Category: Copy

Concentration Camp Survivors

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-29/esther-perel-on-the-erotic/11769448

https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/conversations/esther-perel/11170108

When Esther was a teenager she was voraciously curious about human behaviour.

She thought she’d become a journalist or a translator, but instead she grew up to become the world’s most famous contemporary psychotherapist.

Esther became known around the world after the release of her podcast “Where Should We Begin?” in which she counsels real-life couples who are on the brink of marital breakdown.

In her sessions she’s often exploring the tension between the need for security in a relationship, and the need for some distance and a sense of adventure, to keep the spark alive.

Esther says when you choose a partner you choose a story, and by doing so, you’re often recruited for a part you never expected to play.

Further information

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity is published by Yellow Kite Books

Listen to the podcast Where Should We Begin?

Duration: 52min 34sec

Broadcast: 
Guests

 

Plantagen Shutters and a new Backfence, also a Grandson’s Wedding

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/manifest20-prompts/

Some December Writing Challenge/ Prompts: Today I chose Day 17 and Day 22!

Day 17 Home: Tell us about what home meant to you this year. Are you a homebody? Did you do a renovation? Move? Redecorate?

Day 22  A picture is worth a 1,000 words.  Share a photo which sums up a significant event from the past year, or give us 1,000 words about a pivotal moment in 2019.

 

 

Peter took the above pictures about a month ago. The Jacaranda was in full bloom at that time of the year!

For the Writing Challenge I copy now a blog with pictures I published a month ago. These pictures show that we had some plantagen shutters installed: I think they do contribute to some improvement in our house!

Some of the pictures show how a new back fence was installed on our property, which is another improvement!

Speaking about a significant event from the past year. I would say it was the event of the marriage of Troy and Nina. It means, now all three of our grandsons have been married! Our three great-grandsons, aged 7, 5 and 3, were at the wedding and had a good time together. Our newest great-granddaughter, Baby Evie, was at the wedding too. Evie is the baby sister of 3 year old Carter. 7 year old Lucas and his 5 year old brother Alexander are cousins of Carter and Evie. The three boys love each others company very much!

 

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This picture of afternoon tea with my friends was already taken towards the End of September.
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This must have been a Friday for it looks that we are about to play our game of Scrabble!

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This is a favourite bin of ours in Corrimal. It is great to be able to recycle things!

 

 

In October we did get plantagen shutters installed in several rooms.

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Carter with his baby sister on the day of Nina and Troy’s wedding

 

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Next to Peter are Caroline and Matthew

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Part of our back fence had to be replaced because of storm damage. It took quite a long time from when the contractors took the old fence down and the new fence was finally completed.

 

 

The finishing touches of getting a new fence! Actually the work still has not been totally finished!

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Peter one month ago on his morning walk

Pictures I took in the morning, also one month ago:

 

 

 

Copy of Uta’s Diary from August, 2019

Last Sunday we had some lunch at Bulli Beach, where it was pretty windy and no sun. But there were quite a lot of people at the Ruby’s Cafe. Many people came in groups and had difficulty getting seats.

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Between 9 and ten in the morning is usually a good time to sit outside for our morning cup of tea. We are always looking forward to this!

At the beginning of the month we travelled again to Benalla to visit our son. This time we took the train to Benalla. We arrived in Benalla on Sunday, the 4th of August. Our return journey was on Thursday, the 8th of August. We had a great time in Benalla. Twice Martin went with me to the Benalla Swimming Centre. Peter did not want to come with us even though we assured him that the water was well heated.

Every day Martin drove us to a different place. So we saw at Glenrowan a multi-million Dollar anamatronic show. It was Ned Kelly’s LAST STAND at the Glenrowan Tourist Centre. 

 

 

Maybe you’d like to have a look at this:

https://www.glenrowantouristcentre.com.au/the-show/

The Show

“This mulitimillion dollar anamatronic show  IS NOT A PICTURE THEATRE it is an interactive theatre production

Through the brilliance of animation and computerised robots, you will be transferred back in time, over 100 years, to witness the events that led up to the capture of the Kelly Gang.

Starting as hostages in the Hotel, and then onto gunfights – burning buildings – a decent hanging, and finishing in our magnificent painting gallery.

