engeful act

Unwrapping the morning paper, I toss the plastic wrap aside, unroll the paper, fold and twist it into a readable shape and open out the front page. I read the headlines, look at the accompanying photograph and toss the paper down on the floor. I sit in the chair, disbelieving.

Yesterday, a man dropped his almost five year old daughter off the Westgate Bridge into the River Yarra, 58 metres below. This dreadful event happened in the morning peak hour traffic as it crawled across the bridge and motorists around were unable to prevent its happening. According to news reports this man is estranged from his wife, works in IT and lives at the far end of Our Street. There is a very good chance that his days of living in Our Street are now finished.

I tossed the paper on the floor in disbelief because when I looked at the photograph I immediately recognised this man. At the Social Club, because it is an area open to the public, all sorts of people use the computers. We have people from a variety of ethnicities; people who live on the edge of society for whatever reason and who often have mental health issues; people who roundly abuse you if you look sideways at them and one woman who was known for spitting on people who crossed her.

Then there are the users of mobile phones who take their calls in the library and who, at the top of their voices, inflict the details of their personal lives on all within earshot. Sometimes I have been known to sidle up to them and ask them I they might consider toning their conversation down a bit. The man at the centre of yesterday’s events was one of the mobile phone users who seemed to be a little lacking in the social skills area and not able to understand that when the person on the other end of the phone said “No.” they meant no.

On the one occasion when I asked him to tone down the volume he did so immediately and seemed to be totally unaware that his conversation was being listened to by everyone within earshot.

If anyone had suggested to me that he would, at some time in the future, carry out the deed he did yesterday I would have considered they were having flights of fancy. As for what happened yesterday morning, you would have had to not only been in the vehicle on the way back to the city from the beach house prior to the incident, but also had access to the workings of this man’s mind.

It’s one thing to be at odds with your estranged wife but the idea that this might have been , as the papers have suggested, a way of getting back at her is unconscionable.

eather report

Another heat wave has arrived on our doorstep. After three days of reasonable temperatures, the thermometer has suddenly taken a leap upwards and we have endured three consecutive days of above forty degrees Celsius.

Combined with low humidity and overnight temperatures, where yesterday’s temperature at 3 am was 29C and last night’s low was just a shade under 26C, sleep has been elusive. There has been much tossing and turning, the fan has been whirring away through the night and applications of a small damp towel have been pursued in the vain hope of cooling things down enough to grab a few minutes real sleep.

Today’s temperature was the last gasp; 45.1C. Tomorrow doesn’t bear thinking about and I mentally run through a list of places where it might be possible to get some respite; a movie theatre, the National Gallery and the State Library are three cool places – in the real sense of the word - that spring readily to mind.

I read about the Chill on Ice Bar in the city where 30 tonnes of ice make up the walls, chairs and sculptures of a drinking hole and where the customers are limited to 20 minutes at a time. Any problem with damp clothes as a result of sitting on iced chairs would be solved in less than a minute outside in the sun today.

Quite frankly, I’m totally over this hot weather.

ternal blinds

There’s nothing like a long stretch of high temperatures to make me again consider the idea of getting external blinds.

I’ve spent quite some time reading about methods of keeping rooms cool, both externally and internally. It seems that once the window glass is allowed to heat up then the transference of that heat to the room behind the window is inevitable. It can be reduced a little by having heavy, dark curtains inside but by far the preferred method is to stop the heat from penetrating the glass in the first place.

None of the windows in our building are double glazed so the current trend for light blinds and no curtains does little to keep the heat out. Some of the apartments have double blinds, one that allows light into the room but prevents anyone outside being able to see in and the second blind which cuts the outside light and the ability to see into a room from the outside. Very few people have heavy curtains and anyone who has done renovations and wants to present the latest and most desirable interior design has not only ditched the old fashioned idea of curtains but have also removed the pelmets which act as a deterrent to the cold/hot air entering through any exposed glass.

And so with the brave new march towards highly desirable interiors with their up-to-the-minute accessories the way has been paved for the sellers of air-conditioning units to do a roaring trade. Residents, coming home to an oven-like apartment after spending the day in a cool air-conditioned workplace immediately rush out and purchase the latest and often greatest in air conditioners. In the last few years the design of air-conditioners has moved forward in leaps and bounds, away from the old box types that roared away in the window frame to ones that now sit happily on a balcony and work with hardly a murmur, cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. There is of course a price to pay for presenting the latest image to the world, and it arrives each quarter with the electricity bill.

