Uta’s Diary

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Wednesday

Today we stay home. A day, when we do not have to go anywhere, is very appreciated since days without any special appointments seem to become rarer and rarer.

So it was a couple of days ago on Monday that we paid the Bunnings Store in Wollongong a visit after Peter had seen his dentist in Corrimal. We bought some paint for the bathroom, 3 Sanding Blocks (coarse, medium and fine), as well as a very solid stepping stool.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/stores/nsw/wollongong

In the afternoon Peter went to see his optometrist in Dapto. Peter needs her to sign for him that his vision is still alright for driving. She did a lot of vision tests and then said, that his vision had very much deteriorated. On the day his eyesight was so bad that she could not give him permission for renewal of his driver’s license. (The renewel is due by the end of May. She prescribed some special eye-drops for dry eyes. Peter has to use them four times a day. The optomotrist wants to test Peter’s eyes again on Friday after Easter.

Yesterday Peter went to see his skin specialist in Corrimal. She did a bit more skin freezing on some spots on his head. From Corrimal we went to Fairy Meadow to the Leisure Coast Deli and Fruit Market, where we bought quite a lot of fruit, Vegies and a few other things. They have for instance vere good sour dough bread!

Monika came in the evening after work and made a phone call for us as promised. She contacted someone who can arrange for someone to come to our place to assess our special age related needs. Even though at the moment we can still somehow manage everything, we thought it may be better to get on a waiting list so that when we definitely do need some help we’ll be able to call on someone other than our children who definitely may not be available on a permanent basis and probably also with a lot of difficulty on some short notice.

Peter still did not get back his other hearing aids. This is a bummer!

I keep thinking what an achievement it is for Julie Shiels to have been using fabric from abandoned mattresses and refashioning it into textile sculptures!

Diary continued on Palm Sunday 2019

As a said we bought something for breakfast at Woolies in Gundagai. If I remember right, among other things we did buy a few bananas as well. And as I said we had a very good salad lunch when we arrived at our son’s place in Benalla.

I mentioned in this post what we did on our first afternoon in Benalla:

https://auntyuta.com/2019/04/13/diary-a-few-days-away-from-home-in-april-2019/

There were Peter’s pictures to go with it.

At our son’s place we had some afternoon tea in the backyard. Of course it was a sunny afternoon. Benalla has not had any good rain for many, many months. Everyone is worried, the place will soon be running out of water for the residents, if they do not get some good rain very soon.

This is the lunch we had on Sunday, the 7th of April, at Benalla’s Bowling Club. Peter had roast pork and vegies and I had a ‘stack’ of vegies.

DSCN5189 — This was served for breakfast while we were at Martin’s.

I think for another breakfast we had baked beans on toast. Martin is always out to please us when we stay at his place.

On Monday, the 8th of April, was Martin’s birthday. He turned 59. We arrived in Australia by boat from Germany in 1959. So our 60th Anniversary is coming up! We gave Martin a globe for his birthday that he liked very much.

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DSCN5195 — This is where we went for lunch on Martin’s birthday.

Back in Gundagai on Tuesday we had a lovely lunch at the Bistro of the Gundagai Hotel. This is the picture that Peter took of our lunch. I had plain vegies with some delicious mashed potatoes and a small beer. Peter had all the vegies and mashed potatoes as well plus a huge piece of chicken Schnitzel.And naturally a beer too.

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On Wednesday morning the bakery was open for business by the time we got there. We had coffee there and some toasted sandwhiches. Then we were off to Gunning. I already published a few pictures of Peter’s about Gunning in that other blog. Here now are some more pictures that I took with my camera:

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DSCN5227 — The Post Office Lady was on her own. When I bought some overseas stamps from her, she asked me for how long I would still be in Australia. Apparently she thought I was a tourist.

The Post Office woman was indeed very friendly and had quite a long conversation with me. When I mentioned that I had resided in Australia since 1959,she was indeed surprised. I told her about our trip and how tiring it was for Peter to have to do all this driving and that we liked Australia and how many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren we had here, but that we still had brother and sister in Germany.

The next rest stop for us was at Belmore Park in Goulburn where I only took this picture:

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The Park is as beautiful as ever. Also there are some very good public toilets there!

