Uta’s Diary, Easter 2016

Lucas looked around in our backyard and called it a “forest”. He loved running from the side gate on the south side of the house back to the table on the north side. He kept running, and running, and running with little Alexander always following him. That was after they had been looking for Easter eggs. Alexander was happy, when he found just one little egg. He did eat it straight away and let his big brother look for all the other eggs!

Our Granddaughter Natasha, the boys’ Aunty, took some pictures of her Nephews while sitting at the table with them.

Some weeks ago we went to the Bulli markets, where Peter bought some gelato. Daughter Caroline took some pictures of Peter buying the gelato and of me trying to take a picture of it. I also took a picture of Caroline walking towards us.

A. Piazzolla. Libertango Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic Moscow City Symphony – Russian Philharmonic

A. Piazzolla. Libertango

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_2QAki-GRk

Armic – Tango Flamenco

Listening to Tango Music – This is how I pass my time on Good Friday afternoon. It goes on and on. I was really out to read a bit more in Mick Gordon’s book of essays:

THEATRE AND THE MIND

The third essay in the book is titled “Emotion, Thought and Action.

I says in that essay for instance: ” . . . the way we think about things, the way we interpret our thoughts, determines how we feel and behave.”

Listening to music, doesn’t this determine how I feel? Does my brain tell me, how I should feel about the music? Also, the feeling is immediately there when I do not like some music.

So it is probably true that my thoughts do very much influence how I feel and act. I am going to try to reflect about this a bit more. Yes, I think, it is true, I mostly let my thinking determine my feelings and how I act.

I hope I can soon write about this a bit more.

Wet Weather Problems

It is still a huge tree, even though Peter just cut off about a dozen huge leaves. Why did he have to cut off some more of the leaves? Well, we had some problems with water coming through the roof onto the bathroom heating-lights! This was the other night after we have had a few horrendous downpours. So the next morning (that was yesterday) he looked at the roof to find out whether there were some lose tiles. To his satisfaction all the tiles seemed to be in the right position. However some huge, wet branches of the palmtree were hugging the spot of the roof where the water had come through.

Peter decided all these branches needed cutting off. He set to work straight away. My foot was pretty sore again that morning. Peter realized that I needed to rest it. But he asked me to come out with him anyway to keep him company. He set up two chairs for me, one to sit on, the other one for putting up my legs. I felt quite comfortable sitting there and took some photos while Peter was working, working, working. It took him only about one hour, and the job was finished. I was amazed how quickly he was able to cut all the leaves into small pieces to place them in the council’s garden refuse bin. The bin is outside right now at the kerb for collection for today all our bins are out for rubbish and garden refuse collection.

By the way, we think that unfortunately this whole palm-tree has to go soon for apart from the large leaves growing across our roof again and again it is causing unacceptable damage to our backyard fence. It has just grown much too huge. We never thought it would become that big.

Here are all the photos I took yesterday from where I was sitting on my chair:

Uta’s Diary two Weeks before Easter 2016

I am a bit overwhelmed when I think about it that it is only two more weeks to Easter. I feel like I am just drifting from day to day. Sharing temporarily our house with our daughter and her partner, our life has changed. It is like having moved to a different house.

Often I imagine what it would be like to have to move to a retirement village, to a hostel or to a nursing home. How much of our stuff could we take with us, and if it cannot be a place where we can have an independent living unit, what then? Could Peter and I stay together in a hostel or a nursing home? Not very likely, not at all.

C and M lead very busy lives. Still, since they have moved in with us, there have been quite a few very enjoyable hours when we could spend time together. The young people are such good company for us. We had to make a bit of room for them in our little house. That meant we had to get rid of a lot of our stuff, for instance books:

I probably do have a better understanding now why people find it very difficult to move from a long established larger residence into a very much smaller residence. It is hard to make the decision that there are certain things in your life that you do not need any more.

Our daughter lived in her flat in the Eastern suburbs of Sydney for more than ten years. Her partner and his teenage son (he turns 21 this month) lived there with her for close to ten years. They established their own household. They worked out a plan how to move some of their household stuff into our home. The plan worked out on the whole surprisingly well. Most of these boxes with their stuff they were able to unpack and find some room for the contents:

Since I walk around a lot barefoot, I ended up with some very hard skin, especially under my right foot. Actually this week it got somewhat inflamed after I tried to cut off some of the skin. So for a couple of days I suffered quite a bit of pain. Thankfully it is getting better now.

I like to sit outside in the morning sun. This simple garden furniture from their porch/terrace in Waverly (Sydney), which C and M had painted themselves many years ago, they wanted to throw out. But I told them I love it. So it is now installed at the north side of our house. There are a lot of trees, but the morning sun gets through a bit, and we love to sit there with our morning tea.

Uta’s Diary, Mach 2016

This is Fairy Meadow Beach on Saturdarday, 4th of March. Peter and I were yesterday at that beach. It was a warm day. I wanted to go into the water for a bit. There was a sandbank a short distance from the shore. The water in the front looked beautiful and clear. However, when I attempted to go in it, I felt the sand under my feet shifting a bit. I decided then, I would rather stay out of the water for I was a bit scared I might to easily lose my balance.