I’m all for keeping the heat out in the summer and so external blinds appeal to me. I aim to have one fitted to an east facing window which draws cries of disbelief as the norm is to have these blinds on a north or west facing wall of a building. I do not have an exterior north wall and my only west facing window is shaded most of the day by the upper story of the building while the east facing room gets the sun right from the time it peeps over the tree tops.

The greatest obstacle to overcome, after robbing a bank to pay for it, will be getting approval of the colour for the blind from the Owners’ Corporation. We have some old-fashioned dark brown and cream striped blinds at the west facing front of the building, fitted about forty years ago which I might just be expected to install. Styles and fabrics have changed a lot since then and I have seen neutral coloured blinds that allow some light in while still keeping out the heat and they really appeal to me.

As we are now more than half way through this summer I will put the idea on hold and see how the weather shapes up through next summer.

oung concert

In all the aforesaid posts, full of drama and whingeing about the heat, I have neglected the big occasion on Wednesday night, the much anticipated Neil Young concert.

Luckily it was on the first day of the heat wave and even though Neighbour Heather and I thought we would expire while we walked from the tram stop to the Myer Music Bowl in the early evening we didn’t.

People converged on the venue from all directions and we plodded steadily up the hill towards the entrance. We were lucky in getting a young man on security at the gate who understood that we weren’t going to behave badly with our bottles of water and hurl them at some-one else in the crowd on some crazy whim. Our instincts for survival were centred on lasting the evening without expiring and any throwing of water would have been over our own heads and not over some-one else’s.

The concert was the best, we were high up on the lawn (read dead grass there) and although the figures on the stage were hardly recognizable the voice certainly was and I was thrilled to hear live some of my favourite songs. The crowd covered all age groups and everybody got into the spirit of things though I have to admit I wilted after a while and had to sit down.

All too soon the last song had been sung and we all filed out in the heat of the night and made our way to wherever we were going - which in the case of NH and I was to the nearest tram stop and then home.

nquestionably delighted

Each month a magazine arrives from the local bookseller spruiking their wares for the coming month. Its arrival is most welcome and I spend more time than I should reading about the different books on offer and bemoaning the fact that I can’t afford to buy all those tempting hardbacks and paperbacks.

Imagine my delight when I come across a book that looks as though it has my name all over it. Its title is the Little Red Writing Book and following hot on the heels of the writing workshop I attended last month I tell myself that I should investigate the possibilities between its covers without further ado. I find it is an Australian book written by an Australian writer; I have a quick peek at it in the bookshop and decide that I will borrow it from the library. If I feel I can’t live without it the next step will be to search around under the sofa cushions and through every jacket pocket to see if I can come up with the wherewithal to buy it.

I borrow it from the library and before I reach the end of the first chapter I am committed to purchase. Any book, especially one on writing, starting out as a walk along the track to Fergy’s paddock for inspiration, is going to be the book for me. Of course I am biased, as Fergy’s paddock is to be found on the shores of a lake in the most beautiful national park in the whole wide world. I did say I am biased.

I read on. The printed words speak to me in a language I can understand and there is any number of ideas to play around with and exercises to try out. It is both challenging and encouraging and I can hardly wait to try out the first simple writing task. There are chapters on craft and style and structure all of which are gaping holes in my writing knowledge.

A whole new writing world is waiting between the covers and I am off to the book shop as soon as I have stuffed the cushions back on the sofa and pushed the jackets, all with their pockets turned completely inside out, back inside the wardrobe.

ennis time






It’s that time of the year – it’s tennis time.

You know it’s tennis time because you hear about it on the radio, read about it in the papers and if (unlike me) you were a person who watches TV, there would be plenty of on and off the court coverage there too. You would also notice the sponsor vehicles whizzing about town, carrying players, officials, and for all I know, the mother of the driver who needs a lift to the shops, on the way to collecting or carrying the next important person to be ferried to the next destination of their day.

I was amused to read earlier this month that new entertainments for tennis patrons are to be introduced. Music and cabaret no less. Apparently there has to be something for everyone and as long as they can draw people through the gates it doesn’t matter much whether they come to watch tennis or watch cabaret. It’s the gate takings that count; and the more takings there are to count the better. For my money, in the current heat wave I think they would draw huge crowds if they supplied portable, personal air conditioning suits to keep the customers cool.