We had another rest stop at the Robertson Pie Shop. I think the Robertson pies are still very good. I had a beef curry pie as usual and with tomato sauce of course. Very tasty! Peter had a beef mushroom pie as usual. We also took some fruit pies home: As usual!

The drive down Macquarie Pass went very well. And soon we were home, home, home!

Diary, Palm Sunday 2019

The week ahead, Easter week, is going to be rather busy for us, especially for Peter. He has an appointment with his dentist in Corrimal for tomorrow. On Tuesday he has to drive to Corrimal again for an appointment with the skin specialist. Sometime during the week we’ll go to Wollongong to pay the Hearing Clinic a visist. They did send one of his hearing pieces away for repair. Peter hopes that he can get it back pretty soon. He really needs it back urgently. His hearing is absolutely shocking at the moment!

So, on Thursday is my slow movement exercise class on. Peter drives me there and picks me up again an hour later. It would be nice if he could bring himself to join this class, but alas, he’s very reluctant to do this.

So comes Good Friday. This is a Friday where my friends and I won’t have a games afternoon. That means, I may be able to help Peter a bit in the kitchen since Peter is planning to bake a few cakes for Easter, hoping this is going to attract a few visitors!

This leaves Saturday for us to do a bit of extra cleaning and probably some extra shopping as well.

Today, I already published a post with the pictures that Peter took on our last trip. I took a few pictures with my camera. I finally downloaded them yesterday with a bit of help from Peter. Now I see, that I can still publish some of my pictures as well.

Leaving home at 9 am our first stop was Moss Vale for brunch. So, here is the picture again that Peter took of our piece of cheese cake that we had at our much preferred cafe in Moss Vale. Before consuming this excellent cheese cake we had had an excellent ‘half’ breakfast each there at this great cafe. The ‘half’ breakfast consisted of two small wonderfully crispy pieces of bacon and one egg, mine was beautifully poached, Peter had a scrambled egg and toast, whereas I had Turkish bread that went very well with the poached egg. We also had delicious mugs of coffee to go with our meal.

I think it was close to 11 o’clock when we were ready to leave Moss Vale. With a couple more breaks we reached our motel in Gundagai by around 3 pm.

We stayed again in the Gundagai Motel: http://gundagaimotel.com.au/

Of course we had our own Tea and coffee making facilities and stayed in the motel for a relaxing afternoon and evening. For supper we just had some cup a soups from Aldi with a few bread rolls that we had bought in Moss Vale. We had planned to go for breakfast to that heritage bakery in Gundagai just up the road. When we arrived there at 7 am, it was still closed. Not far away was a huge Woolworth Store that was already open. This Woolworth store had of course heaps of things. But nothing fresh from a bakery as far as we could see. We bought tubs of yoghurt and portions of cream cheese for our breakfast in our motel room. Since there were no fresh buns available, we just used the left over buns from Moss Vale. Anyhow on that Saturdy we arrived for a very good salad lunch at our son’s place in Benalla.

DSCN5157 — So this Bakery was still closed early on that Saturday morning.

I took a few pictures along Gandagai’s main road before we decided we’d buy a few things for breakfast at Woolworth.

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This is where Peter took his sunrise pictures in front of Woolies.

On the Way from Gundagai to Ballina we stopped here:

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Palm Sunday, 14 April, 2019

Peter took some pictures with his phone during our last trip. He inserted them for me in Dropbox. Some of these Dropbox pictures I want to publish here now.

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Peter took these sunrise pictures in Gundagai on Saturday, the 6th of April.

From Gundagai it was not very far to drive to Benalla. So, we arrived there at our son’s place around lunch time. After a beautiful lunch we were taken to Benalla’s Art Gallery, where Peter took the following pictures of a very interesting exhibition.

http://www.benallaartgallery.com.au/

https://www.victorianplaces.com.au/bridge-over-broken-river-benalla

https://www.whereis.com/vic/benalla-3672/1-bridge-st

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Last Tuesday we drove back to Gundagai and had a beautiful lunch at the Bistro of the Gundagai Hotel

Unfortunately this was closed last Wednesday when we stopped there for a while on our way home.

https://www.facebook.com/ThePictureHouseGalleryBookshop/

Gunning is an interesting little town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning,_New_South_Wales

Our next stop on the way home was Belmore Park in Goulburn.

https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g255321-d4372897-Reviews-Belmore_Park-Goulburn_New_South_Wales.html

And this last picture is a famous Wall Painting in Benalla. I believe it has been there for a few years.

http://www.benallastreetart.com.au/murals

Gurrumul

First of all here is a link to a YouTube video that I find well worth watching:

https://auntielive.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/julian-assange-comments-from-snowden-chomsky-varoufakis-greenwald-horvat/

Amd maybe you’d like to have a look at this one too:

https://auntielive.wordpress.com/2019/04/12/daniel-ellsberg-on-assange-arrest-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-press-freedom/

Now to the music video: Gurrumul, oh yes, a hauntingly beautiful voice!

