This diary post I published on the 11th of November 2021. Seems like a long time ago!
So, I am 88 now, and maybe I’ve chaged quite a bit during the last thirteen or fourteen months or so! 🙂
Before I left the house this morning I had made a Tele appointment at the Dapto Medical Centre to talk to my GP about the result of my recent 24 hour blood pressure monitoring. I did get an appointment for tomorrow at 3 o’clock. I wonder, when my doctor wants to see me again now to do some more checking of my blood pressure! For a while it was often up to 200. But with some medication it has come down a lot now.
Exactly one week ago, Gerard did pay me a surprise visit coming down Maquarie Pass. He did bring sweet little Bentley along. Bentley is an especially beautiful dog and very calm! We took Bentley for a walk along the track in Lakelands Park before Gerard had to head home again to the Highlands. 🙂
Last Thursday Monika and Natasha did bring two of my great-grandkids along. It was wonderful that I could see them again after the long lockdown. We had a lovely vegetarian Thai take away lunch at my place. We had just finished our lunch, when the two electricians arrived who installed some new ceiling fans in my living room! 🙂
Aaron, the carpenter/builder and his apprentice Aidon did a lot of good work for me during the week. Next week they are coming back to put up a cover over my outside deck. This will be good to have when we want to have a party on the deck and it does rain! 🙂
Fridays I can join my friends again for the games afternoons. During Peter’s sickness I often did not join them for the games, and during the lockdown I did not join them at all for I did not want to enter any one’s house! It is really good, that I was able to see my friends again in their houses, and they can come to my house too.
We have been playing the same sort of games for over ten years! We always play one game of Scrabble and 7 games of Rummy Cub. In between we have some refreshments! 🙂
Following a copy of one of my blogs from 2014 with pictures from one of our games afternoons!
We play Rummy with these tiles.We are about to have a coffee break.
We like to have a game of Scrabble.
Here I repeat what I wrote already this morning in another post:
“Next Friday is going to be the 19th of December. On that day we are going to have a Body Corporate meeting in Wollongong. The following day, on the 20th, we are going to have a Christmas Party for the residents and some previous residents. And for Sunday, the 21st, Peter and I are being invited to a Christmas Luncheon in Sydney.
Christmas Eve we are going to have the family at our place as is traditional for us. Early the following morning on Christmas Day Caroline, Matthew, Peter and I are going to travel to Melbourne in a rented car.
Ah, and I forgot, this coming Sunday, which is the third Sunday of Advent, we are also going to be in Sydney to belatedly celebrate Caroline’s birthday. Last Sunday we went to see Monika for her birthday.”
Does this sound busy? Peter seems to think so. Both Peter and I have a few health issues at the moment. We just hope all will be well pretty soon despite our rather “busy” life.
catterelEditHow lovely for you both that Gerard was able to visit you, so you could meet Bentley. Fun!Reply
doesitevenmatter3EditYAY for all this good stuff! Especially spending time with Gerard and Bentley! (((HUGS)))
I just had a beautiful morning walk in Lakelands Park at the back of my house. There were hardly any clouds. I enjoyed walking on the track next to the very overgrown bush along Books Creek. Everything looks and smells so nice in the sunshine after we had quite a bit of rain over the past few days with some breaks in between the rain but hardly any sun.
In some areas close by there were often some thunderstorms during the afternoons. Maybe Dapto is going to get a bit of thunderstorm too this afternoon! Today I stayed in the park for one whole hour. During this hour, about a dozen people passed me with one or two dogs and talked to me for a bit. Also a couple of people with kids in strollers passed me! They all seemed to enjoy the sunshine very much. 🙂
Reading this again after nearly three years, I became very emotional about the disruption of family life due to bad war and after-war experiences!
I ask myself, who profits from war? How can wars be avoided?
Quote:“It is well known that parents spend a lot of time worrying about their children’s future, but do they know their children are worrying too?”
Watching the Midday News today an item caught my attention. They were talking about a survey done of 10 to 13 years old.
43% worry about their future and 37% about family. In the news item, they were mostly talking about the latter.
It made me think about the time when I was 10 to 13 years old. That was 1945 to 1948 and it was a particularly bad time to grow up in Berlin after WW II.
Luckily we weren’t bombed out and still lived in our now windowless apartment. My mother worked as a Trümmerfrau during the cold winter months and beyond.