This year so far we have had a streaker livening up a break in the doubles match being played by the Williams sisters and the obligatory brawl between the Bosnian and Serbian fans who, in the long tradition of their forbears, cannot resist carrying on old grudges even though they are far in time and place from the country of their ancestors. This recent fracas resulted in thirty people being asked to leave Flinders Park.

The Dokic family have been subjected to close scrutiny in the press and every particular of their supposed approach to the game of tennis has been examined in minute detail. Outbursts, bridges burned and the on again, off again aspects of Jelena’s tennis appearances are put under the microscope. A fickle lot, the local tennis press, if she does well she is ‘ours’ and if she doesn’t she is given the thumbs down. I yawn and turn the page.

Scare tactics are to the fore again; this is another perennial. We will lose the Australian Open to another country. We read there is interest from China, Dubai and Spain; China certainly has a big enough population to ensure good gate takings, Dubai has the petro dollars to back up their stand and Spain at least has a few class players which is more than can be said for Dubai and China right now. We do not hear however, that any of these countries want to usurp Wimbledon where England have had about the same success with winning players as Australia has of recent times. Shock, horror!! What would we do with a huge empty stadium each January? Have another pop concert, that’s what.

It’s day 10 today and as I scan the list of players in the men’s quarter finals I recognise only half of them. I recognise even fewer of the women’s quarter finalists, apart the always-there Serena Williams and Jelena Dokic, who of course we are claiming as ‘ours’, now she is doing so well.

A few more days and it will be all over for another twelve months.

ecognising people

Australia Day, celebrated on January 26th each year, means different things to different people.



It is the day which celebrates the arrival of the First Fleet at Port Jackson in the charge of Captain Arthur Philip in 1788 and the establishment of the Colony of New South Wales, the first penal colony in Australia; it should be noted here that not much mention is made of the penal colony aspect at contemporary Australia Day celebrations.

For most people it means a day off work, a day to go to the beach, to the races (see the next post) or to fire up the ubiquitous Australian barbie; at this time of the year and under the current weather conditions this is often done with a match to the gas barbie and only after paying strict attention to the fire danger rating for the day.

The indigenous people of this nation however often hold an opposing view of the day being seen as a day of celebration. Aboriginal people have been known to turn their backs on the Australian flag and to use the terms Invasion Day or Survival Day; for them the arrival of white settlement sounded the death knell for a way of life, as they knew it up to that point in their history.


It is also a day in which Australians who have contributed in some major way to improving the quality of life of the people, communities, industry and the environment in this country are given public recognition.



This year I would like to briefly mention two people who have made enormous contributions to the welfare and rights of the indigenous people of this country. Yesterday, the Australian of the Year was announced and this award went to Mick Dodson who has done much to work to improve the standing of his fellow indigenous peoples. Mick was orphaned at age 10 and with a stroke of good fortune was able to avoid the fate of so any of his people who became known as the stolen generation, and receive an education along with his brother Pat, at Monivae College, a boarding school in Hamilton, Victoria. Mick went on to study law at Monash University and became Victoria’s first aboriginal barrister in 1981. Presently he is Professor of Law at Australian National University where he also holds the post of Director of the National Centre for Indigenous Studies.

Since graduating from Monash and taking up his current position at the ANU he has been involved in assisting the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1988, which led to shocking and outrageous revelations about the treatment of aboriginal people held in custody.

He was later co-author of the report ‘Bringing Them Home’; this report dealt with the treatment of aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families and the dark, hidden history surrounding these people, now better known as the ‘Stolen Generation’.




Faith Bandler, who was awarded the Order of Australia Companion for the advancement of human rights, is the second person I want to write about today. Faith Bandler, now 90, has been many things over the years including civil rights campaigner, mother and wife of a WW2 Jewish refugee; she was a driving force in the 1967 referendum on Aboriginal Australians. This was a Federal referendum to strike out discriminatory sections from the constitution; at that time for example, aboriginals were not counted in the national census.

Faith also spent much time and energy on striving for the recognition of her father’s Vanuatuan people who were ‘black-birded’ from the Pacific Islands to indentured work in Australia. In 1901, on the introduction of the White Australia Policy, these same people who had been brought here against their will were deported.

There is much more to be said and learned about these two people and I have only touched on a few important milestones in their lives.

maller crowd

While deserving people in this country have been getting recognition for their efforts the undeserving people have been getting on with their lesser lives.