The show is educational, historically correct and entertaining.

The show runs for 40 minutes every half hour (separate rooms) from   10:00am   to 4.30pm daily.

The Glenrowan Tourist Centre is fully air conditioned. The theatre can seat up to 50 people at any one time.

The Kelly Gang’s last stand has become an Australian folk legend, however views are divided about how it should be remembered. . . .”

 

After the show in Glenrowan Martin drove with us to Wangaretta where we had an excellent lunch in the Preview Cafe.

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We also had coffee and some desert!

 

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Stopping at the Tolmie Tavern. This was probably on Tuesday when we were there. It said on the sign “WHERE NOTHING EVER HAPPENS”, and true enough: Nothing did happen! And we had thought, we’d get some lunch there! But no, everything looked closed and deserted.

We ended up having lunch a bit further on. I think it may have taken us close to two hours before we actually did have some lunch and decent toilets! Before we arrived at that beautiful old Tatong Tavern we had a good look at the Stringybark Creek Historic Reserve:

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So, at the Tatong Tavern we ended up having a splendid lunch. I asked for vegetarian and did get this beautiful meal:

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Now back to Dapto in New South Wales and the beautiful trees in Lakelands Park in Morning Sunshine:DSCN5427

These trees are my favourite destination when I go for my walk early in the morning.

Our daughter Gabriele would have been 62 on 28 August. I found this little picture in memory of her.

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2 thoughts on “Diary”

  1. AW. A lovely artwork of your precious daughter. 🙂 I know you miss her every day and you think of her. Hold on to those wonderful memories.
    (((HUGS)))
    PS… I love trees! They give life to our lives and add peace, beauty, joy, etc.! Can’t imagine even a day without seeing trees. (And I have hugged a few and talked to a few! ) 🙂

    Reply

  2. Thank you so much for your comment, dear Carolyn. Yes, all these memories are very important. And these trees are a big incentive for me to do a bit of walking. Peter usually goes for a walk too, early in the morning that is, but he goes on a faster ten minute walk. When he comes close to the trees, he may stop for a minute to talk to me. This morning we went out for a walk, even though there was no sun out, no sun at all. It turned out to be cloudy all day, and later on we did have some rain. Good steady rain. Everything looks very fresh. 🙂
    HUGS, Uta

     

    I copied all the above in response to

    December Writing Challenge/ Prompts

    11. Describe a typical day-in-the-life. Share some photos and give details about an average day. How do you make even the mundane feel special?

     

    12. Creature of Habit: Did you form a new habit this year? Or continue with an old one? Is it a good habit? Or one you’d like to break? More or less the early morning walks are a continuation of an old habit both for Peter and me. I reckon this habit is extremely beneficial for us!

Forty-One Years ago

This post is in response to the prompt for Day 9: Describe a moment of beauty that you witnessed this year. To participate or find out more information about #Manifest20 click here:

Category: #Manifest20

Here is a picture of our lovely baby Caroline with me at North Wollongong Beach.

I am 44 in this photo. I think our dog was already 13  or 14 years at the time.

Caroline has just turned 41 now!

Prompt Day 10: What was the best book you read in 2019? What did you like about it? #Manifest20

I like to mention here three books I did read one year ago and that made quite an impression on me.  Last year I copied some details about these books without mentioning my own opinion about any of the books. But as an introduction to the first book I wrote:

DI MORRISSEY seems to be my favourite author at the moment. The most recent book of hers that I read is: “The Winter Sea”.

Peter said, I should write something about what I felt about these books.

So, the first thing that came to mind is that in each book there are some main characters that I feel very comfortable with. And of course there are some other characters that I would not feel very comfortable with but even the more ‘bad’ characters do have a few likable features. That means the characters feel quite real to me.

In each of the three books there are some male/female relationships that are great to read about. In each book there are some rather strong female characters. But even these very strong females do like a good man a lot! Despite a number of difficulties all these females end up with simply good men –  at least for a while.

‘The Winter Sea’ novel by Di Morrissey is for the most part set into an environment that I am very familiar with. It deals with a family history that encompasses nearly one hundred years and shows what happens to immigrants to Australia that come from different backgrounds, for instance Italian and Irish.