The Most Revolutionary Act

Gurrumul

Directed by Paul Damen Williams (2017)

Film Review

This documentary is a tribute to the late Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, a blind singer with a hauntingly beautiful voice. It’s hard to find words to describe his music, which portrays a purity and longing that literally makes your chest ache.

Gurrumul was from the Yoinju tribe on Eicho Island, one of the most remote islands in Australia.

Despite achieving international prominence and considerable wealth, he remained close to his family and tribe his entire life. At one point, he blew off a US tour because of tribal business.

For religious reasons the Yoinju, like other Torres Strait islanders, prohibit the preservation or display of images of the dead. In Gurrumul’s case, they have made a rare exception.

He died on July 25, 2017 at age 45.

The documentary can be viewed for the next week at the Maori TV website: Gurrumul

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Diary: A few Days away from Home in April 2019

Last week we went on a trip to Benalla in Victoria. This morning I finally uploaded the photos from this trip. So we had left eight days ago and came back three days ago on Wednesday. Well, was it only three days ago that we returned? It seems so much longer already! When we arrived home on Wednesday afternoon both Peter and I were extremely exhausted. We both felt like we needed a long, long rest. I think, we slept in on Thursday, meaning we got up just before eight o’clock. Then we straight away found out that the date for the Federal Election had been called. While having breakfast, we listened to the News for a while. Unpacking our ‘stuff’ took a while as well as doing some washing and cleaning. Monika came for a brief visit with her little grandson Carter. Next week she wants to come on Tuesday after work. Then she wants to arrange for someone to come and see us for an assessment about what sort of home help as well as transport we oldies might be needing soon.

On Fridays I usually have been going to Marta’s slow movement exercise class. I wrote about it here:

https://auntyuta.com/2011/10/03/diary-of-aunty-uta/

I mentioned in that post, that twenty people were enrolled in that class in 2011. Amazingly, apart from me, there are three more people still enrolled in that class from that long ago! They had joined that class even a few years before me, and they are still there! The amazing thing is, all three of them are 97 now. Imagine this, they still keep coming . . . . ! So last Thursday they were there again. There were four other people as well. Without the three 97 year olds, we would have been only five participants. Too many people dropped out over the years. We have a lot of trouble finding new people for our class. I am surprised that it is still going at all . . . . Marta, our instructor, would like Peter to join. I hope, he’s going to consider it . . . .

For our Friday games afternoons we are usually three or four women. Yesterday our games afternoon was at Barbara’s place. We found out yesterday that Erika is not coming for the next six months or so. First she’s doing some oversees travelling. And then she and her husband want to spend some time in Queensland.

When I looked at the photos this morning, I suddenly remembered a lot again about our last trip. As I said, we went to Benalla in Victoria. On the way there and back we had an overnight stop at Gundagai. We had stopped there previously and liked it.

Our son moved from Melbourne to Benalla about two years ago. We have been visiting him there quite a few times already. The Sydney/Melbourne train does stop in Benalla. I like to go on the train. Train travelling I find far less exhaustintg than car travelling. Peter usually likes to go long distances by car. But this time he found the driving a bit too exhausting too, even though we had these stops in Gundagai! I think he’ll be glad too to go by train to Benalla next time. I have no driver’s license any more because of very bad eye sight. This is a pity. With two drivers a trip like this certainly is much better manageable.

Well now, this cheescake reminds of that excellent meal we had in Moss Vale on our way to Gundagai. This very well presented cake was our desert.

I decided now, I am going to publish some more pictures from our trip in another post.

So long, Uta

PS: Here is a link to another post of mine about Gundagai:

https://auntyuta.com/2019/03/25/on-the-way-to-gundagai/

Month: April 2019