Fitzroy Falls on Sunday, 9th of March 2014

We had to walk through the souvenir shop to reach the walking tracks. When we left the shop we to start our walk we noticed a construction site. A little bit of the beginning of the track was closed off. Some renewal of the wooden board walk had been started. The wooden boards are being replaced with a less slippery cover. Presumably some recycled material is used for the new track cover. Something that does not rot like wood does.

Not far from the entrance to the falls we had actually seen a dead wombat near the road side. It had probably been hit by a car.

Soon we could get a glimpse of the waterfall and the vast, vast gully.

I tried to capture a few of the signs along the track.

Another glimpse of the waterfall at the other side of the gully

Peter found a seat next to some more signs.

The following is the sign that greeted us near the beginning of our walk. Well, we made it to the Jersey Lookout. I took a rest there while Peter walked a little bit further. When he came back, he took a lovely picture of me (if I may say so) with his tablet. I have to ask him to give me this picture so I can publish it.

So we never made it to the Twin Falls or to the Grotto. More than forty years ago we actually made it to the Grotto with two of our children. We think it was Monika and Martin who were with us at the time. I wonder whether they can still remember that we went to the Grotto with them.

This is it! Sunday, 9th of March 2014

Yesterday, on Sunday, we made it to the Pie Shop. We made it actually twice to the shop. In the morning, on our way to the Fitzroy Falls, we stopped there for a meat pie and a cup of tea. On the way home in the afternoon we did buy an apricot pie with fresh cream to take home. This apricot pie was absolutely delicious. Sorry, I did not take a picture of it. But I took a picture of my curry meat pie which was lovely too.

On the way to the Fitzroy Falls we wanted to drive through BURRAWANG. We went along a beautiful scenic road. We stopped to take some pictures.

This place looks great. I say "let's have a cup of coffee here". Peter agrees. — This place looks great. I say “let’s have a cup of coffee here”. Peter agrees.

Peter finds a beautiful display of cakes in side and decides to order some rhubarb cake together with the coffee.

We took a table outside. The friendly young waitress carries our cake outside being watched by a customer's dog. — We took a table outside. The friendly young waitress carries our cake outside being watched by a customer’s dog.

We have been given two sets of cutlery to share this lovely cake.

This is another old building in this pleasant little town.

We did make it to the Fitzroy Falls yesterday. But this is going to be another post.

12 Years a Slave

Best movie at the Oscars: 12 Years a Slave. We had planned on seeing it in Newtown today. It would have involved taking a very early train to Sydney. However, we did find out this morning that this movie is already being shown in our local cinema. There is a session at 12,15. So we decided we are going to see it here in our neighbouring suburb this afternoon.

Peter had already informed our children via Facebook that we would be all day in Sydney. He also pointed out that they would not be able to reach him via mobile phone the reason being that he cannot find the phone. The other day when he went out for a run and I was out too, he hid the phone in a secure place so the robbers would not be able to find it. Now he cannot find his phone any more!

While he was looking for his phone, he found his new watch which he had also been hiding in a secure place and could not find for a few days. The problem is, Peter tends to hide his valuables in different spots all the time, instead of just sticking to the same spots which would then be easier to remember. I happen to know a few of his hiding places. But I have not idea where his mobile phone could be. By now we looked everywhere and we just cannot find it.

I do not own a mobile phone of course. I am happy to just use our house phone.

Please have a look here what it says here about the book and the movie: 12 Years a Slave:

http://www.dw.de/for-new-yorker-12-years-a-slave-is-personal/a-17404840

Apologies to the Author

I did get the following from a reply to:

About

Crossborder Operational Matters

posted February 1, 2014 at 10:21 am by d0tski

I do not know how to contact d0tski to get his permission to reblog. I did find what he wrote an excellent contribution. I wished I was articulate and knowledgeable enough to write something similar myself. d0tski wrote this:

Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately:

Polling shows that 59% of people polled do NOT believe that most asylum seekers who arrive by boat are genuine refugees. Only 30% believed that most boat arrivals are genuine refugees.
Now, those of us who get our news from someone other than Murdoch know this not to be true. We know that greater than 90% of people who arrive by boat will later (much later), be recognised as ‘genuine refugees’.

Of the 1000 people surveyed, 60% felt that boat-arrivals should be treated more harshly.

59% of those surveyed felt that boat-arrivals should not receive financial government assistance.

All these figures tell us that the majority of Australians have no idea who is on these boats. No concept of the types of persecution they are fleeing. No idea that there is no ‘queue’ for asylum seekers to be processed and re-settled. They don’t realise that (for example), in 2011, only 0.7% of the worlds refugees were resettled. These figures also show us that people do not know, or do not believe, that the conditions on Manus and Nauru are tantamount to torture.

Personally, I refuse to believe that people don’t care. I’m convinced that the problem is that people DON’T KNOW.