Greg Iles is a New York Times bestselling author. He wrote BLOOD MEMORY. Cat (Catherine) Ferry is a most interesting character. It shows what may happen to a person that has been abused as a child.

Well, the third book ‘THE GOOD DAUGHTER’ by Karin Slaughter, is a very well written book too. There are actually wo daughters, both of them I see as main characters. To my mind both are ‘good’ daughters, even though they are totally different. Maybe one is more the good daughter of the father, the other one the good daughter of the mother. So which counts for more?

The following three links to my auntielive site show you some interesting details  about the three above mentioned books:

Books I read in November/December 2018

Continued from: Books I read

Continued from Books I read

December Writing Challenge: Join #Manifest20

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/2019/11/30/december-writing-challenge-join-manifest20/

On November 30, 2019 Robin – Patchworkmomma- wrote:

“How would you like to manifest your dreams this coming year? Join me in a month of reflection. Throughout December I will post daily writing prompts on the #Manifest20 page accessed from my blog menu at the top of my site. The idea is to reflect about the previous year and set intentions for 2020. It’s the start of a new decade after all! Anything is possible.

This idea is not a new one. Ten years ago I first participated in the Reverb10 project, created by Gwen Bell, and met lots of lovely people (virtually, that is). To read a little about the history, click here. The original bloggers who started the project quickly moved on to other things the following year. Several bloggers picked up where they left off, but over the years the community sort fizzled out as careers changed, babies were born, and other life events took over. I’m suggesting continuing the December writing challenge with a new name: Manifest20. ….”

Quote from Project Reverb:

“Answer one prompt.  Answer all the prompts.  Answer some of the prompts.  Maybe just answer the prompt in a Tweet or as an Instagram post.  Or perhaps answer the prompt with a photo or graphic.  Be creative, let loose.”

For more information please go to:

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/manifest20-prompts/

Manifest20 Prompts

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/manifest20-prompts/

7. Post your favorite photo of yourself taken during the past year.

8. If money was no object, is there anything you would purchase that would help you fulfill a dream next year?  What would it be and how would it change your life?

I was pretty busy over the weekend this is why I now want to catch up with Nr.7 and 8:

I start with Nr. 8. I think money is always an object, sort of. I reckon Peter and I live a fairly comfortable life in our retirement since we own our own small three bedroom cottage. We have always been very careful about staying within our means.Sometimes wethink  that it would be nice to have a bit more money. But we are not the sort of people who constantly think about doing something just to have more, more, more.

There are certain basic things we would like to have in our old age that would make life a bit more comfortable for us. We would like for instance to have enough money to pay for some regular cleaning services. We are getting more and more feeble. Some cleaning and maintenance jobs are just getting too hard for us!

Now to Nr. 7:

I walked to this tree on a cool winter morning in August 2019. Peter took this picture of me. This is one of my favourite trees. I am glad I can still go on these early morning walks with the help of my walking stick. I really enjoy walking in the morning. Often it is cloudy now or even smoky from all the bushfires. So an early morning with clear air and a bit of sunshine is very special!

Now, in December, we are in the midst of summer in Australia. The last few months it was often hazy with clouds all over the sky, yet we had hardly any rain and everything dries out a lot. And this nearly everywheree in Australia. So the bushfires all over Australia are extremely worrying this year. Some bushfires have been going already for many months and are steadily on the increase, threatening communities. The firefighters have a hard time keeping the flames away from built up areas. A few people already lost properties that could not be saved from the approaching bushfires. Some of the firefighters, poor chaps, get hardly any rest and have at times to cope with less than three hours sleep! It is always good to hear when new helpers arrive to support the struggling firefighters. A lot of the firefighters actually are volunteers. There is a rumour that some volunteers get their normal pay only by forgoing some holiday pay. I think they should get extra holiday pay! How about government payouts for the firefighting effort? I wonder whether this is being considered. . . .

December Writing Challenge/ Prompts

These are the Prompts so far:

  1. Choose one word which you would like to embody during 2020 as a sort of theme for the year. How would you like to see this word manifest in your life?
  2. Who inspired you in 2019? Why? What gifts did they give you? How will you carry these forward in 2020?
  3. What made you feel joyful in 2019? What steps can you take to create more joyful moments in the coming year?
  4. What goals did you accomplish in 2019 that you’re proud of? How will your achievement continue to benefit you or others in the future?
  5. What musical discovery did you make this year? Share a memory involving music or tell us what artist or song would feature on the soundtrack of your life for 2019?

