Author: auntyuta

Auntie, Sister. Grandmother, Great-Grandmother, Mother and Wife of German Descent I've lived in Australia since 1959 together with my husband Peter. We have four children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. I started blogging because I wanted to publish some of my childhood memories. I am blogging now also some of my other memories. I like to publish some photos too as well as a little bit of a diary from the present time. Occasionally I publish a story with a bit of fiction in it. Peter, my husband, is publishing some of his stories under berlioz1935.wordpress.com

Uta’s Diary, December 2014

This is the third post that I want to reblog today!
I write in this post about thunderstorms:
“When we were at Monika’s place another thunderstorm came up with heavy rain. This was about the fifth thunderstorm in a row. The clouds built up during the day and then it started to rain. A bit like in the tropics.”
I published in ths post a picture of Ayleen and me that was taken at a Christmas Party in December 2014. Ayleen was one of my neighbours. Her house is now for sale, for she had to go into a Care Home. She is now 91. In 2014 she would have been only in her early eighties!

AuntyUta

Christmas 2014 in Dapto Shopping Centre

NBN means ‘National Broadband Network’. We are the lucky ones, it has come to Dapto already!

This is at the top story of Dapto Shopping Centre. This time I did not take any pictures downstairs.

On the second Sunday of Advent we visited Monika and Mark. They had been in the process of celebrating three birthdays: Monika’s, Mark’s and the 21st birthday of Mark’s daughter Tiana. There was some cake left from the previous night of celebrations:

When we were at Monika’s place another thunderstorm came up with heavy rain. This was about the fifth thunderstorm in a row. The clouds built up during the day and then it started to rain. A bit like in the tropics. The doctor had prescribed antibiotics for Peter’s infection. On the third Sunday of Advent was the first time when he did not have to visit the…

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A copied article from the SMH

Yesterday, 18/02/2023, Sydney had a violent thunderstorm!
It is interesting that six years ago, there was a severe thunderstorm, that bypassed Sydney. Wollongong wsas both times only a little affected.

AuntyUta

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/three-women-struck-by-lightning-in-bowral-during-saturdays-storms-20170218-gug1xd.html

FEBRUARY 18 201

Three women struck by lightning in Bowral during Saturday’s storms

Phoebe Moloney

Three women, all sisters aged in their 60s, have been hit by lightning in Bowral in the New South Wales Southern Highlands.

The women were sitting together on a bench in Corbett Gardens, a park just off Bowral’s main street, when they were struck by lightning on Saturday afternoon.

NSW storms: 3 struck by lightning, towns battered by hail

Three women were struck by lightning in the NSW southern highlands during the second day of severe storms across the state on Saturday. Vision courtesy ABC News 24.

Two of the women have been treated for shock while the third, 61, was hospitalised for major injuries.

She has been airlifted to a Sydney hospital to be treated for severe burns, police said.

The incident occurred during the amassing of storms in eastern NSW

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Uta’s February 2017 Diary continued

I can’t believe, that I posted this six years ago!

AuntyUta

This morning I cooked some spaghetti with some sea salt. I added a bit of butter, one whole red chilli and some Spanish onion as well as a tiny bit of fresh ginger. It made a delicious meal!

I spent about an hour outside cleaning bits and pieces in the garden area at the back of our house. Also, taking some photos, actually lots of photos!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This is where our chillis grow.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Peter joined me for a while outside. We were sitting at the table in the shade, talking about this and that.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This is the other table at the north side where it soon got too sunny and hot.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This Jasmine bush is growing out of a pot and has a tremendous amount of buds at the moment.

Some of the buds opened up already. They have a beautiful, very strong scent!

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First Love

“. . . . we talked and shared our experiences as if we were in the same room and had never been apart. . . .”
Yes, it can be heart breaking when somebody close to you suddenly dies. This can happen at any stage in life, but especially, when you’re very elderly already!

catterel

It was the end of the 1950’s. I was seventeen, in the Upper Sixth of the Grammar School. A gangly, spotty lad, and something of a lone wolf. Not much use on the football field and even less on the cricket pitch. Books were my escape, birdwatching my hobby.

Ours was a mixed school, but I was invisible to the girls and so I decided to let them be invisible to me. There were occasional exchanges of course, but on the whole nobody would have noticed if I hadn’t been there. Sometimes, that came in useful and I’d skip a particularly boring class so I could hide in the library, which was quiet and peaceful and I could lose myself in other worlds.

It was on such a day, when I was trying to think of something sagacious to write in my essay, that I became aware of a girl…

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What Shall We Do With Granny?

