decided to send me for a 2D/Doppler Echocardiogram.  I had that yesterday. The procedure took around 40 minutes and around 40 images were collected.  I will return to my GP on Friday morning to hear what is next.

I don’t receive any age pension, so I missed out on a state pensioner discount of the fee, however Medicare here is good and I paid $480.00 for the procedure and medicare will give me back $196.10.   

PS: My heart seems to be OK for an old fart.  The irregular heart beat will be looked at with a 24 hour portable ECG monitor.

Pilfering

Bunnings Hardware is a very successful Australian hardware chain.  I hope they continue being successful as I have  a moderately large WesFarmers/Bunnings share package.

There is a Bunnings store near me and I buy there regularly.   One thing I have noticed over the years is the senseless pilfering.  It is especially noticeable in the gardening machinery aisles.  I am unsure if the thieving of mower and other petrol engine parts is done by repairmen or if there are people who just like to be bastards.  Click images to enlarge.

In this aisle I counted 18 bits stolen

fuel caps are popular

Carburetor parts taken

This one also lost its chain

Firing up the pizza oven

Helen and James have fired up their just completed pizza oven. After 24 hours  since firing it up, it is still very warm to the touch. Great result!

Pizza oven

My son-in-law James and daughter Helen, are soon to try out their pizza oven.  James bought a builder’s kit and the oven is nearing completion. As soon as the dome is bricked in the surface is to be plastered with a heat resistant plaster and then the sand mound removed from beneath the bricks.  Small plastic spacers hold the fire bricks at the correct angle to follow the curve of the dome whilst cementing them in.

Looking good!

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A good idea

Daughter Helen bought a pasta maker and yesterday gave it its initial tryout.   It was from K Mart for the princely sum of $15.  The box did not include instructions and Helen had to google for instructions to get started.   I went to her house to see how it worked.

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It makes several different types of pasta and works quite well. Certainly easier than mixing pasta dough by hand.   I am astounded that a complex, well made little machine which does work well, costs so little.   Helen reports that it made a very nice spaghetti and she is trying other pasta types today.

Must get one to put in the cupboard with other gear, like coffee makers, electric frypans, deep fryers, juicers etc etc.

On second thoughts it has to be the most speccie Xmas/birthday present @ $15.

PS:  Went to Kmart(s) and found none.  We were advised it was a clearance sale and that line has been discontinued. Bummer!

PPS: A friend of daughter Helen has just found several pasta machines at another K Mart store and is buying me one.

Back into homebrewing

I am bottling a homebrew of beer today.   It has been some years since I last brewed and I did like the flavours I could produce in my own recipes.  There is a bit of mucking around, but I feel it is worth it in the end.   28 X 750ml bottles will sit around maturing for maybe three or four weeks before I can sample the brew. It is not being done to save money, however Australian beer prices are rather high.

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Adolph is still popular

I have just watched a rather poor documentary about the rise of Adolph Hitler.

In 2016, his manifesto, Mein Kampf, was reprinted.

‘The manifesto has sold about 75,000 copies and spent 35 weeks on the German "Der Spiegel" best-seller list in 2016, The New York Times reported. The book had been banned in Germany for seven decades; the state of Bavaria held the copyright until the end of 2015 and continually thwarted efforts to republish the book. But the copyright expired Dec. 31, 2015, and the new edition of the book was published immediately after.’

I believe that the interest in Mein Kampf is worrying and the philosopher Bertolt Brecht said.....“For though the world has stood up and stopped the bastard, the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”

Aunty Violet has passed

My aunt Violet died peacefully on Christmas Day at age 100.  She was my father’s sister.  As far as I know, she did not smoke, drink or swear during her long life.   Don't think I'll reach 100.

She is in centre of this photo I took of her extended family on her 100th birthday celebration party.

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My New Year's resolution

My New Year’s resolution is to have a chuck-out of old computer gear.

I have been reluctant to toss out hundreds of RAM (random access memory) sticks up until this date because I have been working on a little project which will have a huge bank of these sticks with a wireless connection to what is left of the memory of my brain.   Could work!?

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RAM sticks

At present I have 17 computers to give to needy people and I guess most will

go when school starts again.

Hard drives etc etc.

Bringing the voices back

Our son Martin has been working on the cassette tape transfer for a few hours so far.  It would seem that my late wife Joan was further away from the microphone than I was and her voice is there, but very low.  Martin is separating the sound tracks and going to even out the levels and then record the whole tape and transfer it to CD.  

The tape is at least 42 years old and during the current process, has snapped several times near the take up spool.  A fiddly job to re-attach the tape end each time, but Martin’s hands are a lot less shaky than mine and he easily does the job.

Should be completed this weekend.