I already made an effort to answer the first four. Now to Nr. 5. What musical discovery did I make this year?

I can only say that music is very important to me. When I get up in the morning, one of the first things I do, is switch on the radio to see whether there is something good to listen to on the ABC’c classical music program. When I move around to do things, I like to have some music in the background. Good dance music I like too, for to move to some music makes moving easier! Even some Jazz or Country music makes me want to move around a bit.

I think it is great that I can find a lot of music on YouTube! At the moment Peter and I aim at listening to a Berlin Philharmonic Concert every Sunday. We have a lot of these concerts on DVD, and listening to one of them and watching the orchestra playing is a special Sunday treat for us. We hope to be able to keep these Sunday concerts going well into the next year!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtRkmSO4PrhJ4TzNOmFIwjw

“Discover the Digital Concert Hall of the Berliner Philharmoniker! Until 25 Dec 2019 with bonus edition: Kirill Petrenko conducts Beethoven’s Ninth”

Our Morning Walk

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/manifest20-prompts/

4. What goals did you accomplish in 2019 that you’re proud of? How will your achievement continue to benefit you or others in the future?

I am elderly, this is why I walk with the help of a walking stick. In the morning, after a bit of stretching, I manage quite regularly to go out for a little walk. Peter, my husband, does the same. He can still walk twice as fast. So he walks ahead. He walksa bit further than I do. I usally walk to a section of some trees that I love. Near these trees I often wait for Peter and he meets me then on his return from his walk.  We talk for a few moments. Then he walks on along the footpath back home, while I walk back home along a grassy area. I love to walk along there in the early morning sun. For me this is quite an achievement that I can still do this. Mind you, I carry my walking stick. This gives me good support so that I am not in danger of having a fall in case of some unevenness in the grass.

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This picture was taken when the grass was still quite green.

The last few months we had hardly any rain and everything dries out too much. All over Australia are lots and lots of bushfires and grassfires. We had a few heatwaves and great gusts of wind. But no fires close by and hardly any smoke. But Sydney is suffering from a lot of smoke right now from bushfires in the west of Sydney.

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This picture I took quite recently. It shows how dry everything is!

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I like to spend some time hugging these trees.

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When I walk across the grass, I can beat Peter:walk along the footpath islonger. I then wait for Peter at the other end, and he is happy to see me and stops for a moment to talk to me.  Sometimes I meet some of my neighbours during my outing in the morning and they stop and talk to me for a while.

December Writing Challenge Prompts by Patchworkmomma

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/manifest20-prompts/

December Writing Challenge/ Prompts:

  1. Choose one word which you would like to embody during 2020 as a sort of theme for the year. How would you like to see this word manifest in your life?
  2. Who inspired you in 2019? Why? What gifts did they give you? How will you carry these forward in 2020?
  3. What made you feel joyful in 2019? What steps can you take to create more joyful moments in the coming year?

For 1.: I chose writing

For 2.: I chose Greta –  Robin chose Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)

Here is a video about another great young woman in politics I discovered:

https://auntielive.wordpress.com/2019/12/03/sawsan-chebli-on-freedom-of-speech-the-fight-for-democracy-in-the-digital-age/

Sawsan Chebli

This woman, daughter of a refugee family, born in Berlin in 1978, achieved already a lot in politics, but sadly is threatened by some far right people.

 

Now to Nr. 3: What made me feel joyful in 2019? I would have to say overall this is writing. To create more joyful moments in the coming year? Well, if at all possible, I want to continue writing at least a little bit on a dayly basis, and when this is not possible, then at least I intend doing a bit of reading. I also intend grabbing opportunities  to communicate with as many people as possible. I know, there can be a lot of joyful moments in my life, if only I stay positive. There seems to be always something in my long life I can be grateful for.

And here is a link to a post by Patchworkmomma about a joyful holiday in Thailand:

https://patchworkmomma.wordpress.com/2019/12/03/memories-for-life-thailand-during-songkran/comment-page-1/#comment-78