I start with the novel I’ve been reading recently: DUST OF THE LAND by J.H.FLETCHER
It is: “An epic saga of one woman’s strength through her trials in love and betrayal on Australia’s red frontier.”
The book has 725 pages, conveniently in large print. I found it in the library. I had it for four weeks, and I finally finished it now and am going to return it this week.
This J.H.FLETCHER is a very good writer. I want to see whether I can find more of his books in our library.
We had left the Forrest Hotel in Canberra on Sunday, the 28th of August.
Today I came across some pictures I took on Monday, the 29th of August. So it was the last Monday of the month and this time it had been my turn to invite all the lady residents for afternoon tea/coffee. Six of them had been able to make it. Here now are some of the pictures from that afternoon.
Peter came along and took this picture of us.
I had taken some more pictures earlier on. Each lady had brought a plate.
Last Saturday Peter and I were at Sydney Airport at 9,30 am to pick up our son Martin who had arrived from Melbourne. Martin stayed overnight at our place. Then, 24 hours later, he was picked up by Monika and Mark for a drive to Sydney. Martin went along with them to go to the Grand Final Football game: Cronulla Sharks versus Melbourne Storms. It turned out to be a very exciting game. Cronulla earned their first Premiership crown in 50 seasons, defeating the Storm 14-12!
Monika’s twin sons, Troy and Ryan, are great fans of the Sharks. Several months ago they had purchased ten tickets for the Gran Final. So Martin, Monika and Mark were in good company with the twins and family and friends. Ryan’s two little boys were included in the party, wearing Cronulla shirts like most of the other supporters. In one of the pictures that they published we noticed Martin wearing a Sharks’ cap.
For 24 hours – less sleeping time of course – we had Martin to ourselves. On Saturday Martin watched on television at our place how the Melbourne Bulldogs did beat the Sydney Swans at the AFL Grand Final in Melbourne.
We had some nice meals together with Martin. Before we went to bed we played a few games of Rummy with him. During the night we went on daylight saving time, that means we lost one hour! But, anyway the sun was up already at about 6 am. It turned 0ut to be a a wonderful day with no wind
After breakfast we drove down to the lake to enjoy the scenery on a wonderful bright day.
Monika and Mark are ready to drive with Martin to Sydney.
So, today is already the last day of the month. It was a pretty hectic month for this 82 year old. Two years ago we celebrated my 80th birthday.
These are some of the flowers that I received for my 80th Birthday in Sept.2014
This morning Peter discovered a flower on our ‘butterfly’ bush in front of the window. We call this little tree ‘butterfly’ tree because its leaves look like butterflies.
It was still early morning when we were ready for some green tea.
When we were in Sydney two weeks ago we wanted to visit this museum but found out it opens only on Sundays. We were there on a Tuesday. So we have to go back there some other time. During this month we were in Sydney three times. Once we stayed overnight there for two nights. We stayed in a loft apartment, that meant to the bedroom and bathroom we had to climb oup these stairs. It was good exercise for us, indeed!
Alexander’s second birthday is coming up this week.It is often convenient to celebrate birthdays on a Sunday. So the birthday of Alex was celebrated already yesterday. This time we all met at The Shellharbour Club. It seems that more and more clubs provide playgrounds for the children these days. The Shellharbour Club too has a playground.
There was a Birthday Cake for Alexander
A piece of Birthday Cake
Both Alex and his four year old brother Lucas loved to play with all the toys that Alex had been given for his birthday.
This is Peter’s Hamburger and my sweet potato chips
The sweet potato chips were excellent and we shared a fruit salad that was a very good choice too. Everyone ordered their own food at the club.
Peter and I stayed in an apartment at Darling Harbour. To frolic around Sydney’s Darling Harbour was quite exciting. It was my 82nd birthday. At nighttime we strolled to an Italian restaurant and had a three course meal there with a glass of red wine. There was also some beautiful music to entertain us. We liked that very much. The food and the wine were very much to our liking as well. So we had a lovely evening. After the meal it was only a short walk back to our apartment.
Decadence is a 2006 Australian TV series examining the plummeting quality of Australian life, which director and narrator Pria Viswalingam blames on a global economic system based on frenetic consumption, fueled by debt and ridiculously long hours of work. The cinematography choreographs to perfection the self-indulgent moral degradation of a culture that has been subsumed by US political and cultural norms that reward narcissism and the vacuous idolization of celebrity.
The only critique I would have is the absence class perspective. I have a problem with Viswalingam’s blanket assertion that all Australians are working ridiculously long hours because they value the accumulation of luxuries more than family time or friendships. I think this criticism applies chiefly to the shrinking Australian middle class – which I estimate at around 20-30% of the population. From my experience, the majority of Aussies – like…
Yesterday we bought a few things for our backyard.
We already planted somef things in these boxes. We may also use some pots for more planting. At the moment Peter is still struggling to remove some spread out roots of the camphor laurel tree. The main roots we had taken out by the people who removed our three obnoxious trees from our backyard. The far away roots of the camphor laurel tree are very, very thick. They lifted up some of the earth in the backyard. So Peter took it upon himself to try and get rid of some of them. They are so very hard. Peter thought maybe a chain-saw would do the job better than his little axe. So he bought one yesterday. Sadly, he found out, it does not work very well. He still has a hard time cutting through these roots.
There is one little bush left that stood near the camphor Laurel tree. It is cut back a lot, but perhaps may come back again.Once we have levelled the area sufficiently, we may try out some of that synthetic grass.
Whenever we do some gardening,we do only a bit at a time. We cannot do too much in one day, otherwise we get too sore. After a couple of hours, we usually feel, that we have to stop.
THE MUSEUM OF AUSTRALIAN DEMOCRACY
is situated in the Old Parliament House.
We did drive to the Old Parliament House on that Friday morning after we had returned from our walk to Manuka. I wrote about this walk in my previous post.You can go back to it here:
We saw in the museum interesting historical things.
Buses did bring a lot of visitors to the museum.
1215 was the year when the MAGNA CARTA was first drafted.
At lunchtime we drove to this tavern, Wig & Pen, to have one of their delicious beers and some lunch.
Bike riding is quite popular in Canberra.Our chosen beer was Imperial Russian (like a very strong Guinness),. and we were warned it had very much alcohol in it!
While waiting for our meal I had a look in this very interesting magazine about beer brewing:
Peter is happy with his meal.I liked my spicy vegetarian meal. However it turned out, I had to leave some of it. It was just too much!
I mentioned that on Saturday, the 27th of August, we went to the Telstra Tower and later on to the National Museum.
At nighttime of that same Saturday, which was our last day in Canberra, the Museum of Australian Democracy presented
THE HANSARD MONOLOGUES (Age of Entitlement) and we had tickets for this very interesting show. As I said before, the Museum of Australian Democracy is in the Old Parliament House.
If you haven’t seen it yet, you might like to have a look at this website:
AuntyUta 