Brilliant sunshine and blue skies beamed down on Ms Soup and Pearlie today as they took themselves off to use up their last entitlement as members of the HRPRC. The last meeting is held at Kyneton on Australia Day; there’s no messing around with the time frame at our racing club – it’s all over within the month.

We noticed the numbers were down this year, both in the members stand and in the public enclosure. There was no problem getting seating in the stand and there weren’t nearly the same number of entertaining people in the public enclosure. Last year there were quite a few people wearing the flag, often in a form of dress, including one woman who had fashioned several small flags into an elaborate dress and jacket. This might well be a hanging offence in some countries, but on Australia Day at the races it only draws a few smiles and maybe some criticism about the fit. This year there were only a few hats decorated with flags and here and there the green and gold of a bunch of young men who seemed to be in a state of confusion about whether they were at the races or the cricket. This confusion seemed to increase as the afternoon wore on and the quantity of liquor they drank increased.

I had only a couple of bets, we bought our lunch and drinks from the members’ catering area and my biggest disappointment of the day was the non-appearance of the ice-cream vendor from a specialist dairy in the western district of Victoria.

Leaving before the last race left us with time to have a coffee and a look about in a gallery in the town, where Pearlie Shirley discovered a print she would like to have hanging on her living room wall. She will make a decision later in the week and one of her work colleagues who lives in the area will be able to collect it and deliver it to her work place.

lanning ahead






When you want to plan something with Pearlie Shirley, you have to make the plan well in advance. The very idea of spontaneity is an anathema; she is an organized person, whose life set out in a very structured format.

And so it has come to pass that after much consulting of diaries and engagement planners etc., we now have a space in April where we will be able to take one day and run off to central Victoria. As well a time and date constraints, there are weather constraints to be considered; hot days are out of the question and the cold winter days get the thumbs down too. Free time, when you are working is all too precious to frittered away doing something frivolous; that something has to fit within strict parameters.

This little touring idea came about when Pearlie Shirley gave me a present some time back; a book that sets out several drives of interest within Victoria. The one I have chosen is one of the shorter ones and it will take us through the Central Goldfields area with plenty of opportunities for coffee and stops along the way.

All I have to do now is remember when April rolls around that this date has already been set in stone. And hope that the autumn weather is on its best behaviour.

uiet downstairs



The family downstairs has gone away on holiday. Where once the mother would take the child and they might be away for anything up to six months, now that the boy has started school that holiday pattern has been abruptly curtailed.

The mother has been working nights until this week but now she and the husband, the boy and the father’s best mate who also lives in our apartments and his wife ( sounds like the title of that film, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover or whatever it is called… ) are off to Thailand for four weeks. The mate and his wife will visit her folks, the downstairs couple and the boy will visit the boy’s grandparents and then they will all meet up to get together for the last few weeks at their favourite beach resort.

In the meantime I will have four weeks of absolute bliss while they are away. No more banging doors; sometimes I think they have some sort of door-banging competition going on downstairs, in which the three of them vie to see who can slam the most doors in their apartment in the shortest time.

Quiet rules, right now.

verhead






As I walked down the north side of the building this morning I looked up and what should I see but a clutch of hot air balloons drifting overhead.

This is a common sight in Melbourne at this time of the year, but I have to be in the right place at the right time to see them. Often my view is obstructed by buildings and once I am out on the street there is a much clearer view of the sky.

This morning’s lot were coming down low over the river and heading off in a south-westerly direction. As I watch them I often wonder where they will be landing; seeing a landing would make my day.

I think hot air balloons are the greatest; they give my day a kick start when I catch a glimpse of them in the early morning.

aking history






My Daily Read has a special lift-out today to mark the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States.

What a momentous day.

Photographs in this lift-out show crowds of people thronging Washington Mall with the Capitol at the far end. Another photograph shows the Capitol in close up; such a white, white building, draped with red, white and blue and stars and stripes. To the right of the photo a battery of cameras and press photographers; in the centre ordered rows of dignitaries and the balcony on which the new President stands. Below are the music-makers of the day, the band, the standard bearers and the conductor standing ramrod straight.

I turn over the pages and read an article in which Quincy Jones writes about the long journey of his people culminating in today’s event. There are other articles, one from Maureen Dowd and there are commentaries from other writers here in Australia, including Waleed Aly.

To mark this special occasion I put aside my normal contempt for television and climb the stairs to Neighbour Heather’s apartment where we perch on stools in front of her kitchen television and watch the inauguration. It looks to be a bleak, cold day in Washington DC and people are well rugged up, with hats, gloves, boots and long winter coats to the fore.