This needs to change. Television shows such as those shown on the ABC’s “4 Corners”, and SBS’ “Go Back To Where You Came From” are great. I always watch them. But truly, they are preaching to the choir.
Add to that the fact that it is nigh-on impossible to get decent reportage out of these places. Successive governments have made it increasingly difficult for us to know what is going on. For the Abbott government, it’s pretty much their modus operandi.

How do you get the rest of Australia to listen and learn? I don’t know. If we knew that, we wouldn’t have this problem.

I don’t have any answers here, so if you read this far hoping for a revelation, I apologise 🙂 I just think it’s important to know what the problems are before trying to come up with a solution.

Actually, there’s one other thought I’ve had. Have you heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs? If you did psych in highschool, you probably covered it. It’s basically the idea that humans have a hierarchy of needs that looks like a pyramid. The greatest needs are at the bottom, and include physiological needs like breathing, food, water etc. We move up the pyramid through Safety, Belonging, Esteem, and eventually (so the theory goes) we reach Self Actualisation at the top.
Now, it’s my personal theory that governments like to try and keep most of their constituents near the bottom of the pyramid. If we’re all worrying about where our next meal may come from, job security, and mundane things like that, we’re never going to get to a point where our greatest needs are ones like morality, truth and creativity. It is in the governments’ (not just in Oz, but all over) best interest that we live in a permanent state of fear. They want us to always worry that someone is going to come and take what is ‘rightfully ours.’ They appeal to our most basic emotions of fear and greed.

Once again, I don’t know how you change that.

Beginning of Autumn in Australia

Today is the first of March 2014. The first of March is officially the beginning of autumn in Australia. Here at the East Coast of Australia we are at present in a rain period. For quite a few days there’s been some steady, drizzly rain. However since last night the rain seems to have increased a lot. Probably we are going to have quite a bit more rain before the sun shines again. The temperature is still a bit above 20 Celsius most of the time. This is why I would call this rain a ‘warm’ rain and I like it. Everything looks beautiful fresh and smells nice. Who knows, our area may have been a subtropical rainforest area in earlier times? With all this vegetation growing we seem to be getting more and more birds here. We can often hear lots of different birds, but hardly ever see any. They are mostly well covered in the dense bush along the neighbouring creek. Sometimes we notice a flock of galahs or rosellas.

We, Peter and I, had been discussing that we should visit one of the waterfalls in our area some time soon. We haven’t been to a waterfall for quite some time. Would be good to take some pictures there. We decided now, it’s better to wait a bit until the rain has eased off a bit more. Peter reckons in this kind of weather it can be very foggy up in the escarpment.

This morning I had another look at my January pictures. Bear with me when I publish once more a few more of these sign pictures I took. What I did this morning is that I cropped all these pictures quite a lot so as to make the writing better visible.

Outside my window it’s pouring, pouring. A really huge downpour. I think it is best to stay home today!

Wishing all my blogger friends a very good weekend.

Peter loves to use the John O'Dwyer Oval for his practising. — Peter loves to use the John O’Dwyer Oval for his practising.

Diary

Diary

http://www.sheknows.com/health-and-wellness/articles/983591/saltines-are-worst-food-for-your-teeth

The worst food for your teeth? Something like crackers!

I had totally forgotten about this article. Just now I came across it and thought it can’t do any harm to publish the URL to it. Have a look, it says dark chocolate is good for your teeth!

Last Thursday I went to the Heart Moves class. On that day there had happened to be a function in the hall that we use. I think that function had been booked to last till 12 o’clock. But by 12,30 they had not cleared the room yet. Obviously the function itself was finished. However quite a few people stayed behind, talking to each other. After a while someone from our group went in there pointing out to them that we were waiting to be let into the room for our class. They said they did not mind if we came in straight away. So this when our group went in and occupied chairs along the wall. We were about twenty people. In the middle of the room there were about eighty more chairs which had to be disposed off in the adjoining store-room space. Some people were busy doing it. It took a while. In one corner of the hall were a couple of tables with a lot of scrumptious food. These were just left-overs!

Soon someone approached our group inviting us to help ourselves to some of the food on the tables. Our class was supposed to start at 12,30. Even though our instructor had arrived already and had been setting up her music for the class, it did not look like we were able to start any time soon.

So most of our group, including our instructor, were helping themselves to this ‘free’ lunch. Some women objected that they would not be fit to do the exercises after having eaten such a lot. I had accidentally taken a meat sandwich which had looked to me like there was only cheese and salad on it. It was some kind of meat which I definitely was not able to eat. It ended up in the bin. I stuck to eating a lot of crackers, which I had spilled on the tablecloth in my clumsiness. I did not think it was appropriate to put them back into the serving bowl. I did not want them to end up in the bin. so I added them all to my food bowl. They turned out to be rather salty but quite tasty. So I did eat them all!

That day I think I was not all that good in following all the instructions for the exercises. I wonder whether the crackers had something to do with this? Today, it’s Thursday again and there is going to be another class. I promised myself that I would not eat anything before today’s class . Better safe than sorry.