Dear Cat, this is a very important blog, for you explain so very well, what sort of care the elderly should get. And I reckon Joe says it very well too in the comment section, what the care packages are all about.
I reblog all this in the hope that my family are willing to carefully read all this, and that maybe this is going to help them to get a different understanding about old age.

catterel

What should we older folks do when we get close to our use-by date?

One of the bloggers I have been following for a very long time is Aunty Uta, who moved from Germany to Australia with her husband and young family in the late 1950’s (I think – correct me if I’m wrong, dear Uta!). See https://auntyuta.com.

Now that her children are grown and she is a widow in her late eighties with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, she’s wondering about preparing to manage in the final years of her life. Should she hand over her house to her daughter and granddaughter, and restrict herself to just one room? A quandary that has set me thinking too.

My mother was running her own household, doing all her own shopping, cooking and cleaning, running upstairs and downstairs, managing her finances and everything else in daily life, until the age of 95. I…

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How much Care do Old People need?

At the moment I feel, I just want to stay by myself for as long as possible. For instance, every Monday I get three and one half hours of home help, that is paid for by the government. This more or less covers all my present caring needs. I am sure, I would be pretty unhappy, if I had to give up nearly all my indepence right now, for I feel, I can be still fairly independent with just a little bit of support.

Most parents do a lot of loving caring for their children. And a lot of children seem to think, they have to undertake full time caring of their very old parents.

But do all parents like to be treated like they were children that need looking after? I certainly have not reached that stage yet, where I would like to be cared for as though I was a four-year-old. For instance, my daughter Monika would not want me to do anything that may perhaps be a bit risky.

But I do not plan to be living totally risk free. Why should my life be absolutely risk free? I would like to have one or two guests in the house, maybe for as long as one year. I would welcome it, if my daughter with her grown-up daughter would like to stay in my house as guests for a year or so.

The question is, how much care do old people need?

I copy here a bit from my previous blog:

If I go to a caring place, where I’ll have only one room to myself, I can take only as much with me, as fits into the one room. I intend to try this out in my own home now, namely I’ll get rid of all the stuff, that I cannot place into this one bedroom of mine. I want to keep this room, the way I like it, and without any interference by anyone!!

I might want to let my family, that is one daughter and one granddaughter, have my other two bedrooms. Of course, rentfree!

The rest of the house is to be for sharing. But all my stuff in the living-room areas and most of my kitchen stuff has to go. I cannot take it with me, can I? So, my family guests are going to bring their own furniture in.

To have one daughter as well as one granddaughter living close to me, am I going to like this? We’ll see. Maybe it’ll become the stepping stone to something else, like moving out and living somewhere else. In 20 months, I am going to be 90 and celebrating my birthday! If am still alive and kicking by then, that is.

As far as writing goes: Why do I write? I think because I have to. It gives me a reason for living!

My Life the Way it is

One Day after Valentine’s Day in Australia 2017

So, this was six years ago. I remember the rose!

AuntyUta

This is the morning of the 15th of February in Australia. We’ve just have had breakfast. I am very much looking forward to continue reading Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Purity’. I have only a few more pages to read.

Last night we watched ‘The End is my Beginning’. This was a very thought provoking film about the end of life. It was filmed like a documentary and based on the life of an Italian journalist and his family.

https://auntyuta.com/2017/02/14/the-end-is-my-beginning/

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA A Rose for Valentines’s Day 2017 and a lot more novel reading is still waiting for me.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA This pizza we were looking forward to eat on Valentine’s Day unfortunately turned out to be not to our taste.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Luckily though we had wine and a delicious salad.

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Uta’s Diary 14th of February 2023

Just now I had two small glasses of red wine.

Today, Valentine’s Day, I had already a cooked meal that lasted for breakfast and for lunch: There were three small beef rissoles, lots of different vegies, and for desert a banana, as well as green tea. and later some coffee.

For my evening meal tonight I cut up 3 slices of sour dough bread, and I sauted these little pieces of bread in some olive oil, and then dipped them in a bit of sugar: Delicious!

Today’s theme in the Bible Study Group was: RESPECT.

Does respect need to be earned, or can you show some respect to everyone?

I have hearing and vision loss, also immobility because of arthritis as well as breathing problems, even though my lungs are okay!

Do I have to accept that an indepent life may end for me rather suddenly, because sooner or later I need someone to look after me?

Or, despite all these disabilities, due to old age, can I still continue to live totally on my own, making all my own decisions, and can I so avoid interference from any of my children?