I wait with interest to see how this will all pan out in the long term; in spite to today’s euphoria I can’t help but think it will be a long, tough road ahead.

ancy-bird

Nancy Bird Walton died last week at the grand old age of 93. She was a much admired person who contributed a great deal to aviation in its early years in this country and paved the way for women pilots of the future.

Fascinated by planes from an early age Nancy never wavered on her path to the skies and after eventually overcoming parental objections learned to fly as a pupil at Kingsford Smith’s flying school, at age 17 in 1933. After gaining her pilot’s licence to carry passengers at age 19 – the first woman pilot in Australia to do so - she travelled around country shows and race meetings giving joy-rides to passengers.

This, however, was a limited way to earn money to keep the plane and the person flying it and later she was offered the opportunity to be the first pilot employed by the Far West Children’s Health Scheme. She accepted this post with alacrity and spent the next three years stationed at Bourke in the far west of New South Wales doing charter work in between her flights for the FWCHS in order to meet the financial commitments of owning a plane.

It was at this time while doing charter work out of Cunnamulla, in far west Queensland, that the following took place; it is quoted from a page in her autobiography, Nancy Bird – My God! It’s a Woman, as an explanation of the title and is indicative of the generally held view of women pilots at the time.

In 1936, I was the only charter pilot in Cunnamulla, Queensland. Charles Russell, a well known grazier, was visiting one of his properties when he was marooned by flood waters. I walked into his agent’s office just as Charles was being told by phone that the aircraft was being sent to rescue him. The agent told Charles to give the pilot landing instructions, and then handed me the telephone. I took the receiver and said ‘Hello’. There was a stunned silence and then a horrified voice uttered, ‘My God! It’s a woman’.

Nancy went on to do many things throughout her life connected with aviation: travelling through Europe gathering aviation information just prior to WW2, founding the Australian Women’s Pilots Association, competing internationally in air races and amongst all that, marrying and raising two children.

At one time, when she was looking for someone to sponsor her in an air race, she approached Sir Hudson Fysh at Qantas. He was quite keen but the Public Relations department would have none of it; sponsoring a single engine aircraft in a transcontinental race in the United States? It was not what they considered to be safe flying.

Last year however, Qantas at last saw fit to recognise Nancy’s contribution to aviation and named their first A380 in her honour.

ightning about





In the wee small hours of this morning I woke to find an electrical storm in full flight heading east. The sound of approaching thunder woke me and I looked out the window.

My bedroom window faces east and the lightning played in brilliant forks, illuminating the spaces between the clouds. I love to be able to lie in bed and watch the forces of nature at work, secure in the knowledge that I will neither be rained on nor struck down by lightning.

The storm front moved through very quickly and although I heard several grumbles of thunder off in the distance there was not a drop of rain to be seen or heard and long before daylight appeared the skies had cleared completely.
.

nitted brain





I could scarcely believe my ears this morning as I listened to the 774 breakfast program and the talk was about a knitted brain. Some-one has actually set to work and knitted an anatomically correct model of the brain.

This some-one is one Dr Karen Norberg, a psychiatrist, and the whole project took a year with separate sections being knitted and then brought together. I think it is brilliant and now I want to knit one myself. It might be a better option that the brain I am operating with currently.

Looking at the photo you can see there is a lot of painstaking work and the use of appealing colours make the finished article much less confronting than being faced with the real deal.



I hope this is not all too much information for you today…….



Right now I am off to search out a knitting pattern so I will have a standby brain for those days when my wits seem to have deserted me.

anuary






I was thinking today about the months of the year and the meanings they have for me.

So here follows a dissertation on the month of January.

By the time the last week in December rolls around I am ready to move on and looking forward to the start of a new year; after all it’s good to make a fresh start and hope springs eternal that the year which is just starting will be better, if needs be, than the year that is just finishing. Right, that deals with the delusional stuff quick smart.

Weather-wise January is a month where you can count on the days being really hot; many people are on holidays and they flock to the beach even on the hottest days and lie in the sun hoping to get the tan to end all tans, their photo in the paper and maybe even a melanoma sometime in the future.

The paper itself falls into holiday format and there is always the obligatory article on books to read at the beach as suggested by well known people in the world of literature and other important places. Time is spent searching the pages of the paper for familiar columns only to find they have apparently taken leave until the end of January.