The water was warm enough for Peter. He did go right in it, while I was watching our belongings. As I said, it was a warm day and very sunny. But it was also a bit windy. So we did not feel too hot. We stayed only for about half an hour on the beach. Afterwards we did some shopping in Fairy Meadow’s Leisure Coast Fruit Shop, where we met up with Caroline and Mathew.

Before I left the beach area I found some facilities:

Someone had built this in an area where the sand was moist enough.

I thought this cloud had a rather curious shape.

Fairy Meadow Beach is actually the beach that we had been to for the first time in July 1959 after we had been in Australia for only a couple of months. We went swimming there in the midst of the Australian winter. We did find the water warm enough for us. And the sum was shining and felt beautiful hot!

What John Lord writes about today in AIM (Australian Independent Media) Network

I find this article by John Lord well worth reading

If you want to read it, please go to:

http://theaimn.com/day-to-day-politics-the-evil-priest/

John Lord says in his article: “Cardinal Pell in giving evidence to the Royal Commission into the abuse of children uttered two of the most debauched sentences ever spoken by an Australian cleric. . . .”

Further he says: “Is John Howard seriously suggesting that people such as these don’t speak out because of some sort of fear of political correctness? That’s the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. . . . ”

And then there are some interesting observations by John Lord about “the Safe Schools programme” and the “Broadband policy”.

The following (John Lord’s thought for the day) is towards the end of his article.

My (John Lord’s) thought for the day:

‘Truth is pure yet fragile and requires delicacy in delivery. There are however times when it needs some diplomatic force to make it register’

Uta’s Diary, towards the end of February 2016

Yesterday was another very hot day. A couple of days ago we had a beautiful full moon. With the next full moon we’re going to have Easter within sight. I am so looking forward to have Lucas and Alexander around for Easter!

I reblogged yesterday this article about the research they did at UCLA (University California Los Angeles) concerning the disease of dementia, and especially Alzheimers. I found out that dementia and even Alzheimers can be controlled by adopting a very healthy life-style.

From memory I write down now a few things that seem to be very important for good health. If at all possible one should try to live without too much stress, eat only healthy food, sleep enough during the night, namely at least 6 to 7 hours, eat the last thing three hours before one goes to bed, and eat the next thing in the morning after at least 12 hours have passed since having eaten in the evening.

To be continued.

Uta’s Diary, February 2016

This is a picture I took soon after M and D arrived with the hired truck on Thursday, the 11th of February. We were expecting a small truck, but it turned out to be a huge truck! One of the first things they unloaded was some garden furniture, which I think is going to be lovely to have in the backyard.

These are some of the boxes they unloaded apart from the above garden furniture and lots and lots of other things.

Before that Thursday, the 11th, we sorted out hundreds and hundreds of books. Several hundred books were given away or recycled. But still quite a few books remained for ‘safe’ keeping. We had to rearrange a lot of bookshelves!

Last Sunday was the 14th of February. We took a break from sorting out things and met the family for lunch in the park. Afterwards we went to the Port Kembla Saltwater Pools. There were heaps of people in the pool area, for it was a very warm beautiful summer’s day. Our whole family enjoyed the water, including our darling little great-grandsons.

Here now are some pictures from the park by the lake, were we met the family for lunch. Monika did bring along fish and chips for all of us from a nearby shop.

Alexander is happy after his big meal and some drink.

Ryan with Lucas can be seen in the distance. — Ryan can be seen in the distance keeping an eye on Lucas who is roaming along the shore of the lake.

A bit of adventure for Lucas! — This is quite an adventure for Lucas!

It was so good to see all the family on that Sunday. We are looking forward to seeing them all again at Easter. We probably can see quite a few more family members since not everyone was able to make it last Sunday.

During the last few weeks, we discarded some of our furniture that we do not need any more and to make room for a new set-up. Here is one piece of furniture that is to stay, for now!

Does it have to go?

In the middle of 1977, after we had returned from our overseas trip to Germany, we bought this shell-bed. It was beautiful! When we moved to a new house in 1994 we bought a new mattress for our shell-bed. Well, this was nearly twenty-two years ago. So we still sleep in this shell-bed. Does it have to go now? Do we need a new bed? I wonder . . .

Our Guest Bedroom

We have three bedrooms in our house. Bedroom 1 is the master bedroom, bedroom 2 the study, and bedroom 3 the guest bedroom. We have had quite a few guests staying in that room over the years, usually single people, who came to visit us for longer periods and stayed in that room which used to have a single bed and lots of book-shelves in it as well as a built-in wardrobe. For instance, Peter’s sister Ilse, who lives in Berlin (Germany), came to visit us several times for extended periods. Also my ex-sister-in-law Klaudia, who also lives in Berlin, came to visit us once and loved her stay in Australia. Several times Hertha, a friend from Melbourne, stayed with us as well, and we had lovely holidays with her, showing her our beautiful area.

Next year my brother Peter Uwe and Astrid (his second wife) want to visit us here in Australia. So we are now in the process of renovating the guest bedroom! With all this our daughter Caroline and her partner Matthew turned out to be a great help. They have already painted the guest bedroom. On the 10th of February they are going to bring a double bed over from Sydney. That means, they can stay in that guest bedroom for the coming months. On weekends they intend to continue painting all the rooms in our house! At the same time they help us to get rid of unnecessary accumulated stuff!

Recently we found out that the big tree, which can partly be seen on the right of this picture, has to go: It is poisonous!