Peter does another Walk and Run on the Oval

I took this picture and all the sign pictures already on 30th January 2014

In January I posted already some pictures of Peter’s walk and run on the oval. Two weeks later he did do the same again. For some reason I did not feel like going along with him then and gave it a miss. But when he went again yesterday I gave myself a push an went along with him. And I quite enjoyed the outing. However yesterday I did not take any pictures. So all the pictures I post today I took already in January.

Yesterday I put my toe shoes for a leisurely walk around the oval. After my walk I did a bit of reading in my kindle while I was waiting for Peter to finish his run/walk. Peter also had his toe shoes on. He loves to wear them on grass. As far as concerns all the signs on the pictures, I must point out that the danger of this summer’s fire season seams to be nearly over. It is nearly March now, meaning that it is not very likely that we get very hot days again. In January I wrote to one of the comments:

“It is a huge sporting complex, Robert. I did not explore all the areas. What I found remarkable is that they pointed out what to do in case of a bushfire. I guess the wooded areas have become more dense and there is more fuel now so that a fire has become more of a possibility since we seem to be getting more and more very hot days with very strong winds.”

As I said from now on there is probably not that great a danger any more. Our summer is nearly over. Apparently the bushfire emergency area is on field which is the John O’Dwyer Oval, the one where Peter does his training.

I did yesterday a bit of practising again, I mean I drove our car for a short distance in the Croome Sporting Complex area before we left to drive home. I just want to get used to driving again. Since I had this eye operation a long, long time ago I always was happy to leave it up to Peter to do the driving. So I must say I am shockingly out of practice. And I am nearly 80 now. I still have my drivers’ license though. I am asking myself again and again, should I really aim at keeping the license a bit longer?

Peter is going to have his eye operation in a couple of weeks!

Are we Equals?

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/no-sex-please-were-equals-20140217-32umo.html

I just read the above article in the Sydney Morning Herald. It is an edited version of an article first published in The New York Magazine.

So I am asking myself now can married couples be equals? The answer is of course, sure, they can be equals. However in a sexual way they definitely cannot be equals unless they are happy to live more or less in a kind of sibling relationship.

I think the French did get it right a long time ago: Viva la difference!

Australia’s World Kidney Day

http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/world/world-kidney-day

Australia’s World Kidney Day 2013

Protect your Kidneys, Save your Heart!

The presence of kidney dysfunction greatly increases the risk of cardiovascular disease – an important fact that is often overlooked! If you are at risk of kidney disease. See your doctor to discuss maintaining your heart health as well! Refer to our webpages: Your heart and CKD * Diabetes and CKD.

Key Facts About Chronic Kidney Disease & Cardiovascular Disease

People at every stage of CKD are at more risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), although those in the later stages have the highest risk.
CVD remains the leading cause of death for people on dialysis and those who have a transplanted kidney.
People with CKD have a 2 to 3-fold greater risk of cardiac death than individuals without CKD.
For people with CKD, the risk of dying from cardiovascular events is up to 20 times greater than requiring dialysis or transplantation.

Keith DS, Nichols GA, Gullion CM, Brown JB, Smith DH. Longitudinal follow-up and outcomes among a population with chronic kidney disease in a large managed care organization. Archives of Internal Medicine. 2004;164:659-663

Foley RN, Parfrey PS, Sarnak MJ. Clinical epidemiology of cardiovascular disease in chronic renal disease. American Journal of Kidney Diseases. 1998;32:S112-S119.

Identifying CKD early and slowing progression to kidney failure is important in reducing your risk of CVD.

Weiner ME, Tighiouarr H, Amin M et al. Chronic kidney disease as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality: A pooled analysis of community-based studies. Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. 2004;15:1307-131

The best way to reduce the risk of CVD is to make healthy lifestyle choices. It is also important to control and maintain a healthy blood pressure, cholesterol level, and blood glucose level if you have diabetes. If you have CKD, this usually means using medication as well as having a healthy lifestyle.

Page updated 21 February 2014

I googled the above and copied it. I became aware of World Kidney Day when I looked at some of the posts by Devon Texas. I think it is a good thing to be informed about what you can do to stay as healthy as possible.

A Bit of Trivia

When I published recently a blog about our adventures with the 2CV, Catterel made the following comment: “I love how certain makes of car can trigger memories – I once had a boyfriend in France, with this kind of 2CV. Canvas seats suspended from metal frames, like beach chairs! But we squeezed half a dozen students into it – don’t ask me how!”

I answered as follows:

“In the sixties we had a Volkswagen Beetle. Our friends, Karl and Marianne, had no car. So we invited them to come with us for an excursion. They had two children, a boy and a girl,, and we had two children the same age (Gaby was in long time hospital care already). Four adults and four children, we all fitted into this small VW. Seatbelts were not compulsory yet at this time. I think the children were between 4 years and 6 years, two girls and two boys. Behind the back seats there was room for two children, right under the back window of the car. I was the only one with a driver’s license at the time. So I was the driver!”