Some small businesses close in January and I have to remind myself that a loaf of bread is now further away than a ten minute walk if I want something direct from the bake house and a cup of decent coffee may be even further away!!

This year I was looking forward to the traditional breakfast-at-a-posh-hotel followed by a day at the races at Hanging Rock. All that came together nicely, thank you very much. At the end of this month I am looking forward to going to my first ever real live Neil Young concert, a fabulous bookend to the month.

Shops being closed has its upside, temptation is removed and in three weeks I may not even be able to remember where I saw that dust-gathering & totally unnecessary object that I absolutely thought I had to have….

There is always the Australian Open – more commonly referred to in this town as ‘the tennis’; everyone here knows what you are talking about when you talk about ‘the tennis’. More about that later in January.

This year peoples’ optimism may be tempered by the doom and gloom surrounding the finances of the world generally. Hardly a day goes by where there is not a report of another financial disaster on the home or abroad scene and if there isn’t anything to report the papers make sure to remind us there may be some new financial disaster just around the corner.

Since I have pulled out the paltry remains of my superannuation which has taken a bit of a hit by the GFC I am not too concerned about the doom and gloom prognostications; whatever goes up and down in my super money now will be guided by my hand, not some bunch of financial cowboys in some other place.

Even with a sense of uncertainty around, it still looks like a reasonable year ahead from where I sit tapping away at the keyboard.





..

rrigation System







The recent burst of hot weather has prompted the GS-C to put their combined heads together and come up with an idea to improve the garden watering.

We have decided the place to install our first irrigation system – yes, we have ambitions and ideas about installing others- will be under the balconies at the front of the building. We are going to combine a cleanup and revamp with the irrigation system. This is a garden area where, instead of plants which you might expect to find in a garden, bits of broken concrete and half bricks and rubbish have accumulated over the years. It has the neglected look of public housing where no one gives a damn about anything, much less a garden.

This morning with the help of David, the man who comes to tidy up path edges, generally clean up the garden area and trim back overhanging bushes each fortnight, we got stuck into things and carted away heaps of broken concrete and brick pieces and other rubbish The GS-C had already been around to their favourite hardware store and purchased a length of irrigation hose and organized the other bits that are needed to keep it in place. David did all the cutting and joining and we used a long hose connected to a garden tap to make sure it actually worked.

There were a few moments of heated debate about how the hose should be laid; with the outlets towards the ground or on the top. Finally the vote was two to one in favour of the outlets being on top and the job was finished. All that remains is to cut a short length of hose that will connect the tap to the end of the irrigation hose and we will be in business.

In theory now all I have to do on the allocated watering days is to get up bright and early, scamper down the stairs and turn on the tap and the watering will look after itself for an hour or so. A much better idea, in my opinion, than lugging heavy watering cans about first thing in the morning.

The next step in the beautification plan is to get a few bags of wood chips, put down some newspapers to suppress the weeds and maybe see what hardy plants we can coax to grow there.

Anything would be an improvement.

eatwave conditions






Today has been a really very hot day. Yes, I know it is summer but yesterday the temperature was a pleasant 23 C and today it has jumped up to 37.6C. Quite a jump.

And more of the same is forecast for tomorrow. I am really looking forward to that…. The poor old garden is struggling along these days with the limited watering we are allowed to do on a twice weekly basis. And the less said about the vegetable garden the better.

Of course this hot weather always brings out the worst in our public transport services and a sorry lot of commuters had delayed and cancelled train services by the dozen today which would do very little to improve their outlook. As usual the blame game was played by the train operators who lay the blame for all the delays and cancellations at the feet of the State government who are responsible for the infrastructure; all the buckled lines and air conditioning units that no longer air condition and any problems that might relate to power faults and signal problems.

Tomorrow letters of outrage and accusations of government neglect of the public transport system will put in their mandatory appearance. There’s nothing like a spate of hot weather where commuters have been left wilting on train platforms at the end of the day to provoke letters of fury in the press the next day.

ourmet breakfast

I have this to say: the word gourmet would have to be one of the most over-used words in the English language, especially when used in connection with and on menus and other signage in places associated with food.

OK. Now that’s cleared the air there and allows me to continue with the abuse of the word when describing my breakfast this morning.



My intentions were the best when I started out but it didn’t take too long before the whole brave idea degenerated into the same old breakfast that appears most mornings of the week.