I do not want to have to fight with any of my children. But I do not want them to tell me, how I should live my life, namely that I should avoid any kind of risk taking. And that I should wish to live for as long as possible by accepting any sort of medical intervention just to keep me alive. What sort of quality of life what that be for me? I’d rather want to be dead!

I am grateful for my long life, that I’ve had. Actually, I still enjoy my life for as long as I can continue to make my own decisions, and live a healthy life without any sort of medical intervention to prolong my life.

If my daughter and granddaughter move in with me into my house, I want it to be understood, that at this stage of my life I am still capable of looking after myself. So, I don’t want them to think, they should be looking after me. Yes, I need some help with certain things, but that does not mean, they should tell me what to do and what not to do. They have to leave it up to me, what I decide to do, and refrain from, critisising me, when I do things that they do not approve of because they think I should not put myself into danger.

And when I indicate, I want to do certain things by myself on my own, even if it takes a long time. then they should not insist on doing this particular thing for me, just because I need a lot of time to do it. They should not forbid me to eat certain things, when my decision is, that I can eat whatever I want to eat, the same as when I was all by myself in the house with nobody setting any rules for me.

When my visitors can make some time for chatting sessions, perhaps with a cup of tea, this is of course welcome. Occasionally they might want to invite me for a meal that we can have sitting together at the dinner table. But I would normally try to use the kitchen to cook my own meals, whenever the kitchen is free for me to use. And I’ll aim to have the kitchen cleaned before I leave it for the next person to use.

My Life the Way it is

auntyuta

The other day, I went with two of my neighbours to a Baptist church service. My question still is: Why am I still alive? The pastor said, we must not expect God to let us know immediately, what His reason may be. We have to trust God, that there is always a reason for everything. And He is going to let us know, when it is the right time for us to know.

To be happy to spend significant time just by myself for myself, is that what I am meant to do? Well, I do feel actually more and more alright to spend time just on my own. I like to look after myself, taking showers, making my bed, doing some shopping and doing my own cooking as well as washing the dishes and cleaning the kitchen surfaces, as well as the toilet and bathroom, listening to music, dancing to some music, sweeping my outside deck early in the morning, doing some washing, going for walks with my rollator, meeting people, reading, writing, and watching some good TV programs. I like to be able to do everything at my own very slow pace – – – –

To have no more desire or longing to spend many intimate hours with another person – Is that it, to let go of any expectation or desire like this? If I can have beautiful but irreglar minutes of fantastic intimacy, I guess, I can learn to accept that this is the best I can do at this late stage in my life.

When the time comes. to let go of any desire, this may lead to some kind of being content and more or less joyful at all times. In other words, one learns to live like a child. And if one is lucky, one will be really well looked after! So, this is then, how one’s life is slowly, slowly nearing its end, if not a terminal sickness of some kind let’s us pass earlier.

If I go to a caring place, where I’ll have only one room to myself, I can take only as much with me, as fits into the one room. I intend to try this out in my own home now, namely I’ll get rid of all the stuff, that I cannot place into this one bedroom of mine, which I want to keep the way I like it without without any interference by anyone!!

I am going to let my family, that is one daughter and one granddaughter, have the other two rentfree bedrooms.

The rest of the house is to be for sharing. But all my stuff in the living-room areas and most of my kitchen stuff has to go. I cannot take it with me, can I? So, my family guests are going to bring their own furniture in.

To have one daughter as well as one granddaughter living close to me, am I going to like this? We’ll see. Maybe it’ll become the stepping stone to something else, like moving out and living somewhere else. In 20 months, I am going to be 90 and celebrating my birthday! If am still alive and kicking by then, that is.

As far as writing goes: Why do I write? I think because I have to. It gives me a reason for living!

Your Phone Runs on Cobalt from Democratic Republic of Congo

More people should become aware of this kind of child labour! What do you think?

The Most Revolutionary Act

Zero Hedge

The chances of your phone’s battery being made using cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes in this chart using data cited in Statista’s DossierPlus ‘Mining Industry in Africa‘ shows, very high.

The country, ranked 166 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index (with a score of just 20 out of a possible 100), and with an estimated one million people living in modern slavery as of 2018, also happens to be the world’s largest producer of the metal key to lithium-ion battery production.

The use of child labor in the mining of cobalt in DRC is well documented, with the U.S. Department of Labor estimating that 40,000 children, some as young as 6 years old, work in the mines there.

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/your-phone-runs-cobalt-dr-congo

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