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Voices from the past

Last week a good friend, Dennis, found a cassette tape sent by my wife Joan and I, just 42 years ago.  It was an update on our time teaching in Papua New Guinea.  We both talked about our work and adventures in PNG and about our kids.  The kids had a few words to say also.  I have been able to hear a few minutes of the tape on a scratchy old player.   I decided to do a conversion from cassette tape to CD with help from our son Martin.  The specific computer Martin has set up for this conversion suddenly decided that it should die.  I managed to borrow an exact brand and model and transfer the hard drive to the borrowed machine.  Martin will use a program named Audacity to clean up noise and transfer the data to CD.     The borrowed computer and the dead one are both Windows machines of the same model IBM Lenovo.  I was very lucky to borrow it from a friend who is an IT teacher at a large senior high school.  

Had I not found the exact model there would have been a bit of work sourcing drivers for sound, video, mouse etc etc; as there are so many manufacturers of PCs which use different drivers.  Apple, being the sole manufacturer of Apple computers have very few problems with drivers etc.

Tomorrow Martin will visit and will make about 6 CDs.  Lets hope there is nothing too embarrassing on the tape.

I imagine that hearing my late wife Joan talking will be difficult.

Blast from the past

A few weeks ago I found a gift given to me by one of my students going back some 50 years ago.  Herby VanDongen was a pleasant lad and his father made these cuff links which Herby gave me.  I must confess that I have never owned a shirt which used cuff links and I’m guessing that most people these days would not know what cuff links are/were used for.

I thought I would look up Herby and find out what he has been doing over the past 50 years.  I found Herby in the White Pages and gave him a call.   He is a successful business owner running an agricultural machinery business.  I am going to visit his business this Friday.

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The coins used in the cuff links are a Sixpence and a Threepence.  In the days of non- decimal currency, such coins had names.  The sixpence was called a Zac and the threepence (thrupence) was called a Tray.  

Goodbye Brian

My nephew Brian was aged 42 when he suddenly decided to take his own life in the backyard of his home in Mandurah.  His mother, Dorothy was visiting her daughter and husband in San Francisco when she heard the news. Dorothy, Katherine and Rick immediately flew back to Western Australia. The funeral service and wake was held last Wednesday.  It was a large funeral with Brian’s friends and relatives and Dorothy’s friends attending.   I am unsure about the background to this tragic event.  Brian’s wife Lilli, will be facing a difficult time.  

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Edison Phonograph 1911 model

I met my dear wife Joan in 1965 when I was posted to Bridgetown High School in the state’s south west. Joan was also on staff at BHS.  We were married in January 1966 and had 46 great years together.

Whilst sharing a house with two other male teachers in Bridgetown I found bits of what turned out to be an Edison Phonograph.  I realised that there were cosmetic parts missing and spent several months in my spare time rebuilding it and making missing parts.

I found a single, cylinder record and it was played regularly as a test for some of the repairs.   On completion of the project a student told me that his grandfather had some records and that I was welcome to them.  The lad brought in a large box containing 110 records in good condition.  I thanked his grandfather and still have the phonograph and the records. 

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A bit like me...old but still working

My dear Gay brother

I have just watched a 450th (?) re-run of a MASH episode about a gay soldier in the MASH unit.  It was quite emotional for me as my (our) brother was gay and lived a double life for quite few years before he came out.  His siblings, me, my sister and younger brother, all loved Robert.  He and we, knew he was different from an early age and I guess our parents also knew, but never acknowledged it because it certainly wasn’t kosher to do that back then.

Robert, joined the airforce and did a cooks course in NSW.  He graduated and after working at restaurants in NSW, applied for and won a posting as the chef for the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Rodan Cutler.  He worked there at Government House for a few years before moving to the United States, where he was for some time the chef at the oldest restaurant in the U.S., Fraunces Tavern in NY.

We visited Fraunces Tavern in 1990. Beautiful!

My brother died in our family lounge room surrounded by family and two friends from NY.  

I am sorry that some people will not understand this story.

Chicken Pox??

Our daughter Helen is off work due to a serious rash on her upper body and arms.  She went to her GP and he was unsure whether it is Chicken Pox or just some allergy.  Helen has had Chicken Pox before, but it is possible to contract it a second time.   Her pre-primary class has had seven kids away from class and she is unsure whether her rash is anything associated with something that is ‘going round’.    Vaccination is a problem with some parents and Helen would hate to be in the situation of spreading a potentially dangerous disease such as CP.   She will see what things look like at the start of next week before returning to work.

A bit too gaudy for me.

My daughter Helen and husband James recently visited France and Spain.  Looking at one of Helen’s photographs I was told the building pictured was designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.  He was a celebrated architect in his time for his theme park like buildings and colours.  See some of his work here.

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