When I looked about in the kitchen this morning I was inspired by the array of summer fruit I had just waiting to be eaten. I decided I would prepare a small plate of fresh seasonal fruit s, one you might find served in the better class of bed and breakfast were you to be travelling around the state of Victoria right now.

I think I have some way to go before I achieve the required standard of presentation but I can assure you this lack of style did not diminish the taste. The lack of style is illustrated clearly by the pips still sitting in the orange slices. No self respecting bed and breakfast establishment would display such shortcomings in the food service line.After that little effort I reverted back to the normal breakfast of muesli, toast and a good old ‘cuppa tea’.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. This is the best time of the year for fresh fruit. The cherries and the blueberries came from the Farmers Market yesterday and are locally grown. I cannot say the same for the oranges; they are a supermarket purchase along with the kiwi fruit. The kiwi fruit, as its name suggests, is imported from New Zealand.

And that’s the January wrap for fresh fruit folks.

lowering gums

In spite of the lack of water over the past ten years, the flowering gums are looking spectacular this year.

Each time I walk up to the corner shopping centre I walk past these beautiful cream blossoms. The tree is covered in flowers and the dull buzz of the bees hangs in the air on a hot summer day.

I have taken a close-up here so you can see the amazing detail in the blossom.

Vibrant colours, like the red below, seem to shimmer in the heat of a hot summer day and in some country towns you will find avenues of these trees which greet people as they drive into town.

arnings shortfall





How ironic is this? I read today , with wry amusement, an article in the paper whose headline informs readers of the impact the falling use of water here in Melbourne will have on pushing up water prices. Yes, you understood it right folks; we put our best foot forward and make a huge effort to use less water in view of the dwindling water supply here in Melbourne and it is now highly possible we will be paying more money for our effort.

Ah the joys of privitisation. When a government (in this case, a state government) finds it is short of money it looks around to see what assets can be sold off to shore up the treasury. Water was the chosen asset in the mid-nineties and Melbourne Water was divided into three regional retail businesses and our water bills arrived not long after bearing the name of a private company. The Essential Services Commission, described as an independent regulator, oversees the pricing and regulations covering water here in Victoria and they recently sounded a warning about the possibility of price hikes.


Caught between a rock and a hard place, the water companies encourage their users to cut back on water as the drought continues while being fully aware that this will reduce their earnings. Add to that some large works in progress; a desalination plant – they don’t come cheap – the controversial north-south pipeline and the high cost of borrowing for capital works and the outlook is not rosy for the water companies.

Now to wait and see the outcome of this latest piece of news; one thing you can be sure of, water prices will not be going down.

iary search






The search for the ‘cheese’ diary was short and sweet this year.

I’ve got this diary business down to a fine art now. I don’t waste time running around here and there; I now cut straight to the chase and head for The Funky Stationery Shop. I breeze in the door and a quick look around the diary stand tells me that my search is over.

This year I am going for a vibrant colour and Sam is keeping a red diary on hold for me until I return, cash in hand, to buy it. I am pleased to be able to cross this off my list in early January.

Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for all the social engagement to roll in and I can fill in those blank spaces.

pproach

I’m taking a new approach to New Year’s resolutions this year.

It’s not a radical new approach; this year I am moving away from the idea of making a definite resolution about what I will undertake in the improvement line.

I am not setting myself boundaries and criteria that have to be adhered to without fail. There is no surer way for me to fail than to set really strict rules about the expectations I have for achieving objectives within a set time frame.

This year I am taking a more relaxed and laidback approach to how I might improve things. It’s as simple as selecting a handful of aims and looking at them every so often through the year to see whether any of these relaxed and laidback aims have been achieved. Or not. The ‘or not’ is the one that will be most likely to happen, based on past experience.

So that’s it. No threats about how I will punish myself if these aims are not achieved. Just the year rolling along and every so often I will consider my handful of aims and then consider whether the world will end and the sky fall in if I don’t see any miraculous changes.

I don’t need a crystal ball to foretell how all this will pan out.

ella

Bella is the downstairs cat. She is one of three felines who live in our apartment block and is the most recent arrival; recent means she moved here just over two years ago.

Anyone who likes cats loves Bella. She has thick, short, beautifully patterned and coloured fur and a friendly disposition. A horse stood on her tail when she lived in the country earlier in her life, but the remnant she is left with doesn’t impede her in any way, especially in the hunting skills department.