My father, unknown to us at that stage, was in an American PoW camp. Did I worry about my future?…
There are quite a few pictures from August that I published already towards the end of August.
I found now a few more pictures from that month. Here they are:
Some of our discarded stuff ready for collection
We try to sort out some DVDs. We have too many and they take up too much room. So it is best to get rid of some . . . However, for instance ‘As it is in HEAVEN is such a great movie I really would like to watch it again!
We like to sit out there for Morning Tea
This is such a great spot in the morning winter sun!
Russia’s newest ICBM Sarmat equipped with maneuvering warheads
Indian Punchline
The referendum on September 23-27 in the Donbass and southern Kherson and Zaporozhye regions of Ukraine on their accession to Russian Federation is, prima facie, an exercise of the right of self-determination by the native population who reject the western-backed regime change in Kiev in 2014 and the ascendancy of extreme nationalist forces with neo-Nazi leanings in the power structure.
But it has other dimensions, too. In all probability, the referendum will overwhelmingly opt for accession to Russian Federation. In Donbass, it is a straightforward question: “Do you support the entry of the DPR into the Russian Federation as a subject of the Russian Federation?” For Kherson and the Zaporozhye Cossacks, the referendum ascertains three sequential decisions: secession of these territories from Ukraine; formation of an independent state; and its entry into the Russian Federation as a subject.
Peter took this picture on the 21st December 2012, our Wedding Anniversary. The Corbett Gardens are in Bowral. This day in 2012 was the last time we went to see the Gardens. Over the years we did go a few times to have a look at the tulips there in spring time during the tulip festival. This year we missed out again on seeing the tulips there.
Two years ago in December we quite liked to walk through Corbett Gardens on a summer day. There were no tulips there, but the gardens looked lovely none the less.
On the way to the Gardens we had stopped at the Bradman Museum.
On the 21st of December 2012 we had our 56th wedding anniversary. On that day we went up to the highlands for a visit to Bowral. As I remember it, Peter and I had an excellent time up in Bowral on the day of our anniversary . Looking at these old photos brings back memories. So here they are:
Here we had our Lunch
These pictures were taken in a Bowral shopping centre .
With the latest finger pointing at Obeid and his antics in front of Icac I wonder if some of you still remember Rex Jackson. There is a world of difference between the two!
Rex (bucket) Jackson was really the epitome of a charming effervescent man. He was also minister for Youth and Community services, of Corrective services and a little later minister for Transport in the NSW Labor Government during the mid seventies and early eighties after which he suffered his spectacular fall from grace.
His love of dogs is what is supposed to have led him to his downfall. He was a regular fixture at Dapto dogs and Wentworth…
Nestled among the flowers of the Queen’s funeral wreath was a handwritten card by her son King Charles III, which read: “In loving and devoted memory, Charles R.”
2. Flowers
At King Charles’s request, the wreath on top of the Queen’s coffin contains flowers and foliage from the royal properties of Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, in London, and Highgrove House in Gloucestershire. Also at the King’s request, the wreath was sustainable, and affixed in a nest of English moss and oak branches.
The wreath contains myrtle, the ancient symbol of a happy marriage, cut from a plant that was grown from a sprig of myrtle in the Queen’s wedding bouquet in 1947. It also contains rosemary as a symbol of remembrance and English oak, a national symbol of strength, in a nod to the Queen’s constancy and steadfast duty. Other foliage includes pelargoniums, garden roses, autumnal…
The note was placed amid a colorful wreath for the late monarch that Buckingham Palace said contained, at Charles’s request, rosemary, English Oak and myrtle, which had been cut from a plant grown from myrtle used in Elizabeth’s wedding bouquet.
There were also gold, pink, burgundy and white flowers cut from the gardens of royal residences.
“
” . . . myrtle, which had been cut from a plant grown from myrtle used in Elizabeth’s wedding bouquet.” – How wonderful is that!:
The wreath contains myrtle, the ancient symbol of a happy marriage, cut from a plant that was grown from a sprig of myrtle in the Queen’s wedding bouquet in 1947.
doesitevenmatter3 EditYAY for all this good stuff! Especially spending time with Gerard and Bentley!
Some of our discarded stuff ready for collection 
We like to sit out there for Morning Tea 
Peter is having a bit of a rest. 
AuntyUta 