When she first came to live here she was in the bad books for killing birds in the garden and dragging the dead carcasses into the carpeted stairways where the birds were dismembered and feathers scattered all round. A few words with her owner saw the bells on her collar increase both in number and volume. Problem solved.

Bella is also a poster girl for the original curious cat. If there is an open door, whether it is a car door or the storage room door, she will be there checking things out. I was in the store room sorting a few things out one day and Bella was hanging about and poking her head into the cupboard. I closed the door and half an hour later realised I hadn’t seen her in the garden. I opened the door and there she was with a look on her face that asked what had taken me so long to work out where she was and why she was missing and that I should come at once and rescue her.

One of her favourite snoozing spots is the bonnet of any car just driven into the car park. She is often found comfortably curled up on a car, soaking up the warmth from the sun above and the engine warmth from below. She is not fussed whose car she sleeps on and never gives a thought to paw marks on highly polished surfaces. Needless to say there are a couple of neat freaks who nearly expire if they find her on their car.

Recently I asked her if she would be able to spare the time for a photo shoot and this is more or less what followed:

Ms Soup: 'Good afternoon Ms Bella I wondered........."

Ms Bella: "Oh for goodness sake, here I am having a nice quiet snooze and you come up talking at me and giving me a big fright. It's enough to make a girl shed one of her nine lives. "

Ms Soup: "I'm very sorry to disturb you Ms Bella, but would it be convenient right now to do the photo shoot? The light is really lovely this afternoon."

Ms Bella: "Oh my goodness, I don't always look my best when I first wake up but I do love the idea of a photo shoot. What would you like me to do?"

Ms Soup: "Photo shoots go well when the subject is looking relaxed and happy. Do you think you could try that?"

Ms Bella: "Sure, I'll give it my best shot."

Ms Bella: "How about I try this, it's my very relaxed and laid back pose?

Ms Soup" "That's wonderful Ms Bella, you look beautiful and I'm sure you will be a big hit on the world wide web."

Ms Bella: "Web? What web? You know I don't like spiders - they fight back and nip and are very tricky customers."

Ms Soup: "Relax, it's just a term for starting a fan club."

Ms Bella: " A fan club. How divine."

The divine Ms Bella awaits the rush of fans clamouring for her attention.

ountry Races

My plan to get MyVeryBestFriendCarmel along to the New Year’s Day country picnic race meeting worked. The train timetable was obliging with the train arriving at Southern Cross station in plenty of time to get to the races before the second race. We have to leave the races immediately after the second last race on the card but that is no bad thing. It means we avoid the scrum and traffic jams that are a regular feature of this meeting every year, when the crowd all attempt to leave at the same time.



MI had a busy morning; Neighbour Heather and I go off to breakfast at a posh city hotel which has recently undergone serious renovations. The new restaurant, is a wonder of modern design and the food is definitely to be recommended; however I found the large stone bird sculptures, a cross between Bunjil and an Easter Island statue, which perched near the bar somewhat disconcerting and menacing; especially at eight o’clock in the morning. Maybe in the evening after a few beverages they might look friendlier but this morning they had the disapproving look of someone who had seen enough bad behaviour the previous evening to last them until well into the future.

The train arrival time finds me speeding along Spencer Street looking for a convenient spot to pull when I spy MVBFC waiting at the front of the station. I bip the horn to attract her attention, open the passenger door and she piles in, along with a bag full of goodies for our picnic lunch. We make good time along the freeway where I throw caution to the wind and decide to take the tollway and pay later. We make good time to the racecourse and this year I take the correct exit from the freeway and don’t finish up in Woodend.

The crowd seems to be smaller than last year, we find a car park easily and then proceed to haul our chairs and tucker up to the members enclosure. This grand title applies to a grassed area located not too far from the winning post, close to the betting area and not too far from the bar. We stand and survey the scene and discuss where we might put our chairs. We are saved from making this difficult decision by a woman who inviting us to share a table with her family; we join them and there is plenty of room for the five of us. We immediately settle in and get down to the serious business of setting out lunch which we happily share with our newfound friends.

The afternoon soon passes; I appoint MVBFC as my betting agent, something she thinks I should be able to do myself and she then spends the rest of the afternoon running back and forth to the betting area while I sit around like Lady Muck from Dirt Island issuing my betting instructions. I come out about even on the day but MVBFC takes a box trifecta bet by combining a couple of her picks with a couple of my picks in the last race we watch, and comes away from the meeting in a very healthy financial state.

In other words a good